Considering Mordheim

A guy from another board games forum who lives nearby has just wrapped up a small Mordheim campaign and is probably going to start up another. I've wanted to try Mordheim for quite some time now, so I'm really relishing the opportunity. The campaign may have 6 players in it and everyone is starting new warbands. I beleive they will be using the official GW rules.

While I haven't played Mordheim, I did play Necromunda, Blood Bowl and GorkaMorka back in the day, but that was all a long time ago (with the exception of the Blood Bowl game on Xbox 360).

What warbands should I consider? I played Cawdor in Necromunda but didn't do very well with them. In Blood Bowl I've played Dwarves and was terrible with them but had success with Humans, Chaos and Lizardmen. If any of that helps. I know a lot of people recommend one of the mercenary bands for beginners, but they seem kind of flavorless and I have a hard time remembering which is which.

I've been thinking about Witch Hunters because they seem fairly simple and warhounds and flagellants sound like fun. Plus, everyone likes an ignorant crusade right? On that note I looked at the Sisters of Sigmar as well. Dwarves look good due to their high WS, toughness, special abilities and good long range weapons, but they are so slow.

In the last mini campaign the players had Skaven, Undead and two of the mercenary bands (Middenhiemers and Reiklanders). At least one of the old guys is thinking about Beastmen, don't know about everyone else.

Witch hunters have some good stuff, but the 12 warrior limit Can be crippling. I would go with Sisters ( I'm a sisters player myself). Go for as many models as possible, give them cheap weapons, except for some sigmarite warhammers, and perhaps a flail or two. Give many of them slings, and a second weapon, but don't buy them armour.

Any Human Warband is a good choice for a new players, I would also suggest Dwarfs as a good solid warband.

While being a new player with just 2 matches under my belt I also recommend mercenary's. From my point of view they are full of possibilities and have many Hired Swords available to them witch can make the band full of characters and fluff.

As soon as i find a campaign im gonna go Marienburgers with as many bodies i can, toss in as many dueling pistols i can afford and starting with quantity, not quality. Then i have plans for getting armor (due to house rules) and some good merc's.

Personally i think Mercenarys is potentially a bad choice (after reading up on all the others) but they are the bands i have easiest to connect with.

If your not in to humans Undead is an popular band (what i know of) with many conversion possibility. So is also the Skavens.

While I do think Mercenaries may be some of the "least" flavorful of the many warbands, I definitely do not think they are "flavorless". Also, naming your guys, giving them backstories, personalities, etc can really add substantial entertainment value to any warband, but ESPECIALLY mercenaries, IMHO.

New player? Mercenaries!!! Without a doubt!

With a Empire Militia box you can make your warband and customize it however you want. Do you want pistols? Have it, swords, axes, maces? ofc, and they are overall a superb and balanced warband imo.

If you don't want to play Mercs, try Possessed. If one of your favorite Blood Bowl teams is chaos, possessed will be great... the spells are kinda tricky, and you got to read the rules carefully when you first buy mutations, but they can be a easy to play- charge them in, and watch them scatter like bowling pins.

I don't think mercenaries are flavourless, either. I like them pretty much, as the rougher definition of their background does give you a lot of opportunity to include your own thoughts. Also, there are quite a lot of mercenary warbands if you use the additional rules, like Averlanders, Ostlanders and Kislevites.

What rules and warbands are allowed? Only those from the original Rulebook, also Empire in Flames, those from the Town Cryers/Annual and the supplements (Khemri, Lustria, Nemesis Crown, Relics of the Crusade, Border Town Burning)? The choices are endless, but if you want to start simple, start with mercenaries. They are very versatile and you can suit them to your needs and playing style as you go along due to the fact that they really have a lot of equipment, skill and hired sword options.

If you consider Lizardmen I guess you don't have to stick to the LRB-Warbands?

