Had a great game of Mordheim today eighth in our campaign
Basic idea was we were at a small town on the outskirts of the great destroyed city that had a river dock, we were about to go off sailing trying to find an island upriver which was said to hold a great treasure
The goblin who had found and read the message on the wall in the last big multiplayer game knew the way and we were all following
The Rats had somehow managed to take over command of the town and the Goblin boss, the Vampire, the Middenheimer boss and the Pirate were in prison together( makings of a great joke there) after a night of drinking. The Rats were acting as town guards until the goblin could be tortured into revealing what he knew. My Dwarves had just made it to the town, too slow to make it to the town early and were negotiating with the Human guard master who was now in league with the dirty rats. The dwarves couldn’t move until they had convinced him to let them pass. I had asked if my top negotiating team of slayers and ogre could assist but apparently not.
The other players forces had arrived to stage a jail break, game on.
The table including the town walls the rats had to defend
Looks simple but was actually a very good tense game
Ships waiting to be taken to mystery island
The vampires boat of the dead and Pirates with their ship the good ship rogered jolly
The Middenheimers, their boss expected losses so decided he only needed a small ship
The dirty stinking rats and their ratamaran, this ship was made to house an infestation
The brave Dwarves and the goblin raft
Starting point for my Dwarves, stuck in negotiations with the guard master. Was going to negotiate with an axe but after seeing the guard master hold his own for several turns locked in combat with a rat ogre, liche priest, wight king and a horde of neredowells I was happy I decided to negotiate
I was surrounded by
Vampire blood knights in one corner
The middenheimers who were dressed very like the now defunct bretonoian force including the dreaded and literally armless black knight
Rats who had to split their forces to defend the town including this bunch who set up outside the gates when they saw where the dwarves were pointing their x bows, highest warband rating acted as guards. The rats were one point higher than my Dwarves which was lucky as several of my lads would never have made it across the board if they had had to start at the gates
James of the nosoul who is acting as self appointed campaign master, he loves the power, has based all the scenarios so far on being able to run quickly cos he hates my little lads.
Pitates in the third corner, not many of em but they are highly skilled and carry a cannon around
In the last corner the forest goblins, they and the middenheimers had set up rather close to the docks but needed to rescue their boss or abandon them to the town.
Other than the rats and the dwarf leaders all the bosses were in the gaol next to the goblins, the forest goblin shaman looked like he was in two minds about rescuing the boss or accepting the sudden promotion to leader and buggering off early on his sailing hols
The goblins started the slaughter by hitting a rat hero with a flaming arrow
Action started going on all around as my lads argued unsuccessfully to be let past, even promising to assist the town rather than the rats who were showing why there needs to be so many born in such a short time.
The vamps sent in their hell hounds as usual to draw the enemy towards their hard hitters
The rats also decided, after much goading by the rest of us, to turn on the master of the town who had infuriated them by dressing as the Pied Piper
Nosoul now drunk on power decided he had had enough of everyone ignoring his carefully crafted scenario and killing each other instead so he revealed a nasty surprise to jolly us along.
Bunch of undead archers, not good but not terrible, they hit on a 5 plus always but as they were only strength 3 and as most of the warbands now bristled with more rabbits feet than your average burrow we were fairly safe.
Bunch of skeletal warriors and a liche priest in the grave yard, more of a threat especially to the vampires who were now caught between rats and the skeletons
Cavalry wing with a mounted liche priest, both of these spell wielders could turn you to stone
Fortunately the guard master seeing what was coming rans for his life and my dwarves started the very slow race to the ship. We now had a set number of turns to escape before the town was considered totally under the command of the undead.
Needless to say everyone else also ran, rule said we could march if within 8” of an enemy if we passed a leadership test if not we could only walk. Most realised that a good way to get a few more inches towards safety was to charge an enemy up board. One truly diabolical player realised that you could declare a charge against an enemy clearly out of reach and not only get up table but not risk death in combat, what a cad and a dwarf to boot
Dwarf X Bows and Pirate hand gunners formed a firing line to slow down the cavalry who with their massive movement were a real threat.
