Talk:/TG/heim

League Meta-discussion

We're now 14 full days into this experiment and the pace has slackened off somewhat. Only slightly, though; we're still at a very impressive 79 warbands, not counting the dead/disbanded/inactive bands (which means we've had 5+ new warbands per day!). I think now's a good time to start thinking about the possibility of a reset as discussed below; this would allow a "fresh start" with a much larger playerbase, most of whom are familiar now with Mordheim, Roll20, and 1d4chan editing, and also a good chance to start fresh with a firm set of houserules, rather than applying things on the fly. I'd also propose for inclusion some of the warbands amended by various /tg/ members on a trial basis in a reset Open League from the very beginning - these would include:

• Seeric's Lahmian Sisterhood
• Funk's amended cost for Shadow Warrior and Dark Elf warbands
• Vitol's amended and compiled Lizardmen warband

We also need to get final rulings on:

• Empire in Flames extra mounts
• Spoils of War abusable items (not that I've found any)
• Swords of the Empire abusable hired swords (the only one I've found is probably the human Thief)
• whether all warbands can buy caravans, or if they are limited to warbands that specifically mention them.

Other more minor issues:

• Laying the slings debate to rest - there have been a lot of alternate houserules proposed or even the lifting of any sling houserules
• Allowing leaders to be sacked
• Retiring heroes as Dramatis Personae
• Using Priests in human warbands
• Pikes (there seems to be consensus leaning towards using the BTB rules)
• Five purchased hero limit across all bands (helping to flatten the power curve).

Please leave comments on these in their respective areas. Getting firm rulings on most of these would be necessary before any reset, as we don't want to have to keep amending the rules as we go.

--Quinze (talk)

Open League game records

The grim reality is we may run out of room. Or well, not exactly, but at the same time I don't want to devour all of 1d4chan's space with our generated content. 1d4chan is a common resource for all of /tg/ and we really should not leave a bigger footprint than possible. Right now it's still relatively manageable but I'm thinking long term - how many matches will have been played in a month? A year? T

Three ideas here, not necessarily mutually exclusive:

1. Create a dedicated Skirmish page. This helps with organization, sure, but it doesn't actually fix eating up larger chunks of 1d4chan.

2. Prune matches after a given length of time has passed, say a week/month/several months.

3. Reset the season and start from scratch every month or couple months - to me this is a thought, though I don't know how popular it is. If people really are attached to their teams, allow private leagues to be made with those who want to keep on going to higher power, while purging all the old skirmish info from the Opens. This would also give fresh blood a chance in the Opens without having to play high warband rating teams, and spin off interesting sub-leagues at the same time.

These are the three proposals - thoughts? --Quinze (talk)

I honestly think once every month the open league should be wiped and restarted, so I vote for 3. (talk)

I'd be for seasons on the open since it's there to introduce people (talk

I like both 2 and 3 - having old, experienced teams fighting it out is pretty interesting, but we also need plenty of lower-rated warbands for new people to fight, and in general. Ultimately, though, wiping should be supported by a majority, otherwise we're just going to piss some people off, and I'd prefer to go with the option that is best for the majority of the players --MILLANDSON (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

There is the auto retire rule in the game. I was thinking maybe we could set up a website or something? Maybe our own wiki? I know its not the option but it would give us our own space and wouldn't t have to delete warbands when they aren't ready to retire... Then again a veteran sub league for those who aren't to retire is also a good idea. Sorry I'm just all over the place. Also I think it is a hassle to keep making warbamds and over especially if for people like me who have work can't manage to play every day of the month -- gantherogue talk

Resetting the warband every so often will be a heavy blow to the merchant caravan who has the buying,selling and hoarding of rare items as one of their largest Schticks. They take quite some time to amass these items, specially if they do not win every game they are in and I fear they would be very frustrating to play if they had to dump their cargo on a regular basis. talk

I think that even if there will be wipes, they shouldn`t take only 1 month. Make it 3 at least, so that the warbands can get pretty fat and tired of themselves by the end of that time. Antary (talk)
One problem with this is that people are already making new warbands. People are free to make a new one whenever they wish; it's only week 3 and some players have 3 or 4 warbands already. The list gets very, very long. --Quinze (talk)

I support the deleting option, as we risk to flood 1d4chan, though I'd be quite sad if my warband went the Squat way after a month or two. Therefore, I really like how the /TG/heim wiki thing sounds.Silver (talk) 20:12, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Would a tentative reset date of beginning of May be worthwhile? About in time for the summer, and plenty of notice for everyone --Quinze (talk)

Extra Books/Splats/Warbands Inclusions

Spoils of War Items

-Take a look at the Spoils of War pdf - it provides a number of exotic items available for Mordheim campaigns.
-Many items in this pdf are usable by several warbands - Obsidian weapons and Chaos armour for chaos warbands, Cathayan longswords for Ogres and Cathayans, etc.
-Some stuff is obviously not for Mordheim and will not be used (map of Cathay), but there's no overall abusive items that stick out to me.
-May however contribute to bloat and extra rules.
--Quinze (talk)

Expanded Critical Hit tables.

-Very fluffy, but hard to remember and can slow down combat.
-I recommend against, at least for most games. As with all rules though players should be free to agree on its usage.
^For this I would support at least including the "Blackpowder Misfire" tables, as those are rare enough imo they wouldn't slow stuff down 76.178.154.218

Swords of the Empire

-A LOT of options in this book.
-Not all options meant to be used for Mordheim. Some are quite clearly for Lustria/Khemri. May have to indicate which.
-Thief option concerns me. Since you steal any common item on a 2+, you could presumably steal a suit of heavy armour after every battle, sell it for 25gc, and recoup the thief's upkeep+10 gc profit. Yes you fail on a 1, but strikes me as potentially economy breaking - the thief makes back his cost after 3 games and then it's pure profit. Aside from that, none of the other options seem particularly broken, just a pain to keep the special rules straight.

