Tag Archives: Mordheim

Fantascape – A Review

Posted by Phil on

One of the foundations of The Shell Case is the search for companies that produce great toys and games that deserve attention from the wargaming community but may not be getting.

One such company is called Fantascape. Fantascape produces a small but growing range of bases, accessories, and scenery and as the business was just getting their site off the ground it seemed an opportune time to do a review of their stuff.

I got to take a look at two of the bases ranges – Wyrdstone Mines and Glacial Ruins.

Let’s start with Wyrdstone Mines.

WM001_Wyrdstone_Mines_Infantry_Bases_20mm_SquareWell, they’re just awesome. It’s bitter-sweet timing really that such a perfect set of bases for Mordheim should come my way at the same time as Games Workshop sacking off the Specialist Games range. But for those of us that love that game this range of bases couldn’t be more suited. And they come in sizes enough for Ogres, dogs and other beasties. So that’s a win.

The look is just right: broken stone and splintered wood with just a hint of wyrd stone. It feels every bit of the ruined city that I have spent many a happy hour romping through and manging faces. The temptation would be there to make the wyrdstone the star of the show but instead it’s simply, elegantly, done. The effect is, once the model is positioned, that wonderful sense of narrative that a good scenic base can give you. And because they were designed by someone who gets it, neither the model or the key details of the base will be overshadowed or obscured. These are not bases that will make you want to burn things when you try to position the models.

Of course they don’t have to be bases for models, those with stones on them make ideal objective counters for scenarios and needless to say, you don’t have to paint them green. But it really highlights the skill with which the bases were conceived and sculpted as they just work. Whatever your intention with them, they’ll fit and look damn good doing so. Regular readers will know the two following things:

1. The only fully painted collection of miniatures I own is my Mordheim warband.

2. I never have the time to bloody paint anything.

So with that in mind, when I say that I can’t wait to rip all the bases off my Mordheim gang and use these you should understand just how much I like them. The casting quality is excellent too. No flash and no residue. And you get 20 of them for £8 which considering the scale of production and much of the stuff is cast to order – which incurs a higher overhead – that’s amazing value.

The Glacial Ruins range is equally impressive.

GlacialRuins

Again they find the perfect balance between looking the tits and being a functional base one which to glue ones toy soldiers. Again, there’s an uncluttered simplicity in the design of the bases that means that you’ll get all the cool detail without it being a colossal ball ache to stick the model on or paint the model or base once you have.

That said, you won’t be lacking for detail on the bases once you do start slapping paint everywhere. The detail is very crisp and considered. It’s also an extremely nice touch that the engravings are chipped and worn whilst the runes – which are made of magic n shit – have escaped the ravages of time.

Of course you don’t have to paint the rocks as ice, instead opting for ruins consumed by the world, lost to time. Which would look way cool. Needless to say there’s the obvious applications for the bases – namely Space Wolves I think with the right paint job and quite possibly a little bit of green stuff and you’ll have some pretty cool, no specific, ruins.

Like the wyrdstone bases, the casting quality is very good and the range covers pretty much all sizes, not just the ones I’ve pictured which means that you can base your whole army should the mood take you. And why wouldn’t it? They’re the tits.

And the range starts at £6 for ten standard round bases. Which again isn’t bad value either.

Overall I can’t fault Fantascape a bit. Their products look ace with strong detail and good casting and as a relatively new player in the market I think we can expect to see some great things from them.

Special No More

Posted by Phil on

So it would seem that the Specialist Games part of the Games Workshop will be closing its doors. Although Games Workshop had left the greatest of all its children out in the cold for years now, it did still produce the models and make the rules available. Throwing their pariah child the barest scraps to keep going.

Despite this, Battlefleet Gothic, Mordheim and Epic Armageddon and others found a place in many a gamer’s heart. Including mine. Gothic is still my favourite game and Mordheim the most played amongst me and The Chaps. This love affair has endured despite no updates since Fanatic magazine and some truly terrible sculpts that would put most gamers off. It has endured through price hikes and restricted ranges. It. Has. Endured.

But no more. Games Workshop has announced that when the current stocks of metal models sell out, that’s it. No more. Ever. And, sadly Forge World are towing the company line and will be withdrawing from sale all Battlefleet Gothic and Epic lines from their site.

This doesn’t come as a surprise as the moment they announced Finecast I knew Specialist Games’ days were finally numbered. It’s a genuine tragedy that the most loved games the company have ever produced are the ones they loved the least and supported even less than that.

What this means of course, is that if you want to get your hands of anything for those games then you’ll have to be quick. It also means the second-hand market is going to go mental.

Although it’d be nice if the rules were still made available but with no models it’d be pointless so it really looks like this is it. It’s an inevitable course of things I suppose. All good things must come to an end but I’m struggling with the thought that when I speak about Battlefleet Gothic or Mordheim to a novice or returning gamer I will have to do so in the past tense. That soon gamers won’t have that same pang of excitement I got cracking open a box of Imperial Cruisers or a Battleship is just terrible.

Worse still, new gamers coming to the Games Workshop for the very first time won’t even know they existed.

I don’t particularly blame Games Workshop for making the decision. I’m amazed it took them this long. They tolerated the Specialist Games range far longer than their current business decisions suggested they would. But I suspect that the Specialist Games ranges were making a loss and that would only be tolerated for so long.

It’s an end of an era for Games Workshop – even with a limited boxset of Blood Bowl rumoured to be on the horizon – and it’s an end of an era for me and many others.

To the Specialist Games range and all those that have written rules and scenarios and sculpted models: I salute you. And will miss you dearly.

Dramatis Personae

Posted by Phil on

I’ve decided, as I can’t collect my Middenheim warband quite as quickly as I’d like, I’d write a dramatis personae for the heroes to keep the plastic-crack itch at bay, but mainly because it’d be fun and kinda nice to have that background to work with once I do get my grubby little mits on the toys in question. And so I give you…The von Braun Irregulars.

