The Possessed Bows\Short Bow Pricing

So I'm staring at the warband equipment chart for Possessed and the entire time I'm thinking to myself "Is there any good reason why the price for bows are higher for a Possessed warband?"

I can't really think of any... I'm not as experienced with the game as most people here, and if anyone has some good insight please share. But I've even heard of people getting around this by not buying bows when you start off, then buying them after the first game at trading posts to equip them at a reduced price. Or hoarding some in your stash for new future recruits (since new recruits must be equipped with the starting equipment chart, which ends up with bows costing more)

It almost looks like a typo, if it weren't for both the bow and short bow costing more. It just seems weird to impose this on the Possessed, and it seems like such a minor amount of gold that it's almost insignificant. Does it frustrate anyone else here or is it just me?

Either you are using a house-rule or someone has misunderstood the rules. When *equipping* someone you must abide by your starting list, but for *purchasing* said equipment you only use your starting list for the first game. Otherwise you have things like Skaven buying a Nightrunner just so they can purchase Warplock Pistols, Dwarfs buying Gromril armor and weapons and so forth.

Mordheim rule book '05, p. 102 wrote:

New warriors are recruited in the same way as the original warband with the notable exception of equipment. After the start of a campaign, a new hireling can only buy Common items from his warband’s equipment chart freely. He may only be given Rare items from his warband’s equipment chart if the warband can obtain them via the normal trading rules.

Bows cost Possessed 15gc and short bows 10gc.  I don't think I ever noticed that.  I have to check the math on the last Possessed list I wrote up to play test now.  It is annoying because money is so tight in that beginning list.

I think the only other official warband with price inconsistencies between starting price list and regular price list is Dwarfs who get a deal on gromril armor.  Maybe Kislevites get a deal on something as well?  In unofficial warbands its more common for the starting warband to get a deal on something.  (Bretonnians come to mind.)

The only warband that has a similar discrepancy is Lizardmen.  Javelins cost Lizardmen 10 instead of the Lustrian price list 5 for skink recruits.  

The logic behind the difference escapes me as well.  For both the Possessed and the Lizards.  The restrictions on buying equipment are simple enough to circumvent that it is a waste of ink to include them.

Lord 0 wrote:

Either you are using a house-rule or someone has misunderstood the rules. When *equipping* someone you must abide by your starting list, but for *purchasing* said equipment you only use your starting list for the first game. Otherwise you have things like Skaven buying a Nightrunner just so they can purchase Warplock Pistols, Dwarfs buying Gromril armor and weapons and so forth.

I think my words have been misunderstood. Thanks for suggesting I be more clear.

The Cult can buy bows at 10gc after the first game and put them in their stash or equip them to existing warriors.

Rulebook p. 102 wrote:

After the start of a campaign, a new hireling can only buy Common items from his warband’s equipment chart freely...

...If a player wants to buy new weapons or other equipment for existing warriors, refer to the Price chart that follows.

Yes, we know new recruits can't have 10gc bows. But after the their first game, you can then give them 10gc bows you have in your stash or buy new 10gc ones for them at the Trading Post. As long as the Brethren have been in your Warband for more than 1 game, they can get 10gc bows.

It all just seems rather tedious, the Cult can get 10gc bows if they want to and can get around it easily enough.

Carnival of Chaos uses the same price for bows and shortbows as Cult does. I've seen it theorized that by discouraging starting bows by upping the price they were trying to encourage a more combat focused warband rather than one in which all the henchmen and weak heroes started as ranged support.

Thanks for the input guys.

The Dwarf starting gromril armour is definitely a huge different in price between the regular price, and it's noted with a * as only available to starting warbands, not new recruits after warband creation during a campaign. So it's a slightly different case with the Possessed bows, there is no * indication.

NoisyAssassin wrote:

Carnival of Chaos uses the same price for bows and shortbows as Cult does. I've seen it theorized that by discouraging starting bows by upping the price they were trying to encourage a more combat focused warband rather than one in which all the henchmen and weak heroes started as ranged support.

I can agree and get behind this. But it seems like there is a work-around that gamers can do to avoid paying for more expensive bows... If they wanted to discourage ranged weapon use in the Chaos warbands, I would have just removed Bows from the starting list and kept short bows at 5gc.

