Die Nordlichter - a small BTB campaign

We´ve started a small (two player) BTB campaign a few days ago. My bigger gaming group started a new campaign in December (before BTB got out), and since we are only playing every two weeks it will last quite a while yet. Since we were impatient to try out BTB we decided on this smaller campaign. I will post the progress of the campaign in irregular intervalls, probably roughly every two weeks or so.
Since we are playing in a basement the light is crap....and so are the pictures .

I am using the merchant caravan as my warband, my friend / opponent is playing standard Undead with The Silent Threat as his objective. My objective is obviously The Lure of Fortune.

My starting warband, “The Middenland Trading Company” consists of this:



Merchant with hammer and pistol, guess where i got the inspiration .

Apprentice with hammer
2 Knights Vanguard with hammers
Mage with staff and Flight of Zimmeran
3 Marksmen with crossbows
Sell-Sword with hammer
Trade Wagon


The Undead


Vampire & Necromancer

The Blockade – 1st game in the campaign

Our first game was the blockade with the Undead as defenders.



I did not think that I stood much of a chance of storming the watchtower, so initially I tried to use my crossbows and their range advantage to shoot some of the zombies.



Predictably I hit nothing for some rounds, giving the Undead the opportunity to close on my trade wagon and snipe back at me with some bows, also without success.
In round two the supply caravan (with five guards) appeared approximately 30 inch from my warband.



Five guards are pretty tough for a starting Merchant Caravan, especially when you consider that the 13-member-strong Undead warband would probably not be passive for the whole time. After some thinking I decided to let them through without attacking.
Meanwhile the Vampire, five ghouls and three zombies had closed to charge range.



Because I could not move all my models out of range I decided to charge two zombies. The marksmen finally managed to shoot a Dreg on the watchtower, claiming first blood. My chargers hit nothing and I lost my Sell-Sword to a Zombie. A great start! I dreaded the counterattack of the Vamp and ghouls and already planned to rout before my warband got wiped out when I got incredibly lucky:
The vampire missed with all his attacks (or, in one case, did not wound) for two rounds, a Knight Vanguard got charged by two ghouls and thanks to lightning reflexes managed to kill both before they could strike (I love that skill ! ), the mage killed another ghoul, the second Knight Vanguard killed a Zombie and the marksmen shot another Zombie.



Unfortunately my Apprentice got killed by a ghoul, but all in all I suffered incredibly few losses.
The Undead refused to rout and the Vampire finally remembered how to hit something, killing a Knight Vanguard. But the Undead failed their second rout test, leaving “The Middenland Trading Company” victorious!

The only permanent loss was my Sell-Sword, the Undead managed to loose not a single model in the post-game phase. His luck had returned!
Both warbands got two campaign points, and both found a runaway horse.
An incredible game, I was badly outnumbered and should have lost, but got lucky as never before in a game of Mordheim.

COOL STUFF! A nicely written narrative AND, despite the bad lighting, some EXCELLENT photos. This is going to be an enjoyable campaign to follow. DO keep updating the thread...or ELSE !

Very cool! Thanks a lot for this great report of your campaign, Horatius! I always love seeing how other groups set up their tables and play the scenarios I have been playing for so long now. Thanks for sharing and I hope to see more reports soon!

DeafNala wrote:

COOL STUFF! A nicely written narrative AND, despite the bad lighting, some EXCELLENT photos. This is going to be an enjoyable campaign to follow. DO keep updating the thread...or ELSE !

Thanks DeafNala, but i do think that the photos are bad. If you enlarge them you can´t see much...but at least you can see the game unfold and get some idea of the action Quite a lot were so out of focus (even more than the ones i have posted ) that i had to delete them. Well, can´t be helped.
And don´t worry about more game reports. We are up to game 3 now, so i´ll have some more material to post once i´ve written a report and uploaded some more photos. You will get your treat...just not yet .

And since i found a runaway horse after the first game i decided to mount a Knight vanguard on it. This way one more member of the warband can keep up with the trade wagon.
Here are some pics of the conversion:









I need to work on the base and the boots some more, but he is playable the way he is now.

The Tainted Copse – Game 2

Wilhem Xanten - merchant of Middenheim, explorer, adventurer and traveller on his way down the silk road to fabled Cathay - cursed his luck. A traveller had told him about a possible source of cathayan silk somewhere in the mountains near the northern wastes and predictably Wilhelm had eagerly diverted his merchant caravan in order to search it. Cathayan silk was what he had travelled thousands of miles for, after all. But the claim had either been bogus or the caravan had lost it´s way in the accursed forest near the mountains. Wilhlem could swear to mighty Ulrik, god of winter, that he had seen that copse of trees directly ahead at least three times already…the caravan was lost.
At that moment Gottfried, a down on his luck former white wolf knight who accompanied the caravan and had been scouting ahead, rode to the wagon. “Master Xanten, I have spotted some foul undead half a mile ahead. At least three ghouls and a zombie, probably the group we have run into before. They´ll be here in a few minutes.”
After a moment of thought Wilhelm gave his orders: “Close up on the wagon, there are some rotting corpses ahead and in this forest we won´t be able to see them until they are very close. We try to break through and continue into the mountains!”
After only a heartbeat a whiff of rotting flesh assaulted Wilhelm´s nostrils, the vampire and his minions had arrived……

For this game I replaced the lost sellsword, bought a second one and bought some pistols to boost my close combat power a little bit. The undead bought a new ghoul – the warband is turning into a real ghoul horde.



