As I mentioned on several previous topics I use World Works with Mordheim a good deal.

The folks at GW and Specialist Games have made the rules for the game available free at http://www.specialist-games.com/mordheim/livingrule.asp so if you want to use your WW terrain with the game you can try it out. They apparently decided to do this after revising the rules not too long ago.

The Auld Grump, back online again

Oh cool. They finally put up V2.

Thanks for the heads up Grump.

-Floyd

ps. You should see the collection of Town Cryers and the year end review compilations we have for this game. Sheesh...wish I had it all online via PDFs.
Save me alot of space.

Hmmm, one of the rules changes in the most recent version has made a big difference... Now that slings get a -1 to their to hit roll when firing twice things have gotten a lot safer for things non-skaven.

The Auld grump - Rieklander, Undead, Averlanders, Ostlanders, and Carnival of Chaos... It's pure coincidence that I use those figures for other games as well...

Yeah, the balance on the Skaven... left a little bit to be desired. Cheap troops, with cheap weapons that were overpowered... (Lower price, same strength, and same range as a shortbow, plus fires twice... oh yeah, that was balanced...) To heck with the characters, it was the run of the mill clan rats with slings that wracked up kills, the characters just ran in and finished off the stunned ones.

Hehe, I remember the old Sister's armed with a sling and a whip setup. Talk about short range domination. I know that the guys I used to play with got to the point they wouldn't play against them just because it was so frustrating.

But Mordheim is a great entry level game. Heck, makes a great any level game. One of the most appealing aspects was the fact you didn't need a bazillion figures. Scenery was always a breeze to make, as long as you didn't go too gung-ho into like I tended to do. Made some really fantastic buildings though. Just took me way too long to do them, as opposed to some of the quickies I could've made in less than half the time.

I generally had an easier time with Sisters than with Skaven, mostly because of the movement and cost of Skaven. (Cheap, fast troops... Gah!)

Even loaded out the sisters would fall either to my Rieklanders (crossbows and halberds as far as the eye could see) or to the vampire, the dire wolves, and his ghouls. (Again, movement, in general they would hit in just about that order. Plus the rule that you had to try to reach base to base combat when you charged made the whip less useful than it might have been.)

After the first few games the Skaven stopped getting Rat Ogres, too expensive, and the vamp or crossbowmen would put him down every game. The Troll on the other hand proved the backbone for nearly every Orc warband.

The Auld Grump

I always had luck with against Skaven(And I do mean luck), but thier obvious strong point was thier ability to get in close combat NOW. It didn't take long to figure out that having a lot of missile troops wasn't a good idea against those things. Handgunners were especially horrible since the little rats would be in hand-to-hand before you could get enough shots off to make the expense worthwhile.

And I always used Rieklanders as well, lol...

Heh, that's why all my crossbowmen also had halberds, it was a given that the Skaven were going to get initiative, but a Str 4 return attack helped. Spears were nice too, again the skaven were going to be the ones to charge, but mostly I have seen the Skaven getting in close with those darned slings and firing twice. It was only after a round or two of 'tenderizing' that the heavy hand to claw ratmen would enter the fray. A bloody nuisance those slings...

The Auld Grump oddly the Skaven warbands had a harder time in the sewers... no room for running around.

Yeah, Skaven can get nasty, and quick. My sorcerer could get a 24" charge and then have 4 or 5 STR 4 attacks.....nasty. I was also the "local hero" for our group because my skanve swamped a vampire lord and the resulting injury aftewards brought his T down to 3. He wasn't quite as nasty then.

The Warhammer World has a pretty involved history. It's based off Tolkienian standards but braches in it's own directions fairly quickly. You'd best Google it up for more specific info.

On a related note, Necromunda's "living rulebook" is also available for download from GW (finally!)

Cool! I will post a link to that in a new topic - gives a reason for folks to get Urban Mayhem.

The Auld Grump

I finally used the Maiden for a game last night, Mordheim.

Three way fight, which I normally dislike (I can think of only one in history, and that was in WWI, not far from Armegeddon.)

In this case we used the Maiden, Village Works, the barrels from Pubs & Inns, and the wharfs from Skull Cove.

Let's see if I can fake the set up.


