Topic: McKnight's Mordheim Blog

[McKnight]

Hey would you look at that! Im blogging! Or at least trying to!
A few thinks to consider when following my blog
* Updates are not regular
* My models do not wear the weapons that they have ingame, but my opponents are informed about their gear (mathi )
* Im trying to get my warband painted! So keep your eyes out for new pictures!


Gregor the cold's acts of horror in the city of the damned
Undead warband

Gregor the Cold, a vampire thrall is in the city of Mordheim in order to do his master's bidding.
His assistant necromancer, Ivan is cold blooded and has been serving Gregor since his transformation and seeks eternal life through the vampires' magic.
Gregor's personal retinue of 3 dregs consists of his vampire mistress, Ivana Humpalot and to service gnoblars whos job is mainly to search warpstone and carry all the stuff.
and various henchmen. Most notably, Steven the Ghoul. A ghoul known in the arts of knife fighting... Shame he has no knife!

The current warband list (this one will be updated after each game):

Gregor the vampire, Sword and mace, bow
Exp: 29
+1 Toughnes
Step aside


Ivan the Necro, bow.
Spell: Call of vanhel
+1 BS
Exp: 12

Ivana, Dreg. Dagger
Exp: 5
+2 LD

Weapon Gnoblar, Dreg.
Exp:4
+1 S
Step aside

Stash Gnoblar, Dreg
Exp: 1

Bone guy, Ghoul
Promoted!
Exp: 2

Henchies:

2 zombies

Steven the ghoul
Exp: 4
+1 ws

Not-Steven the Ghoul
Exp: 4
+1 ws

New Guy (ghoul)
Exp:1

1 Dire wolf

Gunnar, Warlock, hired sword
Spells: Dread of Aranar, Sword of something (difficulty 7)
Exp: 3

Cash: 45 GC
Items to spare: None
Skirmishes fought: 4

[McKnight]

First game! 4 players!
Skaven, Orcs, Dwarfs and Undead
Scenario: Surprise attack
Defenders: Skaven and Orcs
Attackers: Dwarfs and undead

Gregor had acquired knowledge of a small skaven group searching an old warehouse for wyrdstone, and had planned for a surprise attack in order to steal the warpstone they had collected!
A smart plan, Gregor thought. What he didnt expect was to see orcs relatively close to the area Gregor would attack from!.. Or that some silly dwarfs had gotten the same idea as himself!
The undead warband looked like this:
Gregor, sword and mace
Ivan, naked
3 dregs, naked
4 zombies
3x1 ghouls
2 direwolves

The undead, Dwarfs and orcs were deployed relatively close with the skaven warband far off and let on its own while the other 3 battled.

The entire battlefield. The orcs and dwarfs were positioned to the table edge farthest away behind the wall. Skaven closest.

The undead warband's deployment at a ruined house

A quick report:
The orcs were deployed thin with half its forces in reserves. The dwarfs came in and went directly after the orc leader who had positioned himself on the roof of a tower with his crossbow. He took the first dwarf that came up the ladder, out of action. But was not so lucky when the Dwarf noble entered the battle. The Tough dwarf quickly made a mess of the orc boss and stood victorious on the roof.

Dwarfs rushing to the tower! (notice the imperial spearman, dwarf!)


A proud noble, and his player in the background

The undead warband moved slowly up against the dwarfs, who formed a defensive line, while the engineer kept shooting at the closest zombie, while a direwolf moved into position together with the vampire for a charge. The ghouls stayed behind the zombie in front.
The other zombies provided a shield against an orc shaman with the zapp spell. Direwolf number two tried to charge the shaman but failed its charge.

In the next turn. The first direwolf tries to charge the dwarf spearman. I knew it was a risk and it ended fataly and it was knocked down by the spear man and later taken out. A turn after the glorious wolf charge, 2 ghouls (including steven) and a zombie makes a combined charge against a dwarf spearman and steven ruthlessly kills him with a critical wound. Wolf number 2 charges the dwarf noble who has exited the tower and he fails his fear test but flees too far for the hound to catch it.


