The Shambling Citizens' Brigade: Necromancer's Delight

Hello forum! I just signed up, and I thought a good introduction would be to tell you folks the tale of my current campaign, which has been the most exciting and enjoyable experiences I've had in the 10+ years I've been playing Mordheim. First, a little about my shameful love affair with this game:

I've been playing since high school with a collection of some of my now oldest an closest friends. It's always something we forget about for a couple years and pick up like it's an afternoon after school! We always played fast and loose with the rules and models; a casual and fun way to spend an afternoon instead of a heated swarth of competitiveness and anal-retentive neckbeardrage. Only one of use ever even used fully painted models. The rest of us used found miniatures and LEGO minifigs! Our love of the gameplay trumped our need to make it look like the proper setting or the money and time we'd need to spend assembling a warband of miniatures. I am a big proponent of playing this way; it's a great stepping stone into these types of games for people who have never played. Plus seeing a swarm of LEGO men descend on a fully painted Possessed still brings a smile to my face

So, after a few years of wyrdstoneless limbo, two of my Mordheimer cohorts an I decided to start a new campaign and bring in two more friends of ours to teach them. After hours of DIY cardboard construction, discussion, and explanation, we had a bunch of ramshackle terrain and our warbands set!

Pablo: Skaven "Pinky Eats Your Brains"
Ricardo: Beastmen "Monsters, Inc."
Myself: Undead "The Shambling Citizens' Brigade"
NoobBen: Shadow Warriors "Deja Vu"
NoobChris: Battle Monks "Jeet Kun Don't"

I've never played the Undead before. The thought, however, of unleashing a horde of ever-reanimating Zombies sounded like too much fun, and I spurred other, more strategic warband builds for this idea. My starting warband looked like this:

Mattias Von Arsekiche, Vampire
2 Swords, Bow, Heavy Armor
Stu, Necromancer
Staff, Bow
Flopsey, Dreg
Mace
Donald, Dreg
Mace
Hobart, Dreg
Mace
The Cranberries, 6 Zombies
The Wolf Pack, 2 Dire Wolves

All seemed right and good with them, and I was happy with my numbers since I was going up against a Minotaur and hordes of Giant Rats and Raging Peasants. The first gleam of my luck to come was rolling for my Necromancer's spell: a triumphant and smug number 6...The Spell of Awakening! I had no idea how this was going to affect our battles, but it quickly became the catalyst of hatred that has brewed for my warband.

Our first game was a simple skirmish to introduce our new players, with a couple wyrdstone tokens (pinto beans) spread through the ruins. My warband was placed in a rather quiet and distant corner from everyone else, most of my warband barely leaving the graveyard from whence they came. I was slightly ignored by many, but managed to score a few kills while only losing one Zombie. I came out on top, having too many unhurt units while my opponents were in Rout-test territory. Score one for my new warband! There were some injuries in the post game: Ricardo's Minotaur died, an we allowed him to basically start his warband over fresh next game for his horrible luck. Pablo's favorite rat, a Black Skaven by the name of Rat Damon, succumbed to his wounds and, much to Pablo's horror, the unholy spell of my Necromancer! After the first game I already had a Hero Zombie (with Fighting Claws no less!) and a fatwa sworn on me by Pablo to end the suffering/degradation of Rat Damon, and kill Stu the Necromancer right dead for his transgressions. This rivalry has bubbled over in a frenzy of revenge, but I'll get to that.

Leading up to our second game, everyone was quite salty with me for not only coming out on top, but for the taste of horror they glimpsed from my Necromancer's actions. They wouldn't stand for me to win again! Another simple skirmish, and my warband found themselves slowly marching forth with Rats, Elves, and Beasties alike all converging on them. There were almost no battles between my opponents. There was an unspoken alliance, a shared desire for one goal: to put my warband back in the ground they were risen from. The Shambling Corpse of Rat Damon was the first to go, taken out by a well-placed sling shot to his necrotizing rat face. A few more of my Zombies were taken out quelling the swarm of Giant Rats, but definitely did their job. The Beastman Shaman successfully cast the Taint of Chaos, Lure of the Taint, whatever it's called on a Dire Wolf and sicked it on a Dreg, who had to tearfully "Old Yeller" the dough-eyed rotting pooch. The Beastman Chieftain, Lisa Loeb, managed to corner a few of my squad in a building and, try as they may, fell to her mediocre songwriting, I mean her two hammers. Much to Pablo's delight, he took my Necromancer out of action as well. The losses were heavy, but I still managed to fend off three warbands to the point where only myself and the Skaven were left, to which I promptly routed to prevent further losses. One win for the Skaven! It wasn't a win that Pablo relished in too much; Rat Damon's corpse and my Necromancer came out without a scratch! That couldn't e said for everyone, as I had to replace a Dire Wolf and a Zombie. At this point, my Dregs have accumulated several levels, learning great skills and gaining favorable stat increases, while Mattias and Stu only gained Leadership and Initiative. Bummer. Tensions were still high and there are more turning points to come, but I'll end this long-winded tale for now and promise more stories and pictures to come! This Undead warband is my first full miniature group, and are in various stages of painting, but I will show them off soon. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the club!

Quite the funny tale, keep it up.

Mordheim\Lego crossover? Ace!

Welcome aboard! Looking forward to more of your adventures.  

I was literally laughing out loud in the break room reading this. Way to go.

Thanks for the hospitality! I didn't see any threads telling the exploits of an Undead warband so I figured this would be a worthy contribution. We've had three more battles after these, each one even better than the last! I'll tell you of the next fight we had, where my luck temporarily left me. It's sort of the "Empire Strikes Back" part of the story. It gets a little emotional, so I suggest you sit down and have a tissue handy.

