The vampire looked around as he pushed a zombie into the right direction. His warband was moving forward at low speed; towering high above them an enemy wizard could be seen, forcing the undead to move from cover to cover (at zombie speed). Looking around the vampire checked the location of the necromancer and the so ambitious ghoul, making sure no stakes were heading for his non beating heart. In the few battles they had fought since arriving in Mordheim, the vampire had become very close to his second death, only to be saved by his warband or sheer luck. Since then his leadership had not been discussed, but he could sense the doubts and thoughts of those with more or their minds as 'where to get the next portion of hopefully fresh flesh and blood'. He had to be careful.. And he had to have his revenge on those pesky dwarfs...
They had found the dwarven warband again. It had not been difficult; the dwarves were not the stealthiest types. Obviously they had found something very worthwhile, for they had been sticking at one location for several days now. And they had been digging, digging deep. The vampire could remember these noises from a former life, long ago, before his transition, in a time when he was just a mere mortal man. So not only was it time for revenge, it would probably be worthwhile in other ways too...
But not only had they found the dwarves. The dwarves were becoming careless, probably in their minds they were already enjoying the spoils of this adventure, and even in this remote area of Mordheim this resulted in attracting the curiosity of others, even as exotic as beastmen. The vampire could hear them, almost as loud as the dwarves, also heading for this tempting prey. And there were humans.. The smell of his favorite blood supply filled his nose (too bad there were only men, but men nonetheless).
Despite their joyful mood the dwarves were veterans of Mordheim, most of them being Slayers. They were aware that they would have to fight their way out; after all, this was Mordheim. With little problem they found the only safe route was heading north, apparently no opponents were waiting for them there.
The beastmen were fresh in Mordheim. Traveling around through the woods of the Empire, their shaman had felt magical powerful artifacts being exposed and received dark directions from the Chaos gods. Heading through the woods they had found the great dark plane were the ruins of Mordheim lay, in the darkness of night they had made it into the remains of this city. And now the hunt was on!
The Centigor, who had found a supply of old wine bottles in the ruins, could not be restrained by the warbands leader and charged at the first sight of a dwarf, followed by the group of chaos hounds. The rest of the beastmen charged after them, letting the bloodlust prevail above tactical considerations. The dwarves stood their ground, slayers grinning at the sight of the charging enemies. To them this was even better than the treasures found...
From the opposing west side (just having met a girl named Maria) a group of adventurers stealthy entered the scene. They split up: A group of inexperience henchmen lead by an elven hero took positions to fire at the fighting dwarfs and beastmen. Covered by their fire, the barbarian and the dwarf approached the battle, looking for the carriers of the treasures. The wizard used his spell of flight to find a safe spot to fire at the combatants, delaying the undead in their approach.
The battle between the dwarfs and the beastmen continued; almost unhindered by the shooting of the adventurers warband. Despite heavy losses on both sides, they kept on fighting, even when the leaders of both warband were taken out of action. Wyrdstones fell to the ground, were picked up fast by greedy hands and fell again when the next keeper was knocked down. Not even the charge of the adventurers, pitting dwarf against dwarf, made the beastmen or dwarfs reconsider and flee. The temptation of these treasures was too big to leave the battle without!
This was his moment, the vampire thought by himself, commanding two ghouls to climb towards the lone wizard on top of the ruin. Then he pushed a zombie and a ghoul forward, together charging a single slayer who just had beheaded a beastman. More zombies and ghouls followed, while the other half of the warband led by the dregs made their way through the rubbles towards the adventurers. The first dwarf and beastmen were overwhelmed by sheer numbers, but then things went horribly wrong...
The two ghouls managed to climb the ruin, threatening the adventurers’ wizard. This wizard however, turned to be a Gandalf-in-disguise/training! The first ghoul was taken out of action by a precise sling shot, the second ghoul was promptly taken out of action after charging in.
To make things even worse (from the undead perspective, that is) the vampire charged a slayer hero, only to be slammed to the ground himself...
The slayer hero then took up his axe to finish off the vampire, ignoring all undead ready to charge in, and failed horribly (Tom's dice roll resulted in a triple 1). Ghouls charged in and the slayer went down, allowing the vampire to recover and rejoin the fight.
By now, the fight was turning to the undead side. The last beastman had been taken out, just a few dwarfs remaining and the adventurers were under attack of the dregs and ghouls. The last dwarf, an engineer, was trying to make a run with six shards of wyrdstone, but was caught by a group of ghouls and zombies. On the other side of the battle field the dregs had made short work of dwarven adventurer and the noble. The vampire had regained his wits and fighting skills (finally!), charging and taking out of action the group of henchmen in collaboration with some ghouls.
After finishing the engineer, this small club of undead left the battle scene, securing the treasures. Seeing nothing was to be won, the adventurers retreated towards their home base. The undead let them go, having won the treasures and a battlefield filled with victims to feast on...