Meanwhile the orc reinforcements entered the table edge furthest away. Near the skaven, that moved slowly towards the brawl.
A lonely verminkin engages them but does nothing to the bigun... Which in return.. does nothing either.. for the rest of the game.

We have to end the game before any routs due to time issues. And no warband wins the game. But there were some who gained more then others.
The undead warband have had a direwolf, ghoul and zombie taken out of action, and none recovered their injuries! The other warbands had all their wounded recovered and the dwarfs are now leading in Experience points. But still has the lowest Warband rating.

We all gathered almost the same amount of warpstone. The dwarfs found a twohanded weapon, the skaven found a light armour suit and Gregor found a rambling man in the streets, who he put out of his missery and reanimated.

So to conclude. Gregor lost a direwolf and a ghoul and only gained 1 exp for all in the warband for surviving. Got 60 Gc for the wyrdstone and invested in bows for him and Ivan and 2 maces for each of the gnoblars, and bought a warlock.

[Von Kurst]

Hmmm, when I posted on your Tom's Boring blog earlier I thought is this McKnight? Crazy.

Thanks for posting!

[Duce]

I'm not being negative when i say this but your board needs a lot more climbable terrain.  its quick and easy to throw together 10 pieces of terrain for £10 if you cound just materials for building, and not paintnig.

[McKnight]

Haha yea i used my second cover up name on Tom's forum

Hmm Duce, we primarily play Fantasy games so we only have terrain. Might get some other. We are thinking of playing the Empire in flames campaign instead, so the terrain will be more suiting.

[McKnight]

A picture update! Woohoo!

First!
Gregor's lover, Ivana Humpalot
This beautiful Warlord miniture is used as Gregor's number one petdreg.






Isnt she lovely? ... I know the skin paint is really thick, but such is the state of my dwarf flesh right now
Im in doubt if she should be dipped.

Moving on to Gregor's 4 trusty zombies that will never fall!
2 of them needs to be dipped and then they are done too!


And last the now lonely direwolf, Fido.
He is still not complete, but close for the final stage, dipping

[Feanor Fire Heart]

Looking sharp! 

[Von Kurst]

Ivana looks like dipping would be a bad idea.  bites tongue...

Adding a little water to your paint would be a good thing.

I think Empire in Flames, Nemesis Crown or Border Town Burning would fit your scenery and Warbands fairly well.  If you have a terrain guy, a bar is always useful.

js

[McKnight]

Yes our latest game was played in the Empire in flames setting. More later!

But we are a bit short on terrain, which is kind of a problem. We need some cheap buildings and such.. something we can construct ourselves.

I'll keep Ivana of the dipping list then

[Von Kurst]

http://www.warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=27668.0

Cardboard is your friend.  And coffee stir sticks.
 

[McKnight]

Yay awesome! Production will begin soon then!

[McKnight]

Gregor goes bounty hunting

second game.
4 player game (same warbands as last time). Bounty hunting scenario from Empire in flames

Gregor had recieved news from Ivana that there was a bounty on some bandits. He quickly gathered intelligence of where they might be hiding. Once the location was known he moved out. But other warbands had also heard of this bounty and wanted it for themselves. This easy bandit hunting mission quickly became a free for all skirmish with the other warbands.

Gregors warband:
Gregor, Sword, mace and bow

Ivan the Necro, bow.
Spell: Call of vanhel

Ivana, Dreg. dagger

Weapon Gnoblar, Dreg. 2x maces

Stash Gnoblar, Dreg. 2x Maces


4 zombies
Steven the Ghoul
Ghoul
1 Dire wolf
Gunnar, Warlock, hired sword

The battlefield was accordingly:


The orc warband deployed behind the temple ruins in the upper left corner.
The dwarfs in the dwarf mine. Upper right.
The skaven warband deployed behind the big rock. Low middle.
And Gregor deployed on the left edge on the middle near the orc village.

