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Hinterlands: Skirmish Campaigns in the Mortal Realms


bottle

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Mortal wounds being all kind of OP in a skirmish setting was something I noticed back in December when I was putting together feedback for Bottle on the version of Hinterlands at the time, and sent him the following suggestion as part of a larger batch of feedback:

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  • While reading through the pdf I couldn't help practising my usual want when presented with a new set of rules and started listing units off the top of my head easily able to break it. The vast majority of warscrolls I could name that I felt would unbalance the game were ones able to do ranged mortal wounds on mass, without the need for line of sight (the Lord Celestant's hammer cloak, Pink Horror arcane bolt spam, ect). A possible means I came up with to counter this would be a bit of fluff text explaining that "fireballs, charging juggernauts, flying hammers and the like are much easier to avoid (at no small cost to the recipient of such attacks) in a skirmish environment that on the battlefield", and rules explaining that "a mortal wound can never take the last wound on a model's profile and simply stuns them (place the model on it's back) until the end of the controlling player's next turn". This way mortal wounds are still a valid way of quickly draining ablative wounds from heroes and big stuff and the like, but can never kill anything outright, still making units that deal them a valid roster choice, but much less of an auto-win button than I fear they'd be.

I still think mortal wounds should be distinct from regular attacks and making them with wounds at rend 1 or something similar would be a quick fix and undermine their uniqueness. Unfortunately they have got the distinction of being called mortal wounds, and so my previous suggestion being non fatal could also be seen as undermining them. Perhaps simply have a mortal wound ensure that a model suffering one has to make an (extra if slain?) roll on the injury table during the post battle sequence, making them a great way of nobbling an opponent's warband in campaign games?

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Lots of great input. :) Here are some more of my thoughts:

It is important to remember the purpose Mortal Wounds serve in the game from a mechanics perspective (I.e. They are a hard counter to models with high armour saves). It is also important to note that knee-****** changes can swing the meta of a game in wild and unpredictable ways, meaning small tweaks and gentle adjustments are better.

For those reasons I am against taking out Mortal Wounds entirely. I haven't found them to be problematic at all in low numbers (I.e a single Wizard with Arcane Bolt) and in fact they have been crucial tools in the game for dealing with that one high wound model that's chopping through your Warband.

I don't want to penalise Warbands who only have access to D3 Mortal Wounds a turn because for me the problem only arises when a Warband can generate high volumes of them. For example the Heraldor and Celestant combo which can get you up to 9.

That's why I am in favour of some sort of cap at 3 and then subsequently either being negated totally or weakened substantially.

 

edit - look what it censored haha :P 

Edited by bottle
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1 hour ago, Double Misfire said:

Mortal wounds being all kind of OP in a skirmish setting was something I noticed back in December when I was putting together feedback for Bottle on the version of Hinterlands at the time.

I've just re-read your feedback from back then and you call out Pink Horrors and Lord Celestant a good 5 months before they became the hot issue they are today. You should be out winning tournaments with your incredible farsight, or is it a 'with great power comes great responsibility' type thing :P 

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Hey Bottle, could you give us an idea of what you've been playing with and against in your playtesting/own campaign? I understand that putting together some sample warbands was an idea for later, but I think it'd provide some perspective.

As for knee-swift-movement changes, I think they're not necessarily a bad thing while a project is still relatively young. This phase is the chance to explore alternatives. I strongly believe that (ranged) mortal wounds, even capped at 3, will be a huge issue. While in "normal" AoS, they do serve to prevent abuse of models with a very good save characteristic, but how common are those in the Hinterlands skirmish setting? From what I understand, they mostly spring forth from units combining, which you'd have to try real hard to do in the Hinterlands setting. 

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38 minutes ago, bottle said:

I've just re-read your feedback from back then and you call out Pink Horrors and Lord Celestant a good 5 months before they became the hot issue they are today. You should be out winning tournaments with your incredible farsight, or is it a 'with great power comes great responsibility' type thing :P 

It's more of a 'with great power comes very very slow painting and a limited desire to win tournaments with an army that isn't dwarfs' type shtick. I've been breaking army books on the day of release since the mid 90s; ask @BaldoBeardo. :P 

Spoiler

Minmaxed Gore Pilgrims with 3 Slaughterpriests all with the +1 to hit prayer, as many spare Bloodsecrators as you can fit, a Khorne Herald and at least one unit of 30 Bloodletters.

