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.

The fight at the monastery (a battle report without pictures)

The chaos wizard sat down behind the desk in the room. On the other side some of his minions were sitting quietly making sure not to attract attention to them. Since the last encounter with a group of dwarfs, their leader was not in a good mood (and that was an understatement). "I should have never left the path of pestilence" He muttered to himself. "Ever since I lost the mark, things are going downhill. Look at us now, seeking shelter in a forsaken monastery of which deity I don't even know".
"We had to pretend to be humble humans and our weapons and equipment were taken away. Our most blessed members had to be smuggled inside to prevent the monks to notice their chaotic gifts. Well, serves them right, they weren't even capable of finishing off some meager humans and were humiliated by dwarfs. Nevertheless, right now I need all the followers I can get. One of my bodyguards mutants and a henchman were still missing".
There was a knock on the door. The wizard indicated to one of the henchmen to open it. One of his colleagues came in: "Master, Shyshy is conscious again. However, he has a nasty wound on the chest. And there's more, apparently we're not the only guest in this place." The wizard looked up surprised and gestured that the henchman should continue. "In the other wing and probably also downstairs, there's another group. Ticky said they smelled like beasts and went out to investigate." "Father Nurgle" The wizard mutterd, then he recovered. "You, get back to Shyshy and get him over here!. The rest, come with me."

The henchman ran through the passage towards the room were the wounded possessed was looked after by one of his fellows. When he walked in, he found them both standing, ready to strike at anyone who would come in. "Come on, it's me, the master needs us". Suddenly there was the noise of fighting below them and the sound of people speeding nearby. "Come, hurry up!" The henchmen repeated.
When the three cultists stepped into the corridor, they bumped into three monks, looking in a way similar to the ones that had welcomed them earlier that day. But at the same time, they looked very different: Menacing and ready to fight.

Downstairs Ticky, the second possessed, had been sneaking around until he found what he was looking for: a fight. Monks were fighting beastmen at the bottom of the stairs! (His nose had been right). He charged in and an even more chaotic (..) fight evolved. The involved monks were taken out of action quite fast, but then Ticky was amazed to find himself stepping out of the fight. A beastmen shaman stepped forward, smiling as his hand seems to control Ticky's movements. The shaman gestured upwards the stairs and without having a say in this (but not to his complete dissatisfaction) Ticky stormed up the stairs, attacking the monks that were trying to quietly leave the room.

On the first floor the fight between the monks and the three members of the possessed warband was joined by a small group of beastmen. The beastmen had stolen the spoils of war by taking the stunned and knocked down monks out of action. This led to a fierce fight between both the groups of the children of chaos, with the monks being crushed in the middle. When the wizard and his retinue (finally) joined this brawl, the monks decided to leave their monastery to the barbarians (for now).

On the ground floor the monks fighting Ticky followed their leaders example and fled. Ticky took a deep breath and with a heavy roar managed to break the spell of the beastmen shaman. The shaman considered his options: On the top floor his minions were outnumbered and it would take too much time to reach them in time. Especially, since a raging possessed was standing on the stairs between them and the main group of the Beastmen. On top of that this wonna-be-spawn looked like it was going to charge and make this fight all to personal. It was time to leave this foul human place and head back to the forest, the shaman decided.

Once more the wizard sat behind the desk. He felt a lot better now, his men had finally shown some fighting spirit and on top of that good treasures were found in the monastery. Even a lone monk was found during the pillaging of the building. The man lay down on the floor, inside the heptagon that was drawn on the floor. The wizard sighed and stood up and dropped the blooded knife on the table."You've suffered long enough and will join the feasts now" The bound monk shivered when they glance each other and tried to break free. "No use, no use" smiled the wizard and opened a small, battered book. His slow murmurs started to fill the room. The outer bounds of the heptagon started to glow in a strange green light.

The warband left the monastery in better shape as when they had arrived. In contract, the state of the building was (argue-ably) worsened. It seemed that overnight it had aged and rotted as if centuries had passed. More over, small demon like creatures swarmed over the roofs and even fouler shapes could be seen through the moldered shutters. The wizard smiled when he looked around, next to him stood a minor demon of Nurgle, a blessing of the true chaos god. "Come children, we're no carnival yet, but we must feast anyway"

Dwarf Treasurehunters WIP

My Dwarven warband is already up and running in our Border Town Burning campaign. It is always nice though to have some backup mini's for new recruits, change of gear and the like. Besides I love painting, therefore new dwarfs are in progress. This is a small update of the projects going on now.
First up is a dwarf ironbreaker. I managed to get a good deal on an old box of ironbreakers. Ideal material for my Mordheim dwarf warband in my opinion. This is the one that is now under the brush. The metal was easy of course (and there is a lot of it). But this sturdy fellow is riveted all around and I came up with the great idea of making all the details bronze. Took me a while to paint all these rivets and details altogether. The finsished pics will show this in more detail. For now this is its status:

Click to enlarge of course!


Next up is the noble, there was of course a noble leading my warband, BUT... not a real goodlooking noble-y fellow representing this. This dwarf leader is the ideal mini for leading my warband here. Lot of gold thread to paint but it is getting there.


