New Warbands and Revisions

Hey there everyone, I've been revising two Warbands (Werewolf Hunting Pack and Ghost Pirates) to balance them and add my own take to them. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know if you have any constructive questions, concerns, or advice.


Werewolf Hunting Pack
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0RM5QuzSZ9_Um9QWmk5UHZGSms/view?usp=sharing

Ghost Pirates
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0RM5QuzSZ9_c01YUHg4VXB6dkk/view?usp=sharing

Source
https://sites.google.com/site/ourhouserules/mordheim/warbands


If anyone else would like to post on this thread about Warband revisions or new Warbands they've done, please do. I'd love to see what others have changed or created. Thanks guys and gals, happy hunting.

Is there some way to access your revisions? The Werewolf and Ghost Pirates are not links or are broken links. At least for me.

Von Kurst wrote:

Is there some way to access your revisions?  The Werewolf and Ghost Pirates are not links or are broken links.  At least for me.

Unfortunately, you have to manually copy the URLs and paste them. If that's not working, let me know.

I posted new links using a different method, let me know if that fixes it.

Not for me. I see nothing.

Von Kurst wrote:

Not for me.  I see nothing.

It should be good now. Sorry about that.

Thanks for fixing that. Off to work now.

If the Ethereal special rule seems overpowered, even with the limitations, I've been thinking of giving the Ghosts the Can't Run to offset their superior maneuverability.

As a totally impartial and unbiased poster, I think the Werewolf warband is totally awesome and the creator of the warband is obviously a person of sheer genius.

Of curiosity, what made you go with Ulric prayers rather than the rune magic?

@Lord 0...

I've only looked at the werewolves so far and I'm afraid that I have some doubts about them. They seem quite strong with their regeneration and high stats, especially early on in a campaign. The silver weapons and other stuff seems like a solid counter but it could come at a rather steep cost for the opponents. Have you had the chance to play with this warband in consecutive games to see how things play out?

Also, Byrewulfs should probably go up a bit in starting experience. Starting at 0 with such good stats and a great list of skills gives them incredible potential at the beginning of a campaign. The Wulfmaeg are similar in my opinion, they're basically witch hunter warhounds with a unmodifiable 5+ save.

Another thing, when you've sent a Weremaeg away and he has returned as a hired sword, will you be paying him his standard upkeep fee from then on?

But at the same time I can also see a general lack of attacks throughout the warband since they can't use weapons unless you go with the human-kin. They're pretty meaty on their own, though, starting with 2 attacks on their profile. There's also a rather low ceiling on leadership so the warband is vulnerable to fear.

MasterSpark wrote:

I've only looked at the werewolves so far and I'm afraid that I have some doubts about them. They seem quite strong with their regeneration and high stats, especially early on in a campaign. The silver weapons and other stuff seems like a solid counter but it could come at a rather steep cost for the opponents. Have you had the chance to play with this warband in consecutive games to see how things play out?

So far I have only had three games against them with a new Marienburg warband. The regen is scary, but after the second game I sent all my heroes looking for aconite and found two doses of it. I also got a Champion with Quickshot and in the third game he was pretty good at shooting them full of holes. I used him for downing the werewolves, but in retrospect he might have been better used just knocking off the extra wounds and letting the others finish them off. *Shrug*. Needs more testing.

MasterSpark wrote:

Also, Byrewulfs should probably go up a bit in starting experience. Starting at 0 with such good stats and a great list of skills gives them incredible potential at the beginning of a campaign. The Wulfmaeg are similar in my opinion, they're basically witch hunter warhounds with a unmodifiable 5+ save.

The Byrewulfs are intended to be the youngbloods of the group so I am going to leave their starting experience where it is, but if they turn out to be too powerful then I will happily reduce their stats and/or increase the costs. Remember, by the time they level up to being scary the enemy will very likely* have a few silver weapons around to sort them out.

Wulfmaeg vs Warhounds: Warhounds are the consummate force screen. They are fast, cheap, and dangerous enough that they cannot be ignored (S4, WS4). Wulfmaeg are faster, but *almost* too expensive to be used as a screen. They will possibly level to be better than Warhounds, but at that point they are not as replaceable because you can't just buy levels unless you have invested a lot of gold in the group. And if you have invested a lot then your ranged is going to suffer because only Weremaeg can use bows.

Wulfmaeg aren't werewolves so they don't get regenerate or any of the other cool abilities. They *are*, however, vulnerable to Wolfsbane; Warhounds (not being wolves) are not vulnerable to Wolfsbane.

Granted, if one becomes a hero it could get some very scary stats, but then you are taking up a hero slot with an Animal so it is a hero that can't climb (even with scale sheer surfaces), can't use weapons, and can't use almost all equipment.

MasterSpark wrote:

Another thing, when you've sent a Weremaeg away and he has returned as a hired sword, will you be paying him his standard upkeep fee from then on?

Absolutely.

Werewolf Warband list, p3 wrote:

when [the weremaeg] returns he will be the Hired Sword you chose. He will follow all the rules of a hired sword (especially upkeep payments) and will no longer count as part of your warband except in the manner hired swords normally do.

My emphasis.

*Or, at least, that is what I am hoping...