NoobBen couldn't join us for the next fight, but that didn't stop him and the rest of my friends from vowing to be the one to plunge their sword into the heart of my Necromancer. This guys got everyone in a fit, it's great! Their hatred will make them sloppy. We got together and came up with an interesting scenario for this fight: 6 of the buildings would be connected by a maze of underground tunnels, and a model can spend a turn navigating them and turning up in a random building. We also came up with a random happening table to roll on while you are in the tunnel; everything from being lost for an extra turn, to falling D3" in the dark, and even running into a crazed squatter! Things got interesting real quick.
One of my opponents sends a lone henchman into the tunnels, who promptly dies from a fall in the dark. Everyone was hesitant to be the next one to try so, growing impatient, I send 6 people in. 2 came out in the same building; they aren't Skaven. A Dire Wolf dies at the hand of a crazed squatter. And...the other three end up in separate, very occupied buildings...
Donald the Dreg in a ruined chapel where the Battle Monk's Emissary and 4 of his buddies are, I don't know, playing cards.
Hobart the Dreg in a small shack occupied by a Minotaur flanked by 2 Ungors.
And finally, Mattias the Vampire, fittingly, in a ruin containing an assortment of Black Skaven, Nightrunners, and an Eshin Sorceror, 5 total. At this point, Pablo was licking his chops and assuring me Mattias wouldn't be leaving alive. This is going to be fun.

The rest of my warband staved off the rest of the enemies' swarm with minimal losses, but my foolhardy spelunkers weren't so successful. Hobart got ripped apart by the Minotaur faster than he could say, "Holy Crap, a Minotaur!" Donald's adversaries lined up to shoot him but all missed from inches away. With limited options and no exit, he charged head on into the Emissary! With a S characteristic of 4 and Unstoppable Charge, he decimated him immediately, only to be swarmed by angry Dragon Monks and still-angrier peasantry. Mattias was charged by 4 rats while the Sorceror hung back and cast Gnawdoom, taking away one wound before the charges were even resolved. Still it took them 2 more rounds of combat before he finally stayed down! Unfortunately he couldn't take any of the filthy vermin with him. (Can you tell I'm prejudiced at this point?)

I routed as soon as I could, I took the heaviest losses I had suffered so far that game, and had to go lick my wounds. The post game was mixed...Hobart escaped the Minotaur with an old battle wound, but Donald went off the deep end and became frenzied! My vampire...he died. Eaten alive by rats. Pablo was beside himself.
Mattias was a stuffy vampire anyway, with his noble name and implied Lordship over his minions. He was not equipped to deal with the ugliness of the Damned City, and he paid the price. My warband needed new Leadership, someone who knew his surroundings and wouldn't send all their loot and treasure to the decrepit Vampire Lords sitting on their thrones hundreds of miles away. With the help of a Warlock named Tim the Enchanter, who I acquired in post game from a "Returning a Favor" roll, they saught out a new Vampire to lead them.

Meet White Blackula:



He's ugly, he's dirty, an he's just the Undead SOB to whip my warband back into shape! Scorned by other Vampires and Blackulas, he serves only the minions he leads. And lead he certainly does! I couldn't equip him very well; most of my funds went to hiring him. But as far as good post-game news goes, I rolled the Arrows of Arha and the Sword of Rezhebel for my new Warlock. My enemies didn't realize the gravity of these changes..

Quote :

He's ugly, he's dirty, an he's just the Undead SOB to whip my warband back into shape!

Er, yer pics a bit on the tiny side there, too. Even with the click to enlarge. Any chance you can make him a bit bigger?

Great report   

I noticed that, I just copied and pasted the Forum code given to me from Imageshack and thats the photo quality it gave me. Do you have any reccomendations for posting a better quality photo?

I'm sorry to chime in SO LATE on your VERY interesting Battle Reports.
For the photos, turn of or cover the flash (a thin piece of card works well). For the minis be sure to hace your macro setting on.
For the large image, bring up the photo, right click the image & select Copy Image. Over here just place the cursor where you want the photo & click Ctrl V. 

Well look at you and your forum posting wizardry, DeafNala! Thanks for the advice. All the photos I took were less than spectacular, my iPod's camera is...not the best (doesn't even have flash!) I took one look at that model and knew that was going to be my Vampire. My favorite vampire film is Nosferatu, after all.

We are on the same page or pages, BlindFunkEatWax; i.e., I also struggle with my Demonically Possessed Camera. AND that Reaper mini is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Vampire...I recently did one up for my Graveyard.   

Nice!  Do you have a picture posted anywhere on here?  


Alright, like I said these pictures aren't the best quality, and are mostly unpainted, but I am in love with these models! First are my three Dregs.  All I had to work with were my zombie sprues, a few human merc pieces, and Wood Elf sprues.  I wanted to give them a sillier feel so I used mostly zombie parts



Closeup of Donald


Closeup of Flopsey


Closeup of Hobart


Necromancer, which I bought assembled and primed on Ebay for cheaper than GW sells them for unassembled haha


Zombie horde with the basest of coats


Due to an accidental fall into some ink, this zombie gained a yamulka


Dire wolves I used from the Orion King of the Woods pack


The whole gang, with a Mage Knight figure I'm proxying for a Warlock

There you go...I just added with the address appearing between the two. Voila...photos. Does your iPad camera have a button that looks like a flower. If so that is your macro button. Press/click it & your closeups will come into focus.     

You have some potentially UBERCOOL pieces in the works. Have FUN with the painting et al!   

I missed the photo request. Here's Himself with a Lady Friend:

Spoiler: