Thursday Night Dwarf Fights Return!

Well, I wanted to bring something to the table here, rather than just introducing myself and returning to lurker status immediately. I decided, as a result, to revive an old favorite of mine: TNDF! Ranging from ridiculously epic to downright silly, TNDF chooses to focus more on the narrative aspects of the bands within Mordheim than the mechanics of troop movement and dice rolling (though for you stat junkies we try to cram some of that in the end too). Many of the original TNDF reports have vanished, but one of the originals remains. "Compromise" is the story of a particularly ill-fated night for the undead, at the hands of what was at the time Mordheim's newest gang of rejects. Seriously, there's way more carnival than Chaos going on with these guys. (An additional note-I know some of the grammar sucks, typically it is with the intent of writing as spoken. It's difficult to write "with an accent" particularly a terrible one, and all was done with the purest of intentions and humor as the goal.) Anyways, without further ado, "Compromise":

Compromise
"it's going to be a good night" thought bob von carstein. Sure he may be relegated to this absurd detail in this damned city; but at least those ******* dwarves have pissed off for a while to lick
their wounds. With enough time here at the wharf, who knows how many fresh corpses Marvin (of the shattered soul) will be able to dredge up from the river Stir? Pay dirt came fairly quickly, with
a fresh floater being pulled out and re-animated within the first hour. Yes, he thought, nothing left to do here but sit back and watch the necromantic engine purr happily along.
________________________________________
"But why cannot go Sigmarhaven, Larry? Ievgeny hear tiny beardyman and angry hammerlady say is party there. Ievgeny want dance, make party-look, Ievgeny even learn new balloon animal"
"Aw, for christ's sake put that thing away, nobody wants to see that!" 'the amazing' Larry averted his goggled eyes to avoid retching. He had seen some terrible things in his day- Plague,
mutation, demonic possession- hell, he'd even made a man eat his own face once- but for some reason the image of the massive tutu wearing simpleton and his "anatomical origami" never ceased to
haunt him. "you know what happened last time we went there, we're not going back for at least a month, maybe two before the heat dies down."
"But Ievgeny not one who eat hammerlady's kitty, is was zonker. This not fair. Ievgeny want to bring happy to children"
"yeah, we were actually meaning to talk to you about that Iev, you might want to work on some new material. It's just that this whole thing you've got goin on is a little...what's the word Im
looking for here Mikhail?" The mime's face to Larry's left contorted into a look of mock horror "Yeah, that". He reached into his Long coat with his one good arm and removed his "baby", eyeing
the beaker approvingly as it gave off it's faint glow in the moonlight. You, he thought, are going to make someone VERY happy one day.
________________________________________
"I think that's about all we're going to get lord," Marvin wiped his muddied hands on his robes as he scrambled up the break water. "anyone else we pull up is going to be too tore apart to be of
much use." He reached his hand out for assistance as he reached the top of the bank.
"one corpse, marvin? that simply will not do." The vampire's words were terse and level. The vampire turned to assess his new charge, ignoring the necromancers outstretched hand and allowing him
to slide indignantly back down the bank. "And to be honest, Im not terribly convinced the one you found is any good to us." The freshly animated zombie stumbled drunkenly about the bridge's span,
careening from railing to pylon.
"Well it takes them some time to find their 'sea legs' lord, but I swear he will serve admirably. In time our *ahem* YOUR minions shall be as to a veritable wave of dominance, washing over this
land, an uncompromising juggernaut of malice! All shall tremble before their fate as none shall be free from it's wrath!!!!" Marvin was doing it again, working himself into that frenzy.
"Marvin?"
"-Uhh, yes lord?"
"Your uncompromising juggernaut seems to have gotten itself stuck in a chamberpot." The necromancer halted his slavering and turned in time to see his new charge stumping down the bridge, it's
foot lodged firmly into a discarded gongpail. The zombie turned slowly as it walked around the hobbled limb, a cart with a bad wheel.
"NO NO NO nonononono!!!" screamed marvin as he ran towards the thing. he dove and slid towards it, narrowly missing as it took one final step off the span and plunged back into the Stir.
"******* Hell! Well, what're you idiots looking at? go fish him out!"
________________________________________
"look, we're almost to the shack, we can talk about it then, okay?" This was getting to be a pain- Moving from shack to shack, drawing the sigils where he could. Maybe Ievgeny was right, in a
proper settlement they might be able to find something to suit there purposes- A merchant's wagon, a stagecoach- hell, at this point even a haycart would be a step in the right direction. Theres
absolutely no way he could let Ievgeny know that of course, but it did warrant consideration.
"Meester Larry, Meester Larry, Please to come look!" The massive fool was jumping about excitedly on top of a fallen statue to some long-dead civic hero.
"Gods, now what?" muttered larry as he strolled up behind the bufoon.
"is dead-but-not, he walk and look in window, make it stop larry, Is keep touching my stuff!"
________________________________________
"oh for god's sake, now what is that thing doing?" Bob craned his neck from the top of the ruined tenement building he was using as an observation post. The body farming had proven vastly
disappointing, And he wasn't going to leave empty handed. To that end he had set marvin and his lackeys out into the wharf district, hoping to find something of value to report back to Sylvania.
