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Hey folks, I've got something cooking in my brain that I can't quite flesh out, and seeing as I'm quite new to the mini scene I thought I'd ask you good folks here for your thoughts or ideas.

Here's what I'm looking at - I've been dabbling in miniature painting and gaming for about two years now. I don't have a gaming shop I can get to very much, but I enjoy painting and collecting miniatures. I do have a nephew that visits sometimes and we get some gaming in then, and we both prefer skirmishing type games versus larger wargames with armies.

I'm always jumping back and forth from these mini skirmish games - I've got some Warmachine/Hordes, Anima Tactics, Chainmail and I'm trying to get into Malifaux. I really enjoy the fluff of these games, and my favorite is Warhammer fantasy. I love those books! And every time I read one it makes me want to play Warhammer, but the initial cost (I have to buy for two to play, something for me to play and something for my nephew) and painting hundreds of minis seems daunting to me.

So in researching, Mordheim jumped right out at me as the perfect game. The only thing is, I really have a hard time getting into "dead" games, or games that are no longer published. Plus in looking on eBay, it looks like being out of print has driven up the costs of the Mordheim minis. Plus I prefer plastic miniatures almost exclusively.

So, all that long winded story brings me to my idea and questions.

I got the idea to just sort of make my own Mordheim. I love GW plastic minis though I've never painted any yet, I just think their sculpts look great. So I was wondering, could I buy singles or small groups of Warhammer minis and sort of make my own warbands for a skirmishing game? Maybe use the old Mordheim rules, or find some updated version, or maybe just use another system all together and sort of play it in the Warhammer world? If you were doing this, where would you start? Part of why I'm asking here is I'm assuming people who play Mordheim might already do this, and I wonder what their experiences are? I'm looking for cost friendly purchases too - for example there are some models that I love out of the Island of Blood box, but buying the entire box for a few singles would be unwise, so I was leaning towards buying their singles off eBay.

So do any of you do anything like this? Basically, to summarize, I want to play Warhammer but with more skirmish-like rules. What are your experiences with it? How do you do it?

Thanks in advance for any help, folks!

Well IIRC, a bunch of the kits WHFB kits where meant for mordheim, like skaven nightrunners, and free company.

As well the rules should be free on the GW website unless they took em down.

You can still get the rules for Mordheim on the GW site: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480008a&categoryId=6700006a§ion=&aId=21500021a


And this boxed set is two gangs worth of the plastics that came in the Mordheim boxed set IIRC:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod20048

There is also Coreheim - a 'living' version of the Mordheim game.

Updated rules, and a thriving community.

I still prefer the old rules, with the addition of some of the experimental rules from the old GW forums and Yahoo groups:
OPTION A.

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior
attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty."

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs."

iii. Page 51, under Shield. Add the line. "In addition to this save, a warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn).
Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are also included.

Page 51, under Buckler. Add the line "In addition to this, a warrior armed with a buckler and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to his armour save if other armour is worn).

iv. Page 50, under "Light Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 6+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

v. Page 50, under "Heavy Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vi. Page 51, under "Ithilmar Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may
not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vii. Page 51, under "Gromril Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may
not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

viii. MH Annual 2002, Page 16, under "Toughened Leathers", replace the entire Special Rules text with the line:
" A warrior wearing toughened leathers gains a 6+ save against
Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities. Toughened Leathers are classified as Armour and may be worn by Henchmen"

These rules make a huge difference, and armor becomes something worth having.

Border Town Burning is still around, as well.

Mordheim remains my favorite GW game of all time.

The Auld Grump

Yes it's a wonderful game. Think most groups play with the rule changes TheAuldGrump has suggested, otherwise you end up with warbands which are all fitted out with the same weapon selection, running around naked! (We usually go a step further and half the price of armour as well).

Models-wise I would probably take the ebay route. You're not forced to buy massive units of stuff for Mordheim, so there is no need to go the box-set route, and especially not the price that GW asks for them. Also, buying individually will allow you to add a lot more character to your force. There are actually still Mordheim warbands that come up on ebay from time to time, and usually aren't that expensive (although they are metal).

For some of the factions you could get bits from Reaper miniatures, they have a very large plastic fantasy range that is tremendously well priced and with a lot of variety.

Mordheim is the only GW game I have ever consistently won. In 40k and WFB I routinely get tabled largely due to my list building skills.