Empire in Flames Vehicle Rules

-We're already using already for at least the Merchant Caravans warband. The real question is whether to allow other warbands to purchase wagons and other vehicles, or restrict it as a Merchant Caravan's only choice.
-On the flip side, caravans don't really do much aside from look pretty and be really expensive in a standard Mordheim campaign (and the occasional ram attack for an auto S4 hit - but still, this is Mordheim, not bumper cars).
-Ships are a moot point for the time being, at least until we decide to break out water maps.

Empire in Flames extra Mounts

-Only an issue if we allow mounted combat. Empire in Flames provides prices/rarity levels for Riding Wolves, Mules, Nightmares, and Chaos Steeds - mounted options for Goblins, Dwarves, Undead, and Possessed warbands respectively.
-Would give most warbands the chance to deploy mounted fighters.
-Same issue as allowing mounted combat in the first place - worth doing?

Contentious Warbands and Balance Discussion

Seeing as most other warbands, including contentious ones like Shadow Warriors and Pit Fighters are allowed under the implied /tg/ Rule One: "Don't be a dick," would it be reasonable to allow Amazon warbands under the same premise, or are they too irrevocably busted?
-We really ought review ALL the commonly contentious warbands - Amazons, Shadow Warriors, Pit Fighters and take a good hard look. It's still early in the league but if we hard ban one we might as well hard ban all of them. It's not like we're really strapped for choice.

Amazons

Amazon issues are mostly gear: 30gc gets you an S+1 weapon that gives no armour save and can parry. 50gc gets you an Accurate S4 range weapon that grants no save. Compare a comparably costed item, Skaven Weeping Blades, which auto wound if you roll to hit on a 6 and count as two weapons, but you can still armour save with no problem. While there are other factors at play, the general power level of the Amazon items is noticeably stronger. Additionally, it's very clearly a fan-made warband (most of the items are thinly veiled 40k references) and lacks professional polish. The warband feels built more around the 40k references than any Amazon-ness.

Pit Fighters

Pit Fighters. Major issue is the Pursuers can nullify ANY charge with a successful init. roll (that's 50% of the time at base level). The other issue is that the warband all starts with the Pit Fighter skill, which can make them very swingy and would encourage the Pit Fighter player to just turtle in a building for the entire scenario. Pit Fighters are Hired Swords for a reason.

I have done some work on a rewrite of the Pit Fighters that removes their most contentious aspects, the pursuer anti-charge skill and universal Pit Fighter. This rewrite also changes styles so they are optional, but provide a bonus to the warrior for abiding by them. This is intended to allow the band to scale a bit better as the limitations of being an almost-entirely human cc list start to show, as well as make some thematic but mechanically disadvantaged weapons less crippling. The rewrite: http://pastebin.com/s30t7HCi

It's a good start, but the list still feels conceptually all over the place. It's essentially still "Hired Swords: The Warband", rather than feeling necessarily like something you'd see in the gladiator pits of the Empire. Most notably, I'd like to see the Dwarf Troll Slayer and Ogre Maneater replaced with something more Pit-fightery; various trained animals maybe? --Quinze (talk)

Took another stab at it. Removed the youngbloods, troll slayer, and ogre for a Beast Handler hero and three types of animal henchies as well as some slight wording changes. Pricing of the animals is something I'd like feedback on. They're supposed to be very good for their cost, since they can't gain experience, but I fear I may have overdone it with the Alpha Predator. Feedback appreciated. Link: http://pastebin.com/s30t7HCi

Shadow Warriors

Shadow Warriors. Access to Elven bows at start is a big jump; they will outrange everyone. But the real issue is the statline: The Shadow Master also starts at WS5 BS5 Ini6 for only 70 gold crowns! A Mercenary Captain or Witch Hunter costs as much or more and is nowhere near as good; and heroes will only get better. You could easily see a Shadow Master get WS6 or BS6 within a game or two. And the rest of the band is actually not very expensive for what you get - 35gc for M5 WS4 BS4 I6 is very cheap. The max 12 models doesn't feel a significant enough weakness.

• (Firstly, merc and witch hunter captains are both 60gc, not 'as much or more' than 70gc.)
• As with Dark Elves, let the elves be elves with their statlines, but increase cost. Suggested: Shadow Master: +25gc, Shadow Walkers +25gc, Shadow Warriors +15gc, Novices +10gc. Please discuss.
• Elven bows available from the start is nice, but at 55gc you won't have too many people with them. I don't think we need to change anything regarding them.

