Mordheim - Back to the Cursed City

Over the last couple of weekends I have enjoyed playing Mordheim again.  Full credit for this goes to a good friend of mine, Dan.  Dan is down this way from Auckland doing some training and in his little free time of the weekends we have started a new campaign in the ruins of Mordheim.

Dan has also brought all his homemade terrain with him.  His very nice collection paired with my vast amount of terrain sets, mean we can cover the table pretty thoroughly with loads to spare.

It's really nice to feel the warband evolution with these skirmish games as after 4 games in I have a couple models developing a 'personality' which I'll touch on further in a moment.

When choosing warbands and restricting ourselves to the main book, Dwarves and Orcs and Goblins I chose the humans for simplicity.  Looking over my options and future skill sets I went for Middenheim gaining the Strength bonus on my heroes straight away.  Dan went straight for Cult of the Possessed and for our first game we rolled Surprise Attack.

Now this scenario had Dan with only part of his warband on the table and he had to spread them out.  I then deployed onto a random table edge and got the one closest to two of the Cult's isolated members.  After a first turn charge on these two cultists and beating them into the ground Dan immediately routed and so my Warband was named, The Dirty Gankers!

When choosing models I had a look over some of my random pieces and selected some old Confrontation miniatures I had painted years ago.  They had a variety of weaponry and fit the Assassin theme I was now going for.  I had already made a handful of Empire militia with hooded Wood Elf heads so they were perfect as well.

So in my four games I have ganked Dan's Cult, followed up with routing him in a Street Brawl, my Captain Corrus has slain a young Chimera while Cody's Undead warband got put back in the grave by Dan's cult and finally voluntarily routed as Dan's Cult and Stu's Greenskin Warband, the Dirty Skids allied against me after I saw off Aaron's Undead.  Quite an eventful few games.

Now individuals showing their prowess have certainly been Corrus the Captain, armed with dual swords, heavy armour, shield, a lucky charm and now a Dueling Pistol for good measure.  He has put a handful of enemies out of the game (starting strength 4 helps!) and as I mentioned against all odds killed a young Chimera in the Monster Hunt. 

Brio the Youngblood in turn has not had the best experience in the city yet.  This young man suffered a terrible leg wound early on, reducing his movement permanently.  Not to be stopped he picked up the Sprint skill to compensate - triple movement when running and charging lets him keep up with the able bodied folk and least.  Now fate has cursed him with an Old Battle Wound as well!  This means on a 1 his gimpy leg keeps him from the action all together.  At least he is hardened now after charging a mutant across a rickety walkway saw him put out of action, he gained immunity to Fear though so he is learning from his trials. 

 Esante the shadow killer

The last real member of note is Esante.  Esante has used his dueling pistol and sword to good effect in every game, this cocky duelist from Estalia has done serious damage to members of the Cult though not without some costs.  Esante earned Hardened early on, this made sense with the close quarter fighting against the children of chaos, then after a serious blow to the head he was cursed with what some may call 'Stupidity'!  This has had little effect yet though as if he is forced to walk ahead and do little else it merely represents his swagger and disregard for danger in the ruined city.  This was proven in the last game as he charged a Squig only then to be counter charged by the Orc boss and a Troll!  Surely this would be the end of Esante, but no.  Esante dodged the greenskins attacks with his Step Aside ability and deft parries from his sword.  He then proceeded to take not only the Squig but also the Orc Boss out of the fight!  Luckily the chance to voluntarily route came soon after and Corrus called the retreat saving Esante from further assault from the Troll.  Esante would go on to berate Corrus as surely a fighter of Esante's skill would have bested the Troll in time.  I will point out that when controlling Esante I do talk in a silly accent which funnily enough reminds the other players of Inigo Montoya.

So these games will continue over the next few months giving us a nice faster alternative to full scale Warhammer Fantasy and 40k when time is short.  I look forward to painting up the other members of the warband and seeing what rivalries develop.  Good news after the last game is that aside from my hired Elf Ranger being killed by Dire Wolves - oh dear, how sad, never mind.  Esante finally found another dueling pistol so can fire each turn now,  this simple fact will put the fear of God into the other warbands, at least that's what Esante will tell himself.