Mordheim Mayhem 2007 - Continued

Day 1 CONTINUED

GAME TWO of FOUR - Monster Rampage

This was basically a regular Wyrdstone Hunt scenario that we spiced up a little. Okay, we spiced it up a lot. A whole lot to be honest...

Here's the deal:

There are 6 wyrdstone fragments lying around (anywhere but on ground level!) and the objective is to get as many of them as you can. The are two problems however.
First, there are four trolls and two giants wandering around on the table (God only knows why) ready to attack at random.
Secondly, each time a warrior picks up a wyrdstone, something "strange" happens (a "random encounter" is generated with 2D6).

To win you had to have most Victory Points (VP) at the end of the game, dinamically awarded as follows:

+1 VP per monster killed
+2 VP per wyrdstone fragment in the possession of the warband

7 monsters, 6 Wyrdstones. Let's roll.

There were 5 Trolls and 2 Giants stubling around at random.
Each of them had 1D10" of movement.

Look at that smile! Wow!

The amazons get the first turn and sprint towards the wyrdstones that are hidden inside buildings.

One troll gets dangerously close to my captain, while a witch hunter climbs the "dome" to get his hands on that green glowing rock.

Hari already has 3 fragments, I have 1 and poor Nico none. It must be said that, if you look at the set up, Nico chose the table edge where the wyrdstone fragments were the least accessible...

Crap. The troll charges my Witch Hunters. Luckily I had taken precautions and had placed a defensive line of flagellants to intercept that ugly beast. Nevertheless he managed to kill two of them before I could take him out in a savage hand to hand combat that required the joint efforts of 90% of my warband (including warhounds)!

Aaaaand the Troll goes dooooown! Good job Witch Hunters!

Now I would not want to be that swordsman... A giant corners the poor warrior, swinging his huge club... erm.. tree?

Nico rushes his warband a walkway to shoot with all he has got at the giant.

The giants loses 3 out of 4 wounds and flees... that was close!

Now Nico takes down the pink troll. Yes, pink.

The unpartial hand(s) of fate move the NPCs around the table.

Nico still has no fragments to boast and worse yet, a troll attacks his champion... needless to say the poor man goes OOA (out of action). Nico's warband tries to avenge the fallen comrade, but they can only severely wound the creature. The killing shot comes from one of my witch hunters' crossbow.

Hari fires at the giant with one wound and knocks him down!

The giant crushes to the ground and takes a bridge with him. Hari's priestess leaps forward and gives him the "coup de grâce".

So far, Hari was the clear leader of the game. The random events that occured when picking up wyrdstones had produced howling blizzards, earthquakes and the likes so far.

But chance kept the best for the end. Read on to see why...

Let's take a look at the scoreboard at the beginning of the 5th (out of 6) turn:

Hari......... 3 Wyrdstones (+6 VP) and 1 giant killed (+1 VP) = 7 Victory points
Tom......... 1 Wyrdstones (+2 VP) and 2 trolls killed (+2 VP) = 4 Victory points

Nico..........0 Wyrdstones (+0 VP) and 1 pink troll killed (+1 VP) = 1 Victory point

This is what happened next: One of my warriors finally reaches the top of the wooden tower and picks up a wyrdstone shard that was hidden there. The event this generates reads "Random building catches fire". At the other end of the table, one amazon on the 3rd floor of a building suddenly felt a massive change of temperature :) Of course she tried to escape the flames, but died in the process, and lost her shard of wyrdstone thus reducing Hari's VPs by 2. I however gained +2 VP for having picked up a shard.

So all of a sudden, Hari went from 7 VP to 5 VP, and I went from 4 VP to 6 VP. And that's how the Witch Hunters won the game in the nick of time, against all odds!



Day 2

GAME THREE of FOUR - Defend the Find in Alternate Reality

Ok, I guess we were either very drunk or just hopelessly out of ideas that morning.

I can't remember who exactly shouted "Hey! Let's use the GorkaMorka table for a change!" but I distinctly remember myself vigorously nodding to that more than questionable idea... Anyway, we built up a Mordheim city on a "desert" table, and we did seem to like it. I suppose a space-time rift must have opened in Mordheim and temporarily have teleported a whole city district to an alternate reality... and our warbands just happened to be in that district at that very moment. What was in those potatoe crisps I wonder...

The scenario was as follows: Nico's Reiklanders held a central building (the "dome") against 2 attacking warbands; my orcs and Hari's amazons were allied for this game. Nico had a skaven warband that was not deployed at the beginning but was to enter the table as reinforcements during the game, at a moment decided by dice-roll.

Nico occupies the "dome".

My orcs rush straight forward. Dat's da plan!

Nico swiftly shifts the placement of his warriors and fires at Hari and me with deadly accuracy.

The boss and a Big'Un are shot by arrows and go OOA... in the first round. No further comment.

A typical Nico roll. Four rolls, three hits.

Our referee.

"Does he even carry a bow?"

"Yes, he does. And he's in short range too, hihihi."

Finally! A Big'Un and a Boy charge up the ladder and beat the crap out of two archers! Reveeeeenge!

I send a squig to assist Hari in an uneven close combat.

Nico's answer is straight forward: Squig and Amazon go OOA.

Staying true to his reputation, Nico rolls high and his reinforcements enter the table after only 3 game-turns! Yet, Nico's losses force him to take a rout test, which he fails! The Reiklanders flee the table.

