Well, the problem player's brother surprised us all last night - he brought in a terrain set and a campaign that he had been working on. This is what set the problem player off - hs younger brother was putting a lot of work into a new campaign in secret, and had bought Skull Cove to do it in!

And what is more without his brother's dubious help the kid is actually not a bad player, managing to beat me in the first game of the new campaign! (Beat is not the best word for my defeat, closer to 'stomped me into the mud!' ) He used my own tactics against me, took advanyage of swampy ground and cover, and sent his strongest members against my weakest flank. It was wonderful!

He is limiting it to one game per person per week, and one warband for each player, but he is running the campaign himself, aside from the main campaign. I was the first to sign up.

Anyway, I had a blast last night, and won all my other games, but I enjoyed that first loss more than all the victories I have had in weeks. Anywho, I think that he has the right to be proud of his campaign and told him so. Him beating me the first game was just the icing on the cake. He had been practicing against his brother with the new warband, learning how to use it, and changing his tactics until he started winning. It is going to take work to beat him, which is the biggest compliment that I can think of - up until last night he hadn't won a single game in the league. After beating me in Lustria he beat two of his other opponents in the regular game, and got a draw on the third - he is still the bottom player, he has a lot of losses to make up, but if he keeps this up then he will leave the bottom next week.

The Auld Grump

A quick question:

Should I build Tony, the person running the Lustria mini-campaign, some terrain as a present? Or should I let him shoulder the entire burden?

I want to reward him, but he was so darned proud of what he had built... And he should be, by the look of it he has a lot more patience than his brother.

I would also have to figure out what to give him, for Lustria Skull Cove is the perfect set, the only thing that I can think of to go with it, other than more Skull Cove terrain, is the Maiden, but I don't want to put that much work into it. Maybe a small Cave Works set up?

The Auld Grump

I am leaning toward getting him a gift certificate at RPGNOW. Right now my finaves are too tight to cover the full cost, but a $5 deposit will be enough to let him look things over. I am suspecting Cave Works, the others really do not work for Lustria.

Lustria is available as a series of free downloads from the Specialist Games website. I have now downloaded my own copy. There is also a Yahoo Group, but it looks pretty dead. I will let Tony know about it though, maybe it can be revived. So far four out of the dozen members have joined, one Skaven (Clan pestilens, a variant warband from online - he normally plays the Clan Eschen rat men, but has not gotten to play in the new campaign yet.), Tony and his Lizard Men, one person has joined and not yet played - she is planning on getting some Amazons, and me.

I will end up switching Warbands, with Tony's permission, to Shadow Elves, a warband that I have miniatures for, but have never played much. (All plastic, except for some Reaper miniatures.) This is a setting that needs something a little more mobile and shooty than my undead horde. (Though I have a vaguely Aztec Vampire that I used for the first battle.)


The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Hmmm, I had not noticed that Skull Cove had dropped in price...

I think most of the people are upset that after they told him that they didn't agree with him he sent an e-mail saying that they had. The closest to agreement that he got was somebody who told him to take it up with me. Then he sent it to the group saying that they all wanted me out.

Beating him with his own warband while he played mine may not have been a good choice, the intent was to show him how to win, instead he took it as 'ha ha! I can always beat you!' Not the intent at all. One of the quirks of Mordheim is that as warbands win games they get batter, so my warband was quite a bit more powerful than his, but he still lost.

His brother is being one of the more vocal on leaving him out, I guess that sibling rivalry was part of it, or perhaps he thought that I wouldn't allow Tony to run his campaign if I were there. (I was ecstatic that somebody wanted to run a campaign, it meant that I could just play in this one!)

We have not yet given Tony his certificate, hopefully that goes well. $15 is enough to get most World Works sets. Between those of us who chimed in it came to $3 each.

Most of the players did not even want to swap to a player victory vs. warband victory. They knew that if any of them wanted a game I had somebody for them to play against. When setting up battles I keep track of who has played whom, having multiple warbands made it possible to allow for odd numbers of players. Just because Tony had played against my Undead recently did not mean that he couldn't play against my Rieklanders, which means he could get in a game. Which I guess was also part of why he wants to have his own campaign. It also means that not all my victories go into a single warband.

