Mordhiem - The Forgotten Gem

In this day and age of the hobby, with a healthy every growing industry that churns out hundreds of new products monthly and a wealth of great publications; printed and online keeping us up to speed of there release - it can be hard for us hobbyists to resist being swept up by playing and owning "the latest thing" - I for one am totally guilty of this...

My brother in law; Jason is a keen wargamer like myself but unlike me, if he is happy with a rule set, he stays with it (like the old saying "If it ain't broke...") - preferring Warhammer 5th Edition to the current and Mordhiem being one of his most favourite. Now for the past couple of months Jason has being running a Mordhiem campaign at the Iron Forest gaming club for the rest of us who have either never played it or mostly forgotten its existence.

Sir Rodric on Paretorian

For those who are unaware of it, Mordhiem is a skirmish fantasy game written by Alessio Cavatore, Tuomas Pirinen and Rick Priestly for Games Workshop back in 1999, as a skirmish set in a damned city full of grim dark nastiness. Like Necromunda that came before, it boasted a rather good and detailed campaign system for charting your warbands growth from lowly band of mercs to a bunch of god damn heroes :P . Sadly GW has long stopped supporting Mordhiem but luckily you can pick up the rules easy enough other via ebay or on pdf for free here.

Also there is a wealth of extra unofficial material - this site being some of my favourite.

Sir Tristan - a Knight Errant and latest Recruit

Now I can vaguely remember playing Mordhiem at a long since retired club a good decade and a half ago and was thoroughly unimpressed with the game. Now I can't remember why but that impression stuck with me ever since and when Jason proposed the campaign I have to admit I was completely thrilled but wargaming is a social hobby and when all your mates do something, best to support them.

My only surviving monk - how he keeps going I do not know!

I think Jason sensed my reluctance and as we was packing away after a club night he offered me a quick demo game. I wont go into the details of the game but it was me playing Bretonnians vs Jasons mercenaries and it was an absolute blast! Jason had such a good knowledge of the rules at he implemented all the advanced rules without slowing the game down - with epic sword fights with parrying and critical hits - the game felt like the brutal clashes you see in Game of Thrones. How I ever disliked this game I never know!

Leader of my Longbowmen group - he will be a hero one day!

Now flash forward to the present and Iron Forest's fist Mordhiem campaign is coming to the close and I can safely say - I am not doing great :P. My Bretonnian warband led by Sir Rodric has had a very rocky journey and after two brutal defeats have lost a lot of men! But Rodric has all but one game come out unscathed and bagged a few kills in the process so is one tough mofo on the battlefield. Even if I don't win this campaign, its been such a laugh and Jason has promised a "Season 2" for our warbands so who knows Rodric's success in the future.

My Veterna Longbowmen - with 30" range and BS5 - they are rightly feared!

Also Jason wants to use Mordhiem for games set in other themes - first off a campaign set in the War of the Roses. Now this is where Mordhiem shines, because its based on the core GW rules system that we all know and love, its surprisingly very versatile to tinker with. At Iron Forest we have discussed using this system for Games of Thrones, Middle Earth, War of the Roses, Italian Wars, Dark Ages and even Napoleonics!

My levy - sadly only the chap on the far right remains

So if your thinking of doing a skirmish campaign with black powder tech or backwards, or maybe starting a new historical period and want to get gaming as soon as possible - I highly recommend Mordhiem.

The figures I have used in Jason's campaign

The pictures throughout are my mordhiem warband - painted originally for playtesting my wargames system "Sai'lum" which I will discuss in more detail soon. he pictures below are the beginnings of my next warband - Reikland mercenaries :)

Thanks for your time - cya soon ;)