Warhammer Fantasy General

I suppose it isn't completely terrible, but for every one good idea in ET there are like 20 bad ones. Almost completely.

Skaven are the Orks of Fantasy :^)

I love them both.

I wish one of them wasn't a horde

I'd only agree with that there's a lot of them and they have wacky technology hijinks. Orks lack the Roman Empire/Byzantine politics and are more likely to get into a nigga moment whereas rats get someone else to do their dirty work.

Wait, so Ostland has ogres?

I'd be reluctant to call their politics Byzantine, even if their politics are byzantine. Mostly because the Byzantines were actually big on peace, and fought wars defensively, preferring to make more use of diplomacy first. Skaven prefer backstabs first, diplomacy second, all out war third.

In older fluff Ostland had a respectable amount of ogres living there, the same way Marienburg has a elven population in it and Middheim has dwarves. So its possible for them to recrute (aka bribe them with food and drink) ogres

How many characters has Morathi canonically fucked?

>Fluffy Averland army
Sheep :^)

Averland is quite generic, so everything goes, their main catch is being fancy as fuck, so you better keep a healthy dose of floppy hats, feathers and sun heraldry

Personally, I'd just avoid free companies and huntsmen (not fancy enough) and the over-the-top engines like volley guns, tanks and rocket betteries

>Sheep :^)
REIKLANDERS OUT REEEEE

>Superior Race

I don't recall Lizardmen having fur, horns, buck teeth, Medieval European clothes and making use of Tiberium.

Also is that Sotek in the middle? Why does he have weird disc-shaped ears?

The easier answer would be who hasn't she fucked.

SSKAVEN GET OUT OF MY JUNGLE

Aenarion, Malekith, Kouran, Tyrion, possibly Alith Anar (though he played her hard in that situation) pretty much any character ever introduced as one of her handmaidens, countless nobles from both naggaroth and ulthuan, Karl Franz.

And an entire tribe of marauders, I think it was the Hung.

I got mordheim on steam and it makes me want to play the tabletop.

I have experience with 40k and warmachine, plus most of the specialist games line. Where do I start?

Of COURSE it's the Hung.

Ask around to see if someone plays WHFB or the 9th Age

Or just convince a friend to get into it together, the videogames are a great starting point to get into the setting

Ironically, they're described as Asians riding ponies.

No one plays any of that, this is a warmachine town. I have a friend that would be interested.

I'm literally asking how I should go about starting.

Tanquol?

If you got a group that you already play table top games with you can find the rulebook online, we've been using the 300 something page one with the town crier additions. Pick out an army, most of them it seems can be covered by a single box. I started Skaven with a clanrat box. Did a little modding to make sure I had some visually different models for heroes/leader. Then get yer shit painted and be murdered by religious zealots before you get the chance to attack another player. (Alternatively works with harpies and man eating trees as well)

She had her handmaidens and slaves fuck all those hung, she could barely stand to be in their company

Hey, has anyone here played the Silver Tower box game before? It looks kind of fun, but wasn't sure if it was just a set to buy for the models, or if the game was actually worth it.

>Where do I start?
build a small warband

What's nice is a mordheim crew can easily work in pretty much any fantasy skirmish game.

If I wanted to print out a map of the empire and also of the entire old world's not!Europe parts, would anyone know where I could get a good detailed one that's cropped correctly and not just Gitzmanns?

Can Vampires potentially become Chaos Champions?

Based on what's known, no. Vampires have an independent streak and an ego a mile wide, and the Chaos Gods have nothing to offer them that they already don't have or can't gain on their own. Even their thirst can be overcome, so you can't tempt them with false promises of power and immortality. It's similar to elves in that Slaanesh was the only one to have anything to tempt them with, that being intense sensation and pleasure due to their utter boredom at the time.

The closest example of that I can think of is one of the original vampires that wandered north and was never seen again.

Its stated pretty clearly in the fluff (Specifically the Liber Necris), that they are completely removed from the cycle of the soul incarnate, and chaos as a whole. Kinda like blanks in 40k.

Besides that, the very nature of vampire, and death on a whole, is antithetical to chaos: They are static in all ways, perpetually unending and unchangeable. A vampire may shift forms and such, but they are dead, unchanging matter in the end.

