Sigmarites Cleansing Mordheim campaign

This is the first scenario of a short series of our own Mordheim campaign. A couple of games lead to a big end game. Each of the preliminary games lets you earn benefits for the end game. Choose one side with your war band: good or evil.


First battle: Foresstad Goblins
Sigmar is gathering minions to cleanse Mordheim for once and for all of all the filth occupying the derelict and devastated city of Mordheim. We are speaking the imperial year 2025, more then 25 years after the comet crashed down in the city. It has been long enough according to all followers of Sigmar. The acolytes are gathering enough crowd and forces to rid the city of all evil.
These plans are widely known to all inhabitants in the city and in no time around the city as well. The woodland village Foresstadt is known to be gathering all sorts of greenskins to block the plans of the Sigmarites. A nearby trade village along the river: Kindwater is said to receive all kinds of goods concerning the cleansing of Mordheim. Also in the mountains in Oberstone some evil forces are gathering and said to protecting some holy relic needed for sweeping through Mordheim.
All these cities and villages around Mordheim have something to do with the cleansing plans of the Sigmarites. Good and evil forces are gathering and plotting for the big day: midsummer year at the start of the turning of the sun festival.
First threat is the orcs and goblins gathering at Foresstadt. The city is swarming with the greenskins. The little buildings there are have to be burnt down in order to rid the village of the evil threat. Villagers are seeking refuge in their homes and need to be rescued first of course.


Setup: Put d6+3 buildings as the Foresstad village. Warbands setup at the edges of the village

The village is infested with orcs and goblins to represent this the following rules apply:
1 goblin leader + d6 goblins are roaming through the streets: random movement and cannot move of the board, will charge when in range.


Each turn throw a d6 on a 1 or 2 the equavalent goblin warriors appear and on a 3 an orc appears near the goblin leader. They will move with the leader each turn. Up to a max of 1,5 times the warband members in the biggest warband present.
Each building can be entered to:
-rescue/slay a villager (cost 1 turn no movement)
-set the building on fire (1 turn no movement)
-always roll d6 on a 1 a random encounter happens (see BTB random encounter list)
XP can be earned by:
+1xp for a rescued/slayed villager
+1xp for a building set on fire
+1xp for killing the goblin leader/escort the goblin leader of the board
+1xp for the winning leader
+1xp for surviving

Surviving warband wins (multiple warbands may win if they are of the same allignment and all warbands of other allignment are off the battlefield).

If the forces of Good win: for the final cleansing battle they gain the use of trap doors during that battle
If the forces of Evil win: They get the help of a goblin shaman during the final battle.

The battle report
Three war bands are taking part in this battle (each of the scenario's is devised in a way always multiple war bands can take part): Dwarfs, Goblins and WitchHunters.



The dwarfs take the entry road into the village to see if they can free some villagers and take out a couple of green skins. The WitchHunters enter the city from a hill side and struggle to enter the city quickly. The Goblins on the other hand, found out a rivaling war band is taking over the town. Of course this Gobbo war band wants to have the riches and is out for a good reckoning with Goblin boss in Foresstad.
In no time the Goblins found each other. From all streets reinforcements arrive but the goblin boss is soon in combat.
In the meantime the dwarfs are still strolling along the road to enter the town and the witchHunters let loose a couple of rabid dogs!



The fighting between the Goblin war bands is well along the way when some Dwarf thunderers take aim to shoot at some gobbo's. Some WhitchHunters enter the fight but meanwhile the Goblin boss is already taken and the rivaling war band is running of with him. The Dwarfs and WhitchHunters have a small skirmish. The Dwarf slayers demonstrating their skill against 5 WhitchHunters the battle is already reaching its end.
The Goblin war band won the fight. The Goblin war boss was taken and one way or the other: Goblins won!

WHFB:Dwarfs vs. Warriors of Chaos

Dwarf rangers reporting a spawn of chaos roaming the vicinity of the karak brought the dwarfs in a discussion on going out to battle the group of chaos warriors accompanying it. The dwarfs in Karak Grzzak were not a big society and only just started mining in this desolate part of the mountains. Hopes of a good vein got a small group of fortune seekers towards the far mountins.

After a lot of grumbling the dwarfs of Karak Grzzak took to war against a deamon host of Chaos warriors. This dwarf army very much represents the starting dwarf society of Karak Grzzak. Small groups of different kind of troop types got together since they are not that big yet in the karak.

