Can I slack my leader?

Hi everyone,

I just hate my warband leader, but as much as I put him on suicide missions he can't seem to die.

I found this on p. 78 of the rulebook:

"You can also dismiss any warrior in your warband at any time."

So, can I dismiss my leader?

Thanks,

Zonq

But... he's worth another dice in exploration?

Yes,

But actually he is more of a burden than everything else:

1) I'd prefer having the chance of a Henchmen getting "talent" (I already have 6 Heroes);

2) My Centigor already has more Ld than him;

3) He is the only model in my warband to have 3 WS, thanks to a hand injury;

4) His only advance so far has been Initiative;

So, can I dismiss him? That is the question.

Thanks,

Zonq

In many groups there is a house-rule that you can dismiss a hero immediately after getting TLGT to make room for the new hero. My group uses it and it tends to make things more fun.

Since you have had him for a maximum of two levels then I would advise keeping him. The WS is a blow, for sure, but you can get that back with a level-up. Once you get max I, then all further rolls of I can go straight into Ld. Beasmen max at 9 so once you get that full you will then be able to place further I/Ld advances anywhere you want (obeying racial maximums, of course).

Your Chieftain is the *only* model in your warband that has access to Combat, Strength, *and* Speed so he is the only one that can take (for example) Strike to Injure, Mighty Blow, *and* Lightning Reflexes. By the sound of it, Lightning reflexes would be particularly useful to him since he has max or near max initiative.

It is really too early to judge if he is a burden or not and since he is irreplaceable I would recommend keeping him for now.

Just use him as a meatsheild for now. He still is tough and good overall. But I play with the rule that the leader is 'you' and for better or for worse until he dies he is the focal point of a warband.

Alternativly you could allow your leader and the new potential leader to brawl for the leadership position (I think it is Orcs and/or Marauders that do that as well). The loser rolls for injury and if survives they are a normal hero.

I believe that the official ruling is that you cannot get rid of your leader except through death. This is taken from the warband rules where it says (using mercenaries as an example)...

Quote :

Captain: Each Mercenary warband must have one Captain: no more, no less!

Of course you can house rule differently if your gaming group is happy for that. There are a few topics on this forum talking about duals as mentioned by BalrogTheBuff.

Lord 0 wrote:

In many groups there is a house-rule that you can dismiss a hero immediately after getting TLGT to make room for the new hero. My group uses it and it tends to make things more fun.

That's the way our group does it... I wasn't even aware until a little while ago that it was not an official rule!

The catch we had, of course, was that if a hero leaves, he takes all of his stuff with him... so your option is to have he walk off with all of his equipment, or field him each game with the bare minimum stuff (ex. a dagger.)

You want to sack your leader for having one bad sub-optimal advance and one injury (with consequenses that can be treated)? Man you're a harsh top dog.

I regulary sack my leaders. They are a pain in warband rating and come with sub-obtimal stats for their experience.

Unless playing skaven or undead (those leaders really pack a punch) I'll often drop my leaders as soon as I get the full compliment of heroes. For example, even a silly youngblood can outperform a leader with only 8 XP, provided he gets the right advances.

My current reiklander warband has multiple lad's-got-talent marksmen who only need 2 advances (WS and LD) to be just as good as my leader. This said, I've had a youngblood advanced 3 points of leadership in 12 XP, so he is my leader now. Cannot hit anything, but he's a marvelous leader for 17 points of warband rating.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and answers.

My main motives to sack him are those:

1) I have other heroes (like my Centigor) that have Ld 8, and since I'm fighting undead a lot I need that point of Ld to keep my hounds to failing fear tests;

2) I have a Gor henchman that got talent and is now really stronger than my Chieftain, so I would prefer to let another Gor have talent;

3) I want my Centigor to benefit from all the "your warband leader gains XP" instead of my Chieftain;

But, on the main topic, my qustion was if I COULD do it or not...and the answers are contradictory.
Any more input?

Thanks

Zonq

Well the rules are contradictory, your initial quote is in direct conflict with rational lemming's. That is the reason everyone trends to houserule these things, and you will have to discus it with your friends.

