Marienburg Special Skills

[Asp]

Marienburg is the underdog in long campaigns where their 100gc wear off and they have little real staying power. How about giving them a special skill list?

MERCANTILE GUILD SKILLS

Cloak and Dagger
The warrior has a habit of entering into sinister mercantile contracts.

Before each battle, secretly nominante 1 enemy hero. If this warrior takes that enemy hero out of action, he gains an additional +1 experience and D6 gc.

False Orders
Working with the mercantile guilds, an elaborate forgery of a rivalling warband's orders is dispatched to an unsuspecting foe.

One enemy hired sword or henchman capable of gaining experience can do nothing for the first D3 turns of the game.

The Best Money Can Buy
Somehow, the warrior's equipment just always seems better in his hands.

At the start of each battle, warrior can choose one of the following:
(1) One weapon in the warriors possession that is not armour piercing gains the armour piercing special rule.
(2) One normal pistol in warriors possession becomes a duelling pistol for the remainder of the battle.
(3) Warriors armour save is 1 better than it actually is. Warrior must have an armour save to use this.

Spies
The innocuous merchants that the enemy warband was trading with before the battle were actually spying on the enemy warband for the upcomming battle.

[brokenv]

+1 to rare item rolls doesn't benefit as much as 3 +1 Strength bonuses in the long run?

[Asp]

we could talk about middenheim also, its reik who on a power level all by themselves

[BigRob]

Personally I have always seen Middenhiem as the weak link warband wise. Marienburg warbands get the +1 trade which is not shabby, especially combined with the trade skill and other bonuses you can get to trading, they can rack up alot of good kit more easily.

That 100gc starting bonus is also very tasty, giving them more options for the first few games, which is key as getting a good start boosts your warband and your own morale. Too many times I have seen people take the soft option of "starting over" when they loose the first 3 games of a campaign and this really just puts them further behind in terms of XP and rating. Don't be fooled into thinking you need to spend that 100 on duelling pistols and heavy armour though, mine goes on the Tilean Marksman and more bodies, giving me a larger and more powerful warband.

Special skilsl might be nice, but you should then do them for every human warband and then there would be alot of tables.

[Zekk05]

yeah, I agree that they dont need any special skills added. theyre quite fine as is. the 100gc is a huge bonus early on. really helps them win those initial games. and the +1 rarity roll is Huge for the campaign, but pays off more late-campaign. So they get a powerful start , and a powerful finish, and an average mid-game.

Middenheim got some perks added to them with errata and such. like the wolf cloak and the wolf priest.

[Asp]

i think +100gc is lame because its so uneven during the campaign. so i'd give them rather:

SPECIAL RULES
+1 to rarity rolls
Start with a brace of duelling pistols that cannot be sold.
Access to these skills:

False Orders
Working with the mercantile guilds, an elaborate forgery of a rivalling warband's orders is dispatched to an unsuspecting foe.

One enemy hired sword or henchman capable of gaining experience can do nothing for the first D3 turns of the game.

The Best Money Can Buy
The warrior uses his own standing with the merchantile guilds to upgrade his weaponry.

At the start of each battle, warrior can choose one of the following:
(1) One weapon in the warrior's possession that is not armour piercing gains the armour piercing special rule.
(2) One normal pistol in warrior's possession becomes a duelling pistol for the remainder of the battle.
(3) Warriors armour save is 1 better than it actually is. Warrior must have an armour save to use this.

Spies
The innocuous merchants that the enemy warband was trading with before the battle were actually spying on the enemy warband for the upcomming battle.

Enemy must deploy 2 models each time you deploy 1.
You always get the first turn.

Cloak and Dagger
The warrior has a habit of entering into sinister mercantile contracts.

Before each battle, secretly nominante 1 enemy hero. If this warrior takes that enemy hero out of action, he gains an additional +1 experience. If multiple warriors in the warband have this skill, all must target the same enemy.

[brokenv]

I know Cult of the Possessed warbands would give their left testicles to get an extra 100gc to start the game with.

[thesoundofmusica]

I play marienburgers and think they are fine. Maybe 100gc and +1trade isnt characterful enough on the actual gametable, but thats something else. I dont think middenheimers are too bad either with the added priest and companion. Certainly not overpowered but no pushover either.

Edit:

Cloak and daggers: not powerful enough I think. Not sure if it can be balanced with more experience or something, but currently there are many skills I would take before this one without a thought.

False orders: needs some kind of limitation or it could be used to completely ruin some scenarios for your opponent with this on multiple heroes.

Best money can buy: I like it. Seems balanced to me, altho who would ever pick extra armorpiercing? :P