Mordheim scenario: 'Smoke'em Out'

This scenario pits one warband, consisting of Lawful investigators, against an undercover warband of devious intentions. 
Suitable for adventures set in the Old World, such as the Empire in Flames, Sartosa or Relics of the Crusades settings.

Download: Smoke'em Out

I love the more narrative-oriented scenarios for Mordheim, along the lines of Mule Train, The Caravan, Down at the Docks, Kidnapped, etc. And, of course, pretty much all of the Munity in Marienburg scenarios, as well as the more mission-based scenarios from Border Town Burning and Sartosa :)
They all take some assumption that we may have of the plots and endeavours that a warband may do when not engaged in bloody combat, and then throw another warband at it. Instant narrative without effort. Great modelling opportunities ensue (caravans, boats, crates & barrels) as well as breathing life into what the warbands are really after in their long quest for success.

But there was a certain type of scenario that seemed under-explored. Maybe, from those published in Town Cryer, Down at the Docks comes close to it. Many in Mutiny in Marienburg also do, but not quite.

What do I speak of? I speak of rooting out infiltrated cultists from a local neighborhood: the classical Enemy Within narrative.
I wrote this scenario to cater to those poor criminal enterprises who, due to their more unsavory nature or beliefs, cannot really mingle with civilized society. Or can they?
This type of scenario fits well for cultist/type Chaos warbands, as well as Undead and Skaven warbands. All of them are known to infiltrate society from the shadows and coerce its weaker-willed member to cooperate.

It is perfectly reasonable to believe that these warbands have it in their interest to cultivate a local net of supporters, who can provide them with access to goods and shelter from prying eyes. They would not participate in the regular expeditions in search of Treasures (or wyrdstone, or corpses, or what have you) so they wouldn't be part of the warband, but they would be considered the larger cult that they are establishing.

The scenario involves finding the Hideout, by asking around the homes of locals, and running to alert the Watch: nothing more. But the undercover warband can sneak out of the sewers, and some homes belong to their collaborators, who can ambush the investigator warband. And the streets are full of people moving about (that is, until a fight breaks out).
Patience, strategy and subterfuge play a large role in succeeding in this scenario.


This is the first original scenario that will become part of a future Empire in Flames full-fledged campaign, "The Enemy Within".

Hope you enjoy it.
Feedback and suggestions appreciated.

Mordheim Campaign Turn and Mission Generation

In this post I will share the set of Campaign Turn rules I scrounged together for our Mordheim campaign, set in the 'Empire in Flames' setting.
It allows for easy setting up of games and die rolls between players, without requiring all players to come together at the same time to play each of their games.
It also includes a list for generating scenarios, compatible with warband Objectives (from Border Town Burning and Mutiny in Marienburg).

You can get the PDF of this part of our rules here: 'Empire Burning' Campaign and Scenario generation.
(that campaign name is awful, I know. it's a work in progress).

So I'll start with saying that getting all players together to play this kind of campaign is a nightmare. People may be legitimately busy, or legitimately something unexpected happened, or they may simply be lazy and forgetful and not show up or warn anybody. That can grind campaigns into a halt.

So I took Cianty and Werekin's Campaign Turn system (from Border Town Burning and Mutiny in Marienburg) and adapted it so players don't need to all be together when deciding who plays against who, the they can plan their games separately.

How does it work: Very simply, you roll everything you need after you finish a game (including which scenario you might play next round) and then go home. This 'Downtime' allows you to buy stuff for your warband and select any skills you earned.
Then you need the magic of the internet (a forum or Facebook group works great) to come together, and compare Warband Ratings/ Campaign Points in a list, to decide who's in the lead and not. In order, each player will then challenge another (or others, for multiplayer games) to the scenario they had already rolled (so they do know in advance what their mission might be). Repeat until all players have a game set up.
Once they come together to play, players resolve any intended Rarity rolls in the presence of their opponents (or allies!) and start their scenario.

How we fit it to our needs: Because we are a busier bunch, we give two weeks for each campaign turn to sort itself out (but if you have enough free time, this can be done in a week). People organize individual games (mostly 1v1, but some 3-player and 2v2 games) throughout this time, and post up the result online afterwards.
Once everyone has played, Ratings/Campaign points are posted up, listed in ascending order, and challenges start with the person lowest in Campaign Points.
(we dabbled in starting with the lowest warband rating, but Maneaters and Dwarves just kept popping up there and always challenging first, so we changed it to Campaign points). Warband Rating woes.

