17 replies to this topic

[The Bearded Baron]

Since the end of 8th edition i've been struggling to find another system to play, as some of you will know from my last-stand rhetoric concerning the the warhammer world. Creatively, imaginatively and spiritually I never left the Old World. So I have been having a real problem moving on. Subsequently I came very close to packing the hobby in altogether. 

 

That is until I took an interest in Mordheim. I don't know why it never grabbed me before, possibly because it was out of production from the time I started playing tabletop. But recently I've come to have a new respect for older games (or a lack of confidence in new ones!) and have started building a table and some warbands.

 

For anybody who hasn't given Mordheim a fair crack of the whip yet, like myself, I urge you to try. The setting, the tone, the gameplay and the post-game loot/injury tables/ experience and leveling up is just about more addictive than any other game i've tried. 

 

I'm not a natural scenery maker, or painter for that matter, but I have found a real interest in building my own corner of the City of the Damned. In fact for a long time I was fighting against the idea of posting here because how could my little destroyed houses made out of balsa wood and cereal boxes share a stage with all the phenomenally well painted minis that are displayed in these threads? In the end I decided to share my labour of love to remind anybody out there who was/is in my position of being lost and wanting to give up on the hobby and pack your paints away, to just try something new. Keep looking until you find something that appeals. There will always be something that holds that original appeal that snags you and drags you back in to the hobby.

 

 

So off and on (heavy emphasis on 'off') I have been collecting the materials and building this board and the warbands for the last 12 months. Now that I have the table somewhere full enough to play a game on I thought i'd start this thread just to keep myself motivated with my progress going forward.

 

 

 

 

My First Warband: 

 

 

 

 

The Baron's Robbers   (Reikland Mercenary Warband)

 

Usually rich and powerful men send warbands to Mordheim in their stead. The Baron Varrenberg was once such a man but political circumstances created by his rivals has forced the once proud house of varrenberg into hard times. The Baron lost his wife and two daughters in the betrayal and two more of his sons in his bloody attempt to retake his castle from his rivals. With only his youngest children and a handful of loyal retainers left he has been forced to flee Altdorf and gamble everything he has left on one final gambit. To go to Mordheim, city of the damned, and make his fortune back. Enough to beat his rivals and re-take what is his... Or will this dangerous last ditch attempt from a strongly driven man be the final act of his house as he condemns what's left of it to certain doom in the twisted streets of Mordheim. Doom or glory awaits!

 

 

 

Heroes

 

Leader

 

Baron Varrenberg

Light armour, sword, shield, dagger

 

Champion

 

Franz Steinbach (Master of Arms)
Halberd, dagger

 

Young Bloods

 

Dietrich Varrenberg (Last son of Baron Varrenberg)

 

Light armour, sword, dagger

 

Freida Varrenberg (Last daughter of Baron Varrenberg)

 

Light armour, Two-handed Sword, dagger

 

 

Henchmen

 

 

2x Swordsmen (Remnants of the Varrenberg Household Guard)

 

Swords, daggers

 

3x Marksmen (The Baron's Gamekeepers)

 

Longbows, daggers

 

1x Warrior (Household Staff)

 

Clerk Winters (The Baron's tax collector)

 

Mace, buckler, dagger

 

 

 

 

The Wrydstone

 

 

The fate of the Baron's family rests on the acquisition of the strange substance known as Wyrdstone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by The Bearded Baron, 10 February 2017 - 10:25 AM.

[The Bearded Baron]

The City of the Damned

 

The idea that I had when I started is that I wanted all of the individual pieces to be modular, to fit together and be re-positioned to create vastly different boards for each game. The games I had seen played always used large buildings that looked fantastic but the battles always ended up being played in the same ways then.

 

In making my terrain pieces 'interconnect' a bit better I made sure that every floor was measured in 2" increments (the fall distance that you roll for in game terms) And all obstacles were clearly less or more than an inch (the height your models can freely move over them in game terms).

 

I also wanted mordheim to retain that monochrome, dull, grey feel. I didn't like all the colourful buildings used to represent mordheim. I realise that before the destruction of the city they would have had more colour but I wanted to try and make a 'grey-wash' world, where all the buildings sort of blended together to form this miserable backdrop. But at the same time I didn't want to make them featureless and boring (or too simple).

 

This project is very much a work in progress and hopefully with each new building I can learn some new techniques and more daring ways of making them.

 

The cityscape I have so far:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thorvald the Relentless]

Great work, especially the city! Amazingly done. But you certainly need more warp-crystals!

[Thane Wrok Bearslayer]

This scenery looks great! I like the idea of it being interchangable. 

Is there a possibility of a few battlereports of Mordheim? Very curious how these games play out. 

[The Bearded Baron]

Thanks for the replies fellas!

