Madness Result: Stupidity

Hey guys,
Here last week when we had our monthly Mordheim gaming night, my savvy rats suffered quite a blow.

My assassin's adept and the sorcerer went OOA and received multiple injuries. Sadly both models suffered from stupidity as a result, and hence to the low leadership of the stupidfied rats, I hardly ever had the opportunity to use them in battle. Whine Whine I know but it completely ruined my warband.
I took it with a smile and I must admit the misfortune made a lot of laughs.

Nevertheless I disbanded the warband and restarted - the progress prospect was none existing in my opinion. The thought of sending the models to the surgeon had struck me, but as the risks are that the outcome could be even worse, I quickly abandoned the idea.

I would hate to see any of my players have the same misfortune I had that horrible dice night, and have thought of a way to easen the effects of stupidity like treating the injury as an old battle wound (stupid for the coming battle on a dice roll of 1 or something)

Have any of you guys/girls had the same thought about stupidity, or am I too much of a whiny pants?

Sorry to say, but whiny pants.

Stupidity sucks, especially for low leadership models. But it still beats death, or being captured. Or in some cases, a chest wound (or two!). At least with stupidity, they can hang back and gain xp until you get a new hero (either through upgrade or by buying a new one). The Assassin Adept is a tough blow though.

Still, look at it this way. In my last physical mordheim campaign, I saw a souped up assassin adept charge a night runner (yes, two skaven warbands fighting). The adept fluffed all of his attacks, was taken OOA, and died. I'm sure that in that case, the skaven player would have preferred his assassin to have just gone stupid instead.

If you really find it crippling, why not ask your group if you can do this house-rule:

New Skill: Kept in line.
If a friendly model within 6'' fails a stupidity test, the hero can smack the stupid model upside the head. This is an automatic str 2 hit. If the slapped model is still standing, it ignores the failed stupidity test. This cannot be used if the slapper is in CC, is knocked down, stunned or is fleeing.


Sure, it could be dangerous (the slap could even kill the stupid hero!), but it's fun, and it solves the problem.

Whiny pants x2.

The guy who won the last campaign we ran had his leader go stupid on the first injury roll, first game. He wasn't playing rats, but he stuck it out and had fun with it. Including the time the leader failed a stupidity roll when standing on the edge of the abyss in the Temple of Doom.

Other than that you have my sympathy, my lads generally roll stupid way more than fifty per cent of the time.

Hehe I guess I'll have to admit that I'm too competitive to accept such misfortune. Fortunately the battle in which the stupidity occupied was the second one so I didn't lose that much. One stupidity I could have lived with at first, but two in a low leadership warband was too much to bear.

My group ive been playing with over the years has the tendancy to be a bunch of whiney bitches in campaigns. If a leader dies, or a good hero gets stupid, they throw in the towel, say theres no point in playing, and quit the campaign. This is often how our campaigns end, 2 or 3 players whine and quit leaving not enough players to have a solid campaign.

SO... I started writing up house rules to help keep people in the game. I hated doing it, but it worked.

For stupidity, I adopted the rules from the Centigor. Replaced the whole injury result with a new one: Alcoholic. (which fits my group quite well)

Each turn roll a D6. 1 = test for stupidity, 2-5 = nothing happens, 6 = frenzy

People received the result and didnt keel over in agony , kept playing, and found it to be quite fun.

Hmm... It seems there is alot of very competitive players stalking the ruins of Mordheim. I believe in playing for the most fun results, meaning I often include all kinds of wierd and wacky experimental rules from Town Cryer, usually they blow up in my own face!

I would agree that having a stupid leader is nothing to moan about, see it as a challenge! A lot of the heroes / villains from the Black Library litterature are single minded to the point of being stupid Stupidity fits nicely into the Warhammer World.

I really like that you allow the rules for Sawbones! Those rules add a lot of fun to the game. There is also an other oft forgotten rule that might help you out if you don't fancy the stupid lifestyle. The rules for madness, meaning propper cuckoo madness, was included in the Mouth of Madness article back in the beginning of Town Cryer. My group usually uses this rule. To be honest we have modifided it so that all results are permanent! and that every hero can gain madness points. There are a lot of vampires in our campaign so it seemed unfair that they could avoid all the looniness.

Anyway, happy moon barking!

I have no problem with a leader suffering from stupidity at all. Actually I expect that several warriors in a campaign suffers from stupidity throughout the campaign played.
My only concern was having two models... TWO... low leadership models suffering from stupidity in one single game, and second ever played, was too much. I would have no problem with this later in a campaign, because this is what to expect.

I've actually thought of implementing those mouth of madness. it's a nice rule set indeed with a lot of possibilities.

I would applaude anyone who would carry out the warband with unfortunate mishap so early on in the game, and still have a blast!

The option zekk came with is interesting. I would recommend that the alcoholic test taken every turn should perhaps empathise more on the stupidity and have a result from 1-3 make the model test against stupidity, 4-5 act as normal and 6 frenzied. This resembles the backside of drinking - being quite hammered or aggressive.

I'll think about this!

I just copied the rule from the Beastmen ruleset, I thought it was quite suiting. change values however, doesnt matter.

Quote :

I would recommend that the alcoholic test taken every turn should perhaps empathise more on the stupidity and have a result from 1-3 make the model test against stupidity, 4-5 act as normal and 6 frenzied.

Stupidity is supposed to be drawback - with that set of rules it is so water downed that it's "almost" of no disadvantage. It is a skaven way to suffer with each leadership test taken but you can always:
- dismiss the leader
- dismiss your sorcrer
(even with no option to buy new leader, you'd still have 5 heroes)
- buy holy relic, mad caps, rabbit foot and warhorn

Just keep picking & popping the 'shrooms... And you won't notice the difference.

Actually I must admit I haven't thought about the possibility of the mad caps! Brilliant Idea! I just reread the rules for frenzy, and was surprised to learn the following:

The Rulebook p. 23, at Frenzy wrote:

Once they are within charge range, frenzied warriors are immune to all other psychology, such as fearand don’t have to take these tests as long as they remain within charge range.

I always thought that stupidity negated frenzy. Always nice to learn something new. Thanks for the tips catachanfrog and werekin!