Now shut that mouth of yours and listen: You want to live through this boy? You want to feel the stench of moist, rotten wood and decomposed flesh on your stupid prinkled face once again? You think you've got IT in you? That which really matters boy? Do you have the skill that will keep you alive in the hellish sreets of Mordheim?!In this article i would like to share some of my wisdom regarding choice of Skills. I wrote 'wisdom' but let's face the facts: most experienced players already have their own opinion and here is my humble judgement of skills. Gamers new to Mordheim may find my thoughts useful and veterans may always try to persuade me wrong. If you are brave or stupid enough to try - that's what the comments section is for.
To make things simple i grouped the skills into ffour categories.
* Must-have skill is a skill that is good in almost every build regardless of most circumstances.
* Good skill is useful and, probably, will benefit the game but you should always regard it as inferior to the Must-haves.
* Mediocre skill may come in handy but will be useful only occasionally and i wouldn't recommend to take it above Good and Must-haves.
* And there's a Bad skill which is just really bad and most of the time you wouldn't want to pick it.
Some of the skills are also marked as Special.
* Special skill is useful in some situations which depends on the warband, model, scenario or even a strategy you choose to play. A Special skill tag overrides even Must-haves so keep it in mind to check if you are able to benefit from it. If i find a particular skill useful i will mark and explain why and when to take it.
'Combat Skills'
Strike to Injury: Must-have
A very useful skill that gives edge to every capable hand to hand combat oriented Hero. The more A and S there is, the more the chance for Strike to Injury doing its job. In a case of a single succesful attack usually this skill takes the 33% chance to OOA up to 50%!
Combat Master: Bad
Just one additional A for a skill slot and that only if the Hero fights a hand to hand combat against more than one enemy. Even immunity to 'All Alone' tests won't make it worth taking. In the dire situation where you will find yourself with a Hero on total S value with all the advancements used up except one and you will really need this single A - pick the Pit Fighter skill instead.
Weapons Training: Bad (special)
This skill is rather bad. Not many interesting weapons and not many warriors who can benefit from using them.
special: Yet there are some for whom this skill is a big buff. Weapon Training skill especially useful to Henchmen who happens to become a Hero as usually they have limited weapon options.
Web of Steel: Mediocre
Higher Critical Hit effect means a bigger chance at taking the enemy Out of Action, usually in an explosion of blood and gore. However this skill depends on scoring a Critical Hit in the first plase so it should be taken only if a Hero has a lot of A and a good weapon to use.
Expert Swordsman: Mediocre (special)
Expert Swordsman works only for hand to hand combat specialized Heroes with more than 2 A in their profile.
special: The bonus provided by this skill is powerful but only if the Hero is the one to charge. Keep in mind to take this skill for a Hero with a lot of A whose M is 5 or higher in which case he will be the one to choose where and when the combat begins.
Step Aside: Must-have
This skill is a Must-have for all the hand to hand fighters. 33% chance to cheat death is just worth it!
'Shooting Skills'
Quick Shot: Must-have
The effects of a Crossbow or a Bow are buffed by this skill to 200%. Damn it multiplies one shot into two - nothing to add to this statement.
Pistolier: Good
Most players think Pistols inferior to Crossbows if both of these are available. Remember that Mordheim is all about mobility and acquiring objectives. A Pistolier Hero with high BS will fallow the main body of the Warband and win the game in case of a choke point showdown. A Pistolier Leader will hit some scores in almost each game if you decide to keep him close to action which would be the obvious choice if Warband is to benefit from his Leader ability .
Eagle Eyes: Mediocre (special)
Most Missile weapons will benefit from this skill but not as much as from Quick Shot or Trick Shooter.
special: There's an exception to this rule and i recommend to chose Eagle Eyes if the Hero has a brace of Crossbow Pistols / Duelling Pistols / Pistols.
Weapons Expert: Bad (special)
This skill is close to useless in the early Campaign game.
special: Weapon Expert skill lets you take a Blunderbuss in a warband where there is none in the equipment list. A Witch Hunter or a Dwarf Thunderer Hero with a Blunderbuss... you know what i mean ;)
Nimble: Mediocre
Mobile Crossbow is ok but not as much as immobile one with two shots instead of one. Quick Shot will always be better than Nimble.