I've decided to dig deeper...

I looked more closely at this quote

Rulebook p. 102 wrote:

After the start of a campaign, a new hireling can only buy Common items from his warband’s equipment chart freely. He may only be given Rare items from his warband’s equipment chart if the warband can obtain them via the normal trading rules.

It sounds like it's insinuating you may give new recruits rare items if your warband can find them. I then found this tidbit...

Rulebook p. 78 wrote:

Note that newly hired recruits cannot buy rare items. They can, however, be equipped with rare items if there are any in the warband’s stash in stage 9.

So, if newly hired recruits can be equipped with rare items from the stash, it seems reasonable they can be given common items from the stash as well. Although the rulebook doesn't explicitly state this, since they assume people will just buy common items as they need them and not horde common items since there is no price differences between common items in starting warband lists and the trading post list EXCEPT in the case of the Cult and Carnival bows. Or at least, they are the only ones that I know of so far... and it seems they (the writers) do not take this into account.

One more;

Annual 2002 Q&A wrote:

Q: Rulebook, page 144 says: As with other new Henchmen, you must pay for all their weapons and armour... OK, I just found a Fletcher with two bows. Does it mean that I can hire a new Marksman and give him one of the Bows I have Found?

A: Yes.

It looks like you can indeed give new recruits common items from your stash as long as they are on their equipment list, so they do not need a skill like weapons training to use them.

So, after my first game as Possessed I can just hoard 10gc bows in my stash and give them to new Brethren recruits.

Seems kind of silly, and I will try to present a coherent argument to my gaming group to see if I can get their price of bows reduced to normal as a house rule. If not, so be it, I can go without bows for the first game.

Denzak wrote:

The Dwarf starting gromril armour is definitely a huge different in price between the regular price, and it's noted with a * as only available to starting warbands, not new recruits after warband creation during a campaign. So it's a slightly different case with the Possessed bows, there is no * indication.

This is due to easy access to gromril armor in the dwarven stronghold where the new warband is starting. Later on in Mordheim this access is hampered, so the armour gets rare and expensive. So in fact this is just a fluff explanation resulting in some tactical choices/possibilities for the player...

Denzak wrote:

NoisyAssassin wrote:

Carnival of Chaos uses the same price for bows and shortbows as Cult does. I've seen it theorized that by discouraging starting bows by upping the price they were trying to encourage a more combat focused warband rather than one in which all the henchmen and weak heroes started as ranged support.

I can agree and get behind this. But it seems like there is a work-around that gamers can do to avoid paying for more expensive bows... If they wanted to discourage ranged weapon use in the Chaos warbands, I would have just removed Bows from the starting list and kept short bows at 5gc.

See above, its just a fluffy thing when starting. At least it made sense in the warband authors mind.
Keep in mind that mordheim also offers single battles. Maybe this price differences is due to this (there it would made a difference, although a small one in the case of bows)...

Greetings

It's also relevant for people who don't magnetize their weapons and don't want two sets of models (one with bows and one without). In which case either you pay the higher price up front or you don't buy bows at all.

@NoisyAssassin... or you don't play WYSIWYG.

That is just crazy talk .

What I do with my models is use poster putty or blu-tac or whatever you call it locally. There are all manner of models of bows with quivers that can be stuck with the putty to the back most securely without need for the putty to be seen.

Yeah is saw this discrepancy too. In the beginning I do not have the money left for bows when I start with Possessed so it was never a big thing to me, but I would accept it if someone would start with 10gc bow at the beginning.

By the way, do you really go sequence after sequence in the after game?

We do that for wyrdstone search and survival and level up, but
after when we go shopping and buying new recruits we are not that strict anymore. We are more roleplayish with this, because when you are in a camp you can do that in any order in our opinion.

Quote :

By the way, do you really go sequence after sequence in the after game?

We are pretty haphazard about following the correct sequence. No one has a copy of it printed anymore. Mostly if we get injuries and exploration done, we're doing good.

Last night one of the lads routed: smoked a cigarette, talked to some folks who were hanging out at the store, ran some NPCs for a game... Twenty minutes later he's setting up for his next game and he says, "oh, I didn't roll for injuries or search!"