Something important to note; though shadow warriors have superior initiative and WS 4 or 5 as standard, their CC weapon selection is severely limited. They have no cheap option in the mace/hammer, neither do they have anything to boost their across-the-board low strength score of 3 (except the 2hander of course, which both negates their initiative advantage AND requires a unique skill to be taken before they may choose Strongman; not to forget that only two members of the warband may have said skill at any one time). Essentially, though they all have initiative scores far above most other races, they are going to be at a severe disadvantage if they are ever forced to use it. Combined with the fact that their only range choices are S3 bows, they are at a severe handicap vs T4 enemies such as dwarves and orcs, and due to their higher starting cost can initially be outgunned by a standard Reiklander/witch hunter band with massed crossbow fire. The usually high amount of buildings in most games would also handicap a pure ranged warband. Finally, on the subject of shadow magic. I've heard one or two people claim that the list if overpowered, and with the aforementioned abundance of 'walls' the Weaver would have no trouble getting his spells off most turns. Pool of Shadow and Shadowbind appear to me to be the ones people might have issue with, and maybe Wings of Night (which amounts to an effective 22" charge range). Pool of Shadow could have a simple +1 difficulty increase, while Shadowbind could require the Weaver to do nothing at all but focus on the spell (maybe even restricting his movement to walking speed too). Your thoughts? --Funk (talk)

Alright, after crunching the numbers, a sample "no-frills" 500gc warband:

• All 5 heroes = 360gc
• 1 Shadow Novice = 35gc
• 5 bows = 50gc
• 1 longbow = 15gc
• 4 swords/spears (Novice and Weaver would stick with daggers) = 40gc

A total of 6 models, 500gc total; no armour but lots of ranged capability. For a little more extravagance you could drop a Novice+longbow+sword and get Ithilmar armour on a hero.

I'm still iffy on keeping Shadow Weavers cheap at 55gc (their spell list is very good), and WS5 on the Shadow Walkers still feels very strong, but it's worth testing out. This would make them very in-line with Ogres - a small-model count band that gets absolutely monstrous with a few advances. I feel they are still a whole lot stronger than Ogres though - their upkeep means their small band size and high cost isn't as big a disadvantage. Ogres cost a lot to maintain, which limits how fast they can buy replacements (although they are a lot harder to kill than elves). Note their ability to detect hidden models at double range is also very good - the traditional stealthy creep method of getting in on a ranged army is very hard to do with them.

As for spells, Wings of Night is okay. Note that it's always 12" of movement (you never double movement from spells - the spell will note if you count as charging for initiative purposes, but you don't double the move). A slight difficulty increase on Pool of Shadow sounds warranted though. Range on Shadowbind is the major issue moreso than effect - there are other spells than stun a target, but none that have a potential 24" range! Granted, you have to be close to a wall, but this isn't exactly a big issue in Mordheim.

--Quinze (talk)

T3 and a single wound are what sets them apart from ogres; it would only take a lucky crossbow to hit and they'd be in serious trouble, and even with just a longbow and dagger a single Shadow Walker is 85gc to replace (more than what 4 shards can pay for), where an ogre youngblood with light armour, shield, sword and club is LESS than this. What I'm saying is that they are fundamentally glass cannons, where the ogres pack a wallop and can take a beating as well (actually come to think of it, short of taking a double handed weapon and eliminating their initative advantage, the elves are incredibly hard-pressed to hit above S3 in any situation. When it's all said and done they're perhaps not as OP as we've been giving them credit for :V).

Also I said 22" charge range with Wings as you can run 10" then cast, thus effectively granting you a 22" charge. --Funk (talk)

Yeah, I don't think it's a problem. Warlocks with Lesser magic can get the same spell, and Chaos Magisters have an equivalent which gives them an effective 20" charge. I don't really consider it abusive since if you are using it that way you're risking the caster in CC. Your point is already well-taken on the toughness difference, and I think it would be worth trialing the band in it's iteration. We may need to shift prices again, but I'd rather err on the side of underpowered if at all, and these prices seem as good a place to start as any. --Quinze (talk)

Dark Elves

Dark Elves have a similar amazing gc value to statline ratio. Their stats are not quite as high as Shadow warriors, but they still start with WS5 on many characters.

• Rather than reduce stats, increase gold cost. Suggested: Noble +15gc, Fellblades +25gc, Corsairs +10gc, Shades +10gc. Please discuss.
• Repeater crossbows being available is just how it is with DE. Possible suggestion to limit the power of repeaters across the board; maybe add a 'must stand still' rule to fire twice?
• Sea Dragon Cloaks should count as armour, and so would not stack with light/heavy armour. Will stack with shields/mounts as normal. No armour discount at creation.

Increased costs on both Elven bands would go a long way, but I'm worried about the logistics and the enforcement. We already have quite a few people screwing up with just the printed costs; do you think policing/enforcing the cost increases would be an issue? The other thing I'm worried about is the very, very high stat maximums given for elves in the rulebook. Granted, many other warbands have absurd maximums too and in actual play this may not be a big issue. I'll crunch some numbers on the cost too - I don't mind a "small, elite" warband in the Ogre model. --Quinze (talk)
A "small, elite" warband in the Ogre model is exactly what the elves should be (and to be fair what I think they were trying to go for in the first place). The prices I came up with are rough estimates using humans and other 'baseline' races as a standard, and looking at other 'elite' units like dwarves and ogres. I haven't had time to properly crunch numbers on them yet, so please feel free to do so! As for the point on enforcing the changes; I don't think there's much we can do on that note short of creating a new /TG/heim page to list the edited warband costs. Either that or just trust people to read the houserules! --Funk (talk)

Carnival of Chaos

What about Carnival of Chaos? Quite a few of us over at the /tg/ thread seem to be against them being allowed, due to them being built to screw warbands over with Nurgle's Rot.--MILLANDSON (talk) 03:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC) -I'm against Nurgle's Rot, just because it is a massive pain in an Open format like this regardless of balance. You'd have to track it, check to see if it jumps, so on and so forth. The thing is, just skimming through, with Carnival of Chaos is that they're a huge dicefest. All their stuff is quite good, but can phase out permanently on a Rout. Will need to read them again carefully. --Quinze (talk)

