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[Stuebi]

Skaven have the advantage currently due to their high initiative, though. If you go against AI Skaven, on a bad deployment they swarma and murder a couple of your guys on the first turn. When you play Skaven yourself, the high movement and initiative lets you control the engagements better than any other team.

Too bad the AI HP buff removes the disadvantage Skaven have - they are squishy.

Those bad deployment missions are the WORST. I hd one yesterday where they put my leader and my hero on one side of the map, and the rest on the other. Guess where the enemy spawn was. Turn 2 Hero and Leader dead, routing fail. It's infuriating.

(Versioning is a confusing thing.)

I played a bunch last night. Scum Lords are now Level 5 and several of my guys are at the cap. Finally got a Sorcerer.

I think they made the AI more aggressive in this patch. Seems like every non-story mission I took, it was a full blown team fight by Turn 4. A couple missions I basically collected no wyrdstone because they were in my face in numbers so quickly.

I don't disagree Majestic7 that the game is a bit grindy right now. I can still get a tactical victory on Hard missions but it is increasingly balanced on the terrain. The last mission I tried to play last night I got surrounded by the whole enemy team by Turn 4 in the streets and it did not go well for me. Fighting on 3+ fronts against all their engaged units is too much to win against. I was tired though so I picked a bad spot, and honestly didn't think I'd have 10 freaking SoS engaged by turn 4.

I'm still having fun but I've also started Alt-F4ing when I don't like how things have gone. I tend to only use it when I've drastically miscalculated, like last night where I thought holding up in an open street with gaps on either side was a smart idea.

They're saying they'll be doing a patch a week up until release, so, the game will be changing faster than it has been.

I will freely admit that I'm Alt+F4 a lot too, especially since it's now possible that Warbands outnumber you, even if you keep all your slots packed. One thing I'm curious about, are the loading times also really bad for you guys? Loading missions can take anything between 1-2 minutes. I might actually lower the settings a little to check if it improves.

[Majestic7]

Loading is really slow for me too.

[nenjin]

Allowing you to choose who goes where during deployment will be part of an upcoming patch. Although something tells me it won't change the fact that in deployments like that, someone is getting boned.

[sambojin]

I'm actually looking at getting this shortly (probably next pay).

How well does stacking weapons work in the PC version? I'm aware that it'll be nothing like TT, but cheap daggers or a sword/spear combo used to be king (pseudo-defense and plenty of attack).

Maybe it would help murderize things quickly enough that HP scaling wouldn't be as bad. Multi-attacks and parry was always way better in TT than the massively expensive armour could ever be. Of course, the mechanics are no doubt very different on PC.

So would you recommend it? How well do you think it'd run on a laptop i5 with integrated graphics? I'm happy to turn everything way down (although hopefully load times will be good though, just replaced my hdd with an ssd, and win7 boots in about 7-10 secs. This, I'm not used to).

[Majestic7]

I don't know about laptops, but I used to play tabletop in late nineties/early 2000s.

Compared to the TT, two weapons aren't that great. There is a stacking penalty where every extra attack you make requires more "attack points", meaning the return diminishes quickly. Two-handed weapons have the same effect, making 1-handed weapon and shield the best combinations. Of course, there are exceptions, like the dagger combo for crit chance and two-handers for charging attacks.

Instead of wounds, we just get HP and once it runs out, the guy is out of action. I'd prefer the TT wound system but oh well, HP is a passable system, even though the wound system is more unpredictable and thus more fun.

Armor isn't that great to be honest; armor detracts heavily from your initiative, movement and dodge chances. It just reduces some incoming damage, but instead of blocking it completely like in table top, it just redacts a third or so (for heavy armor).

Regarding equipment, there is a chronic shortage of even basic equipment, so you might not even get a spear and a sword for a looong time. This of course encourages looting inside the missions, so it is not a bad mechanic as such. Incidentally, I've seen a huge shortage of spears, I don't think I've ever seen one for sale, only looted them. Sword still allows you to parry, don't remember if spear does too.

Parry works differently though; at the end of the turn you can take several "stances", including ambush, dodge or parry. In ambush the guy prepares to charge unsuspecting enemy coming to his range which negates defensive options. In dodge he tries to dodge attacks, in parry to parry. You can't parry all attacks, mainly monsters. So parry is not additional level of defense, but an optional thing to dodge. You mainly use it for guys who are slow and wearing heavy armor so their dodge chance falls to 0, but parry can still stay high. Dodge is just better than parry since parry doesn't work against monsters. If a dodge/parry succeeds, no damage it incurred, at all.

