Kirb your enthusiasm!

WEBSITE HOSTED AT: www.3plusplus.net

"Pink isn't a color. It's a lifestyle." - Chumbalaya
"...generalship should be informing list building." - Sir Biscuit
"I buy models with my excess money" - Valkyrie whilst a waitress leans over him


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Dwarf Treasure Hunters in Mordheim



So the Dwarvies! Short, tough and drunken bastards looking for Wyrdstone. A nice warband to start with due to high Ld against Routs and some tough, skilled Heroes. The Thunderers can fight well too. One problem with Dwarvies is they can only start with 4 heroes and not 5 but they have some special rules which allows them to get +1 wyrdstone at the end of games so this isn’t a huge burden.

Cons: Expensive, MV 3, Low initiative and the Slayers cannot pack long missile weapons and cannot have armour.

Pros: Toughness 4 and Hard to kill, coupled with armour means they will last on the table for ages, Heavy Armour and shield will not slow them down, +1 shard of wyrdstone, long ranged missile weapons (especially with the Engineer!), Nice special skills, Good LD.

Dwarvies have the ‘hard to kill’ special rule which means that they will only be put out of action on a 6 instead of a 5 or a 6 and coupled with the toughness 4 across the warband, will mean that the stunties are hard to take out and hard to rout as well. These little bastards ignore getting knocked out by maces, clubs, et al and so this means that most of the weapons that other warbands take early in a campaign will be less effective against the Dwarvies.

Another point is that you can only start viably with 7 or 8 guys, a 9 man warband will lack weapons for the job. So we want full heroes, just like any starting warband. This is the most important rule: Always start with full heroes allowance!!

So here we want a Noble (obviously), 2 Slayers and an Engineer.

We can give the Noble some nice kit to start to take advantage of his higher BS and WS but it is also tempting to go with Gromril armour from the start. I would urge against this, the Noble is important but not as important as, say, a Vampire to Undead, hence he should be fine with his natural toughness and special rules. So I will kit him with 2 x Pistols and a Great Weapon, making him nice and killy.

The Engy will take a Crossbow. Nice and solid. Hopefully he won’t have to get into CC and if he does, some friends can bail him out ;)

The Slayers are given 2 Axes each, giving them some nice CC ability. The models also sort of dictate that the slayers should have 2 axes since I use 2 WFB ones.

So onto henchmen. Important to have them separate to maximise the chances to getting TLGT. We can perhaps go all 3 thunderers with xbows but I will opt for 2 and a Clansman for some more CC ability. So the Thunderers have xbows and the Clansman has an Axe. Skills for these guys are strange, we give Thunderers combat skills and the Clansman shooting skills so that they will eventually become similar in ability and be able to CC and shoot well.

So onto the list:

Noble - Double Handed Weapon, Pistol, Pistol, Dagger
Engineer - Crossbow, Dagger
Slayer - Axe, Axe, Dagger
Slayer - Axe, Axe, Dagger
Thunderer - Crossbow, Dagger
Thunderer - Crossbow, Dagger
Clansman - Axe, Dagger

500 Gold exactly and 7 dudes. :D So what does everyone think of the list? I haven’t played Mordheim in a while but it looks good to me. Nice long shooting and good CC ability. Axes are really there since the models have them, but we all know Maces are better and cheaper :D However, once the Slayers get Master of Blades and also 2 Gromril Axes, the shit will hit the proverbial fan for the opponent! Comment away pink mordheimers!

4 pinkments:

Auretious Taak said...

Part 1:

Lets see then…

Pro’s – long range missile weapons mean shit on any board with cover scattered 4” or so apart regularly like oh a ruined city like mordheim. Can’t see me, you can’t shoot me. Hooray for fail. Armour is shit in Mordheim as a general rule due to how many ways bypass it with ease. Heavy Armour and a Sheild costs 55gcs. Why didn’t you play smart and get 3 suits of gromril armour to start and shove it in storage and next game buy 3 shields, now the noble and engineer and as soon as a henchy lads up, all have that magical 3+ save. Buy them donkey’s for lulz and you have 2+ saves heee (but can’t get into combat cause donkeys are real arses!).

Bullshit on the crappy load out for guys to start too for an effective warband. Lets see…Noble (85) Dagger, Gromril Hammer (9) – 94, 2 Slayers (100) Dagger, Gromril Hammers (18) -118, Engineer (50), Dagger, Hammer (3) – 53, 8 Beardlings (as good in combat as any starting Merc, WS 3 Str 3 but T 4 and as you say Dwaren resilience across the board makes em fucking hard to kill to start, Initiative 2? Who cares: whole warband has it and Leadership is still 8 which is ry Captain levels so they are better for their 25gcs then an equivalent human) with Dagger and Hammer (224), leaves you 11gc’s to o wild with. I’d get another Gromril Hammer and keep it aside for the Engineer after the first game when he can be given it legally, leaves you with 2gcs and a starting rating of 106, which is the max you can stat with and may well give some other players underdog experience from the get go. Woot. Oh look, viable starting warband that laughs at most other warbands out there and maxes their combat potential and has some bargain toys to boot.