A game of WHFB it is then: dwarfs vs. warriors of chaos and 1250 points. I’m still trying out a lot with my dwarfs and painting up different types of troops. These are ideal games to try out stuff with my dwarfs and 8th edition WHFB.

My opponent now put in a magic user, that was a first time in our WHFB games so far. I got around not putting in a runesmith with anti magic runes since it takes a lot of points and in these amounts of points it is not worth the points. SO magic against me en no heavy anti magic back, how would this work out? Is my theory correct? At the end of the battle it was. 2 spells against me, not too bad each turn, 1 I could dispel almost any time and the other while it was in play, I could dispel my next turn. No worries there.

The ragtag dwarf army I field was the following:
16 Dwarf Warriors with GW
10 IronBreakers
8 Hammerers Full command
10 Miners Full command
13 Thunderers Full command
5 dwarf slayers
1 Dwarf Lord
1 Dwarf cannon
1 gyrocopter

The lord went with the hammerers in order to have a big attack block. I pumped up the lord with enough runes to give him extra attacks, no return armours save etc. A real killy unit icw the hammerers.

The Chaos army consisted of:
1 lvl 2 Chaos Sorcerer, Mark of Nurgle
15 Warriors of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
6 Ogres of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
Chaos Warshrine
Chaos Spawn
Marauder Horseman
In retrospect it would have been so much smarter to use a unmarked Sorcerer, which would have been cheaper and could have used a new 8th edition magic lore. Oh well...

We played a scenario where the break point was calculated with the amount of banners in your army. When this comes below 1 in our case, you lose the battle. This was not known up front so I was lucky to field a lot of banners :)
I fielded the Warriors and Ironbreakers with the cannon on one side of the field and the other side got the rest. The battlefield was riddled with swamps rivers and a forest leaving the mid section occupied with all sorts of evil doing, my dwarfs did not want to entry. The Warriors of Chaos were bold as ever and entered the swamp, direcly losing one of its evil beasts. The forest proved not so lucky for the group of six Ogres. First they took a hit of the cannon killing two. On top of that my 5 slayers entered and killed some right off!



The magic of the Chaos section was not spectacular and each turn a dispell was easy (even without a runesmith or runes of spellbinding). In fact, the wizard killed more followers of Chaos than Dwarfs when a spell casted with total power resulted in a dimensional cascade that caused major damage among the chaos warriors!

The warriors of chaos were quick to move to my hammerers and thunderers. The thunders loosed some voleys bellowing the black clouds of smoke. They even mentioned to kill one or two warriors! Then the Hammerers joined close combat with my Dwarf lord and a massive onslaught followed! At the end of the battle The Hammerers and lord were victorious! The Chaos general and warriors left to a small clumb of warriors easily wiped out. All other chaos virmin was taken care of with the gyro and the cannon (a group of warhounds and a chaos sponge!)


Last hope for Chaos: A desperate all out attack on the left flank! The Ogres already down to two (Slayers and Cannon), the Warriors thinned out mostly by the Gyrocopter and a wounded Spawn. This assault failed definitely after the last remaining warriors were broken....

What a massacre and what an onslaught....for Chaos that is. My group of Dwarf warriors and ironbreakers were only running around the field to get to some hand2hand but not reaching any. The rest of the dwarfs were enough to take care of things. Even the miners after entering in turn 2 did not see any action!. Just luck in all or was it the best of tactics? Only more battles will point out what has won me this battle!

And a few last words from the losing side :-)
The battle started out not that bad: The ogres made a feint move to the right before joining the major attack on the left flank. The marauder horsemen managed to threaten the cannon, only to be blown to pieces by a grapeshot. The downfall started with the cannon hitting the ogres in the flank, killing two and wounding one. Next came the shrine, failing a 'march test' I positioned it into the swamp to stay out of reach of two blocks of dwarfs, only to be taken by the Fimir(!). On top of this all was my miserable general.. He managed to kill a dwarf or two before taking down two ranks of chaos warriors by miscasting.. Like I said before:"Oh well..."

Secude and kill?

So, my army is coming along quite well. After the victory on Tom and his dwarfs (750 points), it was time to test the daemons on another army. Arjan and I settled for a 1500 point battle on a somewhat rainy wensday, over at arjans place.

