Witch Hunter Rabble Rousing

I was just searching for an updated version of the Cavalcade when I stumbled upon these additional rules on Tuomas' FB-Page. Nothing official of course, but I think some of you might like them:

Tuomas Pirinen wrote:

MORDHEIM -WITCH HUNTER RABBLE ROUSING
I was going through my old rules notes for Mordheim (looking for my ship-to-ship fighting designs) whenI found these experimental rules I wrote for Witch Hunter Warbands for rousing rabble to fight with them, and I thought people might like to see these, so I decided to clean them up a bit and post them for all to see.
Please note that these rules are something you should only try out for fun: I came up with this idea quite late in the development (along with encampment rules) so I did not have time to playtest them throughly so in the end I did not include them even in the optional rules section of the Rulebook. I was extremely paranoid of making my own Warband too powerful, so I erred on the side of caution when it comes to my own game faction design -often a good rule of thumb for a designer to follow that I learned from Jervis. With all that in mind, enjoy this glimpse at game development process from the past.
So without further ado, here they are. Oh, look what time it is… ITS TIME TO PURGE THE HERETIC!
THE WITCH HUNTERS AND THE MOB
While most often the members of the Order of Witch Hunters prefer to operate alone or in small groups leading a few trusted followers, in these troubled times of strife and when anticipating an especially hard battle lies ahead, the Witch Hunters are sometimes willing to bring forth the full weight of their edict from the Grand Theogonst to summon the faithful to fight for cause of the Witch Hunters and obey them without a question. Living in the squalor of the many settlements around Mordheim there are many zealous worshippers of Sigmar who can be easily roused with fiery words to follow the Witch Hunter Warbands into the very city of Mordheim where few would normally dare to venture.
THE RULES
After any game, but before collecting any Wyrdstone, doing any exploration or looking for any rare items, the player can decide to send one or more of his Heroes to look for rabble to rouse with one of their exhorting speeches to denounce heretics.
Witch Hunter player may send up to three of the heroes of the Warband to preach to the zealous followers of the Cult of Sigmar in order to inspire them to follow the witch hunters into battle. The player must decide how many heroes he sends to rouse the the mob before rolling any dice.
Up to 6 Models can be acquired through Rabble Rousing. If more than 6 are acquired, the player may choose which ones are brought to the next battle.
The Rabble does not count towards the maximum size of the Warband, though it does count towards the Warband rating and it counts against the Rout tests.
The rabble disperses after the battle, and gains no experience and takes no part in exploration or towards the total cost of the upkeep of the Warband.
You may form same types of rabble into Henchmen groups if you wish, or move them individually.
For each Witch Hunter hero looking rouse the rabble, roll one D6 and consult the following chart
1: 1 x RABBLE
Profile as per Zealots in the main Mordheim Rulebook. Armed with ptichforks, daggers, brooms and torches (all count as daggers),, and wear no armor.
SPECIAL RULE: RABBLE: As long as the Rabble is within 6” of Witch Hunter, Witch Hunter Captain or a Warrior Priest, they may use the Hero’s LD value instead of their own.
2: 2 x RABBLE
See above.
3-4: 3 x RABBLE
See above.
5: 1 x FLAGELLANT
As per Mordheim Rulebook. The Flagellant is armed with a flail.
6: 1 x PENITENT
Profile as per Zealots in the Mordheim rulebook.
Those who have sinned against the tenets of the Cult of Sigmar often suffer intense religious guilt and anguish. For such men and women (once they confess their sins to the Church), the Temple offers a way to salvation: paying penance. Often this involves self-flagellation, pilgrimage or prayer, but the most extreme form is the Trial by Fire, where the Penitents must publicly set themselves on fire: If he or she survives the flames, it means all of the Penitent’s sins are absolved. If the Penitent dies, he or she goes to meet the judgement of Sigmar in the next life. Penitents wear hoods or rags to hide their faces in order to show their remorse, and shame and they are easily swayed by the fiery sermons of the Witch Hunters and readily accompany them to face the enemies of Sigmar in order to absolve their sins.
SPECIAL RULES
TRIAL BY FIRE: The Penitent has no missile weapons, armour or even melee weapons. Instead, their robes are covered in pitch and smeared with beeswax, and they carry torches and barrels of oil in their backs.
First time the Penitent moves into base-to-base contact with any enemy models (via charge or otherwise), the Penitents immediately sets themselves aflame, burning like a living torch to compensate for their sins! The penitent and any and all models touching his base suffer an automatic 1 S4 hit in the beginning of the Melee phase (even if not engaged in combat currently), before any other attacks (including weapons such as spears) are resolved. All hits are suffered simultaneously. If the Penitent survives the combat round he or she continues to burn and suffers further S4 hit every turn in the beginning of the Hand-to-hand combat phase. The penitent can carry on moving on the battlefield and can charge further enemies, or stay in contact with fallen opponents to inflict further automatic hits on them.
NO FEAR OF DEATH: Penitents do not need to test against fear when charging or take all alone tests.

I like rule expansions that add the dark, twisted, comedic, Mordheim flavor to games. Being that Old Lady Burner warbands are non-halfling maxed out at 12, I don't think its unbalanced. Then again I prefer story-based campaign fun over pure game balanced any day. Mr. Pirinen was on the right track and I'll definitely hold on to this morsel for future use (if/when I find a new group of players). Thanks for sharing, Grimscull.

Your're welcome. I think the rules could use some better wording though. It implies that only heroes that weren't ooA can rouse rabble and that they don't add a die to the exploration roll and cannot search for rare items either if they wish to rouse. But it's not worded explicedly. If the WH wouldn't lose dice and search opportunity, it would be unbalanced imo.

Maybe a good tactic if they need to bolster their numbers to stay viable for the next scenario in campaign play.