BTB: Discovered Treasure

It has been a while since the last battle report. We decided to search for a scenario that could be played with 5 warbands and not take all night!
We came across the Discover Treasure scenario that could be really well played. Fun with the partial setup groups, so no advantage of carefully composed warbands but small groups entering the battle field. This could be food for a lot of skirmishes on the field!

Ok, the warbands present here were, possessed, marauders, orcs&goblins, dwarfs and beastmen. We rolled a snowstorm for the weather, so there go all the shooters. Small groups of 2 or 3 warband members enter the field very carefully. They were quite well dispersed when rolling for where to enter. The treasure was hidden in all of the buildings but you had to roll 4+ to find the actual treasure.

The first round for all warbands was basically finding treasure. The second round not much warbands had reinforcements. The little reinformcements that arrived came up in the same corner! It was getting busy over there!

The next round involved the Marauders founding a treasure, or was it? Sabretooth tigers entering the fray was making the board nice and busy. The tigers were wreaking quite some havoc.

Meanwhile some more treasure was being discovered. The gobbo's were getting it quite well when more reinforcments arrived in the same corner as before and also the possessed were getting at that spot some more numbers. The ideal combination for a good fight in the tower over some treasure.

The Marauders wer scouring the realm for more goodies and still battling the sabretooth tigers. Meanwhile the gobbo's unleashed some squigs to add to the mayhem of fuzzy teeth balls!
With the beastmen it was going well but not spectacular. Some treasure was unearthed but no big fights yet.

The dwarfs and possessed were not getting the reinforcements needed to keep up in this ever busier city. They already had some treasure in the pocket and routed voluntarily. Of course the dwarfs lost a slayer as usual and the possessed were licking some wounds. The beastmen were sniffing out some treasure but didn't make it very long on the battlefield.

The orcs&goblins and the marauders were left, making each others life very difficult in the snow. It wasn't long after the sneaky greenskins tactically maneuvered elsewhere and the win was for the marauders!

This wraps up the battle and it safe to say that it was playable for 5 warbands. No one had to wait very long. With the reinforcement rules a 4+ was difficult to get much of your warband in the field. A better rule to use would be the optional starting with 5+ and then each round a +1 to the dice roll. Noteworthy was an incredible dice roll of only 6's:

BTB: Wyrdstone pool

A battlereport seen from the different warbands. The possessed, dwarfs and orcs and gobbo's took part in this battle. We've played "The Pool" scenario from the chaos on the streets rules.

Starting of with the dwarfs and how they percieved the battle:
“It’s a fine morning for checking out that green pool in the east side of this shabby town” Bjorgir said. The air was clear for once and the AleQuaffers were quite fresh for once. Since the return of Grach, their engineer, spirits have risen among the dwarfs. Even the loss of Loki the slayer (he finally found his doom in a heroic stand against huge numbers of possessed) seemingly forgotten, the dwarfs move forward. They’ve taken their losses and now it is time to collect.
Collecting wyrdstone was a good start to refresh their depleted reserves of gold and start building on a wagon train for once. Bjorgir had high hopes of this pool in getting a good lot of the green stones and selling them quickly.

Striding through the derelict houses at the far side of the pool Grom Blacksmoke the thunderer spotted some movement with his keen eyes. Where these wretched possessed also looking for wyrdstone in this neighborhood? Without thinking he dropped to his knee, took aim and blasted lead toward the foul creatures. Screams indicated something was hit, but not killed yet.
The shot probably scared the possessed because now they were nowhere to be seen. They may have learned from this shot to be more careful but they also could be cowardly running away from the dwarfs of course!
The dwarfs carefully moved further toward the pool where now splashing noises could be heard. Were the possessed already filtering the pool? Outraged the dwarfs pushed on and saw a struggle at the edge of the pool where possessed seemed to be in combat with what looked like some greenskins. Nothing to dive into heads over heels.

The dwarfs edged carefully to the pool and started to look for wyrdstone. A measly stone was found when the possessed found out there were more competitors at the pool.

The gibbering greenskins were cackling with delight. After a brief skirmish with the possessed they seemed to have vanished from the pool. “Probably took all the wyrdstone and ran of, them cowards” Bjorgir was muttering. Now it is time to focus on the possessed, they were piling through a narrow gap between a building and the pool toward the dwarfs. The narrow passage was of some luck to the dwarfs, because now they could face the possessed one by one for a brief moment.

