The Cleansing of Darkroot Cemetery

A friend of mine is putting together an Undead warband for our up and coming campaign and recently came into the possession of a horde of 40 pre-painted zombies. Taking one look at this massive horde he asked if it would be possible for me to write up a scenario that took full advantage of this mass of flesh eating evil. Of course I never refuse a gameplay design challenge so here we are!

Now I'm a fan of a good old zombie flick, and also the recent trend in video games to have "Horde Modes" I thought I would try combine the two. (Horde Modes are basically a co-op multiplayer gametype where wave after wave of increasingly numerous/tough enemies come after your team who have to try and survive as long as possible against increasingly bleak odds.)

This scenario is geared towards either a couple of low-mid powered warbands working together against the Undead Horde, but alternatively it could prove a great challenge for a high level warband to test their mettle.

So without further adieu, I present to you "The Cleansing of Darkroot Cemetery".


"Come 'ere boy...So you want t'hunt the Undead do you?...Oh I see, avenge your family an' all that. Well let me tell you a little somethin' bout them Undead. You think you know what there all about, few stinkin corpses and some vampire scum you come across in some god forsaken back alley? Well that's nothin boy, let me tell you about what happens when the REAL wrath of the dead comes crawling in the night..."


Terrain

In the centre of the board place a single building or ruin, this is the objective building. After this has been set up, take it in turns to place any additional scenery around the table, as long as no other buildings are within 8inches of the objective building. We recommend a table of roughly 4'x4' size.


Set-Up

The defending warband(s) set up first. They set up inside or within 3" of the objective building. The "Priest" (See special rules) is set up on the ground floor in the centre of the objective building (He must be close to the earth in order to purify it). The Undead Horde can set up anywhere on the table as long as it is at least 10" away from the objective building and any defending characters.


Special Rules

The Undead Horde

The Undead Horde can either be controlled by another player or used as an NPC warband, either way use the following rules to determine their deployment and reinforcements.

At the beginning of the game, the horde consists of 6 zombies and two ghouls set-up as per the above rules. At the beginning of every Undead Horde's recovery phase roll 1D6 for each option on the following table to see what additional evil crawls its way from the piles of corpses/nearby graveyard to assist in the slaughter of the living.

_______________________________________________________________________

Zombies : Auto (D3+"Round Number" zombies) (Example on turn one D3+1 zombies appear, on turn five D3+5 zombies appear etc etc)

Ghoul: 4+ (1 Ghoul appears, Only a maximum of 5 ghouls are allowed on the table at once)

Direwolf: 5+ (1 Direwolf appears, Only a Maximum of 2 Direwolves are allowed on the table at once)

Vampire!: 6+ (1 Vampire appears!, Only one vampire is allowed on the table at once)

________________________________________________________________________

From round 5 onwards, add +1 to rolls to see what appears (eg, on round 5 a ghoul will appear on a 3+, on round 6 a vampire will appear on a 4+ etc etc)

All Undead reinforcements arriving in this manner are set-up in a randomised quarter of the table no closer than 10" to the objective building and out of line of sight from any defending models.

Should the Undead Horde not be controlled by another player, they will always advance in the shortest possible route towards the Priest. The Undead will charge any defending units that find themselves within their charge range, but they will always attempt to charge the priest first if he is within range. These charges can be intercepted as normal.

Unless using another player's specific Undead Warband, all Undead Horde units use the basic stats found in the Mordheim Rulebook. The vampire comes armed with a sword, axe and light armour.


Defend the Priest!

The priest is an additional NPC character that is placed in the centre of the objective building at ground level. He uses the stats of a basic mercenary youngblood but cannot move and will not fight in close combat if charged (attacks against him will still need to roll to hit). His soul task is to channel the cleansing ritual that will banish the undead from the surrounding area.

Defenders are not required to take rout tests or "All Alone" tests during the scenario (Although they take fear tests as usual), the defenders know that their best chance of survival is to ensure the priest completes the ritual.

Should the defenders win the scenario the Priest will offer his healing services to any injured warriors in the defending warbands. This allows any Heroes rolling on the serious injuries chart a chance to re-roll the result, the second result stands, even if it is worse.


Starting the Game

The defenders take the first turn after the initial Undead Horde has been rolled for and placed on the table.


Ending the Game

If the game lasts over 10 rounds then the ritual is complete and the undead are vaporised in a cleansing white fire. This results in the defending warbands winning.

If the Priest is wounded by any member of the Undead Horde his concentration is broken and he cannot complete the ritual in time, the Undead Horde overwhelms the area and all defending warbands automatically rout. This results in a loss for the Defending warband(s).


Experience

+1 Survives: If a hero of Henchmen survives the battle they gain +1 experience

+1 Winning Leader: The leader of the winning warband(s) gain +1 experience

+1 Per Enemy Out of Action: Any Hero gains +1 experience for each enemy he puts out of action


Rewards

Due to the nature of the pitched battle, the defending warbands cannot search for wyrdstone in their exploration phase. Instead, from round 5 onwards, each defending warband gains 1 Wyrdstone shard per round they complete.


