"Anyone here using any other rules for Mordheim?" Topic

I've been looking for an alternative to Mordheim. I run an Orc and Undead warband. My girlfriend runs Lizardmen and Dwarfs. We want to find some good rules to accompany these warbands. Lately we've just found the overall gameplay of Mordheim to be too clunky and while we love the idea of all the details with stats, the 3 basic rolls to determine combat a la typical GW is getting tedious in practice.

So we'd like to keep our warbands with alternate rules.

I know the first suggestion out there will be Song of Blades and Heroes. I have already purchased the rules along with 3 expansions and there is definitely a lot of promise in this system. My only worry is that it still comes out to be a little too simplistic with only 2 stats. I know special abilities helps mitigate this.. but I think the game itself would benefit a lot either by having separate stats for Offense/Defense Ranged/Melee.. or at least using a system based on D10 or D20 for greater variables.

The other system that caught my attention is Reaper Warlord. Don't know too much but seems like they have all the forces that we play in Mordheim represented. Looking at the stats, it seems like if you want to use a Warlord level model, you have to use a named character. Personally I like making my own characters. Not sure if Reaper has a character generator on their site. Would have been nice if they at least have a no-name equiv of heroes like in Warhammer.

Other games I've checked out either aren't versatile or generic enough in settings (Maulifax, etc) or don't have enough racial variables (Warrior Heroes, etc).

Any input on either other systems or games I mentioned is much appreciated. Thanks.

Then I guess Hobbit/LOTR SBG rules are out as well?

Has anyone compared the Warhammer Skirmish rules available with 6th edition to Mordheim rules? They might be virtually identical, but I am not sure.

I've tried Warhammer Skirmish and Warbands before playing Mordheim. They felt like just some ramshackle, rigged system based on Warhammer FB to forcibly work on skirmish levels. It lacked depth and I didn't get an individual feel for each model. I think the key to skirmish games working is making it so a single wound is never just a single wound.

Despite SOBH being much more "simple" in terms of stats vs Warhammer Skirmish/Warbands.. each model seems to have more "substance" because of the whole fall/reel back mechanic in SOBH. It's also what makes Mordheim work. This is ofcourse just my opinion.. but having 1 wound models just not simply being taken out of action for every defeat definitely changes everything. I can understand a full-scale army game not having that mechanic for pragmatic reasons.. but for a skirmish level game it feels shallow without giving your models more wounds at least.

I did indeed check SBG/Hobbit rules and found it the closest runner-up to SOBH.. but ultimately I scrapped it because it'd take too much time collecting all the different books just to get the correct races to be proxied by our existing models. Also.. Tolkein's universe usually has Orcs inferior in almost every way to humans. I like the fantasy genres that have them stronger but stupider/less disciplined than humans. It creates a nice racial contrast. The closest thing I came up with in terms of a good racial equivalent to how Orcs would be retrofitted into LOTR is using Uruk-Hai rules.. but then I get left into a position of where I would put the Lizardmen. Admittedly, when I was younger.. this would be a challenge I'd love to accept since I love making conversions in general on all fronts.. but now as a working adult I want something fast/fun, but still having depth.

I like the Coreheim rules. They were basically tidied up Mordheim rules that fixed a bunch of the glaring issues, and a bunch of balance issues as well.

The problem for you will be that they slimmed down the available warbands substantially to allow for proper balancing. Therefore there is no dwarf or lizardmen warband. Having said that it shouldn't be much work to port them in and try to tweak the points value/gold cost yourselves.

Of course this may not meet your desire to try something new and different.

Battlesystem Skirmishes?

link

Midget: Yea, I've definitely checked out coreheim and abandoned it for the exact reason you mentioned… lack of warband variety. The game also seemed to lose a lot of fluff/flavor in favor for balance. The creators are working on a new rendition of it called Heroheim right now which shows a lot of promise. We'll see how that one goes.

Happy: Thanks, I'll check that out too.

I second Battlesystem. Someday I'll get around to doing a skirmish game of Slave Pits of the Undercity.

I tried everything named above beside battlesysytem.

Today we do "fear and faith" from SOBH as it is a little beefed up. All other GW products including LOTR and LOTOW/LOTHS and warhammer historical skirmish etc fail….

Coreheim is very very good but still mordheim. It exist also a site of a guy who converted all mordheim scenarios to SOBH….. Try this.

Greetings

How about Vortex?

link

I have only just purchased but it does seem to offer all you need and the rules have a demo (without all the extra abilities and traits) to look at first

there is a video review here

YouTube link

I`d go with something from Ganesha Games (SOBH, FaF…), too.
Fun rules, easy to learn and fast play, campaign system, lots of variety for races/characters.

Reaper's Warlord is a good system, allowing from small engagements with just a handful of models to larger skirmishes with 30+ models per side. More complex than the Ganesha rules, but very managable (especially if you already know rules like Mordheim). Supports a wide range of official profiles. No custom unit creation or campaign system in the current edition!

Thanks for the input guys. I noticed more than once someone brought up Fear and Faith adding more complexity. How so? Haven't tried it myself. I have SOBH, SDG, Wind/Water, and SGD. I'm looking forward to the dwarf expansion since it seems to add more weapon and armor rules. I talked to Andrea on the yahoo group about extra stats and he brought up a good point that he can accomplish anything with the 2 stats and special rules that extra stats provide. One downside though is as more expansions come out, more special rules are needed to add "complexity" and "depth" with the stats. I suppose when it all comes down though, most humanoids are about the same stats so having extra stats might not be totally needed. In GW so many of the models run in the 3 or 4 range for the stats.

You might also want to look at some RPG rules. There was a period where a bunch of them were designed to be minis-centric.

The one that comes to mind immediately is Savage Worlds, from Pinnacle.

I think that Andrea hit it on the head. At the level of abstraction of SBH, a human with a sword is about the equivalent of an orc with an axe assuming they have similar levels of experience.

As for special rules, they do add some compexity, and more are released with every supplement, but it isn't a bad thing. Most units won't have more than one or two special rules anyway. If someone finds they're loading every unit up with many special rules to achieve more "depth", then SBH is probably not the game for them anyway.

For SBH I've been using savage orcs as my standard orcs to actually make them stand out more than say the standard human warrior. Seems fitting as an Orc that does actually get a kill would probably do it in gory fashion such as decapitation.

I second Savage Worlds. The miniatures version of the game, Showdown, nicely handles battles between small groups of individuals. For larger games you can also add in small units of troops. It's the only rpg and skirmish game I actually like.

I just got Ares and that seems to fit the bill for ex GW players perfectly. I'm surprised its not more popular.

Saving said that.. I think for the time being.> SOBH just might be my primary game simply due to ease of getting a game in despite my restrictive schedule. I'm trying to find a way to incorporate games of Ares in as well so that victories, casualties, etc.. get factored into the campaign and leveling up of warbands that spread across to SOBH games as well.