Mordheim: the writing on the wall

posting on the blog has started again. I have been very busy painting the last few months. I didn't post to this blog however. Also have been playing some warhammer battles but again no posts. The medium twitter I have used for posting paint stages and quick progress during battles. However, from now on new posts since the blog can handle way more text and thoughts and pictures than a single twitter post can. This weekend started with an evening of playing one of our favorite games: Mordheim. We are trying to come up with a quick version of Mordheim so it will be easier to attend a game. No more lengthy pre and post Mordheim sessions. Just show op and start playing.The scenario was quickly chosen: the writing on the wall (already played this one a while ago, but it seemed a good one considering the 3 warbands).The warbands attending this night were the Inquisitors, the orcs&goblins and my new war band the Marienburg Mercenaries.

The writing on the wall was dead centre of our city gameing board. Each band started in its own corner and it was a run towards the writing!The big mansion in the centre had a massive square in front. The one squig from the greenskins bounced first on the square and one of the Ogres (both mercenaries and inquisitors had one!) managed to immediately flatten the bouncing ball of teeth (baseball style).

The ogres moving forward with the gobbo arrerz taking position, gave the inquisitors opportunity to let loose the dogs. Ferocious as the dogs are they tear apart 2 orcs! A shaman gets into contact with the mercenary ogre, this was short lived...for the shaman.

The gobbo arrerz are shooting away and manage to pincussion the inquisitor Ogre. Arrows hitting home some flesh and wounding the Ogre, but also one by chance entering the eye, lodging in the tiny brain and flattening the ogre outright! What a shooting there!The greenskins are losing members each turn now and eventually they route the battlefield. Almost one of the orks read the writing on the wall (or its equivalent of reading that is!)

In the meantime the mercenaries had 2 marksman on a walkway shooting away. One with a hunting rifle realy taking out some orks here and there. The inquisitors saw this threat as well and sent out 3 'commandos' to get up there and silence the marksmen. This proved difficult since climbing up the building was no easy feat. The witch casting a curse was also not helping in getting some stuff done. The marksmen keep shooting away!

Now the rest of the inquisitors get into the alley direct in front of the marksmen. The one with the hunting rifle even singled out the grand master in killed him with a master shot. This proved a turning point in the battle. The dogs try to disturb the concentration of the mercenary captain while reading, but his Ogre bodyguard proved a real bodyguard and the dogs were no match. The bodyguard was a very good investment since he really got all harassment for the captain out of the way. The mercenaries were kitted out with marksmen and a lot of (dueling) pistols, so very shooty. Some muscle (ogre) and magic (the witch) proved the perfect combination for the warband because they won the game and not losing a single member!

Suddenly nothing happened

.. and all was quiet on the blog..

So, in the hope of getting refinding the habit of blogging, here's a little update on my wargaming activities..

Our Mordheiming activities became lower with more people getting interested.. Arjen, Tom and I played one last game several weeks ago. We tried out some ideas of having a 'paperless campaign'. Our Mordheim campaigns normally have a small core of players showing up most of the time and a bigger group of people occasionally dropping by. After some rounds of gaming the experience based improvements of the frequently playing warbands makes those almost unbeatable for warbands with less experience.

Our new approach of just letting the warband captain (or even a hero chosen by the player?) will hopefully solve this problem. Additionally it will also drastically decrease the time and administration needed for all the post battle aftermath. Off course the back side will be that a lot of the fun of upgrading and rearranging of the warbands will be lost. And there will be some problems when combining this (lack of) system with campaigns like the wonderful Bordertown Burning. We'll just have to figure out all these things...

Another flip side we hope to explore is the 'cross system' use of the warband lead characters. Since our system will focus on them, the role-playing aspect will hopefully increase. With some small tweaks on the stats it should be possible to use them in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Dungeon/Warhammer Quest! (There will be some serious searching in the attic...) They could even turn up in a game of Warhammer (a game of what was that again?).

So there, my thoughts on the Mordheim plans.. (now back to painting those damn T-70's for FoW....)