Slowing... up!

The blog has been dead silent for a few months, and this time the hobby front was kinda silent too. We ended our Mordheim campaign as a club, and we're going to start another one early October. A part from that, nothing to be seen on my workbench and on the wargaming table: 2025 was a very busy year until now!

Today I took the brushes for the first time since forever, so it was the time for a post! Hope to retake on the blog soon.

May your Choppa be sharp,

Amarok

The first guys for my Mordheim Warband for the upcoming campaign. This time I went for a black primer paint. Some ragout on the background

"O Captain, My Captain!" - Our great return to the City of the Damned

Here we are again on Amarok's Lair! Three dry months for the blog, however not at all three dry months for the hobby. Summer's gone, and we just entered the greenest month of all (more on that later). However, between some holidays and various events for our families and ourselves, Grimbeorn and I managed to do something very big... the Biggest Battle We Ever Played. I'll add a link to that post as soon as I complete it.

Just yesterday, however, we started a brand new Mordheim campaign within our small club of friends. Our great return in the City of the Damned for an organized event generated from the idea of replaying from the beginning the first ever Italian national Mordheim Campaign, Necromantic Storm (in Italian Tempesta Necromantica).

A little hobby update #1

This is the first post entirely written and posted from my smartphone. Not exactly an exciting news, but definitely an update for me 😂

However, just a little update from the Lair’s workbench! In this days I finally picked up my brushes from lethargy and prepared from new stuff for various project. I’m planning on concentrate on something new very soon… maybe some Warbands for Warhammer Fantasy to smash Grimbeorn on the battlefield. In the meantime, here it goes.

I made some tokens for the national Mordheim campaign we’re attending. With these we can mark the dead models which return on the battlefield as Undead… we hope to use them the least possibile!

A couple models I built for my Empire Army and obviously for Mordheim purposes too. These are Luthor, a special miniature designed by Tuomas Pirinen, the author of Mordheim game, representing a lone mercenary from the ruins of the City of the Damned, and a Mage from the Lore of the Beasts, or alternatively a Priest of Taal, made from the bits of the Imperial Griffon kit.

My newest project is building my first ever 3D printed miniatures! I purchased an STL file from the manufacturer Reptilian Overlords, Priests and Penitents, and with the first batch printed I will have two Warriors Priests of Sigmar on foot and ten Flagellants. Perfect miniatures for my Empire Army (and for an upcoming Witch Hunters Mordheim Warband too…)

“I smell some hereeeeeetiiiiics!” 😈

Technical update: Blogger is not exactly optimised for smartphone, at least not for my iPhone. I’m currently using Google Chrome as browser (I though that with Safari would have been even worst, but I still have to try that out). Writing and pic posting went well, but all format options are hard to pick due to bad viewing on screen… not the best. I couldn’t modify the font of the captions under the photos. However, it worked and I can now post even without my computer.

A couple of dry months for the Lair

It's been almost four months since my last post. Italy is sadly suffering for a drought, so it's the Lair. We hope that both could be watered soon.

However, it didn't mean we had four months of absolute hobby stop. We played some games with our little club (mostly Mordheim), we tried some new games (more on that soon) and we're ready to dive deep into pur beloved world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in the next few months. Only painting and modelling have been cast aside for me since Easter, due to some time issues, work and life related. I'm currently moving to a new apartment with my fiancée, so maybe I'll take on my brushes a little less during this Summer. Waiting for Autumn to retake my hobby job more seriously.

With this post, I just want to put my hands back on the blog and set some good habits for the future. 

***

So, speaking about Mordheim, we finally started Necromantic Storm, Tempesta Necromantica, the first national Italian campaign powered by the active Italian community. With more than 100 players, we're happy to contribute in this great adventure throughout our country! Every club is free in playing the six different scenarios that the national referees will send us from June to December. We count eight players in our group:

1. Paolo - Witch Hunters
2. Andrea - Undead
3. Alessandro - Skaven
4. Davide (Grimbeorn) - Middenheimers
5. Michele (Frontlineminiaturist) - Averlanders
6. Carlo - Horned Hunters
7. Mirco - Dark Elves Corsairs
8. Pietro (Amarok, me) - Ostlanders

Four of us already played the first scenario (The Cabin in the Woods), where some Zombies guard an isolated hut in the woods outside the Eastern Mordheim Gate. In the dark night of the Old World, the Undead rise from the graves, and even the brave heroes of Mordheim can descend into the dread of Necromancers...

The main rule of the national campaign is called "Dead shall not rest": when a Hero or a Troop member of a warband falls in the fight, he immediately test on the Injury Chart as per the post-game sequence. If he results in definitely dead, he immediately returns in the game as a Zombie! He's no more part of his warband, but he will charge any alive member of any warband who comes near.

Very cool rule!

We look forward in playing all the first scenario and the subsequent one (we already received the files for the July scenario).

In the meantime, I'm getting ready with some new stuff for our games...

My Warhammer Chapel has a Watchtower to match with eventually!

