Friday, October 9, 2015

Useful Websites for Mordheimers

The Mordheim community might not be as big as it once was. However there is still a small, active community spread around the globe. Here is a short list of my 'go to' websites for Mordheim.

Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum
This forum is the primary Mordheim forum out there. It was created by many of the participants from the old Specialist Games forum that used to be hosted by Games Workshop after it was shut down unexpectedly. It is an excellent location to discuss rules, find new material, read battle reports and share photos of painting and modelling.

Liber Malefic
This is the website for the gaming group who are creating the upcoming Mutiny in Marienburg suppliment to Mordheim. MiM is the largest, most ambitious fan-made expansion so far and has been many years in the making. The primary author, Stuart Cresswell (Werekin) has participated in previous fan-made material such as the Border Town Burning suppliment and the Nemesis Crown suppliment. Unfortunately the rules are not available in a central location so you will need to comb through the blog posts to find all of the material.

Border Town Burning
This is the website for the Border Town Burning suppliment created by Christian Templin (Cianty). This high quality material allows groups to run campaigns in the distant lands of Cathay. The material is compatible with Mordheim campaigns set in any other location though. The quality of the material is too high to be overlooked by any serious gaming group.

The Mordheimer Information Centre
The Mordheimer Information Centre (more commonly known as just the Mordheimer web site) is a key resource for much of the material that was released by Games Workshop. A highlight is the master scenario list which contains rules for hundreds of scenarios. The home page is messy these days with an embedded Mordheim web ring banner so I now access the site via the Table of Contents.

Styroheim
This web site is home to a collection of fan-made material by the once prolific post Dave Joria (Styrofoam King). The highlight of this web site is his Sartosa suppliment for playing a pirate themed Mordheim campaign.

Nemesis Crown
This web site contains the rules for the Nemesis Crown suppliment. Nemesis Crown was a global campaign run by Games Workshop for Warhammer Fantasy. A small group of fans led by Ian Davies including Stu Cresswell and Christian Templin created this Mordheim suppliment to allow Mordheim gamers to also participate within the global campaign.

Specialist Arms
The Specialist Arms website was an attempt by some fans close to Games Workshop to not lose the Mordheim community after the old Specialist Games forum was shut down. It hosts all of the Fanatic e-zine editions that were released by Games Workshop containing many fan-made Mordheim rules (and fan-made material for other Specialist Games such as Blood Bowl).

Khemri
This is the web site for the original rules of the Khemri suppliment that was released in Town Cryer. Games Workshop made quite a few changes when they published Khemri in Town Cryer and not all were positive. This is a useful resource to have alongside the content from the Town Cryer.

Mordheim Revival Project
This is a website to keep an eye on. It has been created by Tom Bell (Brahm Tazoul) who used to be one of the Answer Mods for Mordheim and who released the Letters of the Damned e-zine for Mordheim. There is a promise that the Letters of the Damned may resume so hopefully the fresh, new material that is being promised will be released.

Mordheim Yahoo Group
This email group has existed since before the Mordheim box set was released. It is no longer active but is an archive of old material if you ever wanted to go searching. It also contains a lot of the PDF files that were released by Games Workshop from Town Cryer and Fanatic.


This is a selection that quickly came to mind when thinking of Mordheim material that is out there. If there is something that I have missed then please add a comment to let me know.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Returning to Mordheim

It has been a while but the lure of wyrdstone has attracted a fresh wave of explorers into the city of the damned. This year there are some new faces (LS, NG, AR and AS) joining the old crew (AA, JF, MD and BN). This campaign will be a training opportunity for the new recruits while allowing the rest of us to muck around  before things get serious. We will continue to use our house rules and will be playing in and around the city of Mordheim itself.

The first game was a large three-versus-three battle.

The forces of evil went up against the forces of good. The evil alliance was made up of NG (Beastmen Raiders), LS (Marauders of Chaos) and AA (Necrarch Undead) while the goodies were made up of MD (Shadow Elves), AR (Dwarf Treasure Hunters) and BN (Reiklander Mercenaries). The scenario was Treasure Hunt from the 'Chaos on the Streets' article found in the Mordheim Annual 2002 and was played on a  6' x 4' table.

Set Up
The good team managed to set up on the edges with the most wyrdstone. They also rolled to move first. This *should* have allowed them to start with some early momentum.

Round 1
The Marauders of Chaos set up last and had no wyrdstone nearby. Therefore the entire warband was put on the table within 12" (and direct line of site) of the entire Reiklander Mercenary warband. Without thinking the Reiklander Mercenaries with four Marksmen with crossbows stood firm but only succeeded in taking a single Warhound of Chaos out of action. In retaliation the Warhounds of Choas charged and dispatched the two Youngblood heroes. (The Reiklander Captain obviously had never encountered this warband before and did not realise that the warhounds were able to charge 14".)

The other warbands started fanning out to collect the loot.

Round 2
The Marksmen took out another Warhound of Chaos but two Marksmen were lost in the counter charge. The Necrarch vampire who had previously climbed to the top of a building to secure a shard of wyrdstone and was taken out of action by a Shadow Walker.

Round 3
The Reiklander Captain decided that losing four warriors was too much and called the retreat (failed rout test). The Abomination trundled out into the open towards the Dwarves.

Rounds 4, 5 and 6
The Dwarves charged into the Abomination which was a very bad idea. The Abomination made quick work of the Dwarves and successfully routed them (voluntary). Unfortunately the Necrarchs lost an Acolyte and also routed. Prior to their rout, the Centigor charged a Troll Slayer and was cut down.

Rounds 7, 8 and 9

The forces of chaos swarmed the Shadow Elves. The fleeing dwarves and humans last saw the five elves fighting valiently but the force of evil was too great empowered no doubt by the high concentration of wyrdstone in the area. Not one of the elves was ever seen again.

Aftermath

NG found found 8 shards. LS found found 4 shards. AA found 2 shards.The evil warbands chose to share the spoils of war evenly though (surprisingly) and so all three ended with 4 shards.

MD disbanded his Shadow Warriors after all five warriors were taken Out of Action and the Shadow Master died. The only other death was a Warhound of Chaos. Both Reiklander Youngblood heroes will miss their next battle (the wimps).

During exploration the Necrarch's found a Well (1 1) that looked interesting but an Acolyte only found poisoned water and will miss his next game. The Dwarfs found a Ruined Hovel (6 6). The Reiklanders found a vague Mordheim Map in an Overturned Cart (5 5) and also found a Ruined Hovel (6 6). The Marauders found a Straggler (4 4) and immediately sacrificed him to the dark gods. It is not known whether the Beastmen Raiders found anything of note.

The human sacrifice must have impressed one of the dark gods as the Marauder Chieftain received a mark of chaos. One of the Gors proved his worth by collecting wyrdstone and was promoted to be a hero.