Plus the whole "no mortals = no gods". If the world becomes a giant graveyard with a handful of sentient beings there wouldn't be enough of the background emotion/feelings/dreams to stimulate a meaningful presence in the Realm of Chaos.

my bad

assuming you have picked an army, get it's armybook to know the stats, points cost and base size and the core rulebook/BRB for the basic rules, OP should have links for all of them

get it's corresponding AoS battalion box, it's good value for your money, the basic models are the same but you'll need their corresponding square bases, some hobby stores sell them

Besides that, you may need some wizard/heroes/lords (again, AoS models are mostly repurposed WHFB models/characters) and some "elite" troops you like

a 750-1000 points army is a good starting point to get the WHFB feel, loosely plan your army before buying! (the starting boxes get to skip this because you must include low tier troops) and a fair warning, do not use End Times rules (except for the 50% lords/heroes allowance, which means less models for you to paint, and more conversion potential)

Unless you want to start with Tomb Kings or Bretonnia, in which case, you'll have to look into proxies and third party models

>>body once

>[x] told
>[ ] untold

Was my first warhams book.

Aborash seemed like such a badass.

It's a shame he disappeared for most of the Nagash series.

Never touched the Sigmaring, is he a cool dude like in the old lore?

Seems he and his followers are the least dickish vampires.

He's prideful and honourable, but he's easily manipulated through use of his duty. He splits when he kills a dozen people in a mad rage instead of sticking around to continue serving Nefereta, only to come back when it's under assault and tell the vampires that they're all stupid dicks and deserved this fate.

If I had to give a 'least dickish' prize to a bloodline, Blood Dragons and Strigoi would be tied. Which is why I was disappointed in the series version of Ushoran. Strangely they had a character just like the one presented in the army book but he ends up dying and Ushoran escapes into the desert, presumably to continue being an amoral predator instead of a lonely individual who just wanted to be loved and appreciated, choosing to treat the Strigany as his people and not cattle out of genuine concern.

????

I asked about mordheim, not WHFB.

Question: Can Orc/Skaven/Elf/Dwarves become vampires? Or is it a human centric thing?

Also, half elves: Yay or nay?

Oh I know the old fluff, poor guys though.

There's only one example of a non-human vampire and it's an elf. I imagine an orc or skaven wouldn't be worthy of the process, if you could manage to tie them down long enough to even attempt it, while dwarfs would succumb to the Curse of Stone.

I'll say yes on half elves, which are also in the same book series as the vampire elf, but incredibly rare.

Gotcha; I was thinking the other way around though; Skaven are cowardly, and incredibly afraud of death. They are also greedy and immoral as fuck. So, my reasoning was, that a Skaven would capture a Vampire, so that it could gain power and immortality

As far as I know vampirism has to be given willingly via the Blood Kiss, a very secret (and intimate) ritual that's apparently unique to each vampire. Skaven also have a different view on life and death when compared to humans, who are the right combination of fragility/lifespan where they excell at necromancy due to their fear of dying. A skavens life is just too short for them to think that far ahead, as opposed to taking in the moment and stealing everyone's shit when they aren't looking

So what are gyrocopters like in fluff?

Night's Dark Masters says that if it's possible, it's never been recorded. The vampire elf was, officially, a mistake and retconned.

That said, no one knows if the elixir works on nonhuman creatures. In your own game, the answer can be whatever you want it to be.

Effective but terrifying. Gotrek once pilots one while Felix clings on and tries not to pee.

how would a human fit in a dorfcopter?>Also, half elves: Yay or nay?
Yes
my dick demands it.

On the outside, clinging on and praying to any god at hand.

You'll be happy to know a Gotrek and Felix novel features a Slayer with a reputation for having had a three way with two elves. He defends himself by protesting that only ONE was an elf, and a half-elf at that.

Are there audio books for fantasy? Can only find a fuck ton of 40k and shitmar (honestly cannot get into age of sigil. Just Fucking cant).

Anyone know links or channels to watch for them? Need something to listen to for work.

None as far as I know, sorry, and they aren't public domain, so no fan recorded ones either, as far as I've seen.

I read all the novels
pretty mediocre desu.

>Karl franz
wtf ?

Yeah in the lore they've always had a sizable population of ogres living in Ostland.

They even make them stripy uniforms.

Gw stock is at a 52 week high, where did it go so wrong

>GW gives IP to a veteran games company that has a near monopoly on it's part of the market
>game sells incredibly well
>GW has partnerships with it for 3 (tres) years and will make money off it without any investment whatsoever.
Must be AoS.

There were 2 or three Gotrek and Felix audio dramas a few years ago before End Times, other than that I don't think there's anything. I recall there being a few warhams fanfic audios on youtube, listened to half of one once, thought I'd come back to it and forgot about it until just now.

