New Players guide to Mordheim

This guide is designed to help new players understand the mechanics of Mordheim. It also contains tips and tricks to help get through your first few days of the campaign.

Overview

Overview
The purpose of this guide is to condense many of the tips and tricks that the more experienced players often give to new players while also explaining many of the features that the tutorial doesn’t cover sufficiently. If you’re an experienced player, most of this is going to be things that you already know (and if you have other advice I’d love to have it and add it to the guide). I’m by no means great at the game and this guide shouldn’t be considered gospel, but it might help.

In general, the first half of the guide is going to be mechanics while the second half is going to be tips and tricks on how to play. I really recommend reading it all so you know what is actually going on. But if you’re not interested in the mechanics then just jump to the bottom half.

Disclaimer: Play the tutorials first.
Note: The guide is still heavily a work in progress. I'm sure there are a ton of grammar mistakes and i'll end up fleshing out a lot of the guide as time allows. But I just wanted to get something out that can help new players in a (relatively) concise way,

Understanding Mordheim.

Let’s get this out of the way. Mordheim is a hard game; especially when you’re first starting out. But I promise it’ll get easier. I think probably one of the biggest reasons that this game is perceived as being so difficult is that most video game players are used to having a slight edge over the average opponent (even at higher difficulties). This is a mental barrier you have to get past. At best, you and your opponents will be of equal strength. Most of the time they’ll be stronger than you. You will lose some battles and some of your best troops will die. That is part of the experience. If this idea isn’t appealing, then this game isn’t for you. The upside is that each win feels like an accomplishment.

Likewise, understand that combat is based on random number generated (RNG) results. So there will be times where you think the game is against you (“I missed 3 attacks that each had a 90% chance of hitting, impossible”). Keep in mind that

1) A ton of dice get rolled per game and stuff like that will eventually happen. Don’t rage, it’s just the law of statistics
2) Players, as a whole, forget when things go well for you. I guarantee you there will be times when the dice act in your favor (in a recent example, I landed 4 attacks in a row with a 30% chance of hitting each time)

Question: Anyway to reload a save?

The answer is no. Each decision you make in Mordheim is permanent. If you don't like this idea. Don't buy the game. (Or if you have bought it, try to return it.) Technically there is a way to make a backup of your files. But its relatively complex and a lot of bugs have been reported when one attempts to do this. I'm not going to link the guide because I think it ruins the spirit of the game (making a backup save is cheating in the broadest sense). But the guide exists on steam.

Note: You can still "save" your game if you need to walk away from your computer. When you save, the game will immediatly quit back to the main screen. Reloading the game will then delete that save. You have no way to undo your mistakes, so plan carefully.

Mechanics: How looting works

Before we get to the game proper, it’s important to understand how the looting system of the maps work. After each victory, your warband will automatically gather a certain percentage of the loot that is still left on the field (loot meaning search points and wyrdstone). This means that you get some of the loot in addition to what you gathered during the course of a level. This percentage is based on both the number of warriors not out of action (aka “alive”) and the difficulty of the level. The exact numbers are:

Normal: 4% per warrior alive
Hard: 5% per warrior alive
Brutal: 6% per warrior alive
Deadly: 7% per warrior alive

For example, Assume that you decide to play a normal difficulty mission. You bring 6 units but one of them is knocked out of action (OOA). You will then loot 20% percent of the map that has not been touched (5 alive x 4%).

Mechanics: How stances get calculated

This is another issue that the tutorial doesn’t explain well. It’s important to remember that, when your character goes into a stance, the shown calculation does not take in to account enemy modifiers. For instance, assume that your warrior has a parry chance of 50%. Well each point in strength bypasses parry chance by 2%. So an enemy with 10 points of strength is actually going to make your parry chance around 30%. (More than just strength impacts this calculation, but you get the idea)

On that note, being in parry/dodge stance does not affect your chance of hitting/being hit. It instead is the chance of your attack not missing Instead, parry/dodge only activates if the attack would have otherwise landed


Essentially every time you attack an enemy in a stance 2 dice get rolled.

