Mordheim is great fun and has a strong nostalgic appeal to many long time gamers, but like most GW products, it has more than its fair share of flaws. For example, armor is expensive, but not that useful, and most melee oriented warriors tend to be armed the same, with two one-handed weapons. Like many others, I use house rules to address some of the game's flaws and to encourage the use of armor and a greater variety of weapon types.
Additionally, it has been my experience that if a campaign is designed to produce a single overall winner, one or two warbands tend to take an early lead and the perceived inability to catch up to the top scoring warband(s) convinces some players to drop out. To address this, I host a final champions match that takes place at the end of the campaign. The top 4 warbands play in a final 4-way game. The winner is the overall champion. Under this system, players don't have to worry about catching up to the #1 scoring warband, instead all that they have to do to earn a place in the final champions match is to get more points than the fourth highest scoring warband.
What follows are the WIP rules for the upcoming Mordheim campaign at my local game store. I've opened it up to a wide variety of warbands in order to attract new players and moved the campaign outside of Mordheim to shake things up a bit. When you have a dozen or more participants, you start to run out of suitable Mordheim terrain, but since our campaign setting allows games to be played in cities, castles, hamlets, or in the wilderness, this shouldn't be a problem.
Welcome to the Dark Tower 2018 Autumn Mordheim Campaign.The campaign begins on Tuesday, October 9th and thereafter, Mordheim Campaign Night will be the second Tuesday of each month. The campaign will end on January 31st, 2019. In February I will organize a final, 4-way game to decide the campaign's overall winner.
Each warband is permitted to play up to 2 games per month (8 games in total). The two campaign scenarios for the current month will be announced (and posted) at that month's Mordheim Campaign Night. In theory, players will play at least one campaign scenario during the Mordheim Campaign Night, and then since many of the campaign participants will be there, players will then have the opportunity to schedule their second game for later in the month. Warbands that fall behind are free to play make-up games at any time during the campaign.
In keeping with the spirit of the Autumn season, the campaign will be set in the benighted County of Sylvania. This setting not only shakes things up a bit, but it helps us with our terrain problem. Based upon available terrain, players can play their scenarios in abandoned towns, gloomy hamlets, or in Sylvania's dark forests and wilderness.
Attached to this post are the pdf rules for playing Mordheim in Sylvania. The rules are essentially the Sylvania campaign rules from Issue #6 of The Letters of the Damned. I feel that the original rules are a bit too severe, so I made a number of changes to them. I also added an explanation for how income is generated in games set outside the walls of Mordheim (i.e. via Treasures).
I recommend that starting warbands consider purchasing some lanterns and torches (both are common items). Torches act like lanterns, but are one use items. They cannot be lit mid-scenario, so you must declare during deployment which models are equipped with lit torches.
Because Sylvania is such a poor county, lanterns may be purchased for 5 gc and torches for 1 gc each.
Sylvanian GuideNone of the warbands are native to Sylvania, so each has either hired or enslaved a Sylvanian to act as the warband's guide. In game terms, each warband will begin the campaign with a free hired sword that does not count against starting warband's cap on hired swords (see rule 13 below). This miserable wretch will use the Beggar rules and remain with the warband until killed or dismissed. Because Sylvanians are quite poor, the guide's upkeep fee for good and neutrally aligned warbands is only 3 gc. Non-human and evilly aligned warbands enslaved their guide and thus need to spend only 1 gc per campaign phase for upkeep. However, being enslaved has made the wretched Sylvanian even more wretched, thus the guides of non-human and evilly aligned warbands suffer a -1 penalty to their LD stat.
http://broheim.net/downloads/fo/94NewHiredSwords.pdfNative Son. Sylvanians have become mostly inured to the terrors of their homeland, but even the most stouthearted soul can lose his nerve when he travels too far from hearth and home. Consequently, when a guide is required to make their Spooky test, the guides test at LD 10 (LD 9 for enslaved guides).
Perfidious. A guide will never intercept a charge directed at member of the owning player's warband (including hired swords), but players are free to use members of their warband to intercept charges directed at their guide.
The Least Wretched Wretch. At the end of the campaign there will be a prize for the most vicious guide. If your guide takes a neutral model or an enemy model out-of-action, please ask your opponent to send me a PM notifying me of this. Include in the email: 1) the guide's owning player, 2) the guide's name, 3) the name of the model(s) taken-out-of action, and 4) what that model is/was. For example: "Hi, this is Sherbert. In our game last night, Joey's Sylvanian guide, Dog Breath, took out my Youth, Garth and a neutral zombie."
I will keep a tally of each guides' victims and at the end of the campaign announce the winner.
All participants will be given a suitable model to serve as their warband's guide. The models will be distributed on the first campaign night, Tuesday, October 9th.
ADDITIONAL CAMPAIGN SPECIFIC RULES AND RULE CHANGESMOVEMENT1. A model equipped with heavy armor and shield does not suffer a -1-movement penalty. Instead, a model so equipped suffers a -1 initiative penalty. If a model possesses a skill or ability that negates the ‘-1 movement penalty’ for heavy armor and shield, it instead negates the -1 initiative bonus.
2. An enemy model within 8” of a dwarf model does not prevent the dwarf model from running.
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT3. If a model is equipped with a shield and either a sword, axe, hammer, or spear, the shield adds +2 to the model’s armor save against melee attacks instead of the standard +1. With the exception of magical attacks that mimic melee attacks (e.g. the Sword of Rezhebel spell), this benefit does not apply to hits from magic or shooting attacks
4. If a model is equipped with a buckler and either a sword, axe, hammer, or spear, then in addition to the bucker’s parry rule, it adds +1 to the model’s armor save against melee attacks. With the exception of magical attacks that mimic melee attacks (e.g. the Sword of Rezhebel spell), this benefit does not apply to hits from magic or shooting attacks.
