Mordheim - turn-based tactics in the Warhammer universe

[Jinn]

Anyone try out the Undead yet? I'm tempted, but I hate zombies with a passion.

 

[Shackleton]

Accelerated Turns: A new option can be activated in the Gameplay section of the Options menu. It has 2 purposes:
Accelerate Player Turns by 15% (movement, animations, etc.)
Accelerate AI movement and athletic actions taken by 50% during AI turns

Thank god. Steam says I played this 35 hours and in the end the inability to speed everything up just eroded my desire to log in.

Not really bothered about another warband personally as I've still got 4 out of 5 of the previous to build up, but the speed increase alone might make me try it out again.

 

[thesheeep]

Seriously... how can anyone enjoy playing this game?

If you do one wrong step, the entire mission is basically over as your entire party will be killed or routed. Which means game over at the beginning of the game, since you are basically out of money the moment you start - unless you have the patience to level your warband to be able to get non-shit guys from the get-go.
If you split up your group, one part will get killed (did not manage a single time to have someone split from the group to pick up some more "gems" without him getting gangbanged upon or the rest being in dire need of that guy not to be beaten by the enemy).
If you dare to not end your turn dodging, parrying or assaulting or in some other way setting a trap for the enemy, you will get raept.
If you dare to advance just a little too much, you will be assaulted and ganged upon.
If you start a mission where you are spread out, well... every single hint on web says not to pick such a mission, because it is so easy for the enemy to nab some of your guys before you can join them to a group.
If you want to restart a mission because you made a single mistake... well, you can't, so you better concentrate as if your own life depends on it.

There is exactly one way to successfully play this game:
Ultra defensive, advancing ultra slow and never, ever pick up a non-safe mission.
Sure, since there is no time limit (other than the desire to pick up resources before the enemy does) you can actually do that.

But where exactly is the fun in advancing 3 meters per turn and basically just waiting for the AI to walk into your assault/overwatch guys?
Especially considering they did the completely irrational decision of not being able to speed up enemy movement (wtf? A 5-year-old could easily see this is the game's worst shortcoming).

Funny enough, the actual difficulty of a mission is irrelevant. Your guys die in 2-3 hits anyway, and afaik the only difference between difficulties is enemy damage, so it makes no real difference.

This game just wastes your time on so many levels it confuses me to no end some people seem to enjoy it.
It is in every aspect (except style maybe, I dig the style) inferior to XCOM 2.

And I will bear the butthurt ratings with dignity, because I really do feel fucked by this game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

There is exactly one way to successfully play this game:
Ultra defensive, advancing ultra slow

Nope.

Most of your criticism can just be deflected with a single "l2p" comment, except for the missions where you start spread out, cuz those really can be a lethal coin toss, particularly the ones where teams are scattered randomly around an area - the ones where you start split into 3 groups are easy to manage in terms of survival. Still, taking them every now and again serves as a fun enough change in variety if you can handle the risk.

The game is largely the same as Blood Bowl. At first it seems completely unforgiving and frustrating, but then you learn the ropes better and start properly managing the risk, which leads to having fun and knowing what you're doing. I remember I had to scrap my first Skaven warband after entering a downward spiral of losing initially because I had little idea of how everything worked. But then on 2nd try I was much more successful. Perhaps it didn't bother me that much, because that was exactly how I started in BB too. It was even a Skaven team in BB as well.

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah "git gud" is important in this game.
As Roxor says if you learn how things go you can fastly get strong mercs and things start becoming much more manageable.

Also scout units are super important in order to avoid any 1v many situations. If you can cause them though, it's an easy way to get some enemies out of the way.

Also was playing Skaven btw, you can get crazy dodge/poisoning units if you level them up properly.

Damn I'll play that again in the weekend

 

[thesheeep]

Ah, some "git gud" comments without a single line to disprove any of my remarks.
As expected.

At first it seems completely unforgiving and frustrating, but then you learn the ropes better and start properly managing the risk, which leads to having fun and knowing what you're doing.

