5. Verminheim... Mordtide

Their first mission was an easy one, walk from one end of the street to the other, a distance of about 6ft. Sounds simple enough, what could be tough about that? Well, there were a few skaven in the way. I used this first one just to test the heroes and the system out. They faced several groups of giant rats, patrols of 5 clanrats, a black skaven, an assassin adept, a couple of plague monks, a ratling gun and a globadier. They all made it through reasonably easily, accounting for the skaven without too much trouble. It seems its a game where if the heroes get the charge they are fine, but if charged they can take some solid hits.

I think there were maybe 5 or 6 serious injuries taken after the first game. With the most interesting one being the Dark Elf Assassin becoming frenzied. Probably out of frustration after failing an In 7 test in the first turn and falling down a 4" wall. That was a fun moment! The MVP would probably have been the Imperial Assassin, his dice were running hot (and we were playing the crossbow pistol wrong for the first half).

Playing as the horde, I was pretty lenient on the players, trying to split enemies evenly, and push some rats specifically towards the Elf Ranger, since he was being cowardly. The clanrats were grouped up into patrols along the street and I tended to leave them alone until they were activated. i.e. they were shot at or enemies moved to their part of the street. I kept the Assassin Adept hidden and unleashed a diving charge (as the assassin charged off the walkway, he passed his diving test, only hit with one attack that was parried by the Warrior Priest, and was clubbed by the priest before he even landed. Very disappointing, I'll be having words with Clan Eshin about his failure).

Further along the street was a hidden ratling gun. We talked at length about how to play it, and I'm not sure I chose the right option. I wanted to use the rules from WFB only because I like the gamble. Essentially you roll as many dice as you want for the number of shots, but as soon as you roll a double it misfires. We agreed that these shots could hit anyone within 3" of the target. Other suggestions were creating a line of fire that I can move by an artillery dice worth of inches each turn and anyone in its path suffers D3 hits. I think we'll play with this next time.

After the game we assigned 1Xp for every 2 kills, 1 for winning and 1 for surviving, this seemed enough to not race ahead with level ups, but still provide a little bit. Except for the Elf Ranger who didn't manage many kills, mainly due to a preference of hanging back, and also shooting one shot per turn (with roughly an 8% chance of taking a rat out of action).

The heroes then rolled an exploration dice each and pooled them together to determine what they'd found. The lucky band found a well, and the slayer jumped down and grabbed a handful of gold crows to share. After that they went their own ways for a little while to explore what Mordheim has to offer. Here I let them peruse the Infamous Haunts from the Mutiny in Marienburg setting. The Slayer visited the dwarf forge, the Warrior Priest went to the bordello and had a really great time, and the rest searched for rare items.

The Second game we ramped it up a bit. With the slayer having to leave, the heroes were down by one. They arrived in a section of the city near a wizards tower and cemetery. I placed a whole heap of hordes around the place, hid a rat ogre while no one was watching and noted down a few places for assassins to hide. Then we pulled out the Random Happenings chart. Oh what fun this little document is. Most of the time it fills me with dread remembering the havoc that damned apple tree caused to too many of my warbands. Luckily we agreed that only the heroes roll for random, with one of them rolling a D6 each turn, on a 1 we consult the chart of doom.

We introduced a few new enemies into this game, notably an Eshin Sorcerer and a packmaster (trying to emulate the hookrats of Vermintide).

The Eshin sorcerer rolled up Gnawdoom and Curse, two handy spells. He was accompanied by a couple of Black Skaven and a rat with a handgun. For the packmaster we created the rules that if he successfully hits, the enemy is immediately knocked down. This means if he charges you, you are in trouble and will need help (since you'll get up in your turn and he will attack first). If you charge him you should be fine. It makes for a really tense moment, but hopefully not too much pain if the heroes play together. If you're stuck getting repeatedly knocked down it would be annoying.

The objective of the mission was to recover some wyrdstone. There were 4 pieces scattered around the board, one in the wizard tower, one in the Green Dragon Inn, one in the house on the edge of the plaza and the final one in one of the crypts. Each shard would add to their treasures and pass on 1Xp to the hero carrying it.

The heroes starting with a random happening, drawing forth a Pit Fighter. The Pit Queen, Halicarnaxus arrived and immediately bludgeoned the Dark Elf Assassin, a critical hit result that took the elf out of action. She performed well, before the heroes joined together to bring her down. However while they were distracted the sorcerer left his tower and attempted to sneak up to the heroes.

While the Dark Elf, Imperial Assassin and Warrior Priest were busy fighting giant rats, clanrats and the sorcerer, the Elf Ranger and the rat with a handgun engaged in an absolutely appalling shoot out. Over the course of at least 12 rounds they continued to fire at each other, with the elf knocking the rat down a couple of times. Eventually the rat died when the heroes charged up the ruins, along the walkway and knocked him off his perch. Much to the annoyance of the elf.

With the Pit Fighter finally finished off, one of the heroes rolled up another random happening. Again rolling up Pit Fighter! unfortunately this time she appeared on the opposite side of the board. This gave the heroes time to secure the shard in the house and make for the wizards tower, and this is where the game really went downhill for them.

The fight on the walkway to the tower wasn't pretty. Firstly the heroes had to deal with the giant rats, then the random happening of a storm of chaos, the black skaven diving charged down from the summit of the tower and finally the returned pit fighter arrived from the other walkway. Out of all this we had a point in time with the warrior priest out of action swarmed with giant rats, the dark elf assassin out of action following the diving charge, the Imperial Assassin had fallen into the catacombs and would not return this battle. Eventually the heroes decided it would be best to retire from the field and lick their wounds.

The post game was interesting this time with the Elf hero losing an eye, the Warrior Priest waking up in the pits and being attacked by Halicarnaxus, and the Dark Elf coming through relatively unscathed.