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Mordheim

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Mordheim
Players2 and up
Setup time10 minutes
Playing time45 minutes - 1.5 hours
ChanceHigh
SkillsStrategy, Arithmetic

Mordheim is a tabletop wargame set in the Warhammer Fantasy world, produced by Specialist Games (A division of Games Workshop). It is a skirmish miniature wargame based on the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game, but on a smaller scale with only a handful of figures per side (similar to Warbands) and terrain to represent the destroyed city of "Mordheim, City of the Damned". The game is to Warhammer what Necromunda is to Warhammer 40,000. Mordheim was mostly developed by the former Finnish Games Workshop worker Tuomas Pirinen.

Mordheim's Background

The game is set in the Empire city of Mordheim, from Imperial Year 1999, some 500 years before the present day in the Warhammer Fantasy time line. (Translated from German Mordheim means "home of murder", -heim being a very frequent toponym ending. To avoid these connotations the title of the German edition was changed Mortheim.) The Empire was a place torn: it had been in civil war for years – there was no Emperor sitting on the throne, and various powers were vying for control. In the Imperial year 1999, a great comet was sighted in the sky – a twin tailed comet, the sign of Sigmar. Astronomers predicted that it would fall in the city of Mordheim, where his convent of Sisters stood. It was believed that it would herald the return of Sigmar, which he would restore the land to its former glory and usher in a new golden age. Everybody traveled to Mordheim, filling the city well beyond its capacity. Such were the times that lawlessness soon grew out of hand. The citizens of Mordheim quickly degenerated to moral debauchery, giving themselves over to their own worldly temptations, living in an increasing state of anarchy. As time drew closer to the comet’s arrival, more and more people made the journey to Mordheim, and the situation became worse. As people gave in to acts of depravity, demons walked the streets like men, the seeds of Chaos and corruption long since having claimed the souls of the pitiful thousands who now called Mordheim their own.

The comet fell on New Years Eve, but it was not to be the coming of Sigmar as predicted. The comet smashed into the city, instantly killing those who had gathered around it. Word got out that Sigmar had passed his judgment, that he had smote those who he deemed unworthy. The place of Mordheim became a place of fear and paranoia. Soon after, word spread of a mysterious stone that lay scattered about the city, known as Wyrdstone, which had all manner of reputed qualities. It was discovered that factions would pay incredible amounts for this precious stone, whatever their motivation. So warbands began traveling to Mordheim, now dubbed The City of the Damned, hoping to find this precious stone and make their quick fortunes…

After the Great War against Chaos, Magnus the Pious razed the remaining ruins, and had the name of Mordheim stricken from every history record available.

The Game of Mordheim

Besides being a typical miniature skirmish game, Mordheim also features a campaign system. Warbands gain experience and equipment as the campaign progresses, in a similar nature to role-playing games. Accordingly, players can develop stories, or 'fluff', based on their different characters. For those who play Warhammer 40K, Mordheim is often cited as the Necromunda equivalent for the Warhammer Fantasy Universe. However, the warriors in Mordheim tend to have far more protections than those in Necromunda, therefore granting Mordheimers a much higher survival rate.

More recently, fan groups have released several "Alternative Settings," to allow players to fight in other locations, such as Araby (Relics of the Crusades), Cathay (Border Town Burning), Karak Azgal (Battles Underground), Khemri (Land of the Dead), Lustria (Cities of Gold), Mousillon (City of Lost Souls) or Sylvania using the basic Mordheim gaming rules. Also, fans continue to develop new warbands, and revise old ones; however, at this time there is no official news of a major revision. That last official revision was published in the Mordheim: Annual 2002.

Having gone almost a full five years with only marginal support, fans around the world have begun to revise the original rules for Mordheim, fixing old oversights, and updating armies to be more in line with Warhammer 7th (Mordheim was designed under Warhammer 5th).

Mordheim Warbands

In Mordheim, a warband is a defined group of adventurers, warriors, wizards, priests, mercenaries and/or animals that fight as a tactical unit. Each player controls one warband, composed of a certain number of warriors, each represented with a miniature. All the warbands have the same general game mechanics (i.e. stats, composition, etc) but each individual group has specific advantages/disadvantages.