What risk management?
As I stated above, any risky step will get you killed. I started more than 8 war bands and it always ended the same. After the first 2-3 bands I stopped doing anything risky at all.
Then I won some missions in a row, since it really is damn easy if you avoid any risk, but I was bored out of my ass due to the defensive play style... so I got cocky and dared to do something risky. Mind you, as risky as having a unit look ahead or splitting someone from the group to grab some gems a bit further away, I didn't go full derp or something.
That unit got ganged up on and killed as there simply is no way to avoid it once you walk around a corner and get assaulted by 2-3 guys. Every. Time.
Am I just hilariously unlucky or what?

The game is largely the same as Blood Bowl.

Not even by a long shot.
Blood Bowl was fun from the first moment. I certainly wasn't spectacularly good at it, but managed to get ahead in the leagues and certainly won far more often than I lost. I would say I got average Blood Bowl skills.
The only similarity I see is that one should avoid unnecessary risks. But in Blood Bowl stupid shit = unnecessary risk, while in Mordheim everything that is not extremely certain = unnecessary risk.
Also, Blood Bowl turns you can speed up...

Also scout units are super important in order to avoid any 1v many situations.

Eh?
How are scout units important to avoid 1 vs many situations if the scout is the unit getting into exactly that?
I mean, really, how do you use a scout without getting it killed?
You send the scout ahead, on top of a building or with some distance around a corner to see if there is an enemy ahead. If there isn't it was pointless, and if there is, that enemy will have assaulted your scout already or at least the enemy will now go for that scout in numbers.

Also was playing Skaven btw, you can get crazy dodge/poisoning units if you level them up properly.

I was playing Cult Of The Possessed, every time, since I figured I should better focus on something.

 

[Jimmious]

Erm scouts have usually high mobility and climbing skills so you can easily place them in spots where they cant be engaged by more than one enemy unit when their end turns. At least that was my experience.
I don't know about the Cult specifically tbh

Also failure and mishaps is a basic feature of the game as far as I can tell l, you will definitely run into problems. You just need to try to make them hurt less.
I'm not saying I didn't rage some times but you do get better at it with time for sure. I was flooded with money eventually if I remember correctly

 

[Darth Roxor]

What risk management?

Say, putting your skaven seer in the middle of a huge melee to cast gaze of the horned rat. If it works, all enemies around him lose 4 OP and you faceroll them. If it doesn't work, well, he's out of position and possibly in danger. If it rolls perils, the dude might get killed outright or spawn a stun wave that will hit everyone around and potentially have you facerolled.

I dunno, maybe you always ragequit before you can even get any skills on your dudes, but skills are important and they matter. They are what lets you forgo dodges etc in lieu of something that might let you disarm the enemy completely if it works.

There's also the matter of choosing priority targets, deciding whether to try kill a guy who is already in melee or engage another one who might wreck your dudes. There's positioning and anticipation with regard to level layout. Rushing into the fog of war is less risky if you do it through a chokepoint instead of open terrain.

That unit got ganged up on and killed as there simply is no way to avoid it once you walk around a corner and get assaulted by 2-3 guys.

See, this is what I'm talking about when I say you should git gud.

You should never get bumrushed by walking around a corner. The map design in Mordheim uses so many floors on the Z axis that you should always have one or two dedicated "jumpy" guys with high ag + the skills that let you climb/jump down for no SP. If you scout with eyes in the sky, instead of just walking headfirst into an ambush, your chances of spotting the enemy and not getting bumrushed go down immensely. Plus, vantage points are typically in buildings, which means choke points, so even if your scout has a bad day and gets caught, he should be in a position where only 1 enemy can reach him. And since the scout is high AG, he can hold out long enough on dodges alone till the cavalry arrives. And once the cavalry arrives, you know exactly where all the enemies are and can pick them off on your own terms. If the scout does actually kick the bucket, big deal - if you only lose him while winning, it's a good enough trade.

And if you really just can't live without face checking around every corner, you can also do it with someone dedicated to facetanking. When playing humies, I had a champ with so many defensive abilities stacked on him that he was literally an impenetrable road block (heavy armour, double block, insano-high melee res + melee res increasing abilities on each hit received and applied).

