Simple Sewer System

Hey all,

First off. Apologies if someone has already posted something similar to this. :s

Right, I'm currently putting together a campaign for Mordheim and I'm trying to find ways to make the games more interesting.

One of the ideas that sprang to mind was an easy way of including underground sewer systems.

First off you'll need something to represent sewer grates. (I'm planning on converting some 40-50mm bases) Depending on how much access you want to these you can include as many as you like. But it's best to scatter them around the board.

If a model ends its move in base-to-base contact with a sewer grate you may remove it from the board and declare that he is underground.

At the beginning of each of your subsequent movement phases roll a D6:
1: The model takes a wrong turn or something bad happens Roll on the mishap table below
2-3: The model is crawling around, belly down in you don't want to know whatNothing happens.
4-5: The model follows his gut instinct and bursts forth from a grate to confront his enemies The model must make an iniative test. If he passes you may place him on the table next to a grate of your choice. If he fails, the model is placed next to a random grate on the table.
6: The model has an unerring sense of direction and gets to exactly where he needs to be You may place the model in base contact with any sewer grate on the table. In addition, if conditions allow, the model may count as hidden when he emerges.

Sewers mishap table (Roll a D6):
1:The model has a particularly unfortunate incident in the sewers The model counts as going out of action and makes a roll on the serious injuries table after the battle. Ignoring any rolls of "Captured" and "Sold to the pits"
2:The model panics in the cramped spaces and scrambles for a way out Place the model in base contact with a randomly determined sewer grate. The model loses one of his items, cross it from the warband roster. This is determined randomly but can not be armour.
3-4:The model has no clue of his location and crawls around the sewers desperately looking for a way out The model goes out of action but does not roll on the serious injuries table after the battle
5:The model miscalculates his exit point Place the model in base contact with the sewer grate that is closest to an enemy model
6:The model can't stand the confined stench of the sewers Place the model in base contact with the grate that he initially went into. He will not be able to use the sewer system for the rest of the battle

A few rules to go alongside this:
Large Creatures and models on cavalry bases may not use the sewers. They just don't fit.
Close combat will never occur in the sewers. The space is too small to stand let alone swing a weapon. If members of enemy warbands are in the sewers at the same time, it is assumed that they either didn't see each other or avoided a confrontation whilst in the tunnels.


And there you have it. I'ts a system that i will be playtesting at the weekend but feel free to use it/tweak it as need be.

Feedback is welcome.

I thought about a similar system some years ago. What i did not like is that you can move over the whole board in one turn.

They game would be more unpredictable but i did not like this " beam" element.

I bought me some dungeon tiles and we use the as real underground system.

There are two different methods that could counter the "beaming" effect.

1 - When a model goes underground, roll a D6, he can not re-emerge for that many turns
2 - Measure the distance between the starting grate and his destination then divide it by his movement speed. That's how many turns it takes to get there.

I prefer the second option. If this was used it would mean, don't roll on the sewers chart until the model is ready to emerge.

Any thoughts?

We tried something similar way back in the day for a special event. Thanks for reminding me, it was fun.

The beaming effect is slightly annoying, but so is waiting the 3 turns or whatever for your warrior to show up.

Perhaps combining the 2 options. Each time a warrior enters the sewers roll a die. On a 1-3 the warrior beams to a new location at the start of the next turn. On a 4-6 measure the distance to the desired exit and divide it by the warrior's movement to see when he will reach his destination.

We have proper underground scenery now, so we just fight scenarios underground.

I'm seeing a lot of this fabled underground scenery...
I like the idea of having two battles going on.
One above ground and one below.


Still would be nice to try and create something straight forward for games before I get the chance to build any underground terrain.

If I remember correctly there was some rules for fighting in sewers in one of the first stand alone town cryers. I recall playing a few battles and they were quite fun.

I think I'll will have to dig them out from the closet.