Dice 1 determines if the attack would land in the first place (IE, you don’t “miss”). If the roll fails, the attack misses and the defender's stance is not activated.

If the roll succeeds, dice 2 is then rolled. This dice determines whether the parry/dodge attempt succeeds. If the roll succeeds, then the attack is negated. If the roll fails, the attack lands and the defender loses health

It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Basically, it checks to see if you miss, and if you don’t miss it checks to see if you get parried/dodged.

Mechanics: Understanding terminology

The stats in Mordheim often have unclear names. The most grievous example of this is probably what most games call "health/HP"

Mordheim decides to call hitpoints "wounds" (a byproduct of its adaptation from the tabletop game). So if your character has "full wounds", then it is the equivalent of having "full health." This is really confusing, as a few abilities mention that they "remove wounds."
All this means is that those abilities drain health to use.
Don't grab these skills thinking that they will heal you. They do not.

Conversely, "restoring wounds" does in fact heal your characters.

Mechanics: Understanding and dealing with injuries

When calculating injuries, the game rolls two die.
The first die determines the number of injuries (I believe anywhere between 0-3 injuries) that your character recieved when it was knocked out.
The second die is then rolled to determine what type of injury was recieved.

Note: The way in which your character went out of action does not affect the chance* or type of injuries you get. (Getting hit with a two handed hammer has the same likelihood of splitting your skull as getting stabbed by a dagger).

Remember that not all knock outs will result in injuries, and not all injuries are necessarily bad. Take the example to your left. My sister is afflicted with Meglomania. If she was an archer or a mage, then I might consider firing her. But she is a melee specialist, so Meglomania does not impact her effectiveness.

*This isn’t always true. Some special ability attacks cause the status "open wound", which increase the chance of recieving injuries after a battle.

Question: Can the enemy warband be bigger than mine?

This is a question that pops up a lot. The answer is no, the enemy warband will always bring both the same number and type of warriors as you.
Assume your party consists of 1 leader, 2 heroes, and 2 henchmen. The enemy party will consist of 1 leader, 2 heroes, and 2 henchmen.

(Note that this does not apply to story missions)

Factions: Understanding the different Warbands

Realistically you can build your warbands however you want, but each faction typically excels in one area.

Mercs
Mercs are typically seen as the most versatile faction in the game. They have a good mix of units, can be built in whatever way you want, and generally have the best ranged options in the game.

Sisters of Sigmar
The tankiest of all the factions. They lack ranged units (though they get magic like all the other factions) but make up for it in health. As a rule, they have: higher starting morale, great buffs, strong unique weapons (the flail/great flail), and can simply outlast most other factions in the field.

Cult of the Possessed
Chaos focused faction that excels in raw damage output. They’re hampered by the random mutation system of their heroes/impressive (for instance, the hero that you built to use a bow might mutate an arm that prevents him from holding a bow). Their henchmen are also probably some of the worst in the game. That being said, Chaos heroes are probably the strongest units in the game (assuming they get good mutations).

Skaven
Skaven units are individually weaker than those of the other factions, they make up for it by having a terrifying impressive, faster movement than the other factions (skaven’s movement circles are 33% larger than the other factions) as well as a plethora of debuffs. Play them if you like to control the flow of the battlefield.

Witchunters
They're DLC, and you probably won't be buying DLC yet if you're still trying to figure out the game. That being said, my understanding is they're a faction focused around crit builds and anti spellcasting. I haven't gotten a chance to try them yet so this is all second hand. That is exactly how they play - they also have decent ranged option or two.

Vampires
Also DLC. They start out extremely strong, but start to plateu pretty quickly. Most of their units cause fear or terror and they play as combination of glass cannon heroes with arguably the tankiest henchman (zombies) in the game.