Scenario generation: The PDF includes also my massive list of scenarios used for this campaign, which create a huge diversity in missions and make the whole Objectives system (again, from Border Town Burning and Mutiny in Marienburg) very rewarding. The scenarios were gathered from several sources online, from old Town Cryer magazines as well as a few Community-made scenarios (and a couple of my own design and/or adaptation).
If you're trying to figure out where the hell to get these scenarios, click here: Massive PDF list of Mordheim material. My thanks to the kind soul who put this together online :)

It should be said that this campaign is still in development, so the list of scenarios is likely to change a bit.
But the Campaign Turn system works like a charm! :D
My thanks go to Cianty and Werekin, and all those who have helped (and are helping!) bring those two supplements too life. They have revolutionized Mordheim in my humble opinon.

Hope it can be of use, especially for those who may be struggling to organize a campaign and people don't have enough schedule flexibility all the time.

Cheers,
Nuno

Rules Patch: Fear and Terror v8.1

A few of these are taken straight from the recent rumours for Warhammer Fantasy 9th edition.
They are indeed good ideas that re-balance rules that have been mostly nerfed since the beginning of 8th edition, and had caused some spells and items to have become too expensive or useless.
(update: these rumours turned out to be utter fabrication and did not feature in the release of Age of Sigmar at all... but I take my hat off to those who tought them up!)

PROBLEM: Fear and Terror have little impact on the game, mostly due to the ability to re-roll Leadership tests in proximity of the Battle Standard Bearer. The penalties they grant are just fine, but it rarely comes into play.
SOLUTION: Fear tests are taken at a -1 penalty to Leadership, and Terror tests are taken at -2 to Leadership.
In this way, Fear/Terror causing units now suddenly become more risky to fight against, and the psychological impact of having your WS reduced to 1 now and again vs another unit is an effective deterrent during the game, essentially recreating a General's worry that their troop's nerve might not hold against such scary opponents. Additionally, it makes Terror significantly more powerful than Fear, and fittingly so, especially for Monsters and some characters. Also, it makes some spells and items now quite useful.


PROBLEM: many Fear-granting spells and items become useless on units that already benefit from that rule.
SOLUTION: Whenever a unit with the Fear ability gains the same ability from another source, it stacks and grants the Terror ability instead.

Mordheim Narrative scenarios: some playtesting

In this post I'll talk about how much well-designed narrative scenarios can spontaneously generate evocative storytelling in a Mordheim game. Especially when combined with a supply of good scenery and judicious rules-tweaking.

Mordheim lends itself very well to storytelling in the tabletop, particularly due to the unpredictability of the dice rolls, the Serious Injuries, the random events, as well as the Exploration rolls. These are provided by the ruleset itself, and while they are quite good at spontaneously generating story elements for a warband and its warriors, they may start to lose steam as some results start to become repetitive, or not offering players enough choice (something essential in roleplay).

The other source of great storytelling elements emerges while playing the battle itself: the varied abilities that are given to warriors and how players use them, the way each warrior is modeled on the miniature (sometimes very humorously) but especially through of the tactical use of scenery.  These are all under the control of players, and where a lot of the character of the warbands can be brought out. The latter example is especially evocative, where players move about, jump, hide or shoot from cover, in ways that remind us of Wild West movies, Pirates of the Caribbean or assassins in a thriller movie. Instant story out of thin air, before the players even realize what their actions are leading their warriors to do.

  All of these can be successfully recreated during a game, but it all depends on the setup and a little bit of background to set the tone.

This is where narrative scenarios come in: the many scenarios for Mordheim that have been released, mainly through Town Cryer and Fanatic magazine/Online, but more recently through large-scale community projects, like the much acclaimed Border Town Burning and the "in-progress" Mutiny in Marienburg.

In the course of the "Empire Burning" (proper name pending) Mordheim Campaign I am organizing, we have gone through several popular scenarios for the game, released in the past. Many of them requires tweaks and fixes, in order for the rules to become clear and the game be fair, but still true to the story concept set by the scenario. 

