Blood dragons

Dear members,

In the past I have read the rules for the blood dragon warband. But I can't seem to find them anymore. Does anyone have a link?

And another question...do you guys think the rules are any good? As in balanced for a campaign? Are they worth taking over the normal undead warband? I just hav ea dislike for the dregs in the normal undead warband.

Regards,

Rory

I've seen them before also but cannot find them this morning. (I'm on my phone which limits my search options unfortunately.)

Our group found them too be rather powerful and a little broken, the player who was playing them got hammered by everyone (brutal ambushes where the goal was to gang up and kill them down to the last man). there is a slightly modified version on the google drive of mordheim resources in the mordheim resources section of the forums they are under experimental warbands.
The one our player used was basically the same except it had more bloodline abilities and warband specific artifacts. the blood dragons are really bad if they are allowed the additional vampire skills.

Phantasmal,

I have that skydrive, but cannot find the blood dragon rules there. Are they any good then? Or not worth the bother.

hopefully this link works
blood dragons

Ya gotta love a warband that comes with a 'broken' warning. I should think that would answer your question about how good they are Rory. Yes, yes they are broken, overpowered and horribly written, the warband says so.

I was going to add my groups horror stories, but why pile on. Awful warband.

Yes I thought so, but was just asking, because I thought there might have been another more balanced version of the rules out there. I just like the concept very much. On another note, any of you guys have experience with the lizardmen warband? A friend of mine is playing them in our current campaign and I have to say. The 5+ hide save which cannot be reduced, the extra bite attack and the ld test with 3 x d6 feels OP to me. Am I the only one?

Oh I wish when I played Lizardmen, I played in your group. My group are so used to killing the lizards its hard for me to keep heroes alive.

All of those things you cite are true, but Saurus warriors are slow. Despite their armor they are easy targets at distance and high strength warriors with lightning reflexes are their bane. Any Amazon warband worth its salt will wipe the floor with lizards. Normal initiative and no armor save weapons (shudder).

There is another, probably much more balanced version of the Blood Dragons to be found under the Unofficial section of the Drive, in the Bloodlines warband. Essentially it provides some changes/special rules for your vampire and/or warband based on the bloodline, and then adds some new bloodline skills. I've copied the rules here in case anyone wants to reference/discuss them. I would probably not have a problem with an opponent using these rules.


Changes to the Undead warband:

- Martial Prowess: Blood Dragon Vampires start with +2 Weapon Skill.
- Eternally Brave: Blood Dragon Vampires may re-roll the first failed Rout test (if the Vampire is not out of action).
- Honour: Blood Dragon Vampires may not attempt to break away from combat or Voluntarily Rout (if the Vampire is not out of action).
- Warrior Code: Blood Dragon Vampires cannot use Magic (even with the Book of the Dead from TC #11).
- Men-at-arms: Dregs start with +1 Weapon Skill.

New skills (Special skills for the Vampire only)

Red Fury
The Vampire enters battle with a savage and unstoppable bloodlust.
The Vampire has +1 Attack (this does not count toward his Maximum).

Blade Master
Superbly trained by some of the best swordsmen throughout history the Vampire can easily turn aside the blows of his enemies.
The Vampire needs only to tie the roll ‘to hit’ in order to parry (this means he can parry a roll of 6). He can also re-roll a failed parry (but cannot re-roll a re-roll, nor can he parry more than one attack).

Heart Piercing
Using a combination of strength and speed the Vampire can easily find a gap in his opponent’s defences.
The Vampire may re-roll missed attacks when charging.

Strength of Steel
Such is the Vampire’s martial prowess that he is able to strike at the precise moment when it will cause most damage.
The Vampire has +1 Strength (this does not count toward his maximum) in the turn he charges.

Plus 2 weapon skill? So he would start with weapon skill 6? @ Von kurst, thats the problem. I could not kill a single fing lizardman, even with my strenght 6 attacks from my 2handed weapons. Because he has the 5+ save that cannot be lowered.

rory wrote:

@ Von kurst, thats the problem. I could not kill a single fing lizardman, even with my strenght 6 attacks from my 2handed weapons. Because he has the 5+ save that cannot be lowered.

It cannot be lowered to less than 6+, except by crits ignoring armour saves, Axes, Pistols, Handguns & Rifles. So there are a few possibilities.

If I remember correctly it was a 5+ and could not be lowered?

Scaly skin: " All Lizardmen have a natural save thanks to their thick scales. Saurus have a 5+ save and Skinks have a 6+. This save cannot be modified beyond 6 due to Strength modifiers but any result of ‘no save’ on the injury chart will negate this 6+ save. Light armor adds +1 to the save, as does the addition of a shield."

Does this mean that the scaly skin save can only be ignored when you roll a crit that ignores armour saves? Is this what they mean by 'no save' on the injury chart or what?

So a 2handed axe which would hit him (in case of my beastmen) with S6 could not bring the 5+ save down? But a crit from a normal axe could?

That is correct on both counts. No armor save on the critical table is what they mean, and a DHW will not eliminate the scaly save, but a sufficiently strong axe will.

However, in my group, we add the cost of a double-handed weapon to the cost of an axe, sword, or mace to gain its special rules - there is no such thing as simply a DHW, there is only DH sword, axe, or mace/hammer.