Lizardmen Amendments

Latest update: Vitol is working on a Lizardmen warband update that tightens up most of the wording.--Quinze (talk)

After discussing briefly some of the changes in the /tg/heim IRC room I have compiled an updated warband list for Lizardmen. Most notable is the increase in Sacred Spawnings and having them each based on a god of the Lizardmen. Additionally a new Hero class has been introduced, the Chameleon Skink. This brings the list up to 5 heros available for a starting warband. On the concern of balance within the warband a number of tweaks have been made. First off is the addition of a -1 to hit to the Saurus's bite attack. This is to primarily bring it in line with standard multiple weapon rules. Additionally Saurus Braves have increased in gc cost to 45 gc due to their excellent starting stats and built in armor. A few changes in the positive direction happened as well. The cost of light armor for warbands has been reduced to 30gc. This is still above standard warbands and should be due to Scaly Skin but at 50gc the cost was far too exorbitant for most warbands to even consider purchasing.

Media:Lizardmen_Warband_Vitol.pdf

-- Update 1: Cleaned up wording and updated Mark of the Old Ones to a more sensible wording. Previous wording had issues primarily with the scenario Treasure Hunt allowing a model with it to automatically pass the search test. New wording hampers use a bit for spells and Leadership tests but is otherwise much better.

I am certainly open for suggestions on how to improve or continue to tweak this list. -- Vitol (talk)

Lahmian Sisterhood Warband - *Playtesting*

I just added the Lahmian Sisterhood warband that I created to the Warband list. I would like your opinions on it and playtest it in the open league as long as there is no major disagreement. I added that information to the Warband list so that there will be no misconceptions. Any thoughts? talk

Costs and gear seem fine, but I think the 'Devoted' rule needs toning down. It'd be fine if it translated to the units leaving combat and rushing to the aid of the vampiress in distress, but as it stands it's more along the lines of 'the entire band goes absolutely apeshit when the vampire breaks a nail'. You could introduce a downside or limit it to a few units types to keep it as a defining feature, or just make it a bit more tame.

Any suggestion what to change about the 'Devotion' rule? Do you think it is to strong or to much of a liability? I could remove the frenzy part as consequence of taking a vampire out of action to tone it down, but I think the way it is it is more of a liability than an advantage, the downside is that you lose control of what your units are doing if the vampire gets knocked down or stunned. They will probably do stupid shit like jump down from buildings, charge enemy models you don`t want them to, break from close combat (giving the opponent a free attack and subsequent charge opportunity) or walk straigt through difficult terrain. The only advantage it has is when your model is already in hand-to-hand combat and the enemy model is between them and the vampire. It gives games involving the warband a great tactical element, since you and your opponent have to think carefully about model positioning. (talk)

Hm, some thoughts, first on the Devoted rule:

• Does the Devoted rule ignore the usual running restrictions? I assume it counts as a compulsory move, but would a warband member subject to it be allowed to shoot? Able to move/climb/charge afterward? Adding some wording to clarify would help
• One issue is that the rule relies on familiarity with the break from combat rule, which is currently not in use in the Opens (although that's open for discussion). I feel that automatically passing a break from combat is quite strong and really is not very much of a weakness.
• Is the hatred effect that results permanent or just until the end of the current battle?

Then more general clarifications:

• The Seduction skill: if two enemy models are in base to base, and the Vampiress seduces one, will he strike the other in this round of CC? What if he had already attacked the Vampiress first and used his attacks for the round? A common sense case, but tightened wording couldn't hurt.
• Levitation presumably doesn't allow you to end your movement inside impassable terrain, or does it?
• Innocence Lost - isn't this identical to First Strike from the speed list, without the psychology restriction?
• Cloak of Shadows - presumably the description should read "may only be worn by Lahmian Vampires" (the original just has "may be worn", which implies henchmen and other heroes may wear it).

On general list balance vs. others:

• Promoted heroes in the Lahmian list can have access to all skill lists. Just noting that it does give this warband a very great deal of flexibility that is only paralleled by Mercenary lists, and the equipment is almost up to spec as well. A weakness of Undead bands is their general inability to use good equipment, but this band is very flexible in that regard.
• Silvered Weapons: I'm divided on these, but mostly because I think these would be a fantastic addition to the general equipment list for all warbands.
• I feel the Steward is still quite good for his price, even with Academic only access.
• I'm divided on whether or not the warriors are underpriced; Devotion is a weakness, but a canny player can turn it into a pretty monstrous strength; and sometimes just the fear of trigger a Devotion cascade may be a weapon in its own right.
• Overall it feels like an Undead Mercenary list; lots of excellent equipment choices and Feel No Pain on your heroes. It combines many of the strengths of both Undead (deadly heroes with Feel No Pain) and Mercenary warbands (varied equipment choices, solid warriors at affordable prices). On the flip side, it has a few weaknesses of both, the Vampires can't use weapons or armour and thus later in the game may get outstripped, and the human warriors are vulnerable in the same way mortal warriors are. I'd say it's feels like sideways step from the standard Undead warband in terms of overall strength, possibly a little stronger based on how well a player can use Devotion.--Quinze (talk)

Recent changes and clarifications

• Clarified the devotion rule. It is handled like a running action. No climbing, hidding or shooting at the end of it.
• Breaking from combat is really bad. You don`t want that to ever happen to you. Your opponents get to attack you with automatic hits and if you survive that, you will be charged on the next turn.
• Clarified the hatred thing. It is just for the remainder of the match.

