Ostlanders and animals

I have never played a campaign long enough to max out a warband. My question is, when it come to Ostlanders, is it a good idea to get their special skill animal Friendship? Since maximum size is 15 for Ostlanders, +1 for Halfling cook book, and the Ogre Henchman I guess that I sooner or later will be outnumbered by my enemies.

But if all my heroes take the Animal Friendship skill, that means another 12 models in the warband. So would it be wise to do this, or will that skill upgrade be better used taking other skills?

I find that when playing any warband (including Ostlanders) people tend to limit their warbands to either 9 or 12 members for a good 70% of the campaign, really only maxing their warbands for the home-stretch of the campaign.

Personally, I like to have one or two with the skill because I like using animals as meat shields.

More Models means more bodies to protect you leader.

I have played, Orcs, Lizardmen, Marauders and Reiklanders. I have to tell you there is something nice about having 20 guys on the field while others only have 12 or 15.

Generially speaking more Models means more attacks, and more chances to wound.

I think Maxing-out your models is a good idea. The only down side is that sometimes you enemies might get Exp bonuses if your Warband rating is higher.

I'm I only one, who thinks, that chance to have 27 models in gang is matter of broken rule?

Ostlander can't take any hired swords or dramatis personae except for the Ogre Bodyguard. So the basic 15 member, plus one for halfling cook book and the Ogre bodyguard. That's a maximum of 17 models. If each of my heroes sacrifice one skill upgrade for that one skill, I can take another 12 members - plain animals which can't get any experience.

Take a look at the Sisters of Sigmar, which you play. You can have 15 models just like me. Get the cook book for another model. Hire the Halfling Scout which allows for yet another model, plus the scout in itself. Now you are at 18 models and no animals so far. And then you can take the Pit Fighter, Ogre Bodyguard, Roadwarden, Beast Hunter, Priest of Morr, Tilean Marksman, Bard, Bounty Hunter, Duelist, Aenur the sword of twilight, Johann the knife and of course... Bertha for free.

That is 30 models and probably still counting as I take it there are more hired swords out there which sisters of Sigmar can hire.

So 15 Ostlanders, 2 ogres and 12 non-intelligent animals versus 17 Sisters and 13+ professionals, where you as a Sigmarite player don't have to give up any skills, isn't that much broken. I see it more of like a lifeline.

The difference being, of course, that the combined upkeep cost of just the core rulebook hired swords is 120 GC per battle. O_o

No way man. You're only going to see 3-4 hired swords in a given warband due to the upkeep. Maybe 5 for a single battle. There's no comparison.

That is true. I did not think about that.

more than 50 gold(2-4 hired Swords) upkeep is not realistic, because you want to save some gold, if you need replacements or new weapons.

i employ normaly the elf ranger and the pit fighter and its very unpleasant to give away 35 gold every game.
If you have a warband of 17 members your income isn't very good. For 5 shards only 65 gold from which you have to pay your hired swords...

DRD1812 wrote:

The difference being, of course, that the combined upkeep cost of just the core rulebook hired swords is 120 GC per battle. O_o

No way man. You're only going to see 3-4 hired swords in a given warband due to the upkeep. Maybe 5 for a single battle. There's no comparison.

That's where blood pacts from the the Mutiny in Marienburg article entitled Swords of the Empire come in handy. But I digress...

I think that the skill isn't broken for basically the same reasons mentioned by Caratacos - the Osterlander warband is restricted in enhancing their warband beyond their initial size without this skill. They have other penalties also like starting with only four Heroes so I really question whether any Osterlander warband would ever get enough money to have 12 Wardogs all at once. I have played Osterlanders in several campaigns. I think that it is a useful skill to take but I would not take the skill for all of my Heroes as I don't think it is worth taking for everyone. Wardogs as equipment in the Osterlander warband (and any other warband) just are not as good as Wardogs as henchmen in the Witch Hunter warband. They have the same stats but are more expensive and are lost to the warband if they are individually killed or if the Hero that owns them is killed. This means that killing a Hero could remove three warriors from the warband even if the Wardogs never went OOA in that battle. Ouch!

Quote :

Animal Friendship
Having grown up amidst the animals of the forest this warrior exudes a certain charm to all ‘normal’ animals (i.e. warhorses, warhounds, etc.). Animals will never attack him and up to two wardogs (see Mordheim book, page 54) that the warrior owns do not count against the maximum number of models in the Warband.

