Protectorate of Sigmar (LOD3)

hello all.

I just discovered the "Protectorate of Sigmar" - warband and after having read their rules there are some aspects unclear to me so I would like to have your help / advise.

1) Do you consider it to be balanced? At first glance the list seems pretty strong to me, so I would like to make sure(r) it's actually balanced. So what do you think?

2) How does the "Shield of Sigmar" work? Does it give an extra +1 AS against shooting (so +2 in total) or is it rather a 6+ ward save?

3) "Blessed Bolts": Are they lasting forever (much like hunting arrows) or for one battle only?

4) Warhammer:
4.1 Assuming it's the warhammer of the Sigmarite Sisters, does the +1S of the warhammer add with the SPELL "The Hammer of Sigmar"?
4.2 If you need a 2+ roll to wound with a normal weapon, would the warhammer turn it into a 1+ to wound, so an auto-wound (assuming you get the +1 bonus)?


thanks a lot in advance

I have found LOD warbands to be hard to get feedback on. Are they written by Bram?

On this forum Eliazar has written reports and posted photos of his Protectorate Warband.
1) Balance. Since its an experimental warband the only way to discover balance is to play it.

4)We never allow auto hits, auto success or auto fail. A roll of '1' always fails if the warrior would always hit. A roll of '6' always fails if a warrior could never fall or fail to climb.

thanks for the hints, although I could not find an actual report on that warband. And yes, it's made by Tom Bell.

THe reports are here

I think it's quite strong, but not so sure if it's unbalanced. While playing at above meeting, it fit right in with the other warbands taking part and we did not have any problem with them.

As far as I know, Brahm playtested everything that was published in LOD with his gaming group, and as the warband existed even longer than LoD, I suppose it got it's fair share of testing.

With the shield, we played it gives +2 in total, if I remember correctly.

I have played the Protectorate in a campaign and have found them to be an above-average strength warband. If you manage to get a good spell it might be even better, but i got the useless armour one .
On a more serious note they are not as good as skaven or sisters of sigmar or a ghoul-heavy undead warband but they are better than mercs or witch hunters. They most certainly are not unbalanced.

About the shield: There are no ward saves in mordheim so it is a normal +1 to your armour save.

We played that the +2 from the spell is the only bonus you get, but that was only our interpretation, the rule could be read both ways. Simply discuss it with your group, i do think our interpretation is a fair one.

I emailed him with those very questions. He said:

Shield: Works like a normal shield. In addition, against shooting attacks, the shield offers a SECOND save, that works on an unmodified 6+.

Bolts : One game only.

thanks all for the answers so far. very helpful

may I please get some more input / clarification on the sigmarite hammer + spell "hammer of sigmar" combination?

is it +3 S or +2? Is there an errata / how do you play it?

Quote :

"The Hammer of Sigmar Difficulty 7
This weapon of the faithful glows with a golden light, imbued as it is with the righteous power of
Sigmar.
The wielder gains +2 Strength in hand-to-hand combat and all hits he inflicts cause double
damage (eg, 2 wounds instead of 1). The Priest must test each shooting phase he wants to use
the Hammer."

The description of the spell implies that the caster of the spell wears a (normal, one handed) hammer. So this might indicate that it cannot be cast on a sigmarite hammer. As this would mean that the hammer is "double-blessed". But I'm considering the fluff here. Rulewise it is not explicitly defined, is it?

RAW-wise you could also cast it on a double handed weapon thus gaining a +4 bonus on your S profile or on a sword which might cause 4 wounds if you roll a crit that doubles wounds (option crit table)... brr....

also, the spell says: ALL hits he inflicts cause double wounds. So an offhand weapon is also affected by the spell?

The longer I think about that spell description the poorer I find it to be worded...

anyway, +2 or +3 S?

(btw. the spell actually does not even clearly state if it improves a physical weapon (by being blessed) or a magic hammer appears in the caster's hand... i'm confused...)

