Chad does Mordheim: Gory days

Perhaps inspired by Bruce Springsteen's song lyrics (who knows?!), Chad talks us through his latest conquests in Mordheim in this post about the ramifications of 3 games for his ratty warband.

No, that’s not a misspelling. The first few missions in any Mordheim gang’s life are going to be hellish and hectic; if a colour scheme had to be chosen for then it would be red and brown in violent, clashing slashes. Your war band is untried, and your equipment is mismatched and sub par. The individual members are at best vaguely competent and on average pretty rubbish. This is only made worse in a world where your opponents have pushed themselves into Strength 4 and you’re stuck on Toughness 3.

Games three through five exemplified this problem, as did my fairly Skaven-ly play style; I often got carried away and over confident after an early success and ended up slinking away. My next games I played Dys and his Blood Dragon pirates, Jonathan and his beleaguered Rieklanders, and JD and his newish Dwarven Treasure Hunters in that order. Each of these war bands present different problems and challenges which I’ll explore in my reports below.

Game 1: Attack of the Bloodbeard
First up was Bloodbeard’s motley crew – and a quite sizeable crew it was too! I’d picked up a Beggar, representing the poor sap who hired my Samurats, but Dys still nearly outnumbered me two to one! This whole ‘one henchman’ thing had massive downsides…especially after we rolled Defend the Find as our scenario! I had to hold a central building against Dys’s marauding undead pirates? And to win all he had to do was get more models within 6” of the house? Bring it on.

I set up my shooty fellows (two dudes with throwing stars, two with slings – true artillerized terror) on the first floor and my remaining dudes, including double-club beggar on the ground floor. My plan was to take people in drips and drabs, knocking them down to slow them even more than being dead already did while my combat dudes did the butcher’s work. I did not want to get out numbered, and I did not want to get surrounded.

Bloodbeard got first turn and his crew lurched forward, except the three not-so-nautical war pigs he’d hired which shot right at me, although one had a difficult crisscross of streets to navigate so didn’t make it into the scoring area. Thinking this feel perfectly into my plan, I issued two charges on each – the Beggar and Assassin on one, my halberd-wielding Black Skaven and the Verminkin on the other. Everyone passed their leadership checks, by some miracle, and we all got in contact. Great news, as it meant that I was likely to be two out of four kills towards forcing rout checks – sure, the vampire had a leadership value of nearly double my average, but it might work out.

In other news, my shooting missed and one of my Gutterrunners removed himself from the game by failing a 4” leap and suffering an S2 hit. So I was half way to rout checks myself. Then neither of the pigs died, so things looked real rosy.

Dyson’s second turn started with the third pig charging my leader and his vampire charging my spear wielding Gutterrunner. My leader had been stunned last turn and so was eliminated while knocked down, but my Gutterrunner must have eaten a whole garlic bulb as the vampire missed his attacks. I killed the other pig, but that was not really much commiseration.

At the beginning of my turn I voluntarily routed. I was close to being outnumbered and butchered, and Dys would probably have outnumbered me in the zone next turn anyway. This way he didn’t get any heroes in the house, so didn’t get any extra wyrd-stone while I scarpered with three! I then rolled well on my exploration and got six more, as well as a favour owed by a sell-sword. This presented a quandary, as I wanted to keep the Seven Samurats to seven, but if I didn’t take advantage of this then I’d be missing out on a massive advantage – which was also free. Eventually I reasoned that the sell-sword was an old friend (rival? Enemy that didn’t immediately need killing?) of one of the Samurats. With that explanation, I chose the Skryre Sniper as it fit thematically to have someone devoted to the art of long ranged death.

My Assassin suffered ‘severe injuries’ and had to miss the next two games, while the Gutterrunner who impersonated Icarus managed to escape harm! Except for the loss of an eye…Some stat ups were gained, most notably my Beggar got Medic and the one-eyed Gutterrunner got an extra attack – so he traded his throwing knives to the Verminkin for an additional sword. My sorcerer also got better at casting Warpflame despite not managing it in the last game.

