Alternate Turn System for Mordheim

Hey guys, I was browsing through some old Mordheim posts at Tabletop Terrain, and I cam across a set of rules he made/edited for Mordheim.

I actually like it a lot!

Stu from Tabletop Terrain wrote:

Aaron, I've got the original rules in a txt file from the Yahoo Groups Mordheim forum however I can't quite figure out how to get them up here (they're too long to post in a message).

However these original rules have some serious problems and my friends and I just play with a derived and simplified rule set which I'll describe.

1) You take a deck of playing cards and each warband assigns a separate card to each individual hero and each henchman group.

You could assign a playing card to each figure, but we find grouping henchmen makes things easier.

We also give each warband a single suit to play with (Spades for Undead, Clubs for Orcs, Diamonds for Marienburgers etc. ).

2) At the start of each turn shuffle the cards from each warband and place the pile face down. Draw each card from the pile until it's exhausted and the turn has ended.

3) When a hero or henchman group has their card drawn they 'activate' and go through the normal 'charge/move', 'shoot/magic', 'close combat' phases.

4) This works fine for moving and shooting, however close combat involves a little book keeping (this is where our rules differ from the originals which simply didn't work for Mordheim) that works as follows:

4a) When a card is draw that figure is active and can charge and attack as usual using your full #Attacks.

4b) If your inactive figure is attacked by an active figure they get to retaliate as per the normal Mordheim rules (#Attacks, Initiative, charging etc). However they only get to use their retaliatory attacks ONCE per turn.

4c) If you're in combat with multiple opponents you can elect to use some or all of your retaliatory attacks when a given opponent is active. Some kind of marker can be handy in these situations.

4d) This ensures that each figure gets the SAME number of attacks they would have in the normal Mordheim turn system (ie. one set in your half, and one set in the opponent's half) - however it does require you to remember which figures have used their retaliations in a given turn. This isn't really that onerous as most combats are typically 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 in Mordheim.

5) Recovery works as normal, except a figure recovers when they become 'active' rather than at the start of the turn.

6) Routing works as normal, except we typically make the rout test when the first card for that warband is draw for a turn.

That's pretty much it! It actually works very nicely in the Mordheim game and has the following effects:

- Makes the turn a hell of a lot more exciting!

- Makes for some interesting tactical planning because you'll never know who will activate first in a given turn.

- Eliminates a lot of the tedious jockeying for charge / counter-charge positions.

The original rules did contain some other interesting ideas we haven't tried yet. Things like 'wildcards' which would allow you to activate any hero or henchman group of your choice when draw - which could create some great cinematic moments.

Anyway, I hope this post makes sense! Just grab a deck of cards and try it out. We've been playing this system for over a year now and haven't encountered any major stumbling blocks - apart from the slight close combat wrinkle. It really works well with Mordheim and definitely adds to the 'skirmishy' feel.

What do you guys think? Ever tried it?

(oh yea, and the original post is here)

There was a system called WARZONE, which system worked a bit like this. And it worked great!!!

The chaos factor is brilliant. And by chaos I mean the randomness.

Though only in one on one games. We tried it with 3 people and that got a bit out of hand.

lord siwoc wrote:

We tried it with 3 people and that got a bit out of hand.

Really? What happened?

Did you use the "shuffle the deck" cards?

I kind-of like the idea but it would make a very slow game! A single turn could take all night!

The game is still pretty fast. It is the same phases you go through.

The 3 player thing got confusing when several models from all sides were involved in hth.

But you should really try it out. You are forced to think outside the box when not using the I go you go system.

Very interesting approach. Will maybe try that some day. Thanks for sharing!

The card system for alternate turns is very similar to the one used in The Sword & The Flame rules for fairly large scale skirmish games [Colonial period]. I've seen this one played a number of times; it's quick, entertaining, &, the element of chance/fog of war adds quite a bit of excitement to the game. It lends itself nicely to solo games also.

I can see where having three or more players using this system might be confusing. Of course it doesn't take much to confuse me of late.

The really great part of having a group of kindred spirits to play with is the variety of things you can experiment with to add new elements to the game.

sounds great !

If anybody is interested I wouldnt mind trying this rule out in our MEETUP ...??

I never played like this, but I think it will be our new turn system ! It sounds great to me... But we have to test it first

Yea, I'm very interested in testing it out too. If you guys want to come over tonight, we'll give it a run lol

But seriously, I really really like it.

There is a "ultimate randomizer" mentioned elsewhere where there's one joker in the stack, and when that card comes up, you reshuffle all the cards back together... which means there will be (extremely unlucky) times where one of your models doesn't ever get to go, and your suckiest henchmen group gets to go three times in a row...

Yes random.. but I think it sux.

There was another "card" idea called the "free move" or something, where the next card that is pulled (let's say it's my Nightrunner) instead of playing at that moment, can be played whenever you want (as long as someone has just ended their turn). When the deck is shuffled, you loose it though...

I don't see the point of that one (maybe I read it wrong...)

l8r,

Hmm, sounds like an interesting set of rules... - one question before I'm gonna test it. How do you go about with the random encounters? are they still rolled for at the start of a turn, or are there seperate cards for those too? seeing as you normally roll for them at the start of each players turn, I don't think rolling off for both players at the start of the whole new turn is that good an idea...

Ezekiel wrote:

How do you go about with the random encounters?

That's a good question. I have come up with two different things you could do:

1) Do a random encounter at the beginning of every deck, AND after half of the cards have been dealt.
2) Make Two cards be "random encounter" cards...?

or perhaps a bunch more random encounter cards I just love the utter randomness and freak appearances!

We do that at our group, when the number of players is 4 or higher. But rather than deal suits out to players, we just deal straight from the deck and reshuffle each time. In case of the same number/card between two players, red goes before black.

Near the end of the game, when the board is separated by large distance and the warring groups are pretty obvious, we'll sometimes count down the cards: "Jack? 10? 9" to find out what the next highest player is. Assuming they won't affect the current -turn player, he can go ahead and start his turn simultaneously, saving some time.

By the way, we tried it once with 5 cards for five players (ace through 10)... it was no fun, because you always could guess how many players would go before you. With a whole deck, through have been so many times I've bit my fingernails because I drew a low card like '5'; only to find out that there were two or three warbands with lower cards than me. It's a blast.

Yea, my only problem with that way is that sometimes the same team will go twice in a row and that'll be devastating.

This soo reminds me of the game "Battle Masters" or how we dutch call it "Ridderstrijd"!

It was WHFB, but then with a similar card system and some other easy things.

haha i never made the link to play mordheim like that!

have...to ...try....