Because I can currently only field 750 points worth of daemonettes, it was time to include another fraction. Luckily for me, Arjan has some really well painted nurgle daemons which I could borrow to test on the battlefield. In my mind, the swift but vulnerable slaanesh would match quite well with the slow but o-so-realiable nurgle daemons. Since GW no longer hold srestrictions as to which factions may work together (bye bye fluff?) I can easily mix anything in my armylist up. I will be playing Arjans chaos warriors (of nurgle...), so I decide to go look for swift elements and avoid facing him head-on. Recalling from the last time I challenged Arjan, he always brings along some warriors, some marauders en a couple of annoying chaos hounds. No shooting will be involved from his side, so I should be relativly safe. Casting is probably not out of the question, but should not be on tzeensch like proportions. All in all, I decided to go with the following list:

- 1 Herald of Nurgle with staff of nurgle

- 1 Herald of Slaanesh with the musk and torment blade

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 20 Plaguebearers (full command)

- 7 Chaos Furies

- 5 Seekers

- 5 Seekers

- 3 Nurglings (or nurgling bases)

- 3 Fiends of Slaanesh

The original goal was to get as much of the army behind his lines, so I had at least the advantage of the rear charges. Those charges can win you a combat and since I was not to rely on my attacks, this was to be the best option.

The slaanesh part of my army turned out to be working pretty much exactly like expected. Fast movement all around, severly confusing arjan. The fiends and their stomp rule together with the magnificent 10" movement make up for a pretty tough fight. The are going to appear in all my armies from this day on. The seekers prove to be reliable and fast, but NO match for a nurgle lord, not even in the flank charge (magical attacks AUCH). The nurgle part was somewhat dissapointing. The nurgling bases are hardly a challenge for any unit. Plaguebearers might have a S and T of 4, but 4" movement and 1 on A, I and W means that they still cant hold up a decent fight. Especiallywith the low 3 weaponskill, which makes them not even a match for empire regulars. The herals however IS a promising man. It does cost yousome points, but it is hard to argue with a S, T and WS 5 hero! It does turn out I'd better put the herald in the regiment next time. Apparently they all regenerate when you do so, darn....

Unfortunately, none of us remembered to take pictures OR write a battlereport, so I can only publish my conclusions:

- It was a massacre, with both armies suffering great losses.

- Arjan won by a difference of something like 700 points

- It was really fun to do, and the match was pretty much undecided to the very last turns!

These are my lessons learned:

- Nurgle is NOT a good friend

- Never charge your surviving 3 daemonettes in an already doomed fight, hoping that rear bonus might be a turning of tides.

- Chaos warriors are tough.... really tough

- Lords are scary, even if they are called blob and ride a palaquin

This can only mean one thing though. If it is not nurgle who I must befriend, that leaves me two options:

- Khorne (hard hitting combat machines, made for destruction)

- Tzeensch (magical superiorities, made for long distance violence)

While khorne matches up with the speed of the slaanesh, it is more capable of doing great damage. Adding the magical resistence to that means that will bring more solid combat to the army. I could use that...

On the other hand, including tzeensch in my army means that my slaanesh can focus almost completely on the flank and rear combatting, leaving the magic and shooting to my fellow daemons. No real solid combat machine, but thinning the enemy units until the can be taken down by fiends and/or seekers. Flamers are a must have!

Owww .... decisions, decisions.....

Into the flames

The first unit of my Flames of War army rolls in. I've chosen the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps as the theme for a late war Tankovy battalion. At the moment this is only visible in the Czech/Czechoslovak flag on one of the tanks. Later on I hope to add the appropiate roundels, numbers and slogans. I'm still looking for pictures of tanks in this particular army and for fitting decals in this scale. Main force will consist of T34's (what else?) in /76 and /85 versions, with support of infantry and some SU-85 tank hunters or even IS-2 (in pink?)



Painting 'historical' instead of 'fantasy' vehicles and figures was something to get used to. Many, many years ago I used to be a 'serious' model-maker and I had to rediscover some of the skills involved. And despite that the Battlefront miniatures are very nice and all five have their own distinct stowage and details, it's quite hard to create a nice paint finish for vehicles that basically were painted in one color.


Anyway, the first batch is finished, 10 more are waiting! Any comments and tips (especially on weathering effect on this scale) are welcome!

