Mordheim: Battle for the temple

It was Friday night Mordheim Night. 6 players were initially lined up to visit my place and play a hefty game of Mordheim. We’re playing once every 4-6 weeks now regularly for a couple of years. A couple of months ago we decided to pick up the Border Town Burning campaign again and have been playing it with loads of fun. A list of 6+ war bands entered the competition and more often than not the Mordheim nights are visited by these 6 players! We’ve split up game play so 2 or 3 player games were run simultaneously but also 6-player games have been seen on the gaming table with loads of fun.

Large multiplayer Mordheim game interaction
I think 6 player Mordheim (or 4+ player for that matter) Works really well because you can all set your own agenda and try and work towards it. Since everyone has its own agenda you tend to bother each other less than in a 2 player game. In a 2 player you of course have your own agenda but it becomes clear quickly what your opponent is going to do.  Therefore it is easy not only to work towards your own agenda but is also easy to work against your opponents goal. Always fun to block plans and wreak havoc  at the same time to see your opponents frustration grow.
With more than 4 players it is more difficult to spot all other goals and even more difficult to work against all these goals. You cannot split up that much with your war band. In large multi player battles you see that opponents quit quickly find each other and multiple battles within the large battle occur. All in all a large multi player field is not much different than separate parallel game sessions.

The battle report
Ah well, enough for introduction ranting, on with the battle report of the Battle for the temple. We ended up with 5 war bands playing since one fell asleep at home! J

We decided to line up the table with the temple at one end and the starting position of the war bands all at the long end of the table lined up next to each other. A sort of sprint starting line! All war bands lifted their ladders, ready for the starting queue and started running! A set of hedges and bushes were in the way (dangerous terrain test!) and then it should be climbing up the temple as fast as possible. For each war band this should be the basic plan and with 3 ladders in each unit movement was somewhat challenging. All kinds of different movement rates made the distribution of ladders a science in itself! Does the big Ogre get to carry the big ladder or should 2 dwarfs carry it since their movement was reduced to begin with.  Maybe just average your movement out and have the fast moving models as bodyguards around it? Maybe use the Ogre bodyguard actually as a bodyguard or would that be silly?
All kinds of tactics could be followed here, in the end you need your ladders to get up to the 3^rd level of the pyramid and claim the prize, if no war band routs in the mean time of course! So there we have it, a starting line with war bands, a temple at the far end, a bunch of ladders and some difficult terrain in the middle J GO!

For me the tactic was to let my Ogre bodyguard not act as one and let him run with the big ladder towards the temple. He should outrun pretty much everyone, except for the other Ogre war band of course. The rest of my war band (Marienburg mercenaries) were there only to wreak havoc amongst the other war bands in order to delay everyone in getting to the temple.

 
I started shooting at the nearest target being some Nurgle dudes. My marksman shot at point blank range right through one of these fellows killing him instantly. The slayer in my war band was not to be restrained and charged the nearest group of undead. He was in such a rage! Swinging his axe around it inspired the dwarf treasure hunter to  get into close combat as well as the rest of the war band to get into combat with one of the nearest enemies.

Other war band tactics
The other war bands (undead, Carnival of chaos (Nurgle), Ogres, Witch hunters and Marienburg mercenaries to be complete) were starting to run (or limp or crawl or lurch) towards the temple as well. Some small skirmishes broke out here and there. The Ogres were running towards the temple just as my bodyguard did. They were running along the other table edge out of reach of my Ogre. I got over the hedges with no problems but the other Ogres turned out to be more engaged with ladders and each other instead of jumping the hedge.
The Carnival of chaos started to take revenge for killing their fellow war band member and with a nice aimed barf attack my marksman went down and out. I started fighting amongst the undead some more, taking down more and more of those rattling bones. The ogre bodyguard reached the temple and was making up his mind for climbing the first level. At the same time at the other end of the pyramid the other ogres reached the base as well. The other war bands were still struggling to get their ladders in one piece forward and more undead fell down.

View from the Carnival of Chaos (Sacha)

Scenario 62 – Ladder chase

Since we were with 5 players and there was no way to divide the rectangular table in equal parts with the temple in the middle. So we decided to start from one table end and race to the other side of the table where the three story temple and treasure was.

One other change we made to the rules was that you could still run if an opponent was within 8”, it was a chase after all. That and we had to deploy within 2” to 4” of each other.

We started out from 30” and rolled for the starting positions. I rolled a 3 which landed me dead smack in the middle. Flacked on one side by Arjan’s Undead and further away Ludo’s Ogres, and on the other side Tom’s mercenary crew and on the far side Ruud’s witch hunters of chaos.

My ladder teams looked like this: Two tainted ones with the sprint skill with the biggest ladder up front. Two plaguebearers and two Brutes with the small ladders behind them.

Nurglings on the flanks to run interference and my movement 3 carnival master at the back as support.  

I badly wanted to win a scenario for once, so my whole focus was on getting to the temple as fast as possible. That strategy got shot immediately when Tom won first turn and killed one of my big ladder carrying tainted ones with a point blank range head shot.

