"The Enemy Within": a narrative campaign in the Empire

Hi folks,

I've been too long without posting here. Moving job, house (and moving continent) tends to take a toll on one's ability to get organized to post up actual useful stuff (like this).

I've been working on The Enemy Within for the past year and a half, designing and playtesting with the help of our gaming group, and finally I feel I have something to share with you. Hopefully you can throw me some opinions and feedback. Tear it apart, so I can patch it up and make it better.

This campaign has been my effort to expand 'The Empire in Flames' setting for Mordheim into a fully-fledged narrative campaign, following in the footsteps of Border Town Burning and Mutiny and Marienburg.
Full credit, my thanks and praises go to Cianty and Werekin (and their magical helpers) for the initial document design and campaign format.   (and a good mention to the Accursed Knowledge gaming group and their Relics of the Crusades campaign, which dabbled in similar rules ideas).
I merely follow in their footsteps   shoulders of giants and all that.


Original cover art by Les Edwards. please tell me that posting this picture here isn't going to get me in any sort of copyright infringement drama... Its so great.

***Full campaign details and ongoing updates here!!***

OVERVIEW
"The Enemy Within" is a Mordheim campaign set in the Empire of Sigmar, expanded from the rules and scenarios set out in the "Empire in Flames" campaign setting.
The campaign takes direct inspiration from the much-acclaimed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 6-book campaign "The Enemy Within", which set a standard for intrigue and diplomacy in many other fantasy roleplay games for the following decades.

It will involve travels through the wilderness while avoiding bands of mutants and beastmen, boat travels down the Reik, raiding on merchant escorts, exploration of forgotten dwarf mines, and attacks on outlying farms and ferries. In addition, it features investigations on cultist's hideouts, arrest of outlaws conspiring with heretic warbands, busting criminals out of jail, the search for a warpstone meteorite, warbands which are trying to use wyrdstone dust to create super-soldier mutants, and infiltrations on sigmarite vaults to steal Nagash's crown of Sorcery. And of course, cultists! Cultists everywhere!

New Objectives include the manipulation of Factions against each other for attain political control of a province, gathering arcane books and artefacts for a ritual to damn the whole region (either by opening a portal to the Warp or raising countless legions of the dead), acquiring a warpstone meteorite to infect all the springwaters of the province with Chaos taint, or leveraging local military power to attain glory and fame.


SCENARIOS
Each scenario has been adapted so that each player's role fits a specific warband's alignment and goals. This ensures that each warband engages the scenario with a narrative-based objective: The Wardens will always play the role of protecting civilians, The Raiders will always be on the wrong side of the law and attacking settlements, etc.

Furthermore, scenarios in this campaign have Experience goals that are focused on the objective that each warband is trying to accomplish. This means that not all scenarios will grant Experience for taking enemy models Out of Action, especially those that rely on capturing objects or moving stealthily across the table. (this is a topic previously covered here at TBMF)

Campaign turn and Scenarios list

Some of the new and adapted Scenarios

This is just a sample of the new scenarios that are finished and require testing.
I hope you can make use of this, and enjoy taking a crack at them. Please let me know what you think. Comments, feedback, inflamatory remarks, etc all welcome.

Roll high and prosper

Anyone who says that Mordheim is a dead game is wrong. There continues to be quality material produced by passionate gamers. This campaign sounds really interesting and I look forward to spending some time reading about it. I'll post my thoughts when I have finished.

Hey Nuno!
Welcome back!

Just read the Monster Hunt

What rules do you use for the Magic Carpet?
(I haven't read beyond the Monster Hunt scenario so sorry if this is obvious...)

Thanks guys.
Yeah, "the game is old and unsupported" was always the first reaction the crowd at the local store had when I brought the game up, yet they always remembered it fondly and nostalgically, and really thought it "was" a great game.    But didn't believe you could bring back interest.
So I ran a year-long campaign, and we had 10 people at one point ehe.  If you don't do it, it doesn't exist.  

I am still getting surprised at the work that went into all the great campaigns out there, not just BtB but Relics and Sartosa.
The Vampire Hunters campaign caught me off-guard: that's one genius piece of game design. Complex, surely! But very clever


The new version of 'Monster Hunt' comes after discussions here at TMBF on how skewed that scenario can be, especially for farming treasure, and how boring it can be because the monster could just be shot from outside (because it won't leave the lair. ugh).
This version makes the monster appear in a random place once u step inside its lair! aha! And you can pilfer loot from the hoard while the battle rages.
*Note that there isn't XP for taking enemies Out of Action, but only for pilfering loot.*

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@Von Kurst, that item is a menace!!    ehehe  Campaign organizers should be *very* careful in including Magic Carpets, as they stand in official rules. In my opinion, at least.
We had a gromril-wearing, shooty dwarf riding on one, with a crazy slayer riding shotgun who would use the carpet rules to then charge with the carpet ... 'cause the carpet is a mount... that can carry 3 people. ugh.

