It is the year 2007 of the Imperial Calendar. For eight years, the city of Mordheim has been a burnt out husk, full of precious wyrdstone drawing adventurers to their doom with the promise of riches. But for the last few years, the wyrdstone has dried up- warbands risk their lives for a single shard, or worse a purse of copper coins found in an old ruin. The long established mercenary companies began to disperse, the Elector Counts began to discuss reasserting control over the wayward region, and unreliable madmen babble about mass migrations of rat-men leaving the city. The ShadowLord must have looked on upon all this with a disappointed frown.
That all changed the night a young lad stumbled into Sigmar’s Haven on the outskirts of the city, lacerated with a thousand cuts but grinning with a smile of pleasure. Driven nearly mad, he was carrying a hoard of wyrdstone. Suddenly the city was flush again with wealth which led to two things- senseless slaughter and endless hedonism. Rumors of dark powers swirled- surely this could not be a blessing from some benevolent power. New adventurers band together, reforming warbands for fame, glory, violence, and decadence.
And somewhere, a grin spreads over the face of the ShadowLord…
Since 1999, Mordheim has been one of my great gaming loves, and it is (perhaps ironically) always a joy to revisit the City of the Damned.
The Garage Gaming Collective wanted to throw together a little Mordheim campaign for the gang by pooling our terrain and resources, aiming to
- Have lots of fun in the City of the Damned
- Not run too long
- Be friendly and welcoming to new players, as well as folks with tough schedules
- Have some narrative and rules aspects to appeal to the Mordheim veterans
So to help out, I turned to a concept I’ve wanted to try for a bit, Blades of the Damned. Inspired by the RPG system Blades in the Dark, I wanted to get something with a simple overarching narrative where each player’s warband feels like the main character in their story. In particular, I wanted to grow and establish the personalities and goals for each warband, to give them something beyond just their warband rating to get excited about. So I grabbed and simplified several concepts from the Blades in the Dark crew sheets such as archetypes, turf, tier, and upgrades to help build some character for each. Someday I hope to grow this into a whole mixed cooperative RPG-tabletop gaming experience the blends the two systems fully, but this is a nice easy starting place.
In this post, I’ll introduce the campaign and share the getting started materials for the players, followed by a brief recap of Game 1. Future weeks will dive into more games, I hope to showcase everyone’s warbands, and I’ll share all the rules consolidated in a future post for anyone interested in adapting to their own group.
The Campaign
So the basic idea is to run a 6 session narrative campaign, with a few rules added to create a better sense of each warband.
We’re using the incredible Mordheim map https://beyondthetabletop.com/mordheim-campaign-map/, as well as some of the optional rules https://broheim.net/ to add some flavor.
Each player chooses a warband (recommended 1A-1C from Broheim) and creates a basic list as usual, following some of our house rules (including discounted black powder).
Each player then chooses:
- A warband archetype (smugglers, cult, brutes, assassins, shadows)
- A starting location (Sigmar’s Haven, The Black Pit Settlement, Brigandsburg, Cuthroat’s Den)
The archetype determines a table to roll a secret objective for each warband, and the starting location gives a small bonus post-game. Each session, we pair up players to play a scenario. They roll to determine an attacker as normal (dice off if the scenario does not use this). The attacker chooses a location equidistant from each player’s starting location for the battle. The scenario is then played as normal.
After the battle in addition to the normal end of game stuff, we compute Warband Experience based on objectives and losses. If a warband gets enough experience, it gains a tier and a bonus for the group. In addition, if a warband wins in a given location (or is not the first to rout in a multiplayer game) it places a marker on that territory location on our map and adds it to the warband turf, now gaining that benefit. This helps to give some flavor and character to the warband, anchoring them as the ‘main character’ for each player and hopefully adding some interest to the proceedings.
For games 1,3,5 we will play standard scenarios, possibly with a fun little event thrown in. Games 2,4, and 6 will feature more narrative elements, with Game 6 culminating in a large multiplayer brawl.
If a player misses a game, catchup is simple- gain 1 xp for each hero and henchmen group for surviving, and roll with up to 3 heroes for exploration. Purchases and stuff can be made as normal and it counts as a game for any related effects (e.g. missing a battle). This is a simple and easy way to keep people from falling too far behind if life gets busy!
After each battle, we will note down the following to help track warband progress and assign fun awards at the end of the campaign!
