From The Journal of Richter Haustmann...

"After our encounter with the Possessed and those damnable Sisters of Sigmar we thought that we had made short work of most of our competition in this forsaken city. The darkness, for all our efforts, had indeed been pushed back but it seemed as if the White Wolf of the North had other plans for our endeavors inside the walls.

As we moved deep into the centre of the city looking for more clues of the Relics we had been sent to capture in the name of Sigmar a warming shot thudded into the wood of the Grimh's shield. The zealot snarled and we saw ahead of us a blockade of those infuriatingly ale soaked Middenheimers standing between us and our progress.

Neither side moved to begin with, gauging the strength of the other. Soon enough however their hulking and rather pompously adorned leader came down to parley. His words were gruff and to the point. This was their province and we were to leave. The Cult of Ulric had apparently found a shrine here and they were protecting it. They presented a delirious man, obviously drunk beyond the point of intelligent conversation, and he 'verified' their story.

Gottfried behind him was bristling with anger, I could feel the divine rage of Sigmar within him boiling over. After considering the Middenheimers I informed him that we would fight for it. The land had been blasted by Sigmar and so it would be his children that would be it's caretakers. The Middenheimers would get their crude idols but after we had found our own.

Needless to say, the great wolf wasn't having any of it..."

Brother Against Brother

So I was back for another day of Mordheim/Coreheim in The City of the Damned. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get together the big multiplayer game between the Possessed and the Witch Hunters but in it's place my friend bought his Middenheimers out onto the cobbles for another big scrap. Both of our warbands are fairly tough and have high ratings so we were in for a fairly even conflict. I was pretty confident that I could weather the storm of arrows and magic and get stuck in to make those damned Ulricans pay.

I had plenty of men at my disposal which was fantastic. Added to the roster of men was Hund and Katz the two Bounty Hunters who I had furnished with a pair of swords and a pistol each to make them deadly close combat fighters. I had a new Slayer and my Warrior Priest Gottfried had learned a new Prayer, Healing Hands. I reckoned with two wounds he was going to make the most of it.

My opponent and I decided to play the 'Drunken Prince' scenario from last week as we'd not played it against each other and so put the familiar drunk in his puddle of stagnant water at the centre of the town square. Without the presence of flying mutants I assumed I could make it to him fairly quickly. Unless he wandered off...

Middenheimers Vs Witch Hunters

The game started with both of our sides taking high ground on the side of the town square. We'd become pretty accustomed to this terrain by now so we spiced things up with the raised terrain and a few more ruins placed down the main lanes of fire to break up the clear shooting lines. I had applied the same technique as most games and split up the force so that it would force my enemy to do the same or indeed face a selection of rear charges. My opponent was fearless however and decided that in the first few turns of the game he would just advance down and let me come to him.

This was somewhat aided by the Drunken Prince (now a drunken adventurer) wandering essentially directly into the Middenheimer warband. Frowning at this drunkards obvious display of idiocy I followed him at double pace. Because I'd had to begin moving up the arrows hadn't done much in the way of damage and in return my opponent found his arrows sticking into Rudiger Howards shield with a dull thud. I was somewhat helped out by the fact that one of the Middenheim archers tried to climb down a wall and instead fell to his death, obviously breaking his legs in an awkward descent. First blood to me...err, ok, the flagstones!

As things got closer I realised I wasn't going to get the charge on my turn so had to withstand a  bevy of charges and shooting as well as magic. The Middenheimer Captain and one of his fellows ran into Gnasher the Flagellant while Rudiger Howard and Ulrich Von Lichenstein were also embroiled in combat. On the one side the Captain cut down my frothing mad man and Rudiger was beaten around the head and lain out for dead on the cobbles. Ulrich managed to weather the blows in his heavy armour but in return failed to do anything with his rather huge hammer. I could sense a theme appearing.

On my turn the Slayer, Storri, charged into one of the lone axemen and my Inquisitor Richter along with the Bounty Hunters Hund and Katz lined up to fire three shots into the Middenheimer Captain. Richter fired and the bullet connected but ricocheted off his armour. Hund fired too but the ball went wild. Last but not least was Katz who fired, wounded, but succeeded in simply knocking the heavy set Northman over.