Game 2: Cross Town Brawl
Next game was against Jonathan’s Rieklanders. His luck had not improved at all since our last game, but he’d only lost Henchman. However having to replace them had kept his gold reserves low (unlike my coffers, which sat at something like 14 wyrd-stone and 120gp despite losing most of my games) and his men weren’t fantastically well equipped and they only numbered eleven. Not being dead they could march but also be stunned, so there were pros and cons over the last game. We rolled Occupy and five target houses, meaning we’d both have to split up to really challenge board control.

We fought on our market square board rather than the ruined mansion where I’d ‘fought’ Bloodbeard, and there were coincidentally four buildings around the square and a well in the middle. Jon took the city side with a little more building cover which left me with the church and windmill side. I deployed using other buildings to block LoS from those scary BS4 longbows and the game was afoot!

Jon moved forward with his guys, and I did the same but got further into the board, claiming the church. Turn two saw him secure an inn and the vampire-home, while I occupied the church fully and moved towards the guard house on the bridge. My sniper turned up and knocked a Rieklander off his feet, despite needing a six to hit! Nothing else happened though.

Turn three things started to heat up as Jon moved into the first floor of the vamp-home with his archers and made a dash towards the well with his leader and some captains. He left two crossbowmen in the inn, one of which fired at my Jezzail and missed. In my third turn I got into the bridge guard house with my Verminkin and beggar while I took the ground floor of the vamp-home with everything else – except my sniper, who hid, and my Gutterrunner who still had throwing knives (having picked up Knife-Master) who I forgot about entirely. I threw some Warpflame up the stairs and made the Bowmen duck for cover but didn’t really hurt anyone.

Turn four saw the vamp-home getting trashed again, as per my Skaven war band’s modus operandi. Jon charged a Bowman into my half blind Gutterrunner skulking around the side of the building and a Champion into my Sorcerer – but he was intercepted by my Halberd wielding Black Skaven, who had picked up Lightning Reflexes for just such occasions. The kitchen/dining area was turned over in the struggle (we were a bit boisterous in moving minis) but my Black Skaven got the upper hand and stunned the Champion. My Gutterrunner knocked down his attacker in a flurry of sword blows, and I was looking in a pretty strong position. His crossbowmen had no targets so spent a tense few minutes listening to shouts and hissing and smashing furniture from across the road while his leader and champions bravely took the unoccupied well in the centre of the square.

In my turn my claw-armed Black Skaven got to the second floor of the vamp-home, miraculously without falling off as per his previous attempts, and I got more rats in the ground floor. My shuriken armed Gutterrunner made it to the bridge guardhouse and he, my Beggar and Verminkin (who had both been awarded slings due to lack of space in my treasury) unleashed a hail of shrapnel and dung at Jon’s elite in the well house. The ended up covered in shit and pretty pissed off, but uninjured. My Sorcerer stunned a Bowman up the stairs and the Jezzail missed, but my sword-armed Gutterrunner and halberd wielding Black Skaven finished off their opponents so that was nice.

Jon was looking a little disheartened at the beginning of this turn, which meant that I was caught utterly off guard when he had one Bowman leap out of the window and land perfectly outside the vamp-home while two more rushed down the stairs and surprised my Sorcerer and Black Skaven on the ground floor, while his heroes backed off a little from the well house, also moving back towards the vamp-home. His shooting phase saw the Dark-Knight Bowman wound my Sorcerer but only knock him down while his compatriots sent my Black Skaven squeaking for cover, although left him unharmed – he even tried a cheeky crossbow shot through a window but it didn’t stick. His heroes then returned fire on my dirt slingers and put my Gutterrunner out of action.

With no combat we went right into my turn! My claw armed Black Skaven ran down two flights of stairs to charge a Bowman and my halberd wielding rat charged into the one next to him. The Beggar and Verminkin scuttled out of sight, hiding, while the Sorcerer stood up rather groggily and failed to cast his spell to get vengeance. The Jezzail hid so it was straight on to combat – in which my halberd guy dealt with the bowman in front of him and the claw armed guy didn’t, although didn’t die either so I guess that’s okay.