to the north, one of the zombies had become tangled up in the debris near a small structure, little more than an outbuilding really. What struck him as truly unusual, though, was the relatively
untouched state the building was in. Sure, It was covered with the usual grafiti and markings one came to expect in mordheim, but short of that not much about it said building in city hit by
comet, particularly in contrast to the other wrecks and ruins around the wharf. Something else about the tiny house was unsettling to Bob, though it took him a moment to put his finger on it. The
sigil on the building would have been imperceptable from this distance to one without his heightened senses, but there it was as plain as day to bob- The twin tailed comet of sigmar, emblazoned in
bronze and brought to a near mirror-like polish. "oh bugger," thought Bob, "the ******* clowns."
________________________________________
"Ribbons, you and Ievgeny grab one of the boys and go get that pile of rot away from the shack. If those things are walking around its a pretty good bet those pratts bob and marv are around here
somewhere." Larry scanned the cityscape in front of him, eyeing the shadows for any sign of the vampire or his magical flunkie. "if I was an utterly useless blood drinking coward, where would I
be....? Zonk, you and the new guy check that old tavern," he pointed to a large building to the south, "if I know marvin he's probably holed up in there crying into his sherry about Bob not taking
him serious enough." zonkers the clown and his "protege" bonzo simply nodded quickly and honked their way off into the darkness. "Stupid clown shoes," grumbled the plague doctor as he watched
them vanish from sight, "now then, as for ole bobbo..." He cast his gaze to the east, scanning the rooftops of the taller buildings near the river itself. On the roof of the tallest one he could
make out the silhouette of his target, unmistakeable for the long flowing cape cascading around his person. "well isn't that just adorably typical, have fun up there playing spirit of the night
you flamboyant son of a-" His tyrade of insults was cut short by a gutteral groaning and shuffling noise from the alley in front of him. "stupid mush headed...hey roadkill, get a load of this!
TA-DAAAAA!" grabbing both lapels of his coat and tearing it open. Nothing. "hmmm. go on, cover him in bees!" muffled buzzing emanated from the pockets lining the inside of Larry's duster.
"Hive death, perfect." A scabrous and decayed hand grabbed the corner of the building, pulling the rest of it's form from the shadows. as the monster emerged the sounds of its steps echoed in the
alleyway: slide-clomp, slide-clomp, slide-clomp.
"Wait, slide CLOMP?" Larry cocked his head to the side in confusion. What kind of business is this? Bob isn't generally disposed to reanimating partials, even piratey types with aftermarket
bits. whatever this thing was must have been an impressive specimen- some sort of newly dead Merc, or maybe a corsair captain? the groaning continued, and after a moment the thing emerged...
"you're freaking kidding me, right?" It was all Larry could do to keep from doubling over. Sopping wet and covered in mud from the stir, what he could only guess was once a reiklander began
stumbling towards him from the alley, dragging its right leg slightly due in large part to the bucket which had taken up residence on its foot. He made his reiklander assumption based largely on
the clothing the thing wore, as his facial features and headgear were at the moment obscured from view by the massive reanimated catfish gnawing industriously on it's skull. "That's sad, Marv, If
pickings are really that slim I almost feel bad for you." The zombified fish-man reached toward him and groaned, blowing foul smelling mud bubbles out of the fish's gills. "for my first trick,"
calmly he reached into his jacket once more and produced a comically large Nulnish pistol and fired into the thing's fish-head. "Ta-Daaaaa-the Disappearing zombie skull ladies and gentlemen! and
thats why Im the amazing Larry, everybody! I'll be here all week!"
________________________________________
The sound of gunfire snapped marvin out his wash of self pity. He looked up from his drink and out the western door of the tavern in time to see a polka-dotted figure slink past the edge of the
door frame. Scrambling to his feet and fumbling for his staff, he pointed to a section of wall just past the doorway. "Maulesteinen!" a trembling could be felt from the ground outside and a
distinct crackle could be felt in the air as a rift into the world of undeath tore its way into being. "good," he thought with satisfaction as he made his way toward the second story's back exit,
"while they're dealing with that, I'll just nip off back to the wharf and fetch Bob."
________________________________________
Bonzo made his way around the elevated deck of the "Fancy Filly Pub", trying his level best to remain out of sight. It'd be a lot easier if they didn't make me wear this damnedable get-up, but
then again it didn't seem to hinder Zonkers much. The "senior clown and executive in charge of pies and pastries" was cheerfully giggling, and turning cartwheels along the walkway in front of
him. As he sat pondering how exactly it was his mentor managed to do all this in near total silence, he was knocked to the ground by a sudden shockwave of magical energy detonating at zonkers'
feet. Dozens of skeletal hands reached through the floor of the walkway, clutching and tearing at the demon clown.
"heehehahahawaw! cut it out!" Zonkers simply giggled and squirmed much as a child does when being tickled by its mother. After a brief moment the rift closed once more, and the clown merely stood
and adjusted his oversized jumper and continued along the walk. As he came 'round the corner he was nearly bowled over by the snickering form of marvin, who was glaring distractedly over his
shoulder as he emerged from the back of the building.
