20091010

The Great Library

Last night it was carnage and mayhem in the City of Mordheim. The north east quarter of Mordheim housed once the Great Library. Under count Ignatius Steinhardt it grew to considerable size, containing knowledge unrivalled in Marienburg. Since the comet plummeted into the library, all the mystical and religious tomes, Deamonic and Necromantic lore was scattered through the ruins.
Yesterday night was a night to search through the ruins to look out for gold and long forgotten lore. A Slayer warband calling themselves TreasureDoom got word of activity in the area of the ruined Great Library. It was becoming a night to seek doom and gold (not particularly in that order!).
TreasureDoom consists of a Giant Slayer that once started seeking its doom in Mordheim. Two trollslayers already in Mordheim seeking larger creatures still (and the prospect of finding some glitter, gems and old golden artifacts) cought up with him. They hoped to attrackt greater greatures that will help settle their slayer oath. Eventually a large trollslayer with a huge doublehanded axe entered Mordheim seeking a mighty death and looking out for some lost rune weapons that supposably are buried under the ruins of Mordheim. He joined the venturing slayers and TreasureDoom was born. Since some gold to be gathered is always nice and finding your doom in the process can be seen as an added bonus.
TreasureDoom ventured Mordheim for some time and a dwarf clansman and his apprentice were the slayers in Mordheim. The dwarf was an old engineer seeking the old plans of ancient dwarf inventions stored in Mordheim before the comet fell. The two clansmen joined the slayers to complete TreasureDoom for now.

The warband ventured out to the ruins of the great library on this busy night. In the gloom the area sparked with loose magic of old tomes and shrapnel of weirdstone that mutated some old spells on scrolls. Other sounds could be heard in these ruins and the keen hearing of dwarfs quickly made out that also a band of orks, an incoherent bunch of undead, pirates that just boarded Mordheim, an other group of dwarfs (treasurehunters most likely) and some pesky fidly elves were also present.
After the first sounds of battle where some pirates started brawling the sky grew even more dim and a thick fog descended over Mordheim. Only inches of sight were there, with some clear spots when some wind parted the thick alien fog for a brief moment. This didn't bode well and it was going to be a long night.

After the racket of the pirates subsided the slayers made a carefull slow move into the ruins. Ueha Fiendcrusher started for the first floor of a nearby ruined building. With his rope and hook he directly succeeded in pulling himself up to the shoddy flooring. In a corner a could make out some old scrolls that might be worth checking out. His fellow slayers slowly advanced through the rubble deeper into the area of the old library buildings.
To their left sounds of bones and dragging zombies could be heard. According to the sense of the dwarfs also a vampire was present. they should be carefull with a bloodsucker around. The other dwarfs were also carefully venturing into the ruins and it looked to the slayers they were seeking out the undead warband. Might be a good idea for now to close in from the other side.
With the thick fog in place now al of a sudden a swarm of flies joined the already soupy air. This was not good at all, with elves also chittering through the rubble it was a very bad night indeed for the dwarfs. The orcs were causing the usually disturbance since they were even squabling amongs themselves and one of the pirates jumped into an old well apparantly. He found not only an ancient scroll but also a worthy opponent. The echoes of batllesounds resounded from the well adding to the dissorientation in the fog and flies ridden air.
In front of Alri Doomfate some shadows were seen in the mist. He charged directly for his axes were thirsty. The two young pirates got a fright but recovered quickly and with cunning, low pirate tricks and sheer luck they managed to evade the axes and get some thrusts with their cutlasses and daggers in. Maybe this bold charge wasn't that smart of the giant slayer, maybe his axe was too thirsty to pay attentioned to defense. His mighty dwarf axes didn't succeed in parrying the attacks and the slayer went to the ground directly. Threachereous Mordheim claims its victims directly and anonymous in the thick fog.
Ueha is in the building searching the scrolls and since it was not the place to thoroughly go through them he tucked them in his beard for later investigation.
The air was full of sounds of batlle. The vampire had difficulty keeping himself alive and went down after finding a scroll and triggering some stray magic. The undead managed even to make the foggy flie infested air worse by picking up a scroll that started a chaotic storm with acid rain to occurr.