 

Thorvald, I don't think people of the Old World are used to the concept of Dilithium yet... I do have six or seven Wyrdstone counters, will be working on some treasure counters too.

 

Bearslayer, I would be more than happy to post up some written battle reports for mordheim. I have two done already and will post them in the Mordheim section over the weekend. The 'battles' are short, gritty and usually bloody!

 

I will also be painting up my Dwarf Treasure Hunters soon (to ensure that this topic isn't entirely on the wrong website!)

[Thorgrimmir]

The table is gorgeous, and so is the warband

[The Bearded Baron]

Cheers, Thorgrimmir. I'm finding it's actually helpful to share these labours of love rather than just hoarding them away in the dark corners of my house. 

 

 

 

The Warehouse

 

Most of the photos I have now are of projects already completed, since I didn't have the foresight to take photos through the development process, I don't have too many. Honestly I didn't think I'd ever have a mordheim table, I just kept my head down painting and kept buying balsa wood!

 

But I do have a few before and after shots of the last building I finished, the Warehouse. I wanted a large centre-piece building that was relatively in-tact that could act as a campaign objective for a story-driven campaign I have going on with my Reiklanders.

 

 

The construction is simple (as befits the constructor!) I used MDF sheets for the bases. I cut them down in some cases into odd shaped. I found square bases were better for keeping the table modular but it looked 'off' to me. So i went with more uneven shaped to keep the place looking like a ruin.

 

I used Foamcore boards for the walls. Balsa wood for all the wooden planks, floorboards and doors. I used cardboard sheets cut into 2cmx2cm squares for the roof tiles (in future I want to do a little more damage to each tile, I think to represent the destruction) I used a combination of balsa wood strips and pre-bought plastic window pieces for some of the windows.

 

The piles of rubble and other little features were made with modelling clay and the walls and rubble were painted with textured house paint.

 

I used GW paints mostly to paint it up. I had large quantities of Dryad Bark and Codex Grey made up at a paint shop (small pots wouldn't cut it here..and i couldn't bring myself to move away from citadel paints!) 

 

The wood is: Dryad Bark, Aggrax Wash, Flayed One Flesh (or similar) Drybrush.

The rocks/walls are: Codex Grey, Nuln Oil Wash, Administratum Grey Drybrush and Ceramite White Drybrush

The Tiles are: Macragge Blue, Drakenhoff Wash, Altdorf Guard Blue (or similar) drybrush

 

 

 

For the chain, I glued a balsa wood frame up. Then I chopped down a balsa wood dowel to make the runner and cut a slit into the wood to house it. Then glued a tiny chain I picked up from a hobby seller on ebay around the dowel and glued it into place. The hook on the end is a bit of sprue cut into shape and scale.

 

The warehouse is also the first building I made that has a detachable second floor. The top storey separates from the bottom, mostly for ease of transport (if that ever arises) and to ensure you can move models around in the corners of the ground floor.

Edited by The Bearded Baron, 12 February 2017 - 10:11 AM.

[Thorvald the Relentless]

Gorgeous! It's hard to do good terrain when you are not skilled enough to, but when you are... Simply amazing. Will you make towers as well?

[The Bearded Baron]

Well, Thorvald, if there was a level below 'beginner' that was me when I started. Obviously I'm no pro at it, yet, but i've gotten as far as I have just by giving it a go. You pick it up as you go along and I would encourage anybody who hasn't had a go at making some terrain to just try it! You don't need loads of bits and pieces, you can pick up everything you need for £5 off ebay to get started, even if you just make a few rubble piles. But to be honest the houses are a lot simpler than I thought they'd be. The tricky part is when you come to apply a lot of detail and intricate architecture (you wont find much of that in my corner of mordheim yet!)

 

I have a dwarf watchtower project on my bench and it has been there for about two years now. I really will finish it one day! In terms of watchtowers in Mordheim I haven't really planned to do it yet, as the city you play in is largely ruined houses and streets. However, if anybody has played the PC game Mordheim: City of the Damned, I am very tempted to try and recreate the Guardhouse from the Mercenaries campaign mission. Complete with ruined towers, dungeons and lots of high-up levels overlooking the courtyard and stables. 

[Alebelly_Cragfist]

Great updates TBB and glad you stuck to the Old World. (We're cut from the same cloth!)

 

I've been thinking about doing very similar, although may take the core rules of Mordheim and set them in an overrun Dwarf Hold, wyrdstone being replaced with lost Dawi treasures in some capacity.

 

Where did you get the green crystals from? They look great as markers

[Steven]

BB, those are amazing buildings! The statue and the wyrdstone are especially cool. I'm a huge fan of Mordheim myself; it's where I get to actually use all my minis.

Have you checked out Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum? That place is a lot of fun, and very useful.

