The loss of a leader

Hi,

Just something I've been wondering about in general and instead of taking another thread off topic I figured I'd start a new one for this, but is it really that bad to have your leader slain and replaced with someone else? When compared to their standard henchmen or low heroes only the vampire out of all the leaders is actually "worth" more than its 20 experience, and that's the one leader the rules permits you to buy back. The skaven assassin breaks about even against a night runner, while the orc boss is the third most worthy of his experience but he is still behind a regular orc boy that gets promoted at the first advance. All other leaders have much less bonuses than the 8 advances they've got over 0-exp-guys suggests they should have.

What you really lose out on when your leadier dies is their large selection of skills, and that you'll have to wait for a henchman to get promoted to fill the new 6th spot that opens up. Does this really have that much impact on a campaign? Where I've played there's even been talk of purposefully trying to get your leader killed, regardless of how unfluffy that might be, in order to get someone who'll be turning into a better warrior in the long run. Losing your best warrior right off the bat could hamstring you pretty badly but some people seem inclined to try.

Edit: Looking a little closer I see how some warbands will permanently lose a skill table if their leader dies. Mercenaries and the possessed will lose academics, strength (marienburg) or shooting (middenheim) and orcs will lose speed, unless they've already gotten a promoted henchman who've been given that exclusive table. Losing all possibility of picking these skills can of course be a heavy blow to a warband.

It really all depends on the warband, and how lucky you've been with advancing them vs their compatriots. A Witch Hunter or Mercenary Captain dying isn't as much of a blow as losing an Assassin Adept (unless you get lucky with an advancement roll, there goes your leadership 7 and your best armor cracker). Or in the case of Carnival of Chaos or Possessed, sure the new leader gets to become a spell caster, but unless its a promoted henchman, they don't have access to any of the spellcasting related academic skills.

Losing access to a skill table means you lose access to, not only those skills, but also the *synergy* you get from those skills. Losing access to Academic skills means your leader loses access to Hunch and Tactician, which is a terrible blow right there. As whiskeytango points out, if your leader is the caster, losing access to Mind Focus and the like will hurt as well.

Also, TLGT heroes can only really be made into ideal snipers - they cannot be made into ideal melee fighters. To be an ideal melee fighter you need access to Combat, Strength, and Speed. To be an ideal sniper you only need Shooting and speed. Add to that that TLGT heroes are really to hard to replace to be risked in melee combat and (generally) your warband goes from having 1/6 obligate snipers to 1/3 obligate snipers - 1/2 if you only start with 4 heroes. This may not bother the ranged-focused players, but it can bother the hell out of anyone else.

It was for that reason we implimented the hero replacement rules and (to a lesser extent) the All Heroes Get The Special Table Too interpretation.

Quote :

Just something I've been wondering about in general and instead of taking another thread off topic I figured I'd start a new one for this

Excellent choice

There are those players who sack their leader because he or she is crap in their opinion. And there are those players to whom the death of a leader is a horrible blow. Both types exist in the same pool of players, although I have never met any of the "I'm going to replace my leader at the first opportunity!" guys in person. Our group is fully in the 'I've lost my leader and the world will end' category.

I seem to lose my leader around fifty percent of my campaigns (the actual percentage may be lower, but it FEELS like 50% to me.) My group loves to kill leaders and would rebel if we had some namby-pamby rule about replacing them. We also banned Hunch, Tactician and Mind Focus, so we don't miss those skills.

Lord 0 wrote:

Also, TLGT heroes can only really be made into ideal snipers - they cannot be made into ideal melee fighters. To be an ideal melee fighter you need access to Combat, Strength, and Speed. To be an ideal sniper you only need Shooting and speed.

While, for some warbands, it may be hard to get a Combat Manual, that is a very valid option for optimizing a Melee TLGT Hero. Can't seem to get it with my Beastmen due to low Leadership, but Dwarves and Elves have a somewhat easy time getting it. But yes, I agree that a designated Sniper Hero is easier to get from a Laddie.

Having just lost my Witch Hunter Captain, I would say that the biggest loss that comes from the death of your leader might be a financial one. If you haven't had much luck on gathering Wyrdstone, then losing around 100 gc worth of equipment can create a nasty hole to climb back out of.

What happens if a hero is promoted to take over the leader role. Is the place in his hero class available to a new hero?
I.e. a Black Orc warband may only have:
1 Black Orc Boss
0-2 Black Orc heroes
0-2 Youngunz'

So if the Boss dies one of the four other heroes becomes the leader, can I buy a new hero or am I limited to those four?

Egon, you'll want to review "Starting a warband" - "other heroes", along with "Campaigns" - "death of a leader" in the Mordheim rulebook.

There was a rules review (information included in the Mordheim Living Rulebook) which makes an exception for the Undead warband, however generally you cannot purchase another leader model for your warband, and are still restricted by the maximum number of other hero types to be purchased.

Still, remember that you can gain additional heroes through the Lad's Got Talent advance.

There are a couple Bands that can replace the Leader if dead, Undead and Lizardmen, off hand. But almost all the other Bands can not replace the Captain Level character. If the leader dies or retires, the next highest Leadership member gets the "Leader" benefit, but still remains what category he/she is. Example, a Youngblood can be leader, but he's still a Youngblood. And you can only have 2 Youngbloods. The Youngblood doesn't change into "Captain"

I hope this helps.

Wyldhunt & Shadowphx are right; whichever fighter takes over as leader, they stay the same class, in the same way a henchman promoted to TLGT Hero remains the same class. However, the hero taking over as leader gains the 'Leader' special rule & access to the original leader's equipment. Plus, the previously mentioned exceptions of Undead & Lizardmen, where the leader can be repurchased, for fluff reasons.

As I recall, the Rules Review added in some provisions for new leaders in warbands that have a magician-leader, like the Cult of the Possessed. Losing access to a wizard would be a massive blow (both to effectiveness & fun of play), so they basically gave the incoming leader spells as an upgrade option. A link to that rules review for anyone who doesn't have it to hand:
http://broheim.net/downloads/rules/Errata.pdf