This review originally appeared on
RPGShop.com.
It takes a while, and numerous editions, but Games Workshop can usually
nail down the particulars of a great game. All that it takes is time -
Mordheim is a case in point.
Mordheim is the third in the series of skirmish games, this one set
in the Warhammer Fantasy universe.
The entire idea spread out of several articles in White Dwarf - from
issues 130 - 142 - called Confrontation, which detailed gangers duking
it out in an enormous, Caves of Steel/Judge Dredd environment. Some years
later, that morphed into Necromunda,
which was a moderate success, and Gorkamorka,
which flopped so hard that
it made a crater so large that bits of dust from the impact can still be
found in quality game stores everywhere.
Necromunda had a great basis, and is a fun play, but it also had some
balance problems, especially when you had "heavies" toting around heavy
bolters and laser cannons. It also suffered from the gangs being much too
similar until they'd gotten some experience under their belts - their stats
were literally identical until they were wounded or "levelled up" - and
various other minor problems, including some lousy miniatures.
I haven't played Gorkamorka, although I own the rulebooks - it's got
some neat ideas, but I'm given to understand that the actual gameplay was
an enormous pain in the butt.
Mordheim takes the mistakes made in those two games and fixes them in
Mordheim. No more gangs toting around heavy plasma weapons. No more gangs
who look exactly alike. Rare items that can be purchased more than once
in a blue moon. Fantastic terrain, although the terrain in Necromunda wasn't
bad. That kind of thing. In short, it's worth the $60 that Games Workshop
asks for it.
The Warhammer Fantasy setting is - well, was - unique in fantasy games
in that it doesn't subscribe to the ideals of the Enlightment. The human
empire, united some two thousand years ago under a hammer-wielding man-god
named Sigmar, is under constant attack from the Chaos warbands who sweep
down from the arctic wastes, laying waste to everything in their path.
Chaos isn't solely limited to marauding warbands, though; the powers of
Chaos are available to anybody who wants them, and a lot of people have
fallen to the temptations of Chaos, trading their souls for temporal power
- and the Empire's interested in seeing every last one of them burned at
the stake. Meanwhile, mutated rat-men - the wonderfully named Skaven -
are slowly gnawing away at the supports of the Empire, hoping to bring
their entire world under their god. So in short, it's Dark Ages Europe,
minus the Black Plague, and with the addition of a justification for the
witch burning craze that swept historical Europe.
Surprisingly enough, it isn't as offensive as it could be; in the early
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing supplements, you had the feeling that the
people doing the writing really knew their stuff. (My favorite WFRP moment
was when I read about a tanning shop - in a description of a larger city
- and realized that it was genuinely interesting - going so far as to describe
what you'd hear while hanging around the tannery shop, what the guy's kids
looked like, how the tanning was done, and so forth.) The Warhammer universe
is demon-haunted;
and the peasants huddling from demons in their huts seem much smarter for
doing so, rather than being seen as blinded by ignorance.
How does this relate to Mordheim? Mordheim was a fairly prosperous city,
and when a twin-tailed comet appeared in the sky - a sign of Sigmar - people
rushed to Mordheim in order to celebrate. The comet wound up landing directly
on Mordheim, killing just about everybody there.
The impact of the comet left pieces of wyrdstone - which pretty much
equates to magickal uranium - everywhere in the city. Wyrdstone, in turn,
is in demand just about everywhere because of the magickal power that it
stores. Mordheim becomes the heart of a wyrdstone rush, with dozens of
warbands fighting it out for who'll get the wyrdstone. And meanwhile, in
the crater, something immensely powerful is beginning to gather its power.
In short, it's a neat rationalization for the way that the game plays.
As opposed to the epic battles of Warhammer Fantasy, where the average
unit is composed of some twenty models, you'll be lucky to field that many
in any of Mordheim's warbands - most of them will hover at five to twelve
models, depending on how successful your party is. The game's focus is
purely on tactical combat, rather than on the grand strategic sweep of
armies clashing.
The rules are the same Warhammer rules that have served through just
about every game that Games Workshop has ever done. Models move a certain
amount per turn, but can run in order to double that. Movement up and down
the fantastic card buildings that are included within the game is handled
through a simple roll and the expenditure of some of your movement; you
can literally scale a wall and snipe down on whoever's below with a bow,
which lends a nicely three-dimensional feel to the proceedings.
