Proposed Houserules - New Player Campaign

Hi guys, starting up an online campaign with my group and I was hoping you'd critique the rules we're thinking of using. I tried to keep it as simple as possible as only 2 of us have any experience with the system, and the competition level will be friendly (mostly!)
Our proposed houserules are as follows:
- TWF is -1 to hit with both weapons, a new Combat skill allows you to negate this penalty (not pistol braces, but weeping blades etc).
- Armour is 50% cost at warband generation, 75% cost thereafter.
- Heavy armour and a shield lower Initiative by -1, not Movement.
- Sling flurry attacks are at -1 strength on both attacks.
- Swords and clubs prices changed to 5gc each, same as axes.
- All warbands limited to 5 heroes to start with.
-- Dwarves, Lizardmen, Ostlanders, Orcs and other warbands with 4 starting heroes have their 0-2 selection (big uns, dwarf slayers etc) increased to 0-3.

This is what we're planning on going with, as I said we're trying to keep things as by the book as possible whilst fixing the glaringly unbalanced.
What are your thoughts?

Hey there - sounds like fun with an online campaign!

I've taken a little look on the rules, and here are my suggestions:

Faanku wrote:

- TWF is -1 to hit with both weapons, a new Combat skill allows you to negate this penalty (not pistol braces, but weeping blades etc).

This is well known, however, calculations show, that -2 to hit on the offhand is much more balanced both in the short and long run. I'd suggest that instead.

Faanku wrote:

- Armour is 50% cost at warband generation, 75% cost thereafter.

We play with Armour being half price all the time, but I can see this work as well.

Faanku wrote:

- Heavy armour and a shield lower Initiative by -1, not Movement.

Well, I'd say we already have Ithilmar Armour & Gromril Armour. With this change, Ithilmar Armour would be near useless; that would be a shame. I don't see the cause for this rule tbh.

Faanku wrote:

- Sling flurry attacks are at -1 strength on both attacks.

An interesting fix. Could actually prove to be a fine rule. I'm more in for the increase to 5gc on Slings, since they're better than Short Bows, but I'd like to know how this goes. Could run some numbers on it, but don't have the time atm.

Faanku wrote:

- Swords and clubs prices changed to 5gc each, same as axes.

Actually did the numbers on how Axes & Clubs should be priced against each other. Should be in a thread somewhere here. I think it's a bit of a shame, that they're all the same price; I like a bit diversity there. Clubs could be 5, Axes 4 (think that was the numbers), Swords are a bit more difficult, but I'd say to price them around 8 wouldn't be bad, as they have potential.

Faanku wrote:

- All warbands limited to 5 heroes to start with.
-- Dwarves, Lizardmen, Ostlanders, Orcs and other warbands with 4 starting heroes have their 0-2 selection (big uns, dwarf slayers etc) increased to 0-3.

This is the only rule I will have to argue very much against. Starting with few Heroes are a part of the balance of a warband; a huge part! Especially Lizardmen, Dwarves & Orcs usually get very strong towards the end of a campaign and will usually end up bringing it all home. Having them start so much stronger would be a huge mistake imo.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Aipha wrote:

This is well known, however, calculations show, that -2 to hit on the offhand is much more balanced both in the short and long run. I'd suggest that instead.

So the mainhand attack is made as normal and the offhand is at -2?

Aipha wrote:

We play with Armour being half price all the time, but I can see this work as well.

Aipha wrote:

With this change, Ithilmar Armour would be near useless; that would be a shame. I don't see the cause for this rule tbh.

Interesting. I would like to see armour get more play, especially early game when warbands tend to stack bodies rather than protect what they have! Movement, being so important in a lot of the scenarios means that hardly anyone takes heavy armour with a shield, so I was trying to make the combo more appealing.

Aipha wrote:

Clubs could be 5, Axes 4 (think that was the numbers), Swords are a bit more difficult, but I'd say to price them around 8 wouldn't be bad, as they have potential.

I'll have to look for that thread. Anything to stop the dual club spam!

Aipha wrote:

Starting with few Heroes are a part of the balance of a warband; a huge part!

I suspected as much. What about the 5 hero max though? Are goblins and skaven balanced around 6 heroes at warband creation, or is the limit a good move?

Oh, I forgot to mention another rule regarding henchmen groups. When the group advances you roll once for every member of the group and keep the result you want. This is to stop warbands fielding 1-man henchmen groups to maximise their chances of lad's got talent!

Faanku wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply!

Np!

Faanku wrote:

So the mainhand attack is made as normal and the offhand is at -2?

