Number of games in a campaign

Ok, we are running into a technical problem. We are well into the campaign but a couple of players have significantly more games then others. For example I myself have played 10 games where most others are on 4-5. So how do we balance my lead in Campaign points in a fair and balanced way and give other players a chance to catchup. How do we bridge that gap, or don't we?

Either we get some sort of CP underdog system or I can start a 2nd warband to let others catch up but thats not ideal ofcourse as I want to advance my baby, my love, my precious
Just wondering if you guys have experience with this.

Actually, yes. I was in a campaign where towards the end, my warband rating was over 300, and the next highest was around 160. I found that by splitting my warband in half, things were greatly evened out. It meant that I still 'got in more games', but the games were fairer.

We had someone start late in our Border Town Burning campaign. We let them start with 8 CPs which was equal to (or possibly one less than) the player in last place. This meant that they were in a position to claw into the game in regards to CPs without getting a free ride and the underdog bonus helped them get going in regards to their warband rating.

In regards to your campaign, if everyone is already playing then I think that a second warband may be the way to go. This would let you continue playing your beloved game while giving them a weaker warband to fight and *try* to build their strength.

An underdog CP system would be an idea perhaps based on the number of battles each warband has played (since CPs are given for playing battles except for the Celestial Protectore objective in BTB). Maybe something like this...
0 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 0-4 battles more.
+1 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 5-9 battles more.
+2 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 10+ battles more.

OR (to factor in CPs in addition to battles played)

0 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 0-4 battles more.
+1 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 5-9 battles more AND there is a difference in CPs of 5-9.
+2 CP bonus for playing a battle against a warband who has played 10+ battles more AND there is a difference in CPs of 10+.

Good ideas above. Also, if you are much stronger than the other warbands, multiplayer may be the way to go. 2v1 tends to equalize things quite well, but only if the distance in warband strength is large enough to justify it.

In general I try to limit the number of games played in a turn , week, evening or whatever so that no player gets too far ahead due to games. Some warbands will naturally have a higher rating due to numbers or experience of heroes, but this is usually not as great a problem as amassing games.

Also at some point we try to play powerhouses against each other rather than allowing strong warbands to beat up the players that don't have available time or luck.

I often have extra warbands available so that I can play extra games to help folks catch up or just to get more games in when I have the time.

I wondered about a system that allowed a certain number of games each week (like Von Kurst suggests) and, after that limit, players can still play but their warband is not allowed to gain any more experience or money, but any casualties are still lost and injuries still kept.

This means the players getting loads of extra games can still have the fun of playing but at a greater risk, with little or no rewards. The players only getting a few games are not limited in the number of opponents available either.

Not sure if it would work but maybe worth a try?

Ya the CP underdog system might work. For now the easiest thing to do is to start a 2nd warband and wait with my main band till they get in a few more games.

So, Ogres it is...why not lets have a little flabalance fun!

How you handle it really depends on your campaign system and the logistics of getting players together in your gaming group.

I like the idea of starting a new warband and offering to play 2v1 scenarios. If you are available to play a great deal, by all means you should play, but it would probably be better for everyone if there was some variety.

If you have a lot more games than the other players, I am assuming that a lot of the players are playing your warband more often than any other warband. This may get stale, especially if your warband is zooming up in power. But if people want to play and you are the only opponent available, it makes sense for you to have a few warbands for people to play against.

One thing you can also do is create a "house" warband that is available for any player to control. This can help to diversify opponents and allow players to get a bit more variety in their games. For example, if you and another player meet up for a game of Mordheim, and you play through a scenario with your own warbands, you and your opponent can switch off playing the "house" warband against each other's warband. That way, even with only two players present, your warbands can both get in two games against different warbands. This can also help players get their warbands up in rating a bit faster if there are a few players who tend to get together at a time different from the 'normal' Mordheim game time.

You can also cap the house warband at a certain rating, or even come up with a system to build a new roster every time using the one-off battle system in the Mordheim rules. The house warband can represent some type of generic enemy in your campaign, such as Beastmen in an EiF campaign.

If the players typically meet at a central location, such as a friendly local gaming store, you can keep the models for the warband and the roster sheet at the location so they will be easily accessible to everyone.

There are some good ideas here.

Yeah we have the same problem.

Small core player gang, some more casual players and thats it. So i currently have more than 10 different warbands in the different experiences levels. Ok, ok we also have lots of fun building new warbands and playing with newly painted minis. But a story driven campaign needs the focus of the participants for i say minimum 5 games. We never achieved this, mainly of the new miniature topic but also there is only a small core group.

The good side of the Mordheim ( or modificated) camapaign system is the story telling part. You get to know your warband and identify with each of your fighters. Each death is huge pain, but revenge is so much sweeter in the end.

The bad side is the balancing issues Ou have. Of course you are rewarding the winning players to motivate the players to win a battle. This is influenced through luck during the after battle sequence but in the long run you are better of if you win more often. So the differences will increase between losers and winners, also the differences between warbands which saw a lot of battles and inexperienced warbands.

To level this point you have to level the played games or accept differences of strengths between warbands.
Maybe a warbands rating difference can be leveled by support the low rated player with on off support henchman or hired swords. This idea is used somewhere as campaign skill maybe in BtB. If it works i can not say but we will test it.

I'm keen on a 1 game per week max per warband type rule.
I know this is not ideal to those who have more time to play and want to get there warband upped more but it gives the most fun to the most players over all. Nothing stops and actually is encouraged that those who are more active have a secound or even 3rd warband.
There will be those who can not play there one game a week but that can't be prevented and keep it fun to everyone else (unless a slow campaign is what is wanted) but they do have the option to get that game in and even if not they don't fall behind much.
With that said 1 game a week may not fit your group but the idea is there.

Quote :

I'm keen on a 1 game per week max per warband type rule.

Yuck! One of the things that drew me to Mordheim is the speed of the game. If you play beginning warbands one on one you can get 3 good games in in a 3 hour evening. I've had a quite a few one game only nights in the current campaign and I haven't liked it. Fortunately most of our group feels the same way.

Von Kurst wrote:

Quote :

I'm keen on a 1 game per week max per warband type rule.

Yuck! One of the things that drew me to Mordheim is the speed of the game. If you play beginning warbands one on one you can get 3 good games in in a 3 hour evening. I've had a quite a few one game only nights in the current campaign and I haven't liked it. Fortunately most of our group feels the same way.

Oh I wish I was in your group. My gaming group plays sooooo slow and too cautious resulting in one-on-one games that can take all night. We've even had one-on-one games ending in a draw because they went too late.

if your group can set up a day/night that can pump out more then one game a night then great. but if your group as a whole can't do this thats when i would have such a rule.
the main thing is that it's to make it so that the guy(s) who are not able get a ton of games in don't fall behind (too much).
other wise the guy or two who can get in 4 games a week are not the run away winner well the rest can only make half as many games.
any way, what ever works for your group to get games rolling.

It depends on the structure of your campaign. In BTB, for example, no one should really have more than one game per turn.

In an open play dort of campaign, I prefer to have a game-play range such as:

1 game expected, 2 encouraged, 3 maximum, don't play the same warband more than twice in a row.

If warbands fall behind, they fall behind. Sometimes warbands get wrecked so hard they have to be retired, no matter what their rating. Plus, the campaign GM can always give folks who are lagging a bit of a boost. In GW specialist games, this is pretty much necessary to keep things on an even keel through long campaigns, especially with a game like Blood Bowl, for example.

What I will do for now is play the 2nd warband until like 3-4 players are within 0-2 games played.