In my turn my other tainted one exacted revenge by killing Tom’s engineer with a vomit attack in the face.

From that point on my strategy consisted of running to the temple and catching whomever would arrive there to try and steal their large ladder. Most likely candidate were Ludo’s ogres, so my nurglings chased after them.  My brutes, plaguebearers and single tainted one raced to the front of the temple.

However by the time the nurglings were delaying Ludo’s support ogres and the bulk of my force were trying to climb over the hedge the game ended.

I ended up with a single experience point for killing the engineer during the game. My surviving heroes got an experience point, 1 campaign point for participating and 3 wyrdstone shards.

In hindsight it would have been better to adopt Tom’s strategy of going for experience points by killing then trying to win a single treasure. I guess that shows my newness to the game.

The end of the battle
At this time the undead war band took so much casualties, they routed the battlefield finishing the game. So actually nothing happened, no one reached the top to claim the chaos artefact, not too much casualties (aside from the undead), almost everyone survived in the end. Safe to say that my ogre bodyguard won the ladder handicap sprint for the temple but other than that it was lots of experience war all. The battle was fun however. Tactics were formed and a tactic of running towards the end goal was definitely something new in all the battles we played.

An evening of miniature nerding
The battle time was not too long especially when looking at 5 player multi Mordheim. On the other hand this Mordheim game night was ideal for discussing miniatures, painting, war games and whatnot. Everyone was discussing newly acquired games and mini’s, painting and scenery building techniques. It was maybe more of a miniature nerd evening with a beer on the side that game evening itself. And that is a good thing in my opinion, it is the one time your amongst fellow enthusiasts and you get to share stuff and as a bonus everyone understands what you’re talking about J

The quick and the dead

Small update: Finished this little lady; Mary Fearless.

When I saw her rules: "you shoot her, she starts shooting back! Whomever has the most successes counts has having shot that turn." I knew I wanted to have her in my Ash & Oak list. She has 2 funds, so she can buy the protection of the Ogre bruiser. Again this miniature was a pleasure to paint, and it costs less time than I usually spend on my GW miniatures. It's the lack of cluttered details, I think. Or maybe I should paint something else than miniatures covered in boils, sores and skulls. :) Mary Fearless to me is a bit of a contradiction; a female gunslinger, but part of the aristocratic faction. I tried to show that in the coloring. I choose red, white and dark blue for the dress, hopefully that comes across as aristrocratic. The boots, coat and belt are done in browns, I thought that had a proper western feel to it. The studio model is a blond yet in the artwork she looks like Eva Mendes, so I made her a brunette. In the background are the D10 dice to be able to play IHMS.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

New kid checking in: After joining the group and working on my Carnival of Chaos warband since April (personal record), I needed to work on something else for a bit. Having discovered steampunk on Beasts of war in their Wolsung video, I bought two of these Micro Art studio miniatures to see if I like working with their models. To me the Wolsung miniatures are oozing character, which is a nice break cause the carnival of chaos miniatures are mostly oozing pus. Being more of a builder/converter than a painter and it is so refreshing to be working on a miniature that is not covered in straps, boils, buckles, pouches and skulls. Lots of large surfaces, but for instance the clothing is nicely structured with creases and wrinkles so it has a nice texture to work with. So painting is easy and fast and you can try to freehand a bit, which is something I usually don't do. But that's because mostly I've been painting beastmen and things covered in rust, blood and guts. It's still WIP, I need to finish up the base and varnish the mini, but I'm quite happy with this first mini so I wanted to show it off. About the miniature this is one of my favourites from the Wolsung line.

It's an Ogre Bruiser from the Ash & Oak club, a henchman catering to the wishing of the rich and mighty with some brass knuckles. For some reason he reminds me of an Irish bar-brawler, so the vest needed to be green. Googling Victorian clothes, I found many plaid and striped pants so that was a nice challenge to try out. The other miniature I bought is Mary Fearless, a hot little aristocratic lady who can shoot the lights out. She has two funds, so she can pay for the services of the Ogre bruiser. She'll be the next project after I finish my nurgle warband, which is hopefully the next update. Another thing I've recently discovered thanks to Ludo and Tom is that these miniatures can double for both Wolsung and In her majesty's name. So I should get good mileage from them. :)

From the sewer with love

Every once in a while wargamers that keep their eyes open will stumble upon a bargain. I happen to have had that moment some days ago. While I say bargain, it was also a bit of a sad story. Without going into much detail, a lovely lady had some warhammer laying around and needed to get rid of it. Problem was: she did not know how much value there was in the box. So I drove by and helped her to determine the value for placing it on marktplaats (our national form of ebay).

We dug trough 3 big boxes of high elves, some of them not even out of the original box! She also had the island of blood starter set, a LOT of paint (mind you, a beginner with over 40 jars is pretty rare I'd say) and a number of other stuff.
Since I already had enough elves I was not interested in the HE, but the skaven did attract me somewhat. Apart from a very poor undercoat job on the general (much to thick!) and the poison wind team all the other skaven members where still in a sprue. I told her I was interested in the skaven, some never-user GW pliers and some paints. Because I helped her out so much I could take all that home for 30 euros! Not a bad deal at all, I'd say.