Vampires tried to hack down the rats to get passed
Wight charged the guard master who had fought a rat ogre for two turns wight hit twice but rolled double one to wound him
Next turn the combat went on
Wight knocked down the guard master, he was actually on the floor more often than his feet but refused to die.
But to a round of applause and laughter from all, well nearly all, another double one to wound
Dwarves were holding up the cavalry and fighting in the shade of the missile fire from atop the pub.
Dwarves who had decided to forget everything to make it back to the ship, actually the only way they could make it back in time, and the pirates scramble past each other. A truce was in place or this would have got very messy. A truce that may not have continued if the dwarves had seen the pirate captain peg it from the gaol with his latest crew member a trussed up goblin boss, this is the boss who knew the location of the island.
The dwarves ogre little tony being number one much faster so he could make up more ground and number two much harder looking meaning no one wanted to get in his way to try to stop him made it to the dwarf ship first. The dwarf ship was located closer to the gaol than the pirate ship and Baldison the dwarf noble had no problem with allowing the pirates to board it, they would have had a hard time working it if they had decided to take it rather than wait for their allies. However he thought it prudent to have several hundreds of pounds of flesh holding a couple of hundred pounds of spiked club on board first to look after the keys
The goblin boss who had, as had all the bosses, been trying to convince the guard in the gaol to let him out for the whole game but the pirate captain had negotiated his freedom before him and promptly killed the guard and took over negotiations.
Freedom for the island info, it is not clear how these negotiations went but the goblins fled first in their raft watched by a dwarf submersible.
The vampire made it to the pirate captains ship after escaping from the gaol early and deciding the pirate ship looked more to his taste and was also closer by four inches so he decided to stay on it arguing it was too difficult to hop over onto the other, he only as a movement of 10” after all. He then waited for several turns for the rest of his blood knights to arrive but they were delayed, many permenantly.
Archers picked off the unlucky
But left the wight king alone as they were having a great time mocking his dice rolling abilities, three turns of double one to wound was class
Dwarves ogre lowered the gang plank for the rest of the guys, most had made it and now took up firing positions to kill off a few rats to gain some xp and a few cavalry who were holding up the last few x bows and charging the pirates.
Ratamaran and the middenheimers, now in their spacious boat, left the dock the rats who it is fair to say had a hard game were down to just two rats
Geoff one of the last dwarves still trying to make it back to the ship
Dwarves were powering up but wouldn’t leave until all was lost for Geoff who was desperately trying to make it to the dock, he chose to leave combat a couple of times risking a free hit just to get closer. I shouldn’t worry really as in all great stories the plucky hero makes it just in the nick of time.
Pirates and their captive dash for the ship still currently held by the vampire, up ahead the last of the vampires forces were fighting through to their boss who combat monster he is was doing his best to help by sitting still eating blood sausage sarnies and sipping the fine red wine found on the pirate ship.
In the grave yard a fantastic bit of play was underway, the three skeletons of the vampires just like the in best zombie moves were quietly trying to sneak past the liche priests skeletons hoping they would take them for their own. Alas it was not to be and they decided they didn’t like the smell of these more musty bones
Last charges went in with little effect, the vampire who had laughed from about turn four that he had a great ship now saw how many of the pirates had made it back and quietly slipped back to his LST instead.
It was declared that any models who had not made it back to the dock on the last turn would potentially be lost
Geoff got hit and wounded and took a stunned effect, as he had a helmet he had a four up roll to change it to a knocked down result meaning he could get up and walk 3” back to the dock and just make it. Nope he failed and was stunned so could only roll over on his turn and crawl one and a half inches leaving him, excuse the pun, just a little short.