DLC Heroes
The game has a number of individual DLC heroes. They exist in either the Order (Mercs, Sisters, and Witchunters or Chaos (Cult, Skaven, Vampires) factions. Because anyone can bring the DLC heroes, its a good way to round out your factions (for instance, the sister can bring the gun wielding smuggler and gain a ranged option).

Question: Who should I play as?

Most people suggest Mercs or sisters, pick which one sounds most appealing to you.

The mercs are very versatile and they get access to pretty much everything in the game. All of their units are well rounded and can be built pretty much anyway you want. The trade off is that they aren't great at anything. That being said, their ability to be flexible allows new players to adapt relatively easy if something goes wrong.

The sisters on the other hand are the exact opposite. They are probably the most rigid faction, but what they do-they do well. They have by far the most health and morale of any of the starting factions, and as a result are a lot more forgiving if one of them gets cut off by enemies. Plus their restriction to melee weapons means you don't have to deal with bows at the beggining of the game (ranged units tend to be very weak in the beggining of mordheim)

Generally people don't suggest the cult or skaven as starting factions because they're too hard to use well. Chaos's mutation system means it's hard to build a reliable team and the skaven simply aren't strong enough to use if you don't have a good feel for tactics in mordheim.

Personally, I reccomend the sisters. They’re really simple to figure out, which is helpful when you still don’t know what you’re doing.

Mechanics: Understanding your units

There are 4 types of units: Henchman, heroes, impressive, and your leader. Each faction has two types of henchman, 3 different heroes, one type of leader, and one type of impressive. In the beginning you’ll only be able to recruit 1 type of hero and won’t be able to recruit your impressive.

You’ll unlock the additional heroes classes as your warband levels up (note that your warband's level is seperate from your troops' level.) I believe these new hero classes are gained at warband level 2 and 4, although that might be incorrect.

You'll unlock your impressive at warband level 5

As your characters level up they’ll gain more offense and strategic points.
Your heroes, leader, and impressive will eventually have a total of 9 offense points. That means your dual wielding units will be able to get off 3 attacks, while your 1 handed units will get off 3 attacks+ a special attack

I believe you unlock additional points at levels 3,5,8, and 9.Though I am unsure of this at the moment (currently running a team to confirm, if any other player wants to confirm then that would be great)

Your henchman will eventually cap at 5 offense points. I believe that they unlock the extra points at level 3 and 8, though once again i am unsure.

Tips: Picking the right mission

So you'll notice right off of the bat that missions are broken into three sections: difficulty, deployment description, and bonus objective. The first two are probably the more important things to focus on.

On difficulty
This should be fairly obvious, but if you're a new player you should focus on trying to do normal missions only. If there are no normal missions that day, then you probably consider skipping the day. The penalty for skipping isn't really that bad (which will be explained more fully later in the guide.)

On deployment description.
So the general jist of deployment missions tend to be the following
(Let X be your Warband and Y be the enemy Warband)
X and Y start gathered around their wagon
X and Y deploy over a wide area
X and Y are broken into patrols
X and Y are scattered
or any combo of the above ( e.g. X starts gathered around wagon and Y is scattered)

The missions you want to play are the ones where you start close together. This is because Mordheim is a numbers game, and a lot of early gameplay is ganging up on enemies. So prefer missions in this order:
1) Gathered around Wagon
2) Deployed over a wide area (despite the description, your warband units actually start out decently close to each other)
3) Broken into patrols is doable. Just deploy to the spots that are closest together and try to link your armies ASAP. Generally I reccomend deploying all your strong units together and position your weakest units in other areas. That way if they get swarmed you only lose the most expendable units.

Always avoid scattered, especially while you're learning the game.

On Bonus objectives
Difficulty and deployment should be the deciding factor. But if your curious about the challenge of bonus objectives, it typically goes
Bounty is the easiest
Wyrdstone rush is medium (and becomes very easy as time goes on and your warband gets bigger)
Crush their moral is the hardest (you'll probably win before accomplishing the bonus objective)

Edit: For a much better look at all the facts about deployments, as well as some incredibly helpful tips, I highly recommend An-Tarxamon's guide to deployments which can be found below.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=592543721

Tips: Doing bonus objectives.