If all the prayers go off the Bloodletters hit on 2+, rerolling 1s and automatically cause mortal wounds (odds are 2 will go off for 3+ mortal wounds. oh well!), with as many bonus attacks each as portals of skulls you've bothered to plant that turn. You can just about run it at 2000 points with a maxed out Murderhost battalion, giving the Bloodletters a free 2D6" move after deployment and in the hero phase.

 

Unrelated, but GW Bath is running a Hinterlands warband painting competition as part of their birthday celebrations at the end of the month. If you're based over in Bristol you should come down and judge it. :) 

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@Barteth sure :) so, I will say I don't play what I consider "min maxed" Hinterlands lists and they all come from my collection as it's something I get to do with my bros when I invite them over. The most notorious was my brother's Fellwater Troggoth (named 'Fish') that got 2 wound advancements after its first game (after getting a long charge and taking my Wizard out the game). That thing was a nightmare for me and my (other) brother to get rid of, with 6 wounds and healing D3 back every turn. In the first game I had tried to take it out with my Wizard but an unlucky casting roll saw that plan fall apart lol.

My other brother had a good run with his Spirit Host later that day against the Moonclan Grots before being taken out over 2 turns by the Grot Shaman.

We play with loads of big LOS blocking pieces (2 large buildings, a solid rock face, 40k 3rd Ed Ruins and a spaced out Gardens of Morr) and also lots of large cover pieces (3 large forests) which make cover saves common. Big scary things (The River Troll, the Spirit Host, the Skull Reaper) are able to hide out of sight before they launch up into your grill. If any of those in particular get +wounds after the first game they become even tougher.

Not that they were breaking our games, just a fun piece that required Mortal Wounds to take it down reliably and we never had access to many MWs too. No doubt our warbands would get destroyed by a Heraldor + Lord Celestant combo. :) 

@Double Misfire Yeah I frequent the Bristol store where the staff all used to be the Bath staff, so they mentioned it to me! 

 

 

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Regarding HEROES I think limiting them to one per warband would help with balancing  things out. On the other hand losing this HERO would be very painful so when rolling for him/her on Injury table re roll 1's.
Someone mentioned taking a hero as a mercenary for one fight. I think is a great idea, but would add a little twist. In SA: Armageddon is a bounty mechanic. How I see it in Hinterlands: you pay for your hero mercenary a 1/4 the points in gold and half the wounds, PICK one advancement for him (to compensate a bit for not having him for ever) and add the mercenary to your warband for one battle. If your merc is taken out of action AND you lose the mission your opponent gets additional gold, lets say 1/10 of his points cost. This way your opponent wont rout right after killing your merc to get extra cash. There may be a limit on how many merc's a warband may take on a single mission.

As for making mortal wounds less mortal. I think making all cover a 6+ save against mortal wounds a good alternative. Still makes them dangerous but gives a player on the receiving end a reward for using cover and planning his advance.  If a model already has a protection against mortal wounds he can test for that ability separately.

What do you think? This is my first post here so be gentle.

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Welcome to the forum @Taffin! :D 

I still haven't played enough games of Hinterlands to be able to weigh in on the power of heroes. Surely if everybody has three then everybody's warbands are equally broken? ;)

Cover giving a save vs mortal wounds is genius and the best solution to the raging mortal wound debate I've heard so far. Hinterlands strongly encourages players to use as much scenery as possible in games and so it offers a strong risk/reward to moving out of cover to size an objective or sneak up on the enemy. I'd have cover offer as much as a 5+ save vs mortal wounds and increase it to a 3+ if the enemy model dishing out the mortal wound can't see the target.

 

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2 minutes ago, Taffin said:

@Double Misfire I never played a game of Hinterlands and my judgement of OP Heroes was based on what I red in this topic. 

