Wyrd Grogsisters: an Absolute Newbie Mordheim DAR

[JasonPratt]

Yeah, this probably isn't going to be a narrative DAR. But surely it will be popular anyway!

I would make the "Don't call me Shirley" joke, except I'm playing Mordheim as the Sisters of Sigmar. So, yeah.




As far as I can tell, the player character is whatever figure is shown for the Veteran (also on the Veteran screen, where you can actually use the Mordheim version of Steam achievements for something useful ingame). So that's me. More on this part of the game later.

When you start a new warband, you get one leader for free (though you still have to pay upkeep for that character every day). In the Sisters (possibly also in the other three factions) there are five kinds of characters you can grow in your warband: leaders, heroes, impressives, sisters, and novices. (If there are any others, I don't know about them yet.) A new warband doesn't start with the ability to hire an impressive (I guess? -- I don't think the Hero is the same as the Impressive?); and any reserves or hired mercs bought for that warband only stay available for that warband, although a player can have any number of warbands active at any time. Each warband has a separate name (randomly generated perhaps, but the player can rename any warband at any time), and a separate career. A warband doesn't have to play the campaign; it can skirmish (single-player or multi-player) instead. But it can lose its campaign, and if that happens it can't play the campaign any more, while still doing skirmishes. I can't recall if losing its campaign cripples its ability to do skirmishes -- I seem to recall it does somehow (can't grow anymore in certain ways) -- so a player can also disband any warband permanently. Each warband's accounting is separate from the player's other warbands, but any achievements with any warband (from any faction) in the game count toward the player's veteran perks, which will be applied to any warband you're playing with (no matter how otherwise experienced or inexperience that warband may be.)

I'm starting the game a tad behind: my first sortie in the campaign was an abject failure. No deaths, but two character injuries forced me to spend precious gold hiring new ones while they heal for a few days in reserve (not gaining experience meanwhile, so they'll always be lagging behind); also forcing me to spend precious gold giving them medical attention (without which they won't start to mend, and in at least some cases injuries can be so severe that there's a ticking clock on whether they die). Aaannnnd I had spent precious gold hiring a fifth character rather than going with the minimum four necessary for any sortie; and I had spent gold upgrading three of them to a mace and shield combo instead of dual-wield (the other two already had a shield combo), on the theory that early in the game I need defense more than anything to keep a crew alive.

Plus I had to pay upkeep on everyone after the first fight, although in hindsight I should have probably held off for a few days on the two women being healed. A character won't fight without having been paid for a previous sortie, and if payment is deferred about a week then they'll leave (and take their equipment with them -- nor can they be divested until you pay them! A nice tactical touch which keeps players from 'robbing' their characters before firing them.)

The upshot is that when my first mission comes (on day 2) from my primary sponsor (for for this campaign -- maybe for all Sister campaigns I don't know yet -- is Bertha Bestraufrung), my Mercy Reinforcement Militia is down to 22 gold and no shields for two of the sisters after all who will thus be using daggers as a secondary weapon instead. (I could buy another hammer, but then if I failed the next mission I wouldn't have enough gold to continue even if four characters managed to return without injuries.)

So in effect, I'm starting at a worse than normal position.

After some team management, especially for dressing my little dolls... uh... dressing my women... ...... crap. Uh, dressing the characters so that I'll be able to distinguish them visually in a fight, here's where we stand for our second and possibly last sortie.




I won't go into what all the stats mean -- one of the novices is selected at the moment, so a quick overview is shown on the left tab. You can see the two wounded sisters standing in reserve back there. The hero is on the left, the leader in the middle, and two sisters and the novice are ready at photo right.

I'm not a big fan of the User Interface here: the order of the active duty list at the bottom does not match the physical order at all; nor can you click on a figure and go to their management screen, so I end up having to guess which Sister is which (since I have two at this point on active duty) for selecting their icon.

A warband starts with five slots open, and "hench" characters (Sisters and Novices in this case; the latter of which cost just as much to hire as Sisters for crappier starting stats generally but they start with the more defensive mace/shield combo) can fill all five. Whereas, heroes and leaders can only go in the slots assigned for them, not in hench slots.

