Bandit Country

This week saw the Enfield Gamers return to its first organised quarterly campaign in a while, namely Mordheim.

I'm running it and have, as usual, gone alternative using the Empire in Flames wilderness campaign rules. As much as anything the scenery requirements are easier to fulfil though I want to get as many of the club's many building on the tables as possible.

Set in and around the town of Grunwald (see the NEW dedicated blog page) and with six gaming nights available the format is one "normal" game followed by a round of multi-player pit-fights with each warband entering a limited number of fighters.

Each gaming night represents a campaign week. The main scenario is the warband being out and about on their nefarious business. The pit fight represents The Count of Grunwald's gladiatorial games which bonus experience and loot on offer along with some battlefield medicine!

First night was particularly rural with everyone playing the Bounty Hunting scenario, competing to bring in the heads of various bands of ruffians who have fallen out with The Count!

Not being entirely sure of numbers I set up 4 table to get 10 players, so two tables were a three-way which the scenario insisted wouldn't be a problem. The main problem for most was that the various bandits didn't fancy being taken in and caused more casualties amongst the players than any of the actual players!

I faced off against Rob's incredibly small band of 5 Dwarves and Charlie's more sizable band of Reiklanders. With 15 Orcs, Goblins and Squigs I foolhardily split my force and went after both warbands. Hmmm.... classic Orc if you ask me!

Rob lost two of his number to Bandit crossbow fire almost immediatelyely only to rout once he had met me in combat. Charlie meanwhile hid behind a wood which then became the scene for a Tex-Mex standoff before time forced his hand. Brief and bloody tooth vs shield action saw me fail my first rout check, as my boss had been Bandited into unconsciousness, to hand him a cowardly, cowardly victory. 

The pit fight was set in The Count's Keep's garden, quite the mouthful, with bonus exploration rolls for tagging and controlling the central tree. Taking on Rich's Orcs and Stuart's Reilklanders, Rich charged for the tree with a single Orc and then hid leaving myself and Stuart to battle for the tree.

Numbers told as I'd taken in just one Orc hero backed by Gobbos and Squigs. Victory was mine!! All good fun for everyone on the night I can see that I'm going to enjoy this one enormously :) 

It's already occured that Mordheim may work as an ideal ruleset for Zombie Village, so this will be an excellent bit of additional playtest! Work, work, work ;)