“Listen now to my tune: ah, how my
flute sings! Heed my call mortals, and
do not think of the thing that waits you
in the shadows where my siren’s call
lures you. Come men, come rats, come
the creatures of the dark. Hear not the
cries of those who have gone before you,
see not the brink of the abyss where your
dancing steps take you.
Dance to the tune of my flute, even if
you feet are raw and bleeding. Smile
with me, even if it is the smile of skulls
and your skin peels away. Laugh with
me, though your throats may choke
with bile. For you are all my puppets, and I
shall lead you in a merry dance.
The merry dance of death.”
Welcome to Mordheim, The city of the damned.
"In the year of Our Lord Sigmar 1999, the twin-tailed comet – His symbol – fell upon the corrupt city of Mordheim. Now known as the City of the Damned, all that is left are smoking ruins and the mysterious shards, presumably fragments from the comet, known as wyrdstone. Players take their mercenary warbands into the deserted streets of Mordheim to search and fight for precious wyrdstone. However, humans are not the only denizens of the Damned City to covet the Chaos-touched shards.
With the Empire in flames, Warbands clash in the City of the Damned"
What is Mordheim?
Mordheim is a 28mm skirmish game fought between opposing factions in the ruins of a once-great city.
Five hundred years before the current time, the Empire was divided and the forces of Chaos prepared to invade. It was a dark era known as The Time of the Three Emperors. In the 2,000 years since Sigmar Heldenhammer had purged the lands that would become the Empire, the race of Man had become arrogant and largely corrupt. There was, of course, those that remained pure of heart and soul, men such as Magnus the Pious who would eventually rise up and reunite the Empire, but that was still three years away.
Mordheim, was once a great city capital of the Empire's most northern realm, Ostermark, and often referred to as the 'brightest star of the North' in its heyday. But as the years wore on, the corruption slowly enveloped the land and Mordheim in particular, like a over-ripened fruit, seemed to spoil. The only beacon of goodness and sanity in Mordheim was the Convent of the Sisterhood of Sigmar. The madness and depravity that now gripped the city was not to remain unpunished. Weeks before the end of the year 1999, the symbol of Sigmar himself - the twin-tailed comet - had appeared in the sky. It grew closer as the new year approached and a festival atmosphere grew in the corrupt city. As midnight of the final day of the year fast approached, it is said that Daemons crept from the shadows and mingled with the throng, crying joyously and cavorting with man and woman alike.
As the new year arrived and city was crammed and the prancing throng was at its zenith, the comet impacted upon the city. Sigmar had judged Mordheim lacking and all over the Empire the land shook! Only the Temple of Sigmar's Rock, home to the Sisterhood of Sigmar, who had locked themselves away weeks before the comets arrival, remained unblemished.
The city burned for weeks, those not instantly vaporised by the comet were slowly mutated and died in withering agony. Mordheim had become a crater of death. The comet had left one final gift, the ruins of Mordheim were now covered in shards of solidified Chaos, soon to become known as wyrdstone. When Mordheim finally stopped burning many mercenary warbands from all over the Empire and beyond came in search of the stuff, for it was said that wyrdstone could do anything; change your luck and fortune and turn lead into gold. Of course, Man was not the only race interested in wyrdstone, and many other creatures also now prowl the City of the Damned. It is also said that something stirs in the area known as The Pit a place where the comet struck deepest.
t is in this setting that players create and model rival warbands to fight over the spoils hidden within Mordheim. This is known as a campaign. As your warbrand progresses it will become more experienced and affluent, allowing you to buy better armour and weapons, gain skills and characteristic increases, and even recruit more mercenaries to your banner to replace fallen comrades.