Excactly. This also have the effect that it makes WS even better. Most henchmen hit stuff on 6s with the offhand on this rule, however, with a WS increase they suddenly hit on a 5+, meaning that twice as many offhand attacks go in. This also makes sense, as a higher WS model should be more capable of using two weapons, while the penalty on the main hand doesn't make sense on a model with 4 attacks, being worse at hitting with the main hand, simply because he is using another weapon as well.

Faanku wrote:

Interesting. I would like to see armour get more play, especially early game when warbands tend to stack bodies rather than protect what they have! Movement, being so important in a lot of the scenarios means that hardly anyone takes heavy armour with a shield, so I was trying to make the combo more appealing.

Can understand that. We usually make armour worth it for Heroes by the permanent 50% reduction in price, meaning that most our Heroes get armour rather early. Heavy Armour/Shield combo is very important for Dwarves, who doesn't get the Movement penalty, which would be much worse than an Initiative penalty. It's more cool that they have that rule, than everyone would get it. Ithilmar Armour can counter it, but is of course expensive. By the way, our reduction is only on Heavy & Light Armour, not Ithilmar & Gromril (or Shields & Helmets).

Faanku wrote:

I'll have to look for that thread. Anything to stop the dual club spam!

Found it. However, wasn't for Axe/Club it seems. I'm just almost 100% sure I did those calculations, and believe it ended up with Axes on 4gc and Clubs on 5gc. Else I can redo them one of the days if I can't find them.

Faanku wrote:

I suspected as much. What about the 5 hero max though? Are goblins and skaven balanced around 6 heroes at warband creation, or is the limit a good move?

Well, Goblins are imo., Skaven... meh. Their Night Runners are crap, but it's still Heroes. 5 Heroes max will make exploration a lot harder and end up with your warbands probably losing more than they win. Would make losing a Hero in the game so much harder, and dead henchmen will become a much bigger problem. I really don't think there's any problem with a max of 6 Heroes; haven't encountered it before. What is the reasoning behind?

Faanku wrote:

Oh, I forgot to mention another rule regarding henchmen groups. When the group advances you roll once for every member of the group and keep the result you want. This is to stop warbands fielding 1-man henchmen groups to maximise their chances of lad's got talent!

This is very interesting. Let me know how it goes! Can only believe it will make it easier to get Lad's as well as providing stronger henchmen groups. I think I would only make groups of 5

Just to clarify when you say +0/-2 when TWF; do you play that 6s automatically hit, or do rolls needing 7 or higher automatically fail?
If the latter, lower WS fighter couldn't gain a second attack in higher WS opponents, which is pretty a pretty interesting approach to the problem.

Faanku wrote:

Just to clarify when you say +0/-2 when TWF; do you play that 6s automatically hit, or do rolls needing 7 or higher automatically fail?
If the latter, lower WS fighter couldn't gain a second attack in higher WS opponents, which is pretty a pretty interesting approach to the problem.

A WS2 warrior against a WS5 warrior or higher would not be able to hit with the offhand. And that is excactly one of the points - your opponent is simply too skilled. Again, making WS better still. This actually puts a lot more value into WS than usually, where the difference is little whether you have 3 or 5 WS (still a difference though). Even moreso when you have a WS7 warrior, who must be considered one of the most skilled warriors in Mordheim, or even a WS9 warrior (very few of those), who cannot even be hit by WS4 offhands!

Weclome to the forum. It is always interesting to see how others see the game.

Quote :

- Sling flurry attacks are at -1 strength on both attacks.

See
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t8036-quickshot-and-sling-and-the-faq  

I am not a fan of sling nerf house rules.  The Rules Review revisions should be plenty of 'balance'.

Quote :

Dwarves, Lizardmen, Ostlanders, Orcs and other warbands with 4 starting heroes have their 0-2 selection (big uns, dwarf slayers etc) increased to 0-3.

Aipha wrote:

This is the only rule I will have to argue very much against. Starting with few Heroes are a part of the balance of a warband; a huge part! Especially Lizardmen, Dwarves & Orcs usually get very strong towards the end of a campaign and will usually end up bringing it all home. Having them start so much stronger would be a huge mistake imo.

Obviously I would also argue against sling nerfs, but +1 to this.  And I would leave the 6 hero warbands alone as well.  They are low leadership, high number warbands that need the extra hero to boost what would otherwise be a low income.  

Although I have no idea what purpose 4 heroes only in Ostlanders (or Araby Tomb Robbers) serves other than to make those warbands unpopular.  Go right ahead and up those to 5 heroes to start with my blessing.  