Edited to strike out text. I was wrong.
What is the intention of the skill? I cannot link page 54 to the living rulebook so can someone with a printed rulebook tell me which page is 54 (is it Wardogs in Miscellaneous Equipment rules or Wardogs in Witch Hunter warband rules). I have always believed that this skill referred to having two Wardogs as miscellaneous equipment and upon reading it now the skill actually seems largely superfluous to me. Couldn't ANY hero purchase two Wardogs as miscellaneous equipment in the same way as purchasing two vials of Blessed Water? If the Wardog is treated as miscellaneous equipment as I have assumed up until now (hence my comments in my previous paragraph about losing the Wardogs when the Hero is killed) then the skill seems largely pointless. If, however, the Wardogs are treated as a henchmen group like in the Witch Hunter warband (e.g. they are are independent of the Hero with the skill and are not removed when the Hero dies) then this skill is still useful because those Wardogs do not count towards the maximum warband size.

I think the skill is to compensate for the no Hired sword special rule. Witch Hunter and normal Miscellaneous Equipment warhounds count toward the maximum size of a warband.

Edited to strike out text. I was wrong.

Von Kurst wrote:

Witch Hunter and normal Miscellaneous Equipment warhounds count toward the maximum size of a warband.

No actually from what I have read. Miscellaneous Equipment wardogs do not count towards maximum warband size. Here is a quote from Da Bank on the Mordheim Yahoo Group discussing Witch Hunter wardogs but covers this point (original text found here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mordheim/message/60816):

Quote :

The problem we have is that warhounds,monkeys and anything else in this category should NOT be counted as equipment as it throws the normal rules for the game out of wack. But with that, what people forget that being equipment you are paying money for something that you could lose. Meaning, equipment is given to models and when they DIE you lose all your equipment and this includes the dog.

I found someone's thoughts on an old post and am posting below:

The henchmen wardogs are a balancing factor for the Witch Hunters as they are restricted in other ways. If they want to buy wardogs as equipment which don't count towards warband size then they have to pay a lot more for them. If they want them cheap then they count.

Basically for Witch Hunter warbands there are two options for wardogs:

• wardogs in a henchmen group that are cheap, are not linked to a Hero but do count towards warband maximum size, or
  
• wardogs as Miscellaneous Equipment that are more expensive, are linked to a Hero (so when the Hero dies the wardog is lost too) and which do not count towards warband maximum size.
  

Therefore how does the Animal Friendship rule for Osterlanders fit into this framework for animals as defined by Da Bank? (Who as we know is the official Answer Moderator for Mordheim which doesn't necessarily mean that his interpretation is official if put to the test but his title does lend a lot of 'official' weight to his interpretation.)

Does the Animal Friendship skill allow up to two wardogs per Hero to be treated as Miscellaneous Equipment for that Hero (in which case it seems basically pointless because I would think that two pieces of Miscellaneous Equipment could be taken twice anyway (like two vials of Blessed Water))?
OR
Does it allow up to two wardogs per Hero to be treated as a henchmen group for the warband but not count towards maximum warband size?

I think that the second option is the case for Osterlanders (which may be what some of you already assume) but it does remove my argument about losing the wardogs when the Hero with the skill dies.

Maybe there should be a ruling that a Hero can only take a single wardog as Miscellaneous Equipment (FAQ or official errata). That would then make this skill useful in the first context which is less powerful than the second context.

here the Rules for the wardogs as equipment in the LRB page 38

Quote :

Wardogs
[...]
If you purchase a wardog, it will fight exactly like a
member of your warband, though it is treated as part
of the equipment of the Hero who bought it. You will
need a model to represent it on a battlefield.
Wardogs never gain experience, and if they are put
out of action they have exactly the same chance of
recovering as Henchmen (ie, 1-2: Dead; 3-6: Alive).
Wardogs count towards the maximum number of
warriors allowed in your warband.

They do count against the maximum number.

If Dwarfs could get this way a bunch of wardogs, which negate the weakness in speed and don't count towards the maximum size, than they could become even more nasty. The same for many other warbands. You could bolster your Number just by a sheer number of dogs.
An extrem version could be, that you have 6 shooting heroes and all your gold goes to wardogs. You would get massiv money for e small band, and could easily replace lost dogs.

Well there you go. I stand corrected! At least it clears up my question about how the Animal Friendship rule works. Sorry folks for the red herring. Thanks Saronor!

Actually, I for one think it would be hilarious to run 6 shooting heroes and 12 wardogs. It sounds powerful too. I say go for it Caratacos. Release the Ostlander Death Pack!

Not quite what I had in mind, though if the opposition start to get too strong I might do something in that way. For now, I am satisfied if my warband is a decent all-round one.

They're rare 8 and spendy, i doubt you will ever see anyone with 25+ in an ostlander warband unless they are extremely lucky with not having them die on a 1-2 since they will most definitely be going OOA...