Searching a building.

In the hidden treasure scenario it reads.
"Each time a warrior enters a building which has not been previously
searched by either side roll 2D6. On a score of 12, he has found the treasure."

This rule seems to be a point of debate in my group from time to time even though it seems fairly straight forward. We tend to use this particular scenario a great deal in multi-player games as a secondary objective, just to make it worth while when we have those crazy 4vs battles.

The last time we had a problem with it because some of our buildings had one side destroyed so the question came up was at what point are you considered to be "inside" those buildings? When you touch the base the building sits on or actually having to be under a floor etc. I resolved this by modeling destroyed walls sections to clearly outline the buildings footprint. Issue resolved.


NOW
A question came up in my gaming group the last time we played, and it got us to thinking. It seems fairly silly that a model can run into the ground floor of say a 3 story building and consider it searched.

I would actually agree with this, as it doesn't promote any reason to climb into a taller building if you can quickly search the ground floor and be gone. So to remedy this we have considered modifying this rule a wee bit and doing something like following..


Allowing a model to search additional floors of the same building, requiring all floors to be searched.

Allowing additional floors / basements to be searched with +1 to the roll. i.e. 11-12 being successful for the 2nd floor / roll, 10-12 being successful for the 3rd floor / roll of the same building etc. (The logic being the bigger the building the richer the occupants, the more likely a chance for treasure)


To keep track of this I will most likely model a search counter, something like an empty chest that can be placed on the floors that have been searched.

I would really like to get your opinion on this and see what you guys think. Any suggestions to fine tune, or any thoughts on possible issues that might arise.

Hate Hidden Treasure as written. Your fix is a good idea.

We have been using the X Marks the Spot variant from Sartosa (and possibly LotHS) for the last couple of years and like that a lot.

Just place a number of counters equal to the available places to search (or up to a set number, whatever) after the warbands are set up but before infiltrators set up. Only 1 counter is the treasure. Warband members must END their move on the counter to reveal it. Quick and much more interesting without too many rules. Unusual for me.

Shadowphx wrote:

I personally dislike this scenario. To many times a player defends a building near his table side and everyone else is searching as a race to find the treasure. The protected building more often than not becomes the last building and automatically has the treasure, which his two members go in get the treasure and run off the table. We have since taken out the Last Building has the treasure as it now has to be rolled to see if its there. So there may not be a treasure found.

Ahh yes, we have had that happen in the past also thanks for reminding me!!

I attribute this to the treasure being hard to find. So to fix that what we have done in the past is either make it a difficulty roll, or allow for any doubles to create a result. This way more often than not the treasure if found before the last building.

I also like the idea of the X marks the spot, haven't thougth of that before. You would still be able to promote going up into the buildings also.

Yes, as written that scenario has problems. Mainly that every warband stakes out a building so it will be the last searched.

Our group wrote a variant, that has produced a lot of really fun games:

http://hobbyblog.wargameweaver.com/mordheim

The scenario is "The Lost Chest"

As Von Kurst says, the "X Marks the Spot" scenario from Legends of the High Seas has a much smoother mechanic to solve the search-for-something-idea. I like it a lot and it also promotes creating nice little counters.
http://cianty-tabletop.blogspot.com/2009/10/x-marks-spot.html

mweaver, I just had a look at your scenario and I really like it! It is actually a mix of the Hidden Treasure scenario and a Gutshot scenario I played recently.

We use counters to mark the buildings that can be searched and remove them as they are discounted.

While I like the idea of removing the "automatic find" rule as everyone knows what to do to "rig" the result, I've always enjoyed the scenario for just that reason. It's fun to try to fight your way through to search the enemy-held building (and hopefully not roll a 12) while defending yours at the same time!

It does become a different scenario from the one intended though: more Take-and-Hold than Search-and-Find.

Maybe adding a simple 50/50 roll before the game starts to decided whether the "Auto find" rule is in play for that game?

We found that by making all warbands forced to search every building, the "last house wins" is no longer a problem. That is, all warbands must search all buildings, effectively doubling (for two warbands) or tripling ( for three warbands) etc, the number of search rolls to be made, making standing around a house in your own zone something not likely to get you the treasure. Add to that that we have replced the req for double 6s for finding the treasure, with just rolling doubles, any doubles.

This makes the game VERY fast paced, as all warband will rush to search all buildings, as sooner or later, the treasure WILL be found. It makes for a VERY fun game, as you really cant play a lot of the coward tactics, such as moving your warband in a large group, as that will make you able to search less houses.

I remember a nerv wracking end when my opponent, possessed warband, had a brethren and a beastman 9" from his table edge, and I had abour four marienburg riflemen positioned to shoot them, and by golly I did win the game after the orcs routed. And that was amongst the most fun and fast paced games of Mordheim I have EVER played

Opheliate wrote:

Add to that that we have replced the req for double 6s for finding the treasure, with just rolling doubles, any doubles.

This makes the game VERY fast paced

Oooh, I love that idea. Since we play in our lunch times, fast-paced is a good thing!

One of the things I like about the "Lost Chest" scenario is you can sometimes play with people's minds. The first time we tried it I peeled off half my warband to try and reach a hard-to reach counter, but I pretended to be spooked off by another approaching band and instead my guys parked where they could snipe at anyone going for it. As more and more counters were revealed to be dummies, people became convinced that counter was the real chest, and three bands converged on it at the same time for a glorious battle. In fact, that marker was a dummy - I had had its twin all along.

He he. That does sound awesome.

Coincidentally, we played a variant of the Lost Chest scenario tonight - as a conclusion to this chapter in our D&D campaign. The PCs were helping one side in a war and were part of a force defending a besieged town. But a coup d'état took out the King (far to the south), the C.O. of the town, and the king's heir and nephew who was in the town, and the traitors let in the besieging forces in as part of the peace settlement. The assassinated nephew had two young kids, so instead of a "lost chest" the search was to find the two kids. We had four groups - the D&D PCs, the traitors, some undead mercenaries, and the kingdom's main enemy (who had hired the undead mercs but stiffed them on payment once the coup came off).

The scenario went well - we had 13 searchable positions, and the kids turned up in the 10th location, in the very center - where the PCs and the traitors collided and were mightily whacking each other. The undead and the guys who stiffed them collided with each other and pretty much spent the last 2/3s of the game in a grudge match. The PCs made it off the board with both kids.

My brother, brother-in-law, and an old friend are visiting, and they ran the three NPC factions, with our regular players running the Mordheimized versions of their D&D characters.

Old thread but I think it's a great one for some solutions to the hidden Tresure scenario.
I think I like the counters on each floor best. Will have to try it with my group next time.