Jon’s turn saw another impressive hail fired into the vamp-house – windows were smashed, decorations ruined and a little bit of rat blood shed as my sorcerer hit the dirt again. Combat again saw the untrained Bowman flail desperately and my fighting-claw ninja expertly miss his attacks. In my turn my halberd-rat charged out of the house screaming in Bloodfrenzy or panic as he ran into Jon’s three combat equipped heroes, while my Verminkin was sent to challenge ownership of the centre well. My sword-armed Gutterrunner actually made it into the acrobat who had jumped out of the window to ambush my rats too! Shooting saw my Jezzail burn yet another hole in the side of the inn instead of a person and my Sorcerer remove Jon’s leader with a blast of fire, finally on target. Thankfully there was no collateral damage in the form of my halberd-rat, who stunned the Champion he was facing off against.

Jon called it there an voluntarily routed, his taste for the battle gone with his leader. He’d lost most of his Bowman, although all but one recovered, and was two combat fellows down for no loss to the Samurats. I’d been able to control the flow of battle pretty well, fighting in buildings being ideal for my high Initiative, high movement guys where they could choose their fights/bundle individual enemies. I found another six wyrd-stone, putting me on the heady-heights of twenty-one before I sold seven. I bought two sets of bracers and two cold-steel Halberds, giving one to my halberd-rat and the other to my sorcerer along with some bracers each. Both Black Skaven picked up Tail Fighting, my leader finally accrued a exp-up and got Lightning Reflexes and my two gutter runners got a skill and a stat up each – the half-blind guy got a strength and I gave him Tail-Fighting, while the other guy suffered a deep wound (-1 Toughness, putting him on an abysmal T2) but got an additional wound and Trick Shot, so he would now always get to shoot at full accuracy with his shurikens. I banked the remaining 90 or so gold and looked for the next game.

Game 3: Murder in the Streets
For my third and final game of the night I threw down against JD’s newly formed Dwarven Treasure Hunters. He’d had a rough few games before and I think only agreed to the game because I pointed out my Assassin was still kicking back injured and would miss this game. I had got another favour owed to him (the Council only knows how) so I picked up a Skryre Poison Wind Globadier to continue my theme of wacky mercenary members, and kept on the sniper mainly out of cool factor rather than anything to do with his performance in the last game.

We rolled street fight. I had to run down a four-model wide street at a Dwarven war band, with a three man crossbow henchman group that had earned BS4. Flash backs to the Ratmificent Seven getting wiped out flew through my mind, but I shook them off and set up with my fastest guys at the front – after a brief discussion JD revealed his crossbows actually had a 36” range, so I was going to have to throw caution to the wind and my rats at a wall of spikes and steel.

I spent three turns running at him, the Jezzail arriving on the second but missing. In fact, I’ll head this one off; he missed all game. He missed so impressively JD never even considered shooting back at him. My Beggar was considered more of a threat due to his two clubs. My guys got hit by seemed to just be dodging and diving to the floor; every time I was hit JD’s dice turned into D2’s so miraculously no one died.

Turn four finally saw some combat, a bit of magic and the struggle between his crossbow henchman and my Globadier, the latter trying to throw a grenade at the tightly packed dwarf back line and the former turning him into a pincushion to stop him doing so. After my halberd-rat tore through his first opponent he then spent about a million turns tripping up one of JD’s slayers and refusing to hit him while he was on the floor. My sorcerer spent most of the midgame knocked down as JD frantically tried to kill him with his Engineer.
I forget exactly what order things happened in, but I know my fighting-claw armed ‘ninja’ got taken out first. Hammers fell, swords slashed and after four or so rounds of combat we’d both lost two war band members – I was the only one to lose a hero though. My Globadier removed a crossbowman before he was taken out, one of the slayers went down under the desperate scratching of a Gutterrunner, and things were looking pretty equal – despite my halberd-rat being charged by JD’s noble in an attempt to stop the beleaguered slayer from being auto removed after being stunned.