Hope you like ^^ any feedback is welcome and if anybody uses it post up a battle report and let us know how it works!

Edit Log

1: Reduced the horde set-up + appear from distance. (Noob forgot that zombies can't run when setting initial values ^^')
2: Added rule to allow re-rolls on injury table if the mission is successful (should encourage more heroics/self sacrifice xD)
3: Nerfed rewards and removed xp for intercepts.
4: Buffed the size of the horde at the beginning of the game to give them a larger starting presence.

I really like the concept, that several warbands are trapped within a zombie raid.

I believe the start will be very slow because the first zombie wave will reach the players in round 4 ( only max 4)
I believe that it really get stressful in round 7 or so.

I would shorten the appearance range 10' ( out of sight no attackin in appearance round), maybe you could shorten the round number to eight. The threat at he start of the game should be more intense ( like 4 zombies, 1 ghoul and dire wulf per warband). The appearing enemies should also be adjusted by the warband number.

The reward is way too big. Basically you could sacrifice some henchman to save the priest until round 5 or six and then lose with purpose, so your heroes will still be able to search for wyrdstone and get 6 wyrdstone shards extra. In this scenario there shouldn't be a normal exploration phase.

Maybe you receive one shard for every two rounds you hold out.

I would additionally grant the heroes a reroll on the injury chart if they were able to win the scenario

I also like the concept but also agree the reward is way too high.
maybe fully remove the exploration phase from this game. Add into it that you get 1 shard per turn after turn 4; so 6 shards max but no exploration.
or do it like occupy where you get exploration + shards for every hero left not OOA at the end of the battle to a max of 3 shards.

i would say maybe even the exp reward may be too high (+1 for intercepts).

I've played similar scenarios but this seems much well thought, though I will chip and say the reward is far too high.

I like the concept.

I would recommend reading the Weavers' Vampire Hunter reports in the Battle Reports and Fluff section for more inspiration. Coffin hunting sounds fun.

On paper the scenario doesn't look that tough. The might of 2 warbands against what is essentially a beginning Undead warband. We set all of our zombie bash scenarios in darkness, usually with some kind of foul weather thrown in. Makes it interesting.

In most of the zombie horde scenarios, the zombies start a bit closer to the warbands or the warbands have to move through the zombie deployment area. Often randomly appearing zombies can make a charge move when they appear if a target is nearby.

If the horde starts 18 inches away, it seems that the warbands will really go hunting them rather than forting up to defend against endless waves of attackers.

The reward seems too great for the risk as written. Also heroes are going to reap a huge amount of experience by killing zombies, they won't need any other bonuses.

Other zombie scenarios:
-A Night in the Graveyard (TC#19)
-In The Dead of Night (TC#22)
-The Mine (TC#10)
-The Sword of the Herald (TC#13)

Thanks for all the great feedback peeps, I'll roll it all into the top post for version 1.2 ^^

Let me know what you think of the changes!

Added some suggested edits...

Edit Log

1: Reduced the horde set-up + appear from distance. (Noob forgot that zombies can't run when setting initial values ^^')
2: Added rule to allow re-rolls on injury table if the mission is successful (should encourage more heroics/self sacrifice xD)
3: Nerfed rewards and removed xp for intercepts.
4: Fixed the size of the horde at the beginning of the game to give them a larger starting

Looks good.
On the roll to see what all shows up I think each defender should have to roll on it. This won't effect the "max" of anything but it will produce more zombies (and other goodies) for the defenders to fight off.

Pervavita wrote:

Looks good.
On the roll to see what all shows up I think each defender should have to roll on it. This won't effect the "max" of anything but it will produce more zombies (and other goodies) for the defenders to fight off.

Hmmm, as in all defending warbands roll once and then the highest number rolled is used? Cause that's pretty cool. I'm wary about increasing the number of zombies past what I have already since it escalates rather quickly imo xD

Not taking into account any kills, the numbers are on average...

Round1 : 9 zombies (starting set-up + rolling)
Round2 : 13 zombies
Round3 : 18 zombies
Round4 : 24 zombies
Round5: 31 zombies
Round6: 39 zombies
Round7: 48 zombies
Round8: 58 zombies
Round9: 69 zombies
Round10: 81 zombies

+/- 10 to the total depending on luck

That's ofc not taking into account how many you manage to kill per turn, but that's also not taking into account how many ghouls/direwolves/vampires arrive to mix things up a bit xD You gotta ask yourself...realistically, how many zombies can you kill ^^

me, oh about 50+

I get it's a lot, but i don't see this as a game for new warbands so your looking at stronger warbands.
also you only have to survive the 10 turns, that means you can just camp your building and hold out.

maybe as you said all defending players roll and take the highest.
or
+1 to the max of all the non zombies there are.
you won't get more zombies but you will get more of the nasties to compensate for extra defender fire power.

I would say maybe both the above. 2 warbands could fight off a Vampire easy but 2 and with more to replace them is another story and will be tough.