• On the Seduction Skill: It is stated that the leadership tests involved are resolved at the start of the close combat phase. So nobody should have attacked yet.
• Levitation Skill was clarified
• Innocence Lost differs from Lightning Reflexes in two ways: Lightning Reflexes works only when the model that has it is charged. Innocence Lost works always. On the downside, it does not work against enemies who are Immune to psychology.
• Cloak of Shadows is a Heroes only item that may be also worn by the vampires. So no need for any corrections or clarifications on that.

• On the Steward: Compared to the Sigmarite Augur from the Core Rules he is not as good, but costs the same.

(talk)

Non-Contentious Warband Balance Tweaks

Given how close we are to the reset, I believe it would be valuable if we were to look at some of the bands that are just a small change or two away from being viable instead of blatantly below par. -John S

Kislevites

Proposed Change: Remove the Inheritance rule from the Druzhina Captain, and reduce his cost from 80 to 60 gold. Give Streltsi the Hunter skill.

Rationale: Inheritance is a flavorful negative that, when combined with the higher price of the Druzhina versus other human captains, only saves the band any gold if the captain starts with a brace of dueling pistols, and is potentially a huge liability that the list is not nearly strong enough to justify. Giving the Streltsi the Hunter skill almost makes giving them their signature combination of weapons, the halberd and handgun, worthwhile.

Game Mechanic Houserules

Slings revisited

Should we bring slings back up to S3? Or perhaps allow single shots at S3 for slings? My concern is that it's the only ranged option to Skaven, and they have no way to hurt T6 or better (not an issue initially, but as level-ups occur) at range without resorting to blowpipes (and Skaven aren't exactly a stand-up and fight warband). They are very cheap for what they do though, but on the flip side Skaven can never use bows.

• S3 for single shot wouldn't hurt, I don't think. That would balance nicely.

I feel a nice ruling on slings is what Quinze and I were chatting about earlier. 16 inch range, str 3 all the time. The rules for shooting twice with the slings say that you need to stand still, have to take a -1, and can only shoot up to half range, which would be now 8 inches. Factor in that the enemy will most likely have cover, and I think slings are an Ok choice. Even pump them up to 4 GC's apiece, instead of two and you have a perfectly balanced weapon. -Mike M.

Honestly I don't see what's really really wrong with slings. having the normal penalties like long range, moving, cover, and such, an additional -1 for a str 3 extra shot seem ok. what says everyone? Never mind, just saw a warband that has 14 henchmen with slings or whatever. Douchy lists.

Make Blowpipes actually useful?

On the subject of skaven ranged, is it me or do blowpipes blow? Why would you take one, when you can cough up 10g more for a warplock? It's cool flavor, but can we make them mechanically interesting too? Safest buff would be to just get rid of the target-detects roll, hidings dodgy enough to begin with. Or maybe just lower the price to ~15g.

A more interesting buff would be to give it "pick-target" whilst hidden. We might see more eshin assasins trying to, you know, assasinate stuff.

Ogre XP Table

We've changed this back and forth between the two options. Shall we just use the doubled XP table and call it a day? I'm still personally a fan of "1 xp counts 50% for progression, but full value towards warband value", but that's mostly because I feel having to draw up a whole extra advancement table for one warband very clunky. --Quinze (talk)

Human Warbands & Priests

The rules for priests state that they're an available Hero choice for any non-Chaos human warband - but they don't replace any existing Hero slot. This makes them pretty much a no-brainer for any human warband to start with six heroes.

Although there's precedent for six hero bands such as skaven, in human warbands we have the precedent with the Outlaws of Stirwood where the available priest must replace an existing hero choice. I would suggest that any priest taken in a human warband should replace a Champion or Youngblood (hirer's choice) in this way.

Alternatively, if everyone thinks it's okay for mercenaries and such to start with six heroes then let it stand.

I do agree on this. Although many warbands can already start with 6, such as Skaven. I'm concerned this makes a priest a must-take for a Merc warband as you said. I'd much rather have the replacement idea. --Quinze (talk)

It's probably going too far, but what if you disconnected earnings and hero quantity?

Ooh, this is a rough one. How would we determine earnings after a battle? Standardize them? What about doubles/trips/quads/etc.? A lot of Mordheim's campaign structure is built on the premise that Heroes are the main source of income. We'd have to pull out the entire guts of the thing and start over if we wanted to do that. --Quinze (talk)

Retiring Heroes as Hired Swords/Dramatis Personae

So this was mentioned in the forums, and my thoughts are that this is what occurs when your player has a non-death reason that you permanently lose them (Blinded in both eyes, 5+ Old Battle Wounds, etc):

• If model has up to 45 experience, they are a Hired Sword. Cost is 1/3 of total weapons+equipment+1gc/XP, and upkeep is 1/2 of that.
• If Hero has 46+ XP, they are a Dramatis Personae. Cost is the total cost of weapons+equipment+1gc/XP, with rules for hiring as normal

If a Hired Sword/Dramatis Personae is killed, they are no longer available for hire by any warband. Probably should houserule this for regular Dramatis Personae for Openheim as well, for if/when people start hiring DP. These are just my thoughts, so feel free to interject about changes or problems with this idea.--Draxxon (talk)

I don't know about this. For one thing, not many people have been using Dramatis Personae (and Hired Swords are pretty rare), and I'm worried about even more book-keeping for the Open League. This sort of thing is perfect in a sub-league where there's a handful of bands, but with 70+ bands will anyone even know the legend behind specific characters? Plus, I'm sort of against allowing warriors that have been blinded in both eyes to be re-hireable - they're blind, after all! Plus, this would allow a warband who loses the character to some sort of retirement reason to retain them again. --Quinze (talk)