Now, this is where things went wrong. Very, very wrong. My Sorcerer, seeing a chance to remove two fairly scary dwarves for the possible loss of one rat, Warpflamed the dwarven noble. It fizzled, and the backwash lightly tanned the slayer. However, the halberd-rat got roasted; wounded, save failed, straight up removed from play. In JD’s turn my Sorcerer then got picked off by some crossbows and my remaining rodents achieved sod all, having decided that since their swords were barely working they’d better use wet handkerchiefs. I swiftly routed in my next turn.

My half blind Gutterrunner nearly went fully blind, but upon realising this would auto-retire the vicious little sod I used up my Beggar’s Medic ability on the first injury I’d rolled, and after a bit of CPR he survived against the odds, half-sight intact and with a bonus experience point! My knife-rat got a damaged leg, lowering his Movement to 5” which was tolerable and that was about it for injuries – my Skaven Samurai had clearly learnt well from their leader in Playing Dead 101!

My Globadier earned his stripes, getting a new skill (Eagle Eye, later found to be illegal and replaced with Infiltration). My Sorcerer got an improved BS to 4, although had never shot his Warplock pistol, and also Battle Mage so he could wear armour. This was a debateable gain since everyone seemed to be S4 and/or carrying axes, but worth it for the off chance it was relevant. Sword-Runner (now named Gut) got boosted to S4 while his buddy (Run) got no advancement. I tried to find a second Jezzail in an effort to game the rules, and because I’d come away with another 6 wyrd-stone which was immediately sold, but failed miserably. The Samurats returned to camp and let my Assassin know they’d got beat. He sympathetically shouted at them and swore he’d get revenge on the stunties at some point – presumably after he’d upped his own Strength to 5.

So that was game day 2. A good few advances, no actual deaths just yet and plenty of money in the bank (after a couple more purchases I was still on about 117gp and 10ish wyrd-stone). I’ve since found that my Skaven are actually limited to a measly S4, so halberds might become the order of the day, or Strongman and Great Weapons, but time will tell. There’s also Mighty Blow, granting +1S in combat which would make any S4 halberd wielders S6 and unparryable by any S3 enemies. Then I’d only have to manage to roll a 2+ to wound, so failure would become intensely more embarrassing.

I’m still enjoying the rats, thankfully. I’m somewhat underwhelmed by their supposed terrifying abilities to dish out damage but hopefully that’ll change soon. I’m also looking at Marks of Khorne for the Frenzy upgrade, as my attack statistic is one of the few that goes up twice. Doubling somebodies Mighty Blow attacks with a halberd sounds like a great plan! But we’ll have to get there first. Hell, maybe someone will pick up an extra wound, or even T4. That’d be great. Until then I’ll keep skulking in the shadows and bullying the weak.

 https://nomnomniconcom.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/missions-into-mordheim-the-gory-days/

Chad does Mordheim: the 7 Samurats

Chad's progress in Mordheim continues as in the dangerous city, this time experimenting with the 7 samurai, of a different kind, namely Skaven!

My goblins have met an untimely end. Mainly due to my disinterest in the list I was playing, and the options for development as the war band ‘grew’. So they won’t be featuring on this blog any more. In their place have risen warriors of unlikely legend: The Seven Samurats.

They are the spiritual successors to my war band from my previous Mordheim campaign, the Ratmificent Seven; they all wielded pistols except one who was armed with fighting claws and got real close ‘n’ personal with anyone who survived the Warplock pistol volley from Hidden positions. It met with great success until I had to street fight versus six Dwarf crossbowmen. They live on in my memory as one of the most fun yet fluffy lists I’ve written.

After a slightly drunken night playing World of Warships with some other guys in the campaign I put together a Skaven list modelled on the Seven Samurai – lots of swords and some throwing stars, very strictly kept to six heroes and one verminkin (Kikuchiru, or the comic relief/not-a-real-samurai dude). I will recruit no new henchmen, only upgrade my current samurats and replace those who fall.

I picked clan Eshin (for hopefully obvious thematic reasons) and formed my brave band (for the third time in the campaign):

Assassin, Weeping Blades, Sling, Light Armour.
Sorcerer, Warplock Pistol Brace, Sword (Spell: Warpfire).
Black Skaven, Halberd, Sling, Light Armour.
Black Skaven, Fighting Claws.
Gutterrunner, Spear, Throwing Stars.
Gutterrunner, Sword, Dagger, Throwing Stars.
Verminkin, Sword, Sling.