These traits are represented in various forms, such as total number of warriors allowed, special abilities, point costs, movement, etc. Over time, the people at Games Workshop and the Specialist Games have created, play tested and publish many kinds of warbands; one for each type of troop or race available from the range of Games Workshop miniatures.

Informally, fans have grouped available warbands as follows:

  • Official Warband: Any warband published by Games Workshop, which is currently allowed to be used on Official Games Workshop Mordheim Tournaments. They are listed on the Specialist Games Mordheim Rules Review.
  • Unofficial Warband: Any warband published by Games Workshop, which is currently NOT allowed to be used on Official Games Workshop Mordheim Tournaments. They tend to be listed on the Specialist Games Mordheim Rules Review, but, as a rule of thumb, if it is not explicitly listed as Official, then it is unofficial.
  • Experimental Warband: Any warband NEVER published by Games Workshop, and thus is NOT allowed to be on Official GW Mordheim Tournaments. For obvious reasons, they are not mentioned on the Specialist Games Mordheim Rules Review. They are usually home-brewed warbands and thus may be poorly balanced. Some of them appear to be ready for the big time, but they have never been submitted to Specialist Games for review or simply have been lost in the shuffle.

OFFICIAL WARBANDS

UNOFFICIAL WARBANDS

EXPERIMENTAL WARBANDS: These warbands are some samples taken from The Mordheimer's Information Centre (site status: online).

  • Albion Barbarian Tribe: Natives to mystical island of Albion; primitive but effective.
  • Assassin Squad: Further (Skaven) Eshin warband.
  • Circus Extraordinaire': Circus performers...
  • Druchii Warband: Major revision and balancing of the Dark Elves Unofficial Warband.
  • Halfling Warband: They are chubby, slow and horrible fighters... but they can cook!
  • Mordheimers' Fanatics: Traumatized survivors of the holocaust that was the Wrath of Sigmar.
  • Night Goblins Warband: With sheer numbers, these weak and cowardly creatures can become a problem!
  • Wood Elves: Newly designed warband, based on the new Warhammer rules published in 2005.
  • Nipponese Warband[1]: A warband based on the orientel nation of Nippon including samurai, ashigaru and ninja. It is still a work in progress needing further play testing.
  • Clan Skryre Skaven[2]: This details the emergence of Clan Skryre in Mordheim and contains fiction to justify their appearance. Also details the many strange and dysfunctional warpstone weapons available to a Clan Skryre warband.

Mordheim's Hired Help

Players may also include special models to increase their warband's effectivenss on the Streets of Mordheim. They are grouped into Hired Swords and Dramatis Personae.

Hired Swords are professional mercenaries that warbands may hire to join them in their quest into Mordheim, The City of the Damned. Taverns in the settlements and shanty towns around Mordheim are good recruitment centers for warriors who do not belong to any particular warband or retinue, but instead hire out their services to the highest bidder.

Players can recruit Hired Swords when he creates his warband, or during the campaign phase after a game. Hired Swords do not count towards the maximum number of warriors or Heroes a warband may have on its roster and don’t affect your income from selling wyrdstone. However, Hired Swords do count as part of the warband for purposes of Rout tests, etc whilst in battle. A player cannot buy extra weapons or equipment for a Hired Sword, and he cannot sell the Hired Sword’s weapons or equipment. To reflect their rarity, you can only have one of each type of Hired Sword in your warband. You may not use the Leadership of any of the Hired Swords for Rout tests.

When a warband recruits a Hired Sword, you must pay his hire fee. Subsequently, after each battle he fights, including the first, you must pay his upkeep fee if you want him to remain with the warband. If the Hired Sword is killed, or you no longer require his services, you don’t have to pay any upkeep! These costs are indicated in the entries for each Hired Sword. The money paid to Hired Swords comes from the warband’s treasury in the same way as buying new weapons or recruiting new warriors. If you don’t have enough gold to pay for the Hired Sword, or want to spend it on other things, he leaves the warband. Any experience he has gained will be lost, even if you hire a new Henchman of the same type.