Some 3D printed Hidden markers based on the original design from the rulebook

Multiplayer, multifighting, multikilling ⚔️ a Mordheim afteernoon report

Our newborn wargaming club (with which we played a little tournament during Spring 2021) reunited on Saturday afternoon to fight amongst the ruins of the City of the Damned. This would have been the first act of our Sword of the Herald campaign which we hope to start playing soon (but there's a big news, more at the end of this post).

There were eight players and warbands:

1. Gunnery School of Nuln (the winner of the former tournament!)
2. High Elves Shadow Warriors (the runner-up)
3. Witch Hunters
4. Blood Dragon Undead
5. another Blood Dragon Undead (this is a new warband, whilst the previous one fought in the tournament too)
6. Dwarf Treasure Hunters (Grimbeorn's warband)
7. Averlanders (Frontlineminiaturist's warband)
8. Orc Mob (my warband)

After a random assignment of the tables and the opponents, we were distributed between three battlefields.

Candle light fight for me and the more skilled Undead warband! This will not end well...

Two three-players battles for the others. Here in the first table there are the Dwarfs (on the right), the Elves in the centre and the other Undead on the left

Some prepping and the last sales before battle

Here you can see the Averlanders in the centre, the Witch Hunters down on the left and the Gunnery School on the right border. Randomly both multiplayer battles were using the scenario Ambush from Annual 2002 (which my pards and I already played the Saturday before)

All set even for us: my Greenskins on the right are ready to beat up the Undead for the control of the big house

We started the game! I took some pics of my table, but both my mates forgot to take any (a real reporter squadron eheh), so here's what we got.

"Ready to take it Bozz!"

"Hey Bozz doz wolves seem to me a little strange..."

The Undead move forward with their henchmen ready to taste Orc flesh...

Dire Wolf vs Goblin? Nasty!

My elite troops are waiting for the enemy, but in the wooden balcony something horrible lurks...

"Hey Bozz here comz the ugly onez!"

Argh! My Shaman is beaten up another time. I really need to cover more this guy...

Check on the other tables! Here the Undead and the Elves fight harshly in the edifice at the centre of the battlefield

And here the Averlanders are fleeing with the Wyrdstone while the other warbands try to stop them

"Goodbye nice Imperial folks! The Wyrdstone is ours!"

The Vampire is hungry for Elven blood

Nice afternoon of wargaming. We had a lot of fun, even cause for some of us this was the first Mordheim game since last June. But what was the outcome of our three battles?

1. Table 1, Orcs vs Undead: decisive Undead victory. I lost more than half of my warband, and even if I controlled one section of the building (almost two) the Necromancer cast a spell against my Goblin henchman and stunned him good at the very end of the game.
2. Table 2, Dwarves vs Elves vs Undead: another Undead victory! The players reached an agreement on the Wyrdstone counters on the table, but the Vampire's servants where winners on the field. Grimbeorn says: The Elves (who were the defender) deployed well but they played last in the first turn, so they were attacked by the Undead which had an easy time, the Dwarfs on the opposite side tried to stop the lightning-fast Elves with little success, managing only to extort a couple Wyrdstone counters in exchange of the life of one of the pointy-ears. Eventually, a draw between Undead and Elves, except that an humble Zombie came out in striking the final blow on the Shadow Warriors' Captain, making very proud (and a little jealous) his vampiric Master.
3. Table 3, Witch Hunters vs Averlanders vs Gunnery School: similar outcome than the previous, but with Frontlineminiaturist's Averlanders on the first place. They manage to flee with some counters: the others were divided amongst the players.

We run the post-battle sequence all together as always, and we had a nice talk about the games. Some of us have a lot of gold to spend before the next battle!

Lastly, we decided to join a great adventure: even if we like the idea of the Sword of the Herald campaign, and we can obviously keep it for the future, we agreed to join the first national Mordheim campaign set up planned by the Mordheim Italia Community from May onwards. The campaign is called Tempesta Necromantica (Necromantic Storm) and will be focused on some dark forces from beyond the grave which lurk in the cold streets of Mordheim...

Ambush in the City of the Damned

Yesterday Grimbeorn, Frontlineminiaturist and I played a Mordheim match. Since December we decided that every new game is part of our new Sword of the Herald campaign, even if it is not totally defined yet. This scenario was Ambush from Annual 2002.

My Orcs, Grimbeorn's Dwarves and Frontlineminiaturist's Cult of Possessed clash in the street of Mordheim, where the Greenskins found a giant stash of Wyrdstone and try to flee with it...

The battlefield was just nice, but at the end we decided that in similar occasions the centre of the board must be more protected, or the defender will be simply taken out in few turns

"I see some Goblins up there"

Here they are! My boyz are set around the house, and my Heroes carry some Wyrdstone. We need to flee of the field in order to win

The Possessed look from behind the gates and think of an obscure plan

The only possible outcome for the first turn: I try to run, they try to catch!