Malus Darkblade

And now for something completely different. I've been painting a lot of dwarfs recently. All the more reason to paint something different in between as a sideproject. Actually I'm still painting dwarfs but when paint dries it is nice to have a different paint object to do some painting on. I took some quick pictures just to get the idea of the finished product. I'm quite content with the cold one!

After reading all stories of Malus Darkblade and a discount at the local hobby shop on metal blisters I had to get Malus as a model. The cold one really makes this model. It comes with two heads. A rather blocky squarish plastic head and a vicious looking multipart metal head. The latter being much cooler for the model but a bit more difficult to paint and assemble. I painted the total model in separate parts for once: two sides of the cold one were glued together but that was it, the jaw, upper part of the head, torso of Malus, the sword arm and the cape were all painted before assembly. It makes for a much easier paint and gives much more detail in those hard to reach parts when painting a pre assembled model. Only the coloring on the joining parts was more difficult to get right.
I stayed with the blues for this model. The cold one being blue, the armour of Malus having a blue sheen on it and Malus' cloak is blue, even the inscriptions on the blade are a bright blue. All in all very inkeeping with the model. Malus' cloak however could have been better with a contrasting color in the end being yellow or red or something.

BTB: Mordheim, The Siege

After playing the border town burning campaign for a while, it was time for it to come to an end. We wer playing regularly (once per 4-6 weeks), but to reach the 40 campaign points is taking just to long. The campaign was good while it lasted but it was time for the final battle. The three most regular players (in this case, dwarfs, chaos and halflings) got together for this epic battle.

The dwarfs took the defence and the halflings allied with the Nurglings. Fortifying themselves behind thick walls and a big gate, the dwarfs took position. The thunders (5 strong) took ther aim from the top walls along the gate and the rest (2 slayers, one hired slayer, 4 beardlings) stood behind the gate.

Outside a blizzard was blowing strong, visibility reduced to 10 inch the dwarfs couldn't see the Nurglys setting up and the row of halfling bowmen taking position. On the other hand the evil allied forces couldn't make out a dwarf as well so all was even.
The alied forces advanced at the gate. The Nurglys sending the cheep troops up front and letting the expensive hero's do a sneak climb at the far side of the wall. A warlock flew over the wall into one of the buildings in the castle. The dwarfs started to let loose volleys of led. Blackpowder smoke obscuring the gate even more in the blizzard. They did not that much damage in subsequent turns. This could also be said for the halflings. THey were shooting flights of arrows to the wall but failing to damage a single dwarf. Turn after turn the shooting continued and 2 dwarfs went down.

Meanwhile the warlock was trying to set fire to a building with some magic. Probably the flying consumed all his energy, because he fumbled and failed epically! The rest of the Nurgly heroes were scaling the wall and the dwarfs behind the wall were doing some patroling but were too far away. The Nurglys were setting fire to a building with the three of them and clever enough trapping themselves in the fire! They were pinned and taking damage here! Finally the warlock managed to set fire to a building and it burnt down to the bottom in minutes.

The dwarfs managed to kill a thieving halfling that had hidden within the Castle walls; one of the slayers that is. The rest of the dwarfs not shooting at the horde at the gate (that was having much difficulty with the gate since only 1 member of the warband was strong enough to damage the door: the pitfighter), were running to engage combat with the Nurgly heroes. The slayers were really going down on Ticky and ShyShy, in moments only pulp was left in the hallways of the castle. The warlock didn't stand long as well and the Nurglys were thinned down.

Outside the gate the Halflings wer sick of waiting and wasting arrows and started pumping arrows in their allied Nurglys in front of them. A massive onslaught continued. After a couple of turns the halflings and Nurglys were halved. All warbands were now taking route tests each turn and it was inevitable that one warband should leav the game. When some earthquakes started to shudder the castle and surrounding grounds it was too much for the Nurglys. They ran of the battlefield. The Dwarfs were taking this bad as well, the Noble could reroll a failed route test one time (he failed the roll with a double 6) and failed the reroll just as badly (again a double 6), leaving the few halflings that were left with the victory!

What an epic battle it was, this was no doubt the biggest onslaught for all warbands. All the saved fundings were put in to expand the warbands to full capacity, resulting in this epic fight. A worthy ending of the Border town burning campaign. Now only to start searching for the new campaign setting...

dwarf cannon and crew painted

It featured already in a battle against slaanesh, but now it is ready and fully painted. All details on the canon done and the crew is done to the last detail. I also created two larger stone bases with all the accesories for the dwarf cannon. A large scope for spotting targets in the far distance and a set with a wheelbarrow containing some tools and a spare set of ammo on a small cart.

