Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Four (final)

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!


Chapter Four - Kings of the Hill

The last scenario we played was a "King of the hill" type of scenario: we determined an elevated area, consisting of two buildings, in the center of the board, and the objective of the players was to occupy that
area with as many warriors as possible.

Boehm placing the last piece of scenery near the objective:


Close-up of the objective: any model standing in the red area after 6 turns brings in 1 Victory Point for
his team:



For this game, we decided to form three teams:

Team 1: Admin Tom (Witch Hunters) + Matt (Possessed)
Team 2: Boehm (Dwarves) + Erkwin (Reiklanders)
Team 3: Tortiou (Reiklanders) + Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)

Lanyssa Ryssyll and Tortiou, starting to the south of the table, divided their strike force:


Admin Tom and Matt, forming an unusual and rather surprising team of Witch Hunters and Possessed (yes we know, fluff wouldn't normally allow it, but did it for variability's sake), started to the North-West of the table:


They were almost face to face with Erkwin and Boehm's team, which showed up to the North-East:


One of Erkwin's marksmen covers the advance of his teammates:

At this time, the central position is still unoccupied:


Team 2 on the move!! (I just love this pic!)


Tom's and Matt's warriors decide to rush towards the south... but soon encounter some light resistance from
Tortiou and Lanyssa's team:


Two flagellants and Karol ambushing Lanyssa's binge-drinking dwarf:


Matt pushed his luck a bit too far, and charged the whole Team 2 with a single model (the now-famous Krackatoaaar):


Needless to say: the poor Krackatoar (in the centre of the picture) received volley after volley of arrows,
and finally expired and met its maker:


One of Tortiou's archers takes a firing position:


Erkwin's marksman watching the scene from a safe distance:


Even though Krackatoar just bit the dust, Matt keeps smiling!


As the end of the game approaches, Team 3 decides to rush inside the objective area:


Don Salchichón, Tortiou's hired freelancer knight, charges Matt's possessed and tries to hinder the advance of Team 1:


The close combat taking place between Team 1 (Tom+Matt) and Team 3
(Tortiou+Lanyssa) involves flagellants, Karol the possessed, two dwarves and Don Salchichón. Despite his strong armour save (3+), the Knight is put OOA by Karol right after his charge. Lanyssa's two remaining dwarves manage to hold their position for one more turn, delaying Tom and Matt and allowing the rest of their teammates to occupy the building.

Captain Tortiou's Reiklanders, storming the objective area:


Meanwhile, Team 2 (Boehm and Erkwin) uses the occasion to enter the area from the North:


Three Reiklanders from Erkwin's team manage to climb on the northeastern corner of the objective area:


The showdown is inevitable: the two teams clash in the centre of the objective area, inside the ruins. The fight is brutal, violent, bloody.

Who will be the King of the Hill?

The objective area at the end of turn 6:


Captain Tortiou manages to kill one of Erkwin's champions with a well-aimed headshot from his duelling
pistol:


At the end of turn 6, the objective area was occupied by:
-Team 2 (Boehm + Erkwin) : 10 warriors
-Team 3 (Tortiou + Lanyssa Ryssyll) : 10 warriors
-Team 1 (Matt + Tom) : 1 dog

Thus, the game was declared a draw between Team 2 and Team 3.

However, both teams were given +1XP for their leaders because of the spectacular showdown!

Tortiou and Erkwin vehemently discussing the fight during the post-battle sequence:

(actually, they are just posing for the picture... )

This is how Tom's Boring Mordheim Meetup ended. After this game, we all went to the city centre of Vienna to have a nice lunch (with beer!) in a nice tavern. We all had some excellent goblin steak roasted à la viennese (only 13gc)
but Matt wanted to sacrifice the waiter to the unholy Khorne so we were actually asked to leave.

Matt getting ready to take on a huge "Speckbrot":


Tortiou discussing "sniper" rules for Mordheim with Boehm.


And here's a last shot of the whole Boring Meetup 2008 crew (munchin' away at those delicious 50cm breads )


Conclusively I would like to say that this Meetup was really awesome, not only because the games all went smoothly and were fun and interesting, but also because every single participant was cool, nice, and geekishly crazy!