Next week I play Tony in the normal Mordheim game, I suspect that I will still beat him, but it will be a lot closer. To level the playing field a little I will be having a climactic confrontation next month, and we will be restarting the campaign with new warbands. After that we will switch to a player score instead of a warband score.

The plot for the confrontation is the Empire under newly crowned Emperor Magnus the Pious will be assaulting the city. Three different victory conditions, one to a warband - some will just try to escape the city. Some will try to hold the city, and others will join the Impeirial forces. The Empire meanwhile will be using cannon to bring down the walls and gates of Mordheim. The bulk of their forces will be outside of the city gates, only the warbands who side with the emperor will be on the inside.

Sides so far:
Escape - Skaven, Middenheimers, and Marienbergers

FIght - Skaven ('nother band), Chaos, Sisters, Orcs, Undead

For the Emperor!: My Rieklanders, my Undead, my Witch Hunters, and one or two others.

By having all my bands on one side I can make things easier, and if there are any players who want to gang up on me they can let out their frustrations. I am expecting/hoping to get slaughtered! I have been playing my Undead as loyal to the Empire since the beginning, even avoiding battle with the Sisters on one occassion. They are Blood Dragon, not Von Carstien.

Two ways out of the city - the sewers and the Maiden.

One way to let the Empire in - open the gates.

One way to win the battle against the Empire (for a while, the city is doomed!) - Kill the forces who are siding with the Empire and trying to open the gates.

The escapees are a bit limited, one warband can win each way, and there are three escapees... But they can win regardless of the outcome of the larger battle. They can also join one side or the other...

Anywho, I will bounce that off of the group on Thursday, we shall see if it flies. It will likely need to be hammered around a bit.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* This will be played on three tables, not all in one huge mess!

Sure enough Tony ordered The Maiden - he is also planning on getting Cave Works, but he wanted to build the Maiden. He is finding it rough going, but I think that he will pull it off.

I managed to talk the group into suspending Tony's brother instead of booting him, with time served - but he has found something else for Thursday nights, so it has become a non-issue. He was I gather surprised that I was the one that pushed for letting him back in. I wonder what it is that he has against me? He seems to think that I am somehow his nemesis...

I may start up a D&D game for some of the younger members of the league sometime after the summer job lets out. And I want to start up a WARMACHINE league as well, though I was not impressed by the campaign rules that I have seen for the game. (But am impressed with everything else so far.)

The Auld Grump

Just a catch up - Tony and I are now tied in both Mordheim and Lustria, our recent Lustria game ended as a draw, with both sides taking casualties from missle shots. The first figure to drop was his brand new Kroxigor, which looked like a pincushion by the end of turn 2. It was big, it was scary, it was amphibious... it scared me so I shot it. A lot. It takes a lot of arrows for one of those things to even notice. We ran out of time before there was an obvious winner.

Tony has started building the Maiden, but is finding it tough going. I have loaned him mine so that he has an example to work from. He has either purchased or is purchasing Cave Works as well.

And for the first time there was a Necromunda game being played as well, using my All Flesh Must Be Eaten set up for the terrain. Being up high is good, being up high with a plasma cannon is wonderful...

The Auld Grump

Hey, Auld Grump!

- Have you seen the maps in the new White Dwarf? Lustria and stuff. Very cool, if I my use the beat-generation Americanism.

MAGSMAN

*EDIT* Well, actually, some might say its just a wallpaper decoration really, but nice never-the-less. I dare say campaign-wise it could be OK.

*EDIT* Sorry for shouting. Very rude.

*EDIT* There's a plan-drawing of the Temple City of Itza inside the mag (still browsing as I write) and that does look interesting...

*EDIT* Having browsed the mag - which I should have done before - there does seem to be a lot on Lustria that might be of real value - ?

*EDIT* Modelling Heaven: not one but two articles on really nicely made Umbar and Gondor ships for LotR. A real change.

Grump- Since Mordheim is largely played in a city setting, what do you use for city ground tiles? I know that a gridded system would aid players in guessing distances and I have been searching for a good quality, non gridded tile since CWU doesn't have a no-grid version.

If it's in a city, couldn't you simply use SoM tiles?