This is a nice set to put in my army and the two "scenery" pieces can also be good unit fillers for any regiment adding 2 places each. How universal, how great!

It was fun painting this set and it was quite quick actually. Or I'm becoming more skilled at painting the dwarfs. The lasat set of 10 dwarf thunderers took me a while but this cannon and crew was done in a couple of days. The cannon being mostly metal helps, but the crew are detailed little fellows, wrenches, looking classes and whatnot.

All these cool details really make the set and also makes it fun to paint. It really captures the look and feel of getting a canon loaded and shot at a large distance and hitting something. Now for the hitting part and doing damage I need a good game to practice this in!

2 Dwarf WHFBattles

Not one but two battle reports in one post. Since the battles took place a while ago and there are some notes, it will not be the best battle reports. Let me just tell you what happened to my dwarfs during these two battles. One battle is against warriors of chaos and one battle against deamons of chaos (slaanesh in particular).

First up a small skirmish Battle of Slaanesh deamons against Dwarfs. This is a small 750 point battle that we played the other day: Dwarfs against deamons and fast cavalry deamons that is.


My perception of the battle up front (and for choosing my army) was that some magic would be involved and some big creatures would show up. I invested in a big block of 20 dwarf warriors and a set of 10 thunderers. Backing up the army would be a cannon against the big creatures and a Gyrocopter for harassing the low toughness troops that would march against me. A runesmith leading the army should be there as anti-magic as well.

The following happened when the dwarfs marched to battle. The scenario was a full battlefield with a river of blood, the odd building and fences running along the middle. Also some nice hills obscuring the vision of my canon were present.

I set up as far away from the Slaanesh as possible. Small groups of riders and small groups of warriors were put against me. 2 Slaanesh beasts were put in and a named character: The Mask.

Straight forward the games started with a march move of the riders. Didn’t calculate that! Immediately the game gave me less opportunity to start shooting of the riders. The fact that all troops were small groups and only one or two ranks deep wasn’t helping as well. The canon is not your best friend there.

The fast cavalry was closing in very fast and within two turns my dwarf warriors were in close combat flanked on both sides and my thunderers after shooting once and hitting nothing, ran of the table. Meanwhile the cannon after killing one slaanesh rider, went unemployed after the crew was slain in no time. The gyro was all that was left besides the dwarf warriors. The steamgun was picking some single riders away, but also not the best of throws with the dice here.
The dwarf warriors were engaged in close combat on three sides and this was done quickly, leaving the gyro the only one standing.
That was quick, that was over in a jiffy!

The battle was sponsored with some dwarf ale, but to no avail, the dwarfs lost.


Learning points here: no anti magic needed (costed me a rune of balance, could have more warriors!), canon was useless against single line units (do without, only gyro or maybe organ gun and more points for slayers!), evade being flanked (invest in BSB). Finally: throw better dice! :)


Second battle was against warriors of chaos and was 1000 points. Also a small game and I put in a variety of troops here: 4 slayers, dragon slayer, thane, 16 dwarf warriors, 10 ironbreakers, 10 thunderers, 10 miners, gyro. This was actually my first 8th ed. game and I just wanted to try out all units I have painted the past months en see how they do in the game. Of course I wanted to win!

The chaos warriors fielded a hell cannon! Woah! In one shot I lost half of my unit of dwarf warriors! This was going bad! THe miners didn't turn up to deal with the cannon for 3 turns (and that was with the steamdrill!), but eventually took care of itself by blowing up.
A hefty block of warriors of chaos was moving towards me, Some satelite troops like chaos warhounds and whatnot was also advancing by I could pick them out with the slayers, gyro and thunderers. Good work there. Only to be stuck with the chaos warriors and they were tough! Eventually only my gyro was left to pick at the chaos warriors. This could go a very long time trying to kill a chaos warrior one at the time. Not a good ending for the dwarfs, but closer as with the slaanesh battle.


