Last Thursday there was a gathering of five Mordheim players, and I ended up playing one three player game.
I was absurdly tired then (well, nobody forced me to stay up for over 30 hours) so anything I write here should be taken with a grain of salt. Or perhaps even with mixture of crushed glass and salt.
But that much I know that the scenario was multiplayer ambush where defender was the warband with highest rating (beastmen) and the rest were attackers, and game would last for ten rounds without taking rout tests... how insanely punishing for the defending warband! Well, I guess it's high risk, high reward sort of thing, because every defending hero was carrying d3 wyrdstone shards.
We also used the Random Happenings, where every player rolls a dice at the beginning of turn and when 1 comes up, something happens, and only once per game.
It looks like I was a sloppy picture taker here, as I took only three shot. But first, however, seems to be taken from turn where the beastman leader saw a Nurgling from across a crumbled wall, and thanks to frenzy, it had to charge in.
Well. The beastman leader was in a horrible position, but still I didn't dare to attack it. The leader had this scary special skill, where it'd get to make attacks first, regardless of charges and initiative.
So instead I thought it'd be best to try and shoot the beast down, as I got to make four ranged attacks against it, three of them at point blank range. Four attacks only stunned the leader, but at least my clowns would feel a little bit more confident next turn to charge a target that was lying unconscious on the ground.
Somewhere here a random happening number fourteen was rolled - the upcoming hurricane has caused some high winds to hinder combat. From now on all hit rolls (in close combat and ranged attacks) were made with -1 penalty and all initiative tests suffered the same penalty, too. I guess this was a boon for beastmen, who, to be honest, needed it.
The beastmen and the undead hadn't yet closed in that turn, but soon enough they did. Second picture is from an angle that will break necks, but anyway, it looks like Carnival has managed to shoot that beastman leader down, and at least Centigor is stunned or knocked down. One undead wolf-hound or dire wolf or what they are called seems to be dead, too - wasn't enough to stall whole bunch of beastmen, I suppose.
Carnival's plague bearer (Hordes Feralgeist in picture) and brute with double-handed weapon were slowly skulking to right side of the board, hopefully coming late even to the afterparty, and rake in a few extra wyrdstone shards from half dead targets.
Undead closed in against the beastmen next, which was fine by me. In the picture you can see the joker-esque Tainted One stalking a good time to charge in with its impressive WS 4 and three attacks.
Beastman leader went dead here, and half of my warband were rather stranded away from action.
Situation looked really hopeless for the Beastmen, but somehow they managed to slowly endure the waves of undead. The undead player was rolling dice really badly, and was grateful when he rolled a second hit in the whole game in somewhere around third round of combat, or something like that...
Centigor and some other gor were going to come at the two-handed weapon wielding brute and plague bearer, but there isn't a picture for reference. Situation there went something like that some kind of gor charged the brute and stunned him, and it was Carnival turn next, so brute raised one step to "knocked down" status... still a really bad status to be in combat! Plague Bearer had to charge in to save the brute, though I was really hesitant to get the bearer into melee... they're 50 gold coins per nose, or in some cases multiples of noses, but the point is they're not cheap, and if taken out of action, they die 50% of the time.
But the plague bearer didn't die. Swarm of Flies and the high winds and WS 4 caused enemy to hit mostly on 6+, or in some rare cases 5+. It's a mystery how the flies weren't blown away by the winds. I don't think it killed the gor, though it did kill the centigor next turn. If memory serves, the gor was stunned, so when my turn came around the brute stood up and smashed the gor.
Somewhere, somehow, I had thought that the joker Tainted One could charge beastman shaman, and perhaps kill it or at least stun it with three attacks. Nope. Not today.
When it was the beastmen turn, the shaman and tainted one attacked each other with same iniative, and took each other out of action. Pantomime gone all wrong. Or right. Depends from the point of view.
So, I had only three heroes on board now (one was recovering from his dive to the well and didn't take part in this game) and I really wanted some wyrdstone shards from search, too. Since beastmen and the undead were mostly occupied with each other, I did the courageous route of action, and ran as far away as possible with my whole warband all the remaining few turns.
I got to pay for my cowardice right away. I found only two shards, though I had collected four from beastmen.
Two nurglings out of three dead nurglings died completely, and my joker... my poor joker. My beloved little joker. He died.
Other than that I couldn't complain the advances I got. Carnival Master raised ballistic skill by one, and the two-weapon wielding brute got another skill, which was sprint. That's 12" charging Strength 6 hero right there, with two Wounds and Resilient skill. If I ever lose that one I think I'm bound to cry.
The surviving Tainted One rolled one extra attack, which was a bit of a lackluster with only WS of 2.
The henchmen group of two Brethren rolled "The lad's got talent", so I was overjoyed. I chose academic and shooting skills for him, because if I ever lost Carnival Master, I'd lose access to academic skills forever. Or at least until I'd get another Lad's got talent, which isn't something you should count on.
He also got an additional wound from the free roll at hero advancement table, and seems like I have forgotten to re-roll the result for the lone guy at henchmen group. Need to remember that next time.
I had one wyrdstone shard stashed, and I sold all seven. I couldn't bear the loss of my joker, so I bought him back, new and improved. Though it cost just about all gold I had, I thought it'd be good investment for future to have a Tainted One with Hideous and Cloud of Flies mutation. I guess if you want to think it storywise, yeah, the clown did die even by Carnival's standards, and he was left rotting in some back alley. And when he got back to camp later, stinking more putrid than ever and nesting a host of flies, nobody even said: "Oh, sorry. Welcome back."
I still got gold to buy one nurgling I had lost.
Even after all these changes and advancements my warband rating dropped. Well... only by one, but still.
Now I need to start saving for the plague cart. Can't make a proper show without a decent cart.
No comments:
Post a Comment