The slayers were off and charged into some plaguebearers and the rest of the dwarfs followed. It wasn’t for long when more possessed pushed through the narrow gap and the battle started to swing towards the possessed, where the dwarfs looked good to begin with. The dwarfs were pushed back and the slayer carrying the wyrdstone went down as well! This was turning out very nasty for the AleQuaffers. The beardlings were holding up quite well and the warband did deal out some damage, but the possessed have some experience under their belt and were quite battle hardened. They could suffer multiple wounds and still fight on!

This was the moment for the dwarfs to tactically retreat. There will be more moments to fight and set a better scene for the AleQuaffers. For now they just have to be careful since the previous encounter with the possessed proved to be very damaging indeed. Bjorgir found it wise to spare his powers (and his dwarfs) for now. Carefully build up some strength now and take it slow. The quest for riches did not have to be over in days. It may take years to gather wealth and fortune, but that is always quicker then to remain in underground in the dwarven holds, laboring for tens of years on the same arch or hall.
Bjorgir was already making plans to recruit and increase his warband in order to beat those pesky possessed once and for all!

Now let's take a look at how the orcs and gobbo's experienced this fight.
Fresh in mordheim, a sight to behold. No flowers, no happiness, no friendly faces. Ideal environment for a couple of deranged greenskins and their smaller cousins. Captain Wortnak took his rookie crew for an adventure. According to some rumors (friendly beaten out of some random passing halfling) somewhere deep in the forsaken city there was this fountain. Not just any fountain, but a rather deep one, filled with riches few would believe. The halfling had been there himself but was driven away by the foul stench of chaos the fountain inhabited.
There's 2 things a fullgrown orc likes to do in his spare time. One is beating up some innocent people and the other is collecting riches before someone else finds out about them and gets away with it. For that exact thing Wortnak rushed his man to the forsaken fountain.
When the greens made it to the fountain, they caught a glimpse of 2 other warbands also trying to catch some of the wyrdstone that was so carefully hidden from the world. Stupid round dwarfs and some really long-ago expired food. That, or it might have been nurgle, but wortnak guessed the food.

"No time to waste, lets go diving!" Wortnak screamed at the top of his lungs as he charged to the fountain. Arriving steadily first at the fountain Wortnak ordered his bravest men to take a leap and dive right in. Only "smudgebrain" can up without a stone. All others managed to dive up a shard. Wortnak kindly requested smudgebrain to take another dive, by punching him in the nose while pointing at the fountain. A minute later smudgebrain came up with a shard. Meanwhile the others of the band heavily defended the fountain from the emerging Nurgle. Damn these guys go fast! And they also pack a lot of heat! Within seconds the fountain was overwelmed by stench and fur. A couple of the greenskins went down like a brick while wooly took bites at, well to be honoust, anything he saw.
When smudgebrain emerged from the fountain, the warband decided to make a "tactical manouvre exaclty opposing the enemy". They had what they came for! A fortune on their first day in mordheim! What more could they want? Mission accomplished.

Last but not least (somewhat unusual, history tends to be written by the winners...) the event as seen by the Possessed. After the last successful battle the warband was strengthened by another Plaguebearer (In Mordheim rules terms a Beastmen, my warband has a Nurgle theme so I use Plaguebearer models instead).

Rumor had spread that in a pond wyrdstone shard were to be found, now the fountain after years of dryness had magically regained a water source of some sort. Nurgly spurred his followers to race to there...
However, when arriving at the scene, the first shard were already taken by Greenskins. At sight of the approaching Chaos worshipers, they made a run for safety. Shy Shy, together with some henchmen, charged into a small bow armed detachment, that payed the price for covering the retreat...

The rest of the warband headed for the pond, only to find a group of dwarfs standing around the water basin. An awkward stand off came into existance, like the sharing of drinking pools by predators and prey on the dark continent. And when the pond stopped providing shards the antagonists attacked each other...
At first the battle went well for the Dwarfs; the small passage between the ruins and the pond favored them as a high number of possessed could not join the frail. However in the long run quantity proved itself to be a quality and the Dwarfs were overwhelmed by possessed numbers and spattering black blood... It was only by the sacrifice of a slayer that most of the Dwarfs managed to escape with some shards.

Despite some heavy losses, Papa Nurgle had once again blessed his followers! The status of Nurgly and his followers was growing amongst the children of Chaos resulting in an unholy Dark Soul to join the warband.

