What justifies a 20 warband size over mercenaries?

In the case of Orcs, you have animosity, which is more than made up for by T4 but it only applies to henchmen. Throw in the option to have an immortal troll and cheap squigs and goblins and you have a powerhouse warband that can also be tremendously shooty. Why should orcs be allowed to have 20 models? I see no huge weakness needing to be made up for....


Let's look at Skaven= great initiative, good speed, sling spam, weeping blades, a rat ogre... balanced by weak leadership. So why 5 more models than mercenaries?

What do mercs have over these two bands? Blackpowder? Heavy Armor? We know Armor is sub-par in Mordheim and blackpowder while situational is not often taken due to cost.

I'd like to have my POV proven wrong by some mordheim vets...

Skaven do not have access to many hired swords.

Humans generally have access to lots of hired swords. Merchant. Tilian Marksman. There are some excellent choices out there that are official and which are often no brainers for warbands that can afford them due to their usefulness. There are even more choices once you expand into unofficial but balanced hired swords which have been made by GW or fans.

I think the warbandlimit is often also an expression of the fluff. Skaven and Orks (especially with Goblins) are supposed to outnumber their foes, so they get to have 20.
Witchhunters on the other hand are an exclusive bunch, therefore they are officially limited to 12, (even if I think they should be able to get 15).

Interus wrote:

In the case of Orcs, you have animosity, which is more than made up for by T4 but it only applies to henchmen. Throw in the option to have an immortal troll and cheap squigs and goblins and you have a powerhouse warband that can also be tremendously shooty. Why should orcs be allowed to have 20 models? I see no huge weakness needing to be made up for....

I believe Animosity is quite a deal. I agree that Orcs are tough, and by far one of the most deadliest warbands, when you reach 20+ members. However, those insane henchmen you have might bash each other's skulls in, instead of your enemy's. With only 6 Heroes to take care of them, they might quickly jump on top of each other.

Interus wrote:

What do mercs have over these two bands? Blackpowder? Heavy Armor? We know Armor is sub-par in Mordheim and blackpowder while situational is not often taken due to cost.

I'd like to have my POV proven wrong by some mordheim vets...

I will have a hard time proving you wrong, since I agree to a certain point. You'll fail 2-3 animosity rolls on average pr. round with 14 animosity (Halfling Cookbook & 1 Troll) models, so that can gimp you quite a lot, especially if there's no Hero staying behind to make sure they do not attack each other. However, that still only puts them behind to a 18-19 model warband, which is still very strong. I'd argue that Orcs are on par with Lizardmen & Dwarves, who are still in front of Mercenaries. Mercenaries have Heavy Armour/Gromril Armour (which you will need later on), access to a lot of equipment and access to a lot more Hired Swords (Orcs only have access to three: Pit Fighter, Warlock & Ogre Bodyguard). With some great Lad's rolls however, Orcs can still become better shooters than Mercenaries. And they still beat most Mercenaries in close combat as well.

As a hapless orc player of some repute I am always amazed to find out the orcs are supposed to be a tough warband to defeat.

My response to why orcs need 20 is play me, that will explain everything.

Starting with only 4 heroes can be a hardship no matter how many henchmen you can buy.  No extra shard if wyrdstone like the Dwarfs, not hard to kill beyond T4.  T4 only seems like an advantage for the first couple of games unless your opponents don't have many S4 weapons or are unwilling to invest in them, love those guys.  I always see gobbos and squigs as free experience for my human heroes and a waste of money for my orcs.

I also see numbers as a disadvantage for my orcs, since the henchmen will fail more animosity tests and so I will have a number of my overwhelming horde just standing around if not beating on each other.

Skaven will always be L7, which is huge if you can kill enough of them.  This is occasionally a bother, but since there are a lot of them, there are a lot of targets. When I play Clan Pestilens (15 members) I always miss those extra 5 minions to postpone break tests.

Humans have a great selection of weapons, warriors and hired swords.  They can manipulate the post battle sequence nearly as well as Dwarfs with the right equipment and hired swords.

Also +1 to Grimscull's point about fluff.

The orcs are often less tactically flexible than the other warbands. A side-effect of animosity is that, in order to avoid it, you often end up having to cluster. This can make certain scenarios bothersome.

Also, given that the optimum number for a warband is either 9 or 12 (depending on your priorities), a maximum of 15 - let alone 20 - isn't really that big of a deal.

Another massive advantage of being human is multiplayer alliances, there are many different human warband's and you will be able to team up with most of them skaven and orc will often rarely come across another Skaven or Orc (although they can ally with any other evil warband in our group we have a couple of purists who won't make the alliance even thou there is nothing in the rules stopping them ie vampire player saying those lesser races are beneath them.)