Deployment was tough. Gregor deployed last and didnt really have much cover. And Had to fight both the skaven warband and the orcs. While the bandits probably were going to shoot at his warband as well.


Orc deployment

Turn 1 :
The orcs went first. The orc player sent a shaman and big un against the entrenched dwarfs in a try of blasting the dwarf shooters down with Zaapp! But he wasnt in range for the spell to reach his target the first turn. Shame.
He also quickly decided to send the rest of his warband down towards me. His orcs went into a tight formation, while the goblins in the ruin moved up on the walls so they could fire down on my warriors.


Dwarf close combat warriors ready to defend the shooters on the mine, from attacks

The coward of a dwarf noble.
The dwarf player was next. His thunderer and Engineer placed nicely on the mine, shot at the shaman and knocked him down i think. And he moved his close combat soldiers in to defend the ladders up to the shooters.

Then it was me!. I did a risky move. I moved my direwolf straight towards the skaven warband with my necro behind it. Used call of vanhel and moved the direwolf in for some killing of skaven, While zombie reinforcements were coming.. slowly.
I moved my dregs closer to the bandit hideout in order to be shot by them and gain some nice exp. While the rest of my warband went into defensive positions.
The direwolf knocked down a vermin kin but didnt do anything else. I quickly realised my mistake.

The skaven player charged in on my direwolf with 2 night runners and 1 black skaven and together with a verminkin already engaged with it. Now... None did any damage on the wolf. Lucky! The wolf didnt do any damage either, but they was excellent! Kind of.

Turn 2... (in short)

THe orc shaman moved a little closer and was in range now. But failed the spell dificulty.
The goblins got shot after my zombies and knocked one down. The orc boys moved closer.

The dwarf CC units moved closer to the shaman and bigun.  And shot a little.

One zombie charged (with the help of Vanhel) the black skaven engaged with the wolf and killed it with a critical wound.
my vampire moved down to help the wolf.


Defensive positions!

The skaven killed the direwolf and moved in on the undead reinforcements. And shot the necro to death.

Turn 3, also in short.
The orc shaman and bigun roll a 6 on animosity and move closer to the dwarfs!
One of the goblin archers also get a 6, falls down from the wall, fails initiative and gets stunned. Another goblin shoots an arrow after the orc boss!
They move even closer towards me. Now inside charge range.

The dwarfs took out the shaman with shooting and charged the bigun.

I make a quick withdrawal with my dregs (i lost one to the shooting from the building) and vampire from the skaven and prepared for the green tide.

The skaven killed the last zombie in front of them and moved up into a tower. and moved his giant rats closer to the bandit house.. not good.


The green tide!


Turn 4:

THe orcs charge! One fails the fear test and breaks the line formation. He sends two orcs up against two zombies. The first one does no damage to his opponent and the zombie quickly takes the orc out of action with a critical wound (yay for zombies!). The other orc knocks down his zombie target though.

The dwarfs kill the bigun and moves around the bandit building.

I counter attack with my Warlock, Who has the sword spell. and knocks down the orc. Steven the ghoul charges up into the orc that failed the fear test. The killer zombie charged an orc further behind. Now the road is open for Gregor and he charges directly up against the Orc Boss, who fails his Ld test. and gets knocked out.

THe skaven are now in position to shoot but does little to no damage to the other two fighting warbands.

Turn 5:

The orcs rout. (fushtah! My heroes didnt get to take any of all of the knocked out orcs out of action and didnt gain any Exp. )

THe dwarfs move closer to the undeads.

I voluntarily rout. I cant fight the hiding skaven and the dwarfs with only half strength.

The skaven then routs.


The winner: Dwarfs. Bunker tactics work well... And now he has 6 crossbows! :O
The skaven player, orc player and I got +1 exp to our leaders due to our exploration rolls.

I now have 45 GC to spend on something but dont know what. The only loss i took after recoveries was a zombie. List has been updated in the first post.

[rufus sparkfire]

Great stuff, McKnight!

I've heard that the undead warband is one of the more difficult ones to use. Do you find that to be true?