The Skaven charge Hari's remaining amazones.

They also charge my remaining goblins. Now Hari and I have to rout, Nico wins thanks to his reinforcements.

A proud (winning) Nico and the two disappointed losers.



The following background stories have been written by Nico:

Captain Tortiou's Battle Log - Campaign Day 2, "Ambush at the Dome!"

Me and my men, we were resting from the previous battles in an abandoned building with a beautiful - and still intact - Dome as a roof. I had stationed some of my fellow archers as sentinels on the Dome itself, as a matter of precaution only, for I was sure that with the Skavens watching our back, nothing would happen to us that night... ...I was wrong. The Wood Elf was the first to hear them. His heightened elven sensibility told him that two warbands were approaching. The yucky smell of a goblin fart indicated to him that one of these warbands was an Orcish horde. And the spicy scent of cheap perfume brought by the breeze revealed the identity of the other warband: Amazons. Even in that distorted reality, with desert sand replacing the normal paving stone, the treacherous Orcs and their perfidious friends the Amazons had followed us. They were ambushing us from both East and West, and I had no choice but order my warriors to hold their positions until the arrival of our Skaven allies. My tactic was rather simple: my archers on the roof would provide cover fire while my fighters on the ground would wait for the enemy to approach the Dome. I gave my orders and reached the safety of a nearby ruin - for the fire power of the Amazons was not to be underestimated. Indeed, the warrior women immediately shot at my men, and there was a quick exchange of fire between the Wood Elf and the Amazons. Our hired sword successfully put one of them out of action, thus justifying the 20 gold crowns I pay him every week... On the ground level, Rotkopf and Franz-Josef, my two fellow swordsmen, joined me in an attempt to block the advance of the Amazons on the Eastern front. A hard fight ensued, in which we had to suffer some casualties. Meanwhile, the Orcish horde did not remain calm. With huge shouting and yelling and shrieking and bawling, the Orcs rushed forward on the Dome... but stopped, as a volley of arrows pounced at their leader and put him out of his misery. The Goblins and the Squigs, unaware of the fall of their leader, kept running towards the building. Two gigantic orcs climbed up the ladder and stormed the roof of the building, where my archers stood. Charging with great vengeance, they slaughtered them with their blood-thirsty axes... As for the close combat with the Amazons, I fought bravely, along with my two champions, Gunther and Van Gogh. But we were outnumbered and it was clear that we would'nt hold the Dome much longer... Taking into account the critical situation of my archers on the roof, threatened by the savagery of the Orcs, I finally ordered a tactical retreat and we calmly fell back in the shadows of the ruins of Mordheim, leaving the victory to the Orc-Amazon alliance... or so it seems!

The Buk'sharok, Memories of a Skaven Assassin, page 34:

"...as we arrived on the battlefield, those wretched Reiklanders were already fleeing. Curse them! May their bones be chewed by rats for a thousand years! But with these cowards gone, the victory was ours, and was not to be shared. For Ragnadrik! With lots of squeaking, my Verminkin rushed towards the Dome and fought the remnants of the Orcish Horde there. Me and my Black Skavens formed a task force to block two Amazons who happened to pass by. Damned females! They managed to dodge all my blows, and even my old warplock pistol failed me... The dirty work was done by the Verminkin. By eliminating nearly all the goblins and their hideous squigs, my warriors ensured the victory. The Amazons and the Orcs routed and fled without honour. El queak'rorik! Triumph and success! When the Reiklanders showed up after the fight, we vanished in the shadows, promising that never again we would offer our help to such weenie wimps. So say we all..."

GAME FOUR of FOUR - Homerun

Hari's amazon heroines have found wyrdstone. As they prepare to return to their camp, they are ambushed by a Reiklander and a Possessed Warband.

This time Nico and I swapped warbands for fun. Nico played my Possessed and I played Reiklanders, but we were not allied.

Hari had to reach an objective across the table with at least 2 standing models. Each of his heroines carried an unknown amount of wyrdstone.
The rule is: when a heroine is put out of action, she drops 0, 1 or 2 fragments of wyrdstone, determined randomly. The attacker picks the fragment(s) up.

The amazons get +1VP per wyrdstone carried into the objective
and +2VP per enemy out of action

All others get +2VP per wyrdstone picked up
and +1VP per enemy out of action

The game ends after 6 turns. The team with most VP wins.

My minions do as I have commanded and change the gaming boards :)

The objective.

I deploy the Reiks

Nico deploys the Possessed

And Hari bursts into a sprint.

My crossbowman gets into position and fires at the running amazons, but he misses all his shots.

So does the elf. I am VERY disappointed. Why does he only hit under Nico's command?

The Reiklanders hurry throught the narrow streets of Mordheim to get into an elevated position from where they can shoot at the amazons.

We're in position people. Let them come.

Nico who normaly excels at marksmanship feels a little amputated of his power when commanding brutal head-to-headers like the possessed.

"It says here: Two spoons of sugar, four eggs and 200g of flour..."

Nico's Possessed charges (and crushes) a poor amazon scout.

Hari takes down a darksoul and the Reiklander archers kill a possessed!

The amazons have advanced to the middle of the table. Hari shoots at the magister with bows...

Double critical hit! The magister is out of action and Hari wins the match after 6 rounds.

Stay motivated! After 8hours of gaming there is only one thing to say...