What a glorious group of heroes! Almost. Not quite. There is another Skaven player, Ric of Clan Moulder, who is running a horde of experimental mutants. He outnumbers me two to one, as do a few human war bands. As with my goblins, I’m sharing a model count with some tough customers – mainly T4 or BS4 or another non-leadership statistic of four. I’m be outmanned, out-muscled or out-classed in nearly every game I play.

Is there a bright side? Of course! Have you seen my equipment? Weeping Blades are hideous! Automatically wounding on 6’s, but still allowed to crit, and they cause a critical hit on a five or a six! Having checked the rules, that means that they always wound on a 5 or 6, so Toughness six beasts are that much easier to bring down! They might be rare in the first place, but these things are going to help make them even rarer!

Halberds are perfect for my Black Skaven – bring them to Strength five while still fighting at Initiative, I should be able to bring down enemies before they get a chance to fight back. Fighting Claws give my other Black Skaven spider-like agility when scaling buildings and getting about the board, as well as being pretty dangerous in a fight. The spear on one Gutterunner is for style more than anything – none of the Seven Samurai used a spear, but it’s cool. And might help my WS2 Gutterrunner not die immediately when charged. I’m trying twin swords on the other one to test the parry ability, as I think that’s going to be a big player in the campaign.

I will admit the sorcerer with Warplock Pistols is somewhat not-samurai-esque. I am putting this down as a Kabuki/Magician character, or is basically the special effects guy for my group. A little bit of ranged firepower is going to be very welcome, and the short range means he’s going to be stuck at the front with the others anyway. His spell also has an 8” range so the pistols will only be fired when I can’t risk collateral damage. Usually that is pretty rare, but when you have seven tooled up furballs it may come into play.

Game 1: Vengeance in Fur Form
My first game was against my roommate who had slaughtered half my original war band. Did I feel any more confident now that I had started again? Not a chance. We rolled Warpstone Hunt, so I wasn’t going to have my rats picked off one by one. Matt’s goat blokes were still fast, but slightly slower than my rats so I hoped to get some positioning advantage. I also hoped that with a take and hold objective he would break his war band up and I could deal with it piecemeal.

Was that malicious? Vengeful? Dare I say petty? Yes. I had played goblins, and was now playing Skaven. If I could nobble the minotaur and make him run bleating I’d be happy. Nothing less.

We set up on opposite board edges, he with a bridge for his billy goats and me with a church and a house built by our vampire player which he’d claimed as his own. There was a distinctly open square in the middle and while tactically it was okay to rush the middle as there was a wyrdstone token in the bell tower there, I lost first turn and didn’t fancy trying to force the goat blokes off it. I contented myself with nabbing the tokens in the church and vampire-home, then settling in for the duration.

Matt grabbed the token under the bridge and the one in the bell tower. He was less content with a draw however, and was very aware of how stabby my list could be given half a chance – he’d been playing World of Warships with me at the time it was designed. So while my pack was split between the two buildings, he ran his whole war band at the vampire-home, leaving my Sorcerer, Claw-wielding Black Skaven and the Spear wielding Gutterrunner two turns away. I sent a hail of slingshots and knives at his dudes and miraculously knocked a bestigor down and my sorcerer managed to take two wounds of the minotaur!
Then things got messy. The minotaur couldn’t quite charge into the building due to lines of sight and me being on three different floors, so instead bulled (ha ha) its way in through a window space/wall. The other goats spaced themselves around the outside, ready to jump in. His Shaman, Bad Trip, failed to cast Wings of Darkness so couldn’t catapult himself into my Assassin – a fact I was pretty grateful for!

In my turn I issued four charges against the minotaur, and had my first encounter with my leadership stat: The minotaur caused fear, and we misplayed the rules (I think) so that if I failed my LD check I couldn’t charge. With LD seven (Thanks, ‘great’ leader…) I hit the average and passed two out of four tests – except rather than either my Assassin with Weeping Blades or Black Skaven with Halberd making it in, who could have made short work of a single wound, no save model, my Verminkin and Gutterrunner did. In a panic my Sorcerer threw a ball of Warpfire at the muscle-bound cow and instead of cooking his ass managed to knock over my Gutterrunner in base contact and do the same to my Assassin on the floor above.
Suffice to say, my Verminkin did not kill the cow.