The theme of 'knocking them over' continued with the Slayer who swung with his two axes, hit with one, wounded and then just pushed the human over instead of ending his life. Sadly I couldn't say the same for my opponents dice rolls as he battered Ulrich within his heavy armour and tossed him aside.

Previous to this combat I had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing my Warrior Priest Gottfried getting fried by magic. He took a crossbow bolt to the chest and despite his armour, stumbled. I thought "this is fine, I have healing hand". Yeah, turns out you can't heal someone when they are out of action. The hired Hedge Wizard on the Middenheimer side of the table who had now taken up stewardship of the drunkard fired off a series of silver arrows that knocked Gottfriend to his knees and then off his feet taking him out of the running. With this I'd lost four of my men and would have to take a rout test at the beginning of my next turn.

Thankfully the following Middenheimer turn was fairly uneventful. A few stray arrows bounced off the cobbles, Katz was knocked over by a stray bolt and Richter managed to avoid the damaging magics of the Warlock. Storri, despite getting the drop on his opponent who had stood up, still failed to kill his opponent. He was clearly a great investment. As it rolled round to my go I rolled a nine and fled the field dragging my injured companions away and cursing the White Wolf.

Licking Our Wounds

The outcome of the battle was not as disastrous as I had first thought. The biggest blow was finding out that Gottfried had taken a brutal chest wound and would be at T2 for the foreseeable future. He had two wounds, but it wasn't going to be very helpful. He needed some armour. My only other devastating ending came with Gnasher suffering a smashed leg meaning he couldn't come and join in next battle. This was even more compounded in grief when I realised he had got himself an extra strength! I was going to be leaving my S4, T4 hero at home next game!

I had a selection of advancements across the board however from just playing and a skill on Rudiger Howard. I decided that to keep him alive a bit more I'd give him Side Step as a skill. This meant all attacks against him were at -1WS. Pretty helpful and it would mean his two attacks had more chance of landing.

With a bucket of money in the bank I took the gold crowns and splashed out on crossbows for The Stakers. My two bowmen had until now been using short bows. They just weren't cutting it anymore. The men are now move and fire troops but when they do fire at BS6 they are able to punch through most stuff with ease.

The rest of my money went on paying for Storri to keep himself in ale, maybe he would do better next game, and also hiring a bit more muscle. I have decided to pick up a Pit Fighter called Krull and send him with flail and spiked gauntlet deep into the fray so he can wade around smashing brains in with that awesome weapon. He is quite the fighter and while expensive does give me even more dangerous close combat potential. I think I just need to be more practical with my advance towards the enemy, especially when they have so many arrows like the Middenheimers do.

"I know the men are beginning to lose faith, the curs. I see their looks and their sneers behind my back. Gottfried lies in his cut, a bloody wound in his chest, and mutters prayers of Sigmar under his breath. Hund and Katz, those strange and outlandish Bounty Hunters have been convening in secret and when I approach they cut themselves off and assume I don't know what they're doing.

Only Waldemar knows me and is true. He says nothing and does as he is ordered. Maybe I should cut these unbelievers out, burst them like a cyst? I could find new men, new believers, new followers of the true cause. Maybe I have been too lenient with the men?

No, I am being paranoid and I will not let this city get to me. We were outmatched militarily, that is all. The White Wolf is nothing more than an aged god that is worshiped by heathen Northmen. Sigmar is still the guiding light. Besides what more muscle could we need than Krull? We found the silent but brooding Pit Fighter beating to death a bunch of the mutant ratmen in an old abandoned tavern. He had clearly been living there, tied morally and emotionally to his den of vice. Still, as the ratmen fled they began to burn the place down. I offered him a place in our ranks in exchange for the tails of many a rat if we found them. He accepted with a grunt.

Something nags at me however. 'Gnasher'. That possessed miscreant turned leader of men. Maybe I was wrong to bring him into the fold? Is this my mistake Sigmar? We shall see."

More next week!