Mordheim - pros, cons and length of play? (First ruins built!)

[pauld]

Just browse reading mind but ... If shooty warbands are dominant why not house rule

Downpour

At the start of the scenario roll for weather 50/50 chance of pouring rain which will reduce BS stats by -1 due to saggy strings.

Alternately you could throw every turn and on a have the weather change to downpour on a 6 and back again on another.

Might make taking shooters predominant warband less attractive and is thematic?  Surely Mordheim is a dull, wet dreary place with mud splattered  dank, damp and depressing alleyways.  I don't think the sun shines much there.

[Major_Gilbear]

Like many games where your warband persists from game to game and levels up, there is an inherent issue where early success for some makes it much harder for the others to ever catch them up, and the imbalance gradually gets worse as the games add up.

What makes it more difficult for GW games is that they are D6-based (where getting +1 or +2 to a stat or a roll can be rather significant), and that as well as advancing (buffs), warriors can also get injuries (debuffs). In theory, these balance each other out, but in reality the winners usually get the buffs, and the losers usually get the injuries, and so the gap gets widened at both ends after every game.

Also, where model-count is generally low, having access to good shooting or models with very fast movement quickly becomes a big advantage. These are both issues that can be felt in Mordheim, as well as the experience gap, and in all cases is made worse by some warbands being able to reach a big size very quickly.

If you're reading all this and thinking that Skaven fit the bill in every case where there could be an advantage to be had, then you'd be right... I really don't know how they got through playtesting in their original form really. 

There's not too much that can be done to stop all this since it's all baked into the games, but here are some suggestions that may help to varying degrees:

1) Missions include some which are distinctly unbalanced, and the underdog always chooses the mission. Ideally, they choose missions that favours them, which should offset enough of the gap to make it a better fight.

2) Terrain should be much denser, with more scatter terrain, and less movement-penalty scenery. This reduces the effects of shooting, and doesn't penalise movement too much except my making models go around more terrain.

3) Introduce weather and day cycle to the games. Randomly-generated weather like heavy rain, fog/mist, or even snow (or perhaps something weirder...) could affect visibility distances, and/or the ability to clearly see/aim at opponents. Similarly, the game could be played at dawn or dusk, with the daylight getting brighter or fading each turn, or even at night where the whole game takes place in the dark (and perhaps have rules around lamps/torches or things that make light briefly like blackpowder weapons). Of course, you would need to not allow Skaven and others to see in the dark, or it's all a bit pointless!

4) Prevent any unit and hero in a warband having the same primary equipment as another in the same warband (exceptions for things that use "natural" weapons, like wolves or such). Models should be restricted to two 1-handed weapons or one 2-handed weapon plus one 1-handed weapon, which are considered their "primary" weapons. This stops missile troops also being good in melee, and it also stops every model having the same "efficiency combo" of weapons. You may want to excuse the heroes from this restriction for Rule of Cool reasons, but if you do then the troops should be a bit more restricted instead. As most missile weapons are two-handed (apart from slings), this restriction also affects how much shooting a warband can put out. In the specific case of slings, you may want to just set a hard limit on these directly - like 6 or so).

5) You could restrict how many models fight in any given mission to something like 8. They would have at least one hero but not more than three (randomly chosen) and the rest would be the regular warband members (also randomly-chosen). This would seem to favour more elite warbands, and it can, but in general numbers are such a huge boon in Mordheim that it's not that much of an advantage anyway; bigger warbands weather the effects of injuries, deaths, and such better.

6) Whilst the game does provide underdog bonuses, I always felt that the upkeep costs should scale more to the overall warband rating. If you adjust this, either dynamically, or in "steps", it helps reduce the straight advantage than some gangs can get.

7) Armour could be re-costed and re-balanced to provide better protection. Of course, I think more armour types would need to be introduced as well, with varying access for each warband, so that everyone has some access to something that's reasonable and fitting to the style of the warband. As a minimum, you could reduce the negative save modifiers in the game by 1 across the board, and I would make criticals that bypass armour to force the armour to save successfully twice instead. So for example, a model with Strength 4 still wounds the same, but the armour save modifier is now 0 instead of -1.