Thank you Erkwin, Matt, Boehm and Lanyssa Ryssyll!
And of course a big "Cheers mate !" to the incredible Admin Tom who moved heaven and earth to make this Meetup possible, and without whom all these games would never have taken place... respect, mon gars!

And finally thanks to you for reading all this!

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Three

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!
*trumpets sounding in the distance*

Chapter Three - Street Fighters

The second game we played was a pure, simple and brutal street brawl. Again, we decided to form alliances and thus two teams were opposed. Each team (comprising three warbands) had to start from one end of the street and the scenario objective was to advance as far as possible towards the other end of the street. We roughly defined an "Area of Victory": after 6 turns, for every model standing in this Area of Victory, a team received 1 Victory Point. For every model beyond this Area of Victory, the team received 2 VP (but as you will see, the battle was so fierce that no warrior made it past the 1VP area...)

I made a little scheme to explain the objective.

Here you can see the limits of the street (red lines) and the Area of Victory (red area)

Same as before, but from the opposite point of view:

For fun, we also added some Wyrdstone counters. Just like the previous game, we rolled to determine the teams. The results were:

Team 1
AdminTom (Witch Hunters)
Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)
Tortiou (Reiklanders)

Team 2
Matt (Possessed)
Boehm (Dwarves)
Erkwin (Reiklanders)

The table is set... the teams are ready... let the show begin!

Two leagues, both alike in dignity,
In fair Mordheim, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean!

Boiling with anger, the combined force of Witch Hunters - Dwarves - Reiklanders (Team 1) started on the south side of the street. As you will probably notice on the pictures below, Tortiou decided to hire the services of a Freelancer Knight to assist his Reiklanders...

Here you can see, from top to bottom: Tortiou's Reiklanders, Tom's Witch Hunters, and Lanyssa's Dwarves:

To the north, moving silently but consumed with rage, were the mighty Dwarf - Reiklander - Possessed alliance (Team 2).

Matt's Possessed are pushing forward to secure the middle of the street, followed by Erkwin's and Boehm's warriors:

Near the fountain, you can spot Matt's mighty
Possessed, among them Gnobo (to the left) and Krackatoaaar (to the
right) who continued their serendipituous killing spree:

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

A lonely Beastman securing the first wyrdstone counter. Behind him, Boehm's halfling cook takes a firing position:

The first two close combats of the game, between a
separated Freelancer (from Tortiou's warband) and Matt's unstoppable
Krackatoar; and between Tom's dog and Matt's terrifying Gnobo:

To tell the story of Matt's incredible close combat fights during this game would take too long (and he'll probably be glad to write about it himself) (*hint! hint!*) Let's just say that Lady
Luck was on Matt's side... and thus, both the Freelancer knight and Tom's dog were killed in this action.

After a few turns, the middle of the street is being approached by many warriors: Team 1 is rushing on the footbridges, whereas Team 2 takes cover behind a city wall (Team 2 is hidden in this picture):

At the end of the 6th turn, after a big brawl in the middle of the street, Team 2 had the highest number of warriors standing in the Victory Area. Team 1 had been too slow or had had too many warriors killed in the battle. Thus, Team 2 (Matt, Boehm and Erkwin) was declared the winning team!

Admin Tom and his boyz, after the fight:

This was the end of the first day of our Big Meetup (11th of July). The next day, another fascinating scenario was played, with an unexpected twist... but this will be told in Chapter 4 - The Last Chapter!

Be sure to also check out the extra feature available on TBMF soon! An excerpt of the private journal of a very famous Hired Sword...

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Two

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!

Chapter Two - Wyrdstone hunters

The first game we played was a wyrdstone hunt: wyrdstone counters were placed on the board by the players successively, rather far away from the table edge and not too close to each other. To spice up the scenario a little bit, we also decided to place Victory Point-counters (I suppose WarbossKurgan didn't know he was the one who put that idea into Tom's head), each counter being worth 1, 2 or 3 VP. These counters were meant to be carried by warriors just like a wyrdstone counter. The speciality of these counters however lies with the fact, that the number of VPs they are worth was written underneath them and revealed only after the game!
We decided to also award 1 VP per kill, to balance the game for slower warbands.