There are pros and cons for allowing leaders to be sacked;

Pros:
Make room for lgt
Lessen liabilities (if he had stuppidity for example)
Lower rating (also a con depending on who you ask)

Cons:
Loose exclusive rules, and skill access
Lower rating (also a pro...)

I'm sure there are more. Evaluate how it would effect all warbands before deciding.

Most possessed leader in our group drop their magister after the first game....


Since the rules review, leader & wizard tranfer thingy makes for a nice uber possessed....

Page 117 "Death of a leader"
"If the leader of the warband is slain, the hero with the next highest leadership value takes command. He then gains the Leader ability...."


SInce your leader is not slain, nobody gains the leader ability. You would have a leader-less band. The XP gained in scenarios by the leader would be lost, and nobody could use anybody's leadership at 6", just their own.

Cheers,
Xavi

Make a house-rule, or make it look like an accident.

As I said, I will send him on suicide missions...Or I'll order him to do a diving charge from 10'' high!

Gobbo Freak wrote:

Most possessed leader in our group drop their magister after the first game....

Since the rules review, leader & wizard tranfer thingy makes for a nice uber possessed....

I am all for sacking a leader or having him bumped out if you have a TLGT, but firing him AND gaining the spellcasting ability is too much. That's just broken.

Why would the posessed gain spellcasting skills?

Xavi

Mephysto wrote:

Make a house-rule, or make it look like an accident.

Love it. What's even funnier is that Zonq's been trying kill his leader off and has been failing!

Elmoth wrote:

Why would the posessed gain spellcasting skills?

Xavi

The rules review added the rule that if a spell casting leader dies then the hero that becomes the new leader can learn to cast spells from the same spell list.

Elmoth wrote:

Page 117 "Death of a leader"
"If the leader of the warband is slain, the hero with the next highest leadership value takes command. He then gains the Leader ability...."

Good find!


At the end of the day though it comes down to what your gaming group wants to do to keep the game fun. Just remember that the more rules that you tweak the greater the chances of other rules being set off balance.

Our group plays that each Purchasable Hero is a slot that you can always fill. But that it doesn’t always mean that they will be the model with the Leader ability.

For example you have Human Mercs, there is a Captain slot, when you first purchase your warband he automatically takes the leadership spot and gains the Leader Ability. If he were to die then the model with the highest leadership takes over the leadership roll and gains the Leader Ability. We allow you to Repurchase your Captain slot if you do it right after your old leader dies you can have him take over in the Leadership Role and gain the Leader Ability. If you wait even one game you can still purchase a Captain but he doesn't take over the Leadership Role.

There are some acceptations to this rule. The Undead and Dark Elves have special rules that make you Vampire or your High Born the leader of your warband no matter what. So if your Vampire or High Born dies then a couple of games later you get the funds to replace him then he automatically takes over.

The reason why we made this house rule is that a warband could be severely crippled if they lost their Leader in one of the first games. You could be permanently cut off from Skill Groups, and if you lost your Leader and you have all of your other purchasable slots maxed-out (i.e. you have 2 Champions, and 2 Young Bloods) then you would have to wait for another LGT to get any more Heroes. If it had been any of the other slots you could repurchase them easily and you wouldn't be down an Exploration Die. There are also some leaders who are simply the best Hero in their warband, for example Skaven, if you lose your Assassin that you just lost your warband’s heaviest hitter. You might be able to limp along a couple of games until you repurchase him, but if you could never repurchase him you would never be as competitive.

It does not seem game-breaking to me to dismiss your leader and reassign the leadership slot. Barring those spell-casting possessed shenanigans (I agree with Styro on that point) losing an expensive warrior seems to offset the benefit of getting your preferred hero in charge.

For me, the rule stating "You can also dismiss any warrior in your warband at any time" trumps the "must have one Captain" rule. In my opinion, the latter is only applicable during warband creation. You've got to hire him starting out, but clearly your warband is allowed to NOT have a Captain when he dies...or in this case when he leaves.

That said, the concept itself strikes me as unfun and beardy. That's your leader, man! He got all these lads together in the first place. And now he's gonna walk after 2 battles? "My hand hurts and I'm going home!" Shameful.

