Underdog Experience

Got another rules quandary to throw at you all and see how you like our decisions.

Just recently we had a few games of 'Enemy of my Enemy' where the defending player was severely outnumbered, in the case of my game it was my dwarves at warband rating 88 vs 2 orc players with a total warband rating of over 250. The other game was pretty much the same story with different actors.

The rules we found at first says that underdog experience is calculated using the next highest player's rating which we believe is more in the spirit of group games, free-for-all and such, and not so much when it comes to a 2vs1 scenario. Going by the rules in that case it leaves the defending warband outnumbered with very little to gain.

We came across a pdf with rules for underdog exp that we figure is someone's homebrew rules but seems a bit more well-rounded. Not having the pdf on hand I'll paraphrase: Basically unless the 2 attacking warbands break their alliance at some point during the fight, they should add their ratings together when determining underdog as is truely was a 2v1. If they break the alliance then all bets are off and the game moves on in a more traditional free-for-all fashion. There are some extra rules about the person who actually decided to break the alliance first gets hosed a bit but we deemed them to be fair enough when it comes down to it.

When we implemented the 'found' rules it meant that the two defending warbands (myself included) ended up getting +4 exp/guy but also set the precedence for the rest of the campaign.

Any thoughts?

tl;dr Underdog exp vs combined rating of alliance or closest?

I assume then that you are 3 players in total in your campaign, isn't it?

First of all I don't know that scenario "Enemy of my Enemy" but if the defenders are losing by a handful you could improve the odds to the defender's favor: how you build the terrain, and how difficult you make it for the attackers to enter the defenders territory.

an extreme case is of course to put the defenders into a (little) fortress where the attacker has to climb the walls etc..

but you asked for the underdog rules: Basically it sounds fair that the underdog warband should get the combined bonus as the other two teams were (almost?) always allied. If the defender have to absorb the full impetus of two warbands then it is only fair.

the problem starts when alliances are instable and vague. If this is the case I would retrospect the game briefly and analyse if the two attackers really harrassed each other or rather touched eachothers heads nicely...

we once had a multiplayer campaign with about 10 players. the rounds led often to games with 2:2 or 2:1:1 players. We then introduced the following rule (also paraphrasing):

If one warband puts at least one model of another warband ooA they do not count as allies regarding underdog bonus.

One could of course increase the number of ooA-models to 2, 3 or what ever... if 1 weren't enough.

However, in these games there was no attacker nor defender usually but "normal" multiplayer games... but that rule might still do it for you...

Further you could generally introduce some reward for the defender like finding more shards (don't know about a fluffy explanation why atm.. though...)

However, a 4xp bonus for each xp gained would mean a lot of xp for just surviving, right? That would mean that after loosing two guys, he can volutary rout, and pretty much level up twice with all his dudes and dudettes, and the "winners" will get an extra wyrdstone and xp, and wonder what the heck happened when the "losing" warband is twice as powerful the next game...

Or am I wrong in my assumption that underdog bonus xo isnt only for taking enemies OOA?

If you get a lead like that, as in double experience, it's gonna be a bit harsh for others to catch up. So even if it is 2 against one, i'm guessing it's supposed to be that way for a reason cause in one sense you have more to kill? but in another you have more chance of loosing.

i really don't know the rules and scenarios wel enough but in my mind if yoiu have the chance through good tactics to kill twice as many models, surley that's an advantage enough rather than have double experience or w/e too?

That is just taking a risk, not recieving a bonus, which, in my mind, is two completely different things. Youd rather eat one poisoned cake than two, right? One might give you a stomach pain, but two is just pushing your fate

(I STINK at metaphors )

No I just meant that if you're fighting two warbands can't you earn twice as much xp than if you were to fight one?

say if there are two teams of 10 and you get 2xp per kill... if it was one team vs you, max of 20 xp available ... if it's 2 teams against you max of 40 xp... is that not how it works?

Like I said don't know the rules well enough yet.

There are about 22 people in our Mordheim campaign at the moment, but there are a few that are expected to drop out in the next few weeks due to the player's continual bad luck.

The games I mentioned happened in the 2nd week of the games (1 game a week following the Border Town Burning campaign setting). The game I was in, as previously mentioned, was 2 orc players vs my dwarves. I picked the scenario and my first opponent, then that opponent chose his ally for the game. If roles had been different and it had been me and one orc player vs the other orc player, the combined ratings might not have given the defender any bonus exp. It just happened to be that each orc player was significantly more powerful than my 7 dwarves. The other game involved, IIRC, Undead vs Carnival of Chaos and Beastmen, the Undead being outnumbered and outclassed in the same manner as my dwarves were. In the case of my dwarves I was able to hold out after routing one orc player, but the other whooped up on me with only 2 casualties. The undead player was wiped out almost to a man taking about 3 models with him before routing.

We were concerned with people trying to abuse the rule and letting 2 henchmen get killed and routing for the extra exp, but the easiest way to stop that is to have the 2 attacking warbands break their alliance before that happens. Although in that scenario it states specifically that a leadership check is required to break the alliance as they are too focused on their mutual enemy, that's the easiest way to stop someone from gaining more exp than should be.

When it comes down to whether it is balanced or not to have a warband get so much exp, consider that if they are so outclassed that they get that much, resulting warband ratings should put them on more even ground. As it was my dwarves went from WBR 88 to 115 in that one game, which was still a good 20-30 below each orc player's rating.

*Edit* in answer to Opheliate: Underdog exp is for surviving, not each kill. normal rules still apply for kills, 1 exp for each model ooa for heroes, and no extra exp for henchmen that take someone ooa.

