Elysium Wargames Mordheim House Rules!

Revised: 16/04/14
Revised: 17/04/14
Revised: 18/04/14

Strength Modifiers
Armour is now modified from Strength 5 onwards instead of Strength 4.  Therefore models with Strength 4 no longer attack with -1 to the defenders armour saves.

Parry Saves
To make a Parry save, the attacker first rolls to hit and adds their weapon skill.  The defender then rolls a D6 and adds their weapon skill to the total.  If the result of the defenders parry roll plus their weapon skill is greater to that of the attacker, then the attack is parried.  Should the defender roll a 6 when attempting to Parry, the attack is automatically parried.  Parry saves automatically fail on the roll of a 1.  Parry saves should be made before rolling to wound picking the highest.  Should the defender have multiple parry saves, re-roll 1 failed Parry save.

Two Hand Weapons
The attacking player selects one off hand weapon out of the two.  The additional attack from this weapon strikes at -1 To Hit unless the weapon is a dagger.  Paired weapons and hireable warriors come with the ambidextrous rule so do not suffer the -1 to hit modifier.

Climbing buildings and ladders
Climbing is taken as part of the models movement phase.  So for example, a model with a 5 inch movement may move two inches and scale a wall 3 inches high in the same movement.

Charging up buildings and ladders
Models who choose to charge up buildings or ladders lose their “strike first” ability.

Initiative Tests for Climbing
Always fail on a 6, no matter how high the models initiative is.

Fighting in Hand To Hand
If both players have the same initiative then they strike at the same time.

Routing
A routing warband must roll a D6 for every wyrdstone or treasure they have collected during the game whether they have chosen to route or not.  On a roll of a 1-2 that item is dropped and the last remaining opponent on the table gains the treasure instead.  Undiscovered treasures (as in ones left on the board) can be searched for post game.  Roll a D6 for every item left, on a 5 or a 6 those items are found and go to the last player on the table.

Hired Swords and Characters
When taken out of action, a Hired Sword rolls on the Heroic injury table as opposed to the henchman table.

Blood Pact
During the post game, roll 2D6 for every Hired Sword in the Warband:  On a result of a double 6, the hired sword swears an oath in Blood to serve on as a Hero in that Warband.  If the maximum number of heroes has already been achieved, you can fire the Hero or keep the Hired Sword as normal.   Hired Swords who swear an oath do not require payment.

Close Combat Weapons

• Morning Star and Flail
- Can only be parried by Bucklers or Large Shields not swords.


Missile Weapons

• Pistols
- Pistols do not suffer the -1 to hit penalty for firing over half range.

• Slings
- Attacks from a sling are done so at +1 to the defenders armour save.
- Slings cannot use poison attacks.

• Crossbows
- Save modifier of -1 to targets armour save

• Repeater Crossbow
- Save modifier of -1 to targets armour save

• Blackpowder Weapons
- Additional save modifier of -1 added to existing -1.  So blackpowder weapons now give -2 to the armour save.


Armour

• Toughened Leathers
- Changed from equipment to armour so can be worn by henchmen.
- For the purposes of armour penetration (not wounding), treat the attack as being +1 than what is shown.  S4 becomes S5 for example.

• Shield Types
- Buckler – Gives the bearer a Parry Save – 5pts
- Small Shield – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour Save – 5pts
- Large Shield – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour Save and Parry Save – 10pts
- Pavise – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour save and a -1 to be hit by missile weapons, but the model moves at half movement – 25gc


Warband Specific Rule Changes

Shadow Warband
Please note, that these rule changes are based on the above house rules to help balance the Shadow Warrior Warband.

Shadow Weaver
Changes
Initiative reduced by 1 to 5

Shadow Walkers
Changes
Initiative reduced by 1 to 5
-1 WS and +1 BS


Shadow Warriors
Changes
Initiative reduced by 1 to 5
Cost increased by 5gc to 40gc

Shadow Warrior Novices
Changes
Initiative reduced by 1 to 4
Cost increased by 5gc to 30gc

Skill Changes

Sniper Skill
Additional Rule:  
The target can make an Initiative check to try and spot the shooter (if he survives the shot).  If the test is successful the shooter is no longer hidden.

