Mordheim, Season3, Game 7

The club Mordheim campaign rumbles on, with all 6 players assembles for this months instalment. This was to be a dungeon delve, with us all trying to locate a certain piece of treasure, while trying to survive the denizens that lurked in the darkness.

Assembles were:

My Undead
Andy's Skaven
Dave's Marienburgers
Ian's dwarfs
Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar
Andy's Witch Hunters.

Protectorate of Sigmar

Dwarfs

Marienburgers

Undead

Witch Hunters

Skaven

We each started in one of 6 rooms, and all had to fight our way to the centre, defeat the residents and then make off with as much treasure as possible hoping that one of them will be the artefact that we are looking for.

I ended up sandwiched between Andy's Witch Hunters and Rory's POS, and decided to make my way for Rory, as he is worth more xp to me.  Early game went pretty typically by this point in the campaign;

• The Marienburgers and Witch Hunters engaged each other.
• The Dwarves started the long slow march through the dungeon.
• The Skaven threw out a screen of Giant Rats and ran ahead of everyone hovering up the treasure.
• The PoS and the Undead advanced toward each other.

That pretty much set the tone for most of the game. There are now 18 Skaven , and they just put a screen of giant rats out, while using their increased movement to hoover up any treasure and avoiding any fights.  This time the Witch hunters were victorious, seeing of the Marienburgers. The Dwarfs kept marching along, although they managed to get in contact with the Skaven this time.  the undead and PoS got into a pretty good scrap, with POS giving a good account of themselves and managing to take the Vampire out of action (he really has been utterly useless this campaign!) before deciding to retreat due to casualties. the Undead followed suit right after, carrying of the Vampire and prepping the sticky tape and staple gun, ready to get him back into action.

Late game and as soon as the Skaven had the required amount of casualties they left the board. With the Undead and PoS leaving to lick their wounds, and the Marienburgers had routed early doors this left only the dwarfs and the witch hunters on the board. A stalemate ensued, with neither of the cowardly scumbags warbands willing to engage the other.  In the end they agreed to call it a draw, with no one claiming victory. Both warbands should hang their cowardly heads in shame!

In the end my undead had a terrible night, with everyone, but especially the vampire  fluffing his attacks something rotten, and gaining a chest wound for his trouble.  No permanent casualties though which was good , and one Ghoul was promoted to a hero bringing me up to the maximum 6. the campaign is approaching the end now, with only a couple of games to go, and the clear frontrunners are currently the Skaven, although they don't actually do much and have yet to win a game, which is very in character. The big question now is whether or not to buy a some armour for my weakened vampire, or to invest in a couple more ghouls. The ghouls will probably be more effective (wouldn't be hard!) but I feel I should try and keep this vampire alive having already got one killed in the campaign.

So far we have played 8 games and the win tally so far is:

Undead - 4

Dwarfs - 2

Witch Hunters - 1

 and 1 draw.

There are 3 games left, I think plus any raids that anyone wants to conduct so we are definitely on the home stretch.

Next week I am giving Age of Sigmar another bash. This time though I am using my Orcs and Goblins as I have a bigger collection of them and can make a slightly more balance force than my dark elves.

Mordheim, Season 3, game 6.5

Why 6.5? THis isn't strictly one of the games that will make up the 10 game campaign. This is a side show to that, where as the victor of lasts week game I had the option to go and raid someone elses camp.  As Dave had the warband with the highest rating and had been rather successful lately I opted to pick on him, in the hope of bringing him down a peg or two.

The scenario was simple.  Dave set up his Marienburgers in the middle of the table, surrounded by treasure tokens and loot crates, and we all deployed round him. Last man standing wins.  Deployment ended up very similar to last time, with my Undead sandwiched between Andy's Skaven mob and Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar, with the Witch Hunters on the opposite side of the table, and Ian's dwarves sandwiched between the Witch Hunters and Protectorate of Sigmar (PoS).

Early game saw the Skaven and undead make a dash for the table, while the Marienburgers tried to exit assault the Witch hunters, who bottled it and decided to hide behind a hill.  The Dwarves began the long slow plod towards the centre, but still managed to snipe the PoS of the table. 