However, I would not want to just ban it. It's very characterful and so cool, and thankfully my group wasn't very competitive... they just wanted it to be as fair as possible, with as few game-breakers as possible.

What we did (after a few campaign rounds of complaints, crying and gnashing of teeth) was to turn the carpet into a micro-wagon, and following the rules for wagons. Movement was fixed (at 16" per round I believe?) so no Applying the Lash, it gave no cover, but collisions were there and shooting was randomized, as normal per wagons. And you couldn't charge with it normally, 'cause you can't charge with wagons.
We were still deciding whether to keep it indestructible or not by the time the campaign ended, I think.

The Carpet--here is my discussion of it and its 'friends'.
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t6250-the-arabian-merchant-problem

I am very gratified that your group took the carpet away from mount and towards vehicle too. I would love to read your rules in detail.

Hey Nuno, great work!
Your "EiF Campaign and Scenario Generation" inspired our group for our own version of the BtB Campaign (we modified the scenario system like yours).

Keep it up!

PS: Will send you some reviews, when we played your first selfmade scenarios.

@VonKurst, thanks for bringing it up. I've posted our rules on your "Arabian Merchant" topic discussing those nasty thorny items
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t6250p25-the-arabian-merchant-problem#129924
It made me actually concerned about the lamp of the Djinn and the Monkey Paw, we hadnt played with them yet. I'm gonna hit 'em with the nerfbat..(ahem)... balance-wand soon. Juggling around with Hero slots, especially in a long-term campaign, is game balance mayhem!! :S sorry if Im a bit conservative in this issue.

@Taugenichts, thanks Im glad it could be of use. It was only ever meant as a stop-gap measure, though.
After finishing that mish-mash pseudo-BtB/EiF campaign (as a test-drive for Mordheim campaigning & Enemy Within), it made me think if BtB itself could benefit from an official "Expansion".
Something that would simply overlay onto the basic campaign itself, and pad it out with more scenarios and narrative options, like Locations. Something to keep the feel of it fully within the atmosphere of the Dark Lands, Silk Road, Cathay and especially, Northern Wastes. Which Chaos champion worth its salt wouldn't want to battle at the gates of the Marcher Fortress, at the foot of the Bastion Stair, or prove their worth at the Vale of Creatures?

Quote :

t made me actually concerned about the lamp of the Djinn and the Monkey Paw, we hadnt played with them yet.

Please post your nerfs on the Arabian Merchant thread. I am always interested in the different possible approaches to those items.

Update!
The first new Objectives for 'The Enemy Within': The Power Behind the Throne, and The Host of Horrors.

http://whfbnarratives.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-enemy-within-narrative-campaign-new.html

Political manipulation in the Empire, and building an army of mutants with warpstone.
Let me know what you think, please

More Objectives are already drafted, just need to be written up and made pretty before uploading.

Cool stuff, Nuno!

I remember when I started on the follow-up supplement to BTB: "The Enemy Within". Some of it went into Stu's Marienburg and I went on to work on my own stuff. Great to see passionate gamers continuing in the spirit of the game.

Let me know if you need some assets (fonts, graphics, etc) and keep it up!

Good to see you continuing with this.

Thanks folks

Oh yeah, I'm still at it. I've been working on it for almost a year and a half by now, and it builds up slowly. Trying to prevent burnout. Things have been moving here in the background always, I just only started posting them up some months ago.

@Cianty: Thanks man, its really interesting to hear you dabbled in it as well. It's a great concept for Mordheim. If you have ideas you'd like to see that I haven't thought of implementing, let me know. I've grabbed several art assets and a couple fonts already, straight from the existing PDFs, but if you have any others I'd be more than happy to make use of them.

More new Objectives!

The Cabal, The Wardens and The Sellswords.

http://whfbnarratives.blogspot.com/2017/01/mordheim-enemy-within-new-objectives.html

Run your own gang of cultists scurrying around for lore, embody the local militia in investigating the hideout of criminals and cutthroats, or become a full-on military platoon raising their reputation at rooting out invaders.

The wheels turn slowly, but they keep churning out

They will still need some balancing, I'm sure. They've been getting more complex, these Objectives I've been doing... But I wanted to keep a few at least straightforward because not every player wants to deal with a lot of complex out-of-game meta-strategy. I think the Sellswords and The Raiders will be a couple of those.
Let me know what you think.

Nice. Would like a few more of the scenarios too...

Looks good.

Thanks guys
Let's see if the rules survive contact with real-life dice and players.


@Von Kurst: I have re-touched the "Death on the Reik" and "The Evacuation" scenarios, which I playtested recently. I'll upload them soon with pics.
The majority of the scenarios in the campaign, as you could see from the scenario list, are mostly drawn from The Empire in Flames, Nemesis Crown and some Fanatic Mags. I purposefully shied away from making too many new scenarios, as there are so many amazing scenarios already out there that fit so well.
The final scenario versions will have a few revisions of mine, given that I have the opportunity to maybe address some (by now historical) game imbalances and rules conundrums that have plagued people for years, and have been discussed here.

