Practice, Practice, Practice...

Yesterday I got a few practice games of Mordheim in, as I am trying to re-familiarize myself to the rules.
I also wanted to check out my board layout at this point to see what still needs to be added.

Above we have Kragensburg as it stands now.  While I like the density, I really need more scatter terrain.  

So of course me, being me, I ordered some.  I found a nice kit by Infinity online, so got 2 sets of it.  They should be in by the end of the week.

Anyway, on the South side of the wall, you can see "Old Towne" most of which lies in ruin, as border skirmishes, and Chaos raids have happened over the centuries, the borders of the town itself have changed, new walls and buildings constructed over old ect... 

The Castle wall represents the border to "New Towne" right now I only have a Manor House on that side, but that will change as I am still waiting for my order from Armorcast which has 3 cottages, and a town well.

As I shift south and add a second board, there will be an ancient cemetery, a shrine to chaos, along with more ruins, hills and some forest as we head from the mountain area and towards the foothills of the Middle Mountains.

I managed to get 3 games in yesterday with my old Reiklanders Warband, they were led by Lt. Bombay under orders from Captain Kallilor to scout the area and set up a base of operations for their future ventures.

Lt. Bombay found an ideal spot, unfortunately a group of Dwarven Treasure Hunters were eye-balling the same territory out in the ruins of Old Towne. 

We played the 3 games in a sort of mini-campaign so I could play with the after action stuff as well as get the hang of the rules.

I didn't take many pictures though, as the Dwarves were unpainted, and I was more focused on game play than doing any real battle report.

Above you can see a quick picture of my Warband after 3 games.  I quickly hired a Wizard after the first game, and after the 2nd game added the Free Lancer.  This proved to be critical as after the second game Lt. Bombay suffered an injury and had to sit out game 3.

I wasn't sure how balanced things would be against the Dwarves, but I think things turned out well over-all.  I had a ton of shooting, but the hardiness of the Dwarf Treasure Hunters allowed him to take a lot of punishment.

I'm still getting the hang of this new PC, but I played with the map just a bit, and managed to pinpoint Kragensburg on the map

I know, not the best, but as I have more time and actually get a mouse rather than working with the stupid pad on the laptop, I will play with it more, and maybe even add more details.

So, I had a discussion with my buddy Les last eve, and he said he reviewed my rules.  They all got his approval with one notable exception.  He raised concerns about the Hochland Bandits Warband.  This Warband comes from the Nemesis Crown Expansion, and while it has a lot of character many of the rules seem a bit, well off or unbalanced.

After our discussion I have to say that I agree, and my knee-jerk reaction was to just pull the Warband from the list.  Les has a lot more experience with Mordheim than most in my area, and also comes from a Magic background, so certainly knows how to crunch a rules set and find the combos.

One player however has already expressed a desire to play the Hochland Bandits already, and seems pretty pumped about it.

I think what I'm going to do, is play test them myself in the next week or so.  I think in the end I may allow them, but with a tweaking of the rules.

Right now I'm thinking of dropping the Foraging rule, the Huckster and the Poachers.  The area is just too dangerous for the Huckster to want to hang out in, and the town is considered cursed by the Hunters of Hochland, who refuse to go into the region so close to the Brass Keep for fear of becoming cursed by Chaos themselves.  So with no Poachers, there is no one in the warband to forage.  

I think that will solve the problem, while still allowing for a characterful Warband that can represent a group of Bandits in the area.