Lord 0 wrote:

However, in my group, we add the cost of a double-handed weapon to the cost of an axe, sword, or mace to gain its special rules - there is no such thing as simply a DHW, there is only DH sword, axe, or mace/hammer.

Isn't this a bit 'over the top'? A DH Sword with parry for 25GC or a DH Mace with concussion for a mere 18GC? I would find that too good tbh.

rory wrote:

So a 2handed axe which would hit him (in case of my beastmen) with S6 could not bring the 5+ save down? But a crit from a normal axe could?

It could, but only to a 6+. An axe-wielding Hero with S4 would remove the save completely though.

Aipha wrote:

Lord 0 wrote:

However, in my group, we add the cost of a double-handed weapon to the cost of an axe, sword, or mace to gain its special rules - there is no such thing as simply a DHW, there is only DH sword, axe, or mace/hammer.

Isn't this a bit 'over the top'? A DH Sword with parry for 25GC or a DH Mace with concussion for a mere 18GC? I would find that too good tbh.

*Shrug*. The best I can tell you is that it hasn't reduced the fun in the game at all and that there is still plenty of variation in weapons selected.

Lord 0 wrote:

Aipha wrote:

Lord 0 wrote:

However, in my group, we add the cost of a double-handed weapon to the cost of an axe, sword, or mace to gain its special rules - there is no such thing as simply a DHW, there is only DH sword, axe, or mace/hammer.

Isn't this a bit 'over the top'? A DH Sword with parry for 25GC or a DH Mace with concussion for a mere 18GC? I would find that too good tbh.

*Shrug*. The best I can tell you is that it hasn't reduced the fun in the game at all and that there is still plenty of variation in weapons selected.

Like smashing things with a DH Hammer isn't fun enough without special rules

Aipha wrote:

It cannot be lowered to less than 6+, except by crits ignoring armour saves, Axes, Pistols, Handguns & Rifles. So there are a few possibilities.

Aipha wrote:

rory wrote:

So a 2handed axe which would hit him (in case of my beastmen) with S6 could not bring the 5+ save down? But a crit from a normal axe could?

It could, but only to a 6+. An axe-wielding Hero with S4 would remove the save completely though.

Um, what? What rules are you playing by? A crit may result in a no armor save or a weapon may allow no armor saves but the weapons you quote merely have various versions of armor piercing which is -1 to the save modifier not 'no armor save'.

Rule book p.25 wrote:

SPECIAL RULE
Cutting edge: An axe has an extra save modifier of -1, so a model with Strength 4 using an axe has a -2 save modifier when he hits an opponent in hand-to-hand combat.

A warrior with a scaly skin save will still save versus a St 4 axe hit with a roll of 6 unless the hit resulted in a no armor save crit.

Von Kurst wrote:

Um, what? What rules are you playing by? A crit may result in a no armor save or a weapon may allow no armor saves but the weapons you quote merely have various versions of armor piercing which is -1 to the save modifier not 'no armor save'.

They are discussing Lord 0's house rule that combines the special rules of swords, axes, and hammers with double-handed weapons for a combined cost.

Based on the quoted version of the special rule, it only stipulates that the save cannot be fully negated by strength bonuses, which would mean that a strength bonus could push it to 6+, at which point armor piercing can negate it entirely, because it doesn't say it cannot be entirely negated by AP, only by strength modifiers. 

Easy solution (and frankly one that makes MUCH more sense): house rule scaly skin into a normal freakin' armor save without any additional special rules about whether/how it can be negated.

@NoisyAssassin--Shenanigans.  There is no coherency of language throughout the rules quoted and...

Rule book p.20 wrote:

Some weapons also confer a bonus to the user’s Strength, making it more likely that any hits will pierce the opponent’s armour. These bonuses are given in the Weapons & Armour section.

Note that these so called armor piercing bonuses are bonuses to Strength which makes them less useful to the whole 'not a strength bonus' thing.

NoisyAssassin wrote:

Based on the quoted version of the special rule, it only stipulates that the save cannot be fully negated by strength bonuses, which would mean that a strength bonus could push it to 6+, at which point armor piercing can negate it entirely, because it doesn't say it cannot be entirely negated by AP, only by strength modifiers.

Lizardmen Warband wrote:

Scaly Skin: All Lizardmen have a natural save thanks to their thick scales. Saurus have a 5+ save and Skinks have a 6+. This save cannot be modified beyond 6 due to Strength modifiers but any result of ‘no save’ on the injury chart will negate this 6+ save.

I agree with NoisyAssasin's interpretation, hence why I brought up the armour piercing/penetrating weapons. Also, interesting that you can roll 'no save' on the 'injury chart'; wonder what that is.

There was a thread about this once, but I did some searching and could not find it again!

Anyway, this thread has taken the wrong turn. My main point was "it can be reduced to less than 5+ and I think we can all agree on that at least. From a balance perspective, I think it's a great small little buff, that you can deal with the Lizzies with armour penetrating weapons, as otherwise they are much too strong (I play them quite a lot, and know they can be devastating enough already without a 6+ save no matter what (barring crits)). If we should continue, it probably shouldn't be in this thread, which was about Blood Dragons

Well it comes to this: the lizardmen have this save which is very hard to get trough, an extra bite attack and the LD save with 3 dice. It is very hard to rout them. What do you guys advice a beastmen player? Pure high strenght just does not seem to cut it. What about maces?

And before you say, target the skinks...he places them high up somewhere, where it is very hard for my low I beasties to get to.