The damage resolution system is also pretty neat. In close combat, you
compare your WS (Weapon Skill) of your model with the WS of your opponent,
and try to roll over the number provided to see if you hit; with shooting,
you just try to roll over a particular number, which is determined by your
BS (Ballistic Skill, an abbreviation which always make me think of other
words that can be abbreviated thus.) If you have hit, there's a quick consultation
of the Strength Vs. Toughness chart, which determines whether your warrior
took the hit hard, or was simply able to shake it off. While it may sound
complicated, it moves much quicker in actual play - after a while, you
know that it takes a 4 for a zombie to hit and wound a particular character.
And, more fortunately, the tables are weighted so that underdogs with
low WS and Strength scores can score hits if they're lucky - a Dreg from
an Undead warband can take down the leader of another warband, given a
few lucky dice rolls. In addition, you can dogpile models on a single enemy
model, using the strength of numbers to take him down. The system is subtle,
but it provides an astonishingly verstaile system for simulating combat.
Advanced Squad Leader
it isn't, but I'll take it.
Weapons also factor into a model's statistics - for example, a two handed
weapon boosts the strength of a strike by two, but it also forces the model
to take its swing last. A spear, by contrast, doesn't provide any bonus,
but it does let you strike first regardless of your model's Intiative score,
which can come in handy when you're fighting models who have high WS scores
but low Toughness. There's a good range of hand-to-hand weapons,
but the game really comes into its own when it simulates the use of bows
and guns within Mordheim. In Necromunda, long-range gunfire was the order
of the day, where you absolutely had to use cover or be shot to pieces
by the opposing gang's Heavy Bolter. That was the point of the game - gangers
fighting it out with automatic weapons - but it apparently led to situations
where people would park their gangers on overwatch and shoot the living
hell out of anybody who came into view.
Gorkamorka cut the ranges of all weapons down to a minimum, which apparently
annoyed the living hell out of everybody who played. Mordheim strikes a
wonderful balance between the two. Bows are long-ranged, but they don't
hit with a lot of strength, and you can simply hide in ruins in order to
avoid them. Guns - mostly blackpowder weapons and duelling pistols - are
either incredibly expensive, limited to move and fire, or have ranges that
are suitable only for close melee. Games Workshop obviously took care to
balance the various elements of the game between close combat and long-range
sniping. Especially helpful to this game are the variety of the warbands
involved.
There's three different kinds of human mercenaries, all representable
with the models that come within the box, but each has a different specialty
- Reiklanders have better leadership and higher ballistic scores, the Germanic
Middenheimers have higher Strengths, while the Marienburgers have more
cash to equip their warbanders and better trading contracts. The Skaven,
the ratmen, are swifter than every other warband in the gasme, and have
access to some neat weapons, but they're handicapped by low leadership.
The Possessed, the servants of the Chaos deity thrown to earth in the meteor,
have access to mutations - but they're expensive, and have limited access
to missile weapons. The Witch Hunters have access to various war prayers,
but their hatred of spell casters may lead them into situations where they
charge into fights they can't win. The Sisters of Sigmar are the women
of the game, like the Eschers were in Necromunda - while they've got some
wonderful weapons, their access to missile weapons is almost nil. The Undead
have access to both spellcasters (Necromancers) and the combat-machine
Vampire, but the rest of their troops are likely to be zombies, who can't
charge and who need numbers to make up for their poor Weapon Skills.
If you get tired of of those eight - although it's doubtful that'll
happen until a year or so after you buy the game - Games Workshop publishes
Town Cryer, which has published a few new warbands for the game already.
And the net's practically swarming with alternate warbands, all of them
using models from Warhammer Fantasy.
What sets apart Mordheim from the regular wargame series is that your
warband gains experience from each battle that it fights - when you first
start the game, your warband is distinguishable from other warbands only
in the way that you've spent your points. After about ten battles, the
average warband will have its own unique characters - the human Champion
that started out average may be able to charge three times his movement
rate and hit with additional Strength. Each scenario offers a particular
amounbt of experience for fulfulling objectives. This time, fortunately,
each hero - or henchman band - has a series of boxes underneath their profile,
some bolded. Every time you get enough experience to reach a bolded box,
you roll on an experience chart, which gives you a boost in a particular
area.