When you complete a bonus objective, you are rewarded with extra exp and special loot. Despite this many people feel as if you shouldn't try to do them. I'll offer both perspectives below.


One school of thought says don’t do them at all. The issue is that in the beggining of the game money is pretty tight and thus you won't have much extra to spend on leveling up skills. But the AI doesn't have to worry about money and as a result will have spent all/most of the skill points alloted to a unit of that level. Since completing bonus objectives give extra exp, you'll end up leveling up your troops faster than you can train them. Which will give the enemy advantage.

The other school says that the bonus items are worth it, plus going for the bonus objective changes up strategies slightly.

Personally I like doing the bonus objectives if I have the choice. I find that your characters level far too slowly without the extra exp and thus it prevents the game from being too much of a grind.

Other note: Your upkeep for your warband goes up if they complete the bonus mission. So whereas it might cost 20 gold after a normal victory, it might go up to 30 gold for a decisive victory. Keep that in mind if you're strapped for cash.

Tips: Basic combat advice

You want to keep your army bunched together as much as possible. Make sure you focus fire on one or two enemies at a time. The goal should be to overwhelm with superior numbers. Not only will you do more damage, but you might be able to cause the enemy to fail their all alone check.

When you're surrounding enemies, try to leave an opening for the enemy to escape (typically this means leave his back open). This is because, if he fails the all alone check, the enemy will attempt to flee and all of your units will get a free attack. If the enemy is completely surrounded, he simply ends his turn and you won't get the free attacks.

If you're still having a hard time, I recommend running a warband of only 4 guys (until you get the hang of it). You won't get as much loot (be more proactive about scavenging: move your warband to areas where there is a lot of wyrdstone/searchpoints). This has a few benefits.
First: fewer attacks on both sides mean that the game will be a lot easier to manage,
Second: Warbands of 4 can deploy all together on patrol style maps, which effectively doubles your chances of playing "gathered around wagon" types of missions.
Third: If things start going bad, it'll be over much quicker. In a warband of 4, you might route after only 1-2 guys get knocked OOA. Rolling for injuries on 1-2 guys is much better than rolling for injuries on 4-5 guys.

Tips: Gathering Wyrdstone

So Wyrdstone comes in three types: fragments, shards, and clusters. They each have a different value.
Fragments are worth 1
Shards are worth 5
Clusters are worth 15

When you first start your game, try to find the biggest deposit of wyrdstone close to you. Move your entire warband that direction and try to gather that wyrdstone before the enemy engages. As the battle turns in your favor and you don't feel the need to keep your entire force fighting, consider breaking one off to gather any valuable wydstone groups you may find.

In terms of what kind of wyrdstone to pick up: most players will recommend just ignoring fragments and only focusing on gathering shards and clusters. This is valid, but I personally disagree. I find that the fragments add up pretty quickly. Plus, if I pick up a fragment, it increases my chance that a cluster/shard (that i wouldn't have been able to get in the course of the mission) gets picked up in the auto loot period post game.I suppose the best thing to say is never go out of your way to loot fragments, but grab them If possible.

Note: If you're trying to finish the bonus objective "Wyrdstone Rush" grab the fragments like any other type of stone. It doesn't matter the type of wyrdstone you gather, only the number of wyrdstones picked up.

Tips: Managing your Warband

Now that you’ve won your first few fights, it’s time to address managing your warband's hideout. The biggest tip is to always keep a good reserve of gold in backup. I recommend at least 150 so you can replace/pay your troops if things go south.

Extra Money should be prioritized on buying better gear. It’s infinitely better than training skills in the beginning. Your skills aren't great until you unlock a few, but a blue/purple weapon is great as soon as you get it.

