Mordheim Musings: Flawed Warband Design Part 2

Mordheim Musings: Flawed Warband Design Part 2

Over my holiday, I'm writing a series of articles on the design of Mordheim warbands from the Nemesis Crown supplement, with a focus on the deep flaws I see in some of them. If you haven't read part 1, you can check it out here (and while you're at it, why not check out some of my other articles on Mordheim here, here, and here).

Forgoing the long preamble because I did that last time, I'm going to jump right into the analysis.

Imperial Outriders

The second warband I want to single out is the Empire Outriders, but not for the reassons the developers seemed to think they might be singled out. I'm picking a bit on the Empire warbands here, but they're the biggest offenders in my opinion. Of the two, the Gunnery School is the only one I've seen lamented online as being overpowered or imbalanced, so I'm probably treading off the beaten path a bit here. Even if the Outriders aren't the worst offenders, though, they're definitely worth discussing.

In contrast to the Gunnery School, however, the Outriders warband itself doesn't have serious flaws. I actually think it's a very cool idea to have an all-mounted warband and really stick to that strategy, requiring that every character have a mount of some kind to participate. Of course, this is arguably a design flaw in itself, since it precludes the warband from entering Mordheim itself, a setting where two mounts per warband is the limit. There are two ways to remedy this, in my opinion: first, one could house-rule that the mount limit is removed, but this might lead to chaos in the streets as warbands run roughshod over each other; second, the Outriders could be permitted to field most of their warband on foot, but this takes away their uniqueness. I think the safest bet is, unfortunately, to simply not use them in conventional Mordheim. Don't be too broken up about that, though: they would be great for Empire in Flames, Border Town Burning, Mutiny in Marienburg, or any number of other alternate settings!

I'll go through the analysis even if I don't have much in the way of criticism, for completion's sake. The warband only has one listed special rule, regarding Hired Swords: they can only take mounted ones. Fitting and flavourful, it would look strange if a single model on foot were trying to keep up with a group of cavalrymen. In a campaign using this warband, it might be nice to introduce some new mounted Hired Swords so they can join in the fun a bit better.

Equipment

Next, the equipment: not much to see here, really, though there are some oddities. The availability of Gromril and Ithilmar armour, and to a lesser extent barding, heavy armour, and lances, seems out of place. The warband is led by a knight, who would probably have access to some of this, but nothing states that they are the only character who can choose these options. If I were redesigning the warband, I would likely remove Gromril and Ithilmar from the list, and restrict barding and lances to the knight. I'm on the fence about heavy armour, but I guess it could represent a cavalry cuirass. I think this better reflects the nature of the Outriders as light cavalry, and pushes them more towards a harrying role rather than charging for massive damage. The spear can stay as an option for an Outrider who wants a bit of extra melee punch, but I don't think this is meant to be the core strategy of this warband.

The only other equipment quibble I have is the Scouts' missile weapon list. I think this could be expanded upon very slightly to include pistols at the very least. I don't expect them to be primary combatants, but the pistols are both thematically appropriate and would help the warband's Yougblood-equivalent have a bit more staying power in a fight. Comparing pistols to throwing knives, the two weapons are about on par, with pistols possibly even being a bit worse. Both have 6" range, but that's where the similarities end. A pistol is Strength 4, armour piercing, can be fired every other round, and can be used in the first turn of combat. Throwing knives, on the other hand, strike at their user's Strength (in this case, 3), suffer no penalties for range or moving, can be used every round, and are useless in close combat. A Scout with a pistol would likely want to get into close combat to use it, since WS 2 poses fewer challenges in melee than BS 2 does at range. A Scout with throwing knives is probably content to keep their distance, harrying if need be. In brief, pistols open up another play style without feeling out of place.

Warriors

I'm already writing more than I expected on the warband itself, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Moving on to the warriors, things get interesting. Every warrior comes, by default, with a riding horse and the Ride skill. This riding horse effectively adds 30 gc to what the warrior would normally cost, while the Ride skill comes for free. I argued in my previous article that skills should come at a price, but I want to make an exception here. In any other warband, Ride should have a cost associated with it, since it enables a hero to choose a strategy notably different from other warriors. Here, gaining Ride for free enables the core concept of this warband, which is that every warrior is mounted. Comparing the Ride skill to Hunter, which the Gunnery School's leader and Marksmen got for free, it has far less of an impact on play. Ride is necessary to use mounts effectively, but Hunter is not necessary to use firearms.

