Mordheim Dwarf Treasure Hunters

While tidying up my workshop this weekend, I stumbled across my copy of Mordheim, the fantasy miniatures skirmish rules from Games Workshop's Specialist Games division. Mordheim is a game about small warbands plundering a cursed city, in search of wyrdstone, a Chaos-related element of the Warhammer campaign milieu. The attraction of Mordheim is that, unlike Warhammer itself, you don't need oodles of figures to play. Caveat emptor: I have not played it yet, but am interested, hence this post.

With my final re-run of the Battle of Ashak Rise about to reach its bloody conclusion, and the Linden Way scenario not quite ready yet - although I hope to have this ready soon - my thoughts turn to Mordheim, a slightly more detailed skirmish wargame exercise than the Lord of the Rings rules we are using for the Orc's Drift campaign.

To play Mordheim, you need warbands, and I've started to patrol my existing collection of 28mm miniatures to see what we have to hand. At first glance it looks like I could potentially field the following starting warbands:

1. Bretonnians
2. Human Mercenaries
3. Dwarves
4. Undead
5. Orcs

Not a bad start really, and I'm not far off having a Cult of the Possessed warband ready to go as well. SIX warbands makes Mordheim well with reach.

As an experiment, I've tried to put together a starting warband of Dwarves, based on the small posse of dwarves currently engaged at Ashak Rise, and soon to be wiped out there in all likelihood! Each starting warband in Mordheim is based on a budget of 500 gold crowns. This is in effect your points value allotment with which to purchase initial troops and equipment for the game. It works in a very similar way to team management in Blood Bowl.

Dwarf Treasure Hunters

1 Dwarf Noble (85) with Light Armour (+20), Helmet (+10), Dwarf Axe (+15) and Shield (+5) = 135 GC.

1 Dwarf Clansman (40) with Light Armour (+20), Helmet (+10), Double Handed Weapon (+15), x2 Axes (+10) = 95 GC


3 Dwarf Thunderers (120) with Helmet (+10 each) and Crossbow (+25 each) = 225 GC


1 Dwarf Beardling (25) with Double Handed Weapon (+15) = 40 GC


Total = 495 GC.

As you can see, you don't need a lot of miniatures to play Mordheim. In this case, the starting warband is only six figures. Admittedly, the Thunderers consume a great deal of the points value, but I get the impression missile weapons like crossbows can be quite deadly in this game. Not sure whether the Clansman will need those axes, but they're on the figure, so I'm including them in the list.

When I have time I'll have a crack at an Undead warband...if you want to access a vast amount of free Mordheim goodness, the Mordheimer site at www.mordheimer.com is worth a visit.