The only similarity I see is that one should avoid unnecessary risks. But in Blood Bowl stupid shit = unnecessary risk, while in Mordheim everything that is not extremely certain = unnecessary risk.

Negus bitte. In BB you can have an extremely certain 3D block roll triple reds + another triple reds on reroll, or your Dodge/AG5 ball carrier fail dodging out of a goblin's tackle zone and it will cost you the game (bonus points if the player dies from the failed doge). BB is the epitome of every action constituting a game-losing risk, there's nothing even close to that in Mordheim.

 

[thesheeep]

I dunno, maybe you always ragequit before you can even get any skills on your dudes, but skills are important and they matter.

you should always have one or two dedicated "jumpy" guys with high ag + the skills that let you climb/jump down for no SP.

When playing humies, I had a champ with so many defensive abilities stacked on him that he was literally an impenetrable road block (heavy armour, double block, insano-high melee res + melee res increasing abilities on each hit received and applied).

And there we have it, I think.
I never made it as far as anyone having a skill. I sure got some guys getting skill points once before I lost, but never had the money for pursuing it - and especially at the beginning you are thankful for everyone with better stats, so losing them for a few days... rather not.
It is quite possible that you forgot, but when you start a new game, without any advantages from your warband, you just have shitty level 0 units. And no money for skills even if they had the points.
And doing anything like you described with one of those sounds downright wrong to me.

So, if I had the patience to sit through the ultra defensive tactics for long enough, I'd probably eventually get some guys allowing me to change playstyle.
Yeah, not going to happen, far better games out there that do not force me to sit through shit before it gets fun.

Negus bitte. In BB you can have an extremely certain 3D block roll triple reds + another triple reds on reroll, or your Dodge/AG5 ball carrier fail dodging out of a goblin's tackle zone and it will cost you the game (bonus points if the player dies from the failed doge). BB is the epitome of every action constituting a game-losing risk, there's nothing even close to that in Mordheim.

I never said anything to the contrary. But there is a difference between everything being game-losing risky from the get-go and even relatively certain actions possibly costing you dearly.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I never made it as far as anyone having a skill.

Then I can't imagine just how little you must have played each band before scrapping it. And with over 8 restarts I must say that's quite the... achievement?

 

[thesheeep]

I played most of them until the game was over (out of money), which means maybe 3-7 missions, depending on when I ran out of patience spending 80% of my time waiting for the enemy doing its turn in slow motion. And then I did something stupid.
And the last band I admittedly just tried to rush through in blind rage, which of course didn't work.
And also scratch the first two tries, that was just getting into the game.

So make that ~5 tries.

I heard there was a patch upcoming that would give new players far more money at start, which would help significantly getting past the shit part.

 

[Zeriel]

It's been a while since I played this, but my opinion largely correlates with sheep, although unlike him I found the game easy once you learn how it wants you to play (super conservative). I just found it really tedious and boring at a certain point. You learn to play in a certain way that I would consider exploitive, and many mission types you avoid like the plague. That would all be forgivable if it didn't seem to operate counter to the theme of the game. It's better to avoid ever "losing" anything than to gamble by going for the most wyrdstone. A game that's thematically about collecting wyrdstone in dangerous ruins is actually about killing the most enemies possible while avoiding all damage.

Like Blood Bowl, it seems to me a game that was made to be played in multiplayer with other people. Since it's an adaptation of a board game meant for "lulzy" moments with friends around a table (hence all the RNG bullshit moments, just like Blood Bowl, which are hilarious when you are playing against a friend and irritating as fuck against AI), I can't complain too much about that. It just doesn't lend itself well to a solid singleplayer experience, I'd say.

This makes it sound like I didn't like the game... which isn't really true. I love the Warhammer setting, and this is one of the most faithful adaptations of both a ruleset and a setting we've seen of Warhammer. I really enjoyed dicking around with my mutant Cult of the Possessed squad. For a budget title, it's visually striking. But mechanically, as a singleplayer game, I can't say I'd recommend it. It's an acquired taste.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Like Blood Bowl, it seems to me a game that was made to be played in multiplayer with other people

Yeah.