BTB: Rat Race

It was in the dew of the morning that the slayers woke up hearing the skitter of little paws. Was it little paws ... or just paws running around they wondered. Bjorgir was a bit on edge because there was little to eat the last couple of days. In the blasted region of the city they were in now, nothing but derelict houses and a faint drizzle all day. You could get quite glum about this, especially with an empty belly. The skittering noises made him think of rats...rat-on-a-stick! A smile grew on the face of Bjorgir and poking his fellow warband members awake a plan formed in his head.

The Magister looked at the runes and smiled. Some days ago he had successfully summoned a lesser demon out of the warp to extend his warband. In exchange for this blessing of the Plaguefather a shibboleth had to be executed. And now the target was near...



The two slayers were very eager to get some rats and were out in no time. But they were not the only ones out there! Just around the corner some Possessed were slithering around with their mutated bodies also looking for food. Also hoof noises could be heard now so some beasties were about also. The beardlings were muttering amongst themselves that the undead wouldn't be far away either. Sarr said: "A perfect morning for a massive fight around some scrawny little rats". Dru and Crumble agreed and were getting ready to face a heavy day.



Locating the dwarf had not been very hard; obviously they were hunting for rats and not very secretive about their whereabouts. However, those pesky rats were hard to ignore, two of them were even attacking. On top of that a loose chaos hound had appeared and attacked Frogface, who (off course) was not up to the task of fighting a meager hound.

But now father Nurgle was really smiling at them! Their price was approching fast (for at dwarf that is)! The aberration, the false blackblood, the requested sacrifice was actually charging them!!

Then everything happened very fast. A rat darted by and the two slayers were loose! Charging into the rat and hacking it to pieces. The rest of the warband were huddling around the corner to check for more. There were more rats running around, a lot more rats you could say. They were so fast it was difficult to tell how big they really were. In the meantime, the rats as the beastmen, undead and possessed were running around and chasing rats.



One particular big rat was boring down on the necromancer of the undead pack! This was a rat of abominable size. The beastmen were charging into the graveyard for some rats with their rabid dogs leading the pack. One of the dogs strayed a bit and ran around one of the pillars of a ruined temple to find a big hammer of the possessed warband leader in its way. With a big squelching sound the dog found its end right there: Not only the rats were meeting their fate.



Nurgly the Magister had by now killed a rat and finished off the stunned chaos hound. Flyface was literally sniffing out the carcass of the abominable rat. He found a wyrdstone shard, yet another sign that the true Chaos God was smiling at them.

But not all was going well. The false blackblood dwarf was a formidable fighter and had more and more dwarfs were joining the fray. And it were the followers of Chaos that were suffering. Several henchies were taken out of action or laying knocked down and both the Possessed were down to their last wound.



Half of the rat pack were now getting nervous with so much mayhem around them and were sprinting of the table. Another two rats were caught in a fight, but the rest escaped. The necromancer was having some big trouble with the big rat facing him.
Meanwhile Loki the bigger slayer flattened the rat with one mighty sweep of his axe. Looking around in a battle craze he saw some movement around the corner and blindly charged into it. The possessed over there were caught by surprise and were getting slaughtered. This was one mean slayer! Everywhere the possessed hit the slayer the blood spraying around was even inflicting wounds. Some of the possessed had that same skill and in moments 5 possessed were surrounding the slayer and damage was dealt very hard. Luckily the rest of the dwarf warband was around to try to help out Loki. It could be questioned if this was, what a slayer would really want, especially since Loki was truly in his element. Some disgruntled shouts from Loki to Bjorgir were also getting the concentration away and the battle swung towards the possessed. Loki was paying too much attention to his fellow warband members not to take out HIS enemies, letting him die his much wanted heroic death, that the possessed landed some blows. Still the tough slayer did not go down, and it was becoming very close. Some of the possessed were chopped away only to be replaced by new foul plaguebearers and whatnot. Loki was doing his best but his mind was not completely to it. The possessed were actually looking to flee of the field or this entire battle to end. Their wishes were not being granted by a necromancer, who was still fighting that giant rat.



The Magister resisted the urge to flee; this task had to be completed or else... He felt chaos powers pour away as a Plabuebearer was sent back to the Chaos courts by the black blooded Slayer. The Magister grawled and rushed in himself, with him the rest of his minions too attacked the dwarfs.

