Hello
As I was eager to play with Mordheim and I did not have anyone to play with I decided to create my own mechanism to play Solo.
How it works:
The mechanism is based on what I called FECO AI conditions that responds to:
F: Friend close (d<10cm and with visual to the selected mini) or not.
E: Enemy in sight or not.
C: In cover or in Open
O: Objective (Witch Stone or Mission Objective)
So the machanics are:
1- In the initiative phase the player resolves the Initiative as per the rules. Similarly the player acts with his warband as he would do it against a real oponent.
2- When it is the turn to act with the AI controlled warband the player has to select an unactivated miniature this turn and after the mini selected draw a card from the FECO AI deck. It is important to note that the selection of the mini has to be first with Heroes and then if there are no more unactivated Heroes to go with unactivated Henchmen starting from those which are closer to an enemy.
It is important to denote here that the selection of the miniature is relevant for the mechanism defined. The AI system will control the packaging concept of the warband.
As a general rule the selected mini and all the Henchmen of the same band around it at 10cm or less and with visual to the selected mini will do the same action determined by the AI card unless the card specifies another thing. The HEROE section of the card it is used to break the general rule and it is to represent specific heroic or cautious actions from HEroes as they are the Elite of the game.
3- The first thing to check are the FECO conditions in the left hand side of the card:
- If the conditions are fully met, then the miniature will take the movement and shooting as described.
- If there is at least one condition not met then the miniature will take the action described in the second section of the card.
When a FECO condition has no value is because does not matter the situation in that particular case for that value.
Let's see some examples:
F: <10
E: No
C: Yes
O: >20
=> It means that IF the miniature has some friends in LOS at 10cm or less and there is no Enemy in sight and it is in cover and beyond 20cm of an objective of the mission then it acts as per the upper section card describes.
F: Solo
E:
C: Yes
O:
=> It means that if the miniature is alone (friends are beyond 10cm) and it is in cover no matter if he sees or not enemies and no matter his position respect any Objective it will met the conditions and it will act as per the upper card.
4- Moreover, if the mini selected in Step 2 is a Heroe, first you must roll a Leadership test. If it is a pass then the Heroe will act based on the HEroe section of the card. If it is not passed then will follow instructions as described in Step 3. It will allow to recreate the heroic actions or unpredicted actions from Heroes. This section also contains some steps to randomize the deck as you will see.
The card also indicates if the miniature can change altitude level or not:Climb or change level through a stairs.
So far my experience testing it in games and with particular situations worked well enough.
And of course this mechanism can be ported to any other era like WW2, Modern or Sci-fi just adapting the conditions and behavior.
If anyone is interested let me know and I could send the 18 AI cards to try it.