Which boggles the mind given that it doesn't have any sort of functional league system. Maybe now that you'll be able to start with level 5 warbands setting up league-like tourneys of some sort will be easier, but that would first require anyone wanting to play it in the first place.

 

[thesheeep]

Could you honestly imagine that game against other players?
I mean, the waiting time vs AI broke me already. Against humans, it is guaranteed to be worse.

And in contrast to actual tabletop, you don't have the other social interactions to "distract" you.

Well, they DID give an option to increase speed in a patch now.
Guess I'll wait a bit more and try again. With less waiting time, I might have to patience to level my doomed soldiers into something allowing me to play more interestingly.

 

[Morkar Left]

A huge appeal of such games is seeing your warband getting more experienced / changes over time. Instead of pumping out warband after warband they should start to give single players more content for their already existing warbands in the sort of campaigns. Would be more cost effective and bind players to their existing warbands because they have actually more things to do for them.
Other warbands should just be released once in a while.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Could you honestly imagine that game against other players?

Yup, already played it in fact. It's super fun. You just gotta play against a friend instead of a random (duh).

 

[hivemind]

One way in which I found to have more fun if you don't have friends or pirated the game is to just have a 1 leader 3 heroes warband as that cuts down on waiting for too many AI moves and after a few levels your units will be built better than the retarded AI builds them so you will be able to make some more risky and fun moment creating plays without them necessarily meaning insta-loss.
For example yesterday I had a 4v4 fight against a Brutal(so hp sponge) enemy warband and the mission culminated in me either getting crushing victory or losing based on one final 68% diceroll. Now I ended up losing(for like the first time in the lifetime of 2 lvl 7-8 warbands because I used to just play really safe/smart/boring) but it was still a fun experience because of how "epic" the final decisions felt and had I won it would have been a really hype moment.

 

[Galdred]

Actually, you have to embrace losing some guys:
Losing your rank and file allows you to avoid them getting skills (and inflating your warband value). As in BB, warband value management is key. You should avoid letting any of your rank and file level up, because they don't get as much out of skills as your heroes and leaders, but their skill ups cost as much.
So having them die should be a non event. The only problem is that the UI does not really help you let them die out of their festering wounds (the UI will pester you to heal them so you'll have to pay/heal the others one by one).
After that, you have to balance sending your guys out to pick warpstone, and bunching them together, but as long as you consider the henchmen acceptable casualties, it is not that big an issue.
My main problem with Chaos is not that the game is unforgiving, but that many of my builds get wrecked by random mutation rolls that anti synergize with them (like weapon arm on my archer or whatever).

 

[Jack Dandy]

So, it appears Necromunda is also getting a game. Neat!

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/bastio...ult-classic-necromunda-underhive-wars-1751081

 

[Elwro]

https://www.facebook.com/NecromundaUW/ not sure if more info

Still, should be fun!

 

[Infinitron]

So, it appears Necromunda is also getting a game. Neat!

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/bastio...ult-classic-necromunda-underhive-wars-1751081

https://www.facebook.com/NecromundaUW/ not sure if more info

Still, should be fun!

Thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...pg-by-mordheim-city-of-the-damned-dev.113131/

 

[ColCol]

Wait, this is made by the people who made Mordheim? Ehhhhhhhhhh/

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Wait, this is made by the people who made Mordheim? Ehhhhhhhhhh/

Having read some of the "developer" tagged responces on steam forums, I honestly have negative amount of faith in these guys to deliever anything with a moderately adequate UI. As far as literal and "by the book" implementation of the rules, they're a good developer, I guess. But that's only a plus for joyless autists (like half this thread posters), tbqh fam

 

[A horse of course]

A Necromunda game should be more Kal Jericho and less numbers and tactics and other boring crap.

 

[Skittles]

Other than "don't take those missions" and "run towards one another quick," are there any general strategies for dealing with deploying scattered?