The problem with blunderbuss

I don't think blunderbusses are inherently overpowered. It seems that when the enemy is paying attention you typically are only going to hit about 3 models with one shot. This is not very different from the number of models a normal archer will hit in the course of a battle.

Despite this, in my group we have been clearly having some sort of major problem with them.

The problem seems to be that it can take a warband from full strength to routing in a single shooting phase combined with some dramatic players. This basically makes the game no fun to play. Of course, because the weapon is actually balanced it can't really be sensibly nerfed and a couple of the players refuse to just remove the weapon from the game for a while. So, what is there to be done about this? Any ideas?

For the last two games I and one of the other mercs, who also bought several blunderbusses, have kept things under control by threatening to at all cost annihilate anyone who uses the weapon. This treaty seems like it isn't going to last much longer though as one of the players recently loaded his warband down with blunderbusses.

FYI, given that the written rules are incomprehensible we play as follows.
1) The model fires the blunderbuss in any direction and measures out a plane segment 16" long and 1" wide starting at the model's eye level. The plane segment need not run parallel to the table along its length.
2) Any model that intersects the plane segment and is not completely behind cover receives a strength 3 hit.

I don't believe that blunderbusses are overpowered.

It is a one shot wonder for 30 gc.

Yeah you hit automatically, but you still have to wound and take the models OOA, T3 models only go OOA with a one sixth chance (16,16%). The chance to not do this if you hit 3 minis is 125/216. (~ 58%).
And by the way, i think it is difficult to hit always three opponents, because they have to adjust.

I think it is a fair weapon, nice for youngbloods and other low BS troops.

I have to agree with MoM, I don't see the problem at all. I've even done a search on here and no one else seems to feel the blunderbuss is a game-wrecker.

My suggestion would be to tell the player(s) that keep getting wasted by mass blunderbuss fire to develop some new tactics...

My other suggestion would be to tell the player(s) running blunderbuss spam to develop a sense of style rather than spamming something that is obviously ruining the experience for other players...

5pointer wrote:

My other suggestion would be to tell the player(s) running blunderbuss spam to develop a sense of style rather than spamming something that is obviously ruining the experience for other players...

Sound advice.

Well, perhaps use some more cover on all leverls like walls, crates and whatever for your warriors to hide behind, and scatter them a little so they're not within the corridor. When I played with blunderbusses, we used the teardrop-marker, and even that shape didn't really cause any trouble even though it can hit more people in a cluster. Sure, there are chances that the blunderbuss might take out quite a number of people, but they are very small and I think the chance that the guy with the blunderbuss is getting minced after he moved into position to get a shot at more than one model is much higher than really routing a warband with it.

So, yeah, like 5pointer said, try to develop new tacticts so your models aren't that much clustered on one spot, counter with some blunderbusses of your own and use weapons with longer range to take them out early

Also, I totally agree with talking to the "spammers". After all, the game's about fun and if you're just playing douche, it's not really fun for anyone except perhaps some psychos who need to win for their egos. That's actually a way to solve a lot of balancing issues and possible exploits in the game

Apart from the fact that cover makes no difference to auto-hit weapons, you're right.

My advice? Only play with people who think that it's their duty to make sure that everybody has a good time. If that's not possible, run your own campaign and house rule everything until it fits your vision of Mordheim. In my experience, most people are so inert that they are happy to go along with pretty much anything as long as someone else is doing the heavy lfting and they can simply turn up and play a game.

First of all, I already said that I don't personally think blunderbusses are overpowered.

I play with the guys I play with cause we have all been buddies for a good while now, not cause they are all great mordheim players.

We do have a number of house rules but they all need to be decided by consensus. If anyone tried to dictate the rules no one would play with them.

If we didn't already have dueling pistols I would say we should convert them to a short range S4 weapon with +1 BS.

I think part of our problem comes from playing 4 player matches which sometimes leads to models getting crowded, though sometimes players just do something stupid. Everyone likes the dynamics of the 4 player matches though and it helps balance the game by allowing weaker warbands to team up against stronger ones.

P.S. I am really disappointed in the number of comments trying to tell me they aren't over powered when the first thing I said in the OP is that they aren't over powered. Really I am just trying to think of way we can tweak them without reducing their usefulness that would also keep them from being able to kill more than a couple guys at once. It's not really about whether or not they are overpowered. It is about them ruining our games.

If you expect for all of your warband to get wiped out by blunderbusses then more than likely it will happen,
If you expect the weapon to misfire or harmlessly bounce off the hides of you warriors, it psyches out the opponent to ready their force for routing rather than the strong offensive position, this is excellent Beastmen/ Orc tactics.
Otherwise out range the shooters with your own.