The Skaven and the Undead managed to reach the centre of table, bagging a couple of treasure tokens. The Skaven couldn't decide whether or not to have a bash at my undead or to go after the Marienburgers, trapping them against the Witch Hunters.  They made a half hearted attempt at the undead, but the prospect of trying pass all those fear tests on the low Skaven leadership put him off and he changed direction and went after the Marienburgers.

By this time the fight between the Marienburgers and the Witch Hunters had reached its peak, with the witch hunters taking down a fair few of the Marienburgers but suffering heavy losses in the process, including their ogre mercenary.  The Witch hunters decided enough was enough and called it a night, trying to minimise their losses.  The Skaven then pile in to the Marienburgers, with the Rat Ogre making an awful mess. Dave decided to fight on though and with some lucky break tests managed to fight on. This cost him dear though as by this time the Skaven and dwarfs were upon them and they were wiped out to a man.

This left the Skaven, dwarfs and undead on the table, and the skaven then decided that enough was enough and also left the field, leaving it to the dwarfs and undead (again). The Dwarfs headed for cover, trying to get into a position where they could use their crossbowman (dwarf?) to snipe at the undead.  They hadn't reckoned on the 18 inch charge of the Dire Wolf though, and it burst from the back of the undead to pin the dwarf missile troops in combat and stop it firing, allowing the other undead to advance, and then charge the dwarf position.  Another dwarf went down to the undead charge and at this point Ian decided enough was enough and legged it, leaving the undead victorious.

So another win for the undead, more through luck in deployment than anything else.  I ended up between the skaven and PoS. the PoS were out of the game pretty quick and the skaven don't really want to engage the undead, and I'm not fast enough to catch them. This left me in a bit of  vacuum, despite getting into the centre of the board pretty quickly.  Everyone else got stuck in pretty quickly, apart from the dwarfs so once again we were left on the board to fight it out.

I suffered no casualties in this game, and got a good haul of loot so my warband is starting to look pretty healthy again.  Most other people suffered one or two casualties, with the Witch Hunters rather amusingly losing their hard fought for Ogre. 

My warband is starting to look pretty good, with the dregs getting quite tough. The necromancer remains a source of embarrassment though as he regularly fails to achieve anything.  We have resorted to sending him to do all the risky tasks in between games, and sure enough while being lowered down a well looking for treasure he picked up a disease and will need to sit out the next game. I'm not sure I will notice him missing, to be honest.

Apart from that the campaign is starting to balance out some more, with Dave's Marienburgers coming out of the game a lot better than they should have considering every model was taken out of action, although his casualties were enough that he warband is now down to a more manageable level. The witch hunters lost their ogre, which makes a hefty dent in their abilities and the dwarfs lost another model, which is keeping them on an even footing.  The skaven remain a worry, as canny use of disposable giant rats are helping to keep them in the campaign. That coupled with their speed and ability to hoover up treasure tokens so they are rapidly moving ahead of everyone else.

Mordhein Season 3, Game 5

A short turnaround for our Mordheim campaign, with only two weeks between games.

 

All the usual suspects were there, with the campaign starting to have a two tier feel to it.

 

The Witch hunters, Dwarfs and Marienburgers all seem to be doing quite well, with the Skaven slightly behind them, and bringing up the rear are my Undead, sans Vampire and Rory's protectorate of Sigmar (PoS). 



Undead

Witch Hunters

Protectorate of Sigmar

Dwarf Treasure Seekers

Marienburgers

Skaven (they had had their first move by the time I took this so had spread out a bit)

 

Warband ratings range from over 200 fro Dave's Marienburgers to as low as 80 for the PoS. I was definitely in the lower end of the pile with a rating of just over 100, with the others all floating around the 160 mark.

 

The mission this time was a search and grab, with some Dire Wolves and Warlocks on the board to make things a bit more complicated. We also changed the table around slightly this time, using a 6'x6' table with everyone deploying equidistant from the objectives. This would make for a much fairer game.

 

Deployment saw me sandwiched between the witch hunters and the PoS, which was not exactly ideal.

 

Early game saw a cautious advance from the Undead, trying o stay out of trouble and just get through the game unscathed, while elsewhere the Dwarfs and Skaven got stuck into each other, and the Marienburgers began sniping at the PoS. 