Hi Veeky Forums, newfag here.

I recently started playing 2E with a bunch of friends and I'm facing a couple issues with balance, combat and difficulty scaling as a GM.

Last session, their group of three relatively well geared and experienced adventurers almost died to a small bunch of fucking beggars after one of them got a 10 during damage rolls. Then they proceeded to struggle against a single skaven to the point I had to remove most of the encounters I had previously planned just so they don't wipe. There's also that time when their wizard almost got instagibbed by a single arrow in the leg...
They all have between 12 and 14 wound points and it looks like even the weakest possible enemy can 'oneshot' them with a single lucky roll. Am I doing something wrong? I keep looking at the rules but am unable to see where I fucked up.

Also, how do you guys manage loot? How many rewards should I allow them to pick up on corpses and chests, and how much money would you consider a reasonable amount for starters? I don't want to be overly generous but I also don't want to make them unable to buy anything from the nearby city.

Any advice is welcome.

Archaon was a witch hunter, not a warrior priest.

She probably fucked Ikit though, he had to learn dark magic somewhere.

Walach became a champion of Khorne in the End Times.

Slayers of the Storm God and Curse of the Ever-Living.

The combat system is extremely deadly.
Ulric's fury allows almost any threat to be lethal if the damage rolls are 10s and you keep passing WS/BS rolls. Usually you should remind your players to always be in situations in which they can parry or dodge and not be afraid to use Fortune Points.

>relatively well geared and experienced
how much XP do they have? how many careers/advancements? which careers?

Also... are they wearing any armor? what is their Toughness stat?

>Also, how do you guys manage loot?
Should be proportional to the quest's difficulty and the adventurers' power. Around 20-25 gold crowns worth of Loot for each player should be alright for a 4-5 sessions long quest for characters who just started out. You can buy some stuff but not everything you want.

>Ulric's fury allows almost any threat to be lethal if the damage rolls are 10s and you keep passing WS/BS rolls
Yeah the combat system looks really unforgiving so far. I've been thinking of getting rid of Ulric's Fury entirely, but I'm afraid it would make the combat even more boring.

>how much XP do they have? how many careers/advancements? which careers? Also... are they wearing any armor? what is their Toughness stat?

>norse zerker with 13 WP, 32T and 2 armor
>outrider with 12 WP, 29 T and 1 armor
>apprentice wizard with 12 WP, 30 T and 0 armor ( he can't wear any )

Also they have 1550 xp total with ~400 available each. They have all completed their starting career advancement scheme and should be able to get their second career next session but I don't think it'll help them much considering they'll focus on unlocking important skills and talents first (the wizard is definitely going to prioritize black magic and necromancy).

>I've been thinking of getting rid of Ulric's Fury entirely
Ulric's fury is fine, just remember you have to roll a WS skill test every time you want to add another d10 to the damage total. Some people forget it and just keep rolling d10s after they hit the first 10.

If you do roll a 10, you need to pass a WS test without modifiers to add another d10, and if you roll 10 again, you go for another WS test and so on.

It's extremely unlikely that you roll three 10 in a row and pass 2 WS tests too, so I wouldn't worry about it, but you can always houserule that you can only trigger Ulric's Fury twice to reduce the chances of someone getting instagibbed.

What do you find particularly boring about the combat, by the way? I don't find it particularly different from many other RPGs, and desu i enjoy the tactical flexibility of the various actions you can take, makes fights more interesting.

Their statline seem that of an average human and armor is pretty subpar for their power level, unless they're consciously going for a low-armor equipment to avoid Agility reduction.
With their stats, the zerker would reduce most damage by 5, and the outrider and wizard would reduce it by 2... that's not a lot, if they feel fragile there is a reason. They should either improve at dodging/parrying or buy more resilient armor. The outrider and wizard are gonna be very easy to kill anyways, so they should stay away from danger: a lowly goblin can hurt REALLY bad if he rolls high and your character isn't resilient / good at melee fighting.

Anyways, with 1.500xp you're basically above the average human, more of a veteran warrior, you aren't supposed to die to low-tier opponents.

Any particular equipment? Maybe it's time for them to find some magic weapon or something like that. If you feel your players are struggling too much, give them a chance to improve their power level.

Why aren't they spending those 400xp though?

>Ulric's fury is fine, just remember you have to roll a WS skill test every time you want to add another d10 to the damage total
Oh, I had missed that part. That might explain a lot.