In this setting, the Empire is fractured and as a player you can take a mercenary warband from one of the major warring provinces. The Reiklanders are good all-rounders, the berserkers of Middenheim excel in close-quarter fighting and the affluent Marienburgers have the best armour and weapons. As well as the mercenaries there are others that take to the deserted streets. The Witch Hunters are in Mordheim in force, the Sisters of Sigmar have strayed from their island-temple to reclaim the city, the Skaven covet the wyrdstone as do the Undead of Syvania, and the Possessed seem to follow their own agenda as dictated by the Shadowlord - he who now dwells at the bottom of The Pit.
The Mordheim range is comprehensive and covers all the major warbands. Players can also use the massive Warhammer range of Citadel miniatures to further personalise their Warbands.
The Mordheim boxed game contains the rules, innovative plastic and card buildings and two plastic gangs to get started. The Empire in Flames supplement expands the background of The Time of the Three Emperors into the wilderness and includes new Warbands such as Beastmen.
The City of the Damned setting is just one of many to use the Mordheim Skirmish and campaign rules. Since Mordheim has been published there have been many alternative settings and new warbands, and a good few are published here in the Alternative Settings section.
Well, who is down there in that damned city, fighting eachother for precious wyrdstone and power? Well...
Well, why play Mordheim, you might ask? Well, it's one of games-workshops abandoned special list games so the rulebooks, the expansions, and all the articles they ever made about it are online and free.
Another reason is that most warbands cap at around 15 models, the more swarmy ones around 20. That's right. One Warhammer regiment box can found your entire warband. Couple that with a free rulebook and you got yourself one low entry fee.
It plays alot like Warhammer Skirmish (in fact, Warhammer Skirmish is based off of Mordheim). Your warbands level up, grow, lose members, get battle wounds, rare equipment and build grudges. You can have campaigns and linked scenarios as your warband grows is size and fame.
Another fun point is since you only have like 15 guys, you don't feel bad going to town with the conversions. It's alot easier to convert a small warband then a whole army. And since these guys can have different equipment, and lose eyes or limbs, conversion opportunities are always arising.
I know that Mordheim is rather small time, so I think I'll also dedicate this thread to all the other Specialist Games-Workshop games, so we have alot to talk about.
I honestly urge all of you to give Mordheim atleast a shot, especially if you have a decent sized group of gaming friends that meets frequently. You can get some great campaigns going. If any of you already play Warhammer, you practically have all you'll need to start a Mordheim warband. Did I mention that Mordheim is a GREAT excuse to make all sorts of fun terrain? It's a ruined, decaying city. So you can go nuts.
Anyway, I think this OP is long enough now.
Also, all drawings, models, and text in quotes or text in parts of pictures is obviously from Games-Workshop and not of my own production. Figured I'd say that...just incase.
Edit:
Here's the official
Mordheim Website. It has tons of resources and downloads to help get you started.
Posts
I saw some better players play it later that day and I was blown away by the amount of strategic depth and forethought you have to put into some of the games manuveres.
It's also pretty cool that it's a rather cheap GW game because you only need a handful of ships.
That's one thing that has always suprised me about GW games. You think their cheaper ones to be really popular as they have less of a time and money commitment to get fun out of. Yet it is there games where you have to buy and paint tons of models that are really popular.
Blunderbuss, handguns, and heroes with pistols. Anyone tried this before, or seen something similar in action? I don't want to make it and find out its boring to play.
PS When you figure out a warband and such, make sure you have the maximum number of heroes or your campaign will end in doom, shortly after the first game.
PPS Or if you don't like campaign rules, you could just use the "one-off" game rules from the back of the book that let you buy upgrades and junk for cash...
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
It has the Empire in Flames expansion, among other things.
It has chaos carnies.
Also, maybe you should use the optional black-powder rules. Sure, it has the chance of your gun blowing up and killing you everytime you shoot. But it cuts the costs of guns down by 20%.
And yes, having as many starting heroes as you can in a warband is a very good idea, helps your exp go a long way.
Lastly, editing the OP, cant believe I forgot to link to the website.
Will be for campaign, as I am hoping to end up with hilarious one armed bandits.