Happy to hear that my idea for "too mortal wounds" is appreciated by someone other than me :).

Some heroes are more OP than others, but if you use fluffy stuff like Warrior Priests and Darkoath Chieftains you're obviously asking for it. ;) 

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Some feedback (although haven't played yet) is that I would like to see the option to take unit champions to be a part of the warband somehow instead of requiring 3 models from the same scroll.

The issue is that the 3 models is a blanket (but simple) rule that doesn't have an equal effect on all units. Ogors will find it hard to get even one command upgrade, while Grots can easily achieve it.

That's probably not a huge deal, but occasionally there is interesting equipment that is otherwise unavailable to the regular guys in the unit, and for more expensive units you can't access it very easily.

 

An example for me (Which I didn't really think too much at the time), was I sculpted a Ogor riding a Rhinox with a Hunters Bow. I figured before reading the rules, I'll just use him as a Mournfang Champion with the Pistol, fits well enough even if the range is a bit short.

Of course, the current rules don't allow me to do that, and never will as I'd need to buy 2 more Mournfang. One solution of course, would just be to make my own custom warscroll or house rule it with my opponents to allow me to do so.

 

Perhaps though, maybe you should be able to buy unit upgrades. These upgraded models could be called "Veteran's", that start at Level 1 or 2 on the experience chart. You can either get them as free upgrades for every 3 models of the same scroll, or you could pay a once off cost to manually upgrade your guys (5 or 10 points maybe). For cheaper units, you could just grab more guys, while for more expensive you could fork out a few points to buy a veteran instead.

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I think mortal wounds as they are are fine. The issue can be with certain models that have the ability to dish them out in volume like the Lord Whatever with his cloak of stars ability. Arcane bolt can feel a bit rude sometimes when you triple mortal wound an enemy hero, but you do need to cast it first, and make sure it is unopposed. Hinterlands is more of a narrative based game, so somebody spamming mortal wound dealing models to win may be missing the point of the game. 

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So now that SWA has come out, any things from the base ruleset and campaign ruleset you are interested in taking so far @bottle ?

I think getting +1 to save when running is at least one thing i'd take, as well as rules for relationships between characters, such as rival!

also, any news on a battleshock alternative that works so far?

tomorrow I'm gonna be testing out a few mods to the ruleset and one thing i ran by my club is as soon as a model dies in the warband, at the end of that turn in the battleshock phase, roll a single dice for each model in the warband, if you roll below your bravery, you pass, anything higher will cause a removal of the model, dropping any objectives in the process. This makes it so heroes are virtually immune to fleeing, and as most models have bravery 6 or 5, its not hard to pass this test on a single die. any thought?

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Hi guys/ galls, 

Sorry if this has been brought up, but how about the following idea for Mortal Wounding abilities (other than magic spells)*: Heroes can only use their Mortal damage causing abilities once per game? Another rule of one, to so say. Still keeps them a serious threat, but now the abilities have to be used more carefully. I love the Heraldor's Hornblast thing to knock some pesky Handgunners out of a Sinister building to be honest. And in a large game of AoS I see no problem with using abilities every phase, but in small skirmish games like this, it's simply too powerful.

In my group we use the rule of three for abilities like the Lord Celestant/ Knight Heraldor's powers as well. Can't target/ affect more than 3 models per use.

 

Also question: when rolling for upgrades and I roll a Weapon Skill upgrade, +1 to hit, should that read improve the hit value of one weapon by 1 (so a 4+ becomes a 3+) or does it actually mean +1 to hit rolls? For if it's the latter, people are going to hate my Retributors. Reading as written, one could claim it's the latter and try to abuse the system (I personally feel it should be the first option).

I like hellalugosi's idea of using Bravery as a sorta Bottlecheck (no pun intended). But I would start it at 50% casualties per warband. From that point on in the Hero Phase, every model takes an individual Bravery check, if failed, they are removed from play. Idea? (Will have to suggest this to my group next time we play to try it out).

