Updated house rules

We kicked off a new campaign the other day, and decided to make a rather throughout overhaul of the rules (some of you might remember some earlier posts about our house rules: that's our starting point, and the direction we're taking is farther away from the vanilla rules). A lot of minor thoughts and ideas that came up in our last campaign have been added to the pdf's (many of the scenarios have been streamlined, some warbands have received minor changes to make them more balanced, most consumables have gotten their prices reduced, etc.), but we also decided to test out some major changes, most notably the removal of Armour Saves (armour instead adds to your toughness), and we decided to lower the xp thresholds for henchmen a bit (mostly to make animals and undead more fun).
Anyway, the rules can be found here, should anyone like to give it a read; and I'm always interested in some constructive critique.

Looks nice!
I'd be interested in those, but tbh I'm not quite in the mood to browse through all those pages and compare page by page what you changed..

A short writeup of changes to vanilla would be neat..

REminenz wrote:

Looks nice!
I'd be interested in those, but tbh I'm not quite in the mood to browse through all those pages and compare page by page what you changed..

A short writeup of changes to vanilla would be neat..

Well, we have made quite a few changes from the vanilla rules, but the following should give you the basics (though there's also revised warbands, new scenarios, modified exploration tables, modified armament and equipment, and the inclusion of random events):

¤ All dice rolls are made equal to or lower than the attribute you roll against, with sixes as automatic failures.
¤ To hit in close-combat, you roll against your WS, à la Coreheim (no tables). Two weapons give a -1 penalty to WS.
¤ Movement is doubled from the vanilla rules, but this is your actual movement allowance (no running with 2×M) which you can always use (even with enemies nearby) – except when Hiding or firing ranged weapons (when you can only move ½×M).
¤ Only one degree of Difficult Terrain (¼×M felt silly and quite a bit boring), and climbing walls and fences count as difficult terrain (but dictates an Initiative check).
¤ Armour gives a bonus to Toughness (the same way some weapons give a bonus to Strength), +1 from light armour (and ithilmar) and +2 from heavy armour (and gromril).
¤ Shields get parry (-1 to the first close-combat attack each round, under our rules), and grant cover against missile fire at long range; bucklers disappear, and warriors that earlier used bucklers now use shields.
¤ Axes get +1 Strength and strike last, as armour penetration is removed.
¤ Some other weapons that used to have armour penetration get the concussion attribute, and handguns (and long rifles) get Strength 5 (blackpowder weapons are also Move or fire, instead of their old Reload rule).
¤ As concussion now is more common, helmets get streamlined to negate concussion (to get rid of yet another die roll).
¤ Rout-tests are made when 4 or more members of your warband is out of action (5 for some warbands, like skaven).
¤ Exploration dice are given for staying in the game, or winning a quick victory, rather than having lots of heroes not go OOA (Start with 10 dice in a pool and have each player take one die at the end of each of their recovery phases. If there are still dice left in the pot when the game ends, the winner gets the excess exploration dice).
¤ Quicker advancement for henchmen. Henchmen and hired swords that reach 2, 4, 6 and 9 experience roll for advances. And even animals and lesser undead will gain xp under these rules, although at half rate (like the Ostlander Ogre in the Mordheim Annual), though they can't become heroes. Also, no +Attack advances for henchmen...
¤ Ogres, Trolls and other large abominations are removed from the warbands proper, and are made into Hired Swords instead (monsters make bad henchmen).

I like them, sort of a cross between the old outdated Mordheim rules and Coreheim.