[McKnight]

I've heard other things about the undead. But there are some strong sides and weak sides of this warband.

Of course my warband is superb because i have super zombies killing anything they touch.

First off. I fear playing against a skaven warband with this list. The skaven are highly mobile compared to my troops and all armed with missile weapons. Which is really the danger of the undead.

But ! Thats the primary weak spot of the warband... but it can be avoided with zombie meat shields untill you are ready to charge the cowardly skaven. Their LD sucks so fear tests are awesome.

The undead troops are really resiliant And i love it. They cant be stunned
I generally use a tactic that involves counter charging when defending and going all in when attacking. works well.

And the Vampire is awesome. 2 attacks and 2 wounds? yes please

[McKnight]

Game 3
Chance encounter with the dwarfs!

So the undead warband runs into the dwarf treasure hunters in the end of the day and they fight for their wyrdstone shards!
But this time the dwarf warband ran into

The undead warband was this:
Gregor, sword and mace, bow
Ivan, dagger, bow

Ivana, dagger
Stash gnoblar, 2 maces
Club gnoblar, 2 maces
Steven the ghoul
Not-Steven the ghoul
Ghoul
3 zombies
1 direwolf
Warlock, staff

The dwarfs looked like something like this:
Noble
Engineer
2 slayers
1 promoted beardling hero
4 thunderes
2-3 beardlings with spear.

"Gregor had a found a great deal of wyrdstone in this day's hunt! 3 shards! Not bad when thinking about how easy those ramblers were to kill. But his rival dwarf warband had also been out scouting the area but hadnt been as lucky as gregor and had only found 1 shard today. So they decided to engage the undead warband! Big mistake!"

I was worried about the shards since i had 3 and he only had 1. I would loose my shards for every of my heroes taken out of action (to a maximum of 3) while i only could get 1 from him! Not that great since i had my vunerable dregs.

The beginning wasnt that good for me. I started out and used zombies in the front to take hits and cover while moving up! I flanked with my vampire to the left, and a ghoul and the direwolf to the right. My biggest concern was that i would have one turn out in the open when going in for the kill!
I dont have any pictures of the setup only from when we got into close combat. I lost all of my 3 zombies to shooting. In the turn where i would have to move in the open, Steven the ghoul lived up to his reputation, since he was the closest enemy the dwarfs had to shoot at him. But ! Not to worry, Steven dodged every single bullet and saved my charge!


Gregor after his successful DIVING CHARGE! (I love that rule!) Of course he didnt manage to take the poor beardling out of action.


Gregor's diving charge creates a diversion and the rest of my warband charges in, wreaking havoc in the dwarf gunline. Killing slayers left and right. Unfortunately my two gnoblars are taken out action to dwarf shooting.
Steven and the rest of his ghouls did well as always! Never underestimate the power of dead things!
After the initial charge and a succesful rout test from both sides my vampire finishes off the beardling (because i forgot to charge him out). At the end of the turn its sure that the dwarfs are going to die, but then my warband routs! xD


Gregor ready for his charge out against the dwarf noble. Shame Gregor chose to turn tail.

Aftermath:
Gregor gained +1 toughness
Ivan +1 BS
Gunnar the warlock got the same sword spell and reduced its difficulty to 7.

I had lousy recovery rolls for the dregs
They were both captured by the dwarfs and I paid 20 gc for the one with step aside while the other was lost.
1 zombie didnt make it.

I didnt get any doubles, tripples or anything but got 90 GC with everything paid to upkeep to gunnar and 20 gc to the dwarf for the dreg i now have 60 gc to spend
And we both ended up with 2 shards each.

[rufus sparkfire]

Great stuff again! 

[McKnight]

Thanks I was in a bit of a hurry so I didnt go into that much detail of the battle.

[McKnight]

Our latest game!
A skirmish between our undead warband and the thieving dwarfs!

I'm sorry but we both forgot about taking pictures during the game. So unfortunately there will be no pictures in this report.