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UPDATE - VERSION 2.2 IS NOW LIVE

Hinterlands-2.2-Headline2000px.jpg.22aec846c9a6203c68798340fe6be8a4.jpg

Hey everyone, I have released version 2.2 today and it is intended as a balance update to some of the issues we have all been talking about over the past few pages. I am really grateful for the feedback everyone is giving and wanted to share my reasons for the exact changes, and hopefully you will agree they are for the best! (If not, just house rule it as you see fit).

CHANGES IN VERSION 2.2

1. ADDITIONAL RULE OF THREE, LIMITING MORTAL WOUNDS TO 3 A TURN

This is the big one. So let me talk to you how the change works, and hopefully you'll like it. Lifted from the PDF, the rule is as follows:

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The 2nd Rule of Three: In a single turn a player may only inflict up to three Mortal Wounds onto enemy models. Any additional abilities or attacks which generate further Mortal Wounds instead inflict a normal wound with a rend characteristic of ‘-’ and a damage value of 1.

This change is more impactful than it first seems, so I want to talk to you how this will affect warbands:

How will this affect a Warband running a single Wizard and no other ways to generate Mortal Wounds?

In no way at all. 

This was really important to me as having access to a few Mortal Wounds a turn isn't problematic and is in fact a great tool for dealing with some of the toughest Heroes you will face in Hinterlands.

How will this affect a Warband with access to lots of Mortal Wounds?

Greatly.

I want to talk you through how this ability works. (Everything here is also explained in a new FAQ which is added as page 17 to the file.)

1. The player doesn't get to choose which abilities are Mortal Wound causing and which aren't. You generate them until you have inflicted 3 and then they are replaced with standard wounds (which can be saved against). For example if a player is running both a Lord Celestant and a Knight-Heraldor, the Knight Heraldor's Thunderblast cannot be used until the Shooting Phase. This means the 3 Mortal Wounds would almost always be used up by the Lord Celestant in the Hero Phase.

The only way to save Mortal Wounds for later in the turn is to not use those earlier abilities. As the early ones trigger before the movement phase this is powerful in terms of being able to position yourself to  use the later abilities for best effect. (Want to move the Knight-Heraldor into a spot to snipe an enemy with Thunderblast? You're going to have to give up using the Sigmarite Warcloak for the turn).

2. If an ability generates multiple Mortal Wounds (for example D3) and you attack a single wound model, you still see how many are generated and it still counts towards your cap. For example if you used Thunderblast on a terrain piece that had 3 one wound models, you would roll the D3 Mortal Wounds for the first, and if you roll a 5 or a 6 that would be them all used up and the later attacks would be regular wounds.

Do Mortal Wounds need further nerfing? 

Maybe.

But I am strongly in favour of small changes rather than something drastic like removing them completely or altering how they work mechanically.

2. THE STARTING LEVEL OF MULTI-WOUND MODELS IS NOW HIGHER

Models that aren't heroes now start on the level equal to their wounds characteristic (one wound, start Level 1, 2 wounds, start level 2) etc. This means that multi-wound models level slower over a campaign than single wound models. In the FAQ it is also clarified that they do not gain advancements for these starting levels.

3. SINISTER TERRAIN ONLY BENEFITS MELEE WEAPONS

This was a nice suggestion by @Forestreveries. I am always keen to give melee a little boost, and this seemed like a great place to do it.

4. DEATH PLAYERS CAN SUMMON BACK TOMB GUARD

This was overlooked by me originally and pointed out live on-air by @Darth Alec :P Sorry guys!

5. FAQ IS ADDED TO THE BACK

If you can think of any more questions, let me know! I'll post the current one here. You'll see I preempted lots of questions about the new Mortal Wounds rule and also added a long clarification to why spell lores aren't part of Hinterlands (but could be).

17-FAQ.jpg.0caf8a0705d9a9a74d40e45f26ddac2c.jpg

This update is to try and make the game tighter balance wise because I think a good narrative system should also be able to hold its weight in a competitive environment too.

Let me know your thoughts and I'll keep seeking to improve the ruleset! :D

Cheers,

Bottle

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Awesome! Cant wait to try out the new fixes!