Hmm. Good question.

Although, on the subject of Sigmarite weapons, our group house-ruled that "Acolytes and promoted Crusaders may wield 1 each, Templars & Warrior Priest may duel wield them." Tom approved of the house rule (although, it's still house, and not official).

Also, another question I had for him:

Stryro: It says the Hunter can use the items marked with an * in the equipment list, but I'm assuming that he may use OTHER items as well, yes? (The exact wording is "may be armed with
weapons and armor marked as such *") What about the archers, can they use all non-misc items with *'s, or are they restricted to crossbows? Can non-hunters use those * items, ex. Crusaders?

Tom: Only the *'d items. They're rangers, and do not wear heaving armor, carry big shields, or fancy hammers. Dagger, longsword, bow... these are the weapons of the Huntsman. Other magical items may be used, but that's been the subject of many a house-rule.

StyrofoamKing wrote:

I emailed him with those very questions. He said:

Shield: Works like a normal shield. In addition, against shooting attacks, the shield offers a SECOND save, that works on an unmodified 6+.

Bolts : One game only.

but this special save still sounds as an armour save I guess (?) So if an attack ignores armour saves, i guess that this unmodified 6+ is negated also, isn't it?

So it seems to work exactly as the unmodified 6+ AS of the cold ones of the (original) dark elves list...

to the blessed bolts: do you happen to know which ranged weapons you can fire those bolts with? crossbow, reapeater crossbow seem quite sure. But what about bows? even pistols? I wonder how literally these are BOLTS or if Tom rather meant PROJECTILES in the common sense...

btw. your and my avatar resemble each other to some extent LOL

Special Save: I'd argue that it is NOT a normal save, and thus it's ALWAYS given (although, only against missiles).

Blessed Bolts: Well, Brahm said that they may ONLY use items that have an asterisk by at, and both the Longbow and the Bolt have an *. Ergo, if they cannot use crossbows and are allowed to use bolts, they can be used with bows.

Avatar: That's me, working at the Maryland Ren Fest. My character for the last two years was "Sheriff Pierce"... who, two seasons ago, spent his time hunting witches.

so the similarity is not totally coincidential as my avatar is my witchhunter captain model. so quite a parallel, haha

but back to topic:

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Blessed Bolts: Well, Brahm said that they may ONLY use items that have an asterisk by at, and both the Longbow and the Bolt have an *. Ergo, if they cannot use crossbows and are allowed to use bolts, they can be used with bows.

does that mean that ONLY HUNTERS can use *-ed items? I thought it was more like: every hero can take every item from the list, except the hunter which is restricted to only some of them (the asterisked ones).

as i do not plan to take a hunter I intended to use blessed bolts by the other heroes...

btw. great costume

Sorry for reviving this post, but I wrote to Tom concerning some of the same questions and some additional ones, and he has yet to respond, so I thought I'd try my luck in here and stumbled upon this post. If anyone has answers to the following reformulated questions, that'd be awesome:

1. Does Archers count as a Huntsman in regards to equipment? (I see the question has been asked, but not answered as far as I can tell)

2. Why do the Archers have BS4 to start with? Elves and Reiklanders have that, but that's special cases, these are human. I wasn't too bothered with it, but my gaming group wanted some argument to keep them at 4 (we reduced them to 25gc having reduced their BS)

3. Why does the Warrior Priest and Acolytes start with Speed skills avaliable, when the original Warrior Priest doesn't have access to that? I wouldn't mind, but it does make it a much stronger warband.

4. Is it a mistake, or on purpose, that the Zealous rule doesn't include Undeads?

Also, concerning balance we've put the Archers at 25gc and BS3, the Hounds the same, but at 20gc (special rule, which is pretty cool along with higher Ld that normal Wardogs).

Additionally we've tested this warband for quite some games with our changes and it's still pretty awesome. Fares very well indeed!