Trick Shooter: Bad
I highly preffer +1 BS than this.
Hunter: Bad
Handguns are expensive and do not reward you for using them. A lots of gold and a skill to use a tweaked Crossbow which never shoots twice per round. No thanks.
Knife-Fighter: Must-have
Not many Heroes can use Knives but those who can should and this skill is a Must-have! It gives a lot of edge at short distance enabling the Hero to eliminate up to three targets in one go.
'Strength Skills'
Mighty Blow: Bad (special)
This skill is inferior to +1 S in almost every every way.
special: Sometimes you will find yourself at the end of the road with a capable fighter who against the odds did not evolved his S value. A Double-handed weapond is not enough and he has all the skills you wanted him to have. This is the right moment to take Mighty Blow which otherwise sucks.
Pit Fighter: Mediocre
Most of the bloodiest combat happens to take place in the open :( It helps for the skill to agree with the players that wooden bridges are also 'inside buildings' areas.
Resilient: Good
Most models cannot evolve their T more than once. T is the most important for all the fighters in the game and can even keep them from receiving a Critical Hit! Resilient is a good choic and a Must-have choice for a Vampire or the Possessed as it Tanks them into monsters!
Fearsome: Bad
Wasted skill slot if you ask me.To much items and buffs that can help your Hero to charge against Fear, and Fear itself is powerful but more easy to counter as Campaign goes on.
Strongman: Bad (special)
Most models will not benefit from Strongman at all as their I value is just sad.
special: Most useful for a Vampire with Double-handed weapon od a Tank Champion with I4 or higher. That i can tell you from my own experience ;)
Unstopable Charge: Bad
+1 WS does not always mean you will get +1 to Hit and this makes a skill that requires a charge to work a bad skill. +1 WS is just so much better and simpler to get.
Next time i will break down Academic and Speed skills so stay tuned!
Nazroth,
So many things in this article that make me cringe reading them. E.g.: "Most of the bloodiest combat happens to take place in the open :(" - if you are getting the majority of your engagements in the open then you aren't playing in a ruined city that was once THE biggesta nd best trade centre in the empire but now levelled by a god-cursed meteor of doom. there should be cover EVERYWHERE. Grab yourself a litre or two of match sticks. After you've set up your boards, grab match sticks by the handful and pile them in piles all over the board where it's open. It's convenient rubble making, gets you cover all over the place and takes your games to the next level because suddenly so many skills and basic rules for the game come into high demand to be used and abused. Another way of looking at this is when the Shadow Elves were first released, Sniper was utterly broken. Entire warbands of shadow warriors where 6 heroes just sat with quickshot and hide in shadows and sniped the heck out of the enemy, utterly dominating every campaign they were played in. Whilst the cover was useful for them, most campaigns suffered vs them because of the lack of board-wide cover to allow their warbands to hide as they approached to then lphas strike and wipe the elves out without having to just sit and be picked off. Still other players just sat their entire warbands inside of a building behind solid walls and stubbornly refused to move because f the simple fact there was no cover close enough to relatively safely move to engage the enemy elves. Whilst sniper got amended to an initiative test to spot if hit but not OOA'ed by the target, and whilst this balanced the skill somewhat, it didn't eliminate the underlying issue with most campaigns that the tables themselves had too much open space and not enough mutually beneficial cover. A good rule of thumb is if there is more then a few area's of more then 3 inches of open ground in any direction then there should be a pile of rubble there (3" is the slowest moving model - a Dwarf, dwarfs may be a powerful warband but if they are outgunned and forced to engage along an unfavourably covered area of the board then they are screwed, every, single time). Try it, your games will be significantly more tactical and challenging. :)
ReplyDeleteI digress, will continue in a new comment.
The quote u are reffering to is a part of "Pit Fighter" skill evaluation, which works only if in the building (or ruins). The skill is Hand-to-hand Combat only - It has nothing to do with rubble, small pieces of terrain and terrain density.