In general, although I don't agree with some design choices, I think Mordheim can be a great game once they get rid of the HP buffs for AI which are just plain ridiculous. Yeah to give you an idea about the HP levels, a boosted AI henchman will have around 250 hitpoints. Attacks do usually about 30 points of damage per hit, 50 points for two-handed weapons. There is usually some armor reduction etc.

[nenjin]

How well does stacking weapons work in the PC version? I'm aware that it'll be nothing like TT, but cheap daggers or a sword/spear combo used to be king (pseudo-defense and plenty of attack).

To add/refute what Majestic7 said, there are reasons for weapon stacking but they're not as immediately useful as in the table top.

The big thing to note is that weapons affect your initiative. Sword and board, spears, two-handers, hit your initiative pretty hard. Daggers give you a big buff.

Two-handers may be slow and you get fewer attacks, but they get bonuses to crit. Dualwielding seems like the least beneficial setup. You get -30% damage and it's tiring (plus one offensive point cost with each successive attack.) But it allows you to mix two different weapons. So swords get a small bonus to crit chance, maces to accuracy. I forget what axes and spears do.

Heavy armor to start with isn't all that great. 15% damage reduction for a big penalty to movement and initiative. However blue and purple heavy armor is good, because the damage absorption increases while the penalties decrease.

Dodge is superior to parry when it comes to Impressive Monsters. However you get more benefits out of building parry in terms of stats than dodge. WS bulids up parry chance, but it also increases damage and to hit chance. Agility only raises dodge, melee damage resistance and your climb skills. So while dodge is more guaranteed everywhere, generally speaking, parry gets built faster and with other additional benefits that are broadly useful.

So would you recommend it? How well do you think it'd run on a laptop i5 with integrated graphics?

Might run a little shitty, I'd check the specs to make sure it supports that card. If it does though, you'll have one less problem most people complain about: super long level load times.

[Majestic7]

Little addition - it isn't only Impressives (aka Ogres and the like) that can't be parried. Anything monstrous and using unarmed attacks counts - so Chaos people with certain mutations and the Possessed are unblockable with parry as well.

[Stuebi]

So would you recommend it? How well do you think it'd run on a laptop i5 with integrated graphics? I'm happy to turn everything way down (although hopefully load times will be good though, just replaced my hdd with an ssd, and win7 boots in about 7-10 secs. This, I'm not used to).

I have a fairly high-end PC (Running Witcher 3 and the like on fairly hih specs) and the game loads very slow and has the odd FPS-hickup. Altough I have heard varying accounts in terms of performance. I'd agree with Nenjin and would make sure that your specs are supported before buying.

As far as a recommendation goes. If you have a decent frustration tolerance (Both in terms of RNG pulling your leg and the game seeming unfair at some points) the game can absolutely be fun right now. Personally, I'd wait another couple weeks tough. It seems to me that they are implementing some pretty crucial stuff right now, that will improve the game greatly. Well, assuming they stick to their schedule. It might be worth waiting a little bit.


Also, about two-handing etc. I have also heard that appearantly two weapons and two-handed weapons are worse than regular weapon + shield. But Personally, I cant agree. Do note that I'm speaking as someone who mainly plays Skaven and Possessed. Firstly, Henchmen get only one attack early on anyway. So the tiring thing doesnt come into play anyways. Secondly, for heroes and your leader, they have enough Offensive points to allways perform two attacks, even with tiring weaponry. So for them as well, at least early on, the higher damage output wins. I also have to say that I find that Dodge is almost allways superior to Parrying. Maybe you'd have to skill a guy in a particular way for it to become viable, but my Dodge Chance is allways higher than my parry chance, with the possible exception of people who use heavy armour.

Later on, when you get some Skills or usable items, this might be different. But I have to say that as of right now, there are very few active Skills that I consider worth taking. Spells being the obvious exception, but I never had a strong Spellcaster except when playing Possessed. And even then I stick to two handed, since his dodge is just that far higher than his parry. There are also some neat Combos, like dual wielding Daggers on someone specialised for Ambush (Massive Crits etc.).

I also, yet again, agree with Nenjin. Regular armour is pretty bad. Too much penalty for too little benefit. Blue or purple on the other hand can turn some of the allready tanky guys into absolute beasts. But the droprate for that stuff is abyssmal. I allways get Items that are blue or purple, instead of equipment, but that's just me having bad luck.

TL/DR: Stick to lightweight +Dodge gear early on, and take Damage Output over Parry chance, until your guys get some actual skills to take advantage of it properly.

[nenjin]

Protip: Looting the enemy cart is a great way to get Blue+ gear. If you can get anywhere near it before getting bogged down in a team fight, that is.