And what's up with henchmen?  What are you trying to fix and why go about it in such a way that is likely to be more broken?

 Obviously I don't have your group's experiences or prejudices with the game, but I am a bit baffled by the fix the 1 member henchmen group idea...

Thanks for the reply, Von Kurst! I'm still pleasantly surprised that Mordheim has such active forums this far after release.

Von Kurst wrote:

I am not a fan of sling nerf house rules.  The Rules Review revisions should be plenty of 'balance'

The main reason for the sling nerf is bad experience with skaven and sisters sling spam; it's effective, but neither fun to play nor play against. I suppose I trust this group more than previous ones though, so maybe we'll drop the penalty - though 2 S2 shots is still a decent option.
Also, what is the Rules Review? I am unfamiliar with it.

Von Kurst wrote:

And I would leave the 6 hero warbands alone as well.  They are low leadership, high number warbands that need the extra hero to boost what would otherwise be a low income.

Again, this is mainly down to skaven warbands quickly rushing ahead with their extra hero in the core games I've played. Maybe they just got lucky and my opinion is wrongfully jaded, but when combined with sling spam they used to grow extremely quickly!

Von Kurst wrote:

And what's up with henchmen?  What are you trying to fix and why go about it in such a way that is likely to be more broken?

This is a rule suggested by someone else that I was considering using, but I think I may drop it. Its intent was to prevent single man henchmen groups to maximise chances at TLGT, but I don't really think that's too big an issue.

Aipha wrote:

A WS2 warrior against a WS5 warrior or higher would not be able to hit with the offhand...

Thanks for the clarification. We decided to stick with the -1 on all attacks rule for now, but we'll consider changing this once the newer players have some experience with the system under their belts.

Wow I have never heard of anyone experiencing Sister sling spam. Skaven sling spam is of course the common refrain. The rules review is the 2005 Rules Review which resulted in the old online rulebook.

See here--
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=02B7C1D22EA7D959&id=2B7C1D22EA7D959%21153&authkey=%21AByFcnV1qMjZdzg

Faanku wrote:

TWF is -1 to hit with both weapons, a new Combat skill allows you to negate this penalty (not pistol braces, but weeping blades etc).

In my group we have used this for years and it works fairly well for encouraging handweapon/shield and discouraging dual weapon combos.

Faanku wrote:

Armour is 50% cost at warband generation, 75% cost thereafter.

We used this for a bit and then abandoned it. Armor *was* expensive, and we found that making it less expensive removed the flavour of it being a medieval post-apocalyptic game. YMMV.

Faanku wrote:

Heavy armour and a shield lower Initiative by -1, not Movement.

Assuming dwarfs get to ignore this rule like they ignore the -1 move, this should be fine. Be prepared for striking last, not climbing, and falling a lot more if you have a shield.

Faanku wrote:

Sling flurry attacks are at -1 strength on both attacks.

This is something of a hot-button topic for me because it invokes the aura of my least-favourite gamer to play against. The "This is too strong against me, it has to be nerfed!" player that wants to nerf things before they even learn the game properly. Slings are not broken, it is just the way people play against them that needs fixing.

Slings are one of the crappiest ranged weapons in the game and they have only two things going for them. 1) they are cheap. 2) They can double-shot at close range. If you are dying to sling-spam YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG! If they are turtling then just stand out of range and kill them with your bows. Pretty much *everyone* gets bows, even chaos and undead. They don't get any shooting skills to back them up until they get a TLGT hero with sniper skills, but even so, you can shoot them and they can't shoot you, forcing them to abandon the turtle-tower. That is assuming that you don't have enough terrain on the table and are giving both you and them clear lines of fire. If there is enough terrain (i.e. enough to cover the board, it is a ruined *city* after all) then he won't be able to get the numbers of slings in play needed to make a difference.

And that is only at the start of the game, after that it just gets worse for the poor sling. Basically, it can't use special ammo and you can't use QuickShot with it, so it is largely useless to heroes except as a backup weapon. As an illustration of just how sucky the weapon is, in over a decade of gaming with multiple groups I have *never* seen a hero take Weapons Expert and go "Yay! Finally I can use slings!"*. And that is because they are not an intrinsically strong weapon. Heck, in my group we allow quickshot to work with slings *and* allow them[/rant].

For purposes of Vested Interest calibration, I mostly play Marienbugers or Orcs, so this is coming from the point of view of someone *receiving* sling-spam more than using it.

In fairness, it is easy to see how this impression of a strong sling starts. Slings are cheap and Skaven have high numbers so the tactic of 'lots of Skaven with lots of slings' is easy to discover and it is not until later, when people know the game better, that they discover the counters.