I like it much more now.

After round 3 or 4 it will be a big mob of zombies around the house/ ruin.

You won't kill all zombies and the players will be stuck in a ressource battle.

Maybe the zombies should be able to bash on the ruin walls to gain access to the ruin later on.

Ther should be an increased difficulty factor if more warbands are the defenders.

If the priest falls there must be a hard pain for the loosing warbands, to encourage them to defend the priest and not to sacrifice him to get free. Maybe an auto OOA for all standing models( what would be very hard).

I also believe that this would be a very good scenario in a gamemaster lead campaign, because the horde needs some senseful orders.

SerialMoM wrote:

Maybe the zombies should be able to bash on the ruin walls to gain access to the ruin later on.

Thats a nice idea, but trying to implement rules for this would be a major pain xD But considering that most mordheim buildings have a good deal of windows, doors and broken walls I would hope that there would be a decent number of entry points for them on the average building anyway.

SerialMoM wrote:

Ther should be an increased difficulty factor if more warbands are the defenders.

Indeed, while I don't think increasing the number of zombies would work (the potential for around 100 zombies on the board already exists, who has/needs 200!?) I would maybe say if you wanted to add more than two warbands you might increase the maximum number of ghouls/direwolves/vampires that are allowed on the table.

SerialMoM wrote:

If the priest falls there must be a hard pain for the loosing warbands, to encourage them to defend the priest and not to sacrifice him to get free. Maybe an auto OOA for all standing models( what would be very hard).

Hm, well I don't really want to punish people for failing to protect the Priest, since that's not how most Mordheim scenarios work and it's never fun to be punished for bad luck if it comes down to it, but instead reward them for protecting him (hence the injury re-rolls). I could possibly add a treasure chest style reward for protecting him the whole way (like allot of the multiplayer games in "Chaos on the Streets" etc). That might give people extra incentive to hang on till the end.

In saying that I don't really see this as an every day scenario you would play multiple times, but more as an event in a story driven campaign. So in that regard I don't mind giving the players extra bonuses for winning and if I was going to "punish" them it would more likely be tied into the campaign story/outcome rather than directly effecting the warbands.

SerialMoM wrote:

I also believe that this would be a very good scenario in a gamemaster lead campaign, because the horde needs some senseful orders.

I definitely agree with you. As I said though this is mostly aimed at a story/event in a campaign, so I would hope that even if there was no GM as such, the players wouldn't try to rig the horde by making them do intentionally stupid things etc since what would be the point? ^^

Thanks again for all the feedback everybody!

I like it. From experience with a similar unending horde type campaign (our "Escape from Mordheim") I think version 1.2 will likely be pretty tense. I would urge playtesting a time or two before making it tougher. This type of scenario makes for a good solo game, incidentally.

One simple mechanic we have started using for more limited-time scenarios is to roll a d6 every game and keep track of the cumulative number - when a certain number is reached, the scenario ends. So, for example, instead of saying the game ends after 10 turns say it ends after the turn in which the cumulative number reaches 35+ (which on average should be 10 turns).

maybe as you said all defending players roll and take the highest.
or
+1 to the max of all the non zombies there are.
you won't get more zombies but you will get more of the nasties to compensate for extra defender fire power.

I would say maybe both the above. 2 warbands could fight off a Vampire easy but 2 and with more to replace them is another story and will be tough.

just throwing that back up as it adds to what you just said


i like the idea of rolling and adding the numbers up till it reaches 35+ to end the battle. some games will take longer and others shorter but the end result is about the same.

Haha I'd live to see your Beastmen warband interacting with the walking dead in this one!

Hey nice to see an Amazon player posting on the forum. Somebody told me it was National Cleavage day yesterday. That explains it.

Regards,

Werekin

Just a quick post to say we played a slightly adjusted version of this scenario yesterday...and it was fantastic xD

I'll post up a full battle report later when I have time, but it was a very epic stand off between the never ending zombie horde and a valiant band of , only slightly drunk, dwarves.

In the end the outcome of the whole game came down to one fateful 50/50 dice roll! Seriously an amazing game ^^

We encountered a couple of things that may effect the rules though.

1: Using the current spawning rules for the zombie horde meant that it could be easy for a warband with a high number of warriors to spread out and "bottle up" the places that the horde could spawn from. We figured that it might be best to change the spawning rules so that there are instead a number of gravestone markers around the objective building that the horde randomly spawn from (probably 6 for ease of rolling). This would also help make it more automated in case the horde was not controlled by a player.

2: Once there were only a couple of turns left it became pointless to spawn any further zombies, since they couldn't feasibly effect the fighting anyway with their limited movement. Not sure how to tackle this though.

Any further thoughts are always appreciated ^^

You could give them a small punishment by inverting the benefit of the priest:
if they lose they have to roll twice for each member OOA and gets the worse.

You could also give the defenders "barricades".
The defender can strike normaly over a barricade.
A Zombie attacks automaticly all barricades in his way (and not the model behind).
Barricades are autohit, have T4 and 2 Wounds.