Count Kaiser von Braun

Count Kaiser von Braun was once one of Middenland’s most renowned generals. Raised in the town of Grossfurre at the edge of the Mirror Moors, von Braun ventured to the City of the White Wolf in search of a life of meaning in the ranks of the Imperial Army. A natural leader and master tactician, it didn’t take long for his prowess on the battlefield to catch the attention of the Swords of Ulric and although was inducted into their ranks he found their savagery on the battlefield distasteful. He remains the only person to leave their ranks by any means other than death on the battlefield or old age. But it was this decision that would see von Braun’s meteoric ascension through the ranks catching the eye of his liege lord, the Elector Count of Middenheim. Attached to the Elector Count’s personal guard he quickly found himself at the forefront of countless battles and attending councils of war that would otherwise be closed to him. The bold nature that saw him travel through the perils of the Drakwald alone as a youth and to leave the ranks of the Swords drove him to interject a number of times during such councils. Were it not for the merit of his strategies he’d have been flogged a dozen times over.
Such was the Elector Count’s faith in von Braun’s abilities, when he became the youngest General in Middenland’s history, he was not only given his own regiment but often given operational command of the Northern armies, heading councils of war and winning countless victories. But that’s not to say that von Braun was not a man of action. Indeed once battle was joined, he was oft found where the fighting was thickest, at the head of his regiment – the von Braun Irregulars - striking down his foes with a mighty warhammer.

von Braun’s prowess on the battlefield earned him the nickname Ironhide as nothing could seemingly fell the giant man despite sustaining a score of wounds over the years, many of which were dealt saving the Elector Count’s life. However all men’s luck eventually runs out and that was no less so than with von Braun. Taking command at the great gates of Middenheim during a Chaos incursion, into the lands of the Empire, von Braun was wounded by a deamonblade almost unto death. Only his iron will kept his body alive whilst other men’s souls would have fled instantly.

Although von Braun eventually recovered he was weakened and the world had moved on without him. An upstart general had taken command of his Irregulars in his absence and wasted their lives terribly. Determined to rebuild their number and regain his strength, his liege had other ideas, deciding that von Braun had served the Empire with courage and honour and deserved to live out the remainder of his days in peace. Although von Braun argued passionately that he was still a worthy member of the Imperial army, his liege would hear none of it and decreed that von Braun would be elevated to the position of Count and be returned to Grossfurre as it’s master and protector.

Upon arrival home, von Braun discovered a town at the mercy of Beastmen raiding parties, crops that could barely feed its people and tradesmen struggling to make coin.
With members of the, now, disbanded von Braun Irregulars gravitating towards Grossfurre in search of life with renewed purpose, von Braun immediately founded the Grossfurre Militia and set them upon the Beastmen lurking within the Drakwald. It took two years for the surrounding forests to finally be rid of the vile creatures and as the raids became less the town began to prosper. Forest was felled and more land made available for farms and businesses and with it the town’s coffers swelled and tithes began to flow to Middenheim along with a parade of fit and healthy young men schooled at the training ground that now serviced the entire Mirror Moors region.

However, von Braun was a man of action and peace sat ill with him. A life of mediating petty squabbles of his townspeople and tax collection bored him and he gradually took to drink to ease the passing of days spent in an office. So when word reached Grossfurre of the calamity that befell Mordheim and the tales of glory and riches that awaited all those brave enough to sally forth  into the ruins, von Braun knew that his chance to bring glory once more to Middenheim had arrived. Gathering together his finest warriors, he set off with barely a backwards glance.

Helmut Gruber

A hulking bear of a man, Helmut Gruber was a career soldier and in the first intake of men into von Braun’s Irregulars. Indeed, it was these first few fighting men who determined the regiments name as von Braun initially refused to take fresh recruits, choosing men only from regiments that were on the verge of disbanding due to casualties. As such every man jack of them were seasoned veterans from all over Middenhim, each with their combat experience and fighting style. The result on the field was devastating as no opposing general could accurately predict how the enemy units before him would respond to a charge. Helmut Gruber was one such veteran. Skilled with a bolas, Gruber was able to collapse enemy charges by felling unit champions and thus tripping those behind them, allowing Gruber to dispatch his foes with mighty swings of his ancient warhammer. A gift from his father and his father before, all the way back to an ancient ancestor who was honoured to a part of the White Wolf bodyguard for the Warrior God Sigmar. So the story goes, Sigmar forged hammers for each of his bodyguard as a symbol of the trust he shared with them.

It seems that protecting others is in the blood as von Braun’s predisposition for getting himself into some close scrapes lead to Helmut Gruber saving his general from many a grizzly death with a tell timed throw of his bolas or swing of his hammer. Although merely a sergeant, Gruber found himself forming a firm friendship with his commanding officer and was elevated to be his personal bodyguard. An imposing figure, it would only take a stern glance from Gruber to quell any agitator from saying the wrong thing or straying too close to von Braun. And if that didn’t work, hefting his gold capped warhammer usually did.

Much like von Braun, Helmut Gruber spent his entire life at war and was with von Braun at the gates of Middenheim when he was dealt the fateful blow. An injury that would lead to von Braun retirement and the Irregulars put in the hands of a fool. Gruber places the blame squarely on his own shoulders as he believes he failed in his duty to protect the General, despite being overrun himself with foul creatures of Chaos. The fact that either of them escaped alive from that section of the wall was surely only through the blessings of Ulric.

Following the von Braun Irregular’s disbanding, after the Disaster at Hangman’s Wood in Nordland, Gruber was unable to settle into civilian life despite being reunited with his wife and children after years apart. Vowing to make amends for the ill fate that he had brought upon the Irregulars and their former commander, he left his family and headed South for Grossefurre. Ulric, it seemed, had touched the souls of others as, as he journeyed South, he stumbled across former comrades also heading South for Grossefurre eager to have purpose in their lives once more.