TLDR: Slings are fine. Do not nerf. LTP .

Faanku wrote:

Swords and clubs prices changed to 5gc each, same as axes.

Consider giving shields and bucklers +1 AS in close combat. This, combined with the cheaper armor, will make axes more desirable in themselves because there will *be* more armor for them to cut through. If you still need to increase clubs perhaps make clubs 3 gold with no specials and Maces/Hammers 5 gold with Concussion. For swords, it may not seem like it at the start of the game when everyone has only 1 Attack, but when most people have 3 or 4, Expert Swordsman really makes swords worth the extra 5 gold. It also makes swords how they were: expensive, but very deadly in the hands of the skilled. If you still need a buff to swords to make them worth 10 gold, consider giving them +1S vs enemies with no chest armor. This will also help armor be more attractive.

Faanku wrote:

All warbands limited to 5 heroes to start with.

Not needed, but whatever makes you happy. Be aware that Skaven are one of the only warbands where there Youngblood type heroes are *in no way shape or form* better than TLGT heroes and get swapped out at the earliest opportunity. Starting with 6 is strong, but it *really* isn't *that* strong because they aren't all keeper-heroes. I am blanking on other warbands with 6 starting heroes though.

Faanku wrote:

Dwarves, Lizardmen, Ostlanders, Orcs and other warbands with 4 starting heroes have their 0-2 selection (big uns, dwarf slayers etc) increased to 0-3.

Dwarfs, Lizardmen, and Orcs are all top-tier warbands. I am not certain they need a buff, but whatever makes your group happy. As an Orc player, *I* wouldn't complain :p. Ostlanders are only mid-tier so they could probably be buffed without too much danger.

*I tell a lie - there was this on guy that did it because he didn't know any better and dropped it pretty early, and one other guy that did it for theme-reasons. Even so, only two in over ten years, none of which were good decisions tactically.

Lord 0 wrote:

If you still need to increase clubs perhaps make clubs 3 gold with no specials and Maces/Hammers 5 gold with Concussion.

This I would see as a fine fix as well!

Lord 0 wrote:

If you still need a buff to swords to make them worth 10 gold, consider giving them +1S vs enemies with no chest armor. This will also help armor be more attractive.

Wauw without the 50% price reduction on armour, this would really get out of hand. A one-handed Halberd with Parry, rolling on the Bladed crit table? I would strongly advise against this! Especially considering warbands like Possessed, Undeads, Lizardmen (mainly Skinks, unless Scaly Skin would be considered armour). This would be devastating. I already equip most of my Heroes with Swords, if they have a one-handed weapon; don't think I'd pick any other weapon with this rule. I know that it would encourage armour quite a lot, but I just believe this is way too strong, especially against those certain warbands. And why would it be different than Axes against unarmoured foes?

Don't forget that Toughened Leathers are chest armor, and with his current house-rules they will cost 3 gold at start and 4 gold thereafter. Pretty much the only opponents that will be unarmored will be casters, beasts, and utterly expendable henchmen that aren't even worth the 4 gold to get armor for.

Just by-the-by, Toughened Leathers doesn't stack with a shield, but it *will* stack with everything else e.g. daggers, so that also helps discourage the club/dagger dual-wield spam.

Lord 0 wrote:

Don't forget that Toughened Leathers are chest armor, and with his current house-rules they will cost 3 gold at start and 4 gold thereafter. Pretty much the only opponents that will be unarmored will be casters, beasts, and utterly expendable henchmen that aren't even worth the 4 gold to get armor for.

Just by-the-by, Toughened Leathers doesn't stack with a shield, but it *will* stack with everything else e.g. daggers, so that also helps discourage the club/dagger dual-wield spam.

If you are talking from his house rules, it's a bit better, but I don't know any warbands that start with Toughened Leathers. Also, I probably wouldn't reduce the price on those either; I know we haven't. Anyway, the worthless beasts are still worth something to some warbands; Warhounds for Beastmen are essential imo., since they can keep up with sprinting Gors & the Centigor. Also, if you don't have enough of them, you have to use Ungors, who cannot use armour either (can't remember if Toughened Leathers are only for Heroes, I believe they are RAW, but a lot have house rules to allow henchmen to use them, which I don't see a problem in). But Ungors are just a bit meh, compared to a Warhound. And losing too many of these expendable (that's actually almost the name of my newest Beastmen warbands named after a horrible movie I'm sure you've heard of) units will result in an early rout test for the manly beasts. So a simple rule change like that can really change the game a lot, which you should be careful with, since the rules are actually not that imbalanced.