Combat House rules

Right.
Now for the most debated problem with the Mordheim rules. Combat.
In most campains i have read about, people seem to think that dual-wield needs to be nerfed. However we think that its fitting for the feel of mordheim that alot of fighters choose to use two weapons, and that this is a very powerful combo.
So what did we do?
We chose to buff up some of the other equipment combinations to make them, atleast, useful.

The equipment that we find needs a little extra is namely the deffencive ones. Great-weapons, halbards, morningstars, flails and spears all have their place in different builds and tactics.
Shields, bucklers and suits of armor however are next to useless and quite expencive. So we came up with these few changes.

Shields:
A Shield looks awesome on a model, and takes up a "hand" in melee. The original 6+ save is however nullified by most attacks, such as those made by warriors with pistols, strength 4, or strength 3 and armed with axe, halberd, great-weapon, morningstar or flail. You get the idear. Its useless.

So we decided that since a shield takes the place of an additionel weapon, it should also always have an effect in hand-to-hand combat.
The sollution to this in our campaign ended up being to rule that the save given by a shield will only ever be nullified by attacks or effekts that ignore armor saves all together.

Buckler:
Just like the shield, the buckler takes up a hand. Further more it cant be used aginst more then one attack, and none if any of them hit with a roll of 6 or have a strength value of twice the user.
Further more the bucklers effect can be achived just by arming the warrior with a sword, and then all its good for is a lousy re-roll.

So we have this idear for a change.
When armed with a buckler a warrior may parry to-hit rolls if the player rolls equal to or higher then the attckers score. This means that a sword will add a re-roll to the bucklers parry and not the other way around ofcurse.

Armor:
Suits of armor are expencive and just as easy to nullifie as the save earned by wearing a shield. We diddnt however want to make armor pircing weapons useless, so we decided to, rather then buffing armor on the battlefield, give them a save aginst serious injury.

This means that a warrior who goes out of action can make a roll to avoid rolling of the injury chart. This save is not modified by shields, mounts or barding, but skills such as "Shaggy Hide" will add to the result.

 So if a warrior is wearing light armor, sword and a shield, he will have a 5+ save vs. attacks during a battle. But if he is taken out of action he can avoid any injuries by roling a 6. Had he been wearing gromril armor, he would avoid injury on a 4+.

No rerolls will ever be allowed on rolls to avoid serious injury and skills or equipment such as step aside or lucky charms have no effect.

A very long debate about dual-wield and combat balance can be found on Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum, here: Link

Nurgle's Rot

So, as everyone knows Nurgle's Rot can really spoil the fun in any campaign. So instead of banning the Carnival of Chaos Warband or removing the dreaded spell/blessing/Wagon we have come up with an alternate version of the Rot.

Nurgle's Rot
The Tainted One is infected with the deadly pestilence of its lord - Nurgle's Rot. In addition, the tainted one is immune to all poisons. Nurgle's Rot is a deadly contagion for witch there is no known cure. This virulent diseasecan be passed on i hand-to-hand combat. if the Tainted One makes a successful to hit roll of 6 this will result in the target model contracting the Rot (note: Nurgle's Rot only affects the living, so Undead, Daemons and the Possessed are unaffected, the same goes for all members of any Carnival og Chaos warband). Once a warrior has contracted the Rot, mark this on the warband roster. Rather then killing the victim immediately, the Rot can take some time to set in. From now on , before the start of each battle, the warrior must roll 2d6 on the following table:

2: Child of the great father Nurgle.
The warband wakes and find that the warrior has died in his sleep. huge Warts and boils cover his body and before they can burn the corpse a nasty creature, born of the Rot, emeges from the foulness and runs off into the sewers. Remove the warrior from the warband roster and add a Nurgling to the Carnival of Chaos warband responsible for the infection. 


3: contagion.
The warrior has unwittingly passed the Rot on to another member of the warband (randomly allocate a warband member and mark this on the roster).


4-9: Not feeling good at all...
The warrior must pass a Toughness test. if suddessful, his constitution has mannaged to stave off the Rot's effects. If unsuccessful, the warrior loses one point one point of toughness permanently (if he reaches zero, he has succumed to the Rot ans died, remove him from the roster). In addition, if a 6 is rolled for the toughness test then he is feeling exceptionally ill and must miss the next game.