DeleteAs for the terrain density itself - there are many opinions of how a proper Mordheim Table should look like. I Personally preffer to keep the terrain very dense and at a minimum of three different levels of height. For the purposes of 'Pit Fighter' skill my gaming group even considders footbridges and flat LOS blockers to be 'inside the building or ruins'. In the terms of article however my own gaming table does not count. What i consider to count the most are: Rulebook, White Dwarf (Town Cryer) and Tournament tables. If you take a look at the Town Cryer battle reports you will see the original gaming table which the developers of Mordheim had in mind when they wrote its rules. Most of the photos showed a gaming table that looked kind of empty. Same goes for most of the tournaments i've participated in. A lot of buildings (especially classic 'closed' huts and even more classic ruined buildings like these: http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2011/8/22/261832_md-Bombed%2C%20City%2C%20Ruins%2C%20Terrain%2C%20Wargames%2C%20Warhammer%2040%2C000%2C%20Warhammer%20Fantasy.jpg But still the majority of the tables were streets, some pieces of rubble and not many places where 'Pit Fighter' skill will jump in. I think that most begginers can not afford to have a gaming table of their dreams. We both know that it is the begginers who will seek the articles such as this one, not the battle hardened veterans who had evaluated all the skills for themselves a long time ago.
Just as a curiosity - here's the gaming table that i play with:
http://tinyurl.com/mthtable
http://tinyurl.com/mthtable2
I will take some more pictures in july when we start another campaign but here you can see different height levels and additionally all the terrain is dispersed over two 48" tables. Usually all fits perfectly on a 48/48" board.
Regards,
Nice table you have there. As an aside, we had an actual table for about 6 months then proceeded to just play on the floor (it allowed for more height which opened up cooler city scapes to construct and far more...interesting situations ingame). We found that the ideal height for levels was 2" or between 2-3", this allowed dwarfs to scale up the sides of buildings or levels, even if it meant stepping over the course of several turns, but constructing boards was done usinga lot of imagination. A good guide to our boards (I live interstate now to my brother and the small but dedicated gaming group we had so unable to get pictures) is you take a number of larger boxes, or various sized boxes and lay them down, spacing them next to each other in such a way to create narrow or twisting streets at ground level. Next, take more boxes of varying sizes and lay them across some of the first tier (i.e. the first boxes laid) boxes to create a second level of streets and terrain and leaving the lower streets and level much more claustrophobic in area's and very open in others. However high youd ecide to keep going with these levels is game to game but 2 to 3 levels base worked a charm. Then would come taking whatever buildings or other actual pieces of terrain you owned and placing them onto the board as it now exists. Bridges (or footbridges) and ladders placed all over the place to give access between lebvels/buildings etc added yet another tier of gaming space and allowed for more manouvring whilst keeping the original feel of the games-workshop design teams' playing space very much at the forefront. Final touches were the match stick rubble. Cover is very essential in frequent spaces as it actively encourages all warbands to move and engage each other up close and personal. Without such cover, the risks of approach on many boards even complex yet simple to make ones like ours become too great and very strong players will just sit and wait for the other player/s to cross the no mans land and get picked off at their leisure. Less then ideal no matter which way you paint the picture.
Delete
DeleteTo the pitfighter skill itself and the sentence I quoted, yes it was from the pitfighter skill description you made, however it has everything to do with the game itself and the approach in how youd escribed it as the majority of your engagements will be in the open. that's bs. Mordheim in the vast majority of all scenario's is a simple rout test failure ends the game. Only a few scenario's spring to mind that have a turn limit or a variable limit of gameplay in terms of yurns due to alternate victory conditions. this means that you have all the time in the world to continuously manouvre your warband and to counter manouvre so as you aren't engaging in the open and that your path to engagement in close combat is via a largely covered rout, thus protecting your models as a whole to enable you to maximise your damage output whilst minimising losses. If you're playing in Mordheim itself, then ruins and buildings are everywhere and a simple spear in the hands of a model witha pitfighter who is inside a building hiding and patiently awaiting the enemy to make the first move is a very real thret. You utilise footbridges o count as ruins for the purposes of the pitfighter skill, that increases its' usefulness dramatically, and you shouldn't be engaging with the majpority of your fights in the open with that in mind. Rubble piles aren't ruins, nor buildings, but they are cover and they do encourage players to move to engage without exposing themselves to excessive danger, because it is very easy to just hide inside or behind solid buildings and wait for your opponents to come to you, or worse case scenario, no one moves towards each other because it is too dangerous to do so and the game just stalemates outright. To take another example, my own groups of players, we would play in the occasional games-workshop campaign. We'd get in for the start of the campaign and a week later come back and find all the regulars had played all week and had maxed warbands, yet every single time we'd still win and win by huge margins because the terrain used on the boards was massively open and the games-workshop regulars were not used to actually using the basic rules to move from cover to cover and have enough patience to recognise that there are no turn limits to push to win. This is what I was getting at amongst other things in my previous response.