Undead advance with zombie trailing along behind

The Undead managed to shoot down one Dire Wolf before the Witch hunters engaged them, and came of it pretty badly. the Witch hunters sent in their war hounds first to pin the undead in place, survived the Undead counter attack and then annoyingly passed all their fear tests to launch an all out assault.  Two ghouls and a Dire wolf went down to the assault, leaving the undead in a bad position.

Witch Hunters gang up on the Necromancer

Just before the witch hunter assault.

Elsewhere the PoS had fled the board after losing two casualties to shooting from the Marienburgers, and bizarrely the dwarfs failed a rout test after a couple of casualties, surprising everyone with an early bath.

 

At this point in the evening I received a phone call and had to dash off to deal with a domestic emergency, effectively meaning that my Undead left the board without the opportunity to retaliate to the Witch hunters assault.

 

I am unsure what happened after that but from I can gather the witch hunters carried the  day, with the Skaven taking an early bath and the Marienburgers narrowly missing out on victory.

 

So a short evenings gaming, and another minor disaster as two ghouls id not survive the evening. The only good thing was that I managed to save enough money to resurrect my vampire, although at this late stage in the campaign he is nowhere the force he could have been.  the undead will struggle on, but with only 9 "men" they are definitely on the back foot.  if only the necromancer could actually manage to cast his spell when needed.....

Mordheim Season 3, Part 4: Jailbreak

Instalment four of our Mordheim campaign saw a return to a more urban environment with a chance to break some prisoners out of prison.  There were six prisoners, and each one was  a potential hired sword for whomever managed to free them from the jail, and any that you didn't want could be dispatched.

 

We had the usual suspects this week:

 

My Undead

Andy's Witch Hunters

Ian's Dwarfs

Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar

Andy's Skaven

Dave's Marienburgers

 

 

The terrain was quite dense and the random deployment put me away in the far corner, with Dave's Marienburgers and Ian's dwarves best placed to get to the prison.

Early game saw Dave's warband make straight for the prison, and as he started the closest he was first to reach it and started rifling through the cells to pick the people that he wanted fro his warband. 

Sneaking about

The Skaven were next and piled in through a door, causing a massive scrap to break out in the prison.

 

Everyone else advanced cautiously, with the POS deciding to have a go at the dwarfs, and the Witch Hunters sneaking through the ruins towards my Vampires. I decided at this point that I was not going to get anywhere near the mission objective, as all Dave had to do was see of the Skaven and then voluntarily rout, carrying off the new recruits. This is pretty much what happened. After a few rounds of fighting Andy's Skaven failed their break test and legged it, leaving Dave in the prison, with a good defensive position and all the new recruits he could ask for. He hung around for a while just for fun, with his archers managing to take a couple of Witch Hunters out of action.  Meanwhile the POS were coming off second best to the Dwarfs and soon decided enough was enough and left the field before they took too many casualties.

Zombies lagging behind as usual.

Meanwhile the witch hunters had engaged the Undead, and despite some early successes from the vampire and band he got cocky and exposed himself, falling to a lucky critical hit from the witch hunter captain, and then finished of by one of his lackeys.  The Undead were not pleased about this and managed to see of the remaining Witch Hunters in short order, although the loss of the Vampire was going to be a problem.

Sodding Witch Hunters

 

This left only the Dwarfs and the Undead on the board (again!), and as the dwarfs were pretty much untouched and I had lost my best model I didn't fancy my chances much. I decided to stay out of range and shoot them and see if my life stealer spell could get some success. Alas it was not to be and the shooting was ineffectual and typically the spell was never successfully cast and eventually I decided that enough was enough and quite the field.  

Another shot, just to remind me what to go for next game.

This was followed by bad news as it turns out that my Vampire had died from his injuries! Plus I lost a couple more zombies. The loss of the vampire is a disaster as the Undead warband is built around the vampire and without him it will struggle.  Luckily the Undead are allowed to rehire a vampire if he gets killed during the campaign but at 110gold he is very expensive and I will not be able to rehire him until the start of game 6 at earliest, if I am lucky. This will only leave four campaign games left, which is not enough time for him to gain any decent experience and hence advances so I think that will be the end of eth Undead as a viable contender in this campaign.  

