The weapons of Mordhiem.

I was looking through the core book last night, and its been awhile since I have played. But since I'll be getting back into the game, I would like to air this question. What weapons are never used, and do you have any house rules that help them?

Weapon use varies from group to group. Our group found that the following weapons were not used very much under vanilla/official Mordheim rules:
* Axe
* Most/all weapons requiring two hands (flail, morning star, halberd, spear, double-handed weapon)

We introduced two rules that made these weapons more popular.
* Wielding a Shield/Buckler with a single-handed weapon in Close Combat grants an additional +1 Armour Save.
This makes any weapon that gives additional Strength or negative Armour Save Modifiers a boost.

* Wielding two weapons gives a -1 to hit and a +1 to parry on the off-hand attack.
This makes two-handed weapons (and shields) more viable.

We are now happy with the spread of weapons used by models in our gaming group. Generally we have some duel wielding/low armour types, some shield wielding/high armour types and some two-handed weapon weilding 'tin can opener' types (to crush armour).

As said above, with standard non house rules the only real viable weapons are Club/hammer/mace and sword for h2h. 2 handed weapons do have there use but they are far and few between.

We have also made some house rules like RationalLemming.
Ours are a lot the same only we don't give the +1 perry for the off hand (may try that though) and also give all armour a +1 AS and cut the cost in half to promote armour. Also we redid the base critical hit chart giving only the 5/6 a removal of armour. 3/4 gives a 1 wound = 2 and a +1 on the to wound roll.
-I think we actually redid the armour chart but the end result was basicly the above.

I guess it depends on the 'best practices' awareness of your group. Until I joined this forum I was blissfully unaware of many of the common complaints. The group still uses a wide variety of weapons during most campaigns, especially halberds and two-handed weapons for dealing with high toughness enemies and monsters. Swords and axes are among the favorites because we LIKE to parry and axes are cool.

We tend to start out with clubs because they are cheap and upgrade to swords and axes as soon as we can afford to. Mostly we still have a good time even after the lectures on imbalance and best weapons from better informed players.

I agree with Von Kurst that if you want to play for fun and story than power maxing weapons is not necessary. It should be noted though that VK does use the +1 AS for shields house rule too even though he didn't mention it.

Our group does have other rules like Pervavita. We gave body armoura post battle save against serious injury and made 3-4 on the critical hit chat only -1 to enemy armour saverather than negating armour entirely.

Busted!

We've also played with the optional critical hits since Da Bank was part of the group. I should say that lately there have been more signs of unrest in Eden as more players join the group. Changes to armor and dual wielding have been discussed within the last 6 months or so.

So generally all range weapons are used providing the Warbands have access to them. From your guys suggestions there have been house rules to fix the unloved melee weapons list. My one thought was to have new skills that improved these weapons, sort of in the context that there is a Expert Swordsman skill.

I never liked that fact that the Axe had Cutting Edge I always thought it should have either +1 to Injury or Critical table, but that is likely making it too powerful.

Also how often do you guys see Rapiers and Swordbreakers in your games?

I didn't think of ranged weapons when I answered! Generally a lot are used based on warband availability. However crossbows probably come out on to and handguns are less common. I like VK's idea (not sure if he uses it but he suggested it) to remove Quick Shot skill from crossbows rather than adding extra skills.

We don't see rapiers or sword breakers because they require weapons expert/weapons training (always forget which is for melee) and we don't bother with those skills much.

What you have to remember is that weapon balance is not an imbalance in the game as such because it affects all warbands equally. Of course weapon valve does add extra variety for wysiwyg modelling.

RationalLemming wrote:

Generally a lot are used based on warband availability. However crossbows probably come out on to and handguns are less common. I like VK's idea (not sure if he uses it but he suggested it) to remove Quick Shot skill from crossbows rather than adding extra skills.

We don't see rapiers or sword breakers because they require weapons expert/weapons training (always forget which is for melee) and we don't bother with those skills much.

About missile weapons +1 to Rational's answer. The weapons used really follow thier availability with a warband, but the crossbow will be the hands down favorite if a warband has access to it. Handguns are really only viable weapons if the warband has special rules like the Gunnery School of Nuln. Naturally I am fine with this since the handgun represents a new experimental weapon for the Mordhiem world.

My idea for crossbows hasn't flown with my group. I don't have the votes.

In my circle the only changes we made to ranged weapons is to make handguns and hunting rifles roll two injury dice and pick the highest. That still doesn't make them more popular than crossbows, but at least now sometimes people consider using them instead of just selling them when they find them.

As far as melee weapons go, we use something pretty similar to what many others seem to use i.e. sheilds and buckers give +1 to AS in melee, -1 to hit in melee if dual wielding (the skill Dual Wielder negates this), etc. We also halved the price of light and heavy armour. Oh, and made flails and morning stars unparryable.

RationalLemming wrote:

What you have to remember is that weapon balance is not an imbalance in the game as such because it affects all warbands equally. Of course weapon valve does add extra variety for wysiwyg modelling.

I agree, I just want to make sure that no weapon is classified as useless.

Lord 0 wrote:

In my circle the only changes we made to ranged weapons is to make handguns and hunting rifles roll two injury dice and pick the highest. That still doesn't make them more popular than crossbows, but at least now sometimes people consider using them instead of just selling them when they find them.

That seems like a way to make them seen more often.

Lord 0 wrote:

As far as melee weapons go, we use something pretty similar to what many others seem to use i.e. shields and buckers give +1 to AS in melee, -1 to hit in melee if dual wielding (the skill Dual Wielder negates this), etc. We also halved the price of light and heavy armour. Oh, and made flails and morning stars unparryable.

That unparryable, sounds great and makes a good bit of sense.

I may sit down this weekend and come of with a weapon list update ( Just for fun ), that will be a challenge making all the weapons good while not being OP will be a trick. You guys are great foe all the mentionings on this stuff, I love that I can jump on here and get neat ideas for houserules that generally help the game!