The first Band I had were the Beastmen, simply because they were the best painted minis I had in warband-size at that time. They were a real success, maybe the most successful warband I played. Their lack of shooting didn't bother me and their high speed, (weapons) strenght and especially toughness four is great.
That said, Lizardmen have just all that, and shooting

So if you just want to make a game or two to see if you like Mordheim, make a warband of the minis you already have and like. Or if you want to paint something up, consider using the opportunity to paint minis that are very different from the armies you already field in WHFB or any other game.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions! Unfortunately I don't have any minis so I will be starting from scratch unless I can borrow minis from somebody in the campaign.

Hmm. Then maybe Beastmen ARE the way to go. I love Mordheim (compared to Warhammer), 'cause in many cases, you buy one box, and you have all of the minis you need.

If you need to stretch them out further, use the left-over Beastman Gor heads on Ungor bodies. That way you could get 10 Gors and 10 Gors, or maybe 15 Gors and 5 Ungors. All you need are some dogs (any will do, if you have a lax group), and you're good to go.

For the mercenaries you can get one of the best plastic sprues of GW.

It gives you the flexibility to build you any mercenary warband you like for a fair price.

On the other handif you like the witch hunters so start withthem. it will be more expensive, but you can find all the needed minis on ebay as well.

If you need some inspirations for minis go to the miniatures gallery section of this forum, maybe my signature can also help you. I play marienburger ( mostly made of the mercenary sprue) and also the witch hunters( many models of other producers). I also like the Tilean warband very much, because there are so many cool minis from Citadel on the market ( or ebay).

All mercenary warbands will be played as a solid mixture of close combat and range combat, so you have at ever time an option.

Just browse around and search for a warband which gives you the special "must play feeling"

The Cult of the Possessed and the Witch Hunters are certainly two of the more flavourful parties in the City of the Damned. Sisters of Sigmar is something of a curiosity and the Merc warbands are the classic heroes of any story set in Mordheim! Clan Eshin and the Undead warbands are both solid choices due to their popularity in Warhammer.

The best campaigns to play in are where you are lucky enough to have one of each!

If you have more players then it's fun to include a 2nd Chaos warband with Beastmen plus a Dwarf warband is always very entertaining. I like the mercenary theme of the Kislevites best because they have such a rich background.

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Hmm. Then maybe Beastmen ARE the way to go. I love Mordheim (compared to Warhammer), 'cause in many cases, you buy one box, and you have all of the minis you need.

If you need to stretch them out further, use the left-over Beastman Gor heads on Ungor bodies. That way you could get 10 Gors and 10 Gors, or maybe 15 Gors and 5 Ungors. All you need are some dogs (any will do, if you have a lax group), and you're good to go.

Alas StyrofoamKing the Beastman box set you speak of was withdrawn from circulation over a year ago. Current plastic Beastmen boxes are 10 expensive Bestigor, 10 Gor and (probably 10-20) Ungor each sold in seperate box sets.

I started Mordheim playing witch hunters, they are a fun band to play. Sisters would be harder now model wise as there are not many warrior nuns out there. Old Reaper and a couple of other companies and that's it.

I gotta say the Witch Hunter box set is pretty disappointing, 1 Captain, 1 Witch Hunter, 1 War Hound, 3 Zealots and 2 Flagellants. That's only 2 heroes and not even a Warrior Priest. To do Witch Hunters I could get a Empire Flagellant boxed set, the Witch Hunters blister, the Warrior Priest and then some dogs from some other minis line. But what to do for a captain?

The plastic Empire sets do make running a mercenary group appealing. What about the Empire Free Company? Would that make good Witch Hunters? Zealots, maybe.

The Free Company are the old Mordheim core set mercenaries without the bitz sprue. As mentioned above it is obviously great for making Mercenary warbands. Check through the painting sub forum and gallery for all the Witch Hunter warbands and recommended miniatures.

How important are GW miniatures to you? MANY other companies make Witch Hunter minis that could be used for a captian or a whole warband. West Wind has lots of potential zealots, witch hunters, hounds, etc in their Vampire Wars range. Foundry, West Wind and others have Angry Mob packs, Reaper has some nice dog minis.