When the rag-tag group of warriors entered the towns walls von Braun met them all as brothers and immediately formed them into the towns militia with Helmut Gruber at its head. Although deeply humbled by the honour, he accepted the position but none of the trappings that came with the title. Accepting only simple lodgings and food to sustain him, Gruber was determined to make amends for his failing by any means.

It was no surprise, then, when word reached Grossefurre of Mordheim’s fate that he immediately volunteered to accompany von Braun on his adventure, hoping to seek a glorious death in defence of his friend and master as only then will honour and Ulric would be satisfied.

Heidi von Braun

Kaiser von Braun fathered Heidi with a young widow of a Northern land baron, during a rare stint of leave. Although overjoyed when news reached von Braun he was to be a father, he made it clear that he would not play a part in his child’s life. He was a solider and duty left little room for family not to mention the fact that death was an ever-present companion and peril. He vowed to send a portion of his pay to the child’s mother so they need never be without, and with it letters detailing his adventures across the Empire and beyond so although they may never meet his child would know that he was a good man and his absence was for a noble reason.

As a result, Heidi von Braun grew up with a head full of adventures. Her father’s money was wasted as she consistently failed to attend her tutorials with private scholars, far happier to wander into the wilderness armed with a home-made spear and short bow. Countless times she was returned to her mother’s bosom at the hands of an Imperial patrol who had found her attempting to, and in most cases succeeding, slay a goblin or ungor. By the time she reached her teenage years, Heidi was a skilled hunter, an expert marksmen and adept with a blade. Helped in no small part by using her feminine charms on a number of local free company.

When her mother passed away suddenly of pneumonia she sought out her father in the hope of living the life of adventure she’d always dreamed. The reality was quite different. Granted an audience with von Braun she was horrified to discover the powerful man she’d always imagined, was now a drunk who had all but lost all zest for life. With nowhere else to go she resigned herself to honing her skills in the Drakwalds before travelling to Marienburg to sell her services as a mercenary.

In many ways, Heidi’s arrival brought von Braun back from the edge of the abyss as more and more of his time was taken up either attempting to school her and when she failed to turn up, seeking her out in the darkest parts of the Drakwalds. Heidi was also forced to re-evaluate her father when he single-handedly saved her as she fought for her life against three bestigors who had ambushed her whilst on a hunt. There was no denying that the overweight man was still a powerful and skilled warrior. von Braun too had to admit that Heidi was a capable warrior and resigned himself to rather than teaching her things that would set her up for marriage and a life of peace, he would teach her warcraft instead.

However, when news reached von Braun of Mordheim and with it rumours of great treasures and rare stones his mind was made up instantly. Heidi begged her father to let her go with him and had it been an other expedition he might of relented but he’d also heard other rumours. Tales of foul creatures, daemons cavorting in the streets and atrocities committed on men and women alike. Although he couldn’t stop his daughter from becoming a warrior, he could protect her from the horrors that awaited in the City of the Damned. Unbeknown to von Braun, however, Heidi was an expert tracker and setting off two days after him, she soon had his trail and was following him all the way to Mordheim and glory.

Ana Vass – Lady in Waiting

Ana Vass had led an unremarkable life prior to Heidi von Braun’s arrival. As with all women of Middenland she was hardy and skilled with a sword, but her lot in life was little more than darning socks and repairing slacks for her father and twelve brothers as they worked the land and hunted. When Kaiser von Braun arrived and moved into the long abandoned manor on the edge of the town she went there in search of work. Life for Ana wasn’t much more exciting within the walls of the Manor but it gave her a wage, she was free to use the manors library and was granted leave to explore outside pursuits. When his daughter arrived in Grossefurre Count von Braun assigned Ana to her daughter as lady in waiting. Wherever his daughter went she was to follow. As much to report back to him any transgressions as much to assist his daughter.

However, Heidi’s penchant for exploration and tendency to get herself into life threatening situations meant that within days of meeting the von Braun daughter Ana had killed an ungor that sought to attack Heidi whilst she did battle with its herd brother. Grudgingly impressed by Ana, Heidi began covertly teaching her sword craft. This was as much for Heidi’s survival as it was for Ana’s as Heidi identifying the benefits of having an able companion, even if she was on her father’s employment.

Ana’s abilities quickly grew through Heidi’s teachings and from watching the men train in the militia barracks that Count von Braun had ordered built in the years since coming to the town. Although Heidi was unparalleled with a spear and black powder weapons, Ana was adept with twin short swords and her smaller frame and greater agility meant that she was one of the few that could get past Heidi’s guard. Despite the social gulf between them they became friends and their excursions into the forest became ever more frequent and daring even to the point when Count von Braun has had to come to their aid.

When Heidi made her decision to follow her father, Ana had preempted the lady’s wishes and already her things ready, along with her own. Heidi initially refused to allow Ana to come but realised that she, like Heidi herself, would simply follow her anyway she relented, realising that a companion on such a treacherous journey would be no bad thing.

Erasmus Klocke

A hot-headed but capable warrior, Erasmus Klocke was a ferocious man both on and off the battle. Despite being a capable tactician, his overly pious nature meant that he never rose beyond the rank and file in no small part to his consist admonishment of the men in his unit him for their lack of faith in Sigmar. And in Middenheim such talk sat ill. Were it not for his prowess in a fight he probably would have been met with an ‘accident’.

When the von Braun Irregulars disbanded Klocke wandered Middenland offering his services as both preacher and blacksmith in exchange for food and lodging. Klocke believed that manual labour regardless of one’s higher calling kept the soul pure and grounded, far away from the lofty dillusions of grandeur that befalls so many men. Eventually his travels brought him to Grossefurre and was elated to find many of his old comrades in a uniform startlingly similar to that of their old regiment.