The dwarves last turn gambit of deploying their gangplank was ruled illegal, as I have real life navy experience and nosoul is ex army again I claimed unfair but was overruled. Three x bows were still not safe
With that the game was up
Goblins had made it away with a significant part of their force but had temparily lost the boss, pirates have a special skill of pressganging
Middenheimers were headed upriver mostly intact but with a few casualties
The Dwarves were underway but had lost some of the x bows which is disappointing as the x bows are the speed of the dwarves, you can outrun a dwarf easily but their bolts are a bit faster
Vampire was safe but had lost significant followers including a few hero’s I believe one who may have previously been armed with a double handed weapon had lost an arm
Pirates with a new smelly captive had lost a couple of hand gunners who would be missed but were away
As for the poor old rats they suffered mightily from their earlier campaign successes and were decimated, two made it cleanly away but many more died including the rat ogre that had been taken out in two previous games but survived in the recovery phase. This time it was dead for good along with an unreported number of fellow rats
It was particularly hard on everyone as any henchmen now taken out only survived on the roll of a five or six and heroes had to roll twice on the recovery table which lead to many losses. These losses couldn’t be made up either as we were not allowed to buy new forces or roll for warpstone.
Great game though and very tense for what on the face of it was a simple game. Thanks to James, nosoul, for organising and everyone else for a great time. Special thanks also to Colin the owner of Janco’s for making the docks specially just for this one off game and for staying open an hour late on a Sunday so we could finish.
A very sad looking flotilla made its way up the river often throwing overboard sad humanoid shaped sacks. The pirate ship was shadowed very closely by an odd long necked creature with single eye, Baldison trusted no one.
Final word from the dwarf book of grudges
Many thanks again to James who had carefully measured and calculated to ensure I had literally just enough movement to make it from my start point to my ship in the games duration as long as I gave up all my other actions. Thankfully my ship the mighty steam submersible Warbeard had been specifically placed at the one dock I could make it to which was mightily kind of him. Oh wait let me think, hadn't my ship been placed there for no other reason than because the base I had made it on just happened to make it only fit in one place. Or in other words my entire warband avoided death because of the size a particular table mat designer just happened to choose, thanks.
The grudge book grows larger
Basic idea was we were at a small town on the outskirts of the great destroyed city that had a river dock, we were about to go off sailing trying to find an island upriver which was said to hold a great treasure
The goblin who had found and read the message on the wall in the last big multiplayer game knew the way and we were all following
The Rats had somehow managed to take over command of the town and the Goblin boss, the Vampire, the Middenheimer boss and the Pirate were in prison together( makings of a great joke there) after a night of drinking. The Rats were acting as town guards until the goblin could be tortured into revealing what he knew. My Dwarves had just made it to the town, too slow to make it to the town early and were negotiating with the Human guard master who was now in league with the dirty rats. The dwarves couldn’t move until they had convinced him to let them pass. I had asked if my top negotiating team of slayers and ogre could assist but apparently not.
The other players forces had arrived to stage a jail break, game on.
The table including the town walls the rats had to defend
Looks simple but was actually a very good tense game
Ships waiting to be taken to mystery island
The vampires boat of the dead and Pirates with their ship the good ship rogered jolly
The Middenheimers, their boss expected losses so decided he only needed a small ship
The dirty stinking rats and their ratamaran, this ship was made to house an infestation
The brave Dwarves and the goblin raft
Starting point for my Dwarves, stuck in negotiations with the guard master. Was going to negotiate with an axe but after seeing the guard master hold his own for several turns locked in combat with a rat ogre, liche priest, wight king and a horde of neredowells I was happy I decided to negotiate
I was surrounded by
Vampire blood knights in one corner
The middenheimers who were dressed very like the now defunct bretonoian force including the dreaded and literally armless black knight
Rats who had to split their forces to defend the town including this bunch who set up outside the gates when they saw where the dwarves were pointing their x bows, highest warband rating acted as guards. The rats were one point higher than my Dwarves which was lucky as several of my lads would never have made it across the board if they had had to start at the gates
James of the nosoul who is acting as self appointed campaign master, he loves the power, has based all the scenarios so far on being able to run quickly cos he hates my little lads.