I do have some new scenarios I haven't finished yet, including a new underground scenario (like "Burrow-Town Collapsing"), a new village Siege scenario and the epic assault on Castle Wittgenstein: a 3-way battle with chaos cultists defending the corrupted nobles, skaven (or other warpstone hunters) burrowing from below, and the forces of order (or love of money?) invading from outside.

But if you have any suggestions you think fit well and you'd like to see, shoot! I'd love to hear them.
I hope when I finish this campaign I could spare some time to make some new Chaos Wastes scenarios in legendary locations, to use with Border Town Burning.

I'll have to go back and read the scenario list. I could have sworn there were a bunch of scenarios on there that I didn't recognize and didn't see the rules to.

Not that I wouldn't include a scenario on a list then wait until I needed it to figure it out...

Excellent work! Keep it going.

Apologies for the long break.

Here are my recent playtestings of two new scenarios, 'The Evacuation' and 'Death on the Reik'.

The Evacuation (link)


This is quite a grisly scenario, where the defenders are trying to find the remaining survivors within a town, which are huddled in their homes. While the attackers are trying to burn the town to a cinder and kill everyone still there, or take them prisoner.

Death on the Reik + Revised Boat rules (link)


This scenario involves the defenders guarding a sailing boat to the other end of the river. The scenario has random objectives, and defenders may end up guarding Cargo, contraband, a party of drunken nobles or even escorting a Dramatis Personae.
(how do you like that severely-improvised water scenery, huh? )

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Additionally, I worked on building up the basic boat rules of Mordheim, to cover those little bits of rules that were missing. Sails, oars, moving from boat to boat, sinking a boat, boarding, etc. All while keeping to the original rules as much as possible.

I started from the Sartosa revision and worked along Werekin's recommendations in Mutiny in Marienburg, with help from DicLombardi. The bits added in were mostly lifted from Warhammer Ahoy, which already saw some use in Sartosa campaigns.

I hope this clarifies some of the more gray areas, and that can be of help to the rest of the community.
Feedback is more than welcome, as I'd like this ruleset to be as broadly usable as possible. I know much has been done (and played!) on this topic by many fine folks on this forum. Nobody wants a clunky ruleset that tries to needlessly reinvent the wheel.
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These latest months have been a bit slow on this end, sorry about that.
More stuff on the way

Woot!

Good to see more stuff.

Who makes that cog model? Its perfect for this game.

Wood elves, boo!

The cardboard models (including the houses you see on top) are made by "UMBUM" (ie. Clever Paper), a Russian company.
You can find them easily on Ebay, with lots of options, and are super cheap even with shipping, considering how good they are.
They are a cardboard "puzzle", and you can disassemble them flat again (just remember to save the instructions).

The rest of the terrain is modular Terraclips kits, from the "Streets of Malifaux" set.
And a few bits and bobs from everywhere (including the Lego rowboat). I'm a fan of thrifthammer.

Boom!
More stuff

"The Undertown" scenario playtesting and campaign rules.




The Undertown pits the warbands stalking each other while they navigate the sewers and catacombs under the cities of the Empire.

Undertown playtesting and Campaign rules (click here)

Campaign Special rules: warriors under arrest and Convictions, capturing hostages, succumbing to the lure of Chaos, and what kind of loot you can find inside Imperial Cargo.

Enjoy!

Woot! Good to see more!

oh man, awesome as usual!

Finally, the multiplayer-fest scenario of this campaign. Iteration 1.1, so far.

Castle Wittgenstein: playtest (click here)



The lawful warbands represent the well-intentioned heroes, while any chaos warbands (or other unscrupulous/criminal types) will be defending the baroness Margritte von Wittgenstein, who has become a powerful necromancer. Of course, warbands following the 'Host of Horrors' objective (invariably Skaven) will be trying to steal the warpstone meteorite that the baroness owns, by invading the castle from the underground.




It's a daring siege scenario, with multiple objectives and multiple entries into the castle (the outer walls, the docks and the underground tunnel). Then, in the Inner Bailey, warbands have to enter the Baroness' Manor to either find the meteorite or arrest the devious necromancer. But most likely there will be another warband just trying to burn the place down.
As is likely with complex scenarios, I'm sure I haven't found all the nasty ramifications of rules interactions, so it's likeley this will suffer a few more tweaks.
But if you happen to have a free day with mates and want to play a VERY narrative multiplayer bash of Mordheim, I'd love the feedback.


Note: Apologies for the long gap in releases. Had a few issues at work, that took me a while to sort out, which ended up consuming what energy I had left over to actually put things together for a release of this scenario (it also didn't help that it was a very complex one). It's all good now, thankfully, so I feel energized to pump things out!  

Enjoy!