My Troll is protecting my Boss from the enemy's quarrels. I already lost some of my boyz, and both Dwarves and Possessed are still strong

On the left, I try to escape. The Dwarves are too slow to catch me, but they try to stop the Orcs by shooting at them. On the upper side of the board, the Possessed are trying to intercept the fleeing Greenskins and collect every Wyrdston shard they have

Right moment for a truce: my Hero drops his Wyrdstone to save his life. The Possessed agree...

One of the most epic moments: a single Goblin take out a Dwarf Quarreler and a Trollslayer! A true hero! At the end of the game, the Dwarves result in permanent dead... Grimbeorn will not forget this

The closing act of the game: my Boss is almost out of the battlefield, when Von Pfalz, Frontlineminiaturist commander, a dreadful Magister, possesses him with his magic. There's nothing to do against the power of Chaos...

... and my Boss turns and charges my Troll! Gork please help!

The game ended with my warband almost entirely out of action, every Wyrdstone shard in the hand of the Cult of the Possessed and some underdog Dwarves exhausted from running around... not the best, except for Frontlineminiaturist who collected a lot of gold. Fortunately, I permanently lost just a couple Squigs. In the future we need to train better to confront the forces of Chaos that haunt this streets...

As always, after the battle I feel particularly inspired... so I created a Wyrdstone token! I found a simple and nice way to do it rapidly, so I'm going to paint some of them for every occasion.

"That's mine!" "Come take it if you can!"

My precious...

The Mordheim fever took us forward ⚔️

Saturday me and my mates played a Mordheim game using the scenario on Town Cryer #13, The Sword of the Herald. Nice scenario: a glooming green sword in the centre, surrounded by lots of Wyrdstone markers and nice Zombies everywhere.

In the centre the sword and some coins mark the objective. Larger coins means larger shards!

My Orcs are in the down left corner, oppose to Michele's Possessed near the cimitery. On the right, Davide's Dwarves started in the little wood. The coins near the warbands mark the centre of the deployment zone area of 6".

The scenario was randomly chosen by Michele, and we rapidly tried to put it on the board. The result was we misread some rules... we discovered it too late, but the game wasn't really hacked that bad. On the contrary: we liked it. A lot. More on this forward in the post.

The game itself ran smoothly and we had lots of fun. We decided that the Zombies which resurrected near the centre of the table would activate and charge on a radius determined by a die each turn: on turn two they activated on 5" and there were Zombies everywhere!

The Zombie is about to trying a diving charge on the (invisible) Squig under him. Will he succeed?

Answer: no.

The Orcs advance towards the gate

The Possessed start from the graveyard and charge the first Zombies ahead

The Dwarves scatter alongside the walls

In the centre there is a green light fog which prevents model from seeing anything more than 3" from then. The fog covers a radius of 5" from the centre, but there is an additional circle of 3" in which the model can still be sawn from out the fog. The Henchmen can enter and move only if the Leader passes a LD test: scary things live near the rich prizes...

Orcs and Possessed are dangerously on the same route to the centre...

The Dwarven path is full of not-so-dead bodies!

Another Zombie trying to fly

Some activity in the centre: in the fog, the Troll and some Orchish folks kill Zombies everywhere and claim the prizes from the angry Possessed

The Orcs flee with the sword! Orc Boss took the item and run away, followed by the Shaman with a big shard. The Trollslayer do the same and retreat towards his party, while the Possessed are still fighting the greenskins

"Aaaaaaargh!" Finally a Zombie succeeds in a diving charge on the Dwarf Thane! This will not end well, but will surely end cool 

Last turns: lots of Zombies attack the Possessed Magister! Me and Michele decided for a truce: I'm not intended on killing his powerful warrior Sbraaah (the thing with the tentacles), so I let him free from the Squig dental routine

Orc Heroes are running away with the sword: Gork watched upon us! Or was it Mork?

Traitor! The Possessed Magister confuses one of the Greenskins with his dreadful magic and he attacks the Shaman!

In the end, me and Davide left the field to Michele and his Possessed, which were the only warband without any casualty. We divided the booty: one big shard each (worth 3 Wyrdstone pieces), one little shard to me and one to Michele, and the sword obviously to the Orcs

The followers of Dr. Von Pfalz (Michele's Magister) perched on a building facing the centre of the battlefield and threw arrows every minute of the game to everyone in sight

Group pic in the centre of the table

The Dwarves suffered from their slow Movement and close the game with 3 pieces of Wyrdstone, +1 because of their Treasure Hunters' abilities. Same result as the Possessed, in the end.

Once we ended the game, we read that the sword... could cause the daemonic possession of the bearer! My Boss would have to pass a LD test every turn to not attack the first model in sight screaming he was the herald of the Shadowlord. Sigh. However, we left the sword to the Greenskins (I renounced to my additional exploration die to make amend), which sold it for 100 GC (💰). Michele wanted the sword for himself, because Possessed can equip it being a Chaos weapon.

The story could have ended there, but we like the story of sword too much to left it unplayed. So we thought of a narrative campaign built around the search for the sold Sword of the Herald: everyone wants the Sword, first of all the Possessed, for which it will be the key to the Shadowlord himself...

The Sword of the Herald token is ready-made for the campaign!