One of the slayers was recovering from wounds of some foul liquid he got over him earlier when searching through some old barrels (maybe containing some beer). This acid rain was not doing him well, if not it was very bad as he went down as well. Already a quarter of the warband down so soon, the slayers gritted their teeth and were now more determined then ever to avange their comrades and seek their own doom.
All around the slayers other warbands were struggling to pick up scrolls that trigger all kinds of random events. Also some warbands ran into each other. This was more cause for mayhem and carnage then the scrolls themselves. You could see warband members with a scroll hastily making their retreat of the battlefield. The slayers however heard the elves in the distance and more nearby smelled the hatefull orcs. Time to charge those greenskinned savages. The orcs were way too organised until this point. Maybe the warpstone was effecting them in a positive way for once?
As the warbands thinned down, some fled the battlefield altogether. In the end it was far beyond midnight and the only remaining in these warpstone-gone-mad ruins were the slayers and the other dwarf warband (of course) and the greenskins. After some chopping with axes even the greenskins sort of routed although with the greatest loot of scrolls.
The slayers started looking for some loot and sold the scrolls directly. In the end they left with some hefty loot in gold, just as they like it. Some casualties that must rest out the next battle but nothing gold can't compensate.

20091005

The two towers



Sometime ago I got the Warhammer watchtower as a present for my birthday (thanx to Emely and Arjen!). After the successful (re)construction of my Mordheim ruins, I wanted to use this tower as well. However, the tower in its 'normal' form is not very useful in a game of Mordheim. So I decided to open up the tower to make 'playing inside' possible.

The first option I considered was leaving one wall off or making it detachable. On inspecting the tower I found out that it's a lovely model, with lots of details and extra parts, that makes a great site/sight on the battlefield. Alas, no interior details or floors.

So I went out for some Balsa wood at the local 'Hobby Modelbouw' shop. For one reason or the other I never worked before with this material, but all construction work went perfectly smoothly.

And the best idea popped up during the construction: Instead of one tower, I made two tower, each consisting of two walls of the original one. Not only did I get a 'free' extra tower, but they're more 'playable' as well.

Friday they will hopefulle make their debut in Mordheim. I hope I'll find the time to place them on a base. Painting won't be ready, there's a lot of detail on these..

20091002

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 1

It's been a month vacation that caused nothing much for me to have produced in the modelling/gaming part and therefore no need for blog posts :) But I have ordered three moulds at Hirst Arts. I ordered the following ones:
#51 Dragon's Inn Mold
#201 Floor Tiles Various Sizes
#40 Basic Block Mold

My idea was to have enough bricks for builidings as well as arches for windows and doors. Floor tiles for flooring of course but also for building streets.

I started casting the moulds with modeling plaster. I found 2 brands: Knauf and Krone.

Knauf is found at the DIY store and Krone I found in a local arts and crafts shop. The Krone is almost half as cheap but they both are not that expensive: Knauf sells at EURO 6,00 per 2,5 kilo and the Krone at EURO 2,00 per 1 kilo or EURO 6,00 per 5 kilo.
I already casted the moulds about 8 times and it seems that is enough for making a tavern or something. Now some lasts casts are done, so I have enough stock to start building.
Of course the buildings will consist of more than plaster blocks alone. I went to the DIY store and got some lengths of 10x10 mm square and 5x20 mm flat pieces of wood. Almost 3 meters in length this should give enough beams and planks for roofs and doors and floors.
Also I got a piece of 4mm MDF that should act as a base for the building. Everything should be modular so I'm going to design 2 or 3 sizes of bases. These can have either a building or a piece of street, square or other scenery for the city of Mordheim that can be built with it. The first building will be the dragons Inn tavern from the Hirst Arts website. I'm going to alter it a bit so it's open to one side and it can be used in Mordheim for fighting in and around. SInce Mordheim is a thrashed and worn down city the buildings should resemble this. The roof will be crashed in, that kind of stuff.
When going out for buying the raw materials I also came acros my local games workshop store. It had a nice boxed set of trees.

I was looking for something like that, because the Mordheim buildings should have some grown over moss, plants and trees in them as well. This box with three large gnarly trees will be just right for the purpose. Also some chains, skulls and signs are in the kit that will fit perfactly in the Mordheim scenery I'm making.

For now some more casting and the building will start! Time for me to take out the saw and cut me some beams and create the MDF base plates.

More will follow in next posts, so keep reading!