I'll rename the characters based on the first Grogs to comment in the thread, btw.

Next up: let's just call it the first mission, shall we, and pretend the other one didn't happen? And what the heck is Mordheim about anyway??

[undercovergeek]

ooo ooo bring it on, possible purchase, depending on your write up!!!

[JasonPratt]

DAY 3 -- WELCOME TO MORDHEIM! AGAIN...

I honestly have no idea why it's day 3 already, since I only fought one campaign day and I'm sure (from my replay video files via Shadowplay) that I didn't accidentally click Next Day twice. I think maybe the game randomly started on Marktag (I don't know the Warhammer day name cycle yet), the 2nd of Pflugzeit (that's a month but like lots of things in Warhammer it sounds both German and terrible) in the year 2000.

So, here's the story. This is a Warhammer game, set in what I think is main continuity (unlike Blood Bowl which is an alternate Warhammer continuity). The last human Emperor died 2000 years ago, and leaders of the three largest human nations are jockeying for the crown. There are also elves, dwarves, other typical fantasy staples (mostly not in this game), ratmen called skaven (definitely in this game), and a bunch of chaotic demon messed-up things (also definitely in this game) thanks to a supernatural hole up near the north pole which is leaking chaos energy into the world and will probably dissolve the world into a mess one day.

Mordheim (already known by that name at the time, apparently) was a city on a large lake near the border of one of the human territories, which had originally been set up as a peaceful trade station neutral to the feuding human factions. This went sort of fine until too many people got rich, especially through doing shady cutthroat deals, and the city descended into an orgy of depravity. Then one night a double-tailed comet appeared in the sky, and calculations of its trajectory indicated it was on the way to Mordheim.

The nuns of Sigmar, an honorable human deity, had long been famous in the world for setting up healing and mercy stations, whether in cities or along roads, but as Mordheim had sunk into depravity they had found themselves increasingly unable to do more than be exploited by the factions of the city. The Sisters quickly seized on the comet's portent, claiming it to be the Hammer of Sigmar, sent to inspire the city to repent with a warning of fiery destruction. While this impressed their fellow Sigmarites, as well as many other people in the world, their warnings were largely dismissed by the people in Mordheim -- the orgy of depravity continued, although penitents began escaping the hopeless muddle. The Sisters of the city huddled praying in the fortress monastery set upon a small island in the middle of the city's central river, despairing of having led the people to repentance but hoping their example would somehow serve Sigmar's purpose perhaps through a miracle.

They got their miracle. Sort of.

The comet plunged into the city and detonated, but while the city was ruined the explosion was surprisingly soft: instead of leaving an impact crater, it shotgunned shards of wyrdstone in all directions. The citadel of the Sisters suffered only cosmetic damage.

But wyrdstone is a material saturated with chaotic magical energy, and now Mordheim was saturated too. The survivors quickly went mad, and even the city's surviving shattered architecture was warped into insane perversions.

This didn't exactly sit well with the belief that the comet had been sent by Sigmar, and the reputation of the Sisters plummeted, now accused by everyone (especially their fellow Sigmarites) of worse than heresy: they stood accused of secretly following chaos and summoning the thing themselves!

The Sisters knew better, but with the damage done their order had to redesign itself to try to survive and recover their lost honor as well as minimize the damage of the catastrophe. So they trained to be a militant force, although one sworn only to use blunt weapons, with one central goal: to staunch the flow of chaos out of Mordheim by fighting the evil creatures drawn to the city in search of wyrdstone. Relatedly, the Sisters gather wyrdstone in the city to lock up safely in hidden vaults where the unstable arcane power cannot be abused.

Currently they face five main threats to this mission.

1.) Naturally the demonic power of the wyrdstones draws and mutates people and creatures already under chaotic influence. The relatively more-human of these lost souls, including the survivors who have chosen to stay in the city, have clustered into Cults of the Possessed, each competing with one another but all nominally allied under a mysterious Shadowlord who looks to discover which group will rise the strongest.