When Erasmus Klocke was presented to von Braun by Helmut Gruber, he was saddened to see what had become of old Ironhide and instantly knew that coming to Grossefurre was Sigmar’s will. Despite von Braun’s better judgement he allowed the self-appointed warrior priest to stay within the town and the zealot immediately set about constructing a temple to Sigmar and a smithy, within which he forged himself two new hammers one named Kampf the other Glauben. With these hammers in his hands he’d preach to the masses of the virtues of sacrifice and duty, always keeping one eye on the door to see if von Braun would return to his true path. Every day, when von Braun failed to show, Klocke would walk across town to the manor and enter von Braun’s offices and ask his former General if he had anything to confess. And every day he got the same answer; Many things, priest, but not today.
It was this simple act of charity towards von Braun that no doubt kept Klocke from having any unfortunate accidents whenever he dumped into his former brothers in arms. Although Kampf and Glauben were always within reach should they need reminding of his martial abilities.

When von Braun announced his intention to travel to Mordheim Klocke insisted on coming. To the surprise of the entire party von Braun immediately agreed claiming that his abilities as a warrior and a smithy would be invaluable to the expedition but with a wry smile Klocke accepted his place knowing full well that before the end he would hear von Braun’s confession.

Midden-who?

Posted by Phil on

So following on from yesterday’s post about me starting a Middenheim warband for Mordheim I’ve been doing some research as to what models I’m going to use.

So I’ve more or less established the following:

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Merc Captain (Count Kaiser von Braun)

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Champion (Stefan Gruber)

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Champion (Heidi von Braun)

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Youngblood (Ana Vass – lady in waiting)

I’m also adding in the Exalted of Sigmar as a champion because, simply, it’s a great looking model and he’s running around with two hammers which is a win and totally in keeping with the look and feel of the warband I’m creating.

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Moving down to the arrow-fodder, I’ve come to the conclusion that my only real choice for the rest of the warband is to get some Empire bowmen…

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They’re great models, there’s plenty of beards and bad hair (another important feature of a Middenheim warband) and they don’t look too much like soldiers. More like personal guards. All I need to do is either find some sword arms or I’m going to have to buy some state troopers.

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Although in light of maximum warband size, I’ll probably get both regardless. This’ll mean the warband could cost me as much £80, which beats the cost of Witch Hunters by quite some margin, but it’d look way cool…

Project Middenheim

Posted by Phil on

So four of The Chaps and I, including the newest member; John (follow him @InformationHead), played a game of Mordheim last week. We played a slight variation of the Quayside scenario that can be downloaded for free in the gaming reources section of this blog.

The board looked smashing, sporting a quay (obviously), a jetty, fenced off ‘warehousing’ and even a hooker beneath a lamp post. We even threw in the rule that anyone straying too close had to pass an initiative test or fall foul of her charms and spend a turn being…serviced shall we say?

If only the game, for me, had been as fun as setting up the board. This had nothing to do with the game as such, or the company. I’ve been struggling to get into the campaign from the word go and I’m yet to have any measured success at all with my Witch Hunters. I’m not entirely sure why that is, although I think I can stand to review my tactics ahead of my game with John on Friday.

I’ve concluded that the reason I’ve not been enjoying myself is for the following reasons:
1. We’ve been playing far too many big games which almost always results in one warband taking a good kicking from all the others. When you have an ‘elite’ warband like mine each kicking is acutely felt.
2. The larger games have meant that even in defeat certain warbands have benefitted better than they should have and allows for abuse of victory conditions.
3. I’m not enjoying my warband. That’s not to say that I’m not very fond of Izabella von Strauss and her merry band of warrior women (and her pervy hangers on) but my enthusiasm has diminished.

This had me thinking about the future of the campaign and whether or not to:
A. Stop the campaign
B. Restart the campaign – especially in light of John’s addition to the group
C. Start a new game and a new campaign
D. B & C
E. Start a new warband and possible B and/or C

Needless to say, I’m leaning towards E. And as narrative is very important to me, I wanted to make sure that if I were to embark on a new warband that I’d be just as passionate about whoever they are as much as my Witch Hunters. To be honest, my choices were limited as we already have Marienburg and Reikland warbands in the campaign but I was already strongly leaning towards Middenheim because it allows me to start a completely fresh project on a style of models I never had before, with lots of personality but also allowing me to get stuck into finding some cracking models to make my warband unique.

Queue Freebooter Miniatures. Regular readers will know that I’m very fond of Freebooter as my Witch Hunters characters are all made up of their models. This time round I was looking for strapping chaps with beards rather birds with sharp sticks. And although I found a couple I also had to squeeze in a couple of girls too because the models are too good.

So below are four models from Freebooter that I quite fancy getting to kick the warband off with:

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Intended to be used as the captain, this big bugger tells a story that he was once at the head of a proud army. His build suggests that although gone slightly to seed, he can still pack a punch. Especially with that chuffing great hammer.

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This model is another beauty and comes with a fecking great hammer. Again, I’m thinking that he is most likely to be an ex-soldier, possibly having served beneath the captain and is now his bodyguard.

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I’ve always loved this model and think it would play the role of the captain’s hot headed daughter having followed him to the City of the Damned, forcing him to add her to his roster of warriors just to keep her where he can see her.

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And finally, a simple yet striking pose; this model would be the daughter’s maid/lady in waiting and circumstance has forced her to swap darning needles for short swords in an effort to keep her and her charge out of harms way. But being a Middenheimer, she’s not afraid of a fight.

It’s early days and I’ve not even orderd anything yet but it’s all very exciting. I just need to figure out how many more models I need, and where I can find them as accurate models that aren’t the very dated Free Company models are very hard to find.