I actually dig this idea, as it adds to a sort of /tg/-verse for Mordheim, if you will. - Ourous

Well, if we're keeping up old warband lists in the Skirmish section, why not simply have disbanded/retired warbands get a Hired-Sword-able model from their list? The surviving hero with the most XP becomes a Dramatis Personae option, and the highest-XP henchmen become hired swords (each must have had to achieved at least X advances, like 3 or 5, to be eligible). Costs and such are right in the list, it allows he memory of older warbands to live on (Honestly, I think if some people don't know the legend behind certain bands, that is even better as the story of their accomplishments passes on through word of mouth/wiki). As long as the statline and full equipment and costs and such is clearly noted in the retired warband list, and have a set value the cost/upkeep for hired swords and cost of Dramatis Personae are (We could use what I noted above, probably with Hired Sword costs edited to just their straight overall value of base cost + equipment/weapons + 1gc per XP, rounding to nearest 5gc, and upkeep is 1/3 of the overall cost, also rounding to nearest 5gc)--Draxxon (talk)

Actually, I was thinking of slowly clearing old bands off the Skirmish page eventually - we have a lot of skirmishes in there. I wouldn't be averse to having a Dramatis Personae dedicated page though, with the statline, price, and summary/description of each entry though. --Quinze (talk)

Pistol whipping - *SETTLED*

By RAW, dual wielding a brace of pistols means your attacks are set to two, because you can only discharge two shots, which sort of shafts pistol-wielders who gain attack advances. Pistol braces are expensive enough; they shouldn't further be a double-edged advantage, so I suggest that after the first two attacks at S4, the model gets whatever remaining attacks at regular strength (pistol whipping his enemies or whatnot). So a Mercenary with A3 and a brace would get 2 shots with the brace at S4 (1 "bonus" attack from the offhand pistol, then 1 of his regular attacks), then his remaining 2 attacks at his regular strength. --Quinze (talk)

To be blunt: this is what people get given free daggers for. You play a pistol melee character then you're putting all your eggs in one basket; braces do not suffer from the flat -1 dual-wielding penalty and hit harder than most humans right off the bat (and more accurately, as most players opt for the far more useful duelling brace). I don't think we should do anything here, pistols are already balanced. --Funk (talk)

Fair point! I just worry that the Human bands may not be able to keep up with all the monstrosities around them when advances start occurring. --Quinze (talk)

A pistol counting as a club once discharged has been a really common houserule in IRL Mordheim campaigns I've been in but I don't know if it's necessary. A model with multiple attacks could simply switch to using a single pistol in melee alongside another weapon, couldn't they? --Tobias Helmgart (talk)

I suppose that's possible too - there's nothing that states you have to use your brace, after all. --Quinze (talk)

SETTLED: No further pistol rulings necessary.

Five Purchased Heroes Limit

Probably the one thing that easily makes some warbands very high tier vs other warbands is that some can start with 6 heroes from the get-go - this tends to result in more income, more advancements, and generally gets snowballs going much faster. Rather than try to rewrite the heroes available in every list, why not put a flat cap on the number of heroes your warband can buy, like 5 purchased heroes? You can still go up to 6 by promoting henchmen, and replace heroes if they get killed, but this could go a long way towards preventing a fast snowball by some bands. --Quinze (talk)

So do skaven lose a black skaven or a night runner? If the former, they are starting with only two 'combat viable' heroes and a caster, and if the latter then they are missing out on the rapid advances that all other warbands double up on. This same problem of 'which hero gets restricted' would arise in all warbands with a 1, 0-1, 0-2, 0-2 split. ---Funk (talk)

Simple - allow them to choose. Skaven may start with any combination of heroes allowed so long as they've purchased up to 5. If one of the original 5 died, then a Skaven band could either replace him with a new hero of a same type, or of the other type they didn't take - so long as their purchased characters don't exceed 5. There's no need to overthink it - every warband buys a leader, then 4 more heroes. Plus, bands with 6 heroes still have an advantage - if a leader dies, you can't buy a replacement, but bands with a 6 hero allotment can buy the remaining hero available to them (since 5 purchased heroes is the maximum).
And what makes casters somehow less "combat viable"? Spellcasters are very strong in Mordheim - they can throw spells in CC. And Night Runners aren't that much worse at combat. An Eshin sorcerer can get just as deadly in CC as a Black Skaven. --Quinze (talk)

I agree with this. Any warband with access to 6 heroes can only hire five of those, hirer's choice which. It posing a decision on whether you'd rather start with more dangerous CC heroes, a spellcaster and/or more heroes likely to gain advances more rapidly isn't a bad thing IMO. However, aren't there already warbands with access to 6 heroes who have taken those 6? It doesn't seem fair to apply this retroactively, but it's not really fair to impose it on only newer players either. --Tobias Helmgart (talk)

Definitely not a change to apply retroactively; but seeing as we may do an Opens reset sometime that would be a spot to throw this in. --Quinze (talk)

And what of the Orcs and Goblins, who can only purchase 4 heroes? Would they be allowed to promote a Boy henchie at the start, as a 2xp hero as though he had rolled "Lad's Got Talent"? While limiting the purchasable heroes to 5, it doesn't help the warbands that can't even buy 5 heroes. --Squire Minidar (talk)

Rabbit's Foot

I am of the opinion that this item is far, far too powerful for how cheap and easy it is to find. A 10-gold, Rarity 6 item that is at least exactly as effective as the Wyrdstone Hunter skill is just so far above everything else in cost-effectiveness. At the very least it should not allow for exploration dice to be rerolled, but even that nerf would leave it at being very, very powerful. It should probably just be removed outright when we do a reset. --John S