Item Changes

Standard of Nagarythe
Removed from list.

Hey

Personally, I'm not a fan of the -2 to the Iniative of Two-Handed Weapons; I can see why you would want to do that, but I would be worried not that I'm making Two-Handed Weapons better but that Zombies and other creatures would become less powerful as a result. Zombies are pretty cruddy as they are (although I always have a soft spot for them anyway) and making people strike before them would make them worse.

I like the combined Shield + Buckler rule. It's an interesting twist on the +1 Armour save idea.

The reason I'm against a penalty on off-hand weapons is that it splits attacks up even more than normal, which means more dice rolled at a different time, which means turns/ phases drag out a bit more; not the worst thing that could happen, although competitive players and multiplayer participants could get frustrated.

How about the option of removing critical hits from dual-wielding warriors? It's easier to remember and fits thematically (less time to aim for a perfect strike when you're flurrying). I don't know if it would be enough to make people change some of their equipment but I was interested to see what people thought.

Hi Ultra-Mega Bob!

I can totally see where you're coming from on the Two-Handed Weapons! The reason we're keen on the idea, is because when you have some insanely skillful warrior running about with a two handed sword swiping at Zombies... you would hope they could hit first even with a heavy sword.

What we were thinking with the two hand weapons, is rolling the attacks together, but using a different colored dice to represent the off hand attack.

Removing the critical hits, might be a bit extreme I think. Maybe too much off a nerf. All will be playtested anyway.

Quote :

Hand Weapon and Shield Build
Combine the shield and buckler into one. Remove buckler as an option and allow shield the Parry save. Very simple and effective without breaking the balance too much. Also means shields are more viable later in the campaign and when combined with the sword, a re-roll of a failed parry save.

I like this. When my league restarts 9 months from now, this was one of the things we'd discussed doing. As it stands, protective gear in Mordheim is generally not worth taking. While the rarity of protective gear is somewhat in keeping with the fluff, shields/bucklers would seem to be an exception.

Another thing to consider, though not necessarily in combination with this rule, is to change how parry rolls work. A fairly common house rule is that parrying requires a WS test. If the character can roll under their WS, they successfully parry.

Quote :

Two-Handed Weapons
Instead of Always Striking Last the Warrior Strikes at -2 to their Initiative. This means highly skilled Warriors may not always be striking last against something like a zombie! Enough of a penalty to make up for the lack of shield or additional attacks without unbalancing the game.

If they're highly-skilled warriors, then they'll have the Strongman skill, which allows heroes to use 2-hand weapons as normal. This particular skill is why access to the Strength skill table is a HUGE part of inter-warband balance. A 2-attack hero with Strongman is absurdly dangerous on the charge.

Hmm, I can see your point regarding the strongman skill.


Any other suggestions on how to "balance" out the Two-Handed weapons then? I feel, when compared to the other two, they lack somewhat. They do lots of nice damage... but the warrior must first survive the onslaught every time.

Major Sharpe wrote:

Quote :

Another thing to consider, though not necessarily in combination with this rule, is to change how parry rolls work.  A fairly common house rule is that parrying requires a WS test.  If the character can roll under their WS, they successfully parry.

We're thinking of doing something VERY similar to that in this form:
When attempting a parry save, roll a D6 and add your WS, if the total beats the attackers roll to hit plus their WS then the parry is successful. This gives a bonus to higher skilled warriors over the newbs.

What do you think?

I guess it depends on whether you're playing one-off games, or campaigns. That said, I don't feel like two-handed weapons are unbalanced in either case. They're perhaps not universally applicable across zero-experience characters, but they have a niche.

Some things to consider:

-S6 is a magical number. It insta-injures multi-wound T3 characters, crashes through S3 parries, and wounds T4 models (Orcs, Vampires, Ogre Bodyguards) on a 2+. For most races, S6 is only attainable through the use of a 2-handed weapon.

