Game 5 tomorrow night - warband advice

Hey all, need some advice on a 3 way match Ive got coming up tomorrow, and on strategy in general. I'll be playing against 2 buddies, one is a skaven warband, the other reiklanders. I control a possessed warband, and we play vanilla rules. Im not worried too much on the Reiklanders...theyve been somewhat depleted and I dont think pose much of a threat. The skaven on the other hand have about 18 guys, all slinged out. They also have the spell to summon more giant rats and usually run around in a single large group made dangerous by their numbers. We will be playing game 5, so we are all getting a bit established with our groups. Heres what Im playing:

Heroes....

Magister - 26 xp and has an extra attack, spell is wings of darkness
Armed with: Dagger, Mace, Bow, Lucky Charm

Possessed - 15 xp and has an extra arm, sprint, resilient
Armed with: Lucky Charm

Mutant - 8 xp and has +1 strength, 2 wounds, a scorpion tail, and step aside
Armed with: Dagger, mace, chaos armor, helmet, bow, shield, lucky charm

Beastman - 4 xp and has Toughness 5 and Mighty blow
Armed with: 2 hammers, helmet, lucky charm

Henchies....

4 Brethren - 5 xp and have +1 strength and +1 weapon skill
Armed with: 2 daggers

2 Beastmen - 4 xp and have +1 Weapon skill
Armed with: 2 hammers

2 Brethren - 1 xp
Armed with: 2 Daggers and bows

and our newest member, yet to draw blood...

Pit Fighter - 0 xp, standard

13 total models, rating 166

So far I have tried to get some good shots in and rout voluntarily by throwing out some sacrificial brethren when things start getting close. I want to knock that skaven warband down a notch though to force down his numbers a bit. Usually when we play there is a lot of hiding (on my part, to avoid getting slinged to death) and positioning to try and get a favorable charge, but I know that once I charge, Im going to be getting countercharged by a pretty big wave of rats, all dual wielding daggers and clubs. Any ideas on how to mitigate the damage? I imagine we will play a standard street fight scenario.

You sure went henchmen heavy didn't you? Honestly, I'd make an alliance with the Reiklander for the game. That skaven force really needs some thinning out, or they're going to get too dangerous to handle one on one. If you have any say in how the board is set up, I'd pull a Spartans and make it a little more cramped than usual too, so he can't bring all those rats to bear all in one place. You've got three CC beasts that should be able to handle themselves well.

best of luck, i don't envy the position you're in.

One thing I do not like about the internet is that it encourages always making 'best choices' when playing games. At the same time there is a reason that certain choices are usually good and others are not so good.

I would recommend not rehiring the Pit Fighter for your next game. You have only 4 heroes when you could have started your warband with all 5 available to you. Heroes equal income and you need income to grow. The Pit Fighter will only cost you gold that you can not afford no matter how well he fights. I recommend waiting to hire Hired Swords and the like until you have max heroes (and maximum income). A crappy mutant would be worth more to your warband's future than the Pit Fighter.

When you say you play vanilla Mordheim do you mean original rule book Mordheim or Living rule book Mordheim?

When you say Street Fight scenario do you mean Street Brawl? How do you determine which scenario is fought? Do you roll for scenario or just agree to play such and such?

Do you use the Chaos on the Streets rules for multi-player games or just make up rules?

How to take the rats?
If possible at set up I would try to get the rats between the Rieklanders and you. If that isn't possible I would manuever during the game to achieve the same result. Even if you and the Reiklander are not allies I would avoid any attacks on the Reiklanders and avoid giving Reiklanders targets that are not rats. The rats low leadership means that it will be hard for them to absorb continuous casualties from 2 warbands.

Mass your bows and try to pick off targets in the open as the rats close. If the rats hide on you, then close with them en mass. Use your fast troops to cause the first casualties and keep your Possessed in front to block counter charges with his fear.

Kill the giant rats. They count as casualties and give your heroes easy experience.

This is our first campaign and we are using the living rule book. When we do a 3 way game we usually decide to do either a skirmish or something like a wyrdstone hunt. when its 1v1 we roll for it. Im not familiar with chaos in the streets. Good thoughts so far though, I actually dropped the pit fighter because it was kind of a spur of the moment thing anyway, will probably give me an underdog boost and leaves about 40 gold in the bank. We usually play with a lot of terrain, so packing the middle with buildings would be easy but it also wouldnt be terribly hard for him to climb up them and start dive-bomb charging from the roofs after im committed in a narrow alley. Unless I can peg him off the roofs with a few bow shots I guess

Chaos in the Streets is the official rules/guidelines and scenarios for playing multi-player Mordheim games. It was first published in White Dwarf as one of the Town Cryer articles, then it was published in the Best of Town Cryer and in the 2002 Annual. It should be available for download somewhere. TableTopGeeks?

Skaven dive bombers--depending on how closely you follow the rules and his skills, you should be able to avoid diving charges as easily as he can set them up. He has to move to the walls on one turn and climb on the next and then move into position to make the diving charge. Even if you can not run, you should be able to move away from the threat as fast as he can try to make it work.

If he has heroes with scale sheer surface that becomes harder, but you will only be facing heroes who you can ambush once they leap.

agreed, though I've never played with a group that enforced the "you have to start your turn touching whatever you want to climb in order to climb it". We've always played that if you reach something you want to climb, and have enough movement left to climb it, you can test to. I feel like otherwise climbing becomes somewhat pointless since, like you said, by the time you get up there, your enemy has moved on.