The rest of my heroes all gained advances, and my Dregs are now starting look like they might be able to achieve something, but without the Vampire around the warband will struggle.

 

Still great fun, even though there was never any reasonable chance of me succeeding in the mission from the outset due to my deployment and Dave's Marienburgers getting in there quick.

Mordheim Season3, Game 3

Game three of our Mordheim campaign, and we were all trailing into the woods after the Dwarfs, who as the victors in the last game had decided to go deeper in search of treasure. 

We had all the six campaign members this week:

My Undead
Rory Protectorate of Sigmar (PoS)
Andy's Skaven
Ian's Dwarfs
Dave's Marienburg Mercenaries
Andy's Witchhunters

Undead

Marienburg Mercenaries

Skaven Warphunters

Dwarf Treasure Seekers

Witchhunters

Protectorate of Sigmar

The board was mostly woodland, with a few hills and a single hut in the centre.  There was a witch living in the hut, guarding some loot, along with a couple of Dire Wolves. The first person to approach within 8 inches of the hut would trigger the witches break for the nearest random table edge, fighting anyone who gets in her way.

The game started with everyone advancing cautiously.  I ended up deployed in a corner next to the Skaven, and after a quick chat we decided that we would ignore each other so that we could both actually get a chance to have a decent evenings gaming.  I decided to head towards the PoS as they were apparently my nemesis and I would get double experience for any kills.  The Skaven made straight for the hut.  The Witch hunters also went straight for the hut and due to where they deployed triggered the witches escape. Ian's dwarves began the long slog towards the centre of the board, but with a move of 3 inches they were going to take a while.  Dave surprised everyone by advancing into the centre of the board.

The witch made a dash for it and as it turned out they ran straight into the Witch hunters, who set about dealing with her.  Meanwhile the Skaven approached the hut, and my undead made for the PoS.

The Dwarfs kept slogging towards the centre, while Dave also kept advancing.

Mid game saw the Undead lay into the PoS, putting them out of the game, The Skaven found the treasure in the witches hut but ended up coming of worst as the dwarfs finally made it to the centre of the table. 

The Witchhunters had finally slogged it across the table towards Dave's Marienburgers but decided under pressure of missile fire and a charge from his opponent that they did not want to hang about so left, leaving only four warbands on the board.

Having recovered a fair chunk of treasure and starting to come under pressure from the Dwarfs Andy's Skaven also decided to leave. This left the Dwarfs, Marienburgers and Undead on the board.

The Undead had been approaching the Dwarfs, and were now getting into assault range.  The Dwarfs decided that they would form a defensive line and rely on their natural resilience to survive the attack.  The Marienburgers at this point were happy to sit and watch, while sending a few archers off to try and steal some treasure from some zombies skulking at the side of the board.

Zombies "running" away from some nasty people

The Undead had a couple of rounds of shooting at the Dwarfs but this proved ineffective so I decided to get stuck in, even though I expected to come of second best.  The advantage of making that charge was that I could pic my targets, so I ganged up on a few of the Dwarfs, making sure that I took them out of action.  Ian decided enough was enough and after a few casualties decided to leave.

Chasing down the Marienburgers

That left it down to my Undead and Dave's Marienburgers.  There was a chase across the table as Dave reverted o type and started running away again, but he eventually ran out of space and formed a line, ready to attack (why does everyone always  form a line and wait?).  My Undead charged in and in a couple of turns Dave was past his break point and left the field, leaving the Undead victorious.

A nice win for the Undead, with the Vampire finally killing something. A costly one though as I lost a Ghoul, Dire Wolf and Zombie in the post game pages, although I gained some very useful advances on my warband.  I could only afford to replace the ghoul and get some bit of armour for my warband so will be slightly understrength for the next game.  That shouldn't be too much of  a problem though as I got a triple 6 in the exploration phase and managed to pick up a free hired sword for the next game. Given the limitation on what he Undead can hire I opted for an Ogre Bodyguard, so all in all not a bad game really. Once again this was played in a light hearted manner, with plenty of chat going on, which makes for a very enjoyable evening.

