Painting - Werebear

This Werebear and human form are from Mierce Miniatures.  I got them as part of a Kickstarter a couple years ago and since passed them on.

The new owner Adam intends it for Mordheim and affiliated to Kislev.

He chose the polar bear look, so I went for an assortment of colours to contrast with the fur without being too harsh.

The Werebear is mounted on a 40mm sculpted base, so you can get a idea of its size.  Below is the big chap in his human form which I colour matched to match.  Based on a 25mm base with freehand stonework.

 Now back to the Knight.

Mordheim - Warband progress

So over the past few weekends we have continued to play a game or two of Mordheim.  I even bought some Helldorado miniatures from Slave to Painting to supplement the warband.  They are very nice metal miniatures with very little flash or mold lines present.  Once I get around to painting them I will share.

It is interesting how things begin to scale in it Mordheim.  Initially I was doing very well with my Tilean rogues but as the xp ticks over the more monstrous creatures of the cursed city begin to claw their way to the top of the heap.   We have enjoyed some massive terrain choked multi player games.  Dan's Possessed Carnival has gotten away with a massive amount of Wyrdstone due to the rest of engaging in combat with each other and being very wary of his leveled up pair of Possessed.

Dan's Dark Carnival and Aaron's Undead are bringing some intimidating warband members to the table.  Dan's possessed and mutants are maxing out their strength stats through good fortune on the advancement rolls and Aaron's Vampire boasting an increasing statline finally found his suit of Gromril armour.  Yes Aaron if you buy him a shield that's a 3+ armour save.  The 18" charge/run he has from the Sprint skill is the icing on the cake.

Where does this leave the humans?  Well some expensive losses from henchman deaths and Esante getting robbed after a game! Have really knocked the Gankers about.  With the human statline capped earlier than the Chaos blessed and Vampires it's down to a good selection of skills to accumulate.

Esante got hit with a chest wound putting a permanent -1 on his toughness but I soon gained Resilience to count strength against him in melee at -1.  His good fortune with Step Aside and Parry rolls also means he is annoying as ever to my opponents, I'm sure my heavily accented commentary during the game has nothing to do with it.

Corrus my warband leader has 3 attacks now!  Thats a lot in Mordheim, with his paired swords he is quite formidable in combat.  The above image depicts Corrus, on the right about to tear Dan's Carnival mutant - Kissing Booth I think, a new one but with a fluff of the rolls my leading combine harvester got the smack down.  He then suffered a Head Injury, this could have been my chance to get Frenzy, stacking nicely with all the attacks.  But no, Corrus was struck with Stupidity like his rebellious swordsman Esante.  Here's hoping for a leadership boost next time.

The other heroes haven't really done anything to shine yet, though Tyro the promoted swordsman has done well with his random ballistic skill increase and a crossbow.  The rest just have to do their best to pick off vulnerable enemies and maintain distance before the inhuman monstrosities close in.  In our multi player games where your deployment zone is determined by a dice roll I seem to keep ending up next to the undead and that 18" charge.  As long as Esante is in the front the others shall be fine.

This weekend just been, we dusted off the original Necromunda rulebooks and had a couple games of that too.  It has been many many years since I played it but most of the mechanics from the pseudo 2nd ed 40k era came back to me.  In the two games that were played no one actually made it into melee, though I did intend too but you get so close with a plasma pistol and of course you are going to shoot it!.

So now we can skip between Fantasy and 40k settings too.  Good motivation to paint up some odd characterful miniatures for both systems.

Mordheim - Back to the Cursed City

Over the last couple of weekends I have enjoyed playing Mordheim again.  Full credit for this goes to a good friend of mine, Dan.  Dan is down this way from Auckland doing some training and in his little free time of the weekends we have started a new campaign in the ruins of Mordheim.

Dan has also brought all his homemade terrain with him.  His very nice collection paired with my vast amount of terrain sets, mean we can cover the table pretty thoroughly with loads to spare.

It's really nice to feel the warband evolution with these skirmish games as after 4 games in I have a couple models developing a 'personality' which I'll touch on further in a moment.

When choosing warbands and restricting ourselves to the main book, Dwarves and Orcs and Goblins I chose the humans for simplicity.  Looking over my options and future skill sets I went for Middenheim gaining the Strength bonus on my heroes straight away.  Dan went straight for Cult of the Possessed and for our first game we rolled Surprise Attack.

Now this scenario had Dan with only part of his warband on the table and he had to spread them out.  I then deployed onto a random table edge and got the one closest to two of the Cult's isolated members.  After a first turn charge on these two cultists and beating them into the ground Dan immediately routed and so my Warband was named, The Dirty Gankers!

When choosing models I had a look over some of my random pieces and selected some old Confrontation miniatures I had painted years ago.  They had a variety of weaponry and fit the Assassin theme I was now going for.  I had already made a handful of Empire militia with hooded Wood Elf heads so they were perfect as well.

So in my four games I have ganked Dan's Cult, followed up with routing him in a Street Brawl, my Captain Corrus has slain a young Chimera while Cody's Undead warband got put back in the grave by Dan's cult and finally voluntarily routed as Dan's Cult and Stu's Greenskin Warband, the Dirty Skids allied against me after I saw off Aaron's Undead.  Quite an eventful few games.

Now individuals showing their prowess have certainly been Corrus the Captain, armed with dual swords, heavy armour, shield, a lucky charm and now a Dueling Pistol for good measure.  He has put a handful of enemies out of the game (starting strength 4 helps!) and as I mentioned against all odds killed a young Chimera in the Monster Hunt. 

Brio the Youngblood in turn has not had the best experience in the city yet.  This young man suffered a terrible leg wound early on, reducing his movement permanently.  Not to be stopped he picked up the Sprint skill to compensate - triple movement when running and charging lets him keep up with the able bodied folk and least.  Now fate has cursed him with an Old Battle Wound as well!  This means on a 1 his gimpy leg keeps him from the action all together.  At least he is hardened now after charging a mutant across a rickety walkway saw him put out of action, he gained immunity to Fear though so he is learning from his trials. 

 Esante the shadow killer

The last real member of note is Esante.  Esante has used his dueling pistol and sword to good effect in every game, this cocky duelist from Estalia has done serious damage to members of the Cult though not without some costs.  Esante earned Hardened early on, this made sense with the close quarter fighting against the children of chaos, then after a serious blow to the head he was cursed with what some may call 'Stupidity'!  This has had little effect yet though as if he is forced to walk ahead and do little else it merely represents his swagger and disregard for danger in the ruined city.  This was proven in the last game as he charged a Squig only then to be counter charged by the Orc boss and a Troll!  Surely this would be the end of Esante, but no.  Esante dodged the greenskins attacks with his Step Aside ability and deft parries from his sword.  He then proceeded to take not only the Squig but also the Orc Boss out of the fight!  Luckily the chance to voluntarily route came soon after and Corrus called the retreat saving Esante from further assault from the Troll.  Esante would go on to berate Corrus as surely a fighter of Esante's skill would have bested the Troll in time.  I will point out that when controlling Esante I do talk in a silly accent which funnily enough reminds the other players of Inigo Montoya.

So these games will continue over the next few months giving us a nice faster alternative to full scale Warhammer Fantasy and 40k when time is short.  I look forward to painting up the other members of the warband and seeing what rivalries develop.  Good news after the last game is that aside from my hired Elf Ranger being killed by Dire Wolves - oh dear, how sad, never mind.  Esante finally found another dueling pistol so can fire each turn now,  this simple fact will put the fear of God into the other warbands, at least that's what Esante will tell himself.