Then it was too much for the big orange crested fellow, too much blows at once, not able to parry them all, Loki went down. The rest of warband wanting revenge, swung in this melee but the possessed although wrung through a grinder, were getting new vigor by slaying the slayer and were really bearing down on the dwarfs. It was soon that the dwarfs saw they were no match and ran of the battlefield with only one rat to share.

A green light lit up the ruins around the small square were some hours ago the dwarfs and possessed had met. Now the mutilated corpse of a slayer was surrounded by the strange shapes of his opponents. A dark liquid, much much darker than normal dwarven blood, was leaking on the ground. Floating above the body was a strange shining bulb, that grew into a crack, a passage toward the courts of chaos. For a moment a bellowing laughter could be heard accompanying a Plaguebearer striding through.

"Father Nurgle is very pleased with your deeds, master magister" Hissed the Plaguebearer. "He sends you this" The minor demon continued and handed over a putrefied, rusted axe. The Magister looked at the warped piece of metal and smiled, recognizing the axe as the one the slayer had barried in the killed Plaguebearer.

We player the Rat Race scenario found on the Wargame Weaver site. A very nice multi player scenario which really fits the Border Town Burning settings and is good fun to play (Thanx Jim!). Minor nitpicks/recommendations: Use random movement (or the Border Town Burning monster rules) instead of the 12" movement for the rats.

Outside gaming

Our last game of Mordheim with the six of us we've played outside. The temperature didn't drop below 25 at night zo ideal situation to put the tables out and play. No problems with cramped gaming tables and whatnot and enjoying the weather as well! Some around neighbours were indeed checking out, what was going on with the bunch of guys debating around tables with scenery, measuring and moving miniatures and debating loudly over it, calling for the rulebook more often then not!

Our BTB campaign was played outside this time. For the "Horrors of the Underground" the table wasn't big enough so they played on the ground. I believ the Possessed went in the underground with every intention of finding some chaos stuff. Behind them a starting marauders warband stepped in the dungeon, found an egg and ran out again. Al done in mere minutes! It took more time to set up everything then to play the scenario here.

The lost caravan scenario's is already heavily discussed on this blog and a game of a starting Dwarf (another!) warband agains some undead was played. Quite gruesome ending for the undead I believe (although they were dead to begin with!).

BTB: Traces to Emprise

“Get up, you lazy bastards!”. Bjorgir Borgurson was shouting at two slayers and prodding at two slayers in the corner of a derelict building. This was the place where they ended their feasting of the night before. Especially the slayers were doing honor to the warbands name: AleQuaffers.
With a lot of grunting and a splitting headache Durri IronBounder and his fellow slayer Loki Borsson got up. Dwarf axes still in hand but wobbling a bit unsteady after that barrel of Bugmans they found here and emptied completely, the slayers were sort of ready to go. In the corner of the building Sarr Veinsmasher and Crumble Dobnose were staring in awe at the two battle-hardened slayers. The two beardlings just joined the warband for fame and fortune (or rather … loads of gold!!!!). They were staring with big eyes to the large orange crests that were now a bit ruffled after a night’s boozing.

Bjorgir was getting his warband out and about and was having difficulty with it. That barrel of Bugman’s really hit home in the warband, but was a welcome reward after days of rummaging around these blighted borderlands. They found this sort of derelict outpost of a city and finally had some stone buildings around them for the night. These nights in the open sky were not good for a dwarf was Bjorgir’s opinion. Of noble born Bjorgir was used to the big halls and rooms in Karak Bardag, the hold of Dwarf king Dordom. As a lad Bjorgir was always curious to what was outside the hold. Books telling of fame and fortune (and the gold of his ancestors) led him to gather a warband around him to start looking for this fame and fortune.
He started heading out of the hold with his longtime friend Grach SplitRock an upcoming engineer in Karak Bardag. But as an engineer who wants to go looking for ancient artifacts long lost to the hold, the warband was an excellent way to do this before returning to the hold and really settle there with his skills.
The rest of the warband consists of a thunderer, Grom Blacksmoke, they picked up along the way and a beardling, Harri Longbeard, who is quickly becoming battle hardened after experiencing some encounters and skilled for driving a cart.
The goal for Bjorgir is to gather as much wealth as possible and driving home a cart full of riches. The borderlands and Cathay in particular should be the country where not much dwarfs ventured but it is famed for riches and fortune.
Last night they arrived here in this bordertown and it seems some information on a cash of Cathayan silks was to be found here. “OK, Durri and Loki, only questions to these poor villagers, no breaking stuff and specifically no DRINKING!” Bjorgir was instructing, “We don’t want to scare these poor people here.”

