Possessed warband, building for a campaign

I'm planing to build a possessed warband, but would like to build it in one go instead of building it as the campaign progresses as I usually do. I've got pretty good experience of skaven / O&G, knowing what combinations works well, what skills/equipment boosts are relevant during a campaign etc. But I'm not on the same level with the possessed.

Any things I should keep in mind?
If anyone has any tips for things to keep in mind or would like to share a starter list, that would be appreciated. Feel free to link me around if you know any good possessed article/forum thread.

Things I wonder about is: What would the heroes look like (mainly, what equipment and "visible" skills are key) after 5-10 games? The magister especially. Is it common to try get him armour? Should he stick to the caster role or start skilling up for close combat madness?

Are two naked possessed, and cheaply mutated mutants the way to go?

Which is the henchmen composition to aim for?
Like, how important is / how fast should I get, beastmen? Start with one or two?

From a lot of experience, there are 2-3 ways to go:

1 - get one nekkid possessed and beef up 2 mutants with extra arm(s), nab 3 beastmen for 3 henchmen groups, and a stupid magister (i personally kill off my magisters to make room for more beastmen heroes). Save all your gc for a monster possessed in round 6-7 with two claws and spines and whatever else.

2- get 2 nekkid possessed and mutants with one extra arm each, the stupid magister and as many beastmen as you can afford, picking up darksouls or bretheren depending on other warbands as needed for fodder. equip everyone with a single club and that's about it. Slowly build up a warband over time and pray the shadowlord pays off. This way sucks imo.

3- mutants level quick and really don't cost much with an extra arm, so save em for later, start with a stupid magister, 2 freaky possessed with heaps of stuff and a bretheren sacrifice with nothing. use your winnings in the first 2 games to buy mutants with arms and build from there. risky build if things go bad, but makes for quick games to start with earning gc.

The main problem with possessed in general is that despite the possessed, they start slow and suffer through the first chunk of a campaign until they turn the corner and suddenly you got a horde of freaky bastards that just keep getting better with shadowlord trips or straight gold-fueled replacements of 300gc+ that are insane. One campaign we had a dude with an average of 5/6 attacks per hero and could afford 3 hired swords every game for 18 members destroying everyone else combined. That said, it took 30 games to get near that. The absolute worst thing the possessed have is the stupid magister and his magic that is pretty unfair compared to other magic sets. Hence why I kill mine off and just focus on making mutated monster and beasty heroes.

The most common way I've seen is #1, more or less.

I'm trying not to read too much into your comments, brokenv, but I'm getting the feeling that you may not like the magister.

Haha, he's ok honestly, but not for the 70+ you gotta spend in the beginning. He has 2 spells worth taking, and 1 spell that is horribly weird and ineffectual and then 3 spells that are meh, especially compared to any other spell book. If you can choose a spell for him at the start, he is slightly better, but I always hope the shadowlord eats him.

I love my Magister. Get him a few trips to the shadowmaster and grab a Tome of magic for him at first chance. Use his initial spell (They're not awesome, but they're okay and have their situations) and some lesser magic while he focusses on melee. once he gets Deamon armour or Possessed! on his shadow trips, start to choose some close combat relevant skills. You can even throw him on a warhorse for that extra kick.
If you allow him to, he can be one of the meanest warband leaders available

As for starters I would go low on equipment and focus on the heroes and mutations. Leave one possessed out if you need to, But even better to buy a single mutant later on, I think, They're easy to afford, and the extra mutations will make up for their late entry
In fact. Don't feel too bad about dropping a mutant who had some bad level ups or sour trips down in the pit. Just buy a new one, they'll end up as good as any hero in no time.
At least that's my experience, and my possessed are doing rally good

As far as mutations go I agree with Brokenv. Claws for the big guys and extra arms for the mutants. Scorpion tails can be fun too, but they soon loose their "touch" as the heroes gains levels

Great, thanks alot for the imput guys!

My previous setup was something like, magister, naked possessed x2, demonsoul mutant, scorpion tail mutant, beastman, 2x cultists. But I realize thats a short term build (which makes sense, since its my 3rd choice of warband ), after 10+ games I'll most likely regret not having mutated possessed.

I've been very lucky with my magister. I the "everything within 3 inc takes a S3 hit"-spell and managed to bait my opponent into a situation where I could hit something like 6-8 of his models with the spell, and only 3 of mine. With some good rolls (for once, I'm famous for being the guy who rolls 1-2 to wound with everything with a strength greater than 3), I managed to kill 3 of his guys and a cultist of my own. WIth one spell!

Gift of the shadowlord awarded my magister with one mutation, pretty nifty!

I'll go on vacation (hiking in northern Sweden), but towards the end of the month I'll come back with a list suggestion and maybe some sketches. I've been thinking about making a nurgle themed possessed warband for some time, and with the new plaguebearers I realize I just gotta make that reality.

Thanks again for the input!

Our Possessed player tried something interesting, which in my opinion I would not suggest, but I thought it might just be good to post. He bought a Magister with some decent equiptment, then he got a very expensive possessed with practically all that he could buy (cost him about 300gc), and then just one

His possessed really cleans up in combat and next game he can buy another expensive possessed, so we're rather worried.

