Mordheim: come for the warbands, stay for the battle reports.

Yesterday I took part in a one day narrative events at Clubhouse in Newcastle: “Whispers from the Pit”. The basic idea of the day was a series of games of chaos vs not chaos warbands, with people bringing new warbands.

I initially thought I’d try ‘Horned Hunters’, using the Corvus Cabal as my heroes and Hill Tribesmen (from MESB) as my henchmen, but as the event grew closer I realised that I was never going to get them all built, let alone painted, in time. I then started poking through my collection trying to pick something fun and new. Eventually I realised that I could easily get a Dark Elf warband together, mainly based on the Mengil Manhide Regiment of renown that I finished off, for now, as a side quest during last years Spring Clean challenge. I supplemented this with pre-slotta sorcerer, a couple of crossbowmen and some witch elves.

House rules give an extra 50 gold for fully painted warbands, so here what that gets me.

Front row : 1 Highborn (with sword), 2 fellblades (axes), 1 sorcerer (axe),, 1 beastmaster (with beastlash).
Back row : 3 corsairs (swords)  and 2 shades (repeating crossbows).

The day had an event pack with some scatter terrain, a dice, a measuring stick, wyrdstone markers (normal and giant for some reason) and a free mini and discount code from Northwing Miniatures who was taking part in the day.

The first game was the Settlement raid scenario, with my Dark Elves attacking some Horned Hunters. In turn 1 my shade sniped the enemy priest of Taal, and my Sorcerer managed to teleport to a unprotected building to start searching for wyrdstone next turn. To counter him the leader of the Horded Hunters attempted a diving charge, but he cocked it up horribly and took himself out of the game. Eventually I won the day, but somehow ended up with less wyrdstone than my opponent, probably because my High Born died in the post game.

In game 2 the Dark Elves had to escort a mule train through the city while some orcs were trying to stop them. All the while a couple of choas spawn were radomly wandering around. This boiled down to a big bottle neck near two bridges, where the orcs where eventually victorious, giving my new Leader horrible scars.  Although on the other flank my beastmaster managed to work with a corsair and a shade to remove one of the spawn. I used some of the money in the post game to convince a halfling scout to join my ranks.

In the final game of the day, some witch hunters had to try to stop me from sacrificing an innocent to the Shadowlord. Things went went down to the wire, the dark elves having to kill one of the friendly cultists to speed up the ritual. Evetually the horrible scars of the leader saved the day, as no one was brave enough to charge her and thus prevent the sacrifice.

In the final analysis the Chaotic forces won the day, but it’s yet to be seen how this effects our weekly play.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue with my Dark Elves as they’re now down to 4 heroes so getting funds might be a problem long term. Maybe I’ll begin another new warband, or continue with my Norse.