"Hiiiii Fraaaaank!" cooed zonkers as the small man rebounded off his body with an audible squeek.
"Actually my name's not frank it's marvin but than-" Marvin stopped dead as soon as he took the time to look at who he was addressing. "Aw, hell." The clown reared back and let fly, and marvin
managed to duck on pure instinct and abject terror. The pie (you heard me) sailed over his head and connected full force with the face of bonzo, who had recently emerged from the building just
behind marvin. Relieved the necromancer stood and turned, watching in distracted fascination while bonzo stumbled about, flailing in a terrible pantomime of a blind man who's lost their dog.
While he groped blindly about, he sprayed wildly with the seltzer bottle held in his hand. Marvin started to actually chuckle at the fool's antics, soaking himself, the ground and walls all around
him, and even catching zonkers a good one in his open mouth, sending him into fits of angry sputtering. Yes he found himself laughing so hard he didn't have time to react when the spray finally
oriented on him, sending him stumbling backwards on the slick and soaking moss covered balcony, falling to the ground with a sickening wet thud. Two faces, one soaking wet the other layered with
custard, peered sheepishly over the edge giggled, and high-fived.
________________________________________
Bob looked on in disgust as a large jugglers dirk sailed out of the darkness, lodging itself firmly in the skull of bobby wayne dudeson, the chieftan of "his" ghouls. "knicky's been practicing I
see," he thought out loud. "this is starting to look like a bad neighborhood" as if on cue the humongous man known as Ievgeny strolled around the corner of another ruin, dragging what remained of
a zombie by it's ankle behind him.
"This not your home little deadman, please leave now" the massive man swung the remains at another of marv's creations, and the two waterlogged bodies exploded on impact leaving little beside a
foot with a ragged end dripping in his hand. Leaping down from his perch to the wharf below he called together his two trusted bodyguards.
"Earl," the emaciated swordsman looked toward his master "you come with me back to the crypt. Knuckles, I would be most appreciative if you would go kill that man for me." The being known as
tommy knuckles, once thomas the boxer in another life, Readied his large axe and nodded his bleached skull slowly. He straightened and turned in preparation of his charge, and another of Knicky
the Knife jugglers blades sliced through the darkness, imbedding itself into the back of knuckles' skull by way of his empty eye sockets. The axe clattered to the ground along side the body of
knuckles, now motionless and in rapid decay.
"on second thought earl, be a dear and grab Thomas would you? I believe it's time to leave."
________________________________________
Marvin groaned as he awakened. Reahing to hi skull, he could feel the matted wet patch where his scalp had split when he landed. His vision was blurry, and everything sounded as if he were
underwater. It was bright here, either he had been unconscious all night, or he had been moved to somewhere indoors. The sounds of jeering and mockery were on all sides of him, and occasionally
he could feel himself being struck by thrown refuse and rotted food.
"well, well, well, I dos think the magic man bes awake! Oi! Magic Man!'ow's h'about you and I dance yeah?" Marvin sat bolt upright and turned towards his tormentor's voice. He had heard about
the blood thirsty saveages of the arena, the things they would do to a man of twice his constitution. What form, he wondered, would this death of his take? Ogre? One of the northern beastmen?
Even worse, could they have actually set one of his own creations against him? oh the cruel irony, he thought to be killed by a.....snowman?!?!?!?
There it stood (if such a thing can in fact stand). Sporting a bowler like some back country prat, wielding a bat driven through with a spike. An honest to god snowman. three big balls of the
stuff, carrot nose, coal eyes, and a gob that wouldn't quit.
"I said, 'ows 'bout we dance, sunshine! go on, pick yeself up and throw up those little bony dukes of yours! Quicks the word and sharp's the action, I can't be standing here all bloody day!
Melting, and all, you unnastand?"
I must've hit my head harder than I realized, thought Marvin. This can't be happening.
"Oh, It can happen, and it is, love. You don't think yous play with the likes o' wot you do, and get off smellin like a rose when the piper comes a blowin, do yas? Oh, lordy no, precious. Now,
let's get to peelin back the rest o that skull and see wot we's 'ave on it's insides."
There's a particular moment where the stresses of life, coupled with the fatigue of injury, leads a man to become more than themselves. In all likelyhood this was NOT one of those moments for
marvin, but it sure as hell felt like one to him. Reaching into the sleeve of his robe, he pulled out the small dagger he typically used for opening wine bottles, bellowed with all his might, and
charged straightaway at the strange golem. Ducking under the startled swing of the snowman, he threw his shoulder into the things midsection with as much force as he could muster, and the two of
them toppled to the floor. Straddling the shocked and downed monster, marvin began driving his dagger repeatedly into the things frozen body. Within moments the blade of the simple knife snapped
off in his hand, and marvin tossed the handle aside and began driving his fists into the screaming, dead-eyed face before him. By the time he had stopped he sat in a puddle of bloody water weakly
punching at the floor, surrounded by the stunned silence of hundreds of imps, devils, and minor daemons.
_________________________________________
A small rift tore it's way into being in the side of the fancy filly. Marvin of the shattered soul sailed out, landing roughly on the cobbles.
"And stay out, you psychopath!"