10: horrible side effects.
The warrior has gained a nasty side effekt of the Rot. Roll a d6. On the roll of 1 the model has gone mad from the fever, roll again just as if as if the warrior had rolle the Madness result on the serious injury chart (1-3 stupidity, 4-6 frenzy). On a roll of 2 the Rot has taken such a toll on the warriors health, that he's movement is reduced permenently by 1. On a roll of 3-5 the model suffers from intense muscle pains and physical injury is the least of his worries, add +1 to the warriors toughness. If a 6 is rolled the model has become so coverd with pus filled warts that the fighter can withstand additional punishment, add +1 to his wounds.
These changes can never take a charectaristic above racial maximum or below one.


11: Disease carrier.
The Rot has reached a level, so serious that the model have a chance to pass it on in hand-to-hand combat. Treat this as if the warrior had this very Blessing of Nurgle. If the warrior ever gets the "Cured!" result this effect is lost.


12: Cured!
The warrior has miraculusly shaken the Rot and no longer has to roll on this table (unless he is infected again in the future).

Cost: 35 Gold Crowns

Hope others will find this inspirational. 

Hired Swords

So - We're working on the classic "What to allow, what to change?" and i think we figured out a list of the warbands we will allow.
These are: Beastmen Raiders, Carnival of Chaos, Cult of the Possessed, Dwarf Treasure Hunters, Marienburg Mercenaries, Middenheim Mercenaries, Orcs & Goblins Hordes, Reikland Mercenaries, Sisters of Sigmar, Skaven Warband, Undead, Witch Hunters, The Outlaws of Stirwood Forest and Shadow Warriors.

There will probably be some manner of house ruling when we go through the list again :) but that's for later.
What we're going to talk about today is the hired swords we're going to allow in our campaign.
We also want to list the specific warbands who will be allowed to hire these, rather then having a discription saying "any good alligned warband" or "any warband apart from x may hire an y".
Also we don't want to flood the campaign with wierd hired swords, and as our setting is the city of the damned we want only guys who fit in there.

So here follows the list of the Hired Swords allowed in our upcoming campaign:


Dwarf Troll Slayer
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs and Shadow Warriors may hire a Dwarf Troll Slayer. Warbands that include Elves may hire Slayers, but must pay 20 gold crowns after each battle instead of 10 gold crowns. Dwarfs won’t put up with weak pointy-eared folk unless they have to, or are adequately compensated for their sufferance.
House rules: None 


Elf Ranger 
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs and Shadow Warriors may hire Elf Rangers. Warbands which include Dwarfs may hire Elf Rangers, but must pay 40 gold crowns after each battle instead of 20.
House rules: None 


Freelancer
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws  may hire Freelancers.
House rules: We're using the rules for riding found in the back of the rulebook, not the blazing saddlers rules.


Halfling Scout
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs, Shadow Warriors, Sisters of Sigmar and Beastmen may hire a Hafling Scout.
House rules:  If hired by Beastmen, the Hafling Scout is instead called an "Ungor Scout" and gains +1 Movement and +1 Toughness, but suffers a -1 Initiative and - 2 Leadership. He is also concidered an ungor for all game purpuses.

Ogre Bodyguard
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs, Shadow Warriors, Sisters of Sigmar, Possessed, Orcs, Beastmen and Undead may hire an Ogre Bodyguard.
House rules: None 

Pit Fighters
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs, Shadow Warriors, Sisters of Sigmar, Possessed, Orcs and Beastmen may hire a Pit Fighter.
House rules: If hired by Beastmen, the Pit Fighter is instead called a "Gouge-Horn" and gains +1 Movement, but suffers a -1 initiative. He is also concidered a Beastman for all game purpuses, including the bigger base size.

Tilean Marksman
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, Outlaws, Dwarfs, Shadow Warriors, Sisters of Sigmar and Possessed may hire a Tilean Marksman.
House rules: None 

Warlock
May be hired by: Mercenaries, Outlaws, Possessed, Orcs, Undead, Skaven  may hire a Warlock.
House rules: None




Well, That's the list.
It's basicly the core list from the original rulebook, and a marksman as well as some changes to who may hire who, but it seems to work for us.

That's it for now folks.


Thanks to Mordheimer Information Center for the links :)