___
Where is your gaming group based? Mordheim groups are getting rarer as time goes by, and many spark up for a campaign then fall away again for some time.
Cheers.
P.S. 4096 character limit on responses sucks.
I do not agree with your point of view. In my opinion the 'Pit Fighter' skill is mediocree due to other skills being more usefull. It is still a skill worth taking but not as a priority. I remember loving this skill when i was a kid, but now after so long it's just not worth prioritising.
DeleteI also do not agree about the Scenarios. When facing good opponent the game is fast paced. Hidden Treasure, Wyrdstone Hunt, Defend the Find, Breakthrough, Street Fight, Occupy, Surprise Attack - are all about speed, fast strikes or outmaneuvering the opponent. That leaves only three scenarios that let you play chess with no time limit in mind. Offcourse if you play against an opponent who stays put and shows no immediate danger of gainning the upper hand - then you can make a camp or play cat and mouse. I think that deppends on the people you play with.
There's speed to meet objectives in a scenario and then there is speed when it comes to engaging with models on models fighting. Wrydstone Hunt is rout test based, so the wrydstone shards once picked up bring you into a rout test based unlimited gameplay time frame. yes, players can smash into each other and make it messy and that's all good but players can also grab shards and pull back and regroup and start the cat and mouse in this scenario. Streetfight is an interesting one as it depends on what the buildings are like terrain wise and whether you choose to push straight into the guts or to take up residence inside buildings or on top of them (roof combat can be fun haha!), it still has a rout test to end the scenario win condition, and there is still the ability for players to avoid combat in any serious form by utilising buildings instead of just the street to move past each other. Of course if facing a weaker warband in the scenario, you may well just rofflestomp in on top of them, or beinga weaker opponent feed the minimimum number of warriors to allow a voluntary rout on your end to minimise damage sustained, but I find street fight more a tactical scenario then a speed one, yeah, getting a hero off the opposing street edge first for an extra +1 experience is nifty, but it's a balancing act scenario. Have you ever done a multiplayer streetfight and just used the same scenaripo but made the centre spot an intersection of 3 or more streets (one for each warband), those games get nasty and epic so fast!
DeleteBreakthrough is the scenario that is officially our fastest game of Mordheim ever. 3 minutes from deployment, first turn, failed route test, injuries, skills, exploration, trading, ready for new game. I started a 3 hero shadow elf warband against my brothers experienced skaven. His Black Skaven Wolvie was able to charge my unnamed mage (we have a pattern, unnamed magic users die permanently in their first or second game, usually the first for me, no matter how cautious you play, so we always name our magic users haha!) througha combination of leap and sprint, then unleash godawful numbers of attacks (8+, he was frenzied from being mad, had solid base attacks, art of silent death and fighting claws and a few odds and ends) and bam, instantly out of action. My turn and I fail the rout test and well, 3 minute game!!! I proceeded to play that warband with just 2 elves for a dozen games before expanding them and the final form at last game with them was 3 maxed elves with only the leader being from the original 3 (2 chest wounds, no toughness upgrades, but 3 wounds, messy and so fragile but boy did he pack a punch!). (Damned response limits to length!!!)
Defend the Find is basically an alpha strike scenario where the defender is stuck inside of 6" of the objective building. It can hurt from them, or combat can get staggered over the 2 turns from charge to mean that the game ends from more attackers inside the objective, of course, rout test is also a victory condition here so the game can go on indefinitely also. breakthrough is all about speed. but it's also one of the least bloody scenario's as all one needs do is have 2 models get within 2" of the opposing side edge and bam, game is ended. You don't even need to actively engage the opponent to win this one. Rout tests also come into it but it is essentially down to the attacker as they can end it at any point when they can get 2 models within 2" of the defenders board edge. Occupy is the only scenario where the time limit is a ticking timebomb, and whilst voluntary routs come into the picture, the onus is on not allowing that to occur, as rout tests themselves do not come into play, just 8 turns max. In a way, using your chess analogy (chess being the oldest wargame around of course), Occupy as a scenario is like speed chess, or suicide speed chess.