[Falgrin]

That's really inspiring. Care to share how you did the pile of wood? Both assembly and painting.

[The Bearded Baron]

Cheers, Alebelly. Somehow I thought you'd be of a similar mindset. I can't see myself ever leaving the Old World now, even if it is just silly old buggers like you and I doddering around the empty Karaks. 

 

The green crystals are from the 'Underway Basing Kit' that GW did. I had it sat at the bottom of a box for the longest time. I'm not entirely sold on them looking exactly like Wyrdstone, but then again if you read all the descriptions about what that stuff is meant to look like there would be no way of modelling it. I dabbed a bit of green wash on the tiles to make a glow and it helped them no end, I think.

 

 

Steven, that's quite high praise coming from you, buddy! What's a few old ruins compared to a full dwarf hold, eh? I have been to the website once or twice before but never posted on it. I have made an account now, so when I do a bit more I'll think about putting full reports up on there. Cheers for the tip!

 

 

Falgrin, thanks pal. That's what I was going for. So it's great to hear.

 

For years I only used PVA to glue anything together. I used to line building edges or rubble up, glue them and pin them. Then leave them overnight. It was slow going but it worked. Then one saturday afternoon i'm walking around Hobbycraft with the wife and I spot bottles of 'Balsa Cement'. Its on offer so I shove one in the basket. Now it's not that I hadn't heard of this stuff before, but being a tight yorkshireman I was at loggerheads because PVA was £2/litre. Anyway, long story short, it revolutionised how I make stuff out of Balsa Wood. It's quick setting, easy to use, not messy and it really allows you to do whatever you want with wood.

 

I cut down a sheet of balsa wood into 1cm strips (I think the sheet was half a cm thick too). Then I broke them off at odd angles and got a few spare pieces left over from the warehouse and sort of arranged them on my workbench to look like a pile of timbers. When they were rough enough around the edges I glued them with Balsa Cement and let them dry (would have hated to attempt this project with PVA!) Once solid I sprayed with black primer. Base coated with Dryad Bark (I have a 5ltr tub of the stuff, i had made up a year ago). Washed with Aggrax Earthshade. Then drybrushed with Flayed One Flesh (or similar light brown).

 

So:

 

Balsa wood sheet
Hobby knife
Balsa Cement
Paints

2 hours (including dry time)

 

I'll post up some of the barricades I made using Balsa Cement too, it really is a quick way to model up scenery, I recommend it!

Edited by The Bearded Baron, 20 February 2017 - 07:58 AM.

[Dourin]

Looking very nice there BB. I know where you're coming from, the death of the old world quite literally destroyed my fantasy hobby for well over a year. Even to the extent that I switched over (partially anyway) to 40k. But the lure of gothic low fantasy is always there and what better way to get over the apocalypse of the old world then to play its post-apocalyptic game, Mordheim.

 

Some great terrain, I'll be very interested to see this continue!

[The Bearded Baron]

Cheers, Dourin. I really fell for Mordheim, such a rich background and setting. So what was it that brought you back into the fantasy end of the hobby then post-AOS?

 

 

 

My apologies, Falgrin that I don't have work-in-progress photots of the wood structures. I may make up another batch of wood piles and upload the snaps, but in the meantime, here are some of the wooden structures I made, pretty much in just one evening, using just balsa wood and balsa cement. It got addictive with how quickly and solidly it set! I really should work on putting more detail into them but I was just impressed with the speed I was churning them out at!

 

 

 

 

 

I was surprised just how much the barricades changed the gameplay as well. They really did add a tactical depth. I deliberately made them just taller than 1", which meant that a climb test was necessary to get over them AND much more importantly any model who was knocked down on top of it had to roll to see if they fell off. When in Mordheim, always err on the side of Carnage!

[Dourin]

Well, for it me it was more a question of needing some time to get over the destruction of the Old World. I won't lie, it hurt to see a world / universe in which you've poured a lot of yourself destroyed. I tried to simply continue on and 'relocate' my dwarfs to the AOS-setting but it didn't work. Now we're a few years into the new setting, I've come to terms with it (mainly through writing my own fantasy setting for an rpg campaign in which the Dwarfs are frigging kickass) and decided to let the dichotomy stand: my square based-dwarfs will stay in the old world and some future Duardin will happily be their descendants playing in the AoS-setting.

 

The blood bowl models also helped out though.

 

[Alebelly_Cragfist]

(Not wanting to hijack - but is the new Blood Bowl setting good? I'm quite tempted, but not a fan of the artistic direction of the Dwarfs, so would pick up a 2nd ed team or something).

 

I'm hoping the rumours of a new Mordheim game are true.

[Thorvald the Relentless]

Great work as usual, I love this barricades, they look like really wooden structures. Maybe some traps as well?