Just played my first game of Modheim today...

[BozzyB]

So as the title says I just played my first game, well we played 4 games.

It was me (undead) and two of my friends playing with Witch-hunters and a Shadow warriors player. I won all 4.

And I'd just like to convey my thoughts:

Are vampire supposed to be that good? I used an undead warband, and the vampie was some sort of god. With lightning relexes, dodge, +3 I, strongman, sprint, and a two handed weapon, he was easily the most destructive character on the field. He practically won me my all the games. Should he be that good?

Shooting is suitably disspointing, even with average rolling elves with long bows and hanguns aren't to great. Were we missing something?

The human warband was severly under-powered in comparison to the other two. With a little tweaking of his list the warband becuase better though, but they still seemed a little weak, and lacked any real hitting power that the others had. Is this normal?

All in all though, it was a great game and I will definately be playing more of the game.





BozzyB

[Zilverug]

Some tips/remarks:

Vampires are very good, but looking at all those vampire upgrades in your first 4 games (so, gained in max. 3 games), you probably bought those upgrades. It is better not to allow buying of upgrades to avoid models like your vampire in the early game. Furthermore, limit the (initial) game size to 500 gc.

If another warband keeps its warriors together, they can gang up at a lone hero that sprinted forward imposing all kinds of nastiness. Don't forget that sprint doesn't work if an enemy model is too close.

Shooting is very useful in Mordheim: apart for the occasional out of action, it is very useful when enemy models spend their time face (or back) down on the table instead of moving. This splits up or slows the enemy warband and allows your warband to reach the objectives earlier.

The benefit of humans is that they are very versatile and quite cheap crown-wise. They may field one of the best henchmen in the game: the swordsman. They should have swarmed/outnumbered the undead and elves.

[McMullet]

Vampires are very hard, but as Zilverug says, if you send them out on their own they WILL die. The zombies will take an age to catch up, and not do much when they do! But should most definitely NOT buy upgrades at the start of a campaign, the upgrade-buying system was intended for one-off games and messes up campaigns somewhat.

Shooting isn't ever going to win you a game, but it can be useful.

[Zilverug]

But should most definitely NOT buy upgrades at the start of a campaign, the upgrade-buying system was intended for one-off games and messes up campaigns somewhat.

I feel that in one-off games buying upgrades also messes up the game:
1.
the upgrades are far too cheap, especially when comparing to equipment
2.
in campaigns at least the stat advancement is somewhat random; when buying stats, the heroes tend to get very unbalanced, especially when matching skills are bought as well

When you want to start a game with pre-bought skills, it would probably work to set a maximum of 1 or 2 skill or stat upgrade(s) for each character of each warband.

Shooting isn't ever going to win you a game, but it can be useful.

With a possible exception of slings: those might win you a game (or two).

[McMullet]

That may well be the case, I've only ever played a couple of one-off games.

I don't think the game works well in that way anyway, as all of the rules and costs are designed for campaigns.

[BozzyB]

We might have been playing the game wrong, so please correct us if we were, but we didn't use the buy skills part, we used experience points.

The way that we understood it was that if you started with 20 exp, then you ticked the 20 boxes and therefore could get (IIRC) 8 upgrades/skills, depending on your luck.

And so my vampire got those skills through sheer luck.

It wasn't part of a campaign or anything, it was just some trial games to get to grips with the basic rules. So with this in mind we ignored the exploration phase, replacing dead troops and such like.

We also avoided scenarios. So the experience was just to spice up the four games. The vampire stacked up quite a few kills, and was on the winning side each time, so he got plenty of experience points and got more good upgrades.

Just thought I'd clear that up.

And on the subject of the humans being able to out number, this wasn't really the case either. With 5 zombies, a necromancer, two dire wolfs, 2 ghouls, three dregs, and a vampire, the undead warband was rather high in mubers also. And the shadow warrior warband was something like 6 shadow warriors, a shadow walker (?) and a novice. The human warband was only 10models at most. So they hardly 'swarmed' anyone.





BozzyB

[Naghaz]

We might have been playing the game wrong, so please correct us if we were, but we didn't use the buy skills part, we used experience points.

The way that we understood it was that if you started with 20 exp, then you ticked the 20 boxes and therefore could get (IIRC) 8 upgrades/skills, depending on your luck.

Not exactly. You do tick off the 20 boxes but you do not get the upgrades and skills. You check those boxes off and take the character as he is in the book (starting stats). The experience ticks are there to show this is in fact a character, and he's starting with some experience (it also plays into you're warband rating).

And on the subject of the humans being able to out number, this wasn't really the case either. With 5 zombies, a necromancer, two dire wolfs, 2 ghouls, three dregs, and a vampire, the undead warband was rather high in mubers also. And the shadow warrior warband was something like 6 shadow warriors, a shadow walker (?) and a novice. The human warband was only 10models at most. So they hardly 'swarmed' anyone.