What Kind of Year Has It Been?

Posted by Phil on

This is arguably a bit too early but I wanted to write my year in review because it’s been on my mind.

The most significant thing for me was, obviously, the creation of The Shell Case. And what a decision that was. Had I known that setting up this humble little blog would see me writing reviews for all the weird and wonderful games and have them read all over the world I would have done it a long time a go. It’s been an amazing few months.

Its success is down to, in part, certain individuals like @DocBungle, Chris_S79 and a host of others that I could list but it’d make a boring read. You all know who you are so thank you.

I’ve also been hugely lucky to to inteview the incredibly awesome Sarah Cawkwell, writer of The Gildar Rift (my first Black Library eBook purchase), and the visionary Erasmus, creator of the Lord Inquisitor.

Off the back of the blog, the forum was founded and shortly after the Alliance. Both are growing although not as fast as I like, but that’s entirely down to me not having time to do much of anything beyond the blog. This is partly down to the Super Mega Awesome Shell Case Project but mostly because my day job is taking up far too much of my time.

My new year’s resolution really should be to get my Shell Case shit together.

So it has been (half a) year of writing reading, playing, reviewing and meeting some awesome peope both on Twitter and through the various companies I’ve had the very great pleasure of dealing with. And I’ve loved every minute of it.

Next year should be interesting with the Super Mega Awesome Shell Case Project hopefully coming to conclusion, more reviews and hopefully getting my own game off the ground. I hope that the community continues to grow and the #warmongers with it who are all a bunch of awesome chaps.

In the new year we’re introducing a 6th member to The Chaps which is very exciting and will hopefully see the Mordheim campaign grow but new campaigns start too. I’d also really.like to get Ian, Jeremy, Neil and the Freshman into Firestorm Armada and Dystopian Wars because, well, the game is cool and the models are the tits.

Anyway, I want to wish all of you a very Happy 2012. May it bring happiness, health and many shiny toys.

The Chaps & Mordheim – The Undead

Posted by Phil on

Back in October I did a fair amount of prattling on about Mordheim (which can be read here and here) and one of the things that I thought would be fun would be to get The Chaps to write about their warbands and take you on part of their journey to domination over the Damned City. The first installment is brough to you by Ian, the most senior of all The Chaps.

I’ve known Ian for 13 years now and he is without doubt one of my best friends despite being a certain number of years my senior. He was even a groomsman at my wedding, as was his son and junior Chap; Neil. Ian and I met through, strangely enough, my mum who worked with Ian at the time. During a lunch break she noticed Ian reading a White Dwarf and commented ‘My son plays those games’. And so started an enduring friendship despite me wiping the floor with him all these years. We’ve played countless games and been an invaluable sounding board for Project Awesome.

So without further ado, I give you Ian and his Undead warband…Sigmar help you.

I recently received an email inviting me as senior, OK oldest, member of The Chaps to contribute a piece to The Shell Case explaining how I came to pick my latest Mordheim war band so, for better or worse, here it is.

 Firstly a brief history lesson, or ‘How I came to the wonderful world of wargaming’. I started back in the 1970s with a group of friends from school, a lot of Airfix plastic Napoleonics (mostly unpainted) and a home-grown set of rules based on the works of Donald Featherstone & Terence Wise. A brief flirtation with fantasy gaming followed using SELWGs Lord of the Rings rules, but by then we had left school, the group had broken up so I was left with a couple of armies and no one to play with. The rules and figures got dusted off once Neil, (eldest son and junior Chap), was old enough to play but the rules were so complicated that the games were not very satisfying – and let’s face it why play a game if you don’t enjoy it?

About 17 years ago I discovered Warhammer Quest, Games Workshop, acrylic paints and spray undercoat (no more Humbrol enamels on bare metal!). A series of chance encounters lead to the formation of The Chaps and I now divide my time between historical gaming, (mainly the Sudan campaign of the 1880s & 90s & the English Civil War), and GW games mostly Mordheim and 40k. I’m currently working on an Imperial Guard army inspired by the 1942 German invasion of Russia (TSC: Yeah and they looking freaking awesome).

When we started our last Mordheim campaign I was using my Sisters of Sigmar warband; I found the idea of a bunch of psycho nuns running around a ruined city dealing out death and retribution with hammers rather appealing, which is why the Sisters of Little Mercy came into being. However I found them difficult to use, mainly due to their lack of long-range firepower and my crap dice rolling when in hand to hand combat. The Chaps will attest to my ability to roll dice like a drunken chimp (TSC: I can, indeed, attest to this.)

By the end of the first game my Matriarch, a Sister Superior and a Sister were out of action. Some horrendous rolls during the recovery phase at the end of the game resulted in the Matriarch and the Sister Superior dying so with insufficient gold to replace even one of them I had to the start warband again. As the campaign moved on I was able to upgrade weapons and armour but at last the time came when I wanted to recruit more nuns, it was at this point that I discovered that the Sisters of Sigmar are only available as a boxed set plus a couple of loose figures, (eBay?! – it’s an age thing). I ended up purchasing a Matriarch armed with a steel whip to be a third Sister Superior and a blister pack of Sisters of Battle Repentias which I converted by clipping off their chainswords and replacing them with hammers; the eagle-eyed among you will have realised that between the initial and the later purchase my painting had undergone a radical change mainly due to a switch to black undercoat and a darker pallet of colours.

 

When the new campaign started I decided I needed a change, the sisters no longer look like a coherent group and to be frank I wanted to try something new. I considered pit fighters as I have a warband painted up and unused, but again they are only available as a single boxed set, which makes buying extra figures awkward, and to be honest each member of the band specialises in a single style of fighting, the idea of kitting them out with extra weapons and armour just doesn’t feel right.