The Vampire-player didn´t think his undead were fast enough to stop the Trade Wagon before it would reach the way out of the forest, so he played a game of hide and seek.



Skillfully using the woods as teleport-taxis and to give some cover against the crossbows of the merchant caravan the undead declined any close combat (I wonder why, that is the strongest advantage an undead warband has) and concentrated on getting their models off the opposite wood entrance.

Only the Vampire shot his bow at my advancing caravan, but hit nothing. Some crossbow quarrels convinced him that this idea was a bad one (he lost a wound) and he hid in the woods…. and I thought vamps were bloodthirsty.



Halfway through the game an earthquake random event and tiring steeds slowed my wagon down to a crawl.



A lucky teleport with a wood brought half the undead warband close to the way out of the forest – I had lost my lead completely.





My marksmen finally shot a ghoul that could not get into the woods fast enough, but that was the only casualty of the game.
In the end the “teleporting” undead managed to win by one turn. My wagon was very close to the way out of the forest, I would have been off-boards next turn.





Well, you can´t win them all.
The undead earned 5 campaign points (they rolled slave mine as search result and a zombie was sacrificed) while I got only one and found a statue. I really need to invest into an elf ranger and some tarot cards, I need some good searches to close the gap in campaign points.

After the game the promotions went very lucky for the undead, they got a ghoul-hero with two wounds and another two ghouls with added strength.
I “only” got two marksmen with BS5, a skill for a Knight Vanguard and some WS / Ini / Leadership upgrades. I had hoped for a marksman hero, but the dice had different thoughts.

PRETTY COOL STUFF! I'm not familiar with the Teleport thingy, but it doesn't sound like playing on a level field; if there's anything I can't stand, its a CLEVER CORPSE!

The scenario takes place in a wood twisted by chaos, the wooded areas can either move or change place with another wooded area (and all the models in the wood are moved , too) - hence the "teleport" i was refering to. It is random and makes for a very chaotic game, but if you are lucky you end up right where you need to be...

Cool, it's a Mordheim version of Elsinore. I rather like that.

DeafNala wrote:

Cool, it's a Mordheim version of Elsinore. I rather like that.

Who or what is Elsinore A horror movie / book / whatever playing in the woods? A person?
Please enlighten me DeafNala .

MacBeth's Doom is prophesized to come when the Forest of Elsinore advances upon his castle. Being a Ham Actor gets you all these vague references.

Bar-room brawl – Game 3

In preparation for this gane i bought a third BS5 marksman, my opponent bought a Wizard Hired Sword. He rolled Fireball and Flight of Zimmeran as his spells, a really nice combination.
We played this game on the printed-out tiles from the BTB supplement but i forgot to take pictures .

I feared i would have no chance in this game, the barroom brawl is an indoor fight at very close quarters (models need only start 1” apart) without weapons. I am dead meat against the undead in close combat without my weapons and equipment, especially against the Vampire and the ghouls. Both strong points of my warband, the mobility and protection offered by the trade wagon as well as the good shooting of my marksmen, were cancelled by the scenario rules.
So I set up with a feeling of dread but hoped for the best.

This was possibly the quickest Mordheim game I have ever played, 30 minutes from set up till end. The undead got the first turn and charged immediately. Predictably I was wiped out in two turns, loosing the apprentice, 2 marksmen and a sellsword. Against my expectations I killed two ghouls, one of them with lightning reflexes while he charged my knight – have I already mentioned that I love that skill? ?

After the game I lost a marksman – argh!!!!! The apprentice lost an eye and I retired him, after serving as undead bait for three games and suffring wounds in all of them the poor guy deserved a break. The undead lost nothing…..sigh.
Promotions brought me a sellsword-hero with an initiative upgrade and one henchman with 2 attacks.
I bought a new apprentice, replaced the marksman and bought an additional sellsword for the group with two attacks.
My warband now consists of:

Merchant with dubious income skill, Club, Pistol
Apprentice (new) with Club
Wizard with Ini 5 and flight of Zimmeran , with a Staff
Knight Vanguard with WS 5, Sword, Pistol, Horse
Knight Vanguard with Mighty Blow, Club, Pistol
Sellsword-Hero with Ini 4, Club

3 Marksman with BS 5, Crossbow
1 Marksman with BS 4, Crossbow
2 Sellswords with two attacks, Club
Trade Wagon.

4 Campaign points…..the undead have 9!