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A two-tandem question. We are doing a local Mordhim league and the leaders of it have nixed some lists are being legal because of being terribly balanced compared to othere lists. I could list them but I don't want to create bias, so I'm simply going to ask what armies (list three each) you feel should not be allowed with some supporting reasoning.

Secondly, I saw it mentioned somewhere that Shadow Warriors were pulled from GW tournaments, does anybody know why? I have played this list in multiple leagues and have not found them overwhelming at all compared to othere lists. If they get time to build they are scary, but what list isn't when built up properly?

Been a while since I faced them, but IIRC the issue was the synergies involved with Sniper, Hide in Shadows, Excellent Sight, some shadow magic, very high BS, and Shooting skills. You end up with the deadliest shooting warband in the game that can also hide like no one else and be extremely difficult to approach and engage.

Certainly they'll take a little time to get rolling, like most shooty warbands. And some scenarios will be harder for them than others, although their high M means they aren't going to struggle in Hidden Treasure, etc. like Dwarfs can. But pumped-up heroes with Sniper and the right other skills starts to break the game.

Honestly, some selected changes would probably have brought them down to earth, but for whatever reason the last rules review team decided to give them the boot entirely (again, IIRC). *shrug*

Shadow Warriors were pulls from "official" list status because all the feedback was saying that they were too powerful.

Three (plus one) warbands that should not be allowed:

Shadow WarriorsI tried playing Shadow warriors and struggled imensely, but I have talked to many people who played much more Mordheim than I that found them to be Broken. I will give my experiences along with what I have heard from others.

In my second Mordheim league I played shadow warriors and never felt like I got the warband off the ground. Here are the problems I ran into:

-High Cost: Elf henchmen are expensive and not any more durable than any other faction's henchmen. I was spending most of my money replacing my dead. I longed for a cheap troop like witch hunters, Skaven, or Orcs can field.

-Low Strength Attacks: Everything elves do is Str 3. Bows are all Str 3. In melee shadow warriors don't have the options other factions do because they can't make good use out of 2 handed weapons because they don't have any heroes with Strength skills. They have good WS and can get a good number of attacks, but cracking toughness 4 or even 5 is painful.

In my first few games I played against beastmen, orcs, and dwarves. I could not wound toughness 4 to save my life. I was amazed that dwarves could hold there own against me in shooting. Crossbows were hitting me on 4+ and wounding on 3+. I didn't have enough armor to even get a save roll in most cases. I hit on 3+, wounded on 5+ and he got any armor saves.

That being said, since then I have talked with a number of friends who have seen Shadow Warriors warbands that made them scream cheese. I can not discount their opinions. Obviously that sentiment tended to be the consensus over players in general. Here are some of the things they have said:

Elite is better: High Speed, Initiative, WS, BS across the army gives them a lot of versitility starting. Their Initiative makes them the most reliable climbers. Heroes especially love higher base stats. There are only so many advancement rolls and shadow warriors will max out higher across the board.

Accurate shooting wins games: Many a Mordheim warband focuses on shooting and elves are more than a little good at it. I can see how Mercenary warbands could fear coming up against the elves.


Dark Elves - see above. They have very similar problems to Shadow Warriors, but with access to crossbows. I must admit I have not ever seen them actually played.


Dwarven Treasure Hunters - Dwarven Axes are way OP. All the dwarf parry tricks (not to mention hard head or whatever) make them near impossible to take down in melee. I find the dwarf specific equipment and skills to be too extreme. Their slow speed is their main balancing factor, limiting their effectiveness in some scenarios. With a couple good advancement rolls dwarves can be terrifying

And just for kicks,

Skaven - Large numbers, cheap troops, Black skaven!, and the ability to buy a full regiment of 6 heroes. What was GW thinking You have to compare everything to Skaven before calling it OP.


I have heard that the elite factions (elves & dwarves) all tend to be very swingy in campaigns. If you take losses early in a campaign the warband may never recover, but if you have a chance to build up your force these warbands can become nigh unstoppable.

Galen, thanks for the input. I think I'll attempt to build a second type of 'High Elf' list and calm it down a bit to be more playable and less scary when they build. We'll see how it works.

In my local area, the only lists that were banned were Shadow Warriors and Carnival of Chaos.

I'll probably be putting up a new post soon on a 'revised' elf list that takes away some of the hiding and sniping aspects of Shadow Warriors.

It'll be a High Elf list, just not Shadow Warriors.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
See if people think it's a bit more playable.

Back when the Lustria project was in development (it was a fan project, in case you don't know that), the team developed a true High Elf warband. My memory is foggy, but I don't think it made it into the final version that GW printed.

It still suffers from high characteristics, etc. although it isn't as disgustingly shooty and lacks the Sniper shenanigans of the Shadow Warrior list. It's important to note that the Lustria warbands were generally a bit stronger than the original Mordheim bands. Still, it might give you a good head start.

http://redelf.narod.ru/mordheim/wb_he.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6696095/Mordheim-Warbands-High-Elves

Many thanks Gorgon