I wholeheartedly agree with the change to exploration as in item terms it simply becomes a far better and cheaper Wyrdstone Pendant. For the in-game re-roll it is hard compare to for balance. I would not object to a price increase and rarity increase. Say to 20gc and Rarity 8. This would put it about on par for rarity/cost with Holy Relics and provide similar functionality.(Try to succeed on a roll you failed, but unlike the Holy Relic you have more versatility for not auto-success.) -- Vitol

Good arguments, and I don't really see a whole lot of disagreement from those I've asked. I'll leave this for a few more days and then we can add this in; it's a fairly common houserule --Quinze (talk)

Honestly, the only broken thing about them is the exploration roll. A re-roll is game can be useful, but it can just as easily be a waste of gold. I said drop the exploration re-roll and up the cost to 15gc, that's to bad over all, it provides a will card use and doesn't factor in to warband income post game. -Zak

20gc and Rarity 8 would be fine with me. The wording of the item allows for a lot of bullshit, like rerolling a single die from a casting roll and stuff like that. My favourite solution would be simply banning it. --Seeric85

Multiple Advancement Rolls for Large Henchmen Groups

A possible house rule to make larger henchmen groups less disadvantageous vis-a-vis groups of individual henchmen is to allow a group of henchmen to roll an advance for each member, with the player choosing one of these for the entire group. This method would give more control over the development of larger henchmen groups, and would make Lads Got Talent just as likely as it is when using groups of individual henchmen, but larger henchmen groups would remain constrained by the need for uniform equipment.

This is a change I would be wholly in favor of us adopting in the coming reset. Everyone would benefit from some control over how their henchmen advance, and it would help prevent henchmen from getting advances that are utterly useless, like leadership on a Darksoul. -John S

I'm also hugely in favor of this. If nothing else, it prevents a ton of high-leadership henchies. - Squire Minidar

The only reason I'd be against this is that it possibly makes things more complex for new players. But seeing that we have an experienced core now a change like this probably would be alright. --Quinze (talk)

Clarification: Rolls for advances that the henchmen group has already taken would be rerolled. WS/BS advances would have the option of being rerolled if the group has only advanced in one of these, as per the current rules. Duplicate rolls of advances that have not been taken yet would not be rerolled. unused rolls of The Lad's Got Talent would be rerolled. So, a henchmen group that already has a WS and a I advance would always reroll any further I advances, and would have the option of rerolling WS/BS advances. -John S

Question about Crossbows Pistols being used in Close Combat

I am asking for clarification on exactly how Crossbow Pistols function when using "Shoot in Hand-to-hand combat" ability. My initial reading of the ability is that the wielder can make a "freebie" shot with the xbow pistol, and then fights in cc as though it hadn't been used and could therefore use two one-handed melee weapons or a two-handed melee weapon. This reading would differentiate it from black-powder pistols, which do occupy a hand and have very different rules for being used in close combat. I would like feedback from the rest of the community on this question. I don;t think it has come up, as crossbow pistols are a very expensive weapon with very limited availability, but I figure it is better to settle this before it comes up in a game. -John S

I believe it's a free shot taken before any CC occurs. You shoot the guy as you close the distance, then drop/stow the pistol to fight hand-to-hand. It's similar to how Striking Scorpion mandiblasters used to work in 2nd ed. 40k. --Quinze (talk)

Carnival of Chaos using the Rewards of the Shadowlord Table (RESOLVED)

What would you guys think about allowing the Carnival of Chaos to use a slightly modified version of the Rewards of the Shadowlord table? (Changing the instances of "mutation" to refer to "blessings of nurgle", and allowing the carnival master and tainted ones to roll on it in the place of the magister and mutants, in particular) --Skraal (talk)

Expert Swordsman

I think that we've been making some mistakes on what the skill, "expert swordsman" allows. The rule specifically states that it only applies when the model is wielding swords. Not a sword, but swords plural. No matter which interpretation we stick with, I think that maybe we should still make some sort of clarification on the main page. Skraal (talk)

I added a clarification to the main page to establish that the skill works the way we all know it is supposed to. Two issues remain that I would like to present for discussion: 1. Nonweapon attacks still get to reroll misses, most notably the great claw and scorpion tail mutations. 2. I would like to propose we let rapiers benefit from this skill as well, because they're fucking awful as-is and might be worth using with this boost.

How to Wiki

I see that the pace of editing /TG/heim pages has slackened off slightly. I assume that this is because you are becoming more competent editors, which is a good thing (especially if some of you end up contributing to the rest of the wiki). However, it seems that you're getting tripped up by a technical detail of how MediaWiki handles links to pages whose titles include slashes.

Full information is in Help:Subpage, but the short version is that, when you link to a page whose title starts with a slash from a page in a namespace that allows subpages, the wiki software automatically treats the link as going to a subpage of the page with the link. To put this in more concrete terms, if I want to create a link on "/TG/heim:Awesome Warband" leading to the page "/TG/heim:Awesome Warband/Heroes" (because my warband has so many heroes that they deserve their own page), I could just make the link target "/Heroes" and it would work (note that this is distinct from a link to the Heroes section, for which I would use "#Heroes"). Unfortunately, because "/TG/heim" starts with a slash, if I link to "/TG/heim" from my warband's page, the wiki software will treat the link as leading to the nonsensical and nonexistent page "/TG/heim:Awesome Warband/TG/heim"; since this page does not exist, it will create a redlink, and an entry on the list of wanted pages. The way to make sure the link goes straight to the literal /TG/heim page, and not the hypothetical subpage, is to add a colon to the beginning of the link -- i.e. [[:/TG/heim]].