During a conversation with Neil the idea of an undead war band was floated (TSC: Who do you think gave Neil the idea?!); ‘why not fight on the side of evil for once?’ I liked the idea of an agent working in the city to further the evil machinations of the Von Carsteins, especially as there are opportunities for him to ‘go native’ and start pursuing his own agenda. At some point we could also indulge in a little father and son alliance against the rest as at the time Neil’s Skaven warband were our token ‘baddies’. Checking the warband out online I realised that the metal zombies that come with it are a Sister of Sigmar (my old warband), a witch hunter (Caito’s warband), a Marienburger (Jeremy’s and Lee’s warband) and a generic ‘posh bloke’, I was sold.

Having got the models in my hot sticky hands the first thing that I decided was that I didn’t like the silly crocodile jaw head on the vampire’s halberd; knowing my ability to roll badly I decided that I would arm him with 2 swords instead – 2 ST 5 attacks are all very well but this way he would get 3 attacks at ST 4, so there will still be modifier to the armour save, and he would gain a parry and re roll. Luckily the hand holding the halberd is separate so it was just a case of lopping off a plastic hand holding a sword and sticking it onto the model. Using parts from Neil’s bit box I managed to build a zombie skaven (TSC: Also my idea via Neil. Dance my puppets dance!) and with a couple of stand in models I was ready to roll. The starting line up consisted of the Vampire armed with 2 swords, a Necromancer, 2 dregs, a couple of dire wolves and 6 zombies. By the end of that first game I realised that I needed a third Igor – as an homage to Terry Pratchett all of my dregs are called Igor – and some ghouls.

The good thing about The Chaps is that none of us are precious about using the ‘correct’ models; as Caito has already explained on this very blog, most of the characters in his Witch Hunters are Freebooter figures and some of Jeremy’s hand gunners started life as Wargames Foundry swashbucklers. When I discovered that the third dreg I was after is in fact a limited edition GW figure that sells for sums in excess of £50 I decided to look elsewhere. (TSC: Funny that…)

While checking out the Freebooter website I spotted a cracking model called Romerto the street assassin, he’s big so how could I justify using him? Once again Neil came to the rescue (TSC: This actually was Neil that time) by pointing out that dregs are the lowest of the low, which would include thieves and murderers, nothing says they have to be hunchbacks, so ‘Big (Dim) Igor’ was born. I wanted a 6th zombie that wasn’t just the least worst painted member of my old undead army; this had to be Freebooter’s Lady Death – yes I know she has a naked skull and is armed with a scythe, but it’s such a cool model. That just left the ghouls – I don’t like the classic GW models and the new plastic ones are fine but I didn’t want to buy a whole box for 2 or 3 models. It was then that I stumbled on the website for Heresy Miniatures, their ghoul models are so full of character that I bought the ghouls crawling set, the models arrived the day after I placed the order, which is pretty good service in my book, and although they are a bit fiddly to put together they really look the business when painted.

I’ve now played 4 games with the warband and I’m enjoying the steep learning curve I’m on. I quickly leaned that trying to use zombies as a screen of living impaired ablative armour doesn’t work – they’re too slow! My Vampire, to be frank, is rubbish; in the first game, due to the night fighting rules of the Blood in the Barrows scenario, he fell flat on his back the first time he declared a charge and got a bloody good kicking. Once in action he managed to knock several opponents down but failed to finish them off (he finally achieved this in game 3) then at the end of game 3 he got his sodding hand cut off. The Chaps, being their usual sporting selves, suggested that rather than suffer a penalty to his stats he instead now has a crossbow pistol grafted onto the stump and cannot be replaced by anything else. That cloak can hide a multitude of things.

To be frank he’s so inept I think that von Carstein is going to cut him adrift. On the other hand my spear armed Igor is brilliant! In the Blood in the Barrows game he was jumped by a werewolf which by any estimate should have torn the poor little dreg limb from pale limb. But, despite being only WS2 and as much use as a chocolate teapot, Igor impaled the werewolf on his spear. The Chaps were so impressed that they all agreed he deserved an extra experience point and awarded him the honorary title of Igor Wolfsbane. Big Igor on the other hand is all but a cripple having sustained an old battle wounds which may cause him to miss some games (I can’t complain though – he had to make 5 rolls on the serious injury chart at the end of his first game).

What makes Mordheim so enjoyable is that the wee metal men start to take on a ‘life’ and character of their own and even if you do badly during the game you can still improve things with your exploration and experience rolls; for instance, Wolf’s Bane is now ST4 but still only WS2, but he’ll get there. When he does I’ll let you know (if Caito will have me back).

Thanks Ian for taking the time to tell us about your shambling little bastards. Passion for the force you’re collecting is, for me, everything and it’s been great fun watching you engage with your Undead warband and your Imperial Guard. In fact, I might have to get you to write another article about the Emperor’s Cannon Fodder.

Coming up on The Shell Case will be posts from Jeremy, Lee & Neil but before then I thought I’d write a ‘story so far’ for the campaign. You have been warned…

The Memorial Gardens

Posted by Phil on

Tomorrow night I have a Mordheim game with The Chaps. Granted I still haven’t done the last two after action reports, but I just don’t have the time any more. To be honest, as long as we keep the games going, we’ll be fine without them as we’ll all be a part of each other’s story development.

But anyway, we’re playing The Memorial Gardens. Essentially the scenario focuses on the location on the Mordheim map of the same name. At its core I played with the idea that the gardens managed to escape the cataclysm relatively unscathed. The beauty of it was that it was a bright, grass board to fight over covered in trees, hedges, streams etc, rather than the usual ruined city scape. It breaks up the campaign nicely and also takes away a lot of tactical advantages, like the height of the buildings and, well, buildings in general. And in addition to the greenery there’s also an abundance of animals lurking in the undergrowth that an unwary warrior might disturb at their peril.