Likewise, I recommend holding off on buying skills until your units are at least level 3. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the simplest is that your characters are weak in the beginning. Nothing is worse than spending 300 gold on a skill and then having the character die the next fight (an experience I’ve had the displeasure knowing multiple times.) The other reason is you probably don't really know what you want to do with your troops yet, so put that money to better use.

On that note, don’t be afraid to skip days if the missions are too hard. You only pay your troops on days they fight, so if you skip a day you won’t have to pay your troops. The only real penalty to skipping is that you won’t be able to gather wyrdstone that day (but meeting the delivery deadlines aren't by any means difficult as long as you're moderately successful in the field)

Tips: Knowing your weapons

So by now, you've discovered the plethora of weapons in the game. Despite the variety of weapons, they can be defined by how you can equip them. In this section we'll take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

Two handed weapons
Upside: They do by far the most damage of any weapon type.
Downside:
Two handed weapons cause tiring. Which means that each subsequent attack costs one additional offense point. (so your second attack will cost three offense points. Your third attack will cost 4 offense points. etc).
Two handed weapons also do slightly less damage on each subsequent attack (so don't give them to heroes.)
Most two handed weapons also have a penalty to hit chance. The exception to this are flails (only available to the sisters) and halberds (only available to mercs and Skaven)
The halberd is the only two handed weapon that can parry.

Dual wielding weapons
The middle ground between single weapon and two handed weapons.
Upside: does more damage than a single weapon. you can also enchant both weapons to give them more benefits. You can equip a sword if you'd like to parry.
Downside: Also suffers from tiring. You won't be able to parry as well as if you had a shield equipped.

For some more detail, this comes from the player Greybush

Originally posted by Greybush:

"The -25% damage is from the total of both weapons combined.
You get the bonuses from both weapons, including Initiative bonus/penalty, enchants, weapon specific perks (+crit, +hit, etc) and ofc the damage.
And, unlike 2 handed weapons, targets don't get a bonus to their Dodge chance and the damage does not decrease with each hit.

So for 2 Daggers, for example, you get:
+20 Ini
+50% Ambush damage
+30% Dodge bypass
+32% Parry bypass

instead of just half of that, which is what you'd get from 1 Dagger."

Weapon and Shield
Upsides: Don't have to deal with tiring, so you'll be able to get more attacks off. You can also parry more effecitvely (based on the abilities you grab). If you're building a parry tank, you should do this.

Single weapon, nothing in off hand
upside: You get a bonus to dodge if you don't have anything else equipped. Do this if you're building a dodge tank. You don't have to deal with tiring either.
downside: You don't get the same damage outputs as the other class.

Tips: Maximizing your offense points

You always want to try to use all your offense points. What this means is that when your characters
have
3 offense points: You want to dual wield and charge into battle*
4 offense points: Unequip dual weapons and either do a single weapon or a single weapon and shield (depending on whether you want to dodge/parry.) You get two attacks off this way.
5 offense points. If you're dual wielding weapons don't charge. You get two attacks off this way. If you're single handed then charge and get the other attack.

TLDR: Use all your offense points. Two weaker attacks are better than one stronger attack.

*charging lowers hit chance, so if you don't like your chances just walk into combat.

Tips: Choosing the right veteran skills

So as the game goes on and you complete objectives (x amount of enemies killed, x amount of wyrdstone gathered etc), you'll start gain veteran levels. Your veteran level is constant across all warbands and makes the game easier as you go on. You'll unlock veteran points which can be spent on special perks for each warband. (If you are vet level 5, you'll get 5 vet perks to spend on each warband you are playing.) Once you get a better feel for the game, the best perks are probably the ones that have a chance for a free weapon. However, until you are comfortable with the game, I reccomend grabbing any of the following:
Commander (lower upkeep)
Medic (lower cost of healing)
Scholar (cheaper to train skills)
Renowned: (Cheaper to hire new units)

Pick which ones you like the most.

