I need 8 good warbands. And 8 bad warbands...

So I am in the preliminary process of planning a Mordheim event for CanGames 2013 (local gaming tournament here in Ottawa that will occur in May 2013).

I want to open it up to 16 players, provide a warband for each player and track "good" wins versus "evil" wins on a big Doomsday Clock.

I have run Mordheim at this convention for a few years so I already have 8 demo warbands; Dwarfs, Witch Hunters, Sisters of Sigmar and Middenheimers on the "good" side and Undead, Cult of the Possessed, an Orc Mob and Skeven on the "evil" side.

I plan to expand each warband so replacing some of these eight would not be the end of the world, but they form a good basis.

My question is, from the expanded official rules and from fan created sources what would be a complimentary 8 warbands to add? Beastman Raiders and Pirates top my thoughts on the "evil" side and the other two base Human Mercs on the "good" side.

I would love to hear suggestions and thoughts from this community.

Kislev would be good I think for good.
perhaps Norse for evil

A nice idea, but i am curious how you want to supervise eight games at the same time .

As to my suggestions - for the good side i recommend Averlanders and Kislevites in addition to the normal mercs you´ve already mentioned. They are solid human warbands with not too many special rules, so even beginners should be able to handle them. If you want to have something exotic take the merchant caravan from BTB, but they are pretty hard to play in the beginning as their powerlevel starts pretty low - but the wagon is very cool.
For the evil side i recommend marauders of chaos from BTB. They are a very nice warband, i had tons of fun playing them. For warband number 8 Clan Pestilens is a possibility if you want to have another skaven warband, if not then chaos dwarves from BTB are a nice warband with a more exotic flavour.

I would avoid dealing with any warband and a wagon for a demo game.

Good:
Marienburg
Reiklander
Middenheim
Sisters
Witch Hunters
Averland
Dwarf Treasure Hunters
Kislevites

Bad:
Undead
Cult of Possessed
Skaven
Beastmen
Orc Mob
Pitfighters
______________
______________


Personally, I'd double up on Cult of Possessed and Undead, but Norse and Chaos Dwarves are options as well.

For Bad, you could also go with Carnival of Chaos.

BtB Maneaters ( Ogres) are also a nice evil choice. The mentioned carnival is fine as are the BtB chaos marauders.

For me pit fighter and pirates are not basicly evil, more neutral.

The good side needs shadow warriors, lizardmen ( although Mordheim is a strange setting for them) and a Bretonnian warband ( the official oneis ok ,much better is the Brettonian chapel guard) The evil side could use dark elves and the before mentioned Norse warband

Depending on your wish to retain your sanity and the extent that you intend to monitor 16 players in demo games, I would suggest avoiding the Maneaters, Shadow Warriors (or any elfs) and the Carnival.

Are you going to write the players warbands for them or just provide models?

So the sanity issue will be taken care as I have one guaranteed co-GM and a couple of players who play every year and tend to act as mentors to the less experienced players. It has run really well with eight players over multiple years I am hoping 16 won't get too crazy.

I will be providing warband lists for the players. And that is the next conundrum I face. In past years I have created the starting warband roster and we have taken time between games to fully run through the post game sequence. The post game sequence has caused challenges in two ways. Inexperienced players don't really get it and either get frustrated or just do everything a GM or mentor suggests. Second it can really bog down the flow of playing multiple games in the four hour slot we have available.

Also usually in the slot we get thre MAYBE four games completed as we spend a good hour or more "leveling" the warbands. Most warbands don't really develop much personality over four games so the really interesting part of Mordheim (for me anyway), the experience and development, doesn't really come through.

So here is the plan this year, I plan on creating the rosters as they would appear at the start, after two battles, after five battles, after nine battles and after fourteen battles. So I plan to create a grand total of eighty rosters, five stages of sixteen warbands. Each "aged" warband roster will also have a brief advancement blurb describing how the new roster differs from the previous one. If I can manage the time properly I will try to add a bit of fluff describing the intervening time to each as well.

I know this will take some of the actual fun I am trying to illustrate to the players out of the event, but I also use the event to funnel new players to our local club's shop to play more, if they like the demo they can come out and play the game at "actual speed" at the club.

So know you may understand why I'm getting this ball rolling eleven months out...

One thing I found helpful in general for newbies and oldbies alike was to start a campaign with the post-game sequence, essentially just giving every hero/henchman group one advance, one full exploration phase and a chance to buy/re-epuip, etc. This lets them make their starting warband a bit more unique and meaningful, and teaches the post-battle sequence that defines the game before they start playing. It speeds up the following post-battle sequences, as all you add are serious injuries. Also, for short 3-4 game campaigns, I make every square of xp an advance instead of the normal dark square advances so stuff gets moving and everyone experiences a range of advances for the short campaign.

Here is a list of possible forces that could face each other:

Beastmen vs Halflings
Dark Elves vs Shadow Warriors
Lizardmen vs Bretonnians (was one of the old starting boxes)
Dark Elf Corsair vs Pirates
Ogres vs Trade Caravan (BtB)
Beastmen vs Wood Elves
Lizardmen vs Norse Raiders
ANGRY MOB vs PIT FIGHTERS


I like Marauders vs Kislev idea, very canon.

It all sounds like a fantastic event!

Quote :

Beastmen vs Halflings

And this sounds like it would be a massacre!

Quote :

So here is the plan this year, I plan on creating the rosters as they would appear at the start, after two battles, after five battles, after nine battles and after fourteen battles. So I plan to create a grand total of eighty rosters, five stages of sixteen warbands. Each "aged" warband roster will also have a brief advancement blurb describing how the new roster differs from the previous one.

I too like the idea of offering variety and empowering the new players with some great warbands. Pit Fighters, Pirates and Norse warbands are neutrally aligned warriors, the worst kind of mercenary! The notion of matching up classic foils against one another could make for a thrilling climax in your event.

Reiklanders Vs Beastmen
Witch Hunters Vs Undead
Sisters of Sigmar Vs Cult of the Possessed
Shadow Warriors Vs Dark Elves
Dwarf Treasure Hunters Vs Fire Dwarfs
Battle Monks of Cathay Vs Ogre Maneaters
Kislevites Vs Marauders of Chaos
Lizardmen Vs Skaven

Sounds like a real challenge!

Good luck.

brokenv wrote:

One thing I found helpful in general for newbies and oldbies alike was to start a campaign with the post-game sequence, essentially just giving every hero/henchman group one advance, one full exploration phase and a chance to buy/re-epuip, etc. This lets them make their starting warband a bit more unique and meaningful, and teaches the post-battle sequence that defines the game before they start playing. It speeds up the following post-battle sequences, as all you add are serious injuries. Also, for short 3-4 game campaigns, I make every square of xp an advance instead of the normal dark square advances so stuff gets moving and everyone experiences a range of advances for the short campaign.

Thats not a bad idea to give people a flavor for the game.
It works much like one up battles in many ways and gets the flow going fast.

This isn't meant to set the warbands up for the long haul of a long campaign so it will speed things up and you will see the advancments much faster in the game giving people the feel of a 8ish game campaign.
maybe have a few example sheets like you already plan to do for long campaign advancment.