Black powder rules are the main reason I am even considering it. I love stuff that has the potential to self destruct
So, for my GW army I was thinking of making a Reiklander Warband. I figure since they are more mundane humans they will provide a good counter-balance for the more exotic armies I am sure people will want to field.
Since there are no official GW models anymore for basic Reiklander troops I was thinking of getting one sprue of Bretonnian Bowmen, one sprue of Wood Elf Glade Gaurd and one of Empire Militia and kit bashing them together to produce some archers for my warband. I was thinking of the hoods and capes from the Wood Elfs and then a mixture of bodies from the other two. I want them with bows and axes, anyone know of a good sprue with about five or so axes in it?
For the heroes I was probably gonna go for an Empire general and maybe some of the warrior priests. Not sure what to do for the young bloods though.
So bad.
You can make it happen Rank!
Just round up any of your friends with Warhammer models and go to town.
You just have to believe!!
I love the idea of small warbands killing each other in a ruined and damned city.
Pretty awesome OP btw.
No idea why round bases werent standard for Mordheim. No reason for the square bases, your models dont need to rank up. Maybe they did it so standard Warhammer models would fit in better.
The models are so cool, but I've haven't read the rules yet.
I gave them a quick skim and they seem really interesting. One of the more interesting things was that they can infect people of other warbands with a disease that can slowly sap them of their strength from game to game. From game to game it can also spread to more and more members. That means one fight with the carnival of chaos (if you dont control the spread of the diesase) can cripple your warband and leave it racked with plague.
I think what I like the most is the constantly changing nature of the characters. Like said above, everyone's constantly losing eyes and limbs.
Oh shits, the month-long forum campaigns over gold and territory!
'scuse me, need new pants.
Theres only ever been a handful of problems I've had with the game (bear with me whilst I enumerate the worst offfenders).
1. Black powder weapons: God these things were worthless. Combining a crappy rate of fire with move or shoot and a high cost meant that virtually no on would ever take the stupid things, since the crossbow was better in just about every way (and more widely available).
2. Armor: Armor was a total joke in mordheim. Models with strength higher then 3 were signifigantly more common then in WHFB, the cost was so high to aquire a decent save (a 4+ save would be heavy armor and a shield; you could easily buy and equip another henchmen for that much), and critical hits negated them. In short, only my leader ever ran around with any armor.
3. The rules revision: I'd like to meet the ard tard who thought that some of the things in there were a good Idea. Things like the mega nerf to spears (no off hand weapon and they no longer strike first by default) and whip (losing the reach rule for an extra attack in the first round of combat was intense bullshit). Then there were things like allowing bows to perform quickshot while moving (cuz they weren't popular enough before).
4. two hand weapons: It annoyed me to no end that the default armament for every character pretty much became two hand weapons (usually clubs or axes), since the extra attck was always more useful then a +1 to armor save from shields, or the big bonus to strength from a great weapon/halberd. I remember actually testing out what would happen in mordheim if one were to remove the extra attack from an additinal hand weapon, and found that so many of the things that were broken before were fixed by this nerf, specificly parry, armor, and the frequency of critical hits.
There are rules for an Orc and Goblin Warband. They are pretty cool. You get squigs, fanatics, big ol orc bruisers, easy acess to madcap mushrooms and other stuff. They have their own special set of skills that are pretty nice.
http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/damobrules.pdf
Those are the rules for the Da Mob of Orcs and Gobbos, so you can see if ya like them. Oh the joys of GW publishing the rules and most of the supplements for free!
I'm not so sure about Lizardmen. They are like, an ocean away so I am not sure what they were doing 500 years ago during the time of Mordheim.