Bob sat in the back of the tavern, waiting patiently as earl forced a beggar at knifepoint to drink bottle after bottle of wine. There has to be a better way to catch a buzz, he thought, when the
doors to the damned city outside flew open, banging on their hinges. The filthy dripping silhouette of marvin could be seen panting in the door way.
"oh hey marv, I was wondering when you were gonna get here" Bob could hardly contain his smirk. Marvin merely limped his way across the tavern stared daggers into the eyes of his master, and
dropped a strange object on the table.
"we need to talk about a raise, NOW."
"Marvin,"
"WHAT?, lord?"
"why exactly are you carrying around a bloody carrot?"

The scenario run was Safety on the Other Side By Archeonicus (modified slightly as we are not playing mousillon setting) and was between My undead (Marv's Mini Apocalypse) and my friend(who needs to get on here)'s CoC. Honestly I dont know if they have a name. So, yeah, enough stalling:

So it probably goes without saying this one didnt go well at all for Bob and friends. In point of fact they were forced to flee (voluntary but very necessary) before any of the carnival even got within a foot of the river. Turn one mostly consisted of the typical jockeying for position for me, simply trying to get some zombies into a few bottlenecks.
Problem is, Knicky had been practicing, and was perfectly capable of plugging one of my ghouls on turn one, despite several penalties (we call him a knife juggler but technically he's armed with a short bow and we play counts-as 'cause, y'know-clowns.) I think my major tactical flaw here was I had left my two main heavies behind to keep an eye on the bridge and the river ford, expecting the more mobile CoC to run some circles around me and B-line for the river, whoops.

