Song of Blades and Heroes Mod

I've always found the combat mechanics of Mordheim to be on the clunky side. Is anyone aware of a Mordheim-SOBH mod? It wouldn't be too hard to do anyway, but if it's already been done, why reinvent the wheel?

How does that system work, then? Link? I have, myself, been trying to reinvent the combat rules to make them even more immersive, but its hard

I'd be interested as well. The more I play Mordheim, the more I'm being reminded about the lack of elegance that the Warhammer system in general is plagued with. It works when they simplify things for a bigger scale, but now I remember why 40k 2nd edition was such a brain drain to play. One other mod that I've seen thrown around is using the LOTR/Hobbit SBG rules. I always hear how smooth and simple it runs but I've yet to have any experience on it. Still looking for the mods.

Opheliate wrote:

How does that system work, then? Link? I have, myself, been trying to reinvent the combat rules to make them even more immersive, but its hard

I finally purchased the rules (www.ganeshagames.net) and its definitely worth looking into. The rules are a give/take depending on how much details matter to you.

Coming from Mordheim.. I do feel the sting of not having detailed stats.. but I think I end up realizing its all relative. Honestly.. I think I like the idea of detailed rules more than actually playing em.

IN Song of Blades/Heroes everyone essentially has 2 core stats not counting their value and special rules. They have a Quality value which is used for things like "leadership" and "activation" Then there is the combat value. Very straightforward.. when you do combat you both roll and add the combat value to the actual roll. After combat there are similar things to Mordheim such as reeling back and getting knocked down. You take out models by scoring a kill either by rolling a certain amount over your opponent's or getting bonuses attacking a downed model.

The core of the rules revolves around the quality value and "activating" your models. For every model you can roll up to 3 dice to "activate" him. For every die you roll over the quality value, you get 1 action.. which can be anything from moving, shooting, combat, etc. The thing that stops you from always rolling 3 dice every single model is that if you fail more than once per activation roll, the turn goes over to your opponent. Models that are far enough away from opponents can opt to make a free move and not roll any at all for a guaranteed "march" - bonuses for rolls can be had if they're close to your leader. Heroes get other bonuses too. Thats the gist of it.

As mentioned before.. i thought it was possibly too simplistic at first.. but there is a lot of depth in the form of special rules. They really set models apart more. Also, the way they deal with wounds in this game is deceivingly slick. There is a trait called "tough" which for every time the model gets killed.. his quality score goes up. Once that happens, its more difficult to making activations for the model.. which really shows a model slowing down from his wounds. If his quality goes to 7, he's finally dead.

There are campaign and racial expansions for the rules as well. I know just having Combat and Quality score does abstract a lot of things.. but I came to realize ultimately.. all the extra rolling in some of the other systems just bogs things down. Having an abstract single stat to represent everything does speed things up and get straight to the point. There are ofcourse other methods to help swing things to your favor so its not totally random.

Yea... long-winded post but I thought I'd at least shine some light on this system now that I actually got to skim through it. I still gotta check out SBG to make a final decision on a rules set to replace Mordheim for me.. but Song of Blades and Heroes has a very active Yahoo group, a lot of support and is quickly gaining tons of momentum in popularity simply because you can use any model you have for the game. It's got campaign rules and there are fan made versions of everything (including Mordheim scenarios).