GW miniatures aren't important to me, and I don't think it's necessarily that important to the group. But I've never played with these guys.

The now defunct Confrontation line had some cool looking Demon Hunter figures who have a more Solomon Kane/Van Helsing look I like. That's for the other recommendations, I'll check them out.

Personally i think Privateer Press has some nice figures! Especially some of the Cygnar ones..

Your should browse through/search through our galleries if you want to do witch hunters: Many folks converted theirs from plastic Empire kits (free company, flaggelant, archers, etc.), and with a couple of boxes and perhaps a few bits from one of the online bits stores, you should have all you need to make a great witch hunter warband with all the fighters and even some leftovers for the same price as the original metal warband sold by GW. The only constant problem everyone seems to face is where to find some decent dogs, though But that shouldn't bother you too much

OK, I'm still considering other warbands, but for now I'm thinking of Witch Hunters, but I have a couple of directions I've thought of. I've read some different tactics guides and one says to focus on close combat as that's where all the exp is at, but the other says to keep your heroes in range to keep them safe for wyrdstone exploration.

So here's are some options:

(same for all options)
Warrior Priest
Sword
Mace

Warhounds x5

Flagellants x2
Flails

Warband 1

Captain
Sword
Mace
Crossbow

Witch Hunter x3
Sword
Mace
Crossbow


Warband 2

Captain
Sword
Mace
Brace of pistols

Witch Hunter x3
Sword
Mace

Hired Sword: Elf Ranger


Warband 3

Captain
Sword
Mace
Brace of Pistols

Witch Hunter x3
Sword
Mace
Pistol

Warband 4

Captain
Sword
Mace
Brace of pistols

Witch Hunter
Sword
Mace
Crossbow

Witch Hunter
Sword
Mace
Pistol

Witch Hunter
Sword
Mace

Warband 1 looks to be the most viable starting warband. You have all your heroes and a goodly amount of meat-shields in the form of the dogs. As you get more experience you can add more weapons to try and find what you like the best.

Oh yeah, and try alternating a battle skill with a money earning academic skill for a while until you heroes have a couple of earning skills each.

1 looks okay, but I'd leave out some crossbows and dogs to get in a thirds Flagellant. One more chance to get a hero, which you will need as soon as possible (don't group the Flags in your warband roster to roll for advances separately). The witchhunters woun't hit anything anyways in the beginning (BS 3 and no skills) and dogs are cool, but five really is a lot (plus you will be hard pressed to find five nice dog models).

I started as Marienburg and found the humans to be kinda squishy compared to alot of others I ran into. I moved on to Witch Hunters and loved it. I played them with warhound fodder and letting my heroes snipe from range while they got XP, once they got some attribute increases under their belt I let them mix it up a bit in melee.

My wife has played Sisters and Dwarves and as someone that plays against her I can say that Dwarves are sturdy little bastards. They're a bit slow on the movement but needing a 6 to take them OOA can really be a pain in the butt.

I'm currently trying Marienburgers again in my 2nd campaign and I'm finding the same thing as the first one, they just don't seem to hold up against some of the non-human bands. I'm sure alot of it has to do with how I play but they just feel like their stats make them fairly easy to take out.

I'm also working on a beastmen warband for a different league we have starting up. Have played a couple test games with them and so far I think they're good. The lack of range is tough but they're pretty durable.

Grimscull wrote:

1 looks okay, but I'd leave out some crossbows and dogs to get in a thirds Flagellant. One more chance to get a hero, which you will need as soon as possible (don't group the Flags in your warband roster to roll for advances separately). The witchhunters woun't hit anything anyways in the beginning (BS 3 and no skills) and dogs are cool, but five really is a lot (plus you will be hard pressed to find five nice dog models).

The plan would be to add flagellants as warhounds die and money comes in.