Magister 70
Possessed 2 claws, spines 310
Beastman Sword/Shield/Helmet/Heavy Armour 120
Buy mutants asap and then save for possessed, pray beasty/possessed don't die
---------------------------------------------------------------
Magister Mace 73
Possessed 2 Claws 240
Mutant Arm 3 Maces 74
Beastman 2-hander 60
Beastman Mace Shield 53
Save for possessed or buy a mutant quick if necessry, hide behind beastmen
---------------------------------------------------------------
Magister Mace 73
Mutant Arm 2 Maces, Shield 76
Mutant Arm 2 Maces 71
Possessed Claw 140
Possessed Claw 140
Buy Beastmen ASAP, and any fodder.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Magister Sword , Mace 83
Possessed 90
Mutant Arm 2 Swords, Shield 90
Mutant Arm Spear, Sword, Shield 90
Beastmen Sword Shield 60
Beastmen Doublehander 60
Bretheren Dagger 27
Play recklessly with Possessed cause you are replacing him eventually. Save 600+ gc for 2 Possessed.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Magister, 2x Mutants, 1x Brotheren.
Mutants i like the extra arms and the Tail.
Throw the Brotheren away ASAP in what ever means you can and rout. Your low numbers and the fact you got vary low exp you have a low warband ratting (40!) and that means you rack up a ton of early exp for your warband making your mutants get an advancment after the first game easy.
Sure there isn't a lot of glory in it but hey after that first game you should have the gold to invest in a possessed with a claw or two and some other fun stuff... and if your lucky your brotheren survived and he got an advancment too!

are you THE sliver, who also made the skavn in the coreheim rulebook? :-o

possessed for vanilla mordheim, power gaming version:

- two hand weapons is super OP and armour is completely useless in vanilla mordheim but you knew that already

- darksouls and beastmen take flails

- magister, mutant and cultists all have two clubs

- don't bother with bows or any such

- as for hired swords later on, you want the pit fighter, he's a beefcake and unlike ogre his not overcosted. warlock is cool, but unreliable.

- mutations are not really worth it and should almost be considered a nerf in that mutants HAVE to pay for them

- though the single best mutation is the SPINES one at 35 gc. note that spines hit any model in the beginning of EACH close combat phase, meaning that they also strike at knocked down enemies and OOA stunned enemies completely. furthermore, they may KD an enemy, and then allow your mutant to strike at him in the same phase

- visiting the shadowlord may grant you chaos armour, but you cant really count on that

If you are saying that a mutant with spines can knock them down with spines and then auto-anything them in the same phase, then I think you are possibly getting confused between Mordheim and Coreheim*. In Mordheim a single model is specifically forbidden from auto-hitting anyone they knock down in that phase, and from auto-OOAing anyone they stun in that phase.

It doesn't matter if the extra attacks come from a different weapon, a saurus bite, spines, snake hair, scorpion tails or what-ever. Regardless of the source of your multiple attacks, no model can knock someone down and then auto-hit them or stun them and then OOA them in the same turn. That being said, if one model kd/stuns an enemy any valid friendly model *can* do the wound-and-they're-out/auto-OOA thing respectively.

What *is* handy about the spines is that in later turns of a multiple combat, if you have knocked down/stunned anyone previously and still have somone standing (that you will have to allocate your attacks to) your spines will still attack the KD/stunned opponents and *then* can do the wound-and-they're-out/auto-OOA thing respectively.

*I don't have a copy of Coreheim so I can't check, but I know they made changes to the OOA rules.

I understand that the rules say

Quote :

"Note that a model with multiple attacks may not stun/knock down and then automatically take a warrior out of action during the same hand-to-hand combat phase. The only way you can achieve this is to have more than one of your models attacking the same enemy."

And spines are in the same phase

Quote :

"Any model in base contact with the mutant suffers an automatic Strength 1 hit at the beginning of each close combat phase. Spines will never cause critical hits.

But, it seems like spines should break those rules, as they happen before any 'strike-first' attacks.


I imagine enemies needing to pass a test of 'Don't stand next to the sharp bits' that make it impossible for them to fight, exposing a weakness for the possessed to exploit. If a single model runs into a spine before combat, it seems stupid that the possessed just stands there during 'strike first' attacks, 'normal' attacks and 'strike-last' attacks to just watch a spine-impaled foe and laugh at them.


If multiple attackers are engaged with the possessed, though, the possessed still has to allocate 'normal' attacks to standing models before KD or Stunned. At least as we play.


Once again, I know the wording in the rulebook is clear, but, I think the wording was also trying to emphasize base characteristic attacks, and not crossbow pistols or spines, which happen before all other CC attacks.

In my circle we decided the intention was that no model was supposed to be able to auto-out an enemy in one round so we just left the rule as it was. We found going against that intention tended to lead to less fun and more feelings of bitterness and frustration so we left the rule as it was.

Feel free to make a house-rule otherwise if it makes things more fun for your group, of course .

its probably best to play it as lord 0 says, but that is why mordheim is so cluttered it says nothing about how to implement it, and nor does it say if spies are active while fleeing, kd or stunned

there are no spines in coreheim, though