Boehm and Erkwin placing the counters:

two teams of three warbands each were rolled for:

Team 1
Admin Tom (Witch Hunters)
Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)

Erkwin (Reiklanders)

Team 2
Boehm (Dwarves)
Matt (Possessed)
Tortiou (Reiklanders)

We started on randomly determined table edges, so the teams were actually quite scattered all over the city, some being sandwiched between the enemy! Matt and Boehm started close to each other, and so did Admin Tom and Lanyssa Ryssyll. But Erkwin and Tortiou were cut off from their allies and dangerously close to ennemy models.

Erkwin's Reiklanders are deploying...

Everybody's getting ready for the big battle:

Tortiou's Reiks are warming up:

Admin Tom is showing off (as usual :P)

Tom's Witch Hunters are lighting the torches and sending the dogs to the front line

An isolated Reiklander archer (Erkwin) covers his teammates

Lanyssa Ryssyll (his back to us) moving his dwarves towards a wyrdstone counter, while Matt and Boehm discuss a joint operations strategy, closely watched by Erkwin (the actual positions of the player reflect the location of their respective warbands on the board):

The first close combat between Matt's Possessed and Lanyssa Ryssyll's Dwarves... and the amazing debut of Krackatoaaar's killing spree.

No one - except for Matt, one would assume - was ever sure how to spell Krackatoaaaar's name correctly (Kraktor? Gragtoooh?), but it was a lot of fun to burst into that "sound" every time Matt's warrior went into a rampage... In fact there was yelling of "Kraktooooooor!" in almost every close combat phase :)

The tension mounts as both teams are now in possession of approximately the same number of wyrdstone counters and VP counters.

Lanyssa Ryssyll meticulously analysing the situation:

The jubilant jumping Erkwin exulting after his Champion gives the coup de grace to Boehm's reckless dwarf Beardling:

Undeterred, Boehm's enterprising dwarves continue to advance towards the fighting:

On the other side of the table, Tortiou's Reiks are desperately trying to counter Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarves and Tom's witch hunters by firing volley after volley of arrows...
without no luck:

Erkwin's packed Reiks are slowly progressing:

"Do you think he can see my warrior?" -"Yes he can!" -"Mmmh, maybe yes, maybe no..." -"Let's ask the referee..."

The whole game balance changes as Tom's Witch Hunters and Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarves finally reach the little plaza at the centre of the board and grab the remaining pieces of wyrdstone.

This is the last pint of Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarf called Vue-Troublée (Blurred-Sight) before being shot by one of Tortiou's archers. Soon after this, Lanyssa Ryssyll routs, but manages to keep one WS counter while fleeing.

Erkwin's Reiks overwhelming one of Boehm's dwarves:

Last action heroes: Tortiou's Reiks heroically charge Tom's witch hunters behind a corner... resulting in two Reiklander going OOA
(one being Captain Tortiou himself, bitten to death by a dog):

Tom's Warhounds proved to be one of the surprisingly effective units in this campaign. Twice they were charged by Reiklanders (and well armed ones on top of that) and both times the warhounds were the ones taking their agressors out.

The game ends with Erkwin's Youngblood picking up another WS counter at the last second. What we did at the end is count the points for each team, giving 1 VP per wyrdstone counter, 1VP per kill and 1, 2 or 3 VP per VP counter picked up. Now was the time to reveal how much VPs each counter was worth. Actually, both teams had taken possession of roughly the same number of VP counters, but luck favoured Erkwin-Tom-Lanyssa's team: when we flipped the VP counters over to see how much each counter was worth, Erkwin and his teammates got more points than the other team!

Here you can see Erkwin's VP counters flipped over:

The results:
Team 2 (Tortiou - Matt - Boehm) only totaled 11 points, whereas Team 1 (Tom - Lanyssa Ryssyll - Erkwin) totaled 18 points.

Team 1 was declared the winning team!

All players at the end of the game, during the post-battle sequence:

After that, we went out to have some food, but quickly returned for the second game... more to come in Chapter 3!