A new thunderer in progress. i only managed to paint the leather armour he is wearing though. Awesome model though. Again a good deal on an old box of thunderers and this one with the dragon barrel is really shaping up to take part in our Mordheim battles. I also want to start with a small conversion of one of the thunderers to put a big sight on one of the guns with an enlarged eye painted on. Ideas enough, now find some time to execute.

A beardling is also being painted (only undercoat and first layer of skin). Almost not worth mentioning, but since I was posting on what projects are going on her he is:

New slayer in town. no this is not a BA Baracus Slayer personification: it is a first layered skin dwarf slayer. Took a while to pin this fellow together and greenstuff all the gaps, but he will be cool and mean looking.


A Marker or signpost is a small side project to the mini's. No big buildings this time but small details to upgrade the existing buildings we have. Also an orb, some books and chests have been painted (no pics though).

Finally, I made a statue for our scenery. For comparison my noble is standing beside it. The statue is made with air curing clay (not my favorite stuff to work with, but still reasonably result). It will be incorporated in a small marker or building/ruins/rubble or some other.

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.

BTB: Avalanche

Note: pictures to be added!

The first real scenario's are going to be played for our Border Town Durning Scenario. The beastmen and the the Blackbloods are entering the dungeons with the Horrors of the Underground. Myself put my Dwarf Treasurehunters against Ludo's new Undead warband in the Avalanche scenario.

The avalanche scenario is a quite scary one for the dwarfs. you don't know from what table edge the giant avalanche will come. Dwarfs are fable for their adventure skills but running away from an avalanche is not their cup of Bugmans (or stein for that matter)!

The scenario we put out had some sparse terrain items like rotten trees, a graveyard a small road and one abandoned inn. Not much room to hide against gale force winds, blizzard conditions and the bitter cold. Sturdy dwarfs as they are, the treasurehunters pushed through the snow towards the abandoned building with the rumble of an avalanche from one side! They directly started moving away from the deafening roar of the avalanche. The engineer all of a sudden spotted a foul undead necromancer approaching fast from out of the graveyard. He takes his perfectly engineered handgun and from a large distance with the first shot kills the necromancer instantly.

The echoe of the shot is reverberating through the valley and after some seconds a new rumble can be heard over the already present avalanche noise....a new avalanche is triggered. Now it comes from the other side closing in the warbands in a very narrow funnel.
The giant avalanche is suddenly approaching rapidly towards the building in the center of the field encapsulating the Undead Vampire. The last thing he heard and saw was a dark rumble and lot of white. The dwarves start hacking away at the remaining undead who are now in a very tight spot. The next turn the undead route with their vampire and necromancer of the field. The dwarfs narrowly escape the avalanches of snow and actually take home a lot of weirdstone. These mountains are a good trove for dwarfs "mining" for weirdstone.

Border Town Burning: The campain starts

After playing lot's of multi player Mordheim games, that were a lot of fun, it is time to start something even more organised. What more logic then to start a campagn! And what more logic then to start with a campagn that is already thought out: Border Town Burning. Something different then the scrirmishes we did in the town of Mordheim but something new that requires some new tactics, new choices, new models. All new elements to spice up our Mordheim evenings to come.
The start of the campagn is al about the new warbands. What choices did everyone make and will it work in the campaign. lot's of opportunity to start with an experimental warband or just start with existing ones that are well thought out, so focus can be more on tactica? Choices, choices, what to choose?

The warbands that the now four of us start with are:
Beastmen
Posessed
Dwarf Treasurehunters
Dark Elves

The first battle to get a bit used to this campaining is a bar room brawl. No weapons or armour, just a freindly night in the pub ... until someone spilled the beer of one the dwarfs, and all hell broke loose! In all floors of the inn fights break out and it was not long until only one was left standing. The dwarfs and dark elves get stuck in right away during which the possessed take care of some darke elves too. The beastmen are apparantly more resilliant and around the fountain at the front of the inn they remain standing until the end of the game. Apparantly these strange hoofs are good for one thing: enough grip to stay upright.

All warbands but the dark elves have no real casualties to speak of. The dark elves were not made to hang about a rowdy inn and get stuck in this brawling. They are already too weakened to really start this campaining. I always thought these fragile elves were no use for real adventuring. This proves 'em right :)
Next time the first 1 on 1 games will be played and the warbands will be working for their campaing points.

A small note: this was the first game in the Mordheim Attick, which was just converted. A great playing area if I may say so.

And so it comes to be alive....

After the last massacre with the dark elves I decide to go back to the roots once more. Skipping the pirates, adventurers and other sort of elves, I went straight for the dead. No tomb kings/guardians for me. No lich lords and creepy scorpions, but plain old dead. A vampire, necromancer, zombies, ghouls and dregs!

As I gave my last mordheim-vampire away to Arjan,Ihad to find an alternative. Somehow I stumbled upon a charging banshee, and so an idea was born.

I took out my green stuff and started cutting and modelling away. This banshee was flat-handed, so could not hold any weapons at all. Time to model some thumbs! That wasn't easy at all, but somehow I do like the end-result. I also gave her a nose and filled some holes in the skin (that sounds dirtier than it actually was ...). Result:

More pictures will of course follow soon.