Pitates in the third corner, not many of em but they are highly skilled and carry a cannon around
In the last corner the forest goblins, they and the middenheimers had set up rather close to the docks but needed to rescue their boss or abandon them to the town.
Other than the rats and the dwarf leaders all the bosses were in the gaol next to the goblins, the forest goblin shaman looked like he was in two minds about rescuing the boss or accepting the sudden promotion to leader and buggering off early on his sailing hols
The goblins started the slaughter by hitting a rat hero with a flaming arrow
Action started going on all around as my lads argued unsuccessfully to be let past, even promising to assist the town rather than the rats who were showing why there needs to be so many born in such a short time.
The vamps sent in their hell hounds as usual to draw the enemy towards their hard hitters
The rats also decided, after much goading by the rest of us, to turn on the master of the town who had infuriated them by dressing as the Pied Piper
Nosoul now drunk on power decided he had had enough of everyone ignoring his carefully crafted scenario and killing each other instead so he revealed a nasty surprise to jolly us along.
Bunch of undead archers, not good but not terrible, they hit on a 5 plus always but as they were only strength 3 and as most of the warbands now bristled with more rabbits feet than your average burrow we were fairly safe.
Bunch of skeletal warriors and a liche priest in the grave yard, more of a threat especially to the vampires who were now caught between rats and the skeletons
Cavalry wing with a mounted liche priest, both of these spell wielders could turn you to stone
Fortunately the guard master seeing what was coming rans for his life and my dwarves started the very slow race to the ship. We now had a set number of turns to escape before the town was considered totally under the command of the undead.
Needless to say everyone else also ran, rule said we could march if within 8” of an enemy if we passed a leadership test if not we could only walk. Most realised that a good way to get a few more inches towards safety was to charge an enemy up board. One truly diabolical player realised that you could declare a charge against an enemy clearly out of reach and not only get up table but not risk death in combat, what a cad and a dwarf to boot
Dwarf X Bows and Pirate hand gunners formed a firing line to slow down the cavalry who with their massive movement were a real threat.
Vampires tried to hack down the rats to get passed
Wight charged the guard master who had fought a rat ogre for two turns wight hit twice but rolled double one to wound him
Next turn the combat went on
Wight knocked down the guard master, he was actually on the floor more often than his feet but refused to die.
But to a round of applause and laughter from all, well nearly all, another double one to wound
Dwarves were holding up the cavalry and fighting in the shade of the missile fire from atop the pub.
Dwarves who had decided to forget everything to make it back to the ship, actually the only way they could make it back in time, and the pirates scramble past each other. A truce was in place or this would have got very messy. A truce that may not have continued if the dwarves had seen the pirate captain peg it from the gaol with his latest crew member a trussed up goblin boss, this is the boss who knew the location of the island.
The dwarves ogre little tony being number one much faster so he could make up more ground and number two much harder looking meaning no one wanted to get in his way to try to stop him made it to the dwarf ship first. The dwarf ship was located closer to the gaol than the pirate ship and Baldison the dwarf noble had no problem with allowing the pirates to board it, they would have had a hard time working it if they had decided to take it rather than wait for their allies. However he thought it prudent to have several hundreds of pounds of flesh holding a couple of hundred pounds of spiked club on board first to look after the keys
The goblin boss who had, as had all the bosses, been trying to convince the guard in the gaol to let him out for the whole game but the pirate captain had negotiated his freedom before him and promptly killed the guard and took over negotiations.
Freedom for the island info, it is not clear how these negotiations went but the goblins fled first in their raft watched by a dwarf submersible.
The vampire made it to the pirate captains ship after escaping from the gaol early and deciding the pirate ship looked more to his taste and was also closer by four inches so he decided to stay on it arguing it was too difficult to hop over onto the other, he only as a movement of 10” after all. He then waited for several turns for the rest of his blood knights to arrive but they were delayed, many permenantly.
