3/28/2010

Mordheim using WHAA.

This is a trial game I played using an adaptation of Mordheim for WHAA made by Mahon of Chest of colors and using my usual 10 mm. stuff. As I do not have ruined houses in that scale, the scenario will take place in the outskirts of Mordheim. My Orc warband is raiding a human territory.

Both warbands cost fourteen combat points. The Orcs are a chieftain Rep 5 Hardiness 1, one shaman Rep 4 Hardiness 1, two Big 'Uns Rep 5 and four boyz Rep 4; all of them frenzy. The humans are an Averland mercenary group composed of one captain Rep 5 Hardiness 1, one sergeant Rep 4 Hardiness 1, four youngbloods Rep 2 with swords, two mountain guards Rep 4 with sword and pistol, two marksman Rep 3 with musket and one Halfling scout.


The Orcs split in two groups and enter on the East side and through the woods while the Averlanders are in the village, being most of them inside the houses.
The Orcs from the bottom run towards the wall where a mountain guard is guard duty. He spots them and shoots but misses. The Orc boss and shaman together with two more boyz race through the ruins and woods towards the bridge.

The Orc shaman spots the captain of the Averlanders next to the bridge and cast a spell of dread upon him, also affecting his sergeant near him. Orc boss and one boy reach the bridge but are counter charged but the captain and his sergeant and lock in melee.

On the other side of the river the big 'uns and two boyz storm the wall dodging the bullets and kill the solitaire guard.

Averlanders roll too high during several activations and cannot not get their troops out of the houses and help their captain, who panics and routs when his sergeant is slain in front of him. Without their two leaders, the Averlanders now will have it much more difficult to activate.

The only Averlander with enough Rep comes out to help his captain but it is too late and he ends surrounded by Orcs and he is quickly dispatched. The Orc shaman tries to cast a new spell but suffers a backlash and gets dazzled.

After killing the last of the mountain guards, the Orcs split in groups and register all the houses one by one, killing the leaderless Averlanders like trapped rats. The last to go is the Halfling who resists three consecutive melee round with the Orc boss. This causes a lot of fun among the greenskins.

End of the game and time to see if any of my heroes get some advances. The Orc boss raises his Hardiness to two, keeps his Social Standing at five and gets a new skill: Silent Killer; but the shaman lowers his Rep to three and raises his Hardiness to two as well (this was surely due to the backlash he suffered after the first spell).
The whole band searches for Wyrdstone and founds seven shards but three are spent in upkeep.

WHAA is great to play solitaire so you can play a Mordheim campaign on your own and enjoy a lot. Also, this system allows hidden movement or fog of war, and reaction and counter reaction from both sides, so no one stays sitting duck. The only problem I notice here it is that the activation could unbalance the game.

17 comments:

  1. 10mm? How large was the entire layout?

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  2. Qué maravilla de mesa...

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  3. The board is 60x60 cm. Actually , it is my DBA board :)

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  4. Wow, so you really got to use the rules!? Excellent!

    I believe you must have used regular Mordheim rules for the 'campaign stuff', like selling wyrdstone, upkeep, etc.
    Right?

    The whole game sounds pretty exciting and I wish I had a nice collection of smaller miniatures. I will have to move to smaller scales probably... More space-efficient than regular 30mm miniatures. 60x60 table is much more acceptable than my 120x120 or even 120x180!

    Glad to hear that my rules found any use. Did you use them to generate the warbands or maybe used the 'official' tables to recruit your warriors?

    Ah, and thanks for the link! I appreciate it :)

    cheers
    --
    Mahon
    www.ChestOfColors.com

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  5. It was just a trial game to see if I will play a full campaign some day and I only used your rules for that.
    The problem I see with using WHAA for Mordheim playing vs. another player is that you can destroy or loose all your warband easily, so perhaps morale rules like those from 5150 should be incorporated.
    I picked the soldiers from your charts without any dice rolling.
    You are welcome ;-)

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. ¡Me encanta! Una escenografĂ­a espectacular y una historia muy bien contada... auqnue el sistema Mordheim y el WHAA no me gustan :P

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  8. As I read the whole thing again, I gave some extra thought to the remark that activation problems can unbalance the game. Sure, but isn't it the case of all the THW games?

    --
    Mahon
    www.ChestOfColors.com

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  9. Yes and it's OK, but perhaps not so for Mordheim. In Mordheim most characters survive from one game to another as it's been designed in that way to let you develop a band and gain experience, skills and special items, through many games.Just imagine your whole warband wiped out in one game; how would you feel about that?

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  10. Probably bad, but I got used to it. I am a terrible loser in wargames, so solitaire gaming allowed me to win at least with one side ;)

    And Mordheim is not the only game where you carry your characters over from one game to another.

    I think it's pretty realistic about how bad and bloody it can get.

    A few suggestions from me:
    - treat all your 'characters' as stars, at least to some extent (eg. allow them to use the 'cheat death' and 'larger than life' rules, even if you don't give them 'free will'). This will allow them to survive even if they get OOFed. Henchmen will die, but characters will have some chances of surivival.
    - don't put all the eggs in one basket - exposing all the warriors to danger with no reserves is pretty bold but risky
    - allow yourself some freedom to withdraw from the field when things go bad. be prepared to lose initiuative/activation for 1-2 turns in sequence.
    - I remember that most models in Mordheim have 1 wound only, so they're pretty fragile too. If you want to change it, you can give them +1 or +2 Star Power/Hardiness as a bonus. I also use alternative melee rules in my games (I posted them to the THW group files section too) with Hardiness tests more similar to Star Power. Hardiness becomes more usable this way...

    I also experienced high numbers of casualties in my games until I realized that in reality you would try to avoid fighting without serious advantage or option of withdrawing. Don't fight to the last man. It may be less heroic, but more realistic and tense...
    At least for me.

    Most of my WHAA gaming was done with my mordheim minis and stats, so at least I can back it up with a little experience :)

    --
    Mahon
    www.ChestOfColors.com

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  11. I printed the same church and some houses in 2006 and they are still around.

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  12. Me too! I'm still using them. Now for Warmaster games

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  13. Where to find this rules from Mahon ?
    Thank You...

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    1. That was in 2010 and I don't even remember which rules they were, besides now there is a new edition of Warrior Heroes. I suggest you ask Mahon, after all it were his rules.

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  14. Ok, blacksmith, thank you very much...

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