Question on power levels of a few warbands

Hi, we're looking at starting a campaign for BtB in the new year and I have had some enquirey re a couple of warbands and thier powerlevels, I don't want to let anyone use stupidly good (e.g. elf) warbands so I hoped that people here might be able to let me know that the following are not too scarey:

Norse Explorers
Cathay Monks
Bretonnian Chapel Guard
Gunnery school of Nuln


Thank you.

Well there aren't too many opinions about this. I expect that most groups would have a hard time answering the question from experience. In our group only the Norse and Chapel Guard have been played and then only once, so its not much to go on.

The only one with a bad reputation on the list is the Gunnery School. If you combine a good player with that warband it might be a problem. But the settings event and weather ought to keep it in check.

Weather can be a real bummer for the Gunnery School considering that most weather events affect shooting.

I played both the gunnery school and the battle monks and they are neither overpowered.

Gunnery School :
Guns are expensive and shooting is not THAT good in mordheim. Often when you lose a hero or henchmen its cost will be between 70-120 GC (or even more) so it will a take a few cautious games to get back on feet.

Personally on scale of 10 (5 being the average mercenary warband) I'd put them on 4 at start but if you play cautious and are lucky enough to not lose any heroes their special (expensive) equipment can bring them up to 7 as the campaign goes on.

Battle monks :
My experience with them was a disaster. But I had to face 2 dwarves warband in the campaign. Without access to axes, limited in ranged weapons and being limited with 2H weapons, my monks were a bit pathetic against those Gromril armored tanks. I had to resort on a cheesy tactic to manage to do some damage. Equipping all monk with Fish-hooks, surrounding a dwarf, putting him on ground and then use a close-combat unit and pray for the lethal wound. Hint : do NOT use peasants. They are just free XP for your opponent.

Personally, on a scale of 10 (5 being the average). I'd give them a 4 and just a 3 as the campaign goes on. Their weapon/armor limitation is a real disadvantage in the long run.

Thank you for the feedback.... those 2 players have of course changed their minds now lol...

Marauders of chaos and Norse are their picks now lol.

I love these kinds of threads.  

At the end of the day I don't mind what they use as long as everyone is having fun, I guess we'll just throw in some multi-players if someone gets too powerful lol.

maxxev wrote:

Marauders of chaos and Norse are their picks now lol.

As a Marauder player, I've had quite some experience with the Marauders of Chaos.

The Seer can be absolutely awesome, the Chieftain pretty badass as well, with the right increases. My Condemned are always completely random, as they should be, gets targetted alot, so I tend to keep it safe. Usually I have some serious injuries on at least one Champion and my Condemned at around 200 rating. I've never (with 5 Marauders of Chaos Warbands) rolled Lad's Got Talent in around 40 games, so that's weird, but I presume it's my curse, and not the warband's, except that the option of Warhounds and Gors (Undivided) might have something to say. Haven't tried the Spawn yet, so can't say much about that.

All in all, it's not that powerful. It's expensive and if you don't play very safe in the beginning, they're gonna lack a lot behind. The Condemned can be a real meanie in the beginning if you're lucky, else it's mostly useless. Fun however! And has the most potential of all.

We've played with it since we started Mordheim and except the Barbed Whip and the Condemned on some occations, I've never heard complaints.

Right, I might as well comment on the Norse warband as well.

Haven't tried it much. The Jarl is pretty cool, nice and strong leader. Wulfen is awesome too. Berserkers are of course hard to control, and you'll do well keeping them back. The Marauders are cheaper, but same stats and with access to Javelins, which is pretty awesome. Bondsmen have some okay potential and the fact that they start with 6 Heroes, make them quite strong.

I'd rate them a bit higher, than the Marauders of Chaos, though not as fun to play.

Goglutin wrote:

Battle monks :
My experience with them was a disaster.  But I had to face 2 dwarves warband in the campaign.  Without access to axes, limited in ranged weapons and being limited with 2H weapons, my monks were a bit pathetic against those Gromril armored tanks. I had to resort on a cheesy tactic to manage to do some damage.  Equipping all monk with Fish-hooks, surrounding a dwarf, putting him on ground and then use a close-combat unit and pray for the lethal wound.  Hint : do NOT use peasants.  They are just free XP for your opponent.

In my btb version monks have acces to axes (acces to axes - sounds funny    ). Besides you have dragon monks who crits on 5+ to deal with dwarf-tanks.
I think that fish hooks are terrible misunderstanding (I mean rules). Making shooting attack into cc that knocks down ANY opponent, no matter if it's a troll, vampire or halfling is beyond reason. And it's my only complaint considering monks because they're nice warband unlike marauders of chaos who are (in my opinion) broken when compared to other similar warbands.

It would be more useful if you said the Marauders are broken because of the following reasons rather than just assert that they are broken.  

I also play the Marauders and I don't think they are ''broken''. They are one of those top-tier warband but they are still way under Dwarves and Elves.

If we stop using a warband everytime it is successful than we're better to look for another game. even the original warbands are not balanced.

Von Kurst wrote:

It would be more useful if you said the Marauders are broken because of the following reasons rather than just assert that they are broken.  

Yes your're right, I was going to but fell asleep
Today I changed my mind (after looking at the list) - they are not as broken as I remembered, sorry. 
Only thing I don't like is Barbed whip which boosts warhounds attacks which is quite unfair.
And why can they take Imperial assassin and cold one????

No warband is as broken a the possessed; in our previous campaign we had (players) spending between 2 and 10 thousand gold coin on their possessed mid campaign.

Norse Ulfwerners are really tough but the warband is weak against shooting

Cathay Monks are also good in HtH but are human at the end of the day and can be outmatched my nonhuman warbands and isn't as strong in range combat as other humans.

Breton Chapel guard same limitations as Battle Monks of Cathay

Gunnery School Weak in HtH and afew missfires or a bad weather result can easily spell their doom, but they are great equalizers against strong HtH warbands like beastmen.

2-10 THOUSAND..... how many years did that campaign last?

I don't think you are playing the game right... for a standard 10-15 ish game length, I think I just about managed 300 gold in the bank at best. Either that or the possessed just won every game and never lost a sigle model... yikes....

We finished the campaign sometime after game 666, this was a very long campaign and there were a few warbands with ratings over 1000. We had about 7 active players each with multiple warbands and another 7 non active ones.

That explains it then... yes when moneys is absolutely no limit the possesed will be the most broken warband, otherwise I found then not too strong myself.

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

We finished the campaign sometime after game 666, this was a very long campaign and there were a few warbands with ratings over 1000. We had about 7 active players each with multiple warbands and another 7 non active ones.

How do you calculate warband rating?

My highest theoretical warband atm. only reach 961!

Hired swords made up a large amount of the warbands we were using, we got some rules about blood pact hired swords and that's when the warbands started getting really big when we no longer paying for upkeep

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

Hired swords made up a large amount of the warbands we were using, we got some rules about blood pact hired swords and that's when the warbands started getting really big when we no longer paying for upkeep

Alright, that explains it