Archers picked off the unlucky
But left the wight king alone as they were having a great time mocking his dice rolling abilities, three turns of double one to wound was class
Dwarves ogre lowered the gang plank for the rest of the guys, most had made it and now took up firing positions to kill off a few rats to gain some xp and a few cavalry who were holding up the last few x bows and charging the pirates.
Ratamaran and the middenheimers, now in their spacious boat, left the dock the rats who it is fair to say had a hard game were down to just two rats
Geoff one of the last dwarves still trying to make it back to the ship
Dwarves were powering up but wouldn’t leave until all was lost for Geoff who was desperately trying to make it to the dock, he chose to leave combat a couple of times risking a free hit just to get closer. I shouldn’t worry really as in all great stories the plucky hero makes it just in the nick of time.
Pirates and their captive dash for the ship still currently held by the vampire, up ahead the last of the vampires forces were fighting through to their boss who combat monster he is was doing his best to help by sitting still eating blood sausage sarnies and sipping the fine red wine found on the pirate ship.
In the grave yard a fantastic bit of play was underway, the three skeletons of the vampires just like the in best zombie moves were quietly trying to sneak past the liche priests skeletons hoping they would take them for their own. Alas it was not to be and they decided they didn’t like the smell of these more musty bones
Last charges went in with little effect, the vampire who had laughed from about turn four that he had a great ship now saw how many of the pirates had made it back and quietly slipped back to his LST instead.
It was declared that any models who had not made it back to the dock on the last turn would potentially be lost
Geoff got hit and wounded and took a stunned effect, as he had a helmet he had a four up roll to change it to a knocked down result meaning he could get up and walk 3” back to the dock and just make it. Nope he failed and was stunned so could only roll over on his turn and crawl one and a half inches leaving him, excuse the pun, just a little short.
The dwarves last turn gambit of deploying their gangplank was ruled illegal, as I have real life navy experience and nosoul is ex army again I claimed unfair but was overruled. Three x bows were still not safe
With that the game was up
Goblins had made it away with a significant part of their force but had temparily lost the boss, pirates have a special skill of pressganging
Middenheimers were headed upriver mostly intact but with a few casualties
The Dwarves were underway but had lost some of the x bows which is disappointing as the x bows are the speed of the dwarves, you can outrun a dwarf easily but their bolts are a bit faster
Vampire was safe but had lost significant followers including a few hero’s I believe one who may have previously been armed with a double handed weapon had lost an arm
Pirates with a new smelly captive had lost a couple of hand gunners who would be missed but were away
As for the poor old rats they suffered mightily from their earlier campaign successes and were decimated, two made it cleanly away but many more died including the rat ogre that had been taken out in two previous games but survived in the recovery phase. This time it was dead for good along with an unreported number of fellow rats
It was particularly hard on everyone as any henchmen now taken out only survived on the roll of a five or six and heroes had to roll twice on the recovery table which lead to many losses. These losses couldn’t be made up either as we were not allowed to buy new forces or roll for warpstone.
Great game though and very tense for what on the face of it was a simple game. Thanks to James, nosoul, for organising and everyone else for a great time. Special thanks also to Colin the owner of Janco’s for making the docks specially just for this one off game and for staying open an hour late on a Sunday so we could finish.
A very sad looking flotilla made its way up the river often throwing overboard sad humanoid shaped sacks. The pirate ship was shadowed very closely by an odd long necked creature with single eye, Baldison trusted no one.
Final word from the dwarf book of grudges
Many thanks again to James who had carefully measured and calculated to ensure I had literally just enough movement to make it from my start point to my ship in the games duration as long as I gave up all my other actions. Thankfully my ship the mighty steam submersible Warbeard had been specifically placed at the one dock I could make it to which was mightily kind of him. Oh wait let me think, hadn't my ship been placed there for no other reason than because the base I had made it on just happened to make it only fit in one place. Or in other words my entire warband avoided death because of the size a particular table mat designer just happened to choose, thanks.
The grudge book grows larger