Learning points here: have to have a cannon to pick on the large units, characters, other artilery. Also bigger unit of dwarf warriors, they were decimated in minutes this small a size. If taking slayers, take more! :)

Expanding the dwarf army

My last battle really showed the lack of a big cannon. My army list contained only a gyrocopter as a warmachine. This was very effective against low toughness troops and warhounds. Swiftly striking at the soft spots of your enemy. The army list lacked a long rang big damage do-er. The first thing after painting the thunderers was getting a cannon.
The status now is that it is put together and the first layers of metal paint are present. The crew is also in progress as well all the cool accessories.
End of the week new battle with the dwarfs. Small battle it will be, but a good test for the cannon hopefully.

10 thunderers ready for battle

Yep, a full set of 10 thunderers at the ready. I painted already 2 of them for my Mordheim warband, but now the other 8 have got the same treatment. Together they look good and tie in with the color scheme beige and red for the rest of the army.
I already got me the command group so they will be up for painting soon.
Recently we played a good 8th edition WHFB with Dwarfs vs. Chaos warriors. Only a 1000 points but it was good fun, really starting to get to grips with all the rules now. Battle report is awaiting publication but I wanted to put these guys out here first.

BTB: Horde approaches

lot of projects going on on this blog, but is there being played anything Mordheimy? The answer to that question is yet. There was a game played a while ago that did not have a battle report over here. Luckily I found my notes that made me able to reconstruct a bit of that big battle. There was a lot at stake here because if the posessed were to win a castle had to be built before playing the next BTB battle. Let's see what happened.


Some normal weather out there in the cathayan borderlands. A group of dwarfs and halflings are banding together to get a messenger to a nearby town to warn the inhabitants of the chaos threat. The chaos horde was bellowing in the distance behind the walling of the derelict town the defenders were in.

The dwarfs and halflings shooters were up in a tower and a bodyguard was maneuvering the messanger to a spot were it could get a clear run towards the neighbouring town. The possessed split up along the wall in order to be able to stop the runner. The division made them weaker but definitely not to be underestimated. It seemed they even hired an ogre to support them in this fight.

A lot of maneuvering is taking place inside the city with the possessed trying to scale the walls. This was not that easy since one of the plaguebearers jumping a gap fell and hurt his kneecap badly suffering a wound from a 2 inch drop! What a wussy!
All of a sudden one of the buildings burst into flames! Just as this setting was to be one of the more boring ones this unexpected event happens! Luckily it was a building well out of the way of the defenders and especially not the tower all the shooters were in.

The halflings were snipering away with their arrows and doing a good job. The elder shoots Frogface out of action with a great quick shot with a dark venom arrow. What a nice shot!
They had to show their skill since of the sniper thunderers killed the Ogre on turn one already. This was after all fire of the other thunderers softened him up a bit.

In the small fights that follow within the city walls the slayer that just followed the dwarfs went down but one of the beardlings killed "The drummer" possessed.
It wasn't for long that the messenger had an almost clear run and went for it. One of the possessed " The butcher" managed to grab a hold but the messenger killed him instantly while jumping the wall and working the spurs un his horse to create a big distance between him and the chaos horde.

What a good fight it was. The result being no castle to be built yet and a lot of experience to be had since the warband ratings were way apart! Dwarfs and Halflings claiming the victory for once!

gyrocopter and ironbreakers + purity seal = bad

yes it is time for ye olde update. Finished painting the gyro and the 10 ironbreakers. Good looking bunch of lads. Luckily I shot pictures before the coat of purity seal. One way or the other there is now a snowy shine on the back of my ironbreakers and parts of the gyro. Maybe too thick a layer? Maybe because it was a high humitidy outside and it dried wrong, who can tell? It is not that bad, but up close it shwos. Maybe I'll retouch here and there to mask this effect. For here are the good pics.

Battle for the Kitchen

Last saturday I managed to play a 8th edtion warhammer battle against one of my youngest friends Chris. We played a 2000 points 'normal' battle using a scenario that Chris had written. Key in this scenario was the (rather original) rule that the only way to gain points was making your opponents units run off the table, destroying units did not grant you anything (but satisfaction) (Chris called this a 'mother friendly' scenario). Beside this he came up with a very nasty 'random event' table to be used every turn.

I was playing my a more or less standardized Chaos Warrior army. Chris' Orcs and Goblins had quite a lot of magic users and a very big spider...

The winds of magic did not bring the carnage Chris had hoped and my warriors managed to reach their opponents without much damage. My general accompanied by Dragon Ogres, a block of Chaos Ogres and unit of Nurgle Warriors cut through the green skins. Despite the rather one sided battle, the score remained in balance because of the 'drive not finish them off' rule.