Also: VINSANITY’S GOLDEN RULE OF MAX THE HEROES IS NOT APPLICABLE, IT’S ALL DOWN TO PLAY STYLE AND EXPERIENCE!. IF NEW TO THE GAME MAX THE HEROES, THE IMPORTANT POINT IS YOU CAN START WITH 3 DWARVES AND ABUSE THEIR EXTRA INCOME AND VOLUNTARY ROUTING TO MAX YOUR HEROES IN ONE OR TWO GAMES AND GAIN UNDERDOG EXPERIENCE TO BOOT BUT ALSO HAVE CARTLOAS OF AWESOME GEAR! FORCE MULTIPLIERS PEOPLE!

Auretious Taak said...

Part 2:

To your warband Vinsanity:

Noble with 2 pistols…he can’t use both at once to start. Not to shoot anyways. In combat yeah sure 2 str 4 attacks but then revert to the Double Handed Weapon (This isn’t Warhammer Fantasy call it what it is and make sure it’s a hammer or blunted Double Handed Weapon for the awesome critical chart not the fail bladed weapons chart)…you may well kill the opponent by then and then you can’t shoot at range. Even so, 9” range is fail if you are moving so standing still for the shot is a must. That said if you don’t knock the opponents out then they charge you next turn. Huzzah. Screw the 2 pistols to start with. Take 1 if any. Take a hammer too.

Give the engineer a hammer as well. He’ll hit combat, it’s as simple as that.

Slayer armament is personnal preference I’d prefer a hammer myself with the dagger cause you save more gold that way for more guys/toys.

Thunderers take Crossbows for the extra range and the ability to fire every turn people. Armour is expensive, easily bypassed unless you have LOTS of it in Mordheim (min Heavy Armour and a Shield to get decent and frequent saves) so the handguns extra armour save modifier isn’t worth the other sacrifices in rate of fire and range. Skills? Why give them stuff if they get TLGT that will not compliment them. Regardless a Clansman and a Thunderer have the same stats, just different starting equipment. A Clansman is nice but why give him shooting skills unless you are going to be abusing the combat side as well? Thunderers are natural progression to shooting, then you wanna do stuff to make them more useful as well combat and strength are both valid but special and keep them alive longer (remember 2 skill lists, special skills for race specific lists don’t count as in addition s you have to chosse to learn those skills too unless house riled otherwise) skills will help the warband develop very nicely too. Don’t overlook Beardlings for the points raised above, yeah lesser stats but 2 hand weapons and volume of attacks is awesome. At 90gc’s for 2 clansmen with axes and daggers we get 3 beardlings with hammers and daggers and 6gc’s spare. :D

To your list of:
Noble - Double Handed Weapon, Pistol, Pistol, Dagger
Engineer - Crossbow, Dagger
Slayer - Axe, Axe, Dagger
Slayer - Axe, Axe, Dagger
Thunderer - Crossbow, Dagger
Thunderer - Crossbow, Dagger
Clansman - Axe, Dagger

500 Gold exactly and 7 dudes.

It’s okay, it’s just your average noob Dwarf warband, nothing too special nothing unpredictable. You aren’t abusing the exceptional equipment you have available to start with coupled with your natural increased income no matter what. You can lose your entire warband and still find a shard of wrydstone after the battle. It is awesomely powerful when worked with.

My own warband would be something like this:

Noble, Gromril Armour, dagger, Gromril Hammer, Gromril Mace – 178
Engineer, Dagger, Hammer – 53
Thunderer, Dagger, Hammer – 43
In storage: 2 Suits Gromril Armour, 8 Gromril Hammers
Gold Crowns in Storage: 4gc’s.

Can’t give the Gromril Armour to the Engineer or the Thunderer till after the first battle so you wait. Shields asap, usual income force multiplying approach to early game development and bam, you’ll have a warband in a few games, especially if you voluntarily rout as soon s you lose 1 guy (remember it’s 2 or 25% of your warband OOA, whichever is lower, before you can call the voluntary route). Works a charm. 3+ saves (Gromril+shields) are bloody hard to get through, and alongside the resilience of the warband, wow, pretty awesome. The Noble is one of the best starting characters in the game, he dies, you can’t get another one so keep him alive, and if it costs a mere 80gc’s from the start to do that then do it. Oh and Helmets.

Cheers Vinsanity, nice article, hopefully the criticisms/comments by me with your article give people a good base point to mess with for Dwarves. 

Cheers all,

Auretious Taak.

VT2 said...

Mordheim feels like the cheese fest people tell me mechhammer 40,000 is.

Auretious Taak said...

Except when you have two peopl playing Mordheim at an advanced level a game which should last for half an hour or an hour will turn into 3, 4, 5 or 9+ hours. Longest I've done is 12 hours of manouvrability, feinting and counter attacking and that was 3 guys verse 18, played well, even with powergaming, balance ensues whereas in 40k that is very hard to match gamewise.

Post a Comment

Follow us on Facebook!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...