In Mordheim though, the Skaven can be seriously abused if you load out early with giant rats. They are cheap, fast and require just as much attention to get them off your warband as my more expensive (relatively) ratmen.

You might also enjoy Border Town Burning, a really nice fan-made Mordheim campaign setting. It is done very well, and the campaign system is effective.

Okay, this all sounds great guys and thanks for your input! I'm looking more into Mordheim and I really wish they'd update this game! But absent that, I think I'm just going to take at the old game with the updated rules like you all suggested.

So as for buying minis for this (thanks Pacific for the tips here) Would anyone care to talk about that some more? I think I'd like to try to stick to GW minis if I can, plastics but I can live with some metals if I can snatch them off eBay for a good price.

I'm wondering if there are any good GW buys that fit nicely into Mordheim, like Eldarain pointed out a box set of plastics that are from Mordheim so that's perfect. Anything else like that?

Basically I haven't even looked at the rules yet, so I'm sort of just wondering what a warband might look like for Mordheim when it was pieced together in 2014. What are my options?

Thanks guys, this input has been great and I really appreciate it! I'm excited to dive into Mordheim.

You can really use any WHFB plastics that fit the bill - a lot of the warbands (human merc) are just humans. What is most important is what they're armed with - hammer, mace, sword. You can paint them up anyway you like. So any of the Empire plastic kits work, as do the Knights of the White Wolf plastic upgrade sprues (I think for the knights - they're the old Middenheimers).

Skaven slaves, skeletons, ghouls, dwarves, etc. are all the same basic troops.

A friend ran chaos with warriors as brethren (or you could use marauders), etc.

Mordheim is particularly great for conversions, so let your imagination go wild.

I'm planning a human band, but using Eureka Conquistadors (Portuguese). They fit pretty well into the size and look of the old Dogs of War, and while metal, I'll use them and equip them as the model appears.

Or just use the same kit that came in the Mordheim box.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440091a&prodId=prod20048

Enkmar wrote:
Hey folks, I've got something cooking in my brain that I can't quite flesh out, and seeing as I'm quite new to the mini scene I thought I'd ask you good folks here for your thoughts or ideas.

Here's what I'm looking at - I've been dabbling in miniature painting and gaming for about two years now. I don't have a gaming shop I can get to very much, but I enjoy painting and collecting miniatures. I do have a nephew that visits sometimes and we get some gaming in then, and we both prefer skirmishing type games versus larger wargames with armies.

I'm always jumping back and forth from these mini skirmish games - I've got some Warmachine/Hordes, Anima Tactics, Chainmail and I'm trying to get into Malifaux. I really enjoy the fluff of these games, and my favorite is Warhammer fantasy. I love those books! And every time I read one it makes me want to play Warhammer, but the initial cost (I have to buy for two to play, something for me to play and something for my nephew) and painting hundreds of minis seems daunting to me.

So in researching, Mordheim jumped right out at me as the perfect game. The only thing is, I really have a hard time getting into "dead" games, or games that are no longer published. Plus in looking on eBay, it looks like being out of print has driven up the costs of the Mordheim minis. Plus I prefer plastic miniatures almost exclusively.

So, all that long winded story brings me to my idea and questions.

I got the idea to just sort of make my own Mordheim. I love GW plastic minis though I've never painted any yet, I just think their sculpts look great. So I was wondering, could I buy singles or small groups of Warhammer minis and sort of make my own warbands for a skirmishing game? Maybe use the old Mordheim rules, or find some updated version, or maybe just use another system all together and sort of play it in the Warhammer world? If you were doing this, where would you start? Part of why I'm asking here is I'm assuming people who play Mordheim might already do this, and I wonder what their experiences are? I'm looking for cost friendly purchases too - for example there are some models that I love out of the Island of Blood box, but buying the entire box for a few singles would be unwise, so I was leaning towards buying their singles off eBay.

So do any of you do anything like this? Basically, to summarize, I want to play Warhammer but with more skirmish-like rules. What are your experiences with it? How do you do it?

Thanks in advance for any help, folks!

The best thing about Mordhiem is that you can use at least two regiment boxed sets for several different crews, and use them in Warhammer Quest as an offshoot to the regular Mordhiem games.