So, does that mean I will be playing skaven? Nope, at least it is not my intention to start a WHFB skaven army, but it is really nice to paint something else than ogre's and mantic elves every once in a while, and the skaven are just full of detail and fluff!
Furthermore, it is great to have some models to test new techniques and paints on, without having to worry about army composition and colour scheme's and whatnot.

So, that is exactly what I did, and the results can be seen below. Mind you, this is severe work in progress!

First up:
The leader of the bunch. A very striking model, but unfortunately undercoated with a gigantic layer of white. Like someone held a bottle of skull white upside down all over this guy. Fortunately I had my trustworthy sephia wash with me. In order to find all the details once again, I almost completely dipped the general in and miraculously some details became visible.














Next up:
 A warpfire thrower team. Already assembled but with a much nicer coat this time, so I could easily undercoat the mini black without loosing any detail.














After that:
Some small rats. There were some more, but these 2 stood out. The one on the right because he is actually armed with something to push rat ogre's forward which seemed very cool. The other armed with a simple spear. I tried some new colour combinations on these guys and am pretty please with the result so far.














Then:
Since we need something to actually push on, here's a rat ogre! There were 2 of these guys in the package and I don't know yet how to finish them, but I like where it's going so far.

Last:
But certainly not least! My personal favorite of the bunch, the Warplock engineer! Very nice model, striking pose and such a blast to paint!














Now, onto more painting! Perhaps we will seem these guys on the battlefield someday. Or ... lurking the streets of mordheim, that is only if I find a warband with Clan Skyre theme instead of those dreaded assassins!

 By the way: Pictures made with a lousy mobile phone camera, so excuse the quality!

Painting OOP dwarves

Got me a set of OOP metal dwarfs from fellow #warmonger @Woutertje_l. It is nice to exchange some old models lying around now and then. I happen to find an old Rhino he was happy with. In this way these miniatures get some paint and playing time, who otherwise were left in the dark in some storage box waiting for better times.

Ok, back to the dwarfs, some very nice old marauder dwarfs, but also a set of metal Ironbreakers there! I love the models that were there before the new plastic kit and already had a set of 10 painted. When playing I mostly added dwarf warriors to the ironbreaker unit to proxy a larger unit but now I can really field big Ironbreaker units! Woohoo!

Started painting some dwarfs from the sit just one by one. When looking at the OOP dwarfs the models are characters in themselves although being for example just dwarf warriors. Therefore it is nice to just pick a model and start painting. One of the first ones is this piraty wooden legged dwarf with the crossbow strapped to his back. I found this the ideal model for playing in Mordheim warband but also at the front of a Dwarf warrior unit. Started painting him and actually quite quickly this lad was done only missing his shield and a matching base to the rest of my dwarfs (stone tiles cast with hirst arts moulds).

The finished result is something that looks like the following. 

Miniswap 2014

Something as the miniswap 2014 is stuff that gives me something new to paint and to break existing paint structures. I am busy painting away at Ogres for some time now and before that it were dwarves for years. The occasional other model comes by, but it is difficult to paint something completely different since it will not fit your army or game system you are working with. The miniswap is the ideal event to do just that and even have it a bit of a surprise to see what model it will be.

A painting challange for myself is nice but is also very interesting to see what your “opponent” will paint and how he paints it. What is his choice for paint scheme and how will his paint techniques work out.

All in all a great event to participate in. For me I sent in an Ogre Butcher. It was an old model I had lying around for some time now, it came from a collection I bought in 1 go and needed to be repainted. I stripped the paint and sent in the model. I am paired with @NigelSBartlett and he sent me an Eldar Farseer. It couldn’t be a model farther away from my safe paint environment of Ogres and Dwarfs. Not only another army but also another game entirely (still GW though). I painted some tyranids maybe 15 years ago but that was it for me painting Warhammer 40K stuff. The Eldar are something I’ve played against, but that was also 15 years ago and the closest I got to the elder. Now I was holding a farseer! Great model, nice and sleek, Elfy (also big contrast with my Ogres and Dwarfs).

Now is the time to come up with a paint scheme. I actually did some research on Eldar in general, color schemes and craftworlds. In the end I settled for blue/turquoise with white and brass accents. The cloak is something screaming for a nice painting on it, so I will have a go at painting a nice big wave on it with a small wave trail along the edges.

Plan in place, start painting! Progress was a bit slow due to some holidays here and there, but suffice to say I finished the Farseer. A nice paint project and in the end the base gave me to most problems, creative wise. It is a readymade base that comes with the model. Discussed with Nigel that snow fits the army. Therefore a stone to be painted and some snow to be added but nothing much more then that really. I must say with the white snow and the white in the model it fits the complete picture nicely. 

Just in time StuGs

Finished just before leaving for a holliday trip, these Flames of War StuGs are my first air brushed models. I camouflaged the more or less acceptable camouflage with mud and some snow, in line with my Waffen SS panzergrenadiers..

Feedback is welcome, holliday even more :-)