DeleteI tend to steer clear of pit fighter because I don't take many strength skills beyond resilient, strongman or mighty blow, the rest generally are not worth it. The Pit Fighter warband, whilst not official, is close to (or as close as warbands ever came without being official) it and when you see an entire warband packing the skill, it makes you readdress approaches to engagements a bit more especially in the early campaign phases where extra attacks against you hurt a lot more. Taking this reasoning toa smaller level of effect it's still pertinent to address, but it's as much down to the model and how the model with it is played. Ever fought a sniper who packs pitfighter and combat master and sits in a building doing most of his/her damage at range and being protected enough to just sit and wait for the engagement? Many years ago, I had a Dwarf Noble packing weapons expert, quickshot, a crossbow, two dwarf axes, strike to injure, master of blades, combat master and pit fighter. It was mid campaign and we'd found some useful loot including an elven cloak, as well as packing gromril armour and a shield and on that bugger in cover, sniping away as he did, he was this brutal balance of ranged poke, aggressive close in beat down, and sturdy resilience. Shoved in a building or ruins, he was hard to hit at range, was a dwarf so naturally more resilient to damage and packed out a lot of attacks in combat whether one on one or outnumbered. Pitfighter is a useful addition but it comes into the fore when combined with other skills and weapons. I can understand and appreciate not taking it over other more dominant skills. :)
Strength Skills:
ReplyDeleteResilient - This is NOT a +1 to your Toughness. This is a CRUCIAL AND ALWAYS
OVERLOOKED POINT. It is -1 to the strength of the attack against you (armour save
modifiers unaffected). Whilst in many ways it is in effect +1 Toughness, for such
things as spines or blowpipes (I'm sure someone uses blowpipes somewhere in the
world!) which are strength 1, suddenly the attack is useless. Spines is one of the
most powerful tools at a Possessed or Mutant's disposal and negating their ability
to one in six wound a T3 or T4 model i.e. the majority of models in the game, before
the combat has properly begun (spine attacks are done before other attacks, but
after crossbow pistol attacks in combat - the vagaries of non-standard combat based
attacks which few people seem to recognise because they almost never use or
encounter them!!!) is a massive boon. (As an aside, some years ago we ran a few
special scenario's vs warbands, one was a necromancer who could automatically raise
D6 zombies a turn in addition to other magic attacks. I had 2 possessed and 2
mutants with spines in a smallish Possessed warband and they all came away with at
least a dozen spine kills that game with one of the possessed bagging a massive 36
zombie kills - never underestimate the power of strength 1 automatic hits against
your common opponents in Mordheim, so useful!)
Mighty Blow may be inferior to a naked +1 strength upgrade because of strength
tests, but Mighty blow is more common in terms of probability to acquire then the +1
strength advance is. moreover, many warriors who may consider mighty blow are
already at max strength, Humans and orcs spring to mind with Middenheimers and
flaggelants already at str 4 max racial stats, and Orc Bosses at str 4 also. It's a
more reliable way to ensure your attacks up in strength, so labelling this as a bad
skill choice is to my mind an error.
Resilient: Dude you should keep your mind opened to metaphor.
DeleteMighty Blow: Chance for a +1S advance is low, but it grows over time when you advance more stats and have them maxed. You can also buff the S of most models with weapons. What good a Flagellant hero get from a +1S when you want him to tank with more T, and can only equip him with weapons that won't benefit a lot from +1S?
You can and should have your own opinion but i find your arguments a bit hasty and unfounded. You pick some points in my own opinions then attack these without hesitation, but you seem not to take on the whole picture. Some skills are just better than the others.
Some skills are flat out better then others, no arguments there, but in some cases, those skills take a secondary place to ones where you wouldn't take them as primary skills choices, and this is done purely on the hero being upskilled, and also depends on the terrain you most commonly encounter ingames within the campaign.