2.) Relatedly, there are also minor demons popping into the city through fluctuations of chaos energy; these are simply hostile neutrals who fight anyone and anything in their paths.

3.) The tribe of skaven under Mordheim survived the fall of the Hammer without much damage (since there wasn't an impact really), and now seek to increase their influence among other ratmen tribes by harvesting the wyrdstones.

4.) High ranking human nobles, seeking to unite the nations under their own Imperial banner, have inspired a cottage industry of mercenary companies to launch raids into the city in the hope of finding wyrdstones (and to recover enchanted weaponry) for sending back to their sponsors.

5.) Last but not least, sometimes Sisters go mad from terror, despair, or wyrdstone influence, and never return to the Rock. By themselves they quickly perish, but over the years a number of groups have gathered together in hiding to try to survive and control territory in the city, even madly dreaming of taking the Rock for themselves. Tragically, Sister must fight Sister.


With all the plotting and counterplotting, fueled by wyrdstone gathering, the Sisterhood Leadership (safely ensconced outside the city) wasn't entirely surprised when a secondary explosion recently rocked Mordheim; missives sent out with normally scheduled wyrdstone shipments, indicated the Matriarch in charge of the Rock believed a cataclysmic battle between skaven and the Cults would soon endanger the world, and that she intended to send out all her troops to stop the grand finale. The world survived, so maybe she succeeded, but no further word has come from her, and so the High Matriarch has rushed to send the only nearby Matriarch and her coterie to the city to re-establish control of the Rock.

Matriarch Undergee arrived with a rag-bag group of untrained Novices and Sisters, and a hero who had drunk herself into such a mess that she was barely much more than a novice herself, and found that to reach the Rock she had to fend off a determined assault from a murderously maddened warband of fellow Sisters! Undergee had barely managed to stage a withdrawal in formation, fortunately in the direction of the Rock, which by a positive miracle remained unclaimed -- and abandoned.

With a Sister and a Novice out for another few days, having suffered injuries already that would debilitate them for life -- a ruptured eardrum and an infection spreading through the tendons -- Undergee slapped some sense into her second-in-command, and took stock of her looted gold supply, dishonorably raided by that mob of former Sisters.

Only 22 gold. Enough to pay these "volunteers" for one more day of fighting in this hell-hole.

Indeed the Sisters had fallen on hard times. Would Undergee even hold out a week here? -- even for one more day??

[JasonPratt]

WHO WILL ANSWER UNDERGEE'S CALL TO HELP HIM er HER CLEANSE THE CITY OF MORDHEIM?

[JasonPratt]

DAY 3 -- THE HAUNTERS IN DARKNESS

Undergee quickly found that, due to unknown effects of the cataclysm, only the north half of the city -- the part fronting the lake -- seemed sporadically active. Which was certainly just as well, considering that her troops were dirt poor, barely competent, and so few that she could only keep two wounded women back at the Rock as a garrison! Fortunately, the convent fortress lay in the south half of the city, currently quiet, mostly inaccessible on its little island in the middle of the river dividing the city.

On her first forward patrol, Undergee crept daringly far, carefully maneuvering around traps and blots of chaotic creep, into the northwest of the city near to the former City Barracks. With a stormy overcast all day, the Matriarch lost track of the time and night fell before they had even thought to turn around.

Still, this area seemed especially rich in wyrdstone, so Undergee was loath to return without securing as much as feasibly possible. She kept her team in a shattered street as the semi-sober hero staggered up some ruined stairs to search for a chaotic emanation. Which she found in a bag -- some wyrd shards -- then quickly trod downstairs, losing her way in the cruddy mirk and leaving on the other side of the building than her band.



She passed dead horrors macrame'd to wall. One she passed outside while trying to get back to the group, was burning like a torch; or maybe that was a broom handle? Had someone tried to sweep the ungodly mess? Had that someone been the sad deformity now splattered under the broom?

Another she passed under, around the corner of the building, in the firelight shadow, quivered and then gassed putrescene onto her. A corrosive miasma, but only annoying with a bit of clothing damage. She stopped to catch her breath.

