INTRODUCTION

By Tommy "Punk" Fransson

I believe that people want a WFB skirmish game. I know that Necromunda and GorkaMorka haven't been huge sellers but they are skirmish games for a game that already is more of a skirmish game.

What I really loved with GorkaMorka was to being able to break out half a dozen models, two vehicles some dunes and barrels and fight a couple of games in the time it takes to play a game of WFB. Don't get me wrong WFB games are fun and challenging but you need to bring a ton of models (my favourite army is Skaven), you need a large table and you need an opponent who also have a ton of models. When my Skaven fight an Orc and Goblin horde it takes ages just to arrange the models into units. Skirmish games such as GorkaMorka doesn't take as much time or require much planning and I'm delighted to see one for WFB as well. Both in GorkaMorka and in Necromunda we place lots of terrain that effectivly cut off line of sight across the table. In both games we make alliances and break those and its damn fun, of course when a nice opportunity aroses (like being able to ram someone T-bone) you will break that alliance. But as the game is pretty fast you will not sit idle for very long if your gang bottles out and as we play several games after another you can extract vengance in the next game!

"One day we played three games of Mordheim, wrote and playtested new rules, watched a Star Trek episode and made dinner in less than 5 hours!"

I know that Tuomas set the game in Mordheim to provide some background, but it isn't so hard to come up with more "cities" to fight in. Also the rules are stand alone and if you design your own Warband lists all you need to do is place the terrain. In fact you don't even need a warbands list as you can use your normal army lists to choose from. However it will require you to be more open about the models you take to make for balanced warbands. I played alot of games when WD 224 was out using my own rules and the army lists. I found that 150 points with buying models straight from the army book worked best, but you should only use races with approximatly the same points cost. I found that Elves, Dwarfs and Humans work best with these points. We also found that Skaven and Orcs & Goblins should only use 100 points or you need to make sure those players don't deliberately take cheap models to swarm the table. I suggest you try to have a roughly equal amount of models in your Warbands. After an inital test battle one player fielded 12 Skaven slaves in a warband with a total of 20 Skaven, they completely overwhelmed my 8 Dwarfs.

In Mordheim the games are fast and you can easily play a few games over the same layout of terrain, just assume the Warbands retire to rest before mounting yet another attacked against each other. When I played my first games of Necromunda we were thrilled by the fact that our models rarely ever hit anything and that the models were left lying on the ground. We really enjoyed our first games, and of course we got alot of rules wrong. There are a number of reasons why Mordheim will take away the stress of a full-blown WFB game:

1) There are no 2+ rolls that will make the game over after a couple of crucial dice-rolls. You roll so many and non-crucial dice rolls that you cannot win or loose a game on a few rolls, nor do you rely on being randomly dealt a killer spell such as Fiery Convocation.

2) You will have actual models who developes a history of their own. EG that guy who never seem to hit a thing with his expensive handgun or the guy that survived a 7" fall. In my first Dwarf Warband I named all my warriors, I even considered modelling their injuries!

3) There is less at stake in the games. One loss doesn't matter and if you loose you can play a new game right away. You can alter your warbands setup over a few games when you start a new warband as opposed to a 3000 army where the magic item combos are very important.

4) The time is an important factor, a faster game with fewer models take away alot of stress. You don't have to arrange all those 40+ Clanrat units or carefully stuff the models away after a game. You can leave the terrain as it is, place that dozen of models and play again.

5) The crowded terrain mean that moving is alot easier and faster as you are not using large units as in WFB and you can easily play hide and seek with the warriors. One of the most fun parts of Mordheim is to try to get into a fight at all!

I have played alot of old Realm of Chaos champion/warbands campaigns and it was simple to come up with the fluff behind it. You had a couple of hundred warbands milling around in the outskirts of the Chaos Wastes literally looking for a fight! We used some simple rules and based it on WFB. All units skirmished and all rules applied except no -1 to hit. All models took break and psychology tests as individuals. No rank bonus, standard, muscician, flank or rear combat modifications applied. The units were very small and often under 5 models and it was very bloody as we allowed all models to strike before they were removed as casualties. You would also laugh your head off due to some rather weird mutations and it was quite fast. We used a modified attributes table from the old Realm of Chaos as well as rewritten rewards tables.

One of the main reasons I like Mordheim is that I get to use alot of my converted models and I have a good reason to convert more models. Its a great opportunity to bring out those odd models and weapons from the bitsbox and make a warband out of them, those conversions actually count for something other than a cool model! Further Mordheim have inspired me to make more terrain and ruins with enough space to place a few models compared to the larger terrain bases for WFB or the blocking line-of-sight bits I made for 40K. A buddy decided to make a few building as well so we will soon be able to play in a nice looking city.

"Mordheim has the potential to provide a fun and inexpensive hobby alternative to fantasy battle. With just a handful of models needed, WYSIWYG and unusual conversions are more attainable, and the variations on terrain that would fit right into the game are endless." Carmen A Tanzio

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