Also: While I agree with most of the points above, I have to disagree with black powder weapons being worthless. I've seen them used to pretty devastating effects, especially pistols and blunderbuss. I was unaware of the rule revision. I think it dumb that you cant use an offhand weapon with a spear, and if they dont strike first whats the point? I always just had a houserule that you can't duel-wield spears (too beardy) but everything else goes. Armor for the most part is worthless. A guy with Str3 and an axe(5g) negates you 20g light armor, a guy with Str 4 and an axe negates your 50g heavy armor. Though, if you get a guy with gromil armor with a shield on a warhorse with some barding (1+ save) then that is pretty scary (though watch out for great weapons). Armor probably needs a buff, and dual-wielding probably needs a tweak (like, cant crit on your offhand attack or something).
They both have warbands in mordheim; Orcs and goblins have 4 If you include the polpular Karak Azgal setting, including
*Orcs and goblins (official)
*Jungle goblins (lustria, semi official)
*Night goblins (Karak Azgal, unofficial)
*savage orcs (karak azgal, unoficial).
Lizard men are Rather... odd I found, due in no small fact that the warband is built completely in reverse to what you'd probably expect.
For starters, the guy who designed the warband was obssesed with skinks. Almost all of your starting heroes are skinks, and you can never have more saurus then you have skinks. In Warhammer it may be all well and good to have an army comprised entirely of skinks since they can evade combat more easily, but in mordheim It's a whole different story. Once they get into combat, Skinks tend to die in a hurry, due in no small part to the fact that the froggies are one of the only units that are T: 2, meainging that they are almost always being wounded on at least a 3+. needless to say, theres a high turn over rate on them.
The saurus aren't exactly all that great either. The henchmen that you get have an utterly abysmal inititative of 1, which virtually guarantees that there opponents will get to strike them first unless they're up against zombies. Furthermore, in mordheim initiative is tested against any time you want to climb up or down somthing. Thus, a player with a couple of crossbows could conseiably just sit on top of a building and shoot them whilst the saurus just stare at the wall, trying to concieve a way for them to climb up it.
And perhaps I wasn't clear about which Black power weapons I found particularly awful: The hand gun and the Hockland long rifle. The Hand gun was just trumped by the crossbow in every way except for armor penetration (irrelivent since nobody wears a signifigant amount of armor in mordheim) and that you can use superior black power with it (only availabe to heroes though). The long rifle was a pretty nifty weapon, but it sadly suffered from a ridiculously high cost; Unless you got it right at generation, it would take you 4 or five games to save up for one (assuming that you didn't want to improve your warband at all before that).
To be specific with how spears lost there strike first rule: They made it so that you compare initiative when your model is charged. If yours is higher, you strike first. If yours is the same you roll off. If yours is less your SOL. Thus, the spear won't help you worth a dam if your an orc, dwarf, or saurus.
Having a dude as decked out as you mentioned with armor is just begging for him to be gang raped by henchmen. Assuming that this is late in the campaign, I've probably got a squad with an extra attack and hand weapon, who will rush him and dump a whole whack of attacks into him. I can almost guarantee that one of them will come up a critical hit and that will almost assuredly ignore your heroes armorsave by default.
The two suggestions that I remember being popular a few years back for mordheim for dealing with addtional hand weapon, were either making it a skill, or tacking on a penalty f -1 to hit with that weapon.
'Bout 522/23 years. It was razed to the ground by Magnus the Pious after the Great War, so exists only as tangled, haunted ruins. Still... pretty damn perfect for an RPG-style adventure.
I love Mordheim.
I watched a game of mordheim absolutely ages ago in a GW store. It was pretty awesome. Helps that the board was insanely good.
Considering that human militia is what comes inside of the boxed set (along with some white wolf bits), your pretty good to go.
Seriously, 1 box of them will pretty much proxy any of the human warbands,
These rules seem pretty good for adressing the armor thing.
I always wanted to find a way to integrate necromunda's overwatch with missile weapons in mordheim for a few more tactical options.
Glad to hear it since I just picked a box up.
I'm really hoping they find some way to tie it into Warhammer: Age of Reckoning.
Link: http://www.mordheimer.com/downloads/resources/mordheim.jpg
Maybe you can get some use of it.