Rule changes for shields & bucklers?

Hello all, this is my first post on these forums. I've actively followed them since, I began playing Mordheim, which has been over a year now. I play with a group of friends, we as a collective underwent the task of changing specific rules to vanilla Mordheim. One change we've made, which consistently came under discussion was modifying shields and giving them not only a +1 armor save, but also parry. The general consensus around the group is the +1 armor save on shields was too weak. This led to a discussion, about bucklers, since shields would gain the parry, what happens to bucklers? We decided to give bucklers a +1 attack, based on the models strength. I'm wondering what the community thinks about Shields and bucklers in general, and if they know of any specific rules changes for both that work.

We've always played with the house rule that a Shield is a 5+ save, it works pretty well.

I've tried to advocate for a 5+ save on shields. The argument is that eventually armor will become too "strong", even though we've made adjustments to weapons giving a -x to armor saves. Weapons armor penetration is no longer based on the users strength, like in vanilla Mordheim. E.g. Double-handed weapons gain a -2 armor save modifier.

Armors are a waste of money in this game and I fell its really sad.

However, boosting the shield to 5+ seems overpowering to me as the cost is just 5g...

Us, we play that You need 5S to give a -1 armor save ( 6 gives -2, 7 gives -3.... ). It works well enough but its still ''lacking''.

In my circle we give both shields and bucklers +1 armour save in close combat so shields are 6+/5+ in combat and buckers are 6+ in combat. Seems to work well, but we also cut the price of armour a fair bit also. We also added a strength skill 'Shield Bash'. This allows a shield or buckler to grant an offhand attack. Shields are -1 Str, +1 Armour Save; bucklers are -1 Str, and have Concussion.

We made light armour 10 gold and Heavy armour 25 gold. With more armour about the place we left armour piercing rules as they were and it seems to work out ok.

SpectralAnubis wrote:

I've tried to advocate for a 5+ save on shields. The argument is that eventually armor will become too "strong", even though we've made adjustments to weapons giving a -x to armor saves. Weapons armor penetration is no longer based on the users strength, like in vanilla Mordheim. E.g. Double-handed weapons gain a -2 armor save modifier.

I run the campaign in which Rudeboy is referencing where shields are a 5+ save. You would think a 5+ save at a mere 5gc really would be a huge benefit for its cost. However, most people still don't buy shields.

We've played by the Shield and a Hand Weapon Warhammer rule since 6th edition Warhammer.

Quote :

In my circle we give both shields and bucklers +1 armour save in close combat so shields are 6+/5+ in combat and buckers are 6+ in combat. Seems to work well, but we also cut the price of armour a fair bit also. We also added a strength skill 'Shield Bash'. This allows a shield or buckler to grant an offhand attack. Shields are -1 Str, +1 Armour Save; bucklers are -1 Str, and have Concussion.

I like these rules as well.

Haven't messed with prices, but just moving shields to a 5+ in close combat has resulted in them being used, as opposed to before the change when everyone went with two weapons. Now it is a roughly even mix.

I'll give it a try for sure ( shield give 5+/Buckler6+) .. but by doing so we will remove our house rule for reducing armor save at 5 S only ...

Indeed - After I tought about it it seems fair to lose an attack two weapon) for getting a 5+save. As wll the price of the shield is around that of a weapon so its a fair deal !!

Thx

Goglutin wrote:

Armors are a waste of money in this game and I fell its really sad.

However, boosting the shield to 5+ seems overpowering to me as the cost is just 5g...

Us, we play that You need 5S to give a -1 armor save ( 6 gives -2, 7 gives -3.... ). It works well enough but its still ''lacking''.

We have been using the 5+ save to shields, and it works quite well.

Since we leave the dual-wielding as-is, it's far from overpowered. It's a good piece of armor (just like in the original WFRP), and you don't get a second attack.

Additionally, when the model using the shield is critted, it is destroyed if he has no save (that is, if the negative armor modifier is larger than the total armor save of the model). It works pretty well.

OS

We also use the 5+ AS to Shields with a single handed weapon or 6+ AS to Bucklers with a single handed weapon. We've had no complaints so far and I believe that this house rule is a keeper. We gave off-hand attacks a -1 to hit and a +1 to enemy parry (if the enemy already can parry) and didn't decrease the cost of armour but instead gave it a save against serious injury. All up these three minor changes have had a great effect and there seems to be a greater spread of weapon options in use.

Justing adding an extra +1 to armor on the shields have fixed the majority of the game for my group!

/agree

We also tuned down the prices of armour (25 for heavy, 5 gold for light) in addition to shields and bucklers giving 5+/6+ save in close combat.

This works very well and has the advantage that some players actually choose axes as their main weapon, as these become useful now almost all heroes have light armour.

My suggestion:

Shields +2 save

Bucklers +1 save OR +3 save versus attacks from one-handed Clubs, Axes or Swords

A Buckler is a fencing weapon. This reflects it

We had Shields +1 save in Melee and improved all Armor by 1 point. The result was an increased appearence of Gromril- and Black Powder weapons, to counter some armor heavy modells.

And we had the 2h-Weapons divided in 2h-sword, 2h-hammer and 2h-axe. Each costs 15+the cost of the 1hand version and has the corresponding rule. This way we have seen a 2-Hand-gromril-Axe with -4 armorsave modifier.