5. When a model armed with a double-handed weapon charges it attacks at initiative order; otherwise, the model follows the Always Strikes Last rule.
6. A warrior armed with two one-handed weapons may make 1 extra attack with the additional weapon. Before rolling the to-hit dice the attacker must declare which weapon is in the model’s ‘off-hand.’ The weapon in the off-hand suffers a -1 to hit penalty. Otherwise, the normal 'Fighting with Two Weapons' rule applies. If a model so armed has an attack characteristic of 2+ that attack characteristic applies only to the weapon in the model’s primary hand.
WARBAND CREATION 7. Players may use any of the following 32 warbands:
Arabian Tomb Raiders (TC 20)
Averland Mercenaries (TC 10)
Battle Monks of Cathay (BTB)
Beastmen Raiders (TC 29)
Black Orcs (Nemesis Crown)
Bretonnian (TC 08) <-- warband caps at 15 not 12
Carnival of Chaos (TC 27)
Clan Pestilens (TC 29)
Cult of the Possessed
Dark Elves (TC 12)
Dwarf Rangers (Nemisis Crown)
Dwarf Treasure Hunters (TC 04)
Forest Goblins (Nemesis Crown)
Gunnery School of Nuln (Nemesis Crown)
Hochland Bandits (Nemesis Crown)
Horned Hunters (Nemesis Crown)
Kislevite (TC 16)
Lizardmen (TC 11)
Marauders of Chaos (BTB)
Marienburg Mercenaries
Middenheim Mercenaries
Miragleans Tilieans (TC 14)
Night Goblins (new) (see Broheim)
Orc Mob (TC 06)
Ostlander Mercenaries (TC 11)
Outlaws of the Stirwood Forest (TC 29)
Norse Explorers (TC 13)
Pirates (TC 09)
Pit Fighters (TC 21)
Reikland Mercenaries
Remasens Tileans (TC 14)
Restless Dead (BTB)
Shadow Warriors (TC 10) <-- warband caps at 10 not 12
Sisters of Sigmar
Skaven
Skaven Clan Pestilens (TC 29)
Trantios Tileans (TC 14)
Undead
Witch Hunters <-- warband caps at 15 not 12
8. The maximum number of warriors in a Bretonnian or Witch Hunters warband is 15.
9. During warband creation and normal campaign play, when a warband recruits a Hero (excluding Hired Swords), that has a starting xp value of one or greater, then that Hero begins the campaign with one free advance roll.
EQUIPMENT 10. In addition to the weapons, armor, and equipment found in the main rulebook and warband specific items, warbands may purchase items found in the Opulent Goods article (TC 2) and the Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe article (TC 7), subject to the following changes:
- Lucky Charm costs 15 gc and is Rare 7
- Rabbit’s Foot costs 20 gc and is Rare 8
PSYCHOLOGY11. A player may not elect to voluntarily Rout until at least one-third (always rounded up) of her/his warband has been taken out of action.
HIRED-SWORDS12. Warbands may not hire Dramatis Personae.
13. A player may recruit one hired-sword during warband creation. The player is free to select from any of the hired-swords available to the player’s warband.
14. Normally, hired swords may not be given additional equipment. Due to the unusual setting, players are free to equip Hired Swords with lanterns or torches.
15. The following hired-swords will be recruited during the campaign:
Arabian Merchant (TC 13)
Bard (TC 13)
Beasthunter (TC 28)
Black Orc Overseer (Nemesis Crown)
Bounty Hunter (TC 13)
Clan Skyre Rat Ogre (TC 25)
Dark Elf Assassin (TC 12)
Duelist (TC 13)
Dwarf Pathfinder (Nemesis Crown)
Dwarf Troll Slayer
Elf Ranger
Freelancer
Halfling Scout
Highwayman (TC 26)
Human Scout (Nemesis Crown)
Imperial Assassin (TC 6)
Kislve Ranger (Fanatic 6)
Merchant (TC 22)
Norse Shaman (TC 12)
Ogre Bodyguard
Old Prospector (Nemesis Crown)
Pit Fighter
Priest of Morr (TC 12)
Roadwarden (TC 26)
Runesmith Journeyman (Nemesis Crown)
Shadow Warrior (TC 13)
Tilean Marksman (TC 6)
Warlock
Warrior Priest of Sigmar (TC 28)
Witch (TC 13)
Witch Hunter (Nemesis Crown)
Wolf Priest of Ulric (TC 08)
POST BATTLE SEQUENCE16. When rolling for Injuries during the Post Battle Sequence, a hero equipped with armor may make an armor save (no shield bonus) to ignore the results 11-35 on the injury table.
17. When rolling for Injuries during the Post Battle Sequence, Hired Swords and multi-wound Henchmen follow the ‘Heroes With Serious Injuries’ rules.
18. Leaders treat a ‘11-15’ result on the Heroes Injury Chart as a ‘16-21’ result.
19. The following optional rules will be used during the campaign:
- Weapon specific critical hit tables (main rulebook)
- Blazing Saddles (TC 14 -replaces Mounted rules in main rulebook)
- Sawbones (TC 28 )
- Random Happenings (TC 3 – only if both players agree)[/li][/list]