OFFICIAL HIRED SWORDS

  • Beasthunter (Empire in Flames)
  • Dwarf Troll Slayer (Printed rulebook)
  • Elf Ranger (Printed rulebook)
  • Freelancer (Printed rulebook)
  • Halfling Scout (Printed rulebook)
  • Highwayman (Empire in Flames)
  • Imperial Assassin (2002 Annual)
  • Ogre Bodyguard (Printed rulebook)
  • Pit Fighter (Printed rulebook)
  • Roadwarden (Empire in Flames)
  • The Merchant (Town Cryer 22)
  • Tilean Marksman (2002 Annual)
  • Warlock (Printed rulebook)


Dramatis Personae, on the other hand, are the strangest and most famous (or infamous) characters to be found in Mordheim and the outlying settlements. Occasionally, these warriors join forces with a warband (usually demanding wyrdstone or a bag of gold in payment). The following characters (known as ‘special characters’) are hard to find and expensive to hire – you must be lucky and wealthy to attract their attention.

The appearance of these characters becomes more frequent as a campaign progresses. If two or more players wish to hire the same person, then the Dramatis Persona will go to the highest bidder. If a Dramatis Persona is freed from service of a warband, for whatever reason, then another warband can hire them. The Dramatis Persona will again go to the highest bidder.

Each Dramatis Persona is unique. They will not gain experience or advancements, as stated in the main rulebook, but will retain any injuries. There will only be one Dramatis Persona available and if they die, that Dramatis Personae will not reappear for the remainder of the campaign.

OFFICIAL DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  • Aenur, The Sword of Twilight (Printed rulebook)
  • Bertha Bestraufrung, High Matriarch of the Sisterhood (Printed rulebook)
  • Johann the Knife (Printed rulebook)
  • Marianna Chevaux (Town Crier #22)
  • Nicodemus (2002 Annual)
  • Ulli & Marquand (2002 Annual)
  • Veskit, High Executioner of Clan Eshin (Printed rulebook)

State of the Game

As a Games Workshop "Specialist Game" Mordheim receives only very limited official support regarding both gaming products (such as models) and rules tweaks/updates. Preliminary suggestions for official rules were last released in 2006 though official moves in support of the game have been non-existent for even longer.

In September 2007, one of the game's foremost supporters described the state of the game as "Knocked down, but not stunned" in an article written for the largest Mordheim E-Zine, called "Letters of the Damned" [3]. Despite these crippling circumstances, Mordheim continues to enjoy a cult following over most of the Western world with fans working to compile all of the hard-to-find material released 1998-2006 [4], to expand the rules and report of matters of general interest to the game [5] or to re-write the now dated 1999-rules to facilitate smoother play [6].

In February 2008 Games Workshop amended their mail-order indexes, removing numerous Mordheim models from their online store. [7] As the miniatures for Mordheim were already reduced to "mail order only" this effectively meant that specific Mordheim miniatures were and are no longer available from Games Workshop.

Criticisms

Although the element of random chance is high enough that any warband from the original rules can beat any other warband most players agree - as they have ever since the games release in 1998 - that the core rules are unbalanced. It should be stated that fans do not agree on the extent to which they think that the original rules are unbalanced, but the main points of criticism are as follows:

  • The combined fact that there are no penalties for wielding two close-combat weapons and that armour isn't viable means that there is basically only one viable equipment choice for most models. This led the game's leading rules reviewer to state: "For example, two weapons are the norm in Mordheim and almost nobody uses a weapon and shield. This imbalance feels wrong to me: I’d much rather either was a viable choice, and one that was taken based on playing style, or perhaps warband type." [Reference: The MHRRv7 Document] It also led Games Workshop to release some experimental rules in an attempt to rectify that problem. [8] However, the company stopped updating the game, and thus the initiative was never completed.
  • Amongst the warbands in the original rulebook, Skaven break significantly from the standard set-up of 5 heroes and 15 members in total, by allowing Skaven 6 heroes and 20 members total. These advantages confer Skaven a marked advantage in income and experience advances.[Reference: Official Rulebook, Skaven Warband]
  • The internal balance of weapons is generally flawed: Even though it was supposedly fixed by the official MHRRv7-revision, the Sling is unequivocally cheaper and better than the similar Short Bow, Halberd is nearly useless, Blowpipe is fairly worthless, and so on.