A house to house search started and the first houses some questions came with handy answers. In one house Durri got a bit too excited and menacingly came close to one of the villagers. With two big dwarf axes only inches from your nose, you’d be very willingly telling of anything you know, especially when there’s a big bulky dwarf with a very angry looking bright orange crest behind these axes.
While going from house to house Grach was getting up the stairs alongside one of the buildings to the second floor and saw some activity at the other side of this cluster of houses. Some odd forms were flowing between the buildings. Also some screams and shouts were audible. “Was that a guy with tentacles?” Grach was thinking, “Am I seeing this correctly?”

Discarding the strange viewing and subjecting it to last night’s drinking he went further with his investigations. Still some strange noises and screams seem to be emerging from the other houses. Upon leaving a house after questioning the inhabitants, at the far end of the street a group of weird deformed looking men were eying the dwarfs. In moments some unwieldy forms flowed towards the dwarfs and a fight broke out. One of the slayers was occupying 4 Possessed life forms and wielding his axes like a madman.
Meanwhile Bjorgir was getting around the back of the other houses to get the last pieces of information and soothing the people living here. At the front lots of battle noises filtered through and the Noble couldn’t wait to get outside and join his fellow dwarfs.
Outside the engineer was shooting away at the Possessed and the slayer might have found his doom if it wasn’t for the wallop he got from the lowlife Posessed leaving him without his axes. There’s no honor in these Possessed.
Eventually due to some chaotic bookkeeping on the Possessed side and quick thinking of the dwarfs on getting around the back to get information, the dwarfs found all pieces of the puzzle and the battle was over.
A lot of casualties on the dwarf side and none to be seen on the Possessed side, so who really won the battle? Luckily all but one dwarf recovered from their injuries.
At least some new entries into the book of Grudges for the dwarfs and there was gold to be had for all this new found information. Grom Blacksmoke and Crumble Dubnose were already discussing where to get a ponywagon for transporting all their new found ritches. This until Bjorgir came between and firmly laid out new plans to first equip the warband better and look for new warband members before really starting out to accumulate all these treasures to be found in the borderlands. With more warband members they could not only get to the treasure but also defend the treasure already in their possession.
In the end they looked for and bought new axes for Loki and found a replacement for poor Harri Longbeard as well as a thunderer who wanted to join the Alequaffers.

BTB: Blockade

Note: Pictures to be added.

The evening was still young and playing scenario's parallel is quite a good feat. Very effective playing compared to the massive time consuming multi player battles we usually play. There is still time to set up a new scenario and start playing. Winner against winner for me this time. Since the Posessed won the other battle and getting a slimy egg, I got to go against them for a change. Already my opponent was dreading my dwarves and of course my dicerolls. That started right out good since I got to choose being a defender or the attacker. My dwarfs are typical defender material so that was not a hard choice to make. The groaning of my opponent made it more clear how good a choice this was for me.

The watchtower in the middle and some forest to one side, the 2 handgunners I have took their high position and the slayers were ready to charge out when the enemy comes near. For some reason the Possessed thought it a good idea to split up and attack the watchtower from 2 sides. The game started easy enough with the posessed approaching and the dwarfs trying to shoot them. For some reason in turn 2 already the supplies wagon entered the table with 5 guards. From experience after the battle these guards are good fighters! The wagon moved on to the field and towards half of the posessed from the back. In no time they were fighting!

From the other side the Posessed tried to make it through the woods. Sinces these are the borderlands and these are howling woods, the Possessed where so scared it took them literaly 4 turns to get through a bit and then still one Possessed was to scared and stayed behind. All the while they get shot every other turn and this diminished the Possessed significantly. Almost my expert Dwarf engineer managed to shoot the Possessed leader in 1 shot at the first turn of the game (as with the necromancer in the previous battle) but it was not meant to be this time.
The half the possessed getting slaughtered by the guardsmen (who also were having trouble of course), and upon seeing this carnage the slayers leaped out the watchtower and charged into the melee, making a definite mess of the left Posessed. The other half was now in hiding under the shadow of the watchtower. Some shooting there in in no time the Possessed were routed of the table, making the dwarfs victors again. Having the cart in the watchtower earned them some campaign points and again the dwarfs found considerable weirdstone and treasure ready to equip them better for scenario's to come. There might even be enough money to buy a pony cart for starters. This to carry all the wealth they have and are about to accumulate.