8 ) In some GW games of the type, you cannot voluntarily retire fighters; I would always allow this, as it helps struggling warbands if they can jettison overly-injured members or to drop fighters which may not be contributing much to the warband's efforts. I can't remember if this is the default for Mordheim, but is worth bearing in mind.



Of course, all of the above are house-rules to the official game, even if many of the suggestions are things that were features to some extent of other games that GW would later release. And, if you're going to house-rule, you may well prefer something else entirely anyway - like just re-writing warband equipment options for example.

[Hobgoblin]

Lots of food for thought here - thanks, all!

Thanks for the scenario, mweaver - that looks right up my crooked-timbered, rat-haunted side-street!

That and as Elbows says further below, anything with S4 ignores light armor (including models armed with polearms, xbows, ogres etc.) and S5 ignores even heavy armor (i.e. anyone with a teo-handed weapon).

Sure you could add a shield, but seriously *gamewise* a buckler + sword is the better combination (or the offensive choice: two handweapons).

Right - so, say, Ruglud's armoured orcs (heavy armour, halberds, shields) would be OK at storming a position held by bowmen but more vulnerable to crossbowmen or gunners. And I hadn't factored in the -2 save for two-handed weapons: that's quite significant.

Am I right in thinking that there's no penalty for offhand weapons? From memory, two-weapon use in Warhammer meant -1 to hit for the first hand and -2 for the second, so it usually wasn't worth it unless the troops were subject to frenzy (hobgoblins and savage orcs, for example), which gave compensatory attack bonuses.

Are these rules peculiar to Mordheim, or did they reflect the way Warhammer had changed by the time of its publication? I have never played Warhammer after 3rd edition, so some of these shifts (no penalty for double-weapon use, big save reductions for strength and weapon) seem quite startling! I can see that they might be designed specifically to encourage 'swashbuckling' and rapid movement.

I am fairly confident that any superior warband will get ganged up on over the course of a campaign, but to underscore that, I should plan for multi-player games fairly regularly - so that perhaps every second session is a four-player game to allow the takedown of the overweening.

Also, am I missing something on the resilience of toughness-4 types to missiles? I'd have thought that a bunch of orcs or dwarves would be quite tough to snipe to bits - especially as a 'wound' isn't necessarily a kill. An orc with a club looks quite a cheap, durable proposition!

[Citizen Sade]

Ruglud's with T4 and heavy armour and shield would be pretty durable. Their starting save against S3 missile weapons is 4+ and 5+ in hand-to-hand when using those halberds. This will be modified by the strength of attacks against them, most critical hits and some weapons have enhanced armour penetrating capabilities e.g. axes & Elf bows.

Note that the -2 save for a 2HW (+2S) is based on a S3 warband member using one. S5 = -2AS.

There is no penalty for dual wielding though imposing one is a common house rule. You shouldn't have an issue with it using old figures and WYSIWYG.

Orcs and especially Dwarfs with their 'Hard to Kill' rule will be tricky to snipe to death. A lot of Mordheim 'kills' take place in hand-to-hand. Otherwise unengaged enemies only have to successfully wound a knocked down figure or be able to attack a stunned one. Shooting lacks this deadliness.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks for that!

There is no penalty for dual wielding though imposing one is a common house rule. You shouldn't have an issue with it using old figures and WYSIWYG.

Yes, I think the WYSIWG principle is going to be an important balancing factor - especially as a restriction on the size of warbands. Almost all my orcs and Skaven have a mail shirt at the very least - though I can see some stray sprues of plastic plague monks being a tempting source of unarmored dual wielders in future ...

It does occur to me that the game could be 'rationalised' at a stroke by just using the Warhammer 3e rulebook (which I have) as the reference for weapons, armour and even stats. The injuries/criticals/climbing/falling could be layered over that, and psychological stats other than Ld simply ignored. That makes armour more cost-effective. I'd keep Mordheim's initiative-to-the-charger and sword/buckler rules, though - they seem fun!