-A WS3 T3 Sv- human recieving a WS3 S3 attack has a 25% chance of being injured. If that human has a 2-handed weapon, he has a roughly 42% chance of injuring his opponent in response. Even if the attacker in question can roll multiple attacks, the 2-handed warrior has a 56% chance of avoiding injury. While the dual-wielding attacker still has a slight statistical advantage in this duel, the 2-handed warrior is hardly at the mercy of his opponent.

- While Com/Str/Spd characters are the obvious recipients for 2-handed weapons (as they can take Strongman + Sprint/Leap/Lightning Reflexes), 2-handers have another role: they can be given to trash models. Youngbloods, especially from Middenheim, are excellent recipients for 2-handed weapons, as are Witch Hunter zealots. While perhaps not as generally optimal as hammer/hammer spam, you give an otherwise poor model the opportunity to negate armor saves and wound everyone else on a 2+.

- 2-handed weapons represent a counter for monstrous creatures. IMO this is their primary role in the balance. Early in a campaign, an Ogre may show up, or a Vampire may roll extra wounds for an advance. Two-handed weapons are the metaphorical anti-tank weaponry of Mordheim's fantasy battlefield. When cheap models bring 2-handed weapons to big combats, they force opponent attention away from your more expensive fighters.

example: As Middenheim, I charge an Ogre with 2 hammer/hammer champions and 1 greatsword youngblood. The champs swing first, then the Ogre, then the youngblood. In this scenario, the Ogre's best logical decision is to direct attacks against the youngblood, which wouldn't be the case if he was rocking dual daggers.

Good write up! Certainly swayed my way of thinking.

I suppose the two handed swords etc are more monster killers than anything...

EWSSteve wrote:

Greetings!

Gweetings!

I'd love to comment on these house rules, so here goes:

EWSSteve wrote:

Hand Weapon and Shield Build
Combine the shield and buckler into one. Remove buckler as an option and allow shield the Parry save. Very simple and effective without breaking the balance too much. Also means shields are more viable later in the campaign and when combined with the sword, a re-roll of a failed parry save.

Love this. Really makes Shields incredible attractive! I too am not quite a fan of the extra Armour save rule, so this could be something that I'd actually implement! I'll have to make some calculations though, to see how much it would affect the pricing balance, but I don't know why I haven't come across this before. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention or maybe I've seen it before. Anyway, it could work!

EWSSteve wrote:

Two-Handed Weapons
Instead of Always Striking Last the Warrior Strikes at -2 to their Initiative. This means highly skilled Warriors may not always be striking last against something like a zombie! Enough of a penalty to make up for the lack of shield or additional attacks without unbalancing the game.

Do not love this
As Major Sharpe very well argues, there are other things to keep Double-handed Weapons in check. They're quite powerful as they should be, but this rule would tip the balance too much. Heroes have two options with this: Bulking up on defensive skills or going straight Strongman and charging down everything. It's incredible with several attacks. And as mentioned, it's a great way to draw attention away from your Heroes, if you equip your henchmen with them.

EWSSteve wrote:

Two Hand Weapons
Additional attack from “offhand” weapon suffers a -1 to the users to hit roll as a penalty for it being an offhand attack. Add additional rule called Ambidextrous: A Warrior with the ambidextrous skill may use their offhand weapon without the usual -1 to the users to hit roll.

Don't know how this will work with the whole Shield parry thing. For me, that rule already makes an attractive alternative, but it might not be enough for all players. Again, I'll calculate it, but I've found through lots and lots of calculations that two hand weapons evens out a lot more when using -2 on the offhand instead of -1. Then you don't need the Shield parry though, so they might balance each other out.

Those two combined would probably make for good rules (I'll return with some calculations when I've made them), but I'd drop the Double-handed one.[/quote]

Sounds good to me! Thanks for the input!

+1 to the shields thing.

-1 to the DHW thing.

+1 to the dual-wielding thing with an addendum: Consider allowing the Dual Wielding skill to also allow you to allocate your attacks with the weapons as you wish (perhaps with a minimum of 1 attack per weapon) so, for example, a warrior with 3 attacks and armed with an axe and club could strike twice with his club against one opponent and twice with his axe against the other. It is not something that is useful very often, but it helps buff a skill that is otherwise only 'plus one to hit with your offhand weapon'. It also helps keep the skill useful later on when the warrior has more attacks.

