Mordheim: come for the warbands, stay for the battle reports.

With a few buildings built for Mordheim in my terrain project and an all day event looming, the call went out for some scatter terrain.

So armed with few barrels and chests, and a box of Dungeons and Laser fantasy bits that I picked up as a stretch goal on KS sometime, and my bits box is set about the task.

I started by cutting old gift cards into strips and glueing on some textured wall paper with PVA. To each of these I added some relevant bits.

I soon realised that my collection wouldn’t go far, so I decided to bulk out my supplies with some foam core offcuts. I covered these with dried wet wipes, held in place with PVA, which would look like tarpaulin when painted.

With these built I primed everything with brush on black primer, dry brushed white and applied speed paint.

I really enjoyed making these. Adding a bit of narrative : here’s the blacksmith, here’s the wood cutter and so on. I’m not sure if my fellow players will notice it’s not just another row of barrels but it’s enough that I will.

Middenheimers, yes they’re fine.
But I fancied something different (again).

Looking through the lists on Mordheimer Norse Explorers jumped out. Who doesn’t love a werewolf?

Looking at my minis I decided to use the  single sprues of ‘Soldiers 2’ and ‘Barbarians 2’ that I had picked up, along with some Bad Squiddo shield maidens to make up the all women force.

Brunhild, in the centre, is my Jarl. She is heavily inspired by Ursa, from “Killer of Killers”.
She is flanked by the berserkers Shani ands Kalyna.

Behind them come the Bondsmen Sigrid and Freya.

In their first outing the Norse Explorers were up against the Kislevites who had torn apart my Middenheimers last time out…

The air hung heavy with the stench of ruin as the Shieldmaidens approached Mordheim’s gates. A bedraggled band of Middenheimers limped forth, their grim faces and the corpse they carried speaking volumes of a recent, brutal defeat. No threat to the Norse, Freya hailed them, hoping for scraps of knowledge. They spoke of a savage ambush by Kislevites, a fearsome bear among their number, and a leader fallen. Kislevites? They held no terror for the Shieldmaidens.

Without hesitation, the Norse warriors plunged deeper into the cursed city, following the Middenheimers’ directions. Soon enough, the Kislevites were spotted, a mere few houses away. Ylva, with her ravenous wolf pack, surged forward, the werewolf eager for the fray. Sigrid scaled the nearest rooftop, seeking a vantage point, while the archers swept right and the main force pressed left.

Sigrid, however, found herself immediately pinned by a hail of crossbow bolts and arrows. Dropping to the floor below to escape, she slipped, the unforgiving stone claiming her with a sickening thud—knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, the berserker sisters, Shani and Kalyna, met the Kislevite bear head-on. Kalyna was quickly laid low, removed from the battle in a brutal display of the bear’s power. But Shani, fueled by rage, exacted a swift and bloody revenge, slaying the beast. Seeing Shani isolated, Ylva dispatched one of her pack to aid the lone berserker, for the pack always sticks together.

As Brunhilde attempted to reach Shani, a Kislevite war dog burst from around a corner, its snarling maw finding its mark and knocking her out cold.

Witnessing enough, Ylva roared and charged the pit fighter who had allied himself with the enemy. It was a trap; three more Kislevites swarmed in. But it was not enough. Ylva and her two swift wolves tore through their ranks, sending them scattering, tails tucked. The remaining Kislevites broke and ran. Victory was ours!

The Pit: Brunhilde’s Ordeal

But what of Brunhilde? She awoke, her vision blurred, the acrid reek of sweat and blood filling her nostrils. The Pit. Before she could comprehend her surroundings, she faced a new opponent amidst the baying, bloodthirsty crowd. To her own surprise, she managed to fell the pit fighter. Yet, in one fluid motion, he was back on his feet, his morning star smashing into her stomach. Defeated, stripped of her weapons and shield, she was unceremoniously ejected into the grim streets. Slowly, painfully, she limped her way back to her victorious, yet now diminished, comrades.

As part of a 24 hour charity gaming event at our games club, our Mordheim group met for a couple of games. In a first for me, we played one on one games. The first was ‘Defend the find’ where my Middenheimers attempted to fend of some Kislivites.

Following my previous post, I decided my current warband lacked flavour and craved a different approach. After much deliberation, I opted for a Middenheim-themed Mercenary warband, despite their Marienburg-esque paint scheme. My reasoning was to stick with the core warbands while learning the ropes, and, crucially, my miniatures were already painted.

My captain, having spent too much time in Mordheim, now conceals his face behind a mask, a malevolent wyrdstone glow emanating from its eyeholes. His champions are armed with two-handed swords; one, the quartermaster, meticulously carries his ledger. The Youngbloods prefer their bows, avoiding close combat whenever possible. My henchmen comprise two Marksmen supporting the archers, two Warriors with spears, and three Swordsmen.

The next battle unfolded as another chaotic four-way wyrdstone hunt – a recurring theme! We welcomed a new player with a borrowed Reikland warband, the scenario deemed ideal for newcomers: grab the loot, eliminate threats.