BozzyB

In campaigns you generally start with 500 gold to buy your warband and any equipment; that will severly limit how tough the starting vampire is, and or, how many henchmen he comes equipped with. Humans on the other hand, are relatively "cheap" in the begining, so the human player should outnumber the Vamp. Also note that human swordsman have decent skills and are generally more than a match for Zombies and the like. Human warbands are good and balanced I feel. Vampires are definitely solid as well, and Shadow Warriors become overpowered (in my opinion) as a campaign progresses.

[HiredSword.]

try playing multiplayer, it means that if there's one warband which is more powerful (i.e. yours) the others can gang up on it for some bitter sweet revenge

[BozzyB]

We did, half of the games were three way slaughters.

Need less to say, I have informed my firneds about how we were playing the experience system incorrectly. Thanks for pointing that out guys.





BozzyB

[Ghost Dog]

yeah, you'll find that it's a lot different game if you don't start with all those upgrades. You and your friends should try recruiting a few more players and start a campaign. This is where the Mordheim system shines. Use some scenarios to spice up the play. If done correctly you shouldn't have any trouble keeping the campaign balanced.

[BozzyB]

We were thinking of doing a campaign in the summer.

Only it wouldn't be set in the City of the Damned. Instead it would be more a small village that has been over taken by a necrach vampire, who has then reanimated all of the villagers as zombies.

It would be a zombie horror, only with witchunters, ghouls, zombies, skellies, some Shadow Warriors, Bretonnians (sp?) and vampires.

It would be very, very story driven, and will be very cinematic and will even feature "boss" type creatures.

Come summer, I'll post the story and progress on here, so keep watching!

We just thought that it would be fun to do.

Any ideas on that?





BozzyB

[McMullet]

That sounds pretty cool! Just make sure everyone has the motivation to continue with it to the end.

The "Best of Town Cryer" supplement has some stuff about using monsters in Mordheim scenarios, and they do crop up in some of the special scenarios too.

[russian]

mordheim is open to a bit of abuse with power gaming, the skaven sling horde (i confess i used it to win a shop tourniment :P and im not gonan do it again, gonan try the black skaven flail combo with a few slingers in and the rest with spears and the such) is hideous, and this can happen even in campain stuff rather than one offs, the best way around this is to keep track of the warbands play mainly one on ones, and have a abitrator and when he see's one gang getting more powerfullt o do wither, 3 ways or 2-1's or impose somthing on them to balance the game out, if this is done it can be great fun. realisticalsl i prefer to run a campian with about 6 peopel in, as its not to large to run, and ytou still get variation betwqeen who and what you play

[Satan]

I was wondering, is it worth buying the "Best of Town Cryer" book or can I find all these articles on the Specialist games website?

[Naghaz]

You're story driven campaign sounds like a real blast! We did something similar (also using undead as the uber enemy) and it remains one of our groups best times. Since then, we have applied similar gaming style to all our campaigns be they 40k, warhammer fantasy or Inquisitor. It adds a great deal of fun to the system and makes for some heroic events. It's also a neat way to introduce some fun house rules. For example we had a magic "Sceptor of Unending Light" that could be used to cause double damage to all undead within its sphere of illumination. The problem was it could only be used by a pure hearted priest of "insert God here" and thus the warbands needed to hire one, which in and of itself was a quest. This added a ton of fun, some GM run games (where the players played as a team, against the GM's evil minions) and left everyone crying for more.

We are currently working up our next campaign and this one will feature the retaking of an ancient Dwarven Hold.

[Metox]

I thought those upgrades were a bit overpowering Bozzy.
Anyway, I play Witch Hunters (see my avatar).
As for henchmen, the Which Hunter warhounds are excellent to have in an early warband. Seeing as they only cost 15 gc to buy if you need to replace them.

As for the campaign I am running with my Saturday Night group, we are following a couple of rules.

First, all models MUST be WISIWYG. If you have the Heavy Armor for a model, it must have that on it.

Second, No Dramatis Personae. These characters break the game unless everyone can use them.

Third, we are declaring the end of the Campaign at a warband rating (without hired hands) of 300.

Right now after 7 games I am in 2nd place with a warband rating of 183. (208 with my Ogre Bodyguard). The only warband with a higher rating is a Skaven one. He's only 15 rating points higher than me.

I'll let you guys know how I do.

[McMullet]

Third, we are declaring the end of the Campaign at a warband rating (without hired hands) of 300.

That's a really good idea. It is always a problem knowing when to end a Mordheim campaign. Also, warbands do start to get excessively mean when they approach a rating of 300.

[Zilverug]

Third, we are declaring the end of the Campaign at a warband rating (without hired hands) of 300.

Isn't warband rating biased in favour of warbands that may field a high model count?
It will make quite a difference whether the maximum number of models of a warband is 12 or 20.

With 8 additional models you get 8 times the fixed addition to warband rating and in addition will let you gain at least an additional 8 point of warband rating for each game played due to the xp gained for surviving.

Of course I am interested in the progress of your campaign, please keep us informed!

[Metox]

Don't forget that warbands with high model counts have a much lower maximum stat line. Skaven have good init but that's about it. it's the same for humans.
The reason Which Hunters have such a small warband size is because all which hunters have the special rule of Hating magic users.