Looking at the layout of the warband, it's clear that this is another re-skin of Mercenaries: the Knight is a Captain with 1 less BS, the Outriders and Scouts are mounted Champions and Youngbloods, Chasseurs are Marksmen, and Hussars are Swordsmen with 1 less WS who get Combat Riding instead of the Expert Swordsmen rule. Notably, there isn't any parallel to the baseline Mercenary Warrior here, but there doesn't really need to be: the warband has a maximum size of 12 models, and with a full complement of five heroes that only leaves seven slots to fill with Chasseurs, Hussars, and/or Grooms. There isn't much need for “filler" henchmen. I didn't mention the Groom above, but they're more or less non-heroic Scouts with the Horse Handling skill, allowing them to look after any riderless horses while their riders are entering buildings or getting into trouble on foot. They have a niche use, reflected in their 0-2 limit, but the fact that they were included at all shows great attention to detail on the designers' part.

I do have a couple of small gripes with the warriors, in spite of my praise for them. First, the Chasseurs should be 5 gc more expensive given their profiles, if we're assuming that riding horses cost 30 gc for this warband. I think this is a fair assumption: while a riding horse normally sets a warband back 40 gc, the Cathayan Battle Monks, from Border Town Burning, can purchase one for their leader at a reduced price of 30 gc. To be clear, Chasseurs have the standard human profile with BS 4, which should cost 30 gc by itself. Hussars are fine where they are: a baseline profile costs 25 gc, and Combat Riding can come at a discount compared to what a hero would pay (5 gc instead of 10) since henchmen don't have the same longevity.

One head-scratcher I found is that certain warriors have the option to upgrade their base riding horse to a warhorse for 40 gc. Not a strange choice on paper: warhorses cost 40 gc more than riding horses, so this makes sense. However, as I mentioned above, the warband's riding horses are already discounted, meaning they're getting a 10 gc discount on warhorses too. This isn't a major issue, but it is inconsistent with how other warbands handle discounted mounts. The 30 gc riding horse does have some precedent (actually, antecedent, since Border Town Burning appeared after Nemesis Crown), but I haven't seen any other 70 gc warhorses around. In fact, the most common discount I see for these mounts is to 40 gc, half price. Merchant Caravans can buy half price warhorses for their Knights Vanguard when they're hired, and Hung Marauders can always buy them at this reduced price! The Outriders are a warband that depends heavily on horses and warhorses, and one that has to replace each lost mount or lose the use of a warrior next battle. I think it's safe to allow them to benefit from a significant discount on hiring a warrior with a warhorse, since they'll be paying through the nose for that horse later if it gets killed. This means that Knights, Outriders, Chasseurs, and Hussars would all be able to purchase warhorses not for 40 gc extra, but only a 10 gc surcharge! Maybe this is a little overboard, but I don't think so. So long as the warband has to pay full price to replace mounts, having a discount on them to begin with shouldn't ruffle too many feathers. A starting Outriders warband is already sinking a huge amount of gold into mounts as it is, so I think it's permissible to give them some extra bang for their buck. Full price replacements means that a player must sometimes decide whether it's more worth their while to replace an experienced warrior's mount, or hire a fresh replacement entirely. This creates interesting and difficult decisions for an Outriders player. If I were to suggest one other change, I would force the Knight to start with a warhorse and a cost increase of 10 gc. If a Knight owns a riding horse, they aren't taking it out in the field.

The Main Offender

Although I've proposed changes to the warband here and there, it's really the end of their entry that caused me to single them out. The designers, for whatever reason, decided that mounted combat needed to fundamentally change with the introduction of this warband, and wrote a rules addendum to reflect this. I don't think this was the right approach at all. First of all, it assumes that most players will adopt these as an addition to the standard mounted rules, when they're quite clearly written only to “fix" the developers' perceived flaws in the warband itself. They're also presented as “clarifications" to the mounted combat rules, which makes me laugh. These are the opposite of clarifications, additions that muddy the waters of an already niche and confusing mechanic. 

I'd like to go through these “clarifications" one by one, starting from the top: “Two Weapon Fighting". This section states that mounted warriors may not fight with two hand weapons, nor may they use a two-handed weapon, instead only being able to use a single hand weapon or pistol, and a shield or buckler. This bothers me for a few reasons. First, I know I complained above about the “clarification" thing, but this really isn't a clarification of any sort. It was never implied in the original mounted combat rules that this was, or should be, the case. Instead, it appears that the developers believed a warband of mounted warriors with two weapons each would be imbalanced, and imposed a restriction on every mounted model to reflect this. My second issue ties into the first: this is a narrow-minded and poorly-worded restriction. Empire in Flames had been out for several years by the time Nemesis Crown emerged, and had brought with it two mounted Hired Swords: the Highwayman and the Road Warden. The Highwayman uses a brace of pistols, which would no longer be permitted under these new “clarifications". The Road Warden, on the other hand, uses a cavalry hammer, a two-handed weapon designed for use from horseback, also no longer allowed. The poor wording comes into play with the “two-handed weapon" bit: does this specifically refer to double-handed weapons, or all weapons that require two hands? If the former, why not just say “double-handed weapons"? If the latter, does this include ranged weapons as well? Several two-handed ranged weapons are included in the Outriders' equipment list. Are those off the table? My third issue is that this flies in the face of the models themselves. This isn't always a good argument, especially in Mordheim where customization is expected, but I think it's an important one in this situation (I also used it in a previous article on why ungors should be able to use short bows). The current and previous generations of Empire Outriders depict them with braces of pistols, swords and pistols, and handguns. Bretonnian Questing Knights used great weapons during the period where this “clarification" was released. Not only does this restriction not make sense, it requires a fundamental alteration of the models on which this warband is based in order to be implemented, and that's bad design.