And yeah, virtually all Active Skills are situational at best. The most useful ones I've found are the variants of Charge. There are some attacks that do regular damage in addition to a (very minor) effect. The problem is that they cost more than a normal attack, which can very easily take a character from 2 attacks per round to one (plus a crappy buff.) Everything else is either a stance or some very expensive Strategy Point ability that buffs someone or some thing, at the cost of 1/2 to all of your movement.

To make a comparison, there's nothing like...the Rocket from X-COM, that's just good and you'll use it all the time as a standard part of your turn. Every Active Skill in Mordheim seems like you're making a trade off for choosing to use it.

[Majestic7]

I must have rotten luck, with chaos warband that reached rank 4 I only ever found one blue item. (I won't bother playing that warband further before the AI boosts get fixed.)

[nenjin]

I'm tempted to play more but since I'm mostly capped out, it'd just be for gear and seeing the other story missions. But I don't want to burn out and I probably put in a solid 20 hours over the last couple of weeks.

[Stuebi]

I must have rotten luck, with chaos warband that reached rank 4 I only ever found one blue item. (I won't bother playing that warband further before the AI boosts get fixed.)

I never found a lot either. Mostly consumeables. The droprate for regular Points of Interests seems to be rather bad. Altough I ahvent tried Nenjin's hint of looting the enemy cart yet.

I just rechecked some of the active skills, just to make sure I was not talking out of my butt. But it seems they really are mostly situational with minor buffs. I was actually really dissapointed that there arent any decent DoT's, stuns etc. As it stands, the passive skills just win, especially those who improve ambush and charge actions, or raise some stats even further. Leadership is fairly great.

Spells are a little more interesting. For those playing Possessed, I can heartily recommend the "Lure" Spell. I cant think of the full name right now, but it basically forces an enemy to perform a leadership check, and if they fail, they flee from combat. That means free hits for your guys, and one less enemy engaged with your team. It might be worse now that they increased the base chance for passing those Tests, but it was very useful in m Playtrough.

Btw, I remember you mention that you actually played far enough to reach the Skaven Spellcaster, Nenjin. How is he? Worse or better than the Leader you get with Possessed?

[Majestic7]

There are some active skills that are useful; Web of Steel is really good for the mercenary captain when equipped with a shield and facing multiple enemies. I agree that most of them are shitty, though. Well, not really shitty, but quite underwhelming. It is always boring when +5% chance of something is a better pick than a completely new trick.

[nenjin]

I must have rotten luck, with chaos warband that reached rank 4 I only ever found one blue item. (I won't bother playing that warband further before the AI boosts get fixed.)

Btw, I remember you mention that you actually played far enough to reach the Skaven Spellcaster, Nenjin. How is he? Worse or better than the Leader you get with Possessed?

Haven't played the Possessed so I don't have an accurate basis of comparison, and haven't played a lot since I got the Sorcerer. But he's your average Skaven Hero Unit, as far as stats go. Wither is a good spell for crippling big bads (-3 to their physical stats and some other junk.) They've got an aoe mist spell that makes Skaven inside harder to hit and enemies inside it have worse to hit, which is great, especially the way half of games right now boil down to team fights. And then he's got some direct fire spell I haven't used since several versions ago.

[Majestic7]

According to a dev post:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Upcoming changes with the next Patch

Modification to the difficulty system

- AI will now use all type of skills based on his rating and those available to him during the generation of the warband

- Missions remains sorted from Normal, Hard, Brutal and Deadly

- The rating difference is between 0 to 5% form Normal missions and between 0 to 10% for other difficulties

- AI will not have more units than you anymore

- Every difficulty will have different chances to spawn density of Search Points
--- Normal: Very Poor (40%), Poor (35%), Average (25%)
--- Hard: Poor (30%), Average (50%), Good (20%)
--- Brutal: Average (30%), Good (60%), Exceptional (10%)
--- Deadly: Good (75%), Exceptional (25%)

- Every difficulty will have different chances to spawn density of Wyrdstones
--- Normal: Very Poor (25%), Poor (25%), Average (50%)
--- Hard: Poor (15%), Average (50%), Good (35%)
--- Brutal: Average (20%), Good (50%), Exceptional (30%)
--- Deadly: Good (65%), Exceptional (35%)

- Every difficulty will improve some of the AI stats by:
--- Normal: Wounds +10%, Damage +5% (all type)
--- Hard: Wounds +20%, Damage +10% (all type)
--- Brutal: Wounds +30%, Damage +15% (all type)
--- Deadly: Wounds +40%, Damage +20% (all type)

- Every difficulty will let you gather a different % of the remaining Loot and Wyrdstones:
--- Normal: 35%
--- Hard: 45%
--- Brutal: 55%
--- Deadly: 65%

I think this sounds really good. I can live with that 10% HP buff.