In terms of leader deat, we use the official vampire rule for everybody: a slain leader/captain can be replaced, after one game without him. We figure otherwise in a competitive campaign a warband could be crippled by a single bad serious injury roll.

I think DRD 1812 makes a good point about the "must always have one captain rule" in the warband creation section. Since, officially, most warbands cannot replace a dead captain the rule was not intended to hold during campaigns, but rather during warband creation. (And, of course, Mordheim games can be played as standalones, ignoring the campaign rules.... but who would want to?).

Posessed with spellcasting might seem too strong, but the fact that you may one skill advance for it, balances it out nicely. From the chaos spells, only one is (wings of darkness) is very nasty on posessed, the others are sub-obtimal to a good skill such as resilience or lightning reflexes.

In a human warband one often gets a hero with leadership advance, making him just as good a leader as the captain is. The only problem is that it's hard to replace a hero, due to the fact that a leader-less warbands only can replace 4 heroes. (2 champions and 2 youngbloods, the rest has to come from LGT)

DRD1812 wrote:

That said, the concept itself strikes me as unfun and beardy. That's your leader, man! He got all these lads together in the first place. And now he's gonna walk after 2 battles? "My hand hurts and I'm going home!" Shameful.

I see it more like this

New Gor recruit: Hi there, I'm the new guy! Who's the boss here?
Old Gor Hencman: It's that guy over there I suppose (points at Chieftain).
New Gor recruit: You SUPPOSE? Why do you say so?
Old Gor Hencman: Well, you see all the other heroes over there? All of them can kick the Khorne out of the Chieftain.
New Gor recruit: Surely you must be joking!
Old Gor Hencman: I'm not kidding. Since the so-called boss has broken a fingernail while fighting with some skaven, he doesn't seem to be able to hit the broad side of a Great Unclean One.
New Gor recruit: Disgusting. But what about the Shaman? He can't beat him in hand to hand combat!
Old Gor Hencman: Wrong again, new guy! The Shaman will be able to kill him, not easily, but he will. Hell, even I could give him a run for his gold crowns!
New Gor recruit: Ooookay. But, if he got this Warband together, he must be couragous, charismatic or something?
Old Gor Hencman: Don't tell me about that. He is scared of his own shadow and cannot lead a thing. We much more respect the Centigor over there. That's someone worthy of Slaanesh.
New Gor recruit: By Nurgle sphyncters, the Chieftain sucks.
Old Gor Hencman: That's not all. You see that guy over there? (points at another Gor)
New Gor recruit: Yeah.
Old Gor Hencman: Every body in the tribe finds that he got talent and should be a hero. But, the Chieftain is an egocentric and self-centered /?&%$*%?(*&? who will not let him become a hero. "There are enough heroes as is", the Chiftain says.
New Gor recruit: If the Chieftain is so bad, why don't you overthrow him or something?
Old Gor Hencman: We thought about that, of course. When we asked Tzeench for advice, he told us that we couldn't, because an obscure "rulebook" is not clear about wheter we can or not.
New Gor recruit: ...
Old Gor Hencman: But don't worry, we found another solution. We told him that he is so strong and powerful and all that bull***t that he could take the Marienburgers all by himself. Obviously, he listened to us and went all alone to fight them... twice! However, he has not been killed yet, but we hope that someday fate will catch him.
New Gor recruit: I wish us luck.

So, it is not unfun and beardy. In my opinion, it's really fun and goes with the character of the Beastmen Warband.

Zonq

Quote :

The only problem is that it's hard to replace a hero, due to the fact that a leader-less warbands only can replace 4 heroes. (2 champions and 2 youngbloods, the rest has to come from LGT)

Try Orcs.... Making it 3 heroes if you drop or lose your Boss...

Fact..... And add to that that part of your henchmen cannot advance to hero status (troll, gobboz) which does account for orc warband with serious hero- and therefore money issues.

In my view this is the sole reason that orcs aren't overpowered in longer-term campaigns. They are good, but tend to suffer from a tight purse.