The Beastmen returned, their coffers swollen enough to field a Minotaur. The previous newcomer now commanded a Bretonnian warband, their fully armoured captain proudly mounted on a warhorse.

Deployed in opposing corners, I found myself sandwiched between the Bretonnians and the Beastmen. On turn one, the bulk of my warband ascended the nearest ruins, drawn by a shard of wyrdstone and the tactical advantage of higher ground for my bowmen. The ruins’ upper levels also offered a precarious route to the central, wyrdstone-rich area via walkways. The remainder of my force spread out below, guarding against flanking maneuvers. Turn two saw my bowmen exchange ineffective shots with the Bretonnians, who immediately proved superior, stunning a bowman and a champion. Meanwhile, my captain and remaining champion cautiously advanced across the walkways towards the centre, hoping the Bretonnian and Beastmen would clash, creating an opportunity to snatch some wyrdstone. On the ground, my left flank held firm, safe from Bretonnian arrows while remaining vigilant, and my right flank sprinted towards a wyrdstone-laden ruin.

Turn three mirrored the previous: archers traded fire (a stray shot felling a Youngblood), my captain and champion continued their single-file trek across the walkways, and my right flank reached the targeted ruin. Unfortunately, the Beastmen had arrived first, claiming the wyrdstone. Worse was to come as the Bretonnian captain spurred his warhorse onto the elevated walkways and charged my unsuspecting captain. A swift combat, where I frustratingly forgot to parry, saw my leader fall.

Turn four ignited my remaining champion’s fury. Witnessing his captain’s demise spurred him to action. He charged the Bretonnian captain, his zweihander a blur, felling the knight and claiming the wyrdstone he carried. Behind him, the archers found their mark, knocking down a Bretonnian warrior while escaping unscathed. The soldiers on my right flank were less fortunate, locked in a tense doorway combat with the Beastmen, only skillful parries preventing injury.

Turn five proved disastrous. The archers attempted to claim precarious wyrdstone, one failing the climb, the other, a Youngblood, succeeding but finding himself exposed. A volley of Bretonnian arrows swiftly stunned him, sending him plummeting to his doom. The champion, still basking in his victory over the Bretonnian captain, failed to notice the Minotaur stalking him. With the knight no longer a target, the beast charged, ending the champion’s rampage. Finally, the Beastman in the doorway broke through the parries, taking down a Swordsman. This sudden cascade of losses shattered the Middenheimers’ morale, and they fled the cursed city.

In the aftermath, a Swordsman succumbed to permanent injury, and my captain now bears an old battle wound. However, my champion, hardened by his brush with the Minotaur, is now immune to fear. The three wyrdstone shards we scavenged were traded to replace the fallen Swordsman.

I used all my post game funds to add to my heroes buying a mutant. 

I had a suitable Rotten Factory miniature waiting that I managed to paint up in time for the next game. I also swapped out my beastman figure for one from Meridian Miniatures as it matched the pig head aesthetic of the main beastman warband.  

The second game was a four way wyrdstone hunt. My cult of the possessed and the beastmen were back again, this time against some dwarves and a mercenary warband (one of mine that I was happy to lend to a player in need.). 

Once we set up, this time I took a couple of the buildings I’d made in my Terrain Fest project, we deployed on the corners of the table, the dwarves on the far side of the table from me,  and simultaneously made our first moves. I split my wardband into two, sending each one towards the nearest pieces of wyrdstone, The speed of the beastmen made them the most immediate threat to me, and the bestigor won the race to the piece of wyrdstone that was between us, and took to hiding behind a wall.  I moved in to attempt to get into combat with him, or take him out with my spell, to get that wyrdstone for myself.  Before I could put that plan into action he failed his stupidity test and wandered off the table, taking the wyrdstone with him.  

The other part of my warband were ascending ruins to get into the walkways between them. They had to dodge arrows flying in from the mercenaries on my flank. Eventually the withering volley after volley removed one of my darksouls, but my beastman managed to run across a walkway to grab a piece of wyrdstone and then head into cover. 

On the ground under the walkways, a beastmen warhound tied up my Possessed hero, while some mercenaries knocked down one of my brethren. My new mutant couldn’t stand by and see him taken out of action, so dived off the walkways to enter battle. He was hopelessly outnumbered and both he and the brethren were taken out of action. 

In the meanwhile, the dwarfs, beastmen and mercenaries were having a three way melee, while a couple of unattended beastmen hoovered up most of the rest of the wyrdstone. 

As I’d reached my route threshold, with my beastman under threat of attack I decided to call it a day, taking my one piece of wyrdstone away and seeing what the postgame had in store. A wapping two extra pieces of wyrdstone to add to the one I’d found, and my mutant wasn’t pining for the fjords after all, he was an ex-mutant. Not great. 

The beastmen eventually came away with 6 pieces before the endgame, with the dwarves and mercenaries also claiming one piece each. A clear winner for round two, and I may retire my possessed warband and try a different flavour next time.   

