House rules?

[Duppe]

"In my own group, we rules out march blocking years ago, we can ALWAYS run with our models, it makes for a much more dynamic and fluid game, longest game we've played because of it stretched to close on 8 hours, pure manuevring, feints and counter feints and a big alpha strike for the win." -Written by Ram Rock Ed First, Taken out of context from the "SNOTLING WARBAND - FINAL VERSION 17 FEBRUARY 2010" thread 

It would be interesting to hear what YOU have done to, according to you, improve the flow of the game. Or how you just made it more fun.

I can imagine that doing as described above changes the game rather dramaticaly, am I right Ram? Playing for 8hrs is like playing a game of WHFB.. But a lot more fun ;-)

We, in my group. Well, being from Sweden and in our teens (then).. English isn't our first language. We made a mistake, a mistake that has followed us for all these years. If you get ooa, you don't get any experience points. Same apply for henchmen but it's enough that one lives to tell the others how bad it was. (It's the same in real life.. Empirical knowledge is only for fools, if someone tells me it'll hurt if I put a knife to a bodypart, I believe them..) But I must say it makes it quite interesting. Sure, it could end up with everyone standing in a corner doing nothing, luckily that's not how we play it at home. Besides, in order to get experience points you have to do something, unless you're happy with the one... And surely you have more ambition than getting just the one point?

Love to hear your ideas..
/Rob
 

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Just the one point? When running 3 man warbands it's never just 1 point for me, it's usually 3-6 points for surviving!!!

House Rules used:

You can ALWAYS Run, even if an enemy is within 8" (That big chap there 50 times bigger then me but behind that really tall building, I can hear him stuff approaching with care! Run away!!!).

You have 4 weapons slots not including the free dagger. This means a warrior can have up to 4 missile weapons (braces count as one) or four combat weapons plus the dagger or any combination therein. This allowed warbands without the missile weapon option to actually get much more flexibility. It also allows pistoliers to go through 4 separate braces of pistols (pistols, duelling pistols, double barrelled pistols, crossbow pistols, warplock pistols, have I missed any?). It adds alot of variety and fun.

Pistolier and quickshot can be combined together to allow a character with 2 braces of pistols to fire all four in a single shooting phase. We kept the old school feel here, always enjoyed it more. If you have hunter well damn but you can load fast!

Optional back of book rules aren't optional, they are considered part of the game.

Random Happenings happen every game turn even after one has occurred (5 Bloodletters on the field is nuts!).

Just a general rule of thumb: As much terrain and rubble on the board as possible, it's a ruined city after all. The most fun we've had was in a game where the most open piece of board was 2" by 1", also levels, it was about 5 levels high (levels being 2-3" high with or without buildings on them, many crossing over streets below to form tunnelled streets, blind alleys et al at several levels of the board...

There's a few more we play, can't recall them currently.

Cheers,

Luke.

[Duppe]

Optional back of book rules aren't optional, they are considered part of the game. -Posted by: Ram Rock Ed First

The optionals is vital to the game. Makes it much more dynamic which is why I love this game so much. Different weapons, different damage and so on.

You can ALWAYS Run, even if an enemy is within 8" (That big chap there 50 times bigger then me but behind that really tall building, I can hear him stuff approaching with care! Run away!!!). -Posted by: Ram Rock Ed First

The part where you can't march/run has always seemed to me as a legacy from WHFB. It doesn't make real sense in a mordheim setting, though I've never played without it. Ought to be fun and very different.

Pistolier and quickshot can be combined together to allow a character with 2 braces of pistols to fire all four in a single shooting phase. We kept the old school feel here, always enjoyed it more. If you have hunter well damn but you can load fast! -Posted by: Ram Rock Ed First

Do you find it balanced Ram with a guncrazed model like that?

Random happenings throughout the game is a lot of fun. We always start with a (i think it's from lustria, adapted to mordheim by tommy punk) random event that affects the whole game. Slippery/Rain/influenca/people being drunk and so on.. That's generally very annoying but makes it much more fun..

We have had an issue with the rating system as well. To be honest it doesn't always work that well. To balance it a little bit more we have started counting wounds*5 instead of models. This makes it a lot more fair in our opinion, most of the time. Meeting a possessed warband with very few models but all of them having 2-3 wounds. They'll slaughter you but will get extra points for fighting a warband with higher experience..

Something that we have started playtesting is the shield/handweapon rule (5+save in hand to hand). I don't know if it's widely accepted as the real rule nowadays but we just started anyway. It's working rather well and the armourer has definately seen an increase in the demand for shields. This has been playtested on the basis that people would bring some protectment into the city and not only a lot of weapons.

I think Ram is on to something regarding rubble. Maybe a little more than 2*1 inches of open terrain is allowable but there should be bricks everywhere, rooftops, wallsections, etc. Provides cover/hiding and it's also a lot nicer for the eye. It looks as if the city is indeed damned.

/Rob

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Do I find the combination of Pistolier and Quickshot alongside Eagle Eyes and a Telescope (pretty sure it'sa Telescope extra D6"'s) balanced?

Hell No.

But some things are just too awesome to not include.

I've only been on the recieving end of these guys so no bias for them from playing them. My brother ran a Mexican Style Gunslinger Reiklander Warband...so much blackpowder and all models with poncho's and sombreo's! Epic, only killed by the fact that I was running 1st version Beastmen and for some reason maxed all my wounds and toughness out in the first few advances on almost every model...he couldn't wound me at all, 15 guys pumping all their firepower into 1 beastman and still he stood...we stopped soon after with that campaign. He also ran a skaven night runner same set up with warplock pistols, my elf shadow weaver got plastered many a time but it was fun. It's not balanced, but before the first FAQ rectified the issue we were like everyone else playing Quickshot and Pistolier stacks so just didn't stop.

Luke.

[Duppe]

Do I find the combination of Pistolier and Quickshot alongside Eagle Eyes and a Telescope (pretty sure it'sa Telescope extra D6"'s) balanced?

Hell No.

Haha.. Right... On the other hand, If they spent all the advances on those kind of things he might be easy to kill, assuming you''ll get to him.. How many games do you keep a warband for?

Throwing the game off balance can be fun but it's also important to set it straight again.. Being a Swede, I like rules. However, some are ment to be broken... 

We've also started playing with the rule that says that you can't chose to leave until you've received 25% casulties, once again I don't know if this is widely accepted as the real rule nowadays. (Really have to start read up on these things..) This in addition to the rule where we don't get experience unless they don't get ooa balances it quite nicely.   

/Rob

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Pretty sure it's official you can't voluntarily rout till you've lost 1/4 of your warband.

Pistolier and Quickshot is just 2 skills, it's not that hard to get, we keep it in moderation as a rule of thumb, but cinematic pistol awesome is cool once in a while, so is countering it by getting the charge on them.