By second turn I had manged to get some of my forces onto the flanks, namely some ghouls and a zombie to the north and handsome larry (one of my more dapper dregs) to the south. It was about that time I had noticed Ievgeny (CoC's tutu wearing strongman) barreling full steam towards the torture shack:
now, this is going to hurt. by the numbers, the only thing keeping that big dress wearing bastard from being a rat ogre is his 1 wound, and I think his page long list of speed skills more than make up for that. so, the north end is pretty well lost, on to the south.

It was turn three I believe when things went south quick. Handsome larry was spotted and charged by Mikhail the mime (got his head blown off by an invisible gun, go figure), and marvins casting of spell of doom had absolutely no effect on zonkers the clown (plaguebearer), resulting in him being charged on both sides by zonk and bonzo(bretheren with clown stuff that we count as a halberd) the picture of the HtH in progress turned out total crap, but with a very bad run of luck marv took a two story swan dive onto his head.
cant remember which of these were the criticals for the fall and which were the injury rolls, but you get the idea, and the result is:dead marv.

Turn 4 was sort of a desperation push for me, pulling the heavies earl and knuckles off the bridge to try and stop the tutu clad tide of death. about 4 failed charges later (It was 3am and Im used to playing skaven, lay off!) I was already planning my tactical withdraw at the start of my next turn (BTW, I never roll snake eyes on my LD tests with the rats, but when I really should run like hell, hey presto!) CoC took the opportunity to run some quick mop up of everyone left, and I think by the time my turn 5 rolled around I was left with Bob, Big Earl(dreg), and a ghoul.
CoC had Noone OOA, and the xp was flowing fast and heavy for them (qualified for +1 underdog bonus) everyone gets advances.

So what, you might ask, was that whole little bit at the end with the snowman? Well, as I said, we're a little warped. When rolling for injury on marv, I ended up generating a result of sold to the pits. now, that's all well and good, and I even have a very nice gladiator model (courtesy of the nice folks at reaper, love them out loud), but it just doesn't seem weird enough for us. In one of our more recent shipments, my friend got a pack of three very disturbing snowmen that we have no idea how to use, but were just too danged cool not to get. Granted, come winter, they'll probably see lots of action in special "holiday" scenarios, but until then...why not make a stupid pun about marvin not standing a snowman's chance in hell?
Thing is, this is the first (and probably only) time marvin has (or will) completely owned somebody in hand to hand combat-badly. Seriously. You seen Gladiator? "Are you not entertained?!?!?!" that level of owning. So, somehow, with his 50gc bonus and +2 xp thanks to that, Marvin single handedly killed more and earned more after the fact than the entire rest of his warband combined over the course of the battle.

Welcome to mordheim, Bi***es.

so, there you have it. hopefully the formatting didn't get too jacked around from me having character limit issues. the previous posts images are, from left to right :turn one explanation, Ievgeny brutalizing a zombie, marvins messed up damage roll from the fall, and marvin laying there being mocked by clowns. I'll try to reign it in a little more in the future so this won't be quite such a novel (but it does explain why the post is late, huh?)

Thanks for reading guys, and if you made it to the end, you're my freaking hero!

That was most probably THE MOST entertaining Battle Report I have thus far read...Terry Pratchett would be proud. With a Vampire/Necromancer team named Bob & Marv it had to be good. EXCELLENT STUFF...keep it coming!   

Many thanks! I will likely be spinning another yarn out of this weekend's game(s), and will hopefully have it up shortly after. For the sake of space I will merely make any additions updates to this thread.

ooontrprzes wrote:

For the sake of space I will merely make any additions updates to this thread.

EXCELLENT! That will keep the original story from getting lost in the dusty back pages of the Fluff Section.   

'Compromise' is a wonderful, whimsical report. Well worth the effort to read.   

Looking forward to more.