Pls help with 2H and armor questions

[aclyte]

Hi guys!

've played game a little ('ve finished act 1-3) and some questions are raised:

1. If u pack your guy in full plate, i found the only one cool 2H weapon is halberd cause of parry skill. In heavy armor dodge goes to minus, so the only good way to defend is parry.
OR go shield + something or sword + something cause of parry.
The question is - what the reason to NOT go parry weapon on heavy guy? And what the point of other 2H weapons? Only for cloth agi guys?

2. Can't understand idea of light armor - if u go dodge build, cloth is better (10% dodge), if u go absorb build, plate is better (more absorb). Light armor feels lackluster. Maybe it's good for dodge builds on higher tiers...

3. What the point of bows? They're weak and u still can shoot only once per round. Maybe they becomes better later when u get enough OP for 2 shots? I found powder weapons just plain better.

4. Why should i invest in accuracy before maxing out ballistic or melee weapon skill?

Thanks!

[Scorm]

1: Heavy armour on a parry build is a decent tank but keep in mind there are things like demons that ignore parry and skills that bypass some parry percentage.

There are also stances you can learn that boost melee defence or armour rating that would benefit a two hander armour build, or there's frenzy that removes your ability to use defence stances in exchange for more damage output. In the second case more armour will help you survive.

2: High level light armour has no dodge penalty so you'll want it on most people once their dodge hits 100% or so through levels. Note that dodge/parry can never be greater than 95% for the purpose of calculating hits, even if the skill is greater than 95%.

3: Bows will beat guns at higher levels. Once you get more offensive points you'll be able to shoot a bow more times a turn than a gun. Their damage gets better with the ballistic skill. You'll want the rapid reload skill to get the most out of them.

4: Most units can't max out both accuracy and melee/ballistic so you should pick one. Accuracy boosts critical hit chance and unlocks skills that can be very handy. Crits can be amazing in this game because they can stun as well and cause open wounds debuffs in addition to the bonus damage. You won't be able to achieve a 100% crit build but high enough to rely on it.

[Paranoia]

1: If you are playing standard unModded Mordheim, you'll find that anything short of Mercenary Captain will have rather horrible Parry chances, for 80% at Weapon Skill 20 is rather weak, since enemies will, at high Ranks, go through at least 20% of it by default. Same is true of Sword. So the only real Parry-based Build relies on Shield.
Mind, if you just want to do damage, and the mediocre Parry is just a bonus on top, then Halberd is a decent option. Otherwise one might as well skip it and take, say, Great Axe instead for more damage. Which is generally the point of two-handers: attack a few times for massive damage. Heavy means though that, if you attack more than 3 times a round (Impressive or Leader has Order), then you are better off dualing single-handed weapons.

2: Light Armour has, depending on qualities involved, 10%-15% higher Armour Absorption, which matters the more the higher Absorptions we are dealing with. Which means that, for any Build that is not either actually a Dodge Tank or wish to get higher Initiative, Light Armour is a better investment. As for why not Heavy, some can't have, and some want to use their Skill Points for other utility tools instead of Armour Proficient.

3: Bows are indeed for Ranks 3+, as, with 4OP, you can shoot them twice, and, at five OP, you can shoot them twice with one Skill Shot, or two Skill Shots or three normal Shots if using Adrenaline Rush. Whereas a Gun can only be fired twice at 5OP if one uses Adrenaline Rush. Tldr: Skill Shots.

4: You basically only go for Accuracy if you do a Crit- and/or Daredevil Build. Or want to train Head Shot.

[aclyte]

Thanks, it helps a lot!

And 2 more please:

1. Dual wielding. How the bonuses work? For example, i have Axe in main and sword in second - will i get ALL bonuses (parry skill and armor penetration or it works only with main hand?)
In other words, will i get ALL bonuses from all hands or they're limited somehow?

2. What the point of enlarging your cart space during warband levelup? I use it, maybe, 2 times in my games because i just have no time to run to cart and back - my men almost always busy fighting (maybe 1-2 hencman are running on flanks picking stuff)

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by aclyte:

Thanks, it helps a lot!

And 2 more please:

1. Dual wielding. How the bonuses work? For example, i have Axe in main and sword in second - will i get ALL bonuses (parry skill and armor penetration

Indeed.

Originally posted by aclyte:

2. What the point of enlarging your cart space during warband levelup?

The point of more space in the cart is to allow one to store more of the loot in there. Indeed mostly useful for high mobility Warbands.
Secondary use is to give everyone a lot of consumables, and then put them in the Cart at the Mission start. Consumables boost Rating, and enemy Rating reflect yours, so you having more Rating means the enemy is more likely to have high quality equipment to loot.

[GreyHuntr]

Once you get more skilled you start seeing opportunities to stash loot in the cart. Sometimes it is worth having a character that is near death retreat and put their items away. Even if you lose the match, you keep whatever is in the cart, except Story Missions. Also there is an art to keeping the enemy warband alive so you can send runners around to get the extra loot and secondary objectives.

[Scorm]

Dual wielding maces is a pretty solid set up early game when there's no armour going around and the bonus to hit chance pays off nicely. Until they get 4 offence points for making more attacks pretty much everyone should be dual wielding, at least for basic henchmen.

[brynjar]

1. Dual wielding. How the bonuses work? For example, i have Axe in main and sword in second - will i get ALL bonuses (parry skill and armor penetration or it works only with main hand?)
In other words, will i get ALL bonuses from all hands or they're limited somehow?

Theyre limited by the fact that when dual wielding, your dodge goes down, your initiative goes down and the offence points required to hit increases. But the bonuses from the weapons apply

[Bloodscape]

As stated, bows concentrate on number of shots including skill shots. Most notably Head Shot which makes the target roll against a stun check. Head shot takes 2 extra red pips so the low pips of the bow work well with that. Also the shear number of shots align with enchantments such as lowering crit resist per shot (misfortune).

[harlequin_corps]

Originally posted by GreyHuntr:

Once you get more skilled you start seeing opportunities to stash loot in the cart. Sometimes it is worth having a character that is near death retreat and put their items away. Even if you lose the match, you keep whatever is in the cart, except Story Missions. Also there is an art to keeping the enemy warband alive so you can send runners around to get the extra loot and secondary objectives.

yeah.. I call this playing with my food. Lock up the remaining AI mobs with Sidestep/Web of Steel then spend an hour cleaning up the whole map.. Sometimes the game just gives you the world.