Animosity and Da Mob

Just curious as to how others interpret the animosity rules for Da Mob. We had a short discussion after one of my ladz tried to stab his mate in the back last night. I play that once an orc has charged and fought that's all he and his surviving victim can do for the turn.

One of my opponents was of the opinion that once the animosity had been resolved the orcs could carry on with their turn. (Allowing me to charge or shoot the pesky High Elf who otherwise watched the orcs who were about to murder him turn on each other. Panzy git pranced out the side door and escaped!)

We have changed how we play it lately after noticing this:

Quote :

1 “I ’Erd Dat!” The warrior decides that the nearest friendly
Orc or Goblin Henchman has insulted his lineage or personal
hygiene and must pay the price! If there is a friendly Orc or
Goblin Henchman or Hired Sword within charge reach (if
there are multiple targets within reach, choose the one
nearest to the mad model), the offended warrior will
immediately charge and fight a round of hand-to-hand
combat against the source of his ire. At the end of this round
of combat, the models will immediately move 1" apart and no
longer count as being in close combat (unless one of them
fails another Animosity test and rolls this result again). If
there are no friendly Orc or Goblin Henchmen or Hired
Swords within charge reach, and the warrior is armed with a
missile weapon, he immediately takes a shot at the nearest
friendly Orc or Goblin Henchman or Hired Sword. If none of
the above applies, or if the nearest friendly model is an Orc
Hero, the warrior behaves as if a 2-5 had been rolled on this
chart. In any case, the warrior in question may take no other
action this turn, though he may defend himself if attacked in
hand-to-hand combat.

So if the other Orc still has to test for Animosity after being attacked (if he hasn't tested already) then if he passes the test he can carry on as normal.

As Kurgan says, i roll for Animosity for all henchmen one after the other, and mark each one that failed with the dice with a 1 on it.
Then i roll for the effects.

Rolling "erd dat" means the orc attacks his nearest mate, the other orc gets his attacks back of course as well, as it is fighting "a round" of combat. (Just pointing that out as your post doesn't say that the target of the charge fought back, sorry if that's teaching you to suck eggs )
But its only the orc who rolled erd dat that cant take any other action in the turn.

Interestingly we had a question about this rule last night which you may be able to help with:

"If none of the above applies, or if the nearest friendly model is an Orc Hero, the warrior behaves as if a 2-5 had been rolled on this chart."

Last night i had three orcs in a line all touching bases

Hero,Henchman,Henchman

The middle hench failed animosity, and rolled erd dat.
Saying that the nearest was a hero seems a bit gamey to me, and also makes me think you could game animosity by separating henchies with heros.
As i said to my opponent, it seems against the spirit of the chaotic nature of the orc warband to play like this, so i think we will remove that caveat from the rule.
Any thoughts on this?

This example came from me rolling four ones for 5 henchmen, and then two erd dat's.
Four orcs fight in hand to hand, and not a single wound caused


A lucky escape.

While I can see the intimidating effect of a boss being next to an orc keeping him in line, I'd be hard pressed to put my heart into any argument that made orcs fight each other less. Those are some of the best moments in Mordheim.

Actually, our interpretation is a bit different. We take "fight a round of combat" to mean they fight during the combat phase of that turn, which means neither orc can do anything else.

I like the rule being there as it encourages the orc warband to behave more like how I imagine an orc warband to operate ie. a bunch of agressive thugs held in check by the leadership. Remember, according to the flavour text of the orcs, that is pretty much what the leadership is *for* - to keep the rank-and-file (or henchmen in this case) in line. As soon as they get out of range though...

With that rule in place it encourages the orcs to move around in a big mass rather than splintering off to execute cunning plans of outflanking and snipering and so forth.

As for using heroes to nullify Animosity, it is *reasonably* easy to do early campaign when there are only a few henchmen, but as the warband grows it very quickly becomes impossible to keep them *all* having the closest model as a hero, and even if you do cluster your orcs like that you are setting yourself up for being an oh-so-tasty target for your opponents blunderbusses and firebombs. Firebombs and lots of terrain really do a fantastic job of reining in those pesky horde warbands like Skaven and Orcs.

In the rules for Animosity, it says that if they roll a 1 then they *immediately* charge and fight one round of combat. In my circle we interpreted this round to be outside the normal order of things and is done, well, immediately.

"As for using heroes to nullify Animosity, it is *reasonably* easy to do early campaign when there are only a few henchmen"

Good point Lord 0, i am playing Orcs in our current campaign for the first time so my experience is limited, and as i started with a troll, numbers have been slow to grow.

With a few more henchmen on board i can see how it would be harder to game animosity.

Oh, the other thing we do is that if two are the same distance then you randomise which one is the target of the animosity. I don't think it says that officially anywhere, but it sorted things out pretty well.

Lord O: "In the rules for Animosity, it says that if they roll a 1 then they *immediately* charge and fight one round of combat. In my circle we interpreted this round to be outside the normal order of things and is done, well, immediately."

A perfectly reasonable interpretation, certainly as valid as ours. We just never thought about that possible interpretation! Certainly the orc players among us will favor your interpretation over our old one. I'll bounce it off the boys (and 'Tacha).

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think your interpretation is the correct one.

The best reason to resolve each Animosity Fail before the next test and to fight the combat out of phase is that there is the chance that the Orc that was charged will fail his test as well - and charge the Orc that charged him (or even another Orc if he knocked the first one out!!)

Increased Orcy Chaos is what you get!

Heroes stopping Animosity fights works well in the early days as Lord 0 says, later on there isn't enough of 'em compared to the rowdy gitz!

I have a couple of problems following the rules as written. Sometimes I will resolve a combat caused by Animosity and forget to complete my turn because I have fought a round of combat or I will lose my place as far as who has tested. These are largely memory related problems, but they also occur if the combat is interesting or prolonged in some way. Like say an orc is attacked and falls overboard which triggers a shark attack or a crocodile to move (not likely to happen to most of you). Or an orc falls off a ledge lands on a lower ledge, falls again, repeat...



Thanks for all of the replies.

"Like say an orc is attacked and falls overboard which triggers a shark attack..."

Ooooo I hate it when that happens!

Can ruin your whole day, aye.

However, concerning the issue of disturbing the natural sequence and losing focus of details (which invariably will come back and haunt you a few turns later... ) - I can so relate to that!

For my part, I found the excessive use of markers and counters a big help in such situations (more precisely, in any situation ).

Maybe placing - before resolving the Animosity-induced round of combat - something like these big exclamation marks Gale Force Nine makes (and sells. For a preposterously naughty price, I might add...) could help, or any coloured, vague and unidentifiable blob, just so that you see it and think "Hey, there was something I wanted to do - ah yes, like continuing my turn"?

Mephysto wrote:

For my part, I found the excessive use of markers and counters a big help in such situations (more precisely, in any situation ).

Maybe placing - before resolving the Animosity-induced round of combat - something like these big exclamation marks Gale Force Nine makes (and sells. For a preposterously naughty price, I might add...) could help, or any coloured, vague and unidentifiable blob, just so that you see it and think "Hey, there was something I wanted to do - ah yes, like continuing my turn"?

I've tried leaving a trail of dice, however like bread crumbs, the dang things keep rolling off to unintended places.

Yeah, we've found using dice to mark things never works - sooner or later (usually sooner) someone scoops them up and rolls them.