The rules set has a sister companion in "Bordertown Burning" and Toms Boring Mordhiem site is a mecca for all kinds of expansive stuff.

http://bordertownburning.ciantygames.com/home.html


Along with being able to use your Mordhiem bands in Warhammer Quest, the best thing about the game is that it is free. The only thing you honestly need are miniatures. You can use whatever miniatures you want, and Reaper, Otherworlds, GamesWorkshop, and others are all open for suggestion.

Officially Official Free stuffs....

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480008a&categoryId=6700006a§ion=&aId=21500021a


I've not had a bad experience with this game, ever. It is fun, you can use whatever you want, and the model count will not break your back, lose you an organ, or hurt your budget in any way.


Scenery is free and there is no limit online to free PDF's of cardstock, compnaies that make great scenery, and limitless sites that you can DIY your own gear.


Good hunting, you picked GW's best fantasy gateway drug ever made.

I was watching Fist Full of Dollars tonite while painting up a selection to 25 year old skaven models for an upcoming mordheim campaign. Gave me a great excuse to paint cool old models for an army i don't have.

Mordheim is a nice way to start into WFB, and you can play it for years on it's own.

Enkmar wrote:I got the idea to just sort of make my own Mordheim. I love GW plastic minis though I've never painted any yet, I just think their sculpts look great. So I was wondering, could I buy singles or small groups of Warhammer minis and sort of make my own warbands for a skirmishing game? Maybe use the old Mordheim rules, or find some updated version, or maybe just use another system all together and sort of play it in the Warhammer world? If you were doing this, where would you start?

This is exactly what I do with my old WFB stuff. As well as the occasional new miniature. I use the Coreheim rules for the most part, but have all the PDFs and articles for Mordheim that have been floating around the net as well.

If you're looking for more rules options, I'd suggest Goal System: Delves and Song of Blades & Heroes. Neither are free, but both are great miniature games with support for this kind of game. Mordheim/Coreheim is a great choice though, and it's free.

Enkmar wrote:So as for buying minis for this (thanks Pacific for the tips here) Would anyone care to talk about that some more? I think I'd like to try to stick to GW minis if I can, plastics but I can live with some metals if I can snatch them off eBay for a good price.

The first thing I'd recommend is eBay. Specifically the sellers who take existing kits and sell the parts for one figure as a "single figure" listing. Black Dagger Games is one such seller that does this and is well regarded as far as bits sellers go. Here is a link to the WFB single figures section of their eBay store:

http://stores.ebay.com/Blackdagger-Games/WFB-Single-Figures-/

The other thing I would recommend would be Reaper's new Bones line of plastic figures. They're plastic, but softer. Paint still sticks to them great and the price is certainly right. If you go this route, let me know and I'll pass on some bones specific tips related to preparing them and painting.

https://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones

 frozenwastes wrote:
The other thing I would recommend would be Reaper's new Bones line of plastic figures. They're plastic, but softer. Paint still sticks to them great and the price is certainly right. If you go this route, let me know and I'll pass on some bones specific tips related to preparing them and painting.

https://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones

And for Witch Hunters the plastic Demon Hunters from Confrontation can still be bought pretty cheap - around $10 - $13 for six figures.

You may need to pop them off of their bases and put them on GW style bases, but it is pretty easy.

The Perry Brothers plastic Mercenaries from their War of the Roses line are also inexpensive, and with the Swiss heads (available separately) they are a good fit for Mordheim mercenaries.

Forty figures for less than forty dollars, not including those heads. You can get three warbands out of than box, without any difficulty - and I believe that they are the same folks that sculpted the original Mordheim plastics.

The Auld Grump

Mordheim was a game I always really wanted to play but never found a group for. I love small fantasy skirmish.

These days I'd be more likely to go for LOTR or something, but there is still something appealing about those clunky old rules

Wow, you guys have been incredibly helpful! This is a nice greeting to the Dakka community. Thanks for all the tips you guys! And I am planning to use some Reaper Bones if you wanna throw me any tips for that. I was scoping out the "Satheras, Male Warlock" for a Cult of the Possessed warband.

I'd like to just keep making warbands for this game, so in theory I would make them all. But to start, I'm thinking about maybe Bretonnian and Undead. There's lots of others I'm looking at but right now that's what I might take a crack at, starting with Bret. I always liked their classical knight look and all of their books I've stumbled upon turned out to be great.