In one of their smarter moves, you no longer have to roll to see what
kind of skill you get - you simply pick a skill from the chart, which makes
getting the skill you want that much easier. It's a much cleaner experience
system than previous. There's also enough items to choke a small
horse, if you're in the market for something extra to boost your warband
- the equipment list contains relatively common equipment, such as bows
and swords, but also contains combat drugs, books of magic, special armor
and weapons, and the like. Instead of rolling for a random rare item being
offered, you now simply pick an item and try to beat it on a roll of two
six-sided dice. Particularly rare items are also offset by price, so extremely
valuable items like the Book of Magic costs around two hundred gold crowns
plus the roll of a few dice.
Magic is handled quite well. All of the groups - with the exception
of human mercenaries - have access to their own spell lists. Sigmarite
magic - which is used by both Sisters of Sigmar and Witch Hunters - focuses
on augmenting the combat abilities of the rest of the warband. One of the
nastier spells automatically inflicts a hit on anything within a certain
range. The Necromancer's spells revolve around zombies and life-stealing,
and one of his spells can raise a slain Hero from another warband as a
zombie. Chaos magic is - well, exactly like the name, as liable to inflict
damage on his own men as the opponents. Skaven magic tends to be less powerful,
but much safer, and has some nasty rat-based attacks, one of which coats
an enemy model with flesh-biting rats. Lesser magic is just as poweful,
but also tends to be slightly more unfocused. Magic's balanced out both
by short range and by a dice roll. The best spells have the highest difficulty
numbers.
If you do happen to wind up missing something from your warband, you
can hire a wide range of mercenaries - warlocks, pit fighters, halfling
scouts, even Dwarven troll slayers. Dramatis personae are also available,
expensive characters who are well beyond the range of all but the most
experienced warband fighter. If you're missing hand-to-hand power, you
can hire a Pit Fighter; if you need long-range skill, an Elven Ranger.
Finally, the income system is much more innovative than before - you roll
a particular number of dice for each Hero who wans't put out of action
in the last fight. The final result determines how many pieces of Wyrdstone
you find. However, if you get any "of a kind" - two of a kind, four of
a kind, and so forth - you get access to special encounters in the ruins
of Mordheim. Long story short, it's a great way of adding detail to a game
that's already filled to the brim.
The scenery and miniatures that come with the game are at the usual
standard for Games Workshop. The cardboard terrain that comes with the
game is fantastic - the cardboard walls are highly detailed, and most of
the plastic accesories that goes with it continues the 16th-century feel
of the game. One of the major problems with it, however, is that the instructions
are minimal at best - they show the final stage of completion of each stage,
without pointing out exactly how they're supposed to go together. They're
far from impossible to put together, but they are a pain in the neck unless
you know exactly what you're doing. Assemble them before the game begins,
and you'll be okay, but try to put them together fifteen minutes before
a game and you'll be in for some trouble. Also, you'll probably want to
invest in some foamcore as basing material; otherwise, they tend to be
fairly...flexible, which causes the cardboard to bend. And glue, rather
than being simply recommended, is an absolute must have.
The miniatures themselves are high-quality. As mentioned before, the
human mercenaries are dead ringers for pirates, right down to the eye patches
and fancy hats; but there are additional sprues included in the box that'll
let you build them as Middenheimers, complete with heavy beards, heavy
hammers and some (probably heavy) metal gloves. There's a sufficient variety
of weapons to equip your warband any way you want. There's also a sprue
of random weapons and assorted accessories, including a treasure chest
and a lamp on a pole - good stuff if you want to do some converting. The
Skaven have a pretty good range of weapons and models as well, including
fighting claws that make the Skaven look that much more vicious - I hope
that they made it into the new Skaven boxed set, because their look is
fantastic.
Two complaints arise, however. First, the red plastic rulers that come
with the game are almost unreadable, which means that you'll probably have
to run a pencil across them to get something even approaching legibility.
Secondly, the boxed warband sets that GW sells seperate from the main Mordheim
game usually aren't nearly big enough to make a decent warband - you'll
want to pick up some blisters with them after you've pre-generated your
warband. In short, Mordheim does everything just about everything
right - it's well-balanced without making it difficult to win, the setting
is as well-drawn as Games Workshop gets these days, the miniatures and
scenery are top-notch, and it's worth every penny that you'll pay.
-Darren MacLennan
This review originally appeared on RPGShop.com.
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