We don't actually use that many house rules. We do count shields as giving a 5+ save in melee, to make them a more viable option to dual wielding. And with spell casters' starting spell, we let them roll twice and pick from those two.
Interesting! Our spell casters have certainly been very ineffectual so far; in last weekend's games, they contributed much more with bows than with spells. So I can see the sense in giving a choice of spells. That said, there's a lot of fun to be had in trying to work out how to use some not-very-promising spell, even if it never quite comes off!
By boosting armour so much, I'm aiming to do a few things. First, make sure that all our participants can make full use of their miniatures: we have loads of Skaven with shields, for example, and other players have lots of armoured knights and chaos types. Boosting shields as you do (or a bit further, as we'll allow 5, 6 vs missiles) makes the shield worth having and thus makes a huge swathe of miniatures viable.
Second, I think better armour ups the risk/reward calculation in an interesting way. So, if you have a couple of black orcs with light armour and a shield, you're on a. 3+ save under our house rules (including the black orc's innate 6+). That means you'd be
fairly confident about being able to storm up an alley with Skaven slingers at the other end. But every hit has a 1 in 9 chance of bypassing armour via the critical table, so there's no certainty - the frontal assault is still a risky decision.
Third, better armour means smaller warbands - as there's a better case for buying more gear for your heroes. And that should help to get more warbands on the table sooner!
Elbows, in a long campaign dwarves are awesome. The first three times one of us ran dwarves, we gave up on them pretty quickly for the reasons you give (slow, and low initiative), which you feel from the start. And then I ran another dwarf band, and decided to stick with them. I discovered that their benefits (T4, high weapons skill, can wear heavy armor and carry shields without a movement penalty) mean that they lose far fewer models than most warbands, and by the time a dwarf warband is five or so games into a campaign, those benefits start making a big difference. No dead dwarves = not having to buy replacements and not having to buy the newbies their gear. And if they are not dying, their XP just keeps climbing. I have run several dwarf warbands since, and if it isn't a short campaign, they have consistently done well (although again, many of those dwarf warbands have been in collaborative campaigns).
Your comments about dwarves' durability certainly chime with our experience with orcs so far. That T4 is a big deal!
We've also found that the undead are the speed merchants of the game, with dire wolves and their huge charge range featuring very prominently.
Great game, Mordheim. Enjoy!
-Michael
Cheers! Yes, it's great fun.
The thing I'm finding most enjoyable is the impetus to get old miniatures out of boxes and painted up. I'm currently fulfilling a long-held ambition to get a warband of Jez Goodwin orc types painted up. I'm using his (small by modern standards) Golgfag's ogres and Uruk-hai as black orcs, with Throgg's hobgoblins, the earlier, smaller Uruk-hai and the largest Asgard orcs as Boyz and Nuttaz (I'm probably going to have to convert some of his Asgard barbarians to orcdom to get a full complement of Nuttaz). There will also be options for a conventional orc & goblin force. And then the smaller Asgard orcs can work as a night-goblin warband ...
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May 19, 2024, 01:41:24 PM
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