I wrote it a year or so ago for the last campaign and it went rather well. At least for most of us. Jeremy got rather preoccupied by a bear that I’d made far too tough (but we live and learn) which spent the game slowly eating his warband, much to the mirth of the rest of us. Similarly, Neil decided that he’d put two fingers up at the Wild Cat that automatically hates Skaven and it promptly turned two of his heroes into kitty kibble.

Last night I made a couple of changes. Weakened most of the creatures as most were far too lethal, added a couple more and actually specified how to win. Which is helpful, I think…

Anyway, for your gaming pleasure I give you The Memorial Gardens V2.0. My other Mordheim scenarios can be found on the Gaming Resource page. Enjoy.

P.S. I’ve just noticed a spelling mistake in the scenario. Don’t judge me, it was late and I was tired. I’ll fix it later.

A Few of My Favourite Things

Posted by Phil on

I’m at home not feeling very well today. Between that and feeling stressed about work, I’m feeling rather sorry for myself. So, in an effort to cheer myself up I decided to build an Epic Warlord Titan that I managed to blag off a mate in my long-term effort to rebuild my Adeptus Titanicus force that I long ago sold. The silly thing is that although it’s one of my all time favourite models, it’s an absolute bastard to build.

But it got me thinking about my favourite models. It’s a long long list. You can’t play wargames for 22 and a half (the half is important dmmit!) years and not build a long list of toys that was either inspirational, seminal or massively fucking awesome. Or all of the above. So, with a little bit of thought I’ve done a top 10 of my all time favourite models.

There’ll be quite a few Games Workshop models in it because the vast majority of my gaming years have been spent playing their games. And for those that disagree with my choices, bite me, do your own list.

10. Imperial Cruiser – Space Fleet


The first White Dwarf I ever bought at the tender age of 7 years old had Space Fleet on the front cover. At this point I didn’t understand that Games Workshop was more than Hero Quest. I’d seen a previous issue with it on the cover and therefore made the intellectual leap that White Dwarf (seeing as the drawing for the Dwarf was lifted from Hero Quest) was associated.

I was initially really disappointed to find that there was nothing in there about my newly acquired beloved game. But then I got to the bit about Space Fleet and my mind, already dosed on Star Wars, exploded into a realm of galactic possibilities that I’ve never moved away from. I did eventually get Space Fleet which wasn’t the best game ever but I didn’t care because the models, to me, were just epic.

9. The Barbarian – Hero Quest

The model hasn’t aged well. In fact, it’s entirely possible that if a sculptor produced something like that now they’d be sacked. But the fact remains that it was this single solitary model that got me into wargaming. My brother’s best friend had brought his set of Hero Quest over and this was one of the first model I saw and the heroic stance and the massive sword sold me completely.

8. Kurt Helborg - Warhammer Fantasy

The Master of the Reiksguard and a double hard bastard. At first I didn’t like this model but when I really looked at it I saw what a fantastic model it really is and it inspired me to collect a Reiksguard army. Sadly the project was never completed and I had to sell the models once again because I was caught short, but this model was seminal for as it encouraged me to start collecting themed armies. I also think it was quite seminal for Games Workshop as it was around this time that they started to produce some pant tighteningly beautiful character models.

7. Freebooter

A bit of a cheat really as this is an entire range but the Freebooter models have sparked such a love affair for me with my Mordheim Warband, I couldn’t imagine having them any other way. I’ve posted about my warband here so I won’t bang on about them now.

6. FSA Battleship – Dystopian Wars

The FSA Battleship blew me away when I first saw it. It doesn’t get more Steam Punk than an aotmically powered paddle steamer with clock work 9lb cannons. It’s just ace. And even through I’ve sold my FSA fleet in favour of the Covenant of Antarctica I’ll never forget it and the emotions it provoked in me.

5. Sorylian Battleship – Firestorm Armada

This bad boy gets the number 5 slot only because the Spartan Games models are recent additions to my life and I’m yet to develop the attachment that I have with other models but it was this model that totally and completely sold me on giving Spartan Games a try. Weirdly I bought Dystopian Wars first but I think that was entirely because I really wanted to try something new and Steam Punk was totally unexplored territory for me. But the Sorylian Swordbreaker is a fantastic looking ship and fearsome in the game. I never get tired of looking at it.

4. Space Marine Land Raider – Warhammer 40,000

The Space Marine Land Raider was one of my favourite models and I was immensely jealous of my brother for saving up his pocket-money and buying one. I’m two and a half years younger and I was always shit at saving. The sense of achievement I felt saving for a MkI Rhino was utterly destroyed when he came home with what is now known as the Proteus pattern. The first model I bought when I became a Games Workshop member of staff was the new Land Raider. It’s a beast. It’s an incredibly well designed and thought out model, its doors open and everything. And over the years I’ve built 12 of the bloody things. But it just sums up the indomitable will of Space Marines and for that reason I simply love it.

3. Imperial Cruisers – Battlefleet Gothic

I’m massively in love with Space Ships if you couldn’t tell by now. And also Battlefleet Gothic is largely responsible for this. Not only that but the game and these distinctive models blew open the Warhammer 40,000 universe for me. And the two novels – Execution Hour & Shadow Point are epic. But I love these models. I love how versatile the kit is and just how cool they are.

2. Warlord Titan – Epic Armageddon

Not a massive shock really seeing as I’ve been talking about this model recently. It’s just the tits. I mean look at it! A striding building sized weapon of war. I had a Adeptus Titanicus force a few years ago with 3 Warlords in it, each one modified slightly to make them unique. I had to sell the force because it was that or not eat and I often get a pang of regret. It’s my hope I can rebuild the force, starting with the one I’ve just built…

1. Multi-part plastic Space Marines – Warhmmaer 40,000

Unsurprisingly the multipart Space Marines made it to the top spot. I’ve been collecting Space Marines for years and years in one form or another - most recently my Ultramarines. When the multi-part kit came out, replacing those God-awful push together models from Second Edition Warhammer 40,000 I felt like I fell in love with Space Marines all over again. I’ve literally built hundreds of these models and I’ve never ever grown board of doing so, because they look so fucking cool.