Bretonnia seems like a relatively easy warband to piece together too. I'm thinking Men at Arms for the brunt of the force, maybe a couple of Squires that would be relatively easy to find I think. Where I'm stuck is I need a Questing Knight and then I'd like to add another Knight Errant or two. How could I sort of make them look unique? I always liked the uniform look of Warhammer minis where you can tell at a glance what the minis are supposed to represent. I want to use a GW Realm Knight for the Questing Knight for sure, but then how could I make him look cooler, or the Knight Errants look more plain, so that it's easily to tell which is which on the field?

The 5th edition WHFB rulebook, iirc, had a skirmish rules section in the back. It was basically a mordheim-lite version of the rules, but allowed you to use all the WHFB army books. GW also published a 45 page skirmish scenario booklet which gave you ideas about how to tie skirmish games into your larger whfb games.

Between the two of those, there are tons of skirmish possibilities.

I know that you want to stick to GW kits, but for humans the Perry Brothers plastic box set is straight up gold for building just about any human Mordheim warband.

You've got lots of models for starters, and the kit comes with pikes, crossbows, and guns. The command sprue has several different types and amounts of armor and a little variety in weapons. There is a wealth of head options in the kit, and separate bucklers that are great on their own or can be the basis for converting into full size center grip shields.

It is a very versatile kit. If you are playing a long Mordheim campaign and want to keep your models WYSIWYG, that kit is extremely useful.

The [url=http://www.lead-adventure.com/index.php?cPath=22&osCsid=e47e5fabb8957c438e36520ec8654b8d]Bruegelburg range from Lead Adventure is also pure Mordheim! It has an aesthetic that is very GW complimentary and gives you some fantastic options for models to represent characters that you might have a hard time finding a good model for the in GW range. Lead Adventure is continuing to support this range as well, so if you want to go with a range that is fresh and well-supported, Bruegelburg is a very attractive alternative.

Yes, Mordheim is pretty much all I do GW wise these days. I'm currently putting together lots of foam core houses and also an Undead warband using...

Vampire Counts figures for my Necromancer, Zombies and Ghouls.
A Fenrisian Wolf for my Dire Wolf because they look better than the VC walking wolf carcasses IMHO
Kit bashed Dregs using all manner of parts (zombie legs, goblin torsos and bitz from ogre bulls and bretonnians)

Still figuring out how to do the Vampire using only plastic though...

That's funny, Flashman. I'm in the same boat with the minis I'm planning for my Undead. There's a great GW plastic Vampire, but it looks a little more spellcaster-ish than vampire so I thought I'd use him for my Necromancer instead, leaving me hunting for a plastic vampiric warrior looking fella.

Do you document your stuff anywhere Flashman? I'd like to see how your minis and houses are coming since I'm planning to do much of the same sort of thing.

Not to push another forum, but Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum is a really great source for folks interested in Mordheim. It is pretty darn active for a forum about a discontinued game and has a ton of resources, especially when it comes to making terrain and discussing house rules, campaigns, and scenarios. I strongly encourage the OP to check it out. You can find a wealth of information there and the project logs are very inspiring.

Enkmar wrote:
That's funny, Flashman. I'm in the same boat with the minis I'm planning for my Undead. There's a great GW plastic Vampire, but it looks a little more spellcaster-ish than vampire so I thought I'd use him for my Necromancer instead, leaving me hunting for a plastic vampiric warrior looking fella.

Do you document your stuff anywhere Flashman? I'd like to see how your minis and houses are coming since I'm planning to do much of the same sort of thing.

I have thought about starting a P&M blog particularly as I'm gathering some momentum now. If I do, I will PM you with a link. Good luck with your Mordheim project in the meantime Quick tip off the bat... check out some of the older White Dwarfs for modelling ideas. I'm using the Fantasy Town House instructions in WD137 as the basis for my initial stab at buildings (old WDs can be found on ebay for £3-4).

I believe the WD article Flash mentioned is this one:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/207358812/Modelling-Workshop-Cottage

On a side note, I miss old WD article's like this.

For terrain there are some companies that make printable PDF terrain that are pure gold for Mordheim. Not as good as fomacore, but a lot easier to replace, and take a lot less time.

My favorites are World Works and Lord Zsezse Works.

Dave Graffam Games and Fat Dragon Games also have some nice stuff.

The best, as far as I am concerned -
World Works:




Cathedrae Noctis - a modular evil cathedral. (And the scene for my most spectacular Mordheim loss - my Vampire taken out by goblin archers... in a warband played by a twelve year old girl. I was so proud of her. ) With variant colors so that it can be ruined for use in Mordheim.