>What do you find particularly boring about the combat
The lack of useful combat actions for non-casters, mostly. The zerk can't make a good use of Frenzy because his WS is already so low, and spending a whole turn doing nothing at all can be deadly with that combat system. Charge is only useful to get himself at melee range and Swift Attack kinda sucks.
It's even worse for the outrider as his turns can be summed up in "shoot, reload, next".

>Their statline seem that of an average human and armor is pretty subpar for their power level, unless they're consciously going for a low-armor equipment to avoid Agility reduction.
To be fair with them, they haven't been able to talk to a merchant yet because of my scenario. I made them start in a small village inhabited by a bunch of peasants and now they are about to find their way to the nearby city.

>Why aren't they spending those 400xp though?
Their advancement scheme is complete and they're missing a couple items to switch to their next career, so they don't have anything to spend them on at the moment.

>Any particular equipment? Maybe it's time for them to find some magic weapon or something like that. If you feel your players are struggling too much, give them a chance to improve their power level.
Yeah I was thinking about it, but I don't know how to make a balanced magic equipment.

There was at least one dwarf vampire in the older fluff, not sure if it's been retconned or not.

>I've been thinking of getting rid of Ulric's Fury entirely
No wonder your players were taking so much damage; weak enemies are really unlikely to pass the WS test even if they do roll a 10 on damage.

>The zerk can't make a good use of Frenzy
Yeah it's a shitty talent if your WS is low. If you do manage to get it around 40-50 it's great, though you can only go for All-out blows which make you unable to dodge or parry.

>Charge is only useful to get himself at melee range
That's the point of the charge attack, if you could spam it, it'd be broken (and unrealistic).

>Swift attack kinda sucks
How so? It's just a few vanilla attacks. Lightning Parry makes you even turn as many attacks as you want into free parries.

There's a ton of nice actions you can take, though they only become useful when you have higher WS and/or attacks. Feints, delays, manoeuvre, guarded attacks... I do agree it's boring as hell for shooters though.

>I don't know how to make a balanced magic equipment.
Just take a vanilla weapon, make it of Excellent quality (gives +5 WS/BS by default) and add a neat additional effect which isn't too gamebreaking. You should give em at least 1 magic weapon or they'll never be able to harm some stronger enemies later on (if they will ever meet them, that is).

Night's Dark Masters implies every race can become a Vampire, however Vampires are said to disdain non-human races, so it's highly unlikely.

Orcs and Skaven would not even think about it themselves and i highly doubt any vamp would turn them. Elves think Vampirism to be a taint that only humans, with their short lifespans and short sight could ever conceive and vampires hate both elves and dwarves.

You can make any race into a vampire if you wish, it's your campaign/character after all, just keep in mind vampires are usually of human origin and most races don't really understand the allure of vampirism.

>No wonder your players were taking so much damage; weak enemies are really unlikely to pass the WS test even if they do roll a 10 on damage.
True. That's still 10 damage though, and with that low natural healing it takes a while to recover.

>Just take a vanilla weapon, make it of Excellent quality (gives +5 WS/BS by default) and add a neat additional effect which isn't too gamebreaking
Thanks, I'll try that. Do you have any suggestion for a magic piece of armor?

>How so? It's just a few vanilla attacks
I mean it sucks for their group. The zerk is the only melee character and he uses 2 handers.

>Lightning Parry makes you even turn as many attacks as you want into free parries.
As far as I remember you can convert only one attack.

>I mean it sucks for their group. The zerk is the only melee character and he uses 2 handers.
Well if he has more than 1 attacks he can still use the Swift Attack action, I think. Same for the shooter if he has more than 1 attack.

>That's still 10 damage though, and with that low natural healing it takes a while to recover.
Yeah but there's only a 10% chance of taking that much damage, and only IF the attack hits and isn't parried/dodged. And even so, you can still use Fortune Points.

>Do you have any suggestion for a magic piece of armor?
Excellent quality armor doesn't give any WS/BS bonus but its weight is halved.

I don't know, here's an idea my GM had and didn't get to use.

*Boar Hide Armor*
Fashioned from the hide of a giant, chaos-tainted boar, this armor is extremely resilient and imbued with the wild spirit of the great beast, filling the wearer with savage determination.

Quality: Excellent
Effects: The Boar Hide Armour grants 3 armor points to all locations.
Its wearer obtains a +20% bonus to all tests made on Willpower.