[Major_Gilbear]

Right - so, say, Ruglud's armoured orcs (heavy armour, halberds, shields) would be OK at storming a position held by bowmen but more vulnerable to crossbowmen or gunners. And I hadn't factored in the -2 save for two-handed weapons: that's quite significant.

Well, bows have a long range, and Orcs, in heavy armour, with halberds, are comparatively expensive and not particularly fast. You will (potentially, depending on terrain) be taking quite a lot of fire until you get to melee, and it only takes one successful hit to get through and end am Orc. Also, Orcs don't get access to heavy armour as standard, but if we take a standard Orc Warrior in light armour then the cost per model is at least 70gp, whereas a Human marksman with a bow is 35gp (or 40gp with a longbow instead). If you allow heavy armour, then the Orc's cost rises to 100gp. So, for the same gold you get three Human bowmen to one Orc. And a bow is range 24" (30" if a longbow) vs an Orc moving 4" (or 8" if they run), or heavy armour that's 3" (6" if they run); that's potentially up to 9-15 shots at each Orc before the Orc gets to swing! Not all will be hits/wounds/etc, but it's a lot to weather, and you won't have many Orcs equipped like that.

Am I right in thinking that there's no penalty for offhand weapons? From memory, two-weapon use in Warhammer meant -1 to hit for the first hand and -2 for the second, so it usually wasn't worth it unless the troops were subject to frenzy (hobgoblins and savage orcs, for example), which gave compensatory attack bonuses.

Correct; no penalty for offhand weapons. Like Citizen Sade says though, imposing a -1 to hit on both weapons is a common house rule.

Are these rules peculiar to Mordheim, or did they reflect the way Warhammer had changed by the time of its publication? I have never played Warhammer after 3rd edition, so some of these shifts (no penalty for double-weapon use, big save reductions for strength and weapon) seem quite startling! I can see that they might be designed specifically to encourage 'swashbuckling' and rapid movement.

Sort of. Whilst  the weapons in WHFB from 4th onwards to 8th are fairly similar, there are some small differences between some of them from edition to edition.

Whilst Mordheim is based on 5th/6th rules, the weapon types are more separated out and heave more additional rules to differentiate them (Necromunda did the same with 40k weapons too).

Blunt one-handed weapons like maces/clubs/hammers are especially cost-effective for their Stun rules, and are often paired with a cheap second weapon like a dagger to maximise offensive output. For Mordheim, the Dagger+Mace is widely considered the best all-round weapon combo in the game in fact.

Two-handed weapons have the drawback of striking last usually (or, in some WHFB editions, with a severe penalty to Initiative which is functionally usually the same thing in most cases). This means that al though the double-handed weapon is powerful, the model carrying it may be struck down and killed before they get to swing it! Worth noting that if your opponent has the Parry ability from a sword or buckler, they cannot use this if the enemy's attack strength is twice or more their own basic strength so a S4 model with a two-handed weapon ignores parry attempts by S3 models!

I am fairly confident that any superior warband will get ganged up on over the course of a campaign, but to underscore that, I should plan for multi-player games fairly regularly - so that perhaps every second session is a four-player game to allow the takedown of the overweening.

In the same way that facing runaway warbands isn't that much fun, having a successful warband constantly ganged-up on is also not much fun and takes away any incentive to try and do anything well. Also, games with more than two players are often somewhat chaotic and can be a bit incoherent - thus ruining the feel of the game if you do this too often. Better IMO to set up imbalanced scenarios or similar for the higher-rated warbands to try and survive through!

Also, am I missing something on the resilience of toughness-4 types to missiles? I'd have thought that a bunch of orcs or dwarves would be quite tough to snipe to bits - especially as a 'wound' isn't necessarily a kill. An orc with a club looks quite a cheap, durable proposition!

Maybe... Check out the Critical Hit tables on page 116 of the big Mordheim book. The right critical, and you may as well be Lady Godiva in terms of an armour save!

Yes, I think the WYSIWG principle is going to be an important balancing factor - especially as a restriction on the size of warbands. Almost all my orcs and Skaven have a mail shirt at the very least - though I can see some stray sprues of plastic plague monks being a tempting source of unarmoured dual wielders in future...

