New take on the Undead - Ancients of the Sands

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum.
Looking to boot up a Mordheim campaign amongst some friends who havent played in more than a decade!
I've come at the game with a fresh set of eyes : )

With the wealth of additional/optional rules, warbands, items, and settings: I thought I would design my own take on the Undead.

To frame my view:
I have always liked the concept of undead warbands, but been put off by the specific theme in the Mordheim setting.
e.g. Vampire leading a bunch of wet, slimy, undead cronies.
Coupled with talk in the community of the Undead's major weaknesses (crappy henchmen, and poor heroes), I thought I would do my homework and attempt to come up with a reasonably balanced alternative - more in line with the themes I'd enjoy...
(Disclaimer: I am aware of the "Restless Undead" warband, and like some of the concepts - however still wished to do my own thing).


The key points I wanted to hit thematically are:

Ancient 'dry' undead.

Vampire/Liche leading undead warriors/heroes (wights/skeletons).

No shooting attacks.

No shooting does not equal weak to shooting

Effective use of magic.


I am still rounding out the roster and rules for these undead (which I will post here for prosperity and feedback later ! : ) )

I thought the community would enjoy my opening warband introduction - giving some idea of the theme I chose to follow.

Ancients of the Sands - Intro

Let me know what you think!


Skaal.

Welcome to the forum!

Your introduction to the warband is very well written.

Hello Skaal!

Contrary to you I actually enjoy the theme of the undead as they are. I like that the vast majority of the warband are in fact *not* dead (I rarely use zombies), which gives the actual deadites a sense of rarity and uniqueness. Anyway, I still look forward to see what you're cooking up and how far off you'll be from the restless dead.

Speaking of "dry" undead there is also the khemri tomb guardians which you can find on the mordheimer site. They've a reputation for being quite poor, though.

http://mordheimer.com/warbands/unofficial/tomb_guardians.htm

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm glad to see the variety of opinion on the boards:
Everyone is entitled to enjoy different things : )

MasterSpark - I did not know of the Tomb Guardians...
I hope my end result is not accidentally a poor copy.
I am certainly aiming for that eastern-feel, dry undead.

My rules will probably end up being quite unique though - I am putting effort into a variety of special rules, and overall complexity.
While perhaps not ideal for common usage - I think they will fit this campaign well: where I am the host/GM, we are quite freeform with our scenarios and random events, and we will have games featuring 3-4 players.

Quote :

MasterSpark - I did not know of the Tomb Guardians...
I hope my end result is not accidentally a poor copy.
I am certainly aiming for that eastern-feel, dry undead.

Including the Vampire kinda messes with the whole 'dry' thing though...

Aside from that I'm fairly confident that you would be unlikely to copy the TC version of the Tomb Guardians, which is just a waste of print.

The original Tomb Guardians from the old Khemri website was much better.

From the same website there is also the Lhamian vampire warband, which has more skeletons and wights as henchmen and potential heroes.

Von Kurst wrote:

Including the Vampire kinda messes with the whole 'dry' thing though...

Well I thought of my leader being akin to a vampire - so not a 'dry' corpse, just an immortal - once human - weathered and lean from a couple of thousand years in the desert.
As the intro suggests they travel hooded and robed, so there is an air of mystery to how they actually appear, even in game : )

Von Kurst wrote:

Quote :

MasterSpark - I did not know of the Tomb Guardians...
I hope my end result is not accidentally a poor copy.
I am certainly aiming for that eastern-feel, dry undead.

Including the Vampire kinda messes with the whole 'dry' thing though...

Aside from that I'm fairly confident that you would be unlikely to copy the TC version of the Tomb Guardians, which is just a waste of print.

The original Tomb Guardians from the old Khemri website was much better.

From the same website there is also the Lhamian vampire warband, which has more skeletons and wights as henchmen and potential heroes.

Was the original one the one with two Mummy Warrior heroes instead of the Acolytes?

You can still access the old Khemri website (and many other old Mordheim websites) through the Wayback Machine on archive.org website. Here is a link to the Khemri website from 2008.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080611023916/http://grafixgibs.tripod.com/Khemri/

Quote :

Was the original one the one with two Mummy Warrior heroes instead of the Acolytes?

Yes

Quote :

Well I thought of my leader being akin to a vampire - so not a 'dry' corpse, just an immortal

Right, sorry, I read vampire and all I can think of is GW vampire.

Update on my original 'alternate undead warband'.

Subtle change to the direction and feel since the last iteration.
The full roster has been filled.

Still missing are:
Skills
Items (I would like to change the equipment options from the generic items listed to add more flavour)
Spells

The units also lack hiring costs at this point - as I am yet to work out their relative power, and balance them accordingly.
Input in this respect is welcome from the theory-crafters in the community.

Have a read, see what you think!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8oTcdg6dTnoNmtfajJ2Y1QxNm8/view?usp=sharing

[Minor apologies - there may be some formatting artefacts, when the document was uploaded to Gdrive]

Skaal

I'm afraid to say I'm not the biggest fan of the list, although I might be biased since I just see a vampire poseur when I look at your Ancient.

But really, I don't feel the cohesion between the different entries. For a desert warband I don't see the bats and zombies as too fitting, nevermind the odd recruitment rules. Please correct me if I've gotten the theme of the warband wrong. 5 different types of henchmen also feels bloated to me.

What warbands will the other players be using? I think yours will be at an advantage against many of the existing ones. The Ancient is a better vampire, there's two spellcasters with spells likely more useful than necromancy (haven't seen the ancient list) and some supreme meat shields in the Graveless heroes & henchmen and zombies. The Risen rule is probably too good at what it does. I suggest you try out something like a -1 to the injury roll on ranged attacks at <S4, or something like that which doesn't entirely remove the potential of shooting.