A distant shuffling began. More than garbage sliding in breezes that gusted from every quarter.

What insane indescribability would leap upon them from -- ?



-- oh, good. It was only a Reikland mercenary.

Better, he was apparently a fool: being a pistoleer, he had forgone his elevated ambush to jump down on the street and take a shot at one of the Sisters




"BWA HAAA!" he cried, more than a little nervously in the night, and shot. The jolt of his landing, added to his theatrical flourish, blew both shots wide of their target.

Fool he might be, but he wouldn't be alone. There was every possibility he was trying to draw attention. Such as away from that comrade of his lurking in the room behind him.




Or this crafty fellow whom Undergee spots as she's giving her fellow girls a little inspirational twirl. Mother Undergee stomps up to him afterward, and...



...with a bellow charges her motherly hammer upside his face! Or, eh, downside and a little to the left.

He quickly puts away his bow, and despite her resolve to parry slices through with a double axe. Not something to let him repeat if possible!

The three remaining girls in the street divide their attention onto setting up teams on those two targets, beginning with the Sister nearest the gun-bunny who follows Undergee's example and charges over to smack-and-slice him hard with her mace-and-dagger combo.

The remaining Sister edges carefully past Mother Undergee to do the same thing to the erstwhile archer.




Not with a charge, but with a better chance to hit and doing barely less damage.

That left the one Novice in the group to sidle up on the other side of the unable-to-run-gunrunner, and smack him loopy with her mace.



Naturally it would be better to attack him while he's still down, but all of Undergee's squad had exerted themselves already. The gunster still would be stunned and unable to do much for a while.
Behind her in the wreck of a house, the Novice could hear someone -- probably a merc -- rummaging for treasure, which was great: better to be distracted by that! The double-sworded Reiker in the house from where the gunman leapt, ran out to give his ally some support but for whatever reason chose not to attack the Sister.

The Hero(ine) couldn't account for a fifth mercenary yet, who had probably also been heard rooting through the area unseen, but didn't particularly care. She set up a charge on the dual-wielder, who turned out to be fighting with mace and sword, and mashed him twice in succession after inspiring her nearby Sister.








Having thus achieved a decisive force advantage over part of the enemy squad, it wasn't long before the bowman crumpled beneath Mother Undergee -- who recognized a token while searching him afterward, as someone (Dampf Von Mirellesohn) who had given her fellow Sisters much trouble. Returning this sign of defeat would bring a richer reward! Knowing that her team would quickly keep up the pressure of outnumbering targets, Undergee followed her senses into a nearby home and, carefully pacing upstairs, found a bag tucked away in a corner with a shard. It discharged chaos power into her body and soul with a shock! But she shook off the effect. The nearby Sister, as expected, ran to the main combat group where the gunman, still too stunned to attack and trying to get out of his enfilade, took a step back. But the Novice kept up the pressure with another hit, and even before he fell his friend with the sword and mace hit the ground, to be looted by the Sister who put him down. Seeing that things were well in hand, she went scavenging nearby, but was ambushed by the fifth or possibly sixth mercenary who planted an opportunity arrow in her back from a niche while she wasn't looking.

Then the mercenaries conceded defeat and withdrew before they routed.

Between them, the Mercy Rec Milita was able to recover about a third of the remaining wyrdstones in the area. No gold had been found, but enough other loot could and would be sold for gold at the local shop outside town. No shields had been found, and only one hammer, but plenty of axes including one fine enough to enchant, as well as a bow and a pair of dueling guns -- all could be sold since the Sisters were forbidden to use such bloody tools.

All told, at the end of that day they had found 16 pounds of wyrd, enough gold to upgrade their kit a bit and pay for everyone who had fought that night; all the women had improved their various skills slightly, some moreso than others; and Shirley back at base outside the city leveraged the reputation provided by her successful soldiers to get a 5% increase in gold for items sold at the shop hereafter.

But Bertha wanted 100 pounds, not 16, with only nine more days to go. And the purse was even lighter now, with only 5 gold remaining.

Tomorrow would be just as desperate a scramble to operate one more day. Or even to only survive.