by The full document is available here https://www.scribd.com/document/3528408 ... lebook-pdf and includes rules for black powder weapons if anyone is interested in that particular topic.
I was just recently reading various threads around the crossbow and associated issues, and indeed repeater crossbows, throwing weapon ranges and similar and looked to Mordheim for inspiration…
Mordheim Living Rulebook p28-30 wrote:
Crossbow
A crossbow consists of a short, strong bowstave mounted on a wooden or steel stock. The crossbows of the Empire are made of steel and often include a winding mechanism to draw back the string. It takes a long time to prepare a crossbow, but a bolt fired from one has a tremendous range and can penetrate armour easily. Crossbows take much longer than other bows to make, so they are expensive and relatively rare weapons. Still, they are the preferred weapon of many in Mordheim because of their power and long range.
Maximum Range: 30"; Strength: 4; Special Rule: Move or fire
SPECIAL RULE
Move or fire: You may not move and fire a crossbow on the same turn, other than to pivot on the spot to face your target or to stand up.
Crossbow Pistol
Crossbow pistols are masterpieces made by expert weaponsmiths. They are miniature crossbows with all the power and accuracy of the real thing. As these weapons may be easily concealed, they are the favoured weapon of assassins.
Maximum Range:10"; Strength: 4; Special Rule: Shoot in hand-to-hand combat
SPECIAL RULE
Shoot in hand-to-hand combat: A model armed with a crossbow pistol may shoot it in the first round of a hand-to-hand combat and this shot is always resolved first, before any blows are struck. This shot has an extra -2 to hit penalty. Use model’s Ballistic Skill to see whether it hits or not. This bonus attack is in addition to any close combat weapon attacks.
Repeater Crossbow
Repeater crossbows are extremely complex devices, expensive to acquire and difficult to make. While this makes them rare, they certainly have their uses: they can rain a deadly hail of bolts on enemies, and a warrior using one may move quite fast and still fire his weapon.
Maximum Range: 24"; Strength: 3; Special Rule: Fire twice
SPECIAL RULE
Fire twice: A model armed with a repeater crossbow may choose to fire twice per turn with an extra -1 to hit penalty on both shots.
So first range, both games have a similar scale with figures being around an inch in height so I would suggest that roughly 1" Mordheim ~ 1 HeroQuest square, so the first thing to note is that the Crossbow under HQ rules has unlimited range which looks to be consistent as the longest shooting distance on the HQ board is 25 squares so within the 30" max range. Note also that both the Bow and Repeater Crossbow have a range of 24" which is effectively unlimited from a HQ point of view for simplicity ignoring the 4 possible arrangements along the long edges as edge cases
On the subject of range, the Mordheim throwing knives have a max range of 6”, whilst it is tempting to apply that to HeroQuest, please note that Mordheim standard maximum movement per turn is 4”, although that increases to 8” in certain situations and this 6” range sits neatly between the two. As under HQ average maximum movement is 7 squares and maximum is 12 squares I would recommend converting this to a 9 square limit for throwing weapons under HQ rules.
The ‘move OR shoot’ restriction placed on the Mordheim Crossbow could easily be ported to HeroQuest for those who feel the Crossbow is overpowered (I’m on the fence on that particular discussion…for now)
And in terms of price the HQ crossbow is 350gc and the Mordheim 25gc
Crossbow Pistol
We could also consider porting the Crossbow pistol to HQ, the text suggesting these are smaller, more rare, and more expensive than a standard crossbow, personally I would ignore the shooting in hand-to-hand combat as that presents complications, and the ‘to hit penalty’ as under HQ that is built into the attack dice roll anyway and in terms of maximum range, if as mentioned above throwing knives we are converting from a 6” range to a 9 square range then this device with a 10” should perhaps have a maximum HQ range of around 15 squares
In terms of cost the Crossbow Pistol under Mordheim is priced at 35gc so a HQ cost of ~500gc seems appropriate
Mordheim to HQ range conversion
• 4” ~7 squares (call it 6 from an ease of math point of view)
• 6” ~9 squares
• 8” ~12 squares
• 10” ~15 squares
Repeater Crossbow
An option also presents itself to add in the Repeater Crossbow into HeroQuest, the range at 24” is effectively unlimited as discussed above so no issue there, same strength as the Bow so 2AD, and the ability to shoot twice in a single action. The Repeater Crossbow is self-loading so no need for the no move and fire restriction that may apply to the Crossbow.
In terms of cost the Repeater Crossbow costing 40gc in Mordheim would sit around 600GC in HQ (that is a little higher than the direct conversion but then this stuff is rare so expect to be ripped off!)
Conclusion
So in terms of porting all this to HeroQuest I would suggest the following:
Add a restriction to the Crossbow so that you cannot move and shoot on the same turn.
Add a restriction to throwing weapons of a maximum range of 9 squares
Crossbow Pistol
500 Gold Coins
Weapon, Large, Missile, 3AD
This missile weapon allows you to roll three combat dice in attack, but is limited in range to 15 squares.
Quantity = 1 (I would restrict this to only a single Equipment card as it is supposed to be very rare)
Repeater Crossbow
600 Gold Coins
Weapon, Large, Missile, Both Hands, 2AD
This missile weapon allows you to roll two combat dice in attack and enables you to shoot twice as a single action against the same or different targets.
Quantity = 1 (I would restrict this to only a single Equipment card as it is supposed to be very rare)
= white skull, one "hit"
= black skull, one "hit"
= shield, cancels out one "hit"
