At the start of 2023 I resolved to get into a skirmish game I discovered called
Forbidden Psalm, which is set in the same universe and shares many of the combat mechanics with the Swedish TTRPG
Mörk Borg.
I made some good progress painting up some warbands of miserable wretches for
Forbidden Psalm, but as of this day, I still haven't painted up enough miniatures to actually run a proper game. Why? Because I'm slow and easily distracted, and lately I've become even more distracted by playing
Mörk Borg itself (which I've utterly fallen in love with) with a colleague from work
But, in a roundabout sort of way, today I succeeded in getting some
Mörk Borg on the table in miniature format! How?
With
Mörk Hammer!
Mörk Hammer is a free, fan-made mini-supplement which essentially introduces miniature tabletop movement rules to the already existing combat system of
Mörk Borg; when fused together, these two systems form a perfectly usable skirmishing ruleset. I reckon this will be a fun system to use until I've got my act together in painting up enough miniatures for
Forbidden Psalm.
As soon as I started playing
Mörk Borg with my colleague just a few weeks ago, I was instantly in love with the combat system and have pretty much memorised it by heart, which is fantastic as it means there's very little rulebook checking. Creating randomly-generated warriors for this game was dead easy; no worrying about balance or point costs. I didn't bother using the main rulebook's somewhat convoluted character generation system (other than the name generator), but used a streamlined version from another supplement called
You Nameless Scum which allows you to generate a worthless nobody in a very short space of time (four dice rolls for stats, then choose a weapon type that matches whatever they're carrying).
The
Mörk Hammer supplement was an unexpected and pleasant discovery. It essentially doesn't do anything other than add movement rules for using in conjunction with the regular combat rules. Models move 8" by default, but can choose to run at double-pace (16"), or they can choose to sneak at half-pace (4"). The supplement suggests games between 3-4 miniatures a side should be played on 48" x 48" battlefields. That seems somewhat excessive to me (I prefer 24" x 24" myself), so I simply halved the movement distances to 4" for normal movement, 8" for running and 2" for sneaking, which seemed perfectly fine.
Due to its simplicity and flexibility, I can definitely see myself going back to
Mörk Hammer as a go-to, default miniature combat system. The fact that it is free to download, as is the
"Bare Bones" version of Mörk Borg, is another plus point.
The only thing I would say was a negative point is that the game is not very "dynamic" like certain other skirmish systems often discussed here! It's very much classic
Warhammer-esque IGOUGO, and there's no movement in hand-to-hand combat; it tends to boil down to miniatures standing around for ages in opposed pairs, rolling dice, turn after turn, hoping that somebody will eventually get a lucky roll and break through the cycle of weapons having no effect (either due to missing their mark, or failing to penetrate armour/shields). Then again, I remember this exact same issue occuring when playing early editions of
Warhammer as a skirmish game (perhaps even
Mordheim as well?) so it's not a unique flaw to this system, but feels quite old school in that respect.
The possibility of weapons and shields breaking also adds an interesting element. In this example, characters with broken weapons had no chance of hurting their foes (fists make very little impact on shields and armour, funnily enough), so I opted to have the characters voluntarily quit the field.
Regular
Mörk Borg includes rules for morale, which can result in enemies running away or surrendering, but this only applies to GM-controlled monsters, not player characters, so in a PC vs PC conflict, there are no obligatory panics or retreats. I will need to think of a way to include those if possible (if it's even necessary)!
I also think it would be
much more interesting to play if one's party included warriors with ranged weaponry.
Mörk Hammer adds rules for using black powder firearms, but these have also been covered separately in another
Mörk Borg supplement called
Blackpowder Basics, and in much more detail, so I'd be more likely to refer to those rules if used in
Mörk Hammer.
October 03, 2012, 07:50:42 PM