I'm not so sure it will necessarily; rather, it will more depend on what models you happen to have. If one collection happens to be equipped relatively optimally, and another collection happens not to be, then you will still get the same imbalance as the original core game.

It does occur to me that the game could be 'rationalised' at a stroke by just using the Warhammer 3e rulebook (which I have) as the reference for weapons, armour and even stats. The injuries/criticals/climbing/falling could be layered over that, and psychological stats other than Ld simply ignored. That makes armour more cost-effective. I'd keep Mordheim's initiative-to-the-charger and sword/buckler rules, though - they seem fun!

Actually, the lesser-used stats are often a great way to balance things if you can find more ways to make them more relevant. Ignoring or removing them just makes models that are good at crumping even better with no drawback. And, if you want to play a skirmish version of WHFB 3rd, that's fine - but it isn't Mordheim, even if you draft in a few rules from it.

For what it's worth, I suggest as follows:

1) Play the rules and warbands from the core book as-is, and all players try to avoid too much min-maxing of equipment and models.

2) If you set a limit of say four games each before you end the campaign and review, you will have a waaaay better idea of what's good and what's not, what works for you and what doesn't. You can then modify to suit your tastes based on that informed experience.

3) If you want to use warbands that are not in the starting book, simply use "counts as" for one that is and implement a few sensible self-imposed limits to emphasise the theme. For example Orcs could use the Middenheimer Mercenaries rules, and you could give all the models helmets where possible (simulating an Orc's hard head) and avoid using too many missile weapons.

4) Depending on the warband, many of the non-core ones often don't work too well in basic Mordheim in terms of balance. However, they may (and often do) work much better in their own respective settings. So I would look to use Lustrian Warbands in the Lustrian setting for example, as that's where they'd be most balanced. It also give you more excuses to reset and relocate campaigns, and for players to try new warbands, all of which coincidentally helps ameliorate runaway warband issues where one player constantly succeeds.

[Khusru2]

Played, and still playing!, the computer version. It's a great game

[NotifyGrout]

Surprised no one has mentioned this: https://broheim.net/downloads.html#corerules

or this: http://www.indadvendt.dk/2013/10/coreheim-all-documents-for-coreheim/

Broheim has the base rules with some additional stuff and errata. Coreheim is a revamped version of the original game that claims to address issues of imbalance in the original rules.

Mordheim has fantastic lore and theme. It brought a lot of good to fantasy wargaming as a genre. That said, the rules are clunky and easy to abuse. I had exactly one experience with it, thinking it would be fun like Necromunda was. Between watching one of the resident munchkins abuse Skaven slingers and losing my entire warband crumbled to dust because I happened to roll two 1s in a row when it came time to settle up injuries (most of which were from being pelted by half a dozen sling stones each turn, and the best part is that was less than half the guy's warband), I said "no more" and never looked back.

Now that there are a ton of great fantasy skirmish options out there, most of which have campaign options, I see no reason to bother going back. It was great for its time, but why bother when one can find a better ruleset and just set those games in Mordheim?

[Hobgoblin]

Well, bows have a long range, and Orcs, in heavy armour, with halberds, are comparatively expensive and not particularly fast. You will (potentially, depending on terrain) be taking quite a lot of fire until you get to melee, and it only takes one successful hit to get through and end am Orc. Also, Orcs don't get access to heavy armour as standard, but if we take a standard Orc Warrior in light armour then the cost per model is at least 70gp, whereas a Human marksman with a bow is 35gp (or 40gp with a longbow instead). If you allow heavy armour, then the Orc's cost rises to 100gp. So, for the same gold you get three Human bowmen to one Orc. And a bow is range 24" (30" if a longbow) vs an Orc moving 4" (or 8" if they run), or heavy armour that's 3" (6" if they run); that's potentially up to 9-15 shots at each Orc before the Orc gets to swing! Not all will be hits/wounds/etc, but it's a lot to weather, and you won't have many Orcs equipped like that.