 

Also some feedback from my club day yesterday, we tried a battleshock variant, at the end of a turn that any model is slain in your warband, you take battleshock test for everyone in your warband, adding a flat +1 to your roll. This worked really well and kept the game tense as we wanted to tip toe around each other until we can most likely get a kill. We also played this as a phase that only activates when you have more than 25% of models slain.

We also played with getting +1 save when running against shooting attacks. This also worked fantastic. 

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I think the +1 save to missile weapons when you run is an amazing rule. I'll definitely be looking to play that in my next games with a view to including it. As for Battleshock, it's a nice simple system, the only thing that makes me weary are the bravery extremes. Have you played it with Skaven (bravery 4 I think) or Undead (bravery 10)? 

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2 hours ago, bottle said:

I think the +1 save to missile weapons when you run is an amazing rule. I'll definitely be looking to play that in my next games with a view to including it. As for Battleshock, it's a nice simple system, the only thing that makes me weary are the bravery extremes. Have you played it with Skaven (bravery 4 I think) or Undead (bravery 10)? 

So the remedy ive found for that is allowing players to take standardized icon bearers instead of the ones allowed on the warscroll. A generic 6" bubble of battleshock immunity could be the way to go. So if i had 6 clan rats, i could take one with the standard bubble that allows me to retreat and charge as well as a clan rat that can make everyone immune to battleshock, benefitting horde warbands for sticking together even more so.

 

As for undead and demons, i think them being immune period is a thematic part of them.

 

Id also recommend extending this to the musician models, granting the option to take a generic musician that add a basic bonus to run or charge?

 

One more thing, id suggest is having a model automatically gain the leader/champion aspect of its warscroll if it is chosen as the leader of the warband.

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@bottle TBH I think that the second rule of Three is a bit cumbersome. That 3 mortal wound cap makes Skaven JEZZAILS not wanting to roll a 6 to HIT - their normal wounds are resolved at Rend -2 and DMG 2, mortal wounds beyond 3 are counted as DMG 1 and no Rend. I think that my idea of Cover blocking mortal wounds is more intuitive (cover giving a 6+ save vs. mortal). @Double Misfire expanded the idea even more.
 

@hellalugosi +1 save for running is also very good idea and It could be merged with cover saving from mortal wounds. If a model runs behind cover it gets +2 regular save and 5+ "mortal" save.

@bottle A came up with a new Battle Plan. It is called "Ransom".

Before the battle roll of who is the Kidnapper and who is Prey. Prey randomly chooses a model from his warband other then the leader and model that for some reason miss the battle. This model is kidnapped and must be rescued. Do not count this model's cost when determining the Underdog Rating.

SET UP
Haven't decided on the set up yet (maybe someone will come up with a appropriate one).  I think the Prey should be in the centre of the map. The kidnapped model cannot be moved and is watched over by 1, 2 or 3 sentries (depending on the warband's size) placed within 6".  The rest of the warband including its leader is off the board (looting or drinking) and enter the map at the end of the first battleround (how this is achieved will be determined when Set Up rules will be determined) .

FIRST TURN
The rescue team gets the first turn.

VICTORY
Kidnapper wins if at the end of the 5th (6th?) Battleround the Prey is not rescued.

THE RESCUE
The rescue group wins if they manage to get the Prey within 6" of any table edge. To do this the Prey must be first cut lose (achieved by having one friendly model in base contact and not having enemy models within 1" at the end of the rescue group's turn). The kidnapped model may then move as normal but cannot fight (he/she was disarmed by the kidnappers).

CAMPAIGN OUTCOME
The winning player earns 25+D6 gold. The losing player earns 10 + 2D6 gold.
If the winning player was the kidnapper the losing player pays him 12 gold as ransom. The Prey returns unharmed to his warband (gets no exp).
If the winning player was the rescue team the kidnapped model gets 3D6 experience for surviving this battle.

Tell me what you all think. I would like to see my idea improved upon. Constructive critique most welcome.