DeletePersonally, when it comes to Flagellants, the skills I give mine are combat and speed. Strength isn't needed - speed gets you access to leap (leap before sprint for humans, indeed imho leap is superior to sprint but my brother for example prefers sprint over leap on skaven due to their already high speed) and sprint whilst combat allows you to pick up weapons training and the crucial strike to injure, as well as having access to both step aside and dodge and useful additional skills like jump Up, Lightning reflexes and web of steel. The Flagellant is the extreme example because so many of his stats are maxed already. When rolling for skill advancements, you are guaranteed attacks, guaranteed wounds, guaranteed initiative when you roll those stat advances rather then having to roll a dice and hope for more attacks or more wounds, so you are able to more predictively plan skills for them. Making them a Tank is one approach, but once another wound or two are picked up, you're now looking at Ogre stats for resiliency, and throwing in the 33% chance guaranteed save vs shooting or close combat attacks that hit (even more useful with a lucky charm to increase the tankiness without having to use a strength skills chart to gain access to one or two skills you'll use and then have a defunct remaining skills set you won't utilise as well as taking the combat skills or speed instead). Combat skills allow you to take different combat weapons also, and smacking an ithilmar spear on a flagellant, whilst unconventional, can be surprisingly nasty.
I've played a lot of Mordheim over the years, as is evident you have too. But I've also played from a power-gaming aspect as that's how campaigns with my most regular opponents evolved. So my opinions can be aggressive and come off as not taking in the whole picture, but it's more because I am not just looking at the battle phase of the game when looking at Mordheim as a whole. Yes, the battle is the real fun part, but if you don't have an overall strong exploration and trading ability then your combat abilities become not as important, especially as opponents can just sacrifice the minimum number of warriors to voluntarily rout and get out with full heroes and then further game their development towards easy access to the higher end equipment and power levels. This level of power is where a lot of my arguments are based off of, as I've been able to get there time and again reliably against all opponents except my brother (our games sort of evolved to the point where engagements are picking off the odd warrior who strays from cover by mistake and alpha striking - hitting with your entire warbands strength in one fatal blow - each other, and those games eliminate voluntary rout strategies and other less destructive approaches to winning a battle {remembering that winning a battle in Mordheim as the actual winner with +1 xp to your leader isn't always necessarily true that you have won the greater advantage, GW designers said as much in several battle reports they did over the years}). Man I go off on tangents. I do have a complete picture, I look at warbands and their development in an early, early-mid, mid, late-mid, early-late, and late campaign tier of thinking as at each stage, if you've played well and had some luck, your power levels in the warband jump up considerably.
TLDR
DeleteHey champ - you obviously have knowledge, you obviously have experience, you obviously write all this with good intentions. In the same instant you write this elaborate in a way that almost eliminates a possibility to learn something from it. Too many threads and a bit too much examples. Its strarting to be a Mordheim Tactics Compendium but far more chaotic to fill that role. Im starting to think that you really need an experienced player to talk with ;)
What i can suggest you is:
* If you want to give advice - keep it short and simple.
* If you have so much energy to write - either create a blog or you can send me a material for another article (as long as it will fit this blog's standards). If you also send me your photo - i can make an avatar for the article and publish it as a 'guest article'. I don't see any harm assuming the article will be good, simple, not too long and kept in generalities. Nazroth@interia.pl is my main e-mail adress if decide to make a try.
Beofre publishing this blog's contents i confront most of the articles with my fellow gamers who tends to be not only power gamers but also some of them scored a lot of wargaming successes. As for my own experience and knowledge - i am a humble Mordheim Treasure Hunter with some major nationwide Wargaming successes, and was at some point an international representative for Poland. That being said - i must admit than all this did not made me infallible - i try to give the best of myself when making content for this blog. That's all ;)
Regards,
Pit fighter as askill being mediocre "because some of the bloodiest combat occurs
ReplyDeletein the open" is noty an incorrect statement in terms of where the bloodiest combats
occur, but when all players ina game or campaign move and out manouvre each other
playing on a very tactical level to complement their overall strategy each game,
then such statements ring false as engagements are done through and in cover - cover
as anythingf rom ruins and buildings, bridges, and around rubble piles. Whether the
pit fighter skill comes into play or not depends on where the engagement is
initiated, but +1 WS and +1 attack when in ruins or buildings makes this quite a
nice combat skill (despite it being in the strength skills list) to compliment other
combat skills.