On top of that, the 'random event' table summoned one very very nasty 'Random Daemon' which killed off my general... Luckily after that it went after a lone (and stupid) Troll on a left part of the battle field and did no farther intervene with the battle. After this I managed to drive two more units of Gobbo's of the table, resulting in a 3-1 win!

(Picture by Bart)

WIP: dwarf gyrocopter

After going through hell to get all the parts glued, the dwarf gyrocopter was sprayed black. I let the gyro rest for a couple of days to see if nothing came off. Everything was glued with huge amounts of superglue, but still it could come off.
This did not seem the case and I've started to paint the gyro and the rotor separately. For the progress pics i put the two together, but they are not yet glued in place.



Color scheme wise, I went for the beige and red I also used on my dwarf warriors. Whit the base coat on the gyro, the color scheme is starting to work out very well. I randomly selected patches that became red, and the tips of the rotor were to be red. The metal is painted boltgun, washed badab black and then highlighted boltgun and chain mail. I also painted the exhausts brass and some tubing and runes as well. The steamgun is also a big brass pipe in my scheme.

Project: Lewis chessmen as statues and a chess set.

For a long time I’m a fan of the Lewis chessmen. I’m not a chess fan but since seeing the figures the first time in Edinburgh they somehow got to me. Also seen the large collection in London and went back to Edinburgh to see them again there. So whenever in the neighborhood I took the opportunity to view them.

Since then I also bought some memorabilia in the museum shops like a key chain. The Lewis chessmen are always around somewhere. What particularly got to me is the funny expression the faces have and the cool poses that exist (especially the figure biting his shield!).

I won’t go into detail on their origin since books are written around the subject. Suffice to say they are chess pieces from the 12th/13th century carved from (whale)bone and have Scandinavian roots.



Now and then I was looking at a replica chess set of the Lewis chessmen, but somehow they are just overpriced and not that cool looking. This until … I found there are moulds for the Lewis chessmen! Cast your own, paint your own and go crazy! How cool is that! It fits nicely in the range of casting Hirst Arts bricks and build your own scenery.

Received the moulds and started casting away. It’s a bit different from casting bricks but not that different. The “miniatures” look great! They are a nice size and have good texture and detail.



The first set of casts are test pieces for me to see how to paint them. Originally the pieces are carved from bone or have an ivory look. Painting bone on a small scale is no prob, so on this scale it should pose no problems. Only difficulty here is the fact that you want a “black” and “white” set. The white is taken care of with the ivory/bone look. It seems that originally one side was painted with some red dye in the 12th century. I might do a test with first painting a piece ivory and then go over it with red. What also may be cool is to have a full white and red set with gloss varnish on them.



Final ideas are of course painting the pieces looking like grey stone. Should be not too difficult with the experience painting all the buildings :).

Aside from making a great chess set the pieces are awesome for statues in our scenery! The streets need some livening up with cool statues in stone, brass and other materials. They can act as cool gatekeepers for a temple like building and they are awesome as carved statues in a rock formation. Ideas enough for these new moulds!

My stash of plaster is depleting rapidly with casting these larger moulds so order a new 23 kg bag of the stuff. I should be good for a while. I got some interest in the chess pieces as well, so who knows, I might even build a small webshop for selling the buggers.

Freaky diceroll

Last weekend we were playing a round of Mordheim (battle report yet to come!). During our game a lot of dice rolls were made. One of the dice rolls deserve special attention. It was made with the famous skull dice from games workshop and it landed exactly on one of the edges! Maybe the scenery helped a little bit, but only very little mind! We had to take a picture of it and the die remained lying on its edge quite solid.

WIP: dwarf ironbreakers, thunderers

In between Mordheim battles there is progress to made on the dwarf painting front. I just recently finished the first set of dwarf warriors. Pictures will be here soon of course, but I went on painting more dwarfs and started on 10 ironbreakers. They are maybe not the best unit to choose for WHFB but they are fluffy and the models are cool. Nice little sturdy tanks.
The paint scheme is simple here. Metal (boltgun, black wash, highlight chainmail, highlight mithril silver) is the base and then gold and copper detailing, oh and painting some beard ends sticking out of some helmets at odd angles.
I already painted one full fledge as a trial run (and as a figure for my Mordheim warband) and the shields will be blue with gold axe and metal edge.
Of course they will get the stone bases as the entire army will get. They start to look good in their metal base colors here. Already painted to with the full set of copper details. They are a pain to paint. The models are stuffed with bolts (that are copper/gold in my scheme). So three down seven to go.