At the moment, almost every one of your warband pages has this problem, which means we've got a bunch of spurious redlinks to pages that will never be created, and only serve to frustrate those of us who are looking to create pages that are genuinely desired. I'm not too bothered about this, since this was caused by a very recent change that I've only just updated the help pages to reflect (/TG/heim wasn't a namespace until a couple of days ago -- and in any case, this issue is a relatively minor one [most wikis don't have articles whose names have slashes in them and get commonly linked to, like our pages about /TG/heim, /tg/, or any of the other boards] that I wouldn't expect a new user to understand). I'd just fix it myself (in fact, I've already fixed the Warband Profile Page Template so that it links to the correct page), but I'm not eager to wade through all the warband pages to fix this (they aren't "mine" and I'm not part of /TG/heim), so the next time you update your warband pages, I would appreciate it if you also fixed this problem by adding that colon.

I realize that this is a lot to take in, especially for those of you who have never edited a wiki until a week ago, but I like to see things done right. --Not LongPoster Again (talk) 19:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

You know what, never mind; I'm not that patient. I'll go ahead and fix those links as I come across them. I'll leave a link to Help:Subpage in the edit summary, for those interested in a more detailed explanation of what I'm doing. --Not LongPoster Again (talk) 19:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks NotLongPoster. We're doing our best to bring everyone up to speed on wiki editing and etiquette, but the league has grown a lot faster than anyone has anticipated (we are up to maybe 50 players in a week); we appreciate all the help. --Quinze (talk)

No big deal. I fixed the template page first, so any new warband pages shouldn't have that problem (and like I said, it's not a problem that would be obvious to a new user). For you guys, it's probably a good rule of thumb to use colons at the beginning of all of your links -- since you're all in the /TG/heim namespace (except for the main /TG/heim page, funnily enough; since the title doesn't have a colon in it, it's still part of the Main [or article] namespace -- which is not really a good or a bad thing, it's just a fact), you all have subpages available, and since your namespace starts with a slash, links to other /TG/heim pages will be treated as leading to subpages unless you use a colon at the beginning of the link. You don't need colons at the beginning links to pages that don't start with slashes (e.g. Mordheim), but they won't hurt anything. --Not LongPoster Again (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Splitting Academic Skill list to Academic and Arcane Skill lists

So the Academic list is currently fairly weak for non-spellcasters, so I thought it might be an option for someone running a league to split their Academic list into Academic and Arcane Spell lists. The new Academic list is available to all the people who could pick it from the old one, and Arcane is available to any model who has any spells or prayers (So models that get the tome of magic could pick from it).

• Arcane Lore (From BRB): Removed. Any model with a Tome of Magic may pick to roll for a Lesser Magic spell if they have the item, without needing this skill. However, if the model loses the Tome of Magic for any reason, these spells are lost and if the model gains a new Tome at a later point, they do not regain the lost spells.Changed this because I figure the 200+gc pricetag is a large enough penalty, coupled with the loss of spells if the tome is lost for some reason.

Academic

• Battle Tongue (As per BRB)
• Streetwise (As per BRB)
• Haggle (As per BRB)
• Wyrdstone Hunter (As per BRB)
• Keen Eye (Double distance you detect Hidden models at)
• Orienteering (You can choose to reroll the die for determining who picks the deployment)
• Surgeon (If this model did not suffer an OOA result, it can cancel a single Missed Game result from another model's Serious Injury on a roll of 5+ once per post-battle sequence. Any model that is forced to miss more than one game as a result of their injury only reduces the number of missed games by 1 regardless of the number of Surgeon rolls they pass)

Arcane:

• Sorcery (As per BRB)
• Warrior Wizard (As per BRB)
• Dispel (Ignore any Spells or Prayers cast at this model on a roll of a 5+)
• Dabble (When you roll for Spells, you can choose to roll from a different Spell list than your model normally can other than Lesser Magic and Prayers of Sigmar. However, you are limited to only one spell of any kind from a different spell list than the list your model normally can. Sisters of Sigmar and Witch Hunters cannot pick this skill)
• Winds of Magic (You roll 3d6 and pick the highest two when casting spells. However, if you roll doubles, the casting model rolls for an Injury after resolving the spell effect)
• Concentration (If you cast a spell with an indicated range, increase that range by 3")
• Enchant Weapon (Before a battle, you may nominate a single weapon in the warband to Enchant. Roll 1d6. On a 6, the model gains +1 to-hit for the duration of the battle. On a 1, the weapon is destroyed, and the model who was using the weapon must fight without it)

Lemme know feedback on any of these ideas-Draxxon (talk)

I do not believe spellcasters need any more skills. They can already become incredibly powerful. Adding in Dispel as an academic skill anyone with access to the list could take wouldnt hurt, though. Keen Eyes and Orienteering look far too niche for anyone to actually bother with.

Surgeon looks a little weak, but I am very leery of making it easier for heroes to avoid injury. Doing so would be a very large buff to bands that focus a huge chunk of their combat power into one or two heroes, like Possessed or Undead, and I don't think these bands needs any buffs. Making it easier for henchmen to survive would benefit everyone pretty much equally, and would make investing equipment into henchmen less of a risk than it currently is. Thus, allowing the Surgeon to choose to reroll one henchman's serious injury roll instead of treating a hero would make the skill viable without being overpowering. -John S