What I find odd in your description of the Fearsome skill is not that it's a bad
skill, but that you mention that items and buffs can be used to conteract the
effects of fear yet when we go and read your undead article you state that fear is a
key component to winning with the undead as a warband. It just seems like you're
contradicting yourself and not carrying philosophies and expriences through
consistently. Fearsome is a decent skill, but nota skill to take because you only
have so many advances and gaining leadership through war horns, holy relics, or
other items/spells to counteract fear is not too expensive to manage, and moreover
you can pick up fear with a horrible scars injury, or counteract it with the
hardened serious injury. Fearsome is useful, but there are ways to counter it or
acquire it otherwise and so this is why, to my mind, it is not a skill to really
consider.
Strongman is amazing. The average initiative in mordheim is 3-4, but outside of
strike first abilities the charger attacks first, so wielding a 2 handed weapon and
being able to strike normally when charging instead of having to wait for that
strength bonus to come into play is very useful. Combined with lightning reflexes if
speed skills are also available, it makes the combination quite powerful. Remember,
ITHILMAR WEAPONS EXIST FOR A WEAPON. Ithilmar double handed weapons on a
strongman/lightning reflexes hero are amazing, especially if you pick your targets
well. Strongman as a first choice skill on any hman warband leader is a strong
contender because at I 4 already base, they are already ahead of the majority of
opponents and striking at a higher strength in the attacks witha decent WS and i
already makes it an interesting approach early on.
Unstoppable Charge is totally a bad skill. So many more useful ones to pick up. I've
had it once in all the years I've played Mordheim and only because a lads got talent
hero had managed to roll a skill advance every advance he got and ws forced to take
it! You look at the skill and can't help but think that pit Fighter is superior
because youa re almost always guaranteed a few ruins or buildings in the game and
gaining an extra attack as well if in those terrain features and having the bonuses
including +1 WS whenevrer you are in those area's not just when you charge is a
natural pick this skill first and leave unstoppable charge behind. One of the only
times you'd sewriously consider picking it up is if your hero is near maxed or now
maxed on experience and the last advance was a skill and whilst you have high
attacks and strength you have low WS, so adding the extra WS to make you more
reliable at striking opponents is doable here.
____
Sorry for the weird formatting, copied from notepad, it did shannanigans. If i come off as particularly brusque/aggressive it's not intended that way, it some times comes across like that.
Pit Fighter: I would like to end a 'Pit Fighter' skill dispute. Lets count these as 'inside a building(or ruin)' and 'in the open'. If an opponent let's you jump into a building he made his camp in - he plays bad. If an opponent put an objective he probably wont collect in a building instead of an open space - he plays bad. There are situations and situations - i understand that. I personally find the 'Pit Fighter' skill inferior to other skills i've marked as better. That is all.
ReplyDeleteFear: Fear is mighty but to throw away A SKILL just to counter it on one model is a waste, as there are esier and less costly ways to do so. You've pointed them yourself. In early campaign Undead gain big advantage through Fear but later on the Vampire becomes the key win/loose factor and nobody gives a shit about Zombies whereabouts, if there are any Zombies at all. To rout the Undead you need to kill models, which should be cheerleading for the Vampire and some powerfull buffed models accompanying him. As campaign game progresses the Fear factor decreases.
Strongman: I love the Strongman+Lightning Reflexes combo on a Vampire but still I3 models will not benefit from the skill as much. I see no point in prioritising this skill above even mediocree skills. There has to be a lot of coincidences for the skill to be overall usefull on any models. Don't tell my that is your best skill type :)
"If i come off as particularly brusque/aggressive it's not intended that way, it some times comes across like that." I know how it is - have the 'speaker of fervour' skill myself ;) Not for the first time i'm forced to defend my opinions regarding rules too. The times of young Mordheim are far behind as yet back then when me and my colegues were starting to build a tournament scene in Poland there was a lot of missinterpretations, missunderstanding and actually some forum fights between all of us. Same goes for other games as Warhammer 40,000 where judges league perorate all day and all night about some rules. We - Mordheimers - find ourselves in the sweet spot of time where all that could be said about this game was already said more than once :)
Nice points on Fear and the Undead. :) The Undead are one of the few warbands I haven't ever played first hand, they always struck me as underpowered - sure that vampire is a beast, but everyone knows it, and setting up sacrificial henchmen to intercept the vampires charge route and allow your warband to continue to mess up the less tanky models is easy enough, but at the same time, I find people get lost in this idea of the vampire being a monster and godlike resilient - he isn't, at first he is just T4 and 2 wounds. Nothings pecial there. he's a dwarf or an orc in terms of resilience and due to the number of critical hits that land over time in a game, until he picks up a 3rd wound he isn't as indefatigable as people think he is and strength 4 firepower is prevalent from the get go. In any case, it's a warband which I know the potential of but haven't gotten around to abusing.