Lord 0 wrote:

So far I have only had three games against them with a new Marienburg warband. The regen is scary, but after the second game I sent all my heroes looking for aconite and found two doses of it. I also got a Champion with Quickshot and in the third game he was pretty good at shooting them full of holes. I used him for downing the werewolves, but in retrospect he might have been better used just knocking off the extra wounds and letting the others finish them off. *Shrug*. Needs more testing.

My biggest concern is that the opponents will be forced to spend time and money on acquiring things that strengthen them only against the werewolves and not each other. The silver powder is pretty easily available but also one use only, so potentially a money pit. Silvered weapons are permanent but also more difficult to come by, which could hamper the normal progression of equipment upgrading. I suppose if all the participating warbands are going through the same process it might not be that bad, but I also feel that it could become an outright necessity since the werewolves will otherwise be able to stack unmodifiable 5+ saves with regen and step aside/dodge. That's pretty heavy.

Also, is the silver powder not usable on blackpowder weapons? I would assume not since there's also silver ammunition that costs more but the powder doesn't say that it can't be used on anything in particular.

Lord 0 wrote:

The Byrewulfs are intended to be the youngbloods of the group so I am going to leave their starting experience where it is, but if they turn out to be too powerful then I will happily reduce their stats and/or increase the costs. Remember, by the time they level up to being scary the enemy will very likely* have a few silver weapons around to sort them out.

The thing is though, at 0 experience they could become scary quite quickly. I'd even say they're scary right from the start, and a single extra experience will earn them an advance after the first game. I recognize their drawbacks but I still don't think it's quite fair compared to other youngblood types.

Lord 0 wrote:

Wulfmaeg aren't werewolves so they don't get regenerate or any of the other cool abilities. They *are*, however, vulnerable to Wolfsbane; Warhounds (not being wolves) are not vulnerable to Wolfsbane.

They do have the Werewolf special rule, at least they do in this version of the warband.

Lord 0 wrote:

Absolutely.

Ah right, I see that now. I missed it since I wasn't expecting the text to continue from the bottom. My apologies.

One other thing, in the same vein that undead are not allowed to carry around garlic or blessed water, silver weapons and stuff should probably fall under the same restriction. At least there will still be Fear to put our hopes into...

Here is the original Werewolves warband list as created by Lord 0.

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t7343-werewolf-warband-for-evaluation

It doesn't give the "Werewolf" special rule to the Wulfmaeg. This might be some feedback to s6nculve regarding this change to the original list. The Wulfmaeg are supposed to be locked in 'wolf' form and cannot change nor do they get any of the benefits that werewolves get.

Edited to add...
@s6nculve... Can you please summarise the changes that you made to each warband and why you made each change? That will make it easier for people to evaluate your changes especially if they are already happy with the original warbands.

RationalLemming wrote:

It doesn't give the "Werewolf" special rule to the Wulfmaeg. This might be some feedback to s6nculve regarding this change to the original list. The Wulfmaeg are supposed to be locked in 'wolf' form and cannot change nor do they get any of the benefits that werewolves get.

That certainly changes things.

I like each and every one of the ideas in the wolf warband and the pdf is beautiful.

But as brought up previously, the byrewoofs are incredibly powerful. A base two attacks for free puts them ahead of the game (a minor increase for most games, since you can spend 2-5 gold or maybe 10 for a special meaty weapon for an extra attack, but they just GET it in addition to what amounts to an unmodifiable heavy armor or something more akin to gromril armor... or the equivalent of both Step Aside and Dodge to start with the option of taking one of those again for double the effect).

You could cost this at almost 100 gold easily in addition to their starting stats.

Their starting stats are not superhero level, but compared to every other youngblood out there, they'll quickly get advances that will start to compound on their awesomeness. As a comparison, if I could trade our Night Runners or Young Bloods or Dregs for these guys, I would - even at double the price. It's like a free hand weapon, suit of armor, and 2-3 skills to start - plus four advances after 8 exp. That's incredible. Low numbers and low experience also means they have a chance of being an underdog (heh, 'dog'), which only makes them even more powerful.

Str4 - 2x Attacks and nowhere to go but up is awesome.

Finally, silver weapons - way too expensive and way too uncommon. They should be common and cheap. Or you only need a little bit of silver to effect them. Compare the price of garlic, which is 1gc and common. Even Blessed Water is only Rare 6 and COMMON for some warbands at a cost of about 20. A silver sword? Almost FOUR TIMES as rare for the cost of 30.

A single werewolf warband inflicts a huge cost on other warbands just by existing. Some meta building is fine, but these silver weapons are huge.

Very much on the powered to potentially overpowered side.

However, with the exception of the weapons, NONE of these ideas are bad. Even Regeneration could be cool. Push that off as a Special Skill, consider giving the henchmen that skill to start (or something awesome like the 2 attack base) so that your non-heroes now compete with your heroes, and tone down some of the stuff, and you'd have a really good warband.

None of the ideas are bad. None of the skills are bad. The concept is great. Just having all of it accessible so early seems powerful, while the counters are too expensive.

As an alternative, tone down the Regeneration and then just drop the silver weapons entirely as a ease-of-play thing. I like the warband, but it seems a bit on the powerful side.

(Also, I'm liking the idea of Werewolf hired swords, maybe stealing the "Thing in the Woods" wolfing out method.)

Also, work in Frenzy into the warband somehow!