Starting FLGS League

I'm going to start a Mordheim league at my FLGS and want to make sure I have everything covered so all players are on the same page.

We'll be using the Mordheim rules from GW's website (and the related errata for hardcopy books)

Warbands will be limited to:

Cult of the Possessed
Dwarf Treasure Hunters
Marienburg Mercenaries
Middenheim Mercenaries
Orcs & Goblins Hordes
Reikland Mercenaries
Sisters of Sigmar
Skaven Warband
Undead
Witch Hunters

And I'm open to allowing:
Averland
Ostland
and Kislev warbands, but would like your thoughts. I want to keep things more Mordheim and less Empire in Flames, hence no Carnival or Beastman warbands.

Additional rules will be:
Opulent goods
Random Happenings. Random Happenings will be used if both players agree, so they'll occur on a roll of 4+ instead of a 1. I'm open to having players roll on the chart directly if they want to use them. I figure if both players have to agree to use them, then they should happen more often, right? What are everyone's thoughts on Subplots?

What about Dramatis Personae and Hired Swords? Core book only, or do I allow others from TC, the annual, etc?

Any other suggestions? I'd like to keep things pretty tight, but am open to posting a few house rules if they really help. I'm thinking of maybe cutting light and heavy armor prices by 5gc across the board and something to make Witch Hunters just a bit tougher (increase max warband size or something).


Thanks for your help

probably the most popular house rules revolve around limiting the use of a weapon in both hands. This is most common by giving a -1 to hit with the off hand but still many say doesn't go far enough.
the advantage of this is it makes a sword/club/axe and shield more viable.
Also reduce armor by 50% (roughly) in cost helps a lot too to make armor more viable.
Last simply removing the ignore Armor Save from the Crit hit chart and then you have made armor a lot more viable in the game and that makes for diversity.

Also i say for warbands allowed, if it's offical allow it. this way people get more choices and what you see as a good reason for say Lizard men being in Mordheim may not be what some one else sees or rather they may have a good reason for Lizardmen to be in Mordheim that you don't see.
As for Unoffical; I would allow those too IF they are only not listed as offical due to beeing under powered. Some one wants to give them self that handycap then so be it; for many the fluff is more fun then the win and for others its the extra chalange that comes from it.

hired swords/Dramatis Personae i say go off the core book + Annual. this will give you some options and keep you on whats offical (or close to). Same for equipment. But if you allow a warband that is Unoffical then allow there unique equipment as well.

Averlabnd warband is fairly balanced - ti's my mercenary band of choice and I wouldn't say they're over powered.

Pervavita wrote:

Also i say for warbands allowed, if it's offical allow it.

Tthe only 'official' warband I would not allow would be the Carnival. Seriously unfun to play against without nerfing.

The Beastmen are merely published in EiF, the old Beast warband was around long before EiF was published.

Upon further consideration, I've taken your advice (all of you) and will allow all official warbands (as defined by the list on Sven and Tewfiks site) except Carnival of Chaos. If the league is a success, I may allow them later with some slight nerfs (as you all have discussed elsewhere). I know someone could take a weaker unofficial band for giggles, but I've got to stop the buck somewhere and, at the end of the day, I want to keep things clear, clean, and simple (e.g. one 8.5x11 sheet of paper of house rules, in a large font).

In that effort to keep things simple, I think we'll adopt the -1 to hit with the offhand for those who dual wield. Now, as best as I can tell, that's a flat -1 to hit, not a -1WS, correct?

On armor, do you reduce ALL armor cost by 50%, or just light and heavy armors (ignoring shields, bucklers, et al)? What about ithilmar and gromil armor?

After reading through the subplots list again, it seems that it was designed for a map campaign, which we're not doing. So we'll forgo that and use random happenings instead. However, since it will only be used if both players agree, they'll roll on it if they want to use it, rather than rolling a d6 first to see if it happens.

I'm feeling good about this, guys. A lot of players at the store have appeared to be getting a little worn out of their weekend games (as evidenced by tired arguments, etc) and I think this will have a good turnout.

Thanks!

Cervantes3773 wrote:

-1 to hit, not a -1WS, correct?

Correct.

Quote :

On armor, do you reduce ALL armor cost by 50%, or just light and heavy armors (ignoring shields, bucklers, et al)? What about ithilmar and gromil armor?

Generally it does not include shields and bucklers, but does include the rare armours.

The -1 to hit is not a -1 WS but solid -1 to hit

the -50% on Armor cost is all but shields and Buckalars don't get it as they are cheap to start.
Many people play where Shields also give an added +1 AS in h2h when using a hand weapon like in 7th ed rules. Also Buckalars to promote there use give a +1 AS in h2h.

Does that -1 apply to weapons that have the Paired rule?

all off hand weapons (in this case). many have the -1 apply to both hands for better balance. Pary would not be effected by this but the weapons with pary would not gain a bonus to negate the -1 to hit.
The only way to negate the -1 to hit would be with a Combat Skill that would be a house rule to counter this.
And via this house rule you could have some units start with this skill (like swordsmen start with expert swordsmen).

the groups i know don't reduce the cost of armor. For 10 gold a 6+ armor save, that is negated by an axe or S4 hit is still not worth its cost.

We increased the armor save by 1 for all armors and introduced the hardened leather as cheap armor for small budget:
hardened leather - 6+ (costs 5 gold, can be combined with shields. available to all models that can wear light armor)
light armor 5+
heavy armor 4+ (and reduce movement with shield)
ithilmar armor 4+
gromril armor 3+
shield increase the save by 1 against range and 2 against melee.

Armor is now worth its price, because it can realy save something. And on the other side you have a reason for gromril weapons. Shield are now a good alternativ for 2 handweapons, because the armor save now can realy help you.

Even crits can stay the same, because they are often the only chance to wound a modell with gromril armor and shield without relying on high strength or gromril axes.

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Another houserule i have seen in nearly all groups is, that you can climb without starting your movement in contact to the building as long as you have enough movement left.

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Raw you can get auto hits in range combat and with armor saves. We introduced that a natural 1 is always a miss.

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Parry is often only interesting for models with low WS, because if i get hit on 4+ or 5+ my parry chance is realy small. We gave a model with higher WS +1 to his parry rolls.
It seems not right, that only very few modells with WS 5 or higher used swords.

In my circle we used the -1 to hit when dual wielding and had a combat skill that negated the penalty. We also used the cheaper armour and the shields and bucklers give +1 armour save in melee. We only removed armour piercing from crits if it also did other stuff. If all the crit did was ignore armour saves then we left it like that.

Gromril and Mithril were left at their original cost and Mithril was reclasified from being heavy armour to being light armour.

We initially tried the don't have to be in base-to-base with what you are climbing rule, but then abandoned it when people stopped climbing.