The Maiden of the High Seas - I used this for a Last Ship Out of Mordheim scenario. The thing is flippin' 'uge!

Lord Zsezse:

Ruined House #1



Elven Mill - with a very nicely detailed interior. (I have used it as a wizard's house....)

Lord Zsezse is more useful with their ruined buildings - the others are typically exterior only, so you would have to fiddle around to get an interior. That said - I really like the Elven Mill, which has a very nice interior.

Dave Graffam:

Ruined Church


Ruined Cottage

Like Lord Zsezse the ruined buildings are better for Mordheim - they have proper interiors. I have used the ruined Church for a table top Fallout game.

Fat Dragon:

Windmill - with an interior!


City Ruins (There are rules out there, somewhere, for fires in Mordheim - titled Let the Damn City Burn, at least going by the version that I have.)

Now I need to see if I will need to Spoiler the images, or if everything fits.
*EDIT* Spoilers it is!

The Auld Grump

 theHandofGork wrote:
I believe the WD article Flash mentioned is this one:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/207358812/Modelling-Workshop-Cottage

Slightly different, but it's the same principle. You can take the basic approach and do what you want with it. Actually never seen this one, so many thanks theHandofGork

 theHandofGork wrote:
On a side note, I miss old WD article's like this.

So do I Fortunately, the old articles are still kicking around if you know where to look.

 Flashman wrote:

 theHandofGork wrote:
I believe the WD article Flash mentioned is this one:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/207358812/Modelling-Workshop-Cottage

Slightly different, but it's the same principle. You can take the basic approach and do what you want with it. Actually never seen this one, so many thanks theHandofGork

 theHandofGork wrote:
On a side note, I miss old WD article's like this.

So do I Fortunately, the old articles are still kicking around if you know where to look.

The downside is that no new WD articles like that are coming out.

Or, even better, Town Cryer. I used to have all but one issue. (The store sold my copy - even though it was in my box. They thought that they could get a replacement before I noticed, but were wrong, and I never bought a damned thing from them again.)

The Auld Grump - not currently in a Mordheim campaign, but I am playing Necromunda. (GW's second best game, ever.)

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
The downside is that no new WD articles like that are coming out.

Yes, it's a shame, but once you've followed the instructions for a couple of buildings, you can use the techniques and do what you like.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Or, even better, Town Cryer. I used to have all but one issue. The store sold my copy - even though it was in my box.

Bastards

Enkmar wrote:

I'm wondering if there are any good GW buys that fit nicely into Mordheim, like Eldarain pointed out a box set of plastics that are from Mordheim so that's perfect. Anything else like that?

The Skaven night runners plastic kit and the Empire free company plastic kit are the minis that were originally included in the Mordheim box. So you can dobasic humans and skaven easily that way. The other forces in WFB have plenty of plastic minis. Look to some of the fancier equipped Empire units for a Marienburg gang which are generally wealthier. Brettonian men at arms and bowmen can provide alternate human models with less of a direct "Empire" look. There are plenty of elf and dwarf plastics to use for those groups. Witch hunters can be done with a combination of free company minis along with puritanical looking figs from other manufacturers like Reaper, and finally some plastic flagellents. Rat ogres and ogres are available for use as big guys. Plenty of plastic goblins and orcs to choose from for creating their warbands too. Plastic ghouls, zombies and dire wolves are available for the undead. More than enough plastic skaven out there for conversion work. The only place you may need to do non-plastic is for heroes in your bands as some of the hero models for WFB are plastic, but others are fine cast or can be had in metal on ebay. For chaos you can look to the chaos forsaken unit kit for parts to create some possessed models with, also plenty of plastic chaos marauder types for building your cult up.

The only real negative here is that you can no longer buy individual sprues from plastic kits. Used to be your could buy 2 sprues from a kit, a couple from another, and then a last sprue from a third kit to make only the models you need for your warband. Now you'll have a lot of extra parts on hand after build a warband using the current plastic kits. That said there are plenty of options available for use in Mordheim warband construction.

Skriker

I feel like its worth mentioning that Yakromunda will soon be changing formats and supporting Mordhiem as well as gorkamorka. Which will hopefully mean a Community edition of Mordhiem

Here is a link I have for my Mordheim warbands and a couple of games.

I run Brets and Night Goblins.

Mordheim Bands