Yeah my bad, you can only obtain 1 parry and the 1 parry/round cap is still valid.

You shouldn't distribute magic items like candis though.
Getting normal full plate alone should be difficult to achieve.

>Excellent quality armor doesn't give any WS/BS bonus but its weight is halved.
I don't bother with the weight mechanic, I just made it clear that they wouldn't be able to hold 3 billion items.
Thanks for the example though, I'll try to create some cool items next week.

>You shouldn't distribute magic items like candis though.
Indeed. I don't want them to give them some OP equipment too early in the game so they don't faceroll everything.

Thanks a lot for your replies. I'll make sure to reread the rules so the next session goes smoother than the previous ones.

Yeah we ignore the weight mechanic too, it's annoying to keep track of that.

The simplest move is to not let "nobodies" fury. I know that there are purists here who will balk at that, but if you're aiming for a slightly less "mud and shit" game, it works fine.

I also made ranged weapons more dangerous (in damage and features) but allowed dodging of missiles (with proper skill + talent). For my group, this has worked.

Finally, how experienced is your group? If they're starting at the 'one free advance' level, then PCs are VERY squishy at that point, that's normal. A lot of people give an additional 4-6 free advances at chargen.

Loot is more a 'do what you feel' thing. Remember gold is a pretty hefty currency in the setting when it comes to *anything* but adventuring gear. My rule of thumb is usually that if your PCs are buying more equipment than they're looting off corpses, you're doing it wrong.

>Just take a vanilla weapon, make it of Excellent quality (gives +5 WS/BS by default) and add a neat additional effect which isn't too gamebreaking. You should give em at least 1 magic weapon or they'll never be able to harm some stronger enemies later on (if they will ever meet them, that is).

Additional suggestions to this: go for an effect besides just 'does more damage.' A glowing sword is actually legitimately a good piece of loot in WFRP, but you could do things like...a sword that grants the Sixth Sense talent as long as the player's hand is on it, or which grants Grudge-Born Fury against a specific type of foe. Of course, you'll want some magic items to be sucker bait, in proper Warhammer tradition. That magic blade the vampire dropped when you killed him is certainly powerful, but what drawbacks does it have when a MORTAL uses it?

Personally I buff two-handers by letting them do (1.5*SB) damage. Just SB is weaksauce, even with Impact. This combines with being able to dodge arrows (with the skill) to make two-hander fighting slightly less suicidal.

The funny thing is that they are closer to Tolkien Orcs than the most Orcs.

Tolkien orcs were industrious and innovative (which makes sense as Tolkien was somewhat of a conservative). They were pretty civilised as they had menus and all.

For some reason, in most other settings, orcs turn uncivilised.

Most orcs seem to more or less be a caricature of earlier saxons. A specific lack of cavalry. A focus on martial prowess and a particular honor code. Rarely united save by charismatic or brutal clan chiefs. Thrall-taking. Usually not much armor.

Orcs are based on 80s British football hooligans.

Warhammer orcs, yes. Orcs generally, no.

Didn't read the first word of your post because I'm an idiot.

Tolkien, though he was fairly innovative, wasn't necessarily trying to create the fantasy genre and all the ideas we're familiar with in it. Fantastical elements aside, the factions in LoTR are as much clashing kingdoms as they are different races. Mordor has a strong base of industry, alliances and mercenaries from various places, they're trying to take and hold territory instead of just pillaging and looting.

Most later settings are going for a more Order vs. Chaos thing. Sometimes it's because they're ignoring industrialization and they need some other way to set up the good and evil races, or because they need Orcs to seem like a dangerous enemy, while also having them free to be in small amounts for parties to fight in various places. So they've become more like Vikings, Mongols, Germanic tribes, the little tribes and strong warriors harassing the larger, grander civilizations.

In WHFB's case, they're often used to keep the status quo, since they'll fight just about anybody and will constantly keep factions busy with having to send soldiers to fight them off, instead of consolidating their own power and looking towards greater targets. They're not meant to be a rough empire of equals.

Why do I love the Bretonnians so much?

Because you have no imagination.

Any reason Warmachines blowing up from mishaps wouldn't trigger panic checks?

occupational hazard.

Are there blanks in Warhammer fantasy? Or anything similar that is completely unaffected by magic?

Haflings are unaffected by the winds of magic, and Dwarfs repel magic away from them; however there aren't any equivalents in Fantasy as we know them from 40k or Mage: the Ascension.

It's expected.

No.