  Below are a few golden moments that we managed to create so far. It should be known that, along with evocative scenarios rules and objectives, terrain and scenery are essential to create the right atmosphere.

Mule Train by Robert Walker, in Town Cryer no.14

An Ogre successfully and speedily leads a mule through the ruins (difficult terrain), owing to its above-average Movement speed. Clever use of cover and misdirection saw its warband lead most of its pack animals across the table and out of the enemies hands.
We streamlined the wording on the objective rules, as well as exactly how the mules behave when led, bringing them more in line with the general 'Mounted Animals' rules from Empire in Flames. Still, the rules for mules meant they were extremely skittish and still prone to run away from combat, causing a sense of urgency during the chase.

As a ghoul approaches, ready to claim one of the mules, the Ogre player tactically decides his gnoblar 'snaps' and panics, poking the mule's rear with the sharp stuff he's holding, causing the mule (as per the rules) to run away from any "combat" it is involved in, in the opposite direction. Result: the mule runs off the table, and away from the other warband's hands.

River Watch by Nick Kyme, in Fanatic Magazine 09

A Middenheimer warband has been hired to man a watchtower. As per the rules, the sentries are moving about, randomly controlled by either player, to represent them searching the premises, while the enemy skulks closer, undetected due to the 'night-time' limited line of sight rule in this scenario. We decreased the amount rolled for of how far the line of sight was for this scenario, to allow some chance of the attackers to skulk a bit closer before being detected (otherwise these special rules would play very little impact on the scenario).
A series of unlucky rolls allowed the enemy player to force the Middenheimer Captain to cross the bridge, "because he heard some strange noise". Needless to say, he was promptly ambushed and charged by the Vampire lying in wait (on the lower right corner).

Fittingly enough, the Undead player had amassed a good number of zombies at this point, so the scenario became a veritable march of the dead on the chokepoint at the bridge. And the Middenheimer player had decided to NOT spend his gold on guns and crossbows... The fight was a vicious push to break the blockade, and allow the Undead Heroes passage to the other side of the table (and thus win the scenario).
It should be noted that buying a rowboat (which is included in the Empire in Flames rules), to cross the river at a point away from the watchtower and under the cover of darkness (ie. lack of line-of-sight), was indeed considered by the Undead warband at some point, but dropped due to lack of gold. But totally doable (again, increase in choices increases roleplayability of a warband).

The Lost Mines of Khrazi Drudd  
by the Nemesis Crown Mordheim Development Team

Good application of old boardgame terrain (circa 1994), as well as the more modern Terraclips modular terrain, allowed us to make a table worthy of the lost halls, sewers and underground ruins of the dwarves.
'The Lost Mines' scenario calls for a setup of several 'dungeon-like' rooms, assembled in advance (not randomly generated), with multiple entrances from the table edges, and warbands are deployed scattered among these several entrances.
Here we see a Clan Eshin contingent making its way through the convoluted paths to ambush another warband. All the while sending its expendable Giant Rats ahead to trigger any traps. Images of giant mousetraps came to mind while playing.

The rules for ''The Lost Mines' included randomly determined wandering monsters, revealed whenever a model would approach one of many markers scattered throughout the table. This created great moments of tension, where players would be reluctant to approach a marker, afraid that a Troll could pop out from around the corner (which could just as well be a spider crawling up their legs). We did increase the number of markers in relation to the number of players, to make it more interesting.
But because the objectives were otherwise "run around the mines and slaughter your opponents", we decided to spice it up a bit: we made use of Werekin's great "Subterranean events" table from the "Burrow Town Collapsing" scenario, with a few modifications. This was rolled whenever a model would enter a new room, and could add significantly more danger to the adventure, or (as illustrated above) lead the warband to a hidden stash of goods and treasure. 
Fittingly, this Bretonnian warband ended up finding a Holy Relic among the goods recovered, "a long-lost heirloom of Quenelles", they said. Which meant that now the warband benefit from its 'Protection of the Lady' rule automatically every battle (as they succeeded their first Leadesrhip save due to the Relic). Great stuff.