All true - though it would (if my maths is correct - never a certainty!), the marksmen would have only a 1 in 18 chance of a wound at long range and a 1 in 12 chance at short range. Add in dense terrain (potentially restricting shooting to a turn or two), and you can see a situation in which those marksmen have to be quite lucky to take down our notional spike-can commandos before being engaged (sure, the marksmen can go hunting for the orcs, but then their shooting chances drop further). And if there are a few hapless goblins screening the advance ...

Your point about the cost is obviously a good one, though! Armour does seem astonishingly expensive relative to its effect - kind of a compromise between a sort of RPG-ish realism and a Warhammer-style points system, perhaps.

Correct; no penalty for offhand weapons. Like Citizen Sade says though, imposing a -1 to hit on both weapons is a common house rule.

Sort of. Whilst  the weapons in WHFB from 4th onwards to 8th are fairly similar, there are some small differences between some of them from edition to edition.

Cheers - right, that makes sense - and, yes, clubs, with their interaction with the 'stunned' rule, are the obvious example.

In the same way that facing runaway warbands isn't that much fun, having a successful warband constantly ganged-up on is also not much fun and takes away any incentive to try and do anything well. Also, games with more than two players are often somewhat chaotic and can be a bit incoherent - thus ruining the feel of the game if you do this too often. Better IMO to set up imbalanced scenarios or similar for the higher-rated warbands to try and survive through!

Fair points - but surely the Diplomacy-style potential for double and triple crosses on this can be quite entertaining. And if a successful warband gets stomped, presumably it's less likely to be top of the tree next time around.

Maybe... Check out the Critical Hit tables on page 116 of the big Mordheim book. The right critical, and you may as well be Lady Godiva in terms of an armour save!

Yes - the armour doesn't count for much, but toughness 4 is still quite a big deal (wound chance falling from a half to a third for 'normal' S3 attacks). I still have visions in my head of 1980s orc legions weathering bow and slingshots fairly well as they crossed the dining-room table ...

I'm not so sure it will necessarily; rather, it will more depend on what models you happen to have. If one collection happens to be equipped relatively optimally, and another collection happens not to be, then you will still get the same imbalance as the original core game.

Ah - now this is where my knowledge of the models we all have on hand comes in. I don't think any of us have much in the way of optimally equipped characters - at least not in the unarmoured, club-and-dagger sense. Our mercenaries will be drawn from historical figures (Perry, etc.) or Aly Morrison half-orcs, so there will be lots of gear. And the same goes for my Skaven and orcs (certainly the ones I plan on using).

So to start with, at least, I reckon, WYSIWYG will compel us all to spend half our budgets on gear. The only exceptions to that I can think of offhand are the undead - but I presume ghouls and zombies don't really go in for much in that regard!

On that note, I realised that my undead were short of a vampire - but I reckon the old Jez Goodwin Elric will serve that purpose perfectly - black armour, white skin and hair, red eyes, etc.

Actually, the lesser-used stats are often a great way to balance things if you can find more ways to make them more relevant. Ignoring or removing them just makes models that are good at crumping even better with no drawback. And, if you want to play a skirmish version of WHFB 3rd, that's fine - but it isn't Mordheim, even if you draft in a few rules from it.

I'm not sure if we're on the same page here - I mean Int, Cl and WP. These had an unbalancing effect in early Warhammer in two ways. First, they cut the cost of certain troop types (e.g. orcs and lizardmen), but almost never had any effect - so orcs and the like were cheaper than they otherwise would have been. Second, for the troops that did use them, they really mattered (trolls and troglodytes, most obviously); testing for Stupidity on Int effectively crippled the creatures thus afflicted, because Stupid creatures always had low Int (and even if they were well led, the orc or lizardman in charge would only get up to a 7 if a major hero or wizard - who essentially became an ineffective nanny for most of the game unless you got very lucky). So abandoning these stats and testing on Ld instead seems eminently sensible to me!