That's actually a pretty good idea for the two hand weapons. A campaign I was in a few years ago planned something similar if I recall but made off hand weapon attacks at -2 to hit to nerf it. The player also got to choose which weapon was in his off hand before combat.

Revisions made in first post.

Two-Handed weapons to remain same!   

Rules amended

EWSSteve wrote:

Revised: 16/04/14

Strength Modifiers
Armour is now modified from Strength 5 onwards instead of Strength 4.  Therefore models with Strength 4 no longer attack with -1 to the defenders armour saves.

Our group uses this too. Check our my post for our group's house rules.

Parry Saves
A defending model with a Parry Save or multiple Parry Saves forces the attacker to re-roll successful to hit rolls equal to the amount of Parry Saves.  If a defender has two parry saves and the attacker has only one attack, re-roll only once.  Example: A Sister of Sigmar has two successful hits against a Skaven armed with a sword.  The attacking player must re-roll once successful hit before rolling for wounds.

I'm not sure that I like this. Mechanically, this forces opponent to roll well twice (usually 4+, sometimes 3+ or 5+) instead of the parrying models owner needing to do anything. I see that the original parry rule was rarely effective, so I understand the urge to change. My group also the lowest successful to-hit roll to be the one which you can attempt to parry. This will allow it to be effective more often while not making it too strong.

Charging up buildings and ladders
Models who choose to charge up buildings or ladders lose their “strike first” ability.

This is a good rule and makes sense in the circumstances. It has been an unspoken rule in our group too.

Fighting in Hand To Hand
If both players have the same initiative then they strike at the same time.

This is in keeping with WFB of old. Good choice.

Routing
A routing warband must roll a D6 for every wyrdstone or treasure they have collected during the game whether they have chosen to route or not.  On a roll of a 1-2 that item is dropped and the last remaining opponent on the table gains the treasure instead.  Undiscovered treasures (as in ones left on the board) can be searched for post game.  Roll a D6 for every item left, on a 5 or a 6 those items are found and go to the last player on the table.

This definitely will cut down on opportunistic 'voluntary routing'. Perhaps this is a bitt to favorable to winner, but I will have to investigate how our group wants to handle this. We have allowed the last remaining player to resolve a final turn, which can allow remaining objectives and tokens to be collected.

Hired Swords and Characters
When taken out of action, a Hired Sword rolls on the Heroic injury table as opposed to the henchman table.

Blood Pact
During the post game, roll 2D6 for every Hired Sword in the Warband:  On a result of a double 6, the hired sword swears an oath in Blood to serve on as a Hero in that Warband.  If the maximum number of heroes has already been achieved, you can fire the Hero or keep the Hired Sword as normal.   Hired Swords who swear an oath do not require payment.

This is novel. Seems like a neat rule.


Morning Star and Flail
- Can only be parried by Bucklers or Large Shields not swords.

Makes sense but may be hard to remember in game.

Pistols
- Pistols do not suffer the -1 to hit penalty for firing over half range.

Slings
- Attacks from a sling are done so at +1 to the defenders armour save.
- Slings cannot use poison attacks.

We use both the above rules. We do make a not on the Eagle Eyes skill that the -1 to-hit returns to pistols if used in conjunction with that rule.

Crossbows
- Save modifier of -1 to targets armour save

This I assume is related to changing the strength reduction of armor. However, it undermines the specific advantage of firearms. I might allow guns to cause -2 modifier or do away with crossbow change.

Repeater Crossbow
- Save modifier of -1 to targets armour save

This does not seem necessary as these weapons are already good.

Toughened Leathers
- Changed from equipment to armour so can be worn by henchmen.

Good choice. We did the same but increased cost to 10gc.

Shield Types
- Buckler – Gives the bearer a Parry Save – 5pts
- Small Shield – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour Save – 5pts
- Large Shield – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour Save and Parry Save – 10pts
- Pavise – Gives the bearer a +1 Armour save and a -1 to be hit by missile weapons, but the model moves at half movement – 25gc

These all seem reasonable.

