Finally finished River Rats, first story mission

[Name Lips]

I restarted a few times to try out the different factions. I like the mercenaries.

The first time I tried River Rats, I died when I met the Impressive rat in the sewer. I tried tanking him with my dramatis personae and my leader... but I guess I got unlucky. The R.O.U.S. took out my dramatis personae in 2 rounds, and I barely scratched him. And of course once the dramatis personae dies, the mission automatically fails.

This time, I tried to play it safer. But the rng kept messing with me early on. I took almost 100 total damage from failing to climb up the walls at the beginning, spread out among all my guys. They kept failing the climb check, over and over again. But after that it went pretty smoothly. I stuck my two heroes in front to tank the Impressive. My leader ended up with 10 hp left and I kept him nestled in the middle of my group so nothing would kill him (I didn't want to lose due to a moral check!).

This time the Impressive wasn't nearly as tough. My guys hit him pretty regularly, and he actually missed some of his attacks this time around. The sewers are narrow, so it's hard to get more than 2 people engaging him at once, but I finally brought him down.

I didn't realize at first that some of the powder keg locations required more than one keg, but I figured it out.

[uddhava]

Well done!

[Paranoia]

Congrats.

If I recall correctly, you could have walked around the dock if, as obvious by your description, your Characters have trouble passing Athletic tests.

[Name Lips]

Originally posted by Paranoia:

Congrats.

If I recall correctly, you could have walked around the dock if, as obvious by your description, your Characters have trouble passing Athletic tests.

I must have failed 10 of them. But my percentage was always 70℅ or higher. I was just unlucky. They did more total damage to my warband than the rats in the warehouse.

[FCauldron]

I Lost that same mission 2 times, my leader and Luther were trying to parry the Ogre, silly guys ( me really, for not knowing that little detail)... After that I became very concerned about story missions with all bands I'm general doing them much latter than suggested... Just wanted to share :)

[Name Lips]

I just want to be sure -- there's no reason to rush into story missions, right? I can grind the regular missions as long as I want?

Also, I'm starting to make a good chunk of gold. Actually, I don't know what a "good chunk" is. I know for the beginning I was stuck with 300-500, barely making enough money to make ends meet. All of a sudden my gold started surging -- I'm sitting on 1500g. When is it ok to start spending it on skills? Are there higher expenses coming up I should be saving it for?

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by Name Lips:

I just want to be sure -- there's no reason to rush into story missions, right? I can grind the regular missions as long as I want?
...

I'm sitting on 1500g. When is it ok to start spending it on skills? Are there higher expenses coming up I should be saving it for?

There is no real reason to rush them, indeed the second act is often only played around Rank 10, but the rewards help early economy quite a bit. The first one, for example, helps while waiting for the payment for the first delivery.
Besides, waiting too long makes the first four a trivial bore that rewards poorly at that point. :b
...

While having some fat for harder times is often a good idea, if you do not have a Rank 7 Hired Sword waiting you most definitely can start using Gold at those amounts.
I'd leave around 500 around for a bad day though.

[Drathnar1]

Yea story missions can be quite a bit of a hassle when doing them for the first time. I remember thinking to myself what kind of monstrosity is that, when I saw the Rat Ogre. Had 2 OoAs too, one was my Captain trying to tank the monster and failing. So yea nicely done!

Originally posted by Name Lips:

All of a sudden my gold started surging -- I'm sitting on 1500g. When is it ok to start spending it on skills? Are there higher expenses coming up I should be saving it for?

My priority in the early-midgame is to see all units decently equipped. As in getting rid of normal white gear and tacking on fine blue ones or better. I tend to reserve some gold to buy from the shop. Sometimes you can get a good bargain too (price reduction). I wasn't too lucky in that regard though in my playthrough, had the shop shipment robbed in the first few weeks.


Investing in skills is a toss up. If you feel confident you can keep that unit alive, by all means go for it. Some like to wait a bit longer, which is fine too, as enemy warbands scale with your warband's rating

Key skills which to me improve the functionality of the unit significantly include:
Armor Proficiency for dedicated heavy armor wearers, Shield Specialist and Strong Blow for those using a 1-handed weapon and shield, Quick Reload (absolutely vital for any archer), later Introspection at higher levels.

Apart from that there are many nice defensive ones that help: Awareness for MR tanks, Avoid and Sidestep for dodge tanks, Flash Parry and Web of Steel for parry tanks.

Don't neglect crit resist, spike damage is what kills units in Mordheim. Anything that merely whittles at your hps slowly gives you a chance to disengage. Therefore get Resilient on tanks if possible. Failing that, Flawless Positioning isn't half bad.

Finally also consider some really helpful utility skills (Knowledge: Mordheim). Mobility is king on the battlefield. More so, when units start out scattered or in groups of 3.

[Glean]

Grats on the win. A lot of different ways to go about skilling, but I'm of the spendit if you've got it mind set. I'll usually save any expencive skills for the leader/hero's since they survive better, hit stronger, and I tend to try and put the henchi's in the dangerous rolls like absorbing charges or ambushing.

I usually try and go with the lower priced skills that make a big dif if I'm low on cash. Stuff like sheild spec or warband specific skills, but web of steel or side step is a great investment even tho they are more expencive too. Since the skills raise the rating you'll get a bit more $ from better loot as you go along. But I usually either try to save back some cash 300 or so, or not sell about that much in loot, incase you end up needing a few extra rounds of upkeep/healing due to a bad game or two. I also try and keep a bit of stone in pocket to make the shipments easier.