Of the Mordheim players I was the first to arrive at the Clubhouse Games

I was pointed the table what had been saved for us and weaved my way through the numerous tables with games of 40k going on. The table had a nice matt on it and half a dozen ‘L’ shaped ruins, which didn’t look much like the Mordheim tables that I’d seen, but luckily one of my opponents said he would be bringing some terrain with him. After 10 minutes of nervously looking around and inspecting the shelves, the other player turned up and he came with enough wonderful scratch built terrain that easily filled the table. It put my ruins that I built from my kids old play mats to shame, although it gave me some ideas to revisit that project.

He brought out his beastmen warband, which all had pig heads rather than the usual goat heads. I’ve no idea where he got the miniatures from, I’ll have to find out.

Beastmen vs Cultists playing ‘Wyrdstone Hunt’

The details are all a bit hazy as this happened a few weeks ago now and we’ve played another game since. My apologies, I’ll try to do better next time.

As we were taking our first turn, manoeuvring to get closer to the Wyrdstone, a 3rd person appeared wanting to join in with his freshly printed Skaven war band. The more the merrier, so he deployed along another table edge.

The beastmen sent there fastest troops, a centigor and some warhounds, to outflank me. I hoped to get some high ground with my archers, but somehow ended up with one isolated that at least tied up those troops for a couple of rounds before he got taken out of the game.

In the meantime, my Possessed went to head off the Skaven, managing to take out a couple of their henchmen.

The Skaven had the advantage of numbers and had concentrated on mobbing  a couple of the beastmen. As far as I remember it was hours even, with ‘out of actions’ on each side.

As that was going on, my beastman managed to climb to the top floor of a ruin and claim the piece of wyrdstone in it, while my other archer was taken out of action. Because of poor warband building on my part, I had reached the threshold for a route check. I passed, but decided to voluntarily route at the start of my next turn.

In the postgame all of my units survived and I found enough wyrdstone to cash in to buy a new hero (mutant) .

All in all, I can’t complain about what was my first experience of playing a game with strangers in a club. Everyone was very friendly, our game got a lot of attention from other members of the club. I went back for more, so I’ll have another battle report coming up soon.

I know AI is a controversial subject, and when it comes to generating art I’m definitely in the ‘against’ camp, but just about the same time as I was getting my first game or Mordheim arranged this video turned up on my YouTube feed. It’s about learning how to use a complicated synthesiser without reading the manual.

Basically the presenter used Google’s ‘Notebook LM‘ to create an AI reference by uploading the PDF of the manual. He then asks the AI a question in normal language and gets the answer only from that PDF (so you know it’s correct and not taken from some weird forum somewhere) AND gives you  a link to where it sourced that answer within the document, so you can check if you want. I

So, if it’s good enough for synthesiser manuals it’s got to be good enough for war game rules, right?

Using the resources section from Broheim I eagerly uploaded the main rule book to create an online reference. Once it was complete I used it to quickly ask ‘What’s the cost of a sword’, ‘Tell me about Cult of the Possessed’.

Is it genuinely useful? I’m not sure. I remember using it on my phone when I eventually played, but not exclusively. I also picked up my paper copy of the rules, and searched for things on Mordheimer.

It’s certainly interesting, and the ‘podcast’ conversation it generates raised a smile. Enthusiastic American voices discussing Skaven and mispronouncing wyrdstone.

Oh, if you want a poke around, feel free. It’s now also referencing the 2002 Manual, Empire in Flames, and ‘the ultimate faq’.

The kitbashing in the previous entry took me months, and that’s kind of where this project would’ve ended, perhaps with another entry with all the miniatures that I’ve painted up in Marienburg colours, where it not for post on one of the local wargames clubs ‘looking for players’ group. Whenever I’d visited the club it had been heavily 40k biased, with Bloodbowl, AOS and kill team also being played, but someone else in that circle was interested in playing Mordheim.

We arranged a game, which gave me a couple of weeks to use Broheim to build a list, and get any extra models that I needed for it. Now, the list I came up with was fitting the models I had into what I thought worked, which wasn’t the best strategy, but I proved I could make a playable Mordheim warband based on the figures in the Inquistorial set.

The crow wrangler was my magister. He had his holy book in one hand, for casting his spell, and a weapon in the other.

Mr clamps had a claw mutation, and the description of The Possessed (nightmarish creatures, a melding of flesh, metal and black magic) seemed to be apt.

The rest of that box would probably be best suited to being ‘Darksouls’ if you wysiwyg them.

I then decided that I could do with some missile troops. I made a couple from a sprue of Frostgrave Cultists that I had, using the Northstar Rangers of Shadowdeep metal heads (again, because they remind me of the Disciples of the Red Redemption) , but that was my limit due to the bows available on the sprue. These were quickly painted up red and black with contrast paints.

To use up the rest of my starting gold I decided could run a beastman using a Crooked DIce goat kin model that I already owned and had painted.