In that post, Lauby made a point that WHFB has grown so large in scale that Mordheim isn't really a valid entry point since the warband you create will not even provide a fraction of the models that you need for a full scale WHFB army. An excellent point, all around.
Except for one thing. There were never enough models in a Mordheim Warband to be a viable beginning for a WHFB army. Maybe back in editions older then I remember it would have been. However, Mordheim didn't exist back then.
I love Mordheim, and I even have a soft spot for Necromunda, and I think that I might just pick up Bloodbowl eventually. The model count is secondary, it was really a way to allow people who already had armies to get into a small campaign based game.
Mordheim IS too small...to serve as an intro game. I've crunched the numbers here before figuring out what it would cost for each warband using only the regular WHFB troop boxes. While each one sets you back a pretty penny, at most you have two, maybe three units for a WHFB army. This is not a viable way of starting an army.
The thing of it is that Mordheim was intended as a standalone game, always was, always will be. Is it a good way to get people involved in GW? Yuppers. It introduces the basic concepts of GW games (like what to roll). It also introduces the campaign play, which I find more critical then other people do.
That's all I'm going to say for right now, I've been busy this weekend, and I'm plum out of ideas, energy, and synonyms. Works been hell, family's been hell, car's been hell. All around hell. I haven't been thinking about stuff like I should be. I'll be coming back GOOD to stuff soon, right now, I'm treading water until I get my energy left.
A few points.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, the edition changes have wrought some wreakings. Mordheim was a great gateway game... for fifth edition, when huge slabs of troops were rare and fiddly little units of five or ten dudes were more normal. It worked pretty well for sixth, where scaling down to skirmishes and 500 pointers was a thing, part of the experience.
Secondly, the gateway aspect isn't just about providing models, although some warbands do do that (thanks to Mordheim and WHQ I had all the Vampires and Necromancers I'd ever need before starting my Vampire Counts army; Skaven and Beastman warbands have a similar effect, I think, providing either the character core or the first unit for the larger army). It's as much about emotional investment and continuity, seeing your Mordheim dudes command larger and larger forces, or have their battlefield adventures as part of them. See also; scalability. I built out from my Mordheim warband; I had Ghouls and Dire Wolves and Zombies in that, my Dregs became unit champions or familiars, and it wasn't that much of a leap to have my twelve Mordheim dudes be part of a 500 point army, and that was an accepted, functional and popular way of playing the game.
These days I don't think starting small and creeping up is encouraged. I don't think Mordheim is too small, I think WFB's too big, or rather too locked into 'bigness' as a way of play.