- Number of enemies out of action
- Number of your own models out of action
- Number of wyrdstone shards from scenario
- Number of wrydstone from exploring
- Win/Lose/Draw
- Number of Permanent Dead
Player Packet:
Warband Sheet:
Week 1
Your warband has been drawn back to the City of the Damned. Maybe your heroes are hardened explorers, who left the city as the wrydstone dried up. Or perhaps you are fresh faced new adventurers seeking a name for yourselves. Or perhaps you are someone driven by an even more sinister purpose…
No matter the reason, the end result is the same. Since Morrleib’s last cycle, for the entire month of Sigmarzeit, the streets have run green with wyrdstone and red with blood. Not since the rush of 1999 have such fortunes been made. Some say this is ushering in a new age of blood and carnage, a senseless slaughter. Others say this is the beginning of a new age of decadence and sin, driven by unbridled wealth. It seems as if these two powerful urges are at war on the streets of Mordheim, battling furiously to control the future of the city. Rumors swirl of dark shapes battling through the city, of war between brothers and blood on the streets.
But no matter. It is into this maelstrom your warband enters. Your mission is simple- get in, get out, and get as much of that wyrdstone as you can from this mad city!
With that, we begin! Week 1 is simple- there are no warband secret missions and Scenario 1 is Wyrdstone hunt!
The Players
- Afatblackcat – Pit Fighters
- Dungeonbuddy – Orc Mob
- Cheeg – Black Orcs
- Skylar – Skaven
- Rockfist – Dwarf Treasure Hunters
- Bonespoon – Witch Hunters
- Machkurry – Reiklanders
- Mackkurry – Black Orcs
- Mobile Cat Zeta – Dwarf Treasure Hunters
We got 6 players at our first session, on two amazing tables assembled by the might and powerful Afatblackat and Dungeonbuddy.
Since we had such a good turnout, we broke into two groups of 3 for some multiplayer wyrdstone hunt madness! We added one extra shard for the multiplayer scenario, and used the Chaos in the Street Expansion.
In addition, we had a special guest in Bowling Alley Lobster Roll, who took over a random event we added- Chillbo Baggins, Halfing Thief. When rolled on a high building, he would spring into action. Appearing on the highest building his goal was simple: grab a shard of wyrdstone and escape the board!
Table 1: Afatblackcat (Pit fighters), Dugeon Buddy (Orc Mob), and Skylar (Skaven) rassled on the Middle Bridge deep within the city. In the clash, Skylar lost the first model of the game- a sling skaven clanrat went down! Bowling Alley Lobster Roll popped in with Chillbo Baggins (after so many turns of people not rolling a ‘1’) to try to steal some wyrdstone, but got ganked by the pit fighters! In the end, Skylar routed, leaving the orcs and pit fighters to battle it out for victory! Ultimately, the orcs broke after losing over 50% of their dudes. There were a smattering of XP gains and wyrdstone shards, leading to the first level ups! The pit fighters and orcs both gained the “Middle Bridge” as turf, allowing them to charge a toll of 2D6 GC after games!
Table 2: Cheeg’s black orcs, BoneSpoon’s witch hunters, and Rockfist’s dwarves battled it out in the same scenario but over the Raven Barracks (gives cheap ogres)! The witch hunters rushed into the middle while the small black orc warband (with a massive troll) and slow dwarves maneuvered into position. While the witch hunters went for wrydstone, the flagellents engaged the black orcs and troll, taking out one but losing two in the process. Five dogs swarmed the dwarf engineer, but the doughty dwarf held. After the dwaves eliminated three wardogs, the witch hunters then routed on their first test (someone will be buying a holy relic)! The Dwarves slowly closed in on the black orcs, picking up wyrdstone, and a huge scrum erupted. One dwarf fell to the troll, but the black orc captain was taken out of action. Even with only two models out, Cheeg took and failed a rout test (trolls are expensive…)! Cheeg and rockfist gained the barracks as turf, maybe we will see an ogre on the field someday soon…
In addition, we had two out of sync games as people could not make it due to plague! Machkurry and Mobile Cat Zeta battled with a Dwarven Treasure Hunters band clashing with a Reiklanders mercenary crew in the Temple of Morr. Blood spilled on the streets as the dwarves downed a hero and a henchmen. Eventually the dwarves routed, but two mercenaries were permanently killed! Then in a second side game, Machkurry’s Black Orcs, The Gutstompas, routed some mercs by the skin of their teeth, no Black Orcs were killed but one of the young ones has a permanent tummy ache before each battle (old battle wound). They recovered 7 wyrdstone by the Memorial Gardens. Slameil is pleased wif his gits innit.
And with that, blood has been spilled on the streets and chaos abounds in Mordheim. What will week 2 bring our intrepid crews? Tune in next time for Blades of the Damned!
-BS