to be or not to shield ?

Fact 1: Shield are useless compared to an extra attack.
Fact 2 : Its totally stupid !

Any option to save the day? : Yes

1 - Give the possibility to warriors that have access to the shield equipment the following options for shields.

A - Small shield : 5 Gc, 6+ save
B - Medium shield : 10 Gc, 5+ save
C - Large shield :15 GC, 5+ save (4+ vs non blackpowder missile weapons) , Cannot be use if the warrior is mounted.

or

C2 - Large shield : 15 GC, 5+ save (4+ vs if another friendly warrior is in base contact and also have a large shield) , Cannot be used if the warrior is mounted.

What do you think of these ?

They look usable as they are, but i do not think that 10 GC for a 5+ save is something you will see on many henchmen
I would merge the small shield and the buckler (6+ save and parry), give the medium shield a cost of 5 GC and the large one a cost of 10 GC.

hmmm... yes

I also tought about lowering the prices to 3, 6, 10 ...

Adding the parry rule to the small shield negate the buckler advantage and I dont want it to ''disappear'' ...

Would you choose option C1 or C2 ??

thx

Or you can use the generally accepted solution:

Quote :

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty."

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs." Johann The Knife, Bertha Bestraufung and Veskit should all be granted the "Maniac Warrior" skill.

iii. Page 51, under Shield. Add the line. "In addition to this save, a warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn). Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are
also included.

Page 51, under Buckler. Add the line "In addition to this, a warrior armed with a buckler and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to his armour save if other armour is worn).

iv. Page 50, under "Light Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 6+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

v. Page 50, under "Heavy Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vi. Page 51, under "Ithilmar Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vii. Page 51, under "Gromril Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

Mayby it's time for:
The Big Boring Shield & Armor Thread
in sticky topics?

The problem is shields, armour, dual wielding, crits and weapons are all connected. You can't effectively change one thing for balance, as all these things are balanced (albeit poorly) and balanced differently for different warbands.

If you just adjust shields, you will see them phased out mid campaign, as the attack is more beneficial still, as armour mods will negate even the improved shields.

The only thing I've found effective long term is making shield saves unmodifiable, so they model gets a 6+ save no matter what on every hit. This isn't overpowering in how it unbalances strong hits as it is just a 6+ save, and you give up an attack to get it. Adding -1 to hit with offhands slows down the game alot with allocating dice for hit values, crit values, wound values and injuries, especially if you have mutants with extra arms or any of the rules that deals with wielding 2 weapons (like pitfighter skills or dwarf axes). It complicates a lot of things that become unwieldy in gameplay imo.

Removing movement penalties from armour also helps, but suddenly your dwarves are effectively nerfed with that addition and no one buys ithilmar armour unless you start making a few more changes. It gets complicated quickly, and unless you have a crew of Mordheim nerds playing, no one wants to learn the vanilla rules and all your edits on top of that. Changing armour values can help as well, but then Lizardmen, Dwarves and a few others get affected in balancing. Adding Serious Injury saves to armour I haven't played extensively with, so I can't say, but I can say that Sawbones is the only official addition to Serious Injuries and it is quite costly and risky, which keeps with mortal balance in the game. Giving armour such a big bonus should have some limits, and I like the idea of using that save destroying the armour. But again, I haven't play tested it that much.

If you make all shields unmodifiable 6+ and allow bucklers to parry any hit, not just the first, you see them get more play and you don't need to change a bunch of rules. It's not quite balancing, but it's a simple step that isn't unbalancing in any effective way.

Thx for all your answers !!

Here is my final decision about this.

Buckler : 6+ save, parry (5GC)
Shield : 5+ save (5 GC)
Large shield : 5+ save, Shield wall (4+ save if the warrior is in base contact with a friendly model with a Large shield ) (10 GC)

Special equipment (require weapon expert to use)
Pavise : 4+ save, Very heavy (-1 M) (15 GC)


I also chose to add the special save against death. All shields adding a +1 save that apply only if you also have an armor. Both the shield and the armor are destroyed in the process.

I forgot...

Brokenv...

For Dual wield, we simply reduce the the WS of the warrior by -2 (min 1). This have a double effect : he is easier to hit AND it reduce his skill to hit