Hired Sword: Warrior of Chaos

Though the likelihood of a single Chaos Warrior making his way solo to Mordheim seems rare, my group wanted to have one to play around with, without writing an even more unlikely chaos warrior warband list. So after a little playtesting (very little) this is what was come up with:

Warrior of Chaos

Hiring Cost: 100gc

Upkeep: D3 Wyrdstone shards

Rating: A Warrior of Chaos raises a warbands rating by +25 points, plus 1 point for each experience point he gains.

Who can hire: A Warrior of Chaos may be hired by any Evil/Neutral warband

M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 5 3 4 4 1 5 2 9

Skills: The warrior of chaos may choose from strength and combat skills, or they may choose to roll on the gifts of the shadow lord table, ignoring a result of Chaos Armor.
Weapons/Armor: A Chaos Warrior wears Chaos Armor and a helmet. He may be armed with either a sword/mace/axe and a shield, any combination of 2 swords/mace/axes, a halberd and a shield, or a two-handed sword/axe/mace, chosen at the beginning of every battle.

Special Rules:
Retreat is not an option: If the warband leader that hired the Warrior of Chaos ever routes, voluntarily or not, the Warrior will take it as an affront to his martial pride, and will challenge the leader to a duel. The leader has two choices: 1) He can run away, leaving all his equipment behind, and the warrior will leave the warband disgusted with their general lack of prowess, never to return. He will also hate that warband for the rest of his existence. 2) He may accept the challenge. If he loses, he will have to roll on the serious injuries chart as normal, (re-rolling any result of captured, robbed, or sold to the pits), and the Warrior will leave the band and never return to it, and will hate the members of that warband. If the leader wins, the warrior will roll on the serious injuries chart, re-rolling the same results listed above, and the leader will gain +1 exp. Furthermore, the leader will have won the the warriors respect, and he will never challenge the leader of that band again.

The duel is fought in a 10" by 10" fighting pit, with the the fighters starting 8" apart from each other. A D6 is rolled to see who has first turn.

Terrifying reputation: Chaos Warriors cause fear.

Mark of the Gods: for an additional 20gc at hiring, a Chaos Warrior may choose one of the following marks:

Mark of Chaos Undivided: The warrior is blessed by the gods. The warrior counts as having a lucky charm that can be used twice. Can not be combined with another lucky charm.
Mark of Nurgle: The Warrior gains +1 T, and the cloud of flies, which cause enemies to be at -1 to hit when fighting the warrior in close combat
Mark of Slaanesh: The Warrior gains +1 I, and is immune to psychology and all alone tests.
Mark of Tzeentch: The Warrior is a wizard and may use spells from the Chaos Rituals list, with +1 to his difficulty rolls.
Mark of Khorne: The Warrior gains +1 S, and is effected by frenzy.
Mark of Malaal: The Warrior gains +1 WS, +1 A, and hatred against all chaos affiliated warbands and characters without the Mark of Malaal. A warrior with the Mark of Malaal may not be hired by any chaos affiliated warband.

Ethlorien kidna did this with the Emissary of Chaos Hired Sword.

You should also specify which rules for Chaos Armor you're using, as there are several variations out there.

Other than that, looks good at first glance.

I like it but I think you've made him too expensive.

Compare him to the lowly pit fighter at 35/15. This guy averages out at 100/50 (rule of thumb a Wyrdstone is worth around 25gc). For almost 3 times the price, you get a +1WS, +1I and +2LD (all soft stats). Selection of equipment is pretty closely matched by the versatility of the pit fighters equipment. And the pit fighter starts with a skill. Which is kindda even with the Chaos Armour I guess (assuming Chaos armour gives a 4+ Armour save here).
Then this guy has a pretty harsh negative special rule, which I guess is balanced by causing fear.

On the other hand, marks are so good they aren't really optional. Slaanesh is bad (this guy already causes fear, so the only bad psychology left is all alone), I suggest giving Slaanesh the Lightning Reflexes skill on top. But the others are good, +2 attacks and +1 strength for a warrior of khorne is awesome, and Malal, Tzeentch and Nurgle are equally good.
So my suggestion is to make this character 40GC (+30 for mark)/1d2 Wyrdstone (or 1d3-1 depending on your mood).
Also there should be a rule that Khorne guys don't hang out with spellcasters.

hmm... good points all around.