Heh - in my group we enforced it because without it there was little point in climbing . With the rule there you can go up a floor and have a reasonably good fortified position. Without it we found there wasn't enough reason to voluntarily lower your own mobility.

Most of the time you don't *bother* going up there - you just shoot them until they fall off and break their damn-fool necks.

We have always played with the climbing rules as is. Ropes and hooks are popular with my warbands.

Go to tabletopgeeks:

http://tabletopgeeks.com/downloads/

Look under "Scenarios" for "Chas in the Streets". which von Kurst referenced - the official rules for multi-player games + several multi-player scenarios.

I am not very familiar with your warband - no one here has ever runs them much. If you are not a group of players heavily in to role-playing, an alliance with the Reiklanders would be the best first step - between you, the ratsies can be whacked more effectively than you can manage by yourself. From what you say about the skaven's tactics - tending to mob up - it is actually the Reiklanders who have the best approach to rat-splattering... blunderbusses. If you have any heroes who can take shooting skills, next chance you have, take Weapons Expert, and equip the hero with a blunderbuss on your own (in human merc bands like Reiklanders, the marksmen can take them). As area effect weapons, blunderbusses have the potential to shove a mobbed up warband into what we call "rout-check territory" in a single turn.

Blunderbusses are not much help for the Possessed since they have no access to shooting skills. Might be worth a nudge to the Reiklander to get him to buy a couple...

We play with the standard climbing rules too, so I might try to get a bottle neck near the tallest buildings. I also checked out chaos on the streets... we adopted some of the rules from it already just through trial and error of 1v1v1 games, but im not sure I like the way underdogs are decided. Scenarios seem cool though.
I cant get blunderbusses (no shooting skills) but Im pretty sure the reiks and I will be tag teaming the rats as the fella playing mercs would easily fall to either me or my rat playing friend in a solo match.
As for after this game, most of my heroes may level if I can get some quick kills (most are 2xp away from leveling). Any advice on skills to take next if I roll for them? Especially on the magister....not sure if I should go after more spells since the chaos rituals seem to suck a bit. The spell I have seems like its about the best in the group. Also, should I save up for a mutated possessed at about 190 gold, or just get a crappy mutant for the next hero?

You have 40 gc saved BUY a crappy mutant. He will generate income that will help you buy a good possessed.

You should always hire the maximum number of heroes you are allowed. Always.

1) What they said about heroes.

2) Skaven move fast, and if you let them sling at you, it can be devastating. However, they have really crappy leadership, and very low toughness. What does that mean? In my book, I would focus on taking out as many of the weakest members of his warband as possible. Don't focus on his heroes - focus on his henchmen.

Use cover to force him to turn a corner in order to shoot you. Then charge him with your superior melee monsters. Yes, he will counter charge. *good*. You'll loose a guy or two, but then it's close combat. The models in close combat are not vulnerable to slings.

Hope for good rolls. Pound for pound, your possessed are stronger and tougher than his rats. That makes up for a lot of spam.

I encounter similar issues with my Dwarf warband. Lots of them, not so many of me, but I have the advantage of resilience.

Force him to come to you into a place of your choosing, and set up for when he does. When he does, smash the little ones that come across in the hopes for a quick route test. Don't blow the rolls.

so, how'd it go?

He's not posting - does that mean the skaven not only wiped out his mutants, but took Harganok himself out of action?? Oh nos! Those dirty rats!!

Stupid sling spam.

Haha, no Harganok yet lives, just life getting in the way and keeping me from posting.

On the game, the treachery of the mercenaries is without equal. Looks like before the game (on the ride over to my place) the dastardly skaven and the traitorous mercs made a pact that the skaven warband would pay the mercs in warpstone to keep me occupied while the rats positioned themselves around me. Well, I didnt let it get as bad as that.
The mercs manouvered in behind me and I was able to charge them and took them out pretty handily in about 2 rounds. I lost one brethren to a blunderbuss shot, but no other casualties and I took out about 6 of his guys. Meanwhile, the skaven took refuge in a 3 story warehouse right in the middle of the board and started slinging the hell out of me as I went for cover. they knocked my beastman champ down but due to his toughness 5, they couldnt take him out (he must have been pelted like 20 times too, no kidding). So the rest of the game was basically me trying to get to grips with some guys he had on the ground. I think I killed 1 giant rat, but lost 3 other brethren to slings so I took a voluntary rout as my 2 wound heroes were all down to 1 and I wasnt interested in losing any by pressing the attack. Out of that, only 1 brethren died. And that was game.
Underdog meant that almost everyone levelled except for one brethren group. Possessed and beastman heroes took combat master, magister got a mutation (scorpion tail) and the mutant got +1 Init. I hired another mutant and am now saving up for that last possessed with about 25 crowns left in the bank. So not a bad game overall, but the rats still live curse them.
Im pretty confident that I could make them route in a big brawl, especially with the magister and possessed rocking 4 attacks each, and the more experienced mutant and beastman with 3 apiece but probably only if I got the charge which is difficult against them.

haha, man, that blows. I love it though, pretty perfectly represents the volatile, capricious nature of the game. You'll get them back though.

Just make it a point to always slaughter the mercs first. Good experience that, and they asked for it.

If you have a scenario that goes until only one warband is left, you could always go to ground... no reason you have to dig him out, after all.

Well, at least I got the psychological victory...apparently everyone is scared of my cult

That's good (if a bit odd for the mercs, since the Skaven are the ones that keep winning). Sounds like you came out OK that last game, though.