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I think abilities and spells that cause mortal wounds could simply be scaled, anything that causes d3 mortal wounds is treated as a single one, and anything d6 is treated as d3? 

The problem of multi target wounding like the lord celestant is still pretty bonkers though.

 

Battleplan looks neat ill have to try it out! 

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Okay so i thought of something....

What if we are looking at it the wrong way? What if we were to give more incentive to slay with regular attacks over mortal wounds? So hows this, what if a separate mechanic was introduced that made it so mortal wounds was instead KNOCKDOWN Wounds. So everything plays normally except if you are to take a mortal wound that would slay your model, your model does not take that wound but is KNOCKED DOWN. placing the model laying down, they are out of action until the owners next hero phase or battleshock phase of this turn or what have you, and effectively mortal wounds become utility that happens to deal damage, but it situationally worse or better than straight killing a model.

Thoughts, @bottle?

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55 minutes ago, hellalugosi said:

Battleplan looks neat ill have to try it out! 

@hellalugosi  Glad to hear you like it, but it has to be finished first. If you test some different set ups and/or how to bring the rest of the kidnappers warband on board let me know. I was thinking of setting up the Prey and sentries in the centre of the board. The rescue party chooses one table edge and sets up within 6" of that edge. The kidnappers appear at the end of first round within 3" of any table edge but more than 12" of enemy models.
I think this could work. Any thought?

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@TaffinNice Battleplan! It is similar to the old 'Rescue' mission from Necromunda. I'll have a think about some set-up ideas. If we can get a bunch more Battleplans together I would be happy to dress them up nice and make a download pack :) 

As for the new rule of 3, the intention is each Mortal Wound is replaced by a regular wound with rend '-' and damage 1. So the Jezzails would not miss out on damage, just rend (which I will address in a moment).

I liked your suggestion but the reason I didn't opt for it was because I didn't feel like it did enough to the high-end craziness of Mortal Wounds some models can put out. A 6+ ward isn't going to do much against the 9 mortal wounds a Knight Heraldor can dish out each turn (D3 on 3 models), for example.

The rule I went for does the same as your suggestion (models in cover get +1 save, because it counts as a normal attack) and more (because they get their additional save on top) as well as models out of cover getting their save too. It means that Mortal Wounds are not affected in small amounts but are greatly affected in high amounts, whereas your suggestion is a minor nerf across the board.

I agree that with exploding attacks (like the Warplock Jezzails) it seems silly to wish you rolled a 5 instead of that 6. This would also happen with your rule; if you shot a model with a 6+ save in cover, a 5 would punch right through where a 6 would give them a 6+ save (because it would be a Mortal Wound).

Tonight I will add an errata to the FAQ that if a player has ran out of Mortal Wounds they can choose to resolve any exploding attacks normally instead. Then you get the choice, auto-wound but have no rend, or roll to wound as normal and get your rend.

But saying all this, I will keep in mind other suggestions for dealing with Mortal Wounds moving forwards. The +1 save for running is definitely going in version 3. I will make it a 6+ ability save called something cool like Fate Favours the Swift :D 

Edited by bottle
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14 minutes ago, bottle said:

if you shot a model with a 6+ save in cover, a 5 would punch right through where a 6 would give them a 6+ save (because it would be a Mortal Wound).

 

16 minutes ago, bottle said:

As for the new rule of 3, the intention is each Mortal Wound is replaced by a regular wound with rend '-' and damage 1. So the Jezzails would not miss out on damage, just rend (which I will address in a moment).

@bottleFair points

18 minutes ago, bottle said:

Then you get the choice, auto-wound but have no rend, or roll to wound as normal and get your rend.

I like this idea very much. I think being able to choose gives my opponent another tactical decision to make. 

18 minutes ago, bottle said:

I will make it a 6+ ability save called something cool like Fate Favours the Swift

My Ironjawz will like to have some extra protection. This extra rule also reminds me of old Necromunda, but if my memory is correct the shooter got -1 to hit and the target must have moved a least 10".
Maybe I'll have a chance to test out new rules this week. I'll give a report afterwards.

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