Out by the eastern gatehouses, some new bloods had come into town. The east gate's a shambles, see, an' it's easy to come in. Plenty of wyrdstone about, too, bein' as it's so close to the Pit. You'd think it'd all be scooped up by now, but the thing about a good entry means that there're always loads o' bands tryin' their luck...
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| skirmishin' |
Mordheim! The City of the Damned! The Pit! The Maw-that-Ended-Ostermark! I haven't played in its grubby little environs in decades, but the two chums I played with at the end of August were very keen to have a jaunt down its storied streets, so we organised a match-up. I brought my Undead warband, while Mangs brought some mercenary scum; Jim had been putting together some horrible Beastmen.
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| The Crowgor's Herd |
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| Kessler's Killers |
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| Servants of the True Emperor |
We played Treasure Hunt from the 2002 Annual to get us familiar with the rules. Below the cut for a pile of photos!
The Servants skulked around the southern edges of the map, near what had once been some second-rate observatory. Wyrdstone gleamed within, and Pijavic 'the Impious' von Carstein intended to send as much as of the black-green rock back to his masters as he could.
On the eastern side, from deeper in the wreckage of Ostermark's capital, lurked the Herd. They had entered the city weeks earlier, seeking the holy wreckage of their bleak gods. Now the Crowgor intended to climb this old inn, its walls warped with leering skulls and bleak icons that had not shone from its surface before the comet. Atop the tower glowed wyrdstone, yellow and sickly against the clouded skies.
Once-Fox, now a shaman of the black gods, but once an innocent predator in the woods beyond the river, led some of the Herd around the corrupted inn, intending to engage the lurching Sylvanians.
The Crow-Gor himself climbed the twisted tower. Here you can see the wyrdstone-touched stones of the old inn leering out into the fallen city. Oh, how accursed Mordheim has become! How low! Let this be a warning to sinners everywhere.
The aforementioned lurching Sylvanians, flanked by skittering once-men, press toward the beasts in human shapes. Lurking at their rear is Zhalky, a pathetic servant of greater men.
Zhalky's brother-in-servitude, Proklyy, clambers into the wrecked church-observatory. Wyrdstone gleams within!
The ghouls and zombies fall upon Once-Fox and her ungor companion.
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| "Yeth, master! I have it!" |
The ghouls scrabble at Once-Fox, but she is able to deftly parry them away with her foreign glaive. Overcoming her own fear of the scrabbling once-men, she slices the flesh from one's forearm, but the snarling creature doesn't even get knocked down - unlike the poor ungor, who scrabbles from the zombie's grasp.
The zombies and ghouls need to act fast, before the Bestigor comes around the corner with his rusted zweihander, torn from the bleeding hands of an elector's bodyguard.
Desperate, Once-Fox slashes open her hand. Blood wells in the cursed mask before vomiting forth upon one of the ghouls; the creature falls to the ground, the tainted blood shredding into its Shyish-tainted flesh and raising horrible wounds.
The Crow-Gor finally clambers around the corrupted tower. Above him pulses the wyrstone. It calls.
On the other side of the field, one of Kessler's boys draws a bead on the old beast...
In fact, the boys are in a lot of trouble. Red Eyes, the Herd's centigor, lowers his horned head and slams into Kessler himself! The beast scrabbles at the mercenary captain, but the ol' veteran stands firm.
Despite Once-Fox's witchery, slicing open her hand leaves her vulnerable to the ghouls, who knock her to the ground and gnaw her limbs. The bestigor rounds the corner and slams into the pathetic hornless gits.
Meanwhile, Pijavic leads his hunting hounds across the field. He is careful to skirt the old statue of some forgotten Breton lord, wary of Kessler's archers.
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| (this fight just would not end) |
Red Eyes did misjudge how tough the humans were, as Kessler's lads promptly mobbed the old git. He fought the odds and managed to escape, returning to the warband later with a couple more scars (and fewer bottles).
Rather than go for the long shot on Crow-Gor, the archer manages to pin the Herd's large-and-vicious dog.
Zhalky lurks, preferring to watch the zombies and ghouls fight to risking his own skin.
The gor Moonskin charges into Kessler's lads, trying to keep them away from the holy wyrdstone. He would get surrounded and attacks en masse over the next little while, but managed to hold them off far longer than any could expect.
A couple of Herd ungors slink forward.
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| (this ungor just would not DIE) |
Pijavic sets his sights on the wyrdstone that Kessler's lads claim. He tells his dogs to lope forward, toward the archers. While the crossbowman fires at the oncoming beastmen, the archer is able to take down a doomwolf with a single arrow - straight into the skull of the dead thing, he shatters the bones in a way that is utterly irreprable!
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| (Go Moonskin!!!!) |
The second hound lopes across the field into the crossbowman. The undead thing howls, red eyes glowing in the murky light of the city, nails clicking against the cobblestones. It slams against the human, who steps to one side, draws his knife, and slams the wolf against the ground.
This is very embarrassing for me.
The two ungors and the chaos hound charge in to help Moonskin, who - alas! - is finally taken down by nearly the entire human warband. This fight continues for most of the rest of the game, although the Herd are abandoned by Tzeentch, and only succeed in felling a few human henchmen.
The vampire starts hunting this human archer who broke his dog. After climbing the loose stones of the cairn, the human leapt across the gap between the stones and Mordheim's wall, rolled to his feet and fired a shot at the unnatural Sylvanian thing.
He missed.
Pijavic 'the Impious' then leapt across the gap himself, red-lined cloak a-billow, halberd slamming against the archer's face. It was not a prolonged fight.
Back on the other side, Crow-Gor finally managed to descend the tower, only to be mobbed by the surviving ghouls...
..who got extraordinarily lucky and took out the mighty champion of chaos! They then nicked his stuff.
In the centre fight, Kessler and his boys were able to take out the last beast-on-two-legs. The warhound then immediately bolted into the undergrowth.
Kessler look around and saw the undead closing from two sides. His archers were down. Two of his lads had some wyrdstone, and there was still a clear exit to their immediate north - and so he was out.
Sylvania had the field this day...
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