(Proposed house rule) Amalgamating to wound and injury rolls

Hi all,

Me and a couple of friends are getting back into Mordheim. One of my friends commented that having to make 3-4 rolls to resolve one warrior's attack seemed a bit clunky, so we brainstormed a way to remove injury rolls and critical hit rolls from the game by merging them into the 'to wound' roll.

Basically, the score you roll on the to wound roll that removes your opponent's last wound determines if they are knocked down, stunned or taken OOA. If you rolled the exact score you needed to wound (ie if you needed a four and rolled a four), then your opponent is knocked down. If you beat the required score by one (ie you needed 4 but rolled a 5), then your opponent is stunned. If you beat the required score by 2 or more ( ie if you needed a 4 and rolled a 6)then they are taken OOA.

If using this system there would be no critical hits.

So what does everyone think? It should speed up play, but I'm not sure how balanced it is. I like that it makes higher strength attacks more lethal, compared to the current system where a dagger is just as likely to get an OOA result as a greatsword, or a 10 inch fall...

Andrew

Well, if this house-rule works for your gaming-group, cool!
Otherwise i would stick to the good old system given by the rulebook. I know, its time-consuming, but on the other hand me and my friends got so used to it over the years, and imho it makes it more exciting also.

Welcome to the forum!

I also recommend sticking to the normal rules. There could be big repercussions to balance for a change like this.

It is funny how the perception of speed of gameplay changes. When Mordheim came out we were so excited about how quickly you could play a game.

I don't know about balance, but it also interacts with special rules like the Dwarfs' rule that they are only OoA on a 6.

The critical hits were what drew me to the game all those years ago.

Your idea may be perfect for your group and others who are looking for ways to speed up the game, if so enjoy.

This is certainly an interesting and unique proposal. I'd be interested to hear what sort of effect it has on balance. At first glance, it would make strength-increasing weapons more viable, but the math might still work out in favor of dual-wielding to get extra chances at rolling that 6. For sure armor is going to become more valuable due to a 6 to wound ignoring it 2/3 of the time. And high T warbands like Orks or Beastmen will also get a boost from this. As Von Kurst mentioned, the Dwarf special rule might need tweaking with this system. I'd play a game or two with some different warband and weapon configurations and see how it goes. If you like it, awesome; let us know! If not, you've only lost an afternoon to testing.

Hi Andrew,

If a warrior needs to score a 6 to wound (S3 vs T5) would this mean that he could only knock down his opponent? This means it would be impossible to take such an opponent out of action, unless they were already knocked down or stunned. And shooting a warrior whose toughness is even one point higher than missile weapon strength means shooting can only slow down such opponents and never remove them from battle. This feels unbalancing to me.

Cheers!

Thanks for the comments everyone. I think I'll have to run a bit of playtest, but I hadn't thought of the more extreme situations that Thespian points out. I'd like to still keep some small chance that low strength attacks could take out high toughness targets.

Hmmm, perhaps a higher strength attack should just give a bonus on the injury roll? I'll have to run some tests and see. Watch this space.

Andrew

Experimenting with house rules is fine and can be fun. I would ask though why would you bother making a higher Strength attack give a bonus to the injury roll? You are no longer trying to solve the original 'problem' that you identified which was too many dice rolls. Therefore you potentially are making a change for no reason which could still lead to a cascade of unplanned side-effects. I am not saying that people should not experiment because it definitely is fun. Just beware of the trap that some people fall into of judging the Mordheim rules as a whole because of some house rules that don't fit quite right and knock everything else out of kilter.

I wouldn't exactly consider shooting someone who is T4 with a bow "extreme". The very first thing I thought about was "what if you need a 5 or 6 to wound?" The only way you could take someone out of action is if you have at least the same strength as the target has toughness.