Gregor had acquired new intelligence regarding the Dwarf warband. He had received word of one of their hide outs and base of operations, from where they sent out search parties for warpstone. He knew he had to attack them and take their territory and so he led his warband towards a fortified two floored ruin.
The dwarfs went on the defensive and Gregor saw the only way to win this fight was to use the plenty of cover there were between the two warbands.

The list used:
Gregor, sword, mace and bow
Ivan, Bow and dagger
Ivana, dagger
Club gnoblar, dagger
New Stash gnoblar, dagger

Steven the ghoul (ws3)
Not-Steven the ghoul (ws3)
Bone guy (ghoul)
New ghoul

2 zombies
1 direwolf
and Gunnar the warlock

The dwarves:
Noble, gromril armour and shield + hammer
Engineer with crossbow with two shots
Slayer with 2 wounds
Slayer with 3 Iniative
Beardling hero
Thunderer hero with crossbow with two shots

5 thunderes with crossbows
1 clansman with twohanded weapon
1 beardling


I rolled the highest when choosing which side to deploy on. And it gave me a lot of cover to hide behind when i had to move in and attack the dwarfs. The dwarfs got the first turn then, but all of my models were hidden so well that there were no targets to shoot at, except a thunderer against my Vampire, but he missed.

Again this time i used zombies as the front guys, but this time i used the Hiding rule alot. Half of my warband was always hidden. They moved slower of course but i only lost one zombie and later in the game, a direwolf to missile fire. My vampire and a ghoul moved together from a palisade wall to a large tombstone where they hid again, ready to charge the next turn (this was turn 3 or some).
But the rest of my warband was a turn behind compared to the two and i had a problem. Should i charge or move closer with the rest and risk a ton of missile fire, because they would be in the open?
I thought that both ways were a great risk but decided to charge with my vampire and ghoul.
My ghoul went up against a beardling henchman and stunned him (critical hits yay!) And my vampire bludgeoned a thunderer and took him directly out of action!
I moved the rest of my warband into a second wave of chargers. Just waiting for their turn to taste dwarf flesh.

The dwarf player quickly counter attacked! My vampire was charged by the slayer with I3 and the ghoul was charged by the slayer with 2 wounds. The ghoul got stunned! But the vampire was unharmed and quickly stunned his opponent. THe dwarf shooters were again ineffective (as they were the entire game!)

Some room problems complicated my second wave of chargers and the first priority was to save the stunned (now knocked down ghoul) but none of my warriors could get into contact with the slayer. So I had to stop the other dwarfs. Steven the ghoul charged the downed beardling. A zombie charged the noble and the 3 other ghouls went into position around a single thunderer.
My killer zombie didnt do anything (surprise! :O ) My vampire killed the slayer.
The downed ghoul survied because the slayer fluffed his attacks!  The zombie was now charged by a thunderer and a clansman but still held its ground! By this time, he had succesfully taken his rout test.

My turn! 3 ghouls charge the lone thunderer but only stuns him! the vampire charges the second slayer and kills him with the aid of the ghoul. The Zombie does nothing.

The dwarfs then rout!

Aftermath was a bit bad for me. I didnt lose any warriors to serious injuries but rolled bad on exploration. So only got 60 GC and my leader got an extra Exp for killing a straggler.
The dwarfs on the other hand!. The slayer with 2 wounds rolls bad on his injuries and gets multiple injuries! He cant be in the next battle and for each subsequent battle he is participating in he will have to roll a d6 before deployment, on a 1 he cant join the battle because of old battle wounds.
But he got 90 GC

Ivana got a second point in LD and is now on 9. Im thinking she is the one to get kicked out of the warband.
Bone guy (ghoul) got promoted! Havent chosen any skill trees or rolled for his advancement yet.

Thanks for reading!

[Von Kurst]

Hiding, skulking an sneaking can also be called Gothic Lurking--very in with undead types.

 

[Shadowwolf]

These reports are epic gold!  Keep it up, McKnight!

Shadowwolf