Multi-Player Scenario "The Haunted Orphanage"

Hey there, I've made up my first scenario. It's been playtested and improved, hopefully you will try it out and like it. Ofc, any critique or comment is still welcome!

So here it goes:



The Haunted Orphanage

Introduction

The Orphanage “Sigmar’s Merciful Refuge” in the eastern district of Mordheim has been haunted by the restless spirits of the children and teachers that came to an untimely end after the comet struck the City of the Damned.

One of the deceased in the Orphanage is a teacher called Sophia von Donnersmarck, the beloved wife of the rich merchant Werner von Donnersmarck. Since the catastrophe he has been trying to find out what has become of his wife and has recently received information that her spirit is among those roaming the Orphanage.

Too scared to look for her himself, Von Donnersmarck has issued a reward to anyone who can find his wife Sophia’s spirit and return her golden wedding ring to him. He hopes that with the help of this ring, the priests of Sigmar can perform a ritual that will give his wife’s soul eternal rest.

Terrain

The Orphanage should be represented by a large building in the middle of the table with an open yard in front of it. Place the rest of your scenery as usual.


The Objective

The objective of this scenario is to find Sophia’s ring and take it off the table. A model that carries the ring can be attacked by other warbands. If the carrying model is put OOA another model can pick it up. It can also be handed over from one model to another. A model carrying the ring can move as normal.


Finding Sophia

Every turn that a model spends in the Haunted Orphanage or in the open yard there is a change it will encounter a lost soul. Roll a die, on a 1-2 nothing happens but on a 3-6 the model has encountered a lost soul. When a lost soul is found, roll a 2D6 on below chart to see what happens. If any kind of evil spirit is being encountered then the model has to see if it has the guts to fight it by passing an all-alone test (even when his buddies are near!). Treat this as a 'normal' all-alone test so if it is failed, then the model will run away and the ghost can make an auto-hit. The ghost will disappear after that.

A model carrying the ring will be followed by ghosts (also outside of the Orphanage area, they won't let Sophia's spirit escape so easily!) and will have to roll for encounters as explained above until it has left the table.


2, 3, 4 – It’s the Twisted Headmaster of the Ophanage! He will attack immediately, see his stats below. The Twisted Headmaster can only appear once per battle, roll again on this chart if he is encountered more than once. Should the Headmaster manage to put the model that spoke to it OOA, it will move to and attack the next nearest model immediately (and so on). It can see and move through walls!

5, 6 – It’s the Evil Spirit of a Child, it will attack immediately, see it’s stats below. Should it manage to put the model that spoke to it OOA, it will disappear immediately.

7, 8 – You have found a kind spirit. It will bless you with a ward against fear for ghosts. You will automatically pas the next all-alone test caused by a ghost in this battle.

9, 10 – It’s the Evil Spirit of a Teacher, he/she will attack immediately, see it’s stats below. Should it manage to put the model that spoke to it OOA, it will disappear immediately.

11, 12 – It’s her! Sophia has been found and after you explain about her husband, she gives her golden wedding ring to you.


The Twisted Headmaster

Profile	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
	4	3	0	3	4	2	4	2	-

Special Rules

Elusive Spirit: It’s hard to see a ghost! All close combat and ranged attacks have -2 to hit.

Nothing Can Stop a Ghost: The Twisted Headmaster can see, move and charge through any obstacle like walls, trees, crates etc.


Evil Child’s Spirit

Profile	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
	4	2	0	2	2	1	4	1	-

Special Rules

Elusive Spirit: It’s hard to see a ghost! All close combat and ranged attacks have -2 to hit.
POOFF!: If you manage to wound a ghost dont roll on the injury table, it will go POOFF! and disappear immediately.


Evil Teacher’s Spirit

Profile	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
	4	2	0	2	3	1	3	1	-

Special Rules

Elusive Spirit: It’s hard to see a ghost! All close combat and ranged attacks have -2 to hit.
POOFF!: If you manage to wound a ghost dont roll on the injury table, it will go POOFF! and disappear immediately.


Ending the Game

The game ends when one of the warbands manages to acquire the wedding ring and take it of the table so it can be returned to Werner von Donnersmarck.

The game also ends when all warbands but one have routed.

The reward

The reward given by von Donnersmarck is 4xD6 gold coins and a Mordheim Map.


Experience

+ 1 Survives: +1 experience for every hero or henchmen group that survives;
+ 1 Winning Leader: +1 experience for the leader of the winning warband;
+ 1 Enemy Out of Action: +1 experience for every hero that puts an enemy out of action;
+ 1 Killing the Headmaster: +1 experience for the hero or henchman that puts the Headmaster out of action;
+ 1 Finding Sophia: +1 experience for the hero or henchman that finds Sophia.