DeleteI've been active on and off in Mordheim communities since the original Mordheim Forums by Gamesworkshop before they screwed up and created the specialist games forums after some time with the individual games-forums shut down and sent the community into disarray. I was more commonly known back then as "Ram rock ed First" but usernames/aliases evolve over time for some people as with mine. I've authored on the competitive warhammer 40,000 blog 3plusplus.net and included some Mordheim articles there with broad overviews of the game and thoughts in detail. Three of the articles can be viewed here:
http://www.3plusplus.net/2010/08/mordheim-renewing-an-old-love-the-game-and-setting/
http://www.3plusplus.net/2010/08/mordheim-101-combined-article-an-introduction-understanding-warband-development-and-selection/
http://www.3plusplus.net/2010/10/mordheim-101-core-ruelbook-starting-warband-examples/
If you ever read the chaosdwarfsonline webmagazine Word of Hashut, then in one of those I wrote an article that broke down how to play the Chaos Dwarf warband from the fan-made Bordertown Burning setting.
DeleteIncidentally, on Toms Boring Mordheim forum, they banned me after I rocked up and stated that they shouldn't release the Ogre warband in it's current form because it was the most broken thing ever. this was 2 days before they were releasing the supplement and timing was poor for me as I felt I needed to fully explain the statement with worked examp0les. They stated that i couldn't have found anything broken with the warband which they hadn't already fixed in over 2 years of gaming and design/playtesting. yet, first reading I realised you could eat your hired swords, keep their equipment and resell the goods off of them at half the price for resold goods. Yous tarted with aminimum ogre warband and bought up a freelancer, an elven ranger aand whatever other expensive geared hired swords you could do. Youa te them post-game, and resold everything and from the first game had an additional 100gc+ of income. Each game this slowly would increase till you had that golden moment where you had all hired swords being hried fresh each game and post game you ate them reselling their gear and being all shiny. Of course, picking up all their gear to equip your models first with heavy armour and other expensive items of gear also worked wonders. I was banned before explaining this, and shunned by that sect of the worldwide community...because of the general abrasiveness. I do have a fairly solid overview of the game when i make comments and a lot of experience from a power-gaming central mindset. Some things we refuse to play with like the Arabian Merchant. He is broken with whart you can do with him. We restrict tarot Cards to one set per warband max, and we've changed rabbits feet to only allow the re-roll to take place in the battle not in exploration as there are plenty of other ways you can get re-rolls in exploration at much fairer costs (iirc, including a variety of hired swords etc there was the potential for over 36 rerolls for a full compliment of 6 heroes, of course only 7 or 8 could ever be used) but the rabbits foot is broken in even halfway decent hands.
Mordheim is games-workshops' most balanced game when you take the official stuff only, only a few things need to be changed up to make the game more solid in terms of houserules and it's usually variations on parrying, armour use, ditching nurgles rot, and weapon slots available that come up again and again worldwide. Not bad. A massive shame GW ditched all support for the game.
Regards,
Auretious Taak.
P.S. Did you ever play the Snotling warband? Myself and 2 others created it on the original Mordheim Forums, I found the pdf's again several weeks back by accident alongside a folder of 100 Mordheim Scenario's played with in Pancreasboy's infamous Mordheim Campaigns in Sydney, alas, almost a decade ago now.
I didn't play with nor against Snotling Warband. I'd rather not play against unofficial warbands. Some rules for fun (scenarios, some home rules) yes, but warbands - no. Official warbands lets you play with whatever models come into mind, for example an Orcs & Goblins Warband can be made entirely of Goblins and Snotlings with all the heroes being Squig raiders, Orcs being big-badass Goblins and Goblins being a small mobs of Snots. There's so much place for count-as warbands that i find unofficial warbands repelling and sometimes game-breaking. I try to stick to main rulebook, annual 2002, EiF, some specific Town Cryer rules aprooved by the local community.
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