In general, I think that this is a good rule set which fixes a lot of the key issues.

Thanks for the great feedback!   

Crossbow -1 Armour
"Save modifier: Pistols are even better at penetrating armour than their Strength value of 4 suggests. A model wounded by a pistol must take its armour save with a -2 modifier." - Rulebook.

That goes for most of the blackpowder weapons as existing. Our rule makes Blackpowder weapons very strong in this regard, so we thought it would make sense to add -1 to crossbows for a little armour pen.


Parry Save
The Parry rule is one we've been bouncing about trying to find a better method for. I really really dislike the standard version. As it stands, a high WS hitting on a 3+ is more likely to be parried than a 5+ warrior.

The original idea was rolling to hit and adding your weapon skill vs the defenders roll to parry adding their weapon skill. If the defender equals the attacker then the attack is parried. The problem we had with that was people picking up their attack dice after they rolled it and forgetting the number... a likely story   

I saw a few groups using the parry save as a re-roll. This means more skilled warriors are still likely to get a hit after re-rolling instead of having their attack completely negated.

If anyone had an alternative I'm all ears as I would love a better system for it .


Repeater Crossbows
As an experienced Druchii player (the warband on Druchii.net not the cheese from Lustria), I always found the Repeater Crossbows pretty crap. -1 for firing twice, -1 for shooting over half range then any more for cover etc. For every two shots I fired, some git with a regular crossbow at S4 would happily drop an elf off a building   . If I had the choice I would take regular crossbows relying on 1 Strength 4 shot vs 2 Strength 3 shots with an additional -1 to hit. Just my opinion like. (Playing Dwarves and Shadow Warriors this time round, so not using them myself.)

In addition, the modern repeating crossbows have -1 to armour as well on the fantasy table.

Hi,

thank you for this thread. It has been a huge inspiration when writing our house rules, though I altered some of them.

When parrying, have you found it to hard when the parry save works on equal rolls and don't have to be explicit higher?

We used the same parry rule as your with the difference, that with equal rolls the parry fails and the attack resolves.

We played first with the reroll, but then the hand-to-hand combat sometimes lasted 4-5 round without anyone having hit... the parry rule with rerolls is way to good in my experience.

For climbing: I think it's a good idea allow climbing, with moving first to the bottom of the wall. Original they would have to be there at the start of the movement phase. What you think about sprinting/running towards the wall?
Our house-rule say the same as yours, so a model can first move and then climb, but he is not allowed if he sprinted towards the wall. I wrote an exception for scale sheer surfaces, though.



I would post our house-rules, too, but I only have a german ruleset, yet. Some of your rules don't really are meaningful to our gaming group. For example nobody ever used pistols yet, so I don't know if you house rule would be better or not.

Climbing Aspect
What we tend to do is allow double movement for running and charging during the normal movement. For example, if the model has a 4 inch move as standard and they needed to climb a building 2 inches high, we would allow them to run/charge to the wall at double movement, but only climb at regular movement. So they could run/charge 4 inches (double) and climb to the top of the building for the remaining 2 inches (normal move). Likewise if they were 2 inches away they could Run 2, Climb 2, then Run 2 from the top point.

Obviously they still need to roll initiative as standard.

If climbing takes part during that movement however, they lose the ability to strike first if charging. We do have another idea that the attacker only loses the strike first ability from charging up a wall/building if the defender is within 1 inch of the wall the attacker has climbed. The theory being he would be waiting to pounce as the attacker reached the top.


Parry Saves

The way we looked at the current Parry save was this:
Roll of a 3 on a 3+ to hit is cancelled by a 4
Roll of a 4 on a 4+ to hit is cancelled by a 5
Roll of a 5 on a 5+ to hit is cancelled by a 6

In my opinion at least, that makes it easier to Parry an attack from a skilled warrior than it is from a novice. I understand that the Skilled warrior is more likely to make the initial hit and he too could roll a 5 which then requires a 6 to parry, but something didn't sit right with me.