EDIT: Processed comments of JAFisher44 and Jadex by reducing stats of the Twisted Headmaster and the Evil Teacher's Spirit.
EDIT: Edited the scenario after playtesting it.

Looks interesting, have you playtested it yet?

Awesome scenario dude!
But personally, i would have treated ghost encounters as Fo2-4/5 hits and/or frightening moral-wrecking apparitions.
Since ghosts are incorporeal they should not be hitten and not considered as models.

Not going to bother changing anything as I would probaly kill your theme All I can suggest is that you just give it a shot with your mates and get their oppinions. Then you can change it for another shot down the road

whoot! dead infants! hahah sick and twisted, hence I like it a lot! I happen to have a nice building with a lot of different rooms, which will be excellent for this scenario! (I hope to give it a try soon)

The only problem I see here is that those ghosts are going to rip everyone's warband apart. Against the Headmaster only models with a WS of 5 or higher will be able to hit on anything other than a 6. With T4 only 1 in 12 attacks from a model with WS4 S4 is going to wound. With S4 on top of that, once that headmaster appears everything is gonna start dying.

Frankly I just don't think that D6x4 GC and a Mordheim map is worth the possible losses here.

I would consider mitigating the difficulty to hit this guy, or tone down his stats quite a bit.

I don't really mind tough guys, but then the treasure should be accordingly
On the other hand when warbands do get massacred and only one wind the giant loot, warband strengts will start to get unbalanced...

Da Bank wrote:

Looks interesting, have you playtested it yet?

Not yet, I thought I'd ask some feedback from you guys first

ObsidianLord wrote:

But personally, i would have treated ghost encounters as Fo2-4/5 hits and/or frightening moral-wrecking apparitions. Since ghosts are incorporeal they should not be hitten and not considered as models.

Not sure I understand what you're saying, plz enlighten this dimwitted Greenskin

mrbretonnia wrote:

All I can suggest is that you just give it a shot with your mates and get their oppinions. Then you can change it for another shot down the road

Probably the best comment of all

Ezekiel wrote:

I happen to have a nice building with a lot of different rooms, which will be excellent for this scenario! (I hope to give it a try soon)

Great, would love to hear how it went

JAFisher44 wrote:

The only problem I see here is that those ghosts are going to rip everyone's warband apart. Against the Headmaster only models with a WS of 5 or higher will be able to hit on anything other than a 6. With T4 only 1 in 12 attacks from a model with WS4 S4 is going to wound. With S4 on top of that, once that headmaster appears everything is gonna start dying.

I would consider mitigating the difficulty to hit this guy, or tone down his stats quite a bit.

Jadex wrote:

I don't really mind tough guys, but then the treasure should be accordingly
On the other hand when warbands do get massacred and only one wind the giant loot, warband strengts will start to get unbalanced...

Point taken, I'll tone them down (quite a) bit. I guess it would be fluffy to give them less strength them being ghosts and all, also some other stats can be reduced. Ill update the stats in the opening post aiming for ghosts that are hard to hit/kill but not too dangerous on the attack.

Ok i'll try to reword my bad explanation.

Since ghosts are incorporeal, a (probably non-magic) sword would trepass them without harm (spectres can walk even through WALLS, why do they should not trepass thin metal objects?). It's not difficult to hit a ghost to me, simply it's impossible

I would have treated those nasty encounters as single automatic hits against players' models. Spectres that appear in front of the unaware warband member and strike him wildly just to disappear one instant later.
For example the twisted evil headmaster could be treated as a S5 or 4 automatic hit, teachers as automatic S4 or 3 hits, and little childs may only frighten the model (Maybe they should pass a Ld test to not run in a random direction screaming in terror).

It's just my opinion. Funny scenario indeed

IT could be a fun zombie run! Have the orphans zombiefied and the teachers ghouls! A lil different from yours but i could definatly be fun.

I like the whole story of it.

maybe the headmaster can be like a poltergiest, and he can manipulate objects which he sends flying at his unwitting foes, but what he throws could be a teddy bear or a bed the attack has a str d6 hit? also the teachers can be like the possesed random happening and for that turn he makes that character make one automatic hit on him/herself. and fear checks for kids. also perhaps you could do something where it turns out the headmaster was an evil necromancer and killing him causes the wife to appear before you can give you her ring to take to her husband. of course your warband will neglct to tell that her soul has been put to rest to assure you get paid =P.