Also, I don't think using WHFB 3rd as I suggest would be much different from common Mordheim house rules. Armour would be a little more effective; two-handed weapons and dual wielding somewhat less; but isn't that what a lot of standard house rules do anyway? I'll certainly play the first few games entirely by the book, but as long as climbing, jumping, parrying, stunning, knockdowns, criticals, etc., are in, I'm not sure that 3rd's armour and weapons would be a huge change beyond what one might want to tweak in any case.

For what it's worth, I suggest as follows:

1) Play the rules and warbands from the core book as-is, and all players try to avoid too much min-maxing of equipment and models.

2) If you set a limit of say four games each before you end the campaign and review, you will have a waaaay better idea of what's good and what's not, what works for you and what doesn't. You can then modify to suit your tastes based on that informed experience.

3) If you want to use warbands that are not in the starting book, simply use "counts as" for one that is and implement a few sensible self-imposed limits to emphasise the theme. For example Orcs could use the Middenheimer Mercenaries rules, and you could give all the models helmets where possible (simulating an Orc's hard head) and avoid using too many missile weapons.

4) Depending on the warband, many of the non-core ones often don't work too well in basic Mordheim in terms of balance. However, they may (and often do) work much better in their own respective settings. So I would look to use Lustrian Warbands in the Lustrian setting for example, as that's where they'd be most balanced. It also give you more excuses to reset and relocate campaigns, and for players to try new warbands, all of which coincidentally helps ameliorate runaway warband issues where one player constantly succeeds.

Good advice - thanks! I think the orc warband will prove irresistible, though; Middenheimers look a good fit for half-orcs (I can see a role for the Jez Goodwin Uruk-hai - the big ones - as particularly orcish and ugly S4 champions!). I gather that the orc warband isn't one of the 'broken' ones, though - it seems well accepted on the various Mordheim forums.

I don't think we'll use the Lustrian warbands at all - unless to have a distinctly Old World, Karnac-style bunch of reptilian raiders coming up from below! Actually, that's quite tempting ...

[Hobgoblin]

Surprised no one has mentioned this: https://broheim.net/downloads.html#corerules

or this: http://www.indadvendt.dk/2013/10/coreheim-all-documents-for-coreheim/

Broheim has the base rules with some additional stuff and errata. Coreheim is a revamped version of the original game that claims to address issues of imbalance in the original rules.

Thanks! I've had a look at both; I'll go back and have another look at Coreheim now I've read over the original.

Mordheim has fantastic lore and theme. It brought a lot of good to fantasy wargaming as a genre. That said, the rules are clunky and easy to abuse. I had exactly one experience with it, thinking it would be fun like Necromunda was. Between watching one of the resident munchkins abuse Skaven slingers and losing my entire warband crumbled to dust because I happened to roll two 1s in a row when it came time to settle up injuries (most of which were from being pelted by half a dozen sling stones each turn, and the best part is that was less than half the guy's warband), I said "no more" and never looked back.

Now that there are a ton of great fantasy skirmish options out there, most of which have campaign options, I see no reason to bother going back. It was great for its time, but why bother when one can find a better ruleset and just set those games in Mordheim?

Well, that's certainly my fallback position; ruined, multilevel buildings (which are great fun to build) are perfect for Song of Blades and the like. And Rogue Planet works best with dense terrain and handles swarms of Skaven.

What does attract me, though, to the clunky old Warhammer system, is the potential for 'detailed advancement'. Mordheim's long statline is an archaism (compare with SOBH's two stats!), but it does allow for 'granular' advancement in a way that many modern skirmish games don't. SO I'm quite keen to try that out.

The other thing is the sheer enthusiasm that Mordheim seems to generate - both online and among people I know (we have now have nine potential players lined up!). I'm a little curious about that - and while I think Warhammer proper is hopelessly clunky, I can sort of see how it might work in a more RPG-ish narrative skirmish.

Out of interest, what skirmish system would you recommend as a good alternative specifically for the campaign aspect?

[Major_Gilbear]

Also, I don't think using WHFB 3rd as I suggest would be much different from common Mordheim house rules. Armour would be a little more effective; two-handed weapons and dual wielding somewhat less; but isn't that what a lot of standard house rules do anyway?