- the chaos armor would be the rule book version from the gifts of the shadow lord table. 4+ save, no movement penalties, spell casting allowed with it on, can't give it to anyone else.

- I kind of always forget about pit fighters, good comparisons drawn there. I was thinking about giving the warrior the stats that he had when mordheim came out, which I think was:

M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 6 6 4 4 1 5 2 8

but that seems like a bit much. I'm thinking I may drop the price to 80gc to hire/1 wyrdstone shard upkeep, and that'll come with the mark of hirers choice.

- lightning reflexes would be a good addition to the mark of slaanesh

I like the idea to lower the base cost but up the Mark cost.
Upkeep I like the unique idea to have it be random and as a wyrdstone. maybe make the base cost go down a lot and have the upkeep stay as 1d3 wyrdstone?
though it has the draw back of hire for one game real cheap then dump him after that. So a rule to account for that would be needed.
or just have the cost as said as 1d2 wyrdstones

Hmm... i kind of agree with master that the marks really are too good not to take, so if i lower the price of hiring but up the cost of a mark, it'd probably just work out to costing the same as they do already. Moving the upkeep to 1d2 probably isn't a bad idea though.

but if the marks are higher cost it would make you wounder if they are worth it.
also if the marks had an added upkeep that may balance it out.
like Chaos Warrior upkeep is 1d2 wyrdstones. With a Mark it adds +20 GC to the upkeep or changes his upkeep to 1d3.

Pervavita wrote:

but if the marks are higher cost it would make you wounder if they are worth it.

i feel like thats one of the biggest problems with alot of the options in mordheim though. A good deal of them so expensive that you wonder if they're worth it. Like the opulent coach for instance. A great benefit, but so expensive that in 12 years of playing this game, I've never once seen someone shell out for it.

I do understand that lower costs all around for him seems ridiculous at first, but then you have to remember that he is a hired sword, and in general hired swords fees look like less than they should, but then you factor in that you're not just paying for them the one time. Even with the mark, if his upkeep can be as high as 50gc every game, you're really paying for him.

I would suggest dropping the Retreat is not an Option rule in favor of him simply leaving if you rout while the Warrior is still in the fight. If he is down then I don't think it would be a problem too badly.

Maybe if it is a voluntary rout he immediately charges the nearest warband member and fights one round with them before the game really ends?

Yeah, you are pretty right, even just 1d2 that is about 38GC upkeep. Which is more than any HS in the core rulebook. And this guy has a negative special rule. Even Nicodemus costs only 1 Wyrdstone Shard in upkeep IIRC.

What if he came standard with the mark at 70-85gc and cost D3-1 Wyrdstones upkeep. That way, he sometimes work for free to further the agenda of the chaos gods. Sometimes he takes a lot of wyrdstone to do his job. Off course if the warband can't pay, he will have a "talk" with the leader.

Untill now I didn't realise he could change his weapons at each battle, that is nice and a pretty good special rule. Worth about 5-10gc recruitment.

BalrogTheBuff wrote:

I would suggest dropping the Retreat is not an Option rule in favor of him simply leaving if you rout while the Warrior is still in the fight. If he is down then I don't think it would be a problem too badly.

Maybe if it is a voluntary rout he immediately charges the nearest warband member and fights one round with them before the game really ends?

i'd hate to let that rule go. I wanted there to be brutal punishment in store for someone who would dare to slight a warriors pride by retreating.

Master wrote:

What if he came standard with the mark at 70-85gc and cost D3-1 Wyrdstones upkeep. That way, he sometimes work for free to further the agenda of the chaos gods. Sometimes he takes a lot of wyrdstone to do his job. Off course if the warband can't pay, he will have a "talk" with the leader.

I like that. I'd probably side on 85gc. Also adding the "talk" part of it sounds good. Ulli and Marquand have a similar special rule that i've always liked the flavor of.

85 gc is not bad. Maybe the mark increases his cost to 100? And I admit I DO like the Retreat is not an Option rule, but if the Warrior is downed I do not think it should apply unless a voluntary rout. Even a Warrior of Chaos knows the value of patience and vengence.