With the "Add Weaponskill Method" it brought into consideration the skill of a warrior in both attack and defence.

Basic example:
WS5 Warrior attacking rolls a 3 to attack = 3 + 5 = 8
WS3 Warrior defending rolls a 2 to parry = 2 + 3 = 5
Therefore the parry is unsuccessful.

Problem with this method was players being over eager and picking up their dice and slowed down the game when working out multiple attacks and multiple parry saves.


With the "Re-Roll Attack Method" it created a very basic and understandable mechanic where skilled warriors were more likely to hit again where as less skilled warriors were less likely. The problem with this function is it takes no consideration on the defenders skill.

None of the Parry systems above fill me with confidence really. It's a bit pick and choose.

Our group has handled the problem of die being accidentally or deliberately picked up and the to-hit roll forgotten by having people role to-hit and to-wound rolls together with different color dice.

I think I like the WS-skill method best as it is better at representing skill of the participants.

I have to agree with you Rhoaran.

It's the best method of the 3.

I have modified ours so that the Parry Saves are made before rolling to wound.

Your house rules for armor and weapons seem a bit out of wack. For crossbows you take away the strength modifier and then you give it back as an armor penetration rule. Your explanation of why this doesn't make black powder weapons more useless confuses me

Quote :

Crossbow -1 Armour
"Save modifier: Pistols are even better at penetrating armour than their Strength value of 4 suggests. A model wounded by a pistol must take its armour save with a -2 modifier." - Rulebook.

That goes for most of the blackpowder weapons as existing. Our rule makes Blackpowder weapons very strong in this regard, so we thought it would make sense to add -1 to crossbows for a little armour pen.

Um, what 'our rule' are you referring to? You know how your rules work so I assume you are correct, still from what you have presented this does not seem to be the case.
-your rules eliminate the strength modifiers. I would assume that black powder weapons are covered by this house rule, perhaps they are not since you quote the rule book.
-you give crossbows armor penetration rules (which negates the elimination of strength modifiers for that weapon).

So as far as I can tell black powder weapons still suck, only instead of just having a shorter range than crossbows and no access to fire twice, they now have the same armor penetration as crossbows, too.

If you think that repeater crossbows need an upgrade, then I wish I played you instead of the Dark Elf warbands around here.   

Hi Von Kurst,

Thanks for your reply.

I eh, have a confession to make, in that I have forever and a day, been looking at the black powder weapons wrongly... I made what I realise now was a stupid assumption that they had an additional -2 to the armour save of their intended target... Yeah I know. Our group hasn't really used them before so the method of making armour more efficient was to also encourage the use of black powder weapons.

So in hindsight, the black powder weapons will generally be S4 with -2 Armour Saves as I mistakenly saw them as being. The crossbow I would like to be S4 -1 to their armour save because it makes sense. But I dunno if I should be modifying any of the other weapons (which includes the repeater).


And Von Kurst, you would only laugh at me if we were to play. The Dice gods have forsaken me. Played my first game yesterday as shadow warriors and wounded 2 models the entire night from bow fire. It was horrendous. I also lost 2 of my guys who both got stunned in combat and subsequently had their throats cut.


Let me know what you think. And thanks for pointing out my stupidity!   

Quote :

And Von Kurst, you would only laugh at me if we were to play. The Dice gods have forsaken me. Played my first game yesterday as shadow warriors and wounded 2 models the entire night from bow fire. It was horrendous. I also lost 2 of my guys who both got stunned in combat and subsequently had their throats cut.

Well in our group we have bad luck competitions. "I had the worst luck!" "No I did!" "Are you kidding I lost..."

Still I think it is karma that you should have such horrible luck with elves. And such luck should follow all who play the pointy eared ones. Hates elves I do.

As for missing a rule or not getting something, I have played this game forever, but I still find embarrassing rules omissions or misinterpretations. Or have them pointed out to me, usually by the player that I thought wasn't all that interested in the game.

Sounds about right haha!

You'll be happy to know then I lost 2 heroes to 3 Pirate "Conscripts"... yeah the WS2 freebies!!!

Buying me some helmets and lucky rabbit feet...