The second clause deals with targeting mounted models, and while I have less of an issue with this, I still have an issue with it. The rules state that ranged attackers cannot target the mount, only the rider, who “will always be seen as the greater threat." Arguably true, but the rider is a threat because of the mount, and aiming to unhorse enemy cavalry would not necessarily be an unheard-of strategy. The mount is a larger target, and the rider will likely be maimed or killed if they're thrown, so outright banning attacks on it seems to run counter to what a warrior might be thinking. The perceived issue here is likely that opponents will try to kill the Outriders' horses every game, making it a frustrating and costly experience. My response? You knew what you were in for, playing a mounted warband. Adding a special rule to the Outriders to improve their horses' survivability (possibly attached to the Grooms to make them a more viable choice) seems much healthier for both the warband and mounted combat in general. The clause about shooters having to target mounted warriors first, however, is an interesting addition and one that makes a lot of sense, since these would likely be perceived as a greater threat than foot soldiers.

The third clause on Injuries can be covered quickly, as it actually isn't any different than the base rules. Not sure why it was included, but no issues here. The “Stunned Riders" clause is actually a decent clarification, since it deals with a situation that isn't explicitly explained in the base rules: a mount will bolt if the rider falls, but can be remounted later or recovered after the battle. “Out of Action Models", however, shows the hand of the designers. While framed as a clarification to the rules of mounted combat, it really only applies to the Outriders, and states that a dead rider with a living horse grants a 40 gc discount to the rider who replaces them. Aside from the fact that this should have been listed in the warband's special rules, it's also a miscalculation of the value of horses to the warband. As I discussed above, riding horses really cost 30 gc for Outriders, so the discount should be 30 gc. Even if a warhorse is left behind, the discount should still be 30 gc, since this is the portion of the mount's price that is included in the warrior's cost. If one allows leaders to be replaced and forces the Knight to take a warhorse, then they could have a 40 gc discount if a riderless warhorse is present, but that's a fringe situation.

“Dead Horses", which requires warbands to replace mounts first, is also aimed directly at the Outriders, and shouldn't really be in this section. The second-last clause, “Dense Terrain" allows the Outriders to be an exception to normal mount limits. (I'll admit I had forgotten about this earlier, but I'll leave my discussion of house-ruling the Outriders into Mordheim for posterity.) Again, a warband special rule disguised as a mounted combat rule. The final clause, “Scenarios", isn't a rules clarification at all, but a piece of advice for how to reduce the Outriders' power in scenarios that revolve around capturing and moving objectives. This should probably just be included as a “designer's note" in the warband entry, as it's not a general rules issue. 

TL;DR, I think this section is a mess. Where the Gunnery School seemed based on the notion that firearms are underpowered, the Outriders seem based on the idea that mounted warriors are overpowered. Just as I didn't agree with the Gunnery School's premise, I disagree with this one too. With mounts, I believe that you get what you pay for, and if a player is willing to invest a small fortune in them, they shouldn't be punished for it. The Outriders do just that, presenting the appealing facade of the mounted warband, but pulling the rug out from under players with the “Mounted Combat Rules" section at the end. The intentions are good, creating a warband with a unique advantage and balancing it for normal play, but I think that it's overdone and shows, like the Gunenry School, a lack of trust in players to figure things out. 

In Summary

Again, the Outriders are a cool idea with a flawed execution. The warband is centred on mounted warriors, but also imposes strict and inconsistent restrictions on their use. Here are some bullet points of what I would do differently:

Special Rules:

- Include “Out of Action Models" and “Dead Horses" here as warband special rules. Clarify that “Out of Action Models" grants a 30 gc discount instead of 40 gc.

- Specify that replacement riding horses and warhorses cost full price.

Equipment:

- Remove Gromril and Ithilmar armour from the equipment list.

- Restrict lances and barding to Knights only.

- Include an entry and price for a brace of pistols.

- Add a single pistol as an option for Scouts.

Warriors:

- Change the warhorse upgrade cost from +40 gc to +10 gc.

- Increase the cost of Chasseurs to 60 gc.

Mounted Combat Rules:

- Remove this section entirely, possibly keeping the ruling that mounted warriors must be targeted first by shooting attacks, and the section on stunned riders.

Again, feedback is welcome! Have you played Outriders and got a different view of how they should work? Am I off-base in my assessment, or should I have gone further? I'd love to hear your thoughts!