In my campaign we had a chaos dwarf warband which could fire their blunderbusses every 2nd turn (every turn with hunter skill) but only 6 blunderbusses in total (there was a merc warband with 11 at one point) it made us as players have to out think the enemy

@aviphysics--why are the blunderbusses so effective? If it is because of crowded 4 player games, perhaps spreading out a bit by playing on a 4x6 table.

Are you seeing a lot of S 4 blunderbusses with Superior Gunpowder? Do you have a house rule that allows henchmen to use Miscellaneous equipment?

Use the teardrop template from Warhammer to reduce the range of the weapon. Reduce the strength of the hit depending on range, like rules for shotguns for Western games. At half range the weapon is S 3 at over half S 2.

I have 2 blunderbusses at present and I often never get to fire them because of the way my opponents maneuver to avoid or neutralize them. I would love to get more than 1 OOA everyother game or so.

Von Kurst wrote:

@aviphysics--why are the blunderbusses so effective? If it is because of crowded 4 player games, perhaps spreading out a bit by playing on a 4x6 table.

Are you seeing a lot of S 4 blunderbusses with Superior Gunpowder? Do you have a house rule that allows henchmen to use Miscellaneous equipment?

I have 2 blunderbusses at present and I often never get to fire them because of the way my opponents maneuver to avoid or neutralize them. I would love to get more than 1 OOA everyother game or so.

They play such a big roll in our campaign because people have been buying archers and just giving them blunderbusses. My warband has 4, another player has 4 and a third player has 6. In small quantities they are laughable but when you got a bunch of them and come up on another pair of warbands engaged in close combat, things can get real messy. To really take advantage of the weapon you need your archers out in the field ready to take advantage of a stupid mistake. Often happens when the scenario has a prize to be fought over. At close range with some good close combat guys nearby, a stun can be almost as good as a kill.

Personally I have never won a game with archers sitting at elevated positions sniping the enemy, I can never hit a darn thing.

Quote :

Use the teardrop template from Warhammer to reduce the range of the weapon. Reduce the strength of the hit depending on range, like rules for shotguns for Western games. At half range the weapon is S 3 at over half S 2.

That modification might work but it does so by nerfing the weapon which I was trying to avoid.

I think what people were trying to do when they said that they too don't find them too effective was to reassure you that it wasn't just you and that they felt the same way also.

As for tweaks, perhaps after you have determined who is hit by the template roll injury starting at the closest and stop when the first person goes ooa.

Alternatively you could make it that everyone under the template is knocked down, no need to roll, but cannot take anyone out.

Or perhaps you could make it a normal Reloading weapon like a handgun (and getsthe benefit of Hunter) that is R24", S3, ignores cover, and hits anyone within 1" of the target on a 4+.

Also, I agree with the others - you may need to take the people that are whinging about the effectiveness of the blunderbus aside and give them a quiet word. The most important thing in this game is to have fun and people that refuse to bring their A-game and adapt to how things are instead of how they wish they were just make the game less fun for everyone else in the campaign.

Lord 0 wrote:

I think what people were trying to do when they said that they too don't find them too effective was to reassure you that it wasn't just you and that they felt the same way also.

As for tweaks, perhaps after you have determined who is hit by the template roll injury starting at the closest and stop when the first person goes ooa.

That seems like it could work without terribly effecting the average result. Kind of makes some sense to, cause it always bothered me that the guys in the back don't get any cover from the guys in the front.

Just a quick back of the envelope thing...
if you hit 3 T3 guys on average then you would only get 1 OOA for every 6 wounds (ignoring crits, which make a difference). Each guy has a 1 in 3 chance of being the one that got the OOA and the other two only have a 1 in 2 chance of getting wounded under the normal rules. If the first guy gets hit, the odds that one of the others would have been wounded are 3:4. If the second guy gets hit the odds are 1:2. So then the odds of the rule coming in to play are 1/6*(1/3*3/4+1/3*1/2)=1/6*(5/12)= 5/72 = 7%.

If the soldiers are higher toughness or have armor then the odds of it mattering are even less. Seems like a good solution. Crits can go either way but slightly increase the odds of the rule mattering. A double wound or ignoring armor increases the odds of taking someone out but a ricochet increases the odds of taking out someone in back anyway.

Another possibility is to hide more. I'm pretty sure I read an errata that a blunderbuss can't be fired at a model unless he sees/senses a target. Of course, if you fire at a model you CAN see, any hidden models in the line of fire are also hit, but it does give you an option.

we always play that it can't go through walls or other reasonable cover that prevents the shoot from going through. That means if your hidden behind a crate your safe, behind a bush... not so much.
And as Styro said, you have to see a target to shoot at the target.

Pervavita wrote:

we always play that it can't go through walls or other reasonable cover that prevents the shoot from going through. That means if your hidden behind a crate your safe, behind a bush... not so much.
And as Styro said, you have to see a target to shoot at the target.