He was only stunned in return but this meant that someone was dying in Matt’s next turn. My leader and Black Skaven got charged on the upper floors while the other goats failed Initiative tests to get into the house, thankfully. The Shaman Dark Wings’d into my Black Skaven, and the stage was set for a three-floor brawl in the vampire-home.

Tables were broken, windows smash and a book-cased violently dismantled over someone’s head. Blod, fur, gristle and spit decorated the interior and the enighbours were kept awake with roars, squeals, braying and bleats. At the end of the combat phase, one goat and the minotaur were down as was my Verminkin – what a fan-fucking-tastic trade that was! Sadly my Skaven bottled it and ran with their two wyrdstone, even if I wanted them to stick it out a bit longer, and Matt took the victory.

We both got two bonus wyrdstone, his minotaur didn’t in fact die – although nor did Kikuchiru, which wasn’t as great a cause of celebration. His shaman lost an eye and my Gutterrunner suffered a deep chest wound and was reduced to Toughness two! I picked up a ton of wyrdstone, maybe six, and also salvaged two pairs of bracers from the black market along with some Heavy Armour for my leader and a lot of light armour for my other chaps. I banked about 40gp and three wyrdstone and looked for my next opponent.

Game 2 – Rumble in the Ruins
Or opponents! Four of us got together for the first multiplayer free for all of the campaign – another wyrdstone hunt, but this time there was a massive eleven wyrdstone on offer! Matt’s Gors were back, bringing a Centigor (presumably the tour bus) with them and their bassist, who had missed the last game. He was on my right after deployment; on my left was Captain Bloodbeard and his undead crew commanded by David Dys, and on the far side of the table Felix’s so-far unlucky Carnival of Chaos lurked. There was one large, central ruin that was about 2’x2’ and a might four flours high (at some sections); most of the wyrdstone ended up here, with one being suspiciously close to each player’s deployment areas. Clearly no one was 100% confident that they could take and hold the ruined mansion.

I split my seven rats into two groups again, this time my Sorcerer and Halberd Skaven on the right near a house with a wyrdstone shard in and everyone else in the centre, facing an apparently sheer wall. I was trusting my high Initiative and movement to get me to the top, and a hopefully commanding position. Turn one everyone shambled, scurried, trotted, lurched or walked towards the centre except the Carnival, who were suffering severe PTSD and hung back in a nearby building, cradling a single wyrdstone shard. David D’s dogs scampered into to grab wyrdstone and Matt’s shaman Dark Wings’d into the manor ruins. Over the next three turns they battled for position until Matt’s minotaur caught a pig and began either trying to kill it or mate with it, we weren’t sure from the combat rolls. In that time the Carnival hadn’t moved except for one enterprising swarm of grubs which managed to sneak in and steal a shard from the manor despite having a movement of three. I failed dismally to pick off a strangler from Matt’s band, threw some rather ineffective gravel at Dys’s Blooddragon Vampire pirate and my claw-armed dude ran up the side of the manor, trying to corner the bray shaman who hadn’t failed to cast his spell once, and was now carting two wyrdstone by himself.

I had planned to nobble him, swipe the wyrdstone and then hide in a corner/voluntarily rout as soon as possible with my three shards. Matt took offense to my not-so-subtle plan (I’d shot at one dude and used my claw-Skaven’s zone of control to ensure his shaman couldn’t walk out) so pulled his entire band out of the manor ruins and back towards me – fortunately the small door space and woods interrupted this, and only a lone Gor got into combat with my Sorcerer. Oh, and of course the shaman cast his spell to escape not-quite-certain death and charge into my unlucky magician. Combat saw him removed by the Gor, so that was an issue.