The addition of good scenery props cannot be underestimated. Even Legos will do. As the skaven prowling in the sewers found themselves several kegs of gunpowder, a shooting showdown with the Bretonnians in the adjacent hall forced them to take cover behind the very cargo they had acquired!
As they moved their portable barricade around (thankfully safe from exploding, due to Bretonnians not using gunpowder weapons), a nice shooting position was set up for the Jezzail Sniper Hired Sword, creating a great shoot-out scene that saw several man-at-arms dead (dead! by serious injury later) due to a double-richocheting slingshot from a lucky verminkin.

I hope you can see how quickly this skirmish tabletop game becomes a great storytelling medium, especially when ran within a campaign like we are doing. Stories literally are created out of thin air while we are playing. The perfect blend of tabletop gaming and roleplay.
Because the way we generate the scenario restricts which warbands can take part and in which role (attacker/defender), this ensures that each warband always fits the part in any given scenario, seamlessly woven into the story of that scenario. Example: watchtower sentries must always be non-evil warbands, raiders of villages must always be non-good players, Merchant warbands gain extra Campaign points by playing 'Mule Train' type scenarios, and so on.

More playtesting and stories to come!
Feel free to leave comments if you have tried these scenarios.

Rules Patch: Miscasts v8.1

##### Credit to Raymond (from the Lustria Online and Bugman's Brewery forums) #######
Also similar variations have been discussed throughout forums.

6-dicing spells of ultimate destruction sequentially and/or on first turn, to ensure they go off reliably, can precipitate a lot of frustration from opponents. The threat of miscast exists, but the amount of dice committed is irrelevant for the severity of the miscast (and thus not a deterrent). On the other hand, a unlucky miscast on few dice can be horribly crippling, and kill an entire game due to bad luck.

PROBLEM: The severity of a miscast is completely unconnected from the amount of dice committed, leading it to be little of a deterrent when considering 6-dicing spells.
SOLUTION: When a Wizard miscasts, roll D6+(number of power dice used). Refer to the following table to see what happens:

D6+power dice      Effect

                3-4         Magical Feedback (allied wizards take S6 hit, lose power dice)

                5-6         Detonation (S10 hit to all in base contact, lose power dice)

                7-8         Calamitous Detonation (S10 under small template, lose power dice)

                9-10       Power Drain (-D3 wizard level, cannot cast spells that phase)

                11-12     Dimensional Cascade (S10 hit under large template, wizard or power dice lost)

The details of each result above are as described in page 34. of the Warhammer Rulebook 8th ed.
Note: if a miscast is triggered by an effect that did not involve spellcasting or use of power dice (such as the Hellheart), assume that 2 power dice were used for the purposes of the roll.

This change simply reorders the miscast table, and makes it progressively worse depending on the base number of dice used. This causes that triggering a miscast on a high number of dice is an extremely risky proposition, either risking losing Wizard levels or a Dimensional cascade. Throwing more dice at a spell is literally playing with fire now. On the other hand, unlucky miscasts on a few power dice are no longer crippling.

Rules Patch: Winds of Magic roll v8.1

##### Credit to Raymond (from the Lustria Online and Bugman's Brewery forums) #######

The Magic Phase is a part of the game that can change the fortunes of players significantly, whether they are the caster of the dispeller. It is not only random, but the degree by which it can grant a sudden advantage to a player with is highly variable.

While the roll for the Winds of Magic is ultimately statistically fair for each player, because it is the same randomized value, the fact that the number of actual Magic Phases that really matter are so few means that it can be incredibly swingy. Especially for armies which use magic not as an additional bonus, but actually rely on the Magic Phase being successful.
In this way, there is no amount of wizard or magic items that can be brought that guarantees magical reliability, so that between two players a game can be ultimately decided because of two bad Magic phases in a row.


PROBLEM: the roll for Winds of Magic at each player's turn is very swingy, sometimes creating situations where a victory is earned purely due to a few bad rolls on the Winds of Magic compared to the opponent.
SOLUTION: When the first player in any given Turn rolls for the Winds of Magic, that roll applies for all players for that turn (ie. do not roll again for winds of magic for every player after the first, each turn). Place those dice aside in a place where they will be untouched, so that the following player(s) can refer to them when their Magic Phase comes up. At the beginning of next Turn, after all players had a go, roll the Winds of Magic anew.