Ah yeah, I think we talked past each other a bit with regard to WHFB 3rd - it seems we did in fact mean similar things! 

I'll certainly play the first few games entirely by the book, but as long as climbing, jumping, parrying, stunning, knockdowns, criticals, etc., are in, I'm not sure that 3rd's armour and weapons would be a huge change beyond what one might want to tweak in any case.

I think that's best really. I mean, lots of games are like Mordheim (or you can write one to to be), but once you start to change and swap too many things in Mordheim it becomes merely a similar-themed but different game. Maybe that's a good thing, but it'd be up to you to decide that!

I don't think we'll use the Lustrian warbands at all - unless to have a distinctly Old World, Karnac-style bunch of reptilian raiders coming up from below! Actually, that's quite tempting ...

The different settings are pretty good in many ways, and are all different.

The Lustria campaign is easy enough to do with FG:Ghost Archipelago and Wargames Atlantic plastic kits substituting for the official models as required. In fact, with those two manufacturers, I think you'd be set and not need any official GW models at all! Of course, fighting over ruined South-American styled ruins in the jungles looking for treasure still allows you to use all the Mordheim rules too, but with added hazards and terrain types.

I think you'd like something such as the Empire In Flames supplement for Mordheim which is set in the wilderness areas of the Empire, especially around old ruins, abandoned villages, and deep forests. It adds Beastmen and the Carnival Of Chaos warbands to the setting, and I think it would accommodate Orcs (and Goblins) well too. Be warned that the CoC warband is rather strong, but the Beastmen are quite well balanced.

Anyway, I'll stop pontificating on the game now, and let you play some games and see how you get on. I hope you let us know how you get on and what your thoughts on it are.

[mweaver]

NotifyGrout: "Now that there are a ton of great fantasy skirmish options out there, most of which have campaign options, I see no reason to bother going back. It was great for its time, but why bother when one can find a better ruleset and just set those games in Mordheim?"

Actually, I haven't found anything I like better than Mordheim.  And I have tried a fair few (or at least read the rules).

We took a different approach to make two-weapon fighting less popular - we made shields give a 5+ save in melee combat (still only 6+ against ranged attacks, though). 

-Michael

[DivisMal]

Now that there are a ton of great fantasy skirmish options out there, most of which have campaign options, I see no reason to bother going back. It was great for its time, but why bother when one can find a better ruleset and just set those games in Mordheim?

Hmmm…tricky question, because one of the reasons, people still *love* Mordheim so much is that even though everyone has tried, no one really beat it.

Frostgrave is cool, but not Mordheim in that it focusses completely on spellcaster heroes.
SOBH + campaign is imo the best but suffers from a lack of granularity.
LotRSG + campaign is awesome but suffers from the lack of detailed background rules from Mordheim ; it has granularity though and a better system.
Confrontation + Dogs of War…urgh, super clunky and even worse balance issues.

People say a lot of good things about the Mantic fantasy skirmisher and now that you brought me to buy KoW I see the beauty in the rather abstract but well tested Mantic systems. Maybe that’s worth a loook. Basic rules should be free.

[Major_Gilbear]

Well, Malifaux is a pretty great ruleset, and would work beautifully in a Mordheim setting... But the fixed aspect of the models in the game (with most essentially being special characters) has a tendency to blind people to the rules themselves.

I agree though, there's many similar or "sort-of" games, but no full replacement. Surprising really, but it's somewhat the same with Necromunda too. It's the main reason I suggest minimal modifications to the game really.

[DivisMal]

Well, Malifaux is a pretty great ruleset, and would work beautifully in a Mordheim setting... But the fixed aspect of the models in the game (with most essentially being special characters) has a tendency to blind people to the rules themselves.

I agree though, there's many similar or "sort-of" games, but no full replacement. Surprising really, but it's somewhat the same with Necromunda too. It's the main reason I suggest minimal modifications to the game really.

I don’t want to derail the thread, but is it possible to play Malifaux without the profile cards sold with the specific models? That’s what’s also kept Confrontation into becoming a widely used ruleset with input from the outside (and a annoying tendency in many modern rules).