In my turn I counter charged, surprising Matt with how far most of my dudes could go, and abandoned any kind of board control – with the shaman in my lines, my prize was easily within reach! And I only had to get my Verminkin sliced up to rout! That plan failed as I took down both the bray shaman and the Gor in combat. Dys brought his angry dead (slowly) around the manor, having been misled about my willingness to fight on two fronts, and caught by surprise at how quickly I could run away (‘redeploy’) and the Carnival unlocked the windows of their hovel, confused why they couldn’t hear the sounds of combat any more.
Matt charged in with everything except a Bestigor and the Minotaur, who had charge lines blocked by the manor wall and doors. In a truly surprising display of skill my entire war band won their fights, stunning or eliminating their opponents – except my leader who, charged by Matt’s chieftain, only managed to knock him down. Matt’s dice had been terrible and I could see him weighing up whether he was going to rout next turn – Dys’s remaining pig and vampire had already reached our brawl (swiftly becoming a tradition for our war bands) and his shambling horde were only a turn away. My verminkin had been destroyed by the vampire, which was a fortunately bad tactical move by Dys as it meant that in my next turn I could voluntarily rout – with a total of five wyrdstone, thanks to Matt’s unfortunate combat rolls!

I rolled first turn next, for the first time all game and really the only time it mattered. I spent a pretty intense seven seconds deciding if I wanted to roll into the vampire with everything, near definitely removing him but opening myself up for a counter charge by less stabby but not that much softer undead. Matt’s minotaur was lurking in the wings as was his last Bestigor, late to the gig for reasons best left unexplored, and they could have made pretty short work of something themselves and I could see him eyeing up the so far undefeated vampire. Glorious victory shined bright in my eyes, the promise of riches and renown filling my mind…

Then I remembered I was a Samurat. I fought not for glory or riches, but mainly to stab people in the back when they weren’t looking and steal things back to the hovel I’d been hired to ‘protect’/enrich. So I put down my dice and declared I was off, taking my five remaining rats and five shiny wyrdstone with me.
Dys finished off Matt’s leader but his Wight couldn’t manage the Bestigor in one round, the Carnival came out of hiding and began to prance about a bit and Matt also routed, with only one shard despite an serious lead in the early game. Dys then made the somewhat suspect decision to rout, on the basis he’d lost two pigs and didn’t want to risk losing something else – this left a very surprised Felix with a wholly unexpected victory, if not much wyrdstone for it.

In the after game my Sorcerer recovered fully (more like had faked it…), Kikuchiru the First died and was instantly replaced, and I rolled another five wyrdstone on my exploration. Pretty ratting good game! So far I’d lost two games and come out with enough surplus wyrdstone to see me through for at least two more! I went shopping again, although since I only sold six shards to avoid a glut I could only afford helmets for every one and the hiring of Kikuchiru the Second, complete with two swords, a helmet and light armour. Spoilt bloody henchman he was too…

I also got some skill ups, far more excitingly! My Sorcerer went up to BS4, making him mildly more useful with his pistol, and some bracers which allowed me to swap out his sword for a halberd. My halberd Skaven got himself Lightning Reflexes and Tail Fighting, giving him and extra sword attack and a parry bonus with his bracers while also ensuring he was going to be striking at Initiative with chargers. Claws only got one advance, which was Tail Fighting avec new sword for the bonus attack. My Toughness two Gutterrunner, now dubbed Heihachi, got Knife Master, allowing him to throw his knives three times a turn, while the other received an additional Attack and Initiative making him a pretty scary prospect one on one. My leader also picked up Lightning Reflexes; my thinking was that, while I could almost guarantee a charge with my high movement and climbing ability, if I could bait people into making mistakes by charging into my Reflexed people then I’d half my work done!

So the Samurats were bloodied and bruised, technically beaten but bouncing back better than before! They were also a lot of fun to play, the options available on each of them and the different equipment I’d dished out making them each a little more characterful. Yes, I could have done this with goblins and if I re-rack again I’ll probably go back to them with a fresh plan that I’ve put together. But first the sun had to set on the legend of the Seven Samurats, and it looks like it’s going to be a long, long day.

https://nomnomniconcom.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/missions-in-mordheim-the-seven-samurats/