Since the ironbreakers are progressing rapidly and needed to dry in between drybrush sessions, I started to clean up the thunderers and give them their chaos black spray treatment. Here they are lined up as they will be in battle. Here two of the thunderers are already painted since they were needed in the Mordheim warband. Only 8 to go here, but they have a lot of detail and equipment to paint individually. The total paintscheme will be a lot of leather clothing and the equipment carried by the thunderers that is mostly tools for loading their handguns, metal and copper. The shells they are carrying will be bright red and the handguns metal with gold ornaments.

.. and in between are doors...

Last battle we introduced rules for securing, blocking and above all smashing through doors. In our case they worked out quite fine and resulted in some hectic (and hilarious) situations!

These door rules can be found here. If you do use them, please let us know how they worked out!

BTB: Sewer Fighting

After a long drought the ground in the city of Mordheim was cracking and crumbling. Weeks of blazing sun did not much good for the dirt caked street. The river Stir was just a meager treacle through the city en the sewers were running dry. Because the ground was becoming more and more brittle some cave-ins happened in the centre part of the city. Just along one of the derelict watchtowers the grounds were split open to give entrance to the sewer system of Mordheim.
The sewers were rumored to have many a treasure but also to house hideous and dangerous creatures who eschew the light. This time of the year, the sewer system should contain many a wyrd-egg. The cave-in and the presence of the eggs was an ideal scenario for some warbands to get down there and start up a fight.
In this case four warbands flocked to sewers and got stuck in.
- A band of Halflings was making their debut in Mordheim. Roaming the countryside they were pulled towards Mordheim for fame and riches.
- A group of undead was slithering through the filthy sewers as well. Common place for these night dwellers and therefore no surprise they were present.
- Possessed are always present if a slimy egg or two can be found. If running through some sewers is what it takes, they don’t mind.
- Last but not least the dwarf treasurehunters found their way to a sewer entrance. Cave fighting and underground navigation being one of their specialties, this was going to be an easy job.

Before entering the sewers all warbands were equipping themselves with lanterns or trusting on night vision and familiarity with dark tunnels. Some of the Halflings were stumbling about a bit. The one with the lantern was having a lot of difficulty with the dark surroundings. He was blinding himself with his own lantern. The other Halflings were faring not a lot better. Shooting range was not something to trust on this battle.
The dwarfs however were running along the sewers as if it were the long underground passageways they are used to. Detecting some slimy possessed in the distance they moved stealthily in their direction. The cunning possessed however were just luring the dwarfs in their direction only to run around a corner through a massive oak door and slamming it shut.

Now it was a game of push and shove. The massive slayers readying their shoulders for smashing through the door, got little resistance of the tiny possessed. The door smashed in a and the onslaught began: shyshy and two plague bearers got the full taste of dwarf axes. The dwarfs already familiar with the possessed were wondering where flyface son of flyface was. Was he still suffering from the bellywound he took last battle?

While all this rummaging around was going on one side of the sewers, the other side was getting crowded with Halflings and undead. The Halflings found their way through one sewer only to encounter the beasts of the dark. Some zombies were blocking the way. Shooting is the thing of Halflings and in this case it was shooting at very close range at the mass of rotting flesh before them. A couple of ghouls went down eventually, the Halflings were holding their ground greatly against the undead.

The fighting between the dwarfs and the possessed was taking a gruesome turn when the dwarf engineer went down and the dwarf noble with 2 slayers had the greatest difficulty of getting shyshy out of the way. What luck that flyface son of flyface was not present due to his bellywound.
After fighting in the sewers the dwarfs went above ground in the watchtower to search for treasure. The cunning possessed that were not luring the dwarfs to closed doors were already above ground to search through the ruins. They employed an ogre for some brute force, not counting on the fearless slayers! Loki was hacking away at the ogre and after some heavy blows he split the ogre in two! What a massacre!

The rest of the possessed were weighing heavy on the bloodied dwarfs. It was time for the dwarfs to take their treasure and make for the tunnels again to shake of the pesky possessed.
It was a good evening for a good fight. If only flyface son of flyface could have been present, but he was suffering from a bellywound…


Did I mention that flyface son of flyface had bellywound and did not take part in this battle…?