Tips: other tips

When your henchman reach level 3, switch to a one handed weapon or a one handed weapon + shield. This will let them get off 2 attacks.

You’ll notice that I didn’t include anything about how to build characters/total number of stat points they get. That’s because there are already some fabulous guides for that. Check the next section for more info.

Links: Other guides

Here are some of the great guides currently sitting on steam. They're a lot more in depth (and far better) than mine. Check them out

click here for how many stat points each unit will get, broken up by the categories they get them
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547654982

Probably the most in depth look at game mechanics out there. click here if you really want to learn your stuff
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=463157178

Build advice for each unit in the game, Click here if you want a better look and advice for your faction.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=534564400

Giving the cult a shot? Check this out
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=584583804

Final thoughts

Hopefully this guide was at least somewhat helpful for all the new players out there. This was in no way comprehensive, but it should help ease you into the game.

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to leave a comment or add me as a friend and message me.

If any of the more experienced players have any advice/additions they'd like to make, please suggest it and i'll add it.

Lastly, if you found this guide helpful, a rating would be appreciated!

Cheers!
Good Luck and Happy Hunting in Mordheim!

-GenericNickname

[aristeidis.kypriotis]

Great guide. Although I read it after I got into the game it was still very helpful

[PhotoJoe]

"Posted
Updated
Dec 28, 2015 @ 11:19pm
Mar 6, 2020 @ 9:55pm"

So, is this guide out of date or has the game not been changed/updated/patched/balanced since early 2020?

[Osogladiator]

How do you unlock and use the War Priest with the Witch Hunters. I've got the DLC, but they don't show up when I create the warband

[PartyDestroyer]

Really good guide, helped me get a solid footing in this game.

[DaveKnow]

Dark Souls are one of the best Henchmen in the game. I have no idea why you would suggest they are some of the worst. Dark Souls are immune to All Alone, Fear and Terror, and can have Attracting Lure. These two facts alone make them very valuable. Fighting a Vampire - put a defensive build Dark Soul against it... etc. Daemonettes... use a Dark Soul and kill it with ranged, etc.

[ErikMalkavian]

Great Beginner Guide. Thank you!

[BigRowdy]

Thank you for this. I have started the game a few times and always get wiped out. gonna be better with this info. Very Generous of you.

[GenericNickname]

@DaveKnow

It's been a while since I played Mordheim, so unless things have changed
1) As I pointed out, better XP and better loot aren't always a good thing when you're first learning mordheim. The AI scales to your character levels, so if you are a level 3 warband but haven't received enough money to buy skills to match your level, the AI has a slight advantage. There's also absolutely no connection between bonus objectives and injuries, unless that has also been patched in. I still like doing bonus objectives since it makes the game less grindy, but if you're new and struggling, I don't reccomend it.

2) I think it depends, I've had missions when I first started the game where I'd get absolutely overwhelmed. When you're new, I think managing a smaller warband that can reliably clump together is better, but that's my experience.

[DaveKnow]

1). Not bothering with the Bonus objective is crazy. It brings better xp, better loot and very importantly if any of your units went down, it helps them to come back uninjured or with less bad injuries. 2). Taking a smaller warband makes achieving missions much more difficult. It is harder to gather stones and loot. Also the AI doesn't send all its units all at the same time, so having a larger group makes them easier to deal with.

[Valenquest]

Something that I feel gets overlooked by guides, or is maybe just misunderstood, is the punishment for retreating before your morale is critical.

The game is designed for 1v1 pvp and the devs didn't want a player rage-quitting just because a battle looks like it might be going badly.

The solution they came up with is the horrors of Mordheim mechanic, whereby if you leave before your morale is critical, even units which are not yet out of action have a chance of being wounded and losing equipment and ones that are out of action will have worse odds on the wound table.

This effect does not trigger if you fight to the death, or manage to do the optional objective. Therefore standing your ground and fighting out the hopless situation has better odds of getting your warband back in one piece than if you retreat early.