I think I like this scenario as is, with all the comments of random events or hard to hit ghosts the scenarion might turn out to take a very long time to play. I remember playing a scenario in the dungeons of Mordheim that had random events and took forever! It was survivable though but it took a long time to play. It definitely must not become like the great Library scenario, which was fun but took with 6 players well into the night before there was some ending (I think we called it quits eventually and the scenario could still go on)

ObsidianLord wrote:

Ok i'll try to reword my bad explanation.

Since ghosts are incorporeal, a (probably non-magic) sword would trepass them without harm (spectres can walk even through WALLS, why do they should not trepass thin metal objects?). It's not difficult to hit a ghost to me, simply it's impossible

I would have treated those nasty encounters as single automatic hits against players' models. Spectres that appear in front of the unaware warband member and strike him wildly just to disappear one instant later.
For example the twisted evil headmaster could be treated as a S5 or 4 automatic hit, teachers as automatic S4 or 3 hits, and little childs may only frighten the model (Maybe they should pass a Ld test to not run in a random direction screaming in terror).

AFKzombie wrote:

Maybe the headmaster can be like a poltergiest, and he can manipulate objects which he sends flying at his unwitting foes, but what he throws could be a teddy bear or a bed the attack has a str d6 hit? also the teachers can be like the possesed random happening and for that turn he makes that character make one automatic hit on him/herself. and fear checks for kids. also perhaps you could do something where it turns out the headmaster was an evil necromancer and killing him causes the wife to appear before you can give you her ring to take to her husband. of course your warband will neglct to tell that her soul has been put to rest to assure you get paid =P

Thanks for the ideas, I really like them! We could go even further and make the ghosts scary as hell but otherwise completely harmless. So whenever a ghost appears, you have to see if the model will hold it's nerves by making an "all alone" test (like a fear test, but the effects will be the same as with an all alone test). If failed, the model will start to run towards the nearest table edge screaming for his mama. Encounters with the headmaster should be made with a -4 modifier to the all alone test, with the evil teacher a -2 and the evil child -1. And whether the model runs or not, the ghost will just disappear after that. Also when a model has held it's nerve in an encounter he won't have to test again for that particular ghost should he encounter it again.

Fungomungus wrote:

IT could be a fun zombie run! Have the orphans zombiefied and the teachers ghouls! A lil different from yours but i could definatly be fun.

I guess you can use the mechanism described to make appear all kinds of creatures, so feel free to uses zombies/ghuols/etc Should you try it, let us know how it went!

Splendor wrote:

I think I like this scenario as is, with all the comments of random events or hard to hit ghosts the scenarion might turn out to take a very long time to play. I remember playing a scenario in the dungeons of Mordheim that had random events and took forever! It was survivable though but it took a long time to play. It definitely must not become like the great Library scenario, which was fun but took with 6 players well into the night before there was some ending (I think we called it quits eventually and the scenario could still go on)

No worries Tom, I'll stay clear of the random happenings table

Mithras wrote:

Encounters with the headmaster should be made with a -4 modifier to the all alone test, with the evil teacher a -2 and the evil child -1.

I think dead children are way more scary than a "normal" ghost-guy. The ring docet

However i think it's a cool idea (poor skaven warbands )!

So last weekend I finally had the chance to playtest the scenario with our gaming group! We played it in a multi-player setting with 4 warbands (O&G, Undead, Pirates and Troll Slayers). We had a good night of fun, changing some rules on the fly and had some ideas to improve the scenario further. In the end the rock-hard Troll Slayers (played by Splendor) had a well-deserved victory this battle. These are the changes we made to the original scenario (edited the opening post with the changes):

1) Improve the stats of he Twisted Headmaster slightly since he was down and out very (too) quickly;
2) Except for the Twisted Headmaster you don't have to roll on the Injury table if you wound a ghost: when you manage to wound it, it will go 'poof' and disappear immediately;
3) The rule that if you encounter a ghost you don't have to roll a fear test to see if you dare speak to it is removed. This is replaced by a rule that you have to make an all-alone test if you encounter a ghost to see if you dare fight it. If you run, the ghost will make an automatic hit like normal for an all-alone test and will disappear after that. This rule caused some funny moments, for example when 3 of my Orcs ran screaming off the table after failing a grand total of 10(!!!) leadership tests in a row! Quite befitting for someone who has been attacked by a ghost!
4) The ghosts will go after the guy with the ring to try and get it back. So the model with the ring has to roll for ghost encounters even after he/she has left the Orphanage area/building.

Our good man Splendor has posted a nice report (with piccies!) of this battle on his blog: http://somegamers.blogspot.com/2009/12/haunted-orphanage.html

Sounds like fun!

great battle rep and nice pics!

I like your scenario idea, and changing the rules "as needed" in middle of the game, is part of the fun in this kind of scenarios.

Thanks fopr sharing.