Post 2004 Developments

Since Games Workshop stopped supporting the game in 2004, all further development has been left in the hands of fans. Amongst the Post 2004 Mordheim modules, the biggest three have been:

Border Town Burning is the biggest post 2004 development in Mordheim. It contains detailed expansionrules for campaigns in the Cathayan borderlands, detailing the merchant travels along the "Silk Road" from Cathay to the Old World.

Relics of the Crusades is another expansion set, this time set in Araby during the Crusades. The setting is very detailed and was originally published through official channels and so can be said to be semi-official.

The Coreheim rules modification that streamlines and balances the original Mordheim rules so that play process faster and more weapons options are viable. The name 'Coreheim' is a play on words which signifies that the designers thought that the setting, featuring the only a handful of warbands, had been diluted by the introduction of so many later warbands.

Mordheim Resources

  • Mordheim: City of the Damned - Basic starter Campaign Boxed Set. Includes 10 Skaven, 8 Human Mercenaries miniatures, rulebook, lots of card and plastic ruins terrain pieces, counters, range rulers and dice.
  • The Living Rulebook - This is the updated version of the rulebook that comes on the basic box set. It is available for free download (in PDF form) at the Games Workshop website's Mordheim Resources section at no cost.
  • Mordheim: Blood On The Streets - A building expansion pack for the basic Mordheim game system.
  • Mordheim: Empire In Flames - This supplemental expansion rulebook allows players to take the fighting from the narrow, cramped streets of the ruined city and out into the untamed wilderness of the Empire. Out of print, hard to find. It is also available for free download (in PDF form) at the Games Workshop website's Mordheim Resources section.
  • Mordheim: Annual 2002 - This supplemental expansion rulebook contains new warbands and rules for the Mordheim game system. It is based on new rulings by the Mordheim Rules Review Committee. Out of print, hard to find.
  • Town Cryers - Original publications on the White Dwarf Magazine (issues 1-6) and later partially re-printed in a single book ("Best of Town Cryer"), later compiled into a short booklet (issues 7-29). They contain many optional rules, warbands, Alternative Settings, etc. Many of the articles were approved by the Mordheim Rules Review Committee and were included on either the Empire In Flames or the Annual 2002. While they are out of print, they continue to be sought by players and collectors alike. They can be found on Online Auctions and prices range from US $4 to US $10 per issue.
  • Fanatic Online - This is a free monthly online magazine once published by Games Workshop's Specialist Games. It is the current form that the old print magazines (such as Town Cryer) has taken form. While it encompass articles, rules revisions, ideas, etc, for their many "specialist's games", you can find Mordheim specific articles.
  • Fan Sites - There are many fan sites for Mordheim in existence and the best way to find these is via an Internet search.
  • Mordheim Official Specialist Games site. Contains Core Rules available for free download.
  • The Mordheimer's Information Centre One of the largest non-official fan-based site. Some of the articles of interest include:
  • Mordheim Ultimate FAQ: Compilation of Official FAQ and FAQ's from reliable sources (such as Yahoo's Mordheim Group, original Mordheim creators and designers.)
  • Warband Tactics: Compilation of tactics and techniques of playing different warbands.
  • Mordheim Master Equipment List: Compilation of all Official and Unofficial equipment, including references of origin.
  • Mordheim Master Skill List: Compilation of all Official and Unofficial skills, including references of origin.
  • Mordheim's Scenarios Master List The only and largest compilation of Morheim scenarios in existence at this moment it includes 193 Scenarios, including Official and Unofficial scenarios.
  • Killer Shrike's Mordheim Large collection of fan add-ons; new warbands, gear, skills, hired swords, dramatis personae.
  • Border Town Burning: The homepage for Border Town Burning which is a new, balanced supplement for Mordheim
  • Coreheim: The Coreheim homepage featuring a Rules Mod and Pictures
  • Relics of the Crusades: a supplement set in Araby during the Warhammer Crusades.
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