Any effect that modifies or affects the roll of the Winds of Magic takes place when this roll is first made (ie. the first player's Magic Phase). Any effect that is triggered by the roll in the Winds of Magic when it's a specific player's turn (such as the Reign of Chaos table) only takes place during that player's turn, using the Winds of Magic roll rolled at the beginning of the turn.

This change retains the flavorful random value of the Winds of Magic, but eliminates imbalances between each player's Turn, which often lead to frustrating losses due to a simple die roll involving no decision from the part of a player. Each player gets equal opportunity at exploiting the Winds of Magic in each given Turn, eliminating a random factor which often led to uninteresting games.

(75 points worth of the Master of the Black Arts vampire power do seem worth it now, hey?)

Coming Soon... (I'm still alive and kickin)

Right, this space has been relatively quiet for a bit too long, so for those still tuning in to check for updates, this post is to let you know I am still very much cranking stuff into completion (its just not at an "upload-worthy" format yet).

I had to put the "Mordheim Roleplay rules (social interactions)" a bit on ice for now, as its quite a deviation from what the game normally runs on, and I'd like it look at it soon again with a fresh set of eyes to see if I missed anything.
Meanwhile here's a list of what I''m currently cooking up, and what it consists of:


"Theaters of War" Warhammer Fantasy Battle Mission Generator
(currently in playtesting) still experimenting with it

- Usable with both pick-up games or to generate campaign-appropriate scenarios
- Uses scenarios from 6th to 8th edition (mostly), with some appropriate for multiplayer. Much material adapted from White Dwarf magazines.
- Different scenario types: Pitched Battles, Capture the Objective, Ambush, Defensive Stand/Siege, etc. Each of these types lists over 20+ different scenarios, all published by GW.
- Balanced approach to scenario vs terrain selection: "attacking" player selects scenario and "defender" selects Terrain environment.
- Composition of the army (units of particular types) influences probability of players to get the scenario type they want. Some scenarios are specific for use by (or against) certain armies.
- Additional balance to scenarios by means of Stratagems which can be selected by the underdog player.
- Adaptable army list preparation: bring 3 prepared army lists, play with the most suited to the scenario generated.
- Support for scenarios with unbalanced points armies, via add-on contigents of Mercenaries (from Triumph and Treachery) and/or Bound Monsters (from Storm of Magic), prepared in advance. Instantly boost your army's points on the fly without changing original list.


"Empire Burning" adaptation for Mordheim Empire in Flames Supplement
Easily the laziest title in the world. Better name is pending.
Campaign currently in playtesting.

- Expanding the original Empire in Flames setting with material from Town Cryer magazines (by GW) and the Border Town Burning and Munity in Marienburg unofficial supplements (by Christian Templin and Stuart Cresswell, and many other members of the Mordheim Community).
- Objective-based campaign progression (as in Border Town Burning).
- New expanded scenarios list, including themed scenarios for different warbands/objectives that grant Campaign Points upon victory.
- Access to different Settlements during the Trading Phase, depending on the type of warband, based on the Encampments articles from Town Cryer and their adaptation in Mutiny in Marienburg. Heroes can visit different locations in search of additional resources, find a bargain on items or Hired Swords, get help locate rare items or just go look for trouble in the drinking dens.


"Nutters and Negotiations" social interaction rules for Mordheim roleplay adaptation
(in development)
- Adaptation of Core Mordheim rules for Pen and Paper Roleplay purposes.
- The Leadership "mental" characteristic broken down into personality characteristics: Generosity, Forgiveness, Logic, Willpower, etc.
- Base mental characteristics vary with each race, but otherwise each is randomly generated when making a character.
- Warriors must make tests against their mental characteristics to be able to perform actions not in line with their personality (in the spirit of Warhammer/Mordheim randomness and "bad things happen to your warriors" all the time).
- The game challenges players with trying to get the most out of their character while adhering to its personality skills and roleplaying them as such.
- Social Exchanges between a warrior and an NPC pit one of their mental characteristics (depending on what they are trying to argue) against one of the NPC's mental characteristics, with further circumstantial modifiers (ie. how much the NPC finds the warrior dodgy or hates his race's guts).