The campaign is shaping up nicely, with players being a lot more careful this time. In the last campaign there were usually a couple of players out in the first couple of turns but people are being a lot more careful this time, which is making for much more interesting games.

Next week sees the conclusion of our Chain of Command campaign, "Here Com the Yanks" and we will see if the depleted American Platoon have enough men left to break through the German lines.

Also this Saturday is Claymore, at Telford College Edinburgh, and I am planning on popping along with the kids fro a while. Its usually a fun day out for us all.

Mordheim, Season3 Game 1

Our third Mordheim campaign kicked off this week, and I was very happy to be returning to one of my favourite games.

This time we had seven players signed up, with 6 attending the opening game.  Following on from the last campaign, where the evil Necromancer Alex managed to evade our warbands as we all destroyed each a new set of "heroes" are now hell bent on bringing him down.

We had a good spread of warbands this time round, including:

Skaven Warphunters

Marienburg Mercenaries

Witchhunters

Dwarf Treasure Hunters

Protectorate of Sigmar

and I had brought my Undead.

Ghouls and Dregs watch as the Vampire races ahead.

Loads of Marienburgers!

The scenario was a straight token grab, but as usual with Rory's games there was a narrative twist. We were all searching a recently raided town for the body of a witch.  One of the treasures that we collected would turn out to be what we were looking for, determined randomly at the end of the game. In addition to this there were some flagellants wandering in the area, with a number being on the table at the start of the game and also each player having a chance for one to enter the table from their deployment zone every odd numbered turn.

Deployment was random, with the Skaven and Marienburgers both deployed on one edge of the table, the Protectorate of Sigmar (PoS from now on!) and Dwarfs on the opposite short edge with myself and the Witchhunters opposing each other along the long table edge.

Early game saw some moving about as I cautiously moved into the centre of the table trying to collect as many treasure tokens as possible. On my left the Skaven and Marienburgers pretty much got straight down to business and started fighting each other from turn 2, with the Dwarfs and Witchhunters doing the same on the other side of the table.  The PoS moved up the centre also, trying to pick off any opponents using their long bowmen. 

Mid game and both the Skaven and Marienburgers had reached their break point, but miraculously neither gave any ground as they both passed multiple break tests.  The Witchhunters discovered that while there were not to many dwarfs on the table they were all very tough and started to rack up the casualties. 

PoS on the advance

In the centre I cautiously advanced through the ruins, managing to kill a wandering flagellant and pick up a third treasure token before advancing towards the PoS.  The PoS were still moving towards my Undead, while trying to take out some of the Witchhunters as well.  

Late game and the Marienburgers finally failed a break test, leaving the field, and the Skaven decided to follow suit in their turn having managed to secure a treasure token.   The Witchhunters were down to their last man and finally gave up and fled, but not before reducing the dwarfs to their break point, who dully failed their break test and also left the field.

In the centre after an early charge from the Dire Wolf my Undead got stuck in to the PoS, and generally had the better of it, thanks mainly to failed fear tests from the enemy.  Rory saw that things were beginning to turn against him and decided to quit the field leaving the Vampire lord and his minions victorious.

Undead Wolf (played with great skill by a beasthound) leads the charge into the PoS

The Undead lurk in an alley, waiting for the moment to charge.

There are a lot of dogs in warbands this year, resulting in a big dogfight in the middle of the table.

So game 1 and a victory for my undead, including a hefty treasure haul and no casualties so a pretty good start to the campaign.  I dot think any warbands suffered too badly apart from the Skaven, who lost their sorcerer and Witchhunters who suffered some pretty grievous wounds.

The game was basically three smaller games played out on a large table, with everyone pairing off and fighting it out, and two of the pairings ending in a stalemate as both warbands went out of the game. Rory and I were the last two standing mainly because we were a bit further apart and were more cautious in our advance meaning that we came to blows much later in the game, so more down to lucky deployment and procrastination than any real skill.  One thing I would note is that once again my main character, the vampire Lord proved useless ad failed to do much of anything despite easily being the most powerful character on the board. I hope this does not set a precedent fro the campaign as a whole as without him preforming it is going to be an uphill struggle for my Undead, especially against those Dwarfs.

A good start to the campaign, with everyone staying on the table for a good five turns or so, with the 2nd instalment to follow in a month or so.