If you have a scenario where two warbands area truly allied, start to finish, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to allow their warband ratings to combine in some way. The underdog rules were written for two-player games, and I don't believe the "Chaos in the Streets" article (which introduced rules for scenarios with more than two warbands) addressed the issue. Earning 4 points for surviving does seem high, of course, so perhaps some sort of adjustment might work (maximum of +1 experience for UD status in a scenario, or the enemy warband ratings are calculated as the highest rating + half the otherwarband's rating, or something).

The problem with simply combining them for a huge bonus like +4 is that unlike, the original rules, being out-numbered in this particular scenario is a temporary effect of the scenario, and doesn't represent the UD warband's real status. Consider:

Three warbands, each with a WBR of 150; for convenience's sake, say all three bands have 10 warriors. Two of them combine against the third in a scenario. Ignoring experience for taking enemy models out of action, the two allied warbands will both see their rating increase from 150 to 160 (or 161 since they will probably win and their captains will receive a bonus experience point each). Using the UD rules as written, the defending warband will see its rating increase to 200 (5 experience points for the surviving models). Outnumber me and beat the crap out of me, please, good sirs!

On the other hand, if it was a single warband with a 300 WBR, and its rating increased to 311, the underdogs jumping to 200 still leaves them behind - just less so.

This is something that I have thought of but had yet to resolve. For those of you that are unfamiliar, the "Enemy of my Enemy" scenario is a Border Town Burning scenario where there is a forced alliance between two warbands against a third warband. This forced alliance can occur even between warbands that cannot normally ally. It is possible for the alliance to be broken though.

I personally think that the +4 XP is OK if the two warbands stayed allied for the entire battle. If the battle between just two warbands where one had a rating of 88 and the other had a rating of 250 then +4 XP would apply and no one would disagree. This scenario is effectively still a 1-vs-1 battle just with two warbands in a forced alliance verses one warband.

I would add though that if the alliance is broken at any point during the game *before* the non-allied player routs then the normal Chaos on the Streets underdog bonus should apply. If the alliance is broken *after* the non-allied player routs (e.g. the allied players cannot agree on how to share the spoils of war (e.g. chaos artifacts dropped)) then the non-allied player that routed should still get the full underdog bonus because for the entire time they were in the game they were facing off against a vastly more powerful force.

It would be interesting to get Cianty's view in here as the creator of BTB.

What happens if the dwarves had kicked arse. dice rolls and epic tactics can make it happen fer sure. so what'd happpen then?

If it was a 1-vs-1 battle then +4 XP would be awarded even if the dwarf warband won. Those are the official rules. Why be different when it is 2-vs-1 with an enforced alliance? Of course this is a house rule but I think that it is a good house rule for this particular scenario (and any other scenario with enforced alliances).

Where is Cianty, anyway? Haven't seen him post for some time.

RationalLemming, I will repeat my earlier point: outside of this scenario, when a warband receives an Unnderdog bonus it is to help adjust that warband's overall status in a campaign - it helps "close the gap" between the underdogs and at least one warband in that campaign that is considerably more powerful. Adding the warband ratings of allied warbands together and using the UD rules without modification grants a warband a (potentially huge) bonus for a temporary situation that has nothing to do with that warband's status in the campaign. In the example I gave (moderately experienced warbands of 150 Rating each) the "underdogs" received 5 experience per warrior just for surviving, which would give them a considerable advantage in the campaign as a whole.

The original rules help fix imbalances. Using those rules (unmodified) for alliances will create imbalances.

Good point, mweaver. I somehow missed that the first time that I read this thread. Your are right that it has nothing to do with a particular battle but rather overall campaign standing. I think that you've swung my 'vote'.

In Chaos on the Streets it says that only the lowest rated warband can get the Underdog bonus and to evaluate it you compare the lowest warband to the next lowest warband.

Chaos On The Streets wrote:

Underdogs: In multiplayer Mordheim, the underdog is not so
clear. Any warband can be an underdog if it is attacked by two
or more of its rivals! Still, there may be cases where one
warband is simply playing out of its league. To determine if a
warband is an underdog in multiplayer Mordheim, simply
take the warband with the lowest warband rating and
compare it to the warband with the next highest rating. Use
the difference in ratings and the chart from the Experience
section of the Mordheim rules to determine if any experience
bonus is justified for the lower warband, just as you would for
the lower of two warbands in a two player game.

Very valid points, thanks for the input!

In the example of the 3 150wbr forces it does seem to give a little more exp than you would want to see. I think the argument sprang up more due to the specific games that were being played as opposed to the overall scheme of things, but the ability to break the alliance and negate a little of the bonus as seen as a limiting factor. If the roles had been reversed in the undead vs all game and the undead had been on the side of the Carnival, their wbr together wouldn't have given the beastment any underdog exp at all, so it was more of a change to help out those who have been continually restarting their warbands in the campaign due to bad luck or whatnot. If there were 3 people with equal warbands fighting as in the example, and knowing our players as well as I do, I would forsee the equal warbands turning it into a free for all.

http://www.twistedpancreas.com/mordheim/underdog_and_multiplayer.pdf

This is the pdf we found and have been using, and although the rules for the backstabbing are a little awkward it does seem to work. The spirit of it I guess is that you only get underdog exp based on the warbands you actually fight against. So sitting around watching 3 warbands fight it out while you sip on gin and juice with your mind on your money and your money on your mind will do nothing for you unless you engage them.

One of our solutions in the past has been not to look at the warband ratings of the warbands involved, but only the warbands that interact in a violent way. So, if your warband is at 150, and another is at 201, you receive no UD bonus - unless they take one of your guys our or you take one of theirs out. Then the standard 2-player UD bonus kicks in.