We already play like that.

FYI, there aren't any living plants in mordheim.

First off, the blunderbuss doesnt target models. it just shoots in whichever direction it pleases. So it doesnt matter if you can see a model or not, you can fire it in any direction. Hell, you could fire it off without a model in sight. maybe your guy just got really happy and wanted to hear a celebratory Boom.

Second, if a model is hidden and the blunderbuss's shot covers him, he is Not hit. this is addressed in the Annual 2002.

Q - Should hidden models and models out of line of sight of the firer be able to be hit by the blunderbuss
A - No


Third - if you change the weapon to the flame template, youre going to find that the situation is even worse. As a template, it can cover even more models. the 16" long 1" line is very narrow, often not catching more than a few models. Throw down templates of that size, and One shot will devestate everyone in a H2H cluster f**k in the middle of the table.

One suggestion: dont change the rules on the weapon stats or how it works. Rather, limit how many can be purchased. Like, Max 2 per warband. that way everyone can still use their shotguns, but not abuse them.
simple fix, doesnt re write the rules too severely.

Zekk wrote:

one suggestion: dont change the rules on the weapon stats or how it works. Rather, limit how many can be purchased. Like, Max 2 per warband. that way everyone can still use their shotguns, but not abuse them.
simple fix, doesnt re write the rules too severely.

Black Powder weapons are suppose to be very rare during this time period. And based on your description of your games it seems like every blunderbuss in the the whole of Ostermark is being used in them.

We have never had problems with blunderbusses being over-powered. They are expensive weapons for one shot per game, and are not that hard to guard against. They are most effective against "swarm" warbands, and for that reason I think they are needed as they are. (In my experience, they are often more effective in the perceived threat than in the actual firing).

kidterminal wrote:

Zekk wrote:

one suggestion: dont change the rules on the weapon stats or how it works. Rather, limit how many can be purchased. Like, Max 2 per warband. that way everyone can still use their shotguns, but not abuse them.
simple fix, doesnt re write the rules too severely.

Black Powder weapons are suppose to be very rare during this time period. And based on your description of your games it seems like every blunderbuss in the the whole of Ostermark is being used in them.

description of what games?
the games I play no one ever uses a blunderbuss except me. and I only use 2

My pirates bring a blunderbuss with them usually. I think I have had up to two in a warband. Good for keeping the Elves in hiding until I can get a bit closer. But mostly a threat.

The real threat of Blunderbuss is evident when I play my Snotling Warband. One blunderbuss shot can take out 3-4 of my guys reliably.

I remember once a guy got Superior Gunpowder for a blunderbuss. Only one shot, but man was that one shot fun!

As understand aviphysics, they often have a mass closecombat in the middle, In this case a blunderbuss or several of them are effective.

In 4 player games other range combat weapons are very useful, because you can shot at them without being too involved.

We also often play 4 player games, and mostly there is enemy contact but not in the middle. We also have several ground levels, so the minis are spread wide.

I do not know the scenery you use but if you could post a picture of your normal gaming table it would be easier to give you some advise to improve your game.

Maybe just ban your blunderbus, or houserule them to max 2 per warband. Give your players the possibilities to trade the blunderbusses in against crossbows, handguns and long bows.

But i am really sure, at the time of your campaign a quickshot crossbowman with maybe BS5 is much more useful than a single blunderbus marksman.

As mentioned by several other poster above it is important that you have fun with the game.

Hi Aviphysics!
If I understand you correctly, you would like to modify the blunderbuss so it is not directly nerfed, but has a smaller or no chance of killing a lot of models in one shot… If that is the case, I think you also need to make it better in some way to avoid just nerfing it.
Perhaps an adjustment could be to make it “the rapier of shooting”. The rules could be like this:

Special rules:
One shot

Strength 4

When resolving the shot from the Blunderbuss draw a 16” line 1” wide directly from the shooter. Any model beneath the line is in risk of getting hit by the shot. The first model beneath the template (i.e. the model closest to the shooter) is hit by a S4 shot. If this hit does not wound the model, the next model is hit by the shot, but with -1 S. This means the second closest model will take a S3 hit. Continue this way until you either:
a) Wound a model
b) The shot is S0
c) Have no more models beneath the template.

This way the blunderbuss will still be most effective against a group of warriors, but will not be able to wound more than one model.

@Rytter... the blunderbuss would be too expensive with your idea. However, maybe your idea could be tweaked slightly. I would suggest that the first 4 warriors (within a 16" x 1" line) are ALWAYS hit but start at S4 and apply the -1 S for each subsequent warrior. Therefore there is a change of wounding up to 4 warriors but that chance gets slimmer and slimmer for each warrior further away.