Mainly in response to MasterSpark:

(and thank you for your analysis : ) )

Style has evolved and shifted marginally, as I conjure more fluff for the Ancient's background and purpose in Mordheim.

The Ancients have a desert origin, but they have travelled a long way.
The Graveless they have acquired are likely from other cultures - giving some diverse flavour to the actual characters I could field.
The Wraiths are in line with the Ancient's origins - spiritual remnants of the empire they destroyed.
Bats thrive in deserts just fine.

I suppose the whole theme has a paired duality - the undead as a result of the Ancients Empire and its fall; and the undead power they unlock through dark beings and restless corpses as they travel to other lands.

I did expect to field responses under the blanket of "this warband is overpowered":
The campaign is still in the theoretical element at this stage (struggling to find time with friends in other cities etc.) - while nothing is mandated, there will be a story to go with the action, and I strongly anticipate being ganged up on!

Specifically surrounding the 'Risen' rule - I have previously found shooting to be overpowered, and heavily favoured amongst my friends. I really wanted to enforce the theme of a warband that does not shoot at all, but cannot just be kited and sniped.
This functions as a thematic threat, one which they will have to play around more than attacking head-on.

Regarding the zombie 'recruitment' - again I thought of this as a nice touch to really cement the theme of the warband. The streets of Mordheim are threatening, with danger lurking in every corner. From my view the more 'dark' and 'evil' warbands would likely benefit from this in places.

Sorry - its late, feel like I'm rambling a little.
I do appreciate the response, I will mull-over the commentary.


Skaal

There seem to be an awful lot of special rules, not all of which seem necessary.

Ancient: this doesn't seem necessary. If it could easily be justified for this hero I see no reason it shouldn't apply to all leaders. EDIT: I've just noticed it applies not just to the leader but to four of the heroes, That's definitely too much.

Authority of Ages: again it doesn't seem like a necessary rule.

Horrific Undead/Artefact Hunter: these two seem to roughly balance each other, and pertain to the same phase so could perhaps be rolled into a single rule?

Risen: since their bodies are decomposing they're stronger? Doesn't make any sense. And even if it were, being totally impervious to low strength attacks is poor design, and would penalise some warbands a lot more than others. Especially powerful as it applies to the most of the warband.

WARRIORS:

Again, there seem to be too many choices here:

ANCIENT:
Deathless seems on first look a little strong, but I think it's fluffy and for that reason I'd be more than happy to play against it.
MAGUS
Seems fine, with the exception of the free skill.
WARLOCK
Seems superfluous given you've already got one caster, and the Magus is more suited to the background and more interesting.
GRAVELESS HEROES
They're mighty tough with T4, and the no pain rule, and the risen rule, and poison immunity.
DEAD-EATER
With a powerful vampire-like leader, T4 heroes, I don't think this warband needs a big-guy hero.
BATS/WRAITHS
No problem with the rules, but not sure how much they add to the warband.
ZOMBIES
I like the mechanism in theory, but it needs to be factored into the cost of the leader, which is hard to judge with no gc costs.

Overall: I think this warband would benefit from being toned down both in terms of power and complexity. Too many rules and too strong. Compare it to the standard undead warband you've still got a vampire (except this one can't die), you've got an extra caster, stronger heroes, more henchmen options and a powerful big guy, plus strong special rules (especially the invulnerable to shooting). Added to that you also get to start with skills.

Skaal wrote:

I did expect to field responses under the blanket of "this warband is overpowered":
The campaign is still in the theoretical element at this stage (struggling to find time with friends in other cities etc.) - while nothing is mandated, there will be a story to go with the action, and I strongly anticipate being ganged up on!

If you intend to use the warband as a form of narrative threat then it's in another playing field altogether. In a one on one I agree with Odin that the band is too strong but that might be what you're going for in this case.

Skaal wrote:

Specifically surrounding the 'Risen' rule - I have previously found shooting to be overpowered, and heavily favoured amongst my friends.  I really wanted to enforce the theme of a warband that does not shoot at all, but cannot just be kited and sniped.

I can sympathise with this. When shooting grows past a certain level it becomes necessary to start playing in an unthematic way to win with a close combat warband.

To the existing commenters:

I have started consideration to tone down some of the power in the Warband as recommended.

Given some of the thematic purpose with which I approached the design, it is occurring to me I could publish two sets of rules;
- one for a narrative campaign, with a more powerful roster, to fit the scenario.
- one with (hopefully) balanced stats for more general use

I will keep giving it some thought - updates to follow.

Thank you all : )

Skaal.

Update

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8oTcdg6dTnoWllNdFJnNVE4aEE

• Revised Roster (including costs)
  
• Spells
  
• Skills
  
• Items
  

I have taken on board a lot of the advice here implementing the following:

• toning down the raw power (stats) for some of the units.
  
• removing and simplifying special rules.
  
• pushing some power to skills, to create progression through the campaign.
  
• removed the 'Ancient' special rule (free skill roll upon recruitment) from all heroes except the Ancient.
  
• streamlined the roster, removing henchman choices (removed Dead Eater 'big guy' and combined Bats+Wraiths into a single entry)
  

I hope that the community will find this build a lot more balanced.
Please appreciate that as the design of this warband has evolved, the core themes have also shifted:

At present the warband has three main thematic elements:

1. - Tough, slow, fighters - in the form of Graveless
   
2. - Fast, opportunistic, glass-cannon attackers - in the form of Wraiths
   
3. - A pair of diverse casters (featuring Wraith Magic and Lesser Magic) - to make up for the lack of ranged attacks