** --<+++>
_______|_______

[] [=]** [=]* [=]
1_____**_____ 2
[=]***********
[==]* [=]*[=] [ ]

Brackets represent buildings of various sizes, --<+++> is the Maiden, | is the pier, and only easy way to the boat, 1 & 2 where the attackers begin. ** are barrels. The big building on the lower left corner is the manor from Castle Works Classic.

Table size is 4'X4'.

Goals: Board the Maiden before she can cast off on turn 6, do not let the other team do so, the pirates aboard the ship don't want anybody on the ship, and just want to leave the City of the Damned.

Played it through four times, losing the first against Chris' Skaven with my Reiklanders, he got to the boat a lot faster, and plopped his Rat Ogre on the pier while his Skaven murdered the crew. I couldn't get past the rat ogre, and he just shrugged off my missile fire.

Each of us took turns playing the pirate crew, with my beating the Sisters with them, and getting away before being stomped by the Skaven. I guess I was getting a little too cocky against the rat men the first game. (I have beaten him almost every game till now.) My victory against the sisters was the only time the pirates won. I started the fellow with the swivel gun on the fighting tops. The Skaven spent too much time going after the Sisters, allowing the ship to get away. The Skaven were almost uninjured.

The fourth game I played my Undead against Amber's Sisters of Sigmar, and pretty much cleared the board on turn 5. Half my force going against the ship, while the rest dealt with the Sissies. I offered her terms, but she fought to the last woman. As my vampire stepped upon the deck I proclaimed 'and now to usher in a new age of darkness!' And the entire block suffered a power failure... The city lost power over scattered blocks in widely spread areas. The timing was pure coincidence, you can't pin this one on me! We had planned on playing a few more times.

Thoughts on the game:
I really need to add more gang planks to reach the ship, as it was the first warband to reach the ship had too big an advantage, even when that warband was mine.
Wooden coffee stirs work better than cardstock for the gang plank, making one took about a minute.
Rat Ogres and cardstock gang planks do not mix...
Fear does bad things to pirates.
Fear does bad things to Skaven. (Though I used my Reiklanders in the game against the ratmen for the ship - Undead would have worked better.)
Fear does nothing to undead, they're the ones who cause it!
Elevated shootists are a good thing.
Warehouses are needed, I think I will try CWU to see what I can do.
I need to build another Maiden, the grid was too useful when it came to guessing ranges on the ship.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* I am going to leave it up because I have no other idea of how to do it, but that map is craptastic!

*EDIT 2* That is about as close as I can make it...

It is sad that Fanatic failed - I am afraid that for too many people putting all the games into one magazine meant that it was guaranteed that most of the magazine would be useless to them.

Most of the background information that was stripped from the Living Rulebook used to be available on the GW Mordheim site (as opposed to the Specialist Games site), but that has since been pulled.

There are an awful lot of variant rules on the Modheim Specialist Games site, including two alternate settings - Lustria (South America) and Khemri (Egypt with undead mummies). Both of these contain the fluff, and Skull Cove is a good start on Lustrian terrain.

Digging around the web (Google is your friend) will also give you a lot of info.

That said, I like the box set,, which comes with plastic Mercenary and Skaven miniatures, the rulesbook, and other goodies.

Several of the plastic box sets for Warhammer will work for warbands, orcs and dwarfs can be handled with a single box each (though I would also buy a box of gobbos for the orcs.), while elfs require a box of archers and a box of warriors (but those two boxes of elfs can be used to create three or four warbands worth of the pointy eared gits.) In some cases you will want some metal character models - gobbos with ball and chain for the orcs, dwarf trollslayers for the dwarfs.

Any who... it is a good game, and about the only GW game I play these days.

Terrain:

Village Works is a great start.

Castle Works Ultimate is excellent.

Arena Works - ended up being one of our most used sets, the ability to have people up high and behind cover with bows was very attractive.

The Maiden - the scenario I described above.

Gothic Realms and Cave Works, give the Skaven a home! Works for orcs as well, and the sewers are very useful, here are some , and , go on, you know you want to go down there, and Gothic Realms makes it easy...

For Lustria - Skull Cove.

The Auld Grump