So there you go, a few of my favourite things.

Sigmar’s Angels

Posted by Phil on

Von of the Game Over blog commented on my Mordheim and the Comtessa post saying that the concept of female Witch Hunters intrigued him and he’d like to know more.

As I’m always one to pander to my readers in the vain hope of boosting my figures, I thought I’d write a little bit about how I came to have all female Witch Hunters in my Morheim warband.

Having established that The Chaps were up for a Mordheim campaign a year or so ago, I immediately set about trying to decide what warband to collect. It didn’t take long to settle on Witch Hunters because the background was awesome, warhounds and mental and they’re the only ’good guys’ in the game other than the Sisters of Sigmar, and in the original campaign (we’re on the second campaign now) our most senior member already had a fully painted Sisters warband and wanted to use them.

So Witch Hunters it was. The problems I now faced were (A) I didn’t like the Mordheim Witch Hunter box set and (B) the models you got didn’t give you anywhere near enough for a full warband. Now, looking back, had I just bought a couple of boxes it probably would have cost me considerably less than the end result, but I never would have been happy with them and therefore, probably would have lost interest in the campaign.

Having ruled out the box set I needed to figure out how I could get Witch Hunters, a Warrior Priest, Zealots, Flagellants and Warhounds. Needless to say, the Warrior Priest was an easy fix.

I’ve always been a massive fan of this model and it was the perfect excuse I needed to finally get my hands on one. As it goes the model I picked up from my local Hobby Centre was slightly miscast on its head but in such a way that made the model look like he had a horrendous scar running his left cheek, over his eye and across the top of his head. So I left it and Brother Tarsis as he became known was walking into the City of the Damned already a seasoned veteran of many a campaign.

The Witch Hunters were proving really difficult as I was looking at a variety of websites trying to find models that fit the bill and were also the right scale. I’d already decided I wanted a female Witch Hunter as I wanted all 4 of them to be very different in look as the job hardly comes with a uniform. So putting a pin in that part of the project I turned to the zealots and flagellants. Again, this was a no brainer as by this point the multipart plastic kit had been out for a while and, again, it’s a box set I’d had my eye on for a while.

The variety in the kit allowed me to make 4 very distinct models with armaments to reflect their role in the warband so although painted roughly the same, they were visually very different. And of course, the bonus with buying a regiment box over a blister pack is that as my warband develops I have the luxury of building alternative weapon load outs for my merry bunch of mentalists and swapping them out as needed.

The warhounds were slightly more difficult as I couldn’t anything that looked remotely like a Warhound and the Mordheim ones weren’t available singly and were going for a fortune on eBay. During a lunch break I got chatting to the then manager of my Hobby Centre and between us we realised that with a clever bit of converting the Chaos Warhounds would be amazing dogs for a Witch Hunter warband. Massive, slavering, brutal creatures who exist to tear heretics limb from limb.

A strategic bit of clipping and green-stuffing gave me three hulking black beasts ready to bring my own personal brand of retribution on my opponents. Plus the utterly ridiculous size of the models gives me quite the psychological advantage in games. That’s not to say dogs aren’t ferocious opponents but they’re limited in what they can do and need to hunt in packs. A loan Flagellant with a flail will cause you far more pain than a single dog. But anyway…

By this point my intended 12 model warband had already cost me quite a bit so I’d given up worrying money and focussed on finding models that I really liked. And having bought a couple of Freebooter models in the past, it didnt’ take me long to find myself browsing their site. As I said I’d already decided I wanted a female Witch Hunter as I saw them as agents of the Empire, moving through towns and cities their presence unfelt by heretics until it was too late and I always felt that a female ‘agent of th Empire’ made complete sense. It wasn’t long before I had found 4 models that I really liked and sat their trying to decide which one I was going to buy. Then a thought struck me. Just get them all.

4 female Witch Hunters. Now at first, being a bit of a background puritan, it didn’t sit that well with me. One female Witch Hunter I could justify, but 4? Really? But I started to think about how the Witch Hunters would operate, realistically. In any other Imperial city a Witch Hunter could walk through the streets as a symbol of Sigmar’s wrath and be feared. In the City of the Damned? Subterfuge would be their primary weapon and who better than a team of female Witch Hunters. Just to be clear at this point, this isn’t sexism, this a fantasy civilisation with its origins set in a pseudo feudal, pre-industrial Germanic empire. It’s reasonable to assume that ‘the little woman stayed home’.

But more than anything it was the variety of the models. That each Witch Hunter has a different method of waging the unseen war. One is dressed in a floor length dress, another looks like she’s spent her years amongst the docks and warehouses of Marienburg or other coastal settlements and so on. The models tell a story before I’ve even rolled a dice and I love that. The impending purchase of the Comtessa model will move the story on again, giving a whole new persona to Izabella Von Strauss, and in turn to Penelope who will go from being a great sword wielding adventurer to the aforementioned cutlass wielding, grog swilling, pistol toting seadog.

But even before that adjustment to the background, by having female Witch Hunters it brings a new twist to their entourage’s motives. The zealots and flagellants fight all the harder for these Witch Hunters, their righteous zeal caught up and twisted by an unhealthy infatuation with their betters that could consume as readily as Chaos would, with equally disasterous results. And Brother Tarsis who struggles to keep the shattered souls of his flock pure, reluctantly following the instructions of his masters whilst inwardly affording them a grudging and hard-earned respect.

And so I present to you my Witch Hunter warband - Sigmar’s Wrath