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52. A Stroll In The Garden

Source: Town Cryer #23
Setting: Mordheim
Author: Anonymous

Description: Skirmish set in Mordheim’s Steinhardt Memorial Gardens. Warriors within 2” of a tree or bush receive hits from the chaos-wracked foliage.

YYour warband has heard the fantastic stories about the old Memorial Gardens in the northwest corner of the city. However, even if your warriors believed the tales about enormous carnivorous plants, the other stories spread about the Gardens — the stories about piles of wyrdstone lying unguarded on the ground, and secret basement vaults filled with treasures beyond measure were enough to draw your band to this place, heedless of the risk. So you find yourselves here, walking slowly through the gate, peering into the tangled depths and wondering just which stories are true. Then you notice that you are not the only figures brave enough to ignore the warnings...

terrain

Each player takes it in turn to place a piece of terrain, either a small building, set of hedges or walls, set of trees, small clump of bushes, or similar item or terrain appropriate to Mordheim. At least half of the pieces of terrain should be some form of plant life. The end result should be an overgrown area broken by small paths, walls, and buildings.

set-up

All players roll a D6 to see who deploys first, with the player rolling highest choosing a table edge and setting up first. If there are two players, then the next player sets up on the opposite board edge. If there are more than two players, the remaining players choose sides and set up their warbands based on the order of their dice rolls, highest to lowest. A player must set up his warband within 8" of his table edge, but not within 4" of a side edge, and not within 10" of another player’s warband. Keep in mind that more than four players should be accommodated with a larger battlefield than normal (see the ‘Chaos in the Streets’ article on multi-player games in the Best of Town Cryer, page 30).

starting the game

Players each roll a D6 to determine who goes first. Play proceeds clockwise around the table (based on where players placed their warbands) from there.

special rules

It turns out that all the stories told about the Memorial Gardens are true! This is represented in the scenario by the following special rules:

  1. The plants in the Garden will attack any warriors who come within range. At the end of each player’s Movement phase, check to see if any of his warriors are attacked. Each warrior of that player’s warband who ended his move within 2" of a tree receives D3-1 automatic hits at Strength 3; each warrior of that player’s warband who ended his move within 2" of a smaller plant (hedge, bush, etc) receives D6-2 automatic hits at Strength 1. A warrior who does not end his move within 2" of a plant has moved too quickly for the hate-filled creatures to reach him. However, note that the attacks will occur even if the warrior is in close combat or didn’t move at all that Movement phase (if he’s stupid enough to stay near that tree, well...).

  2. At the end of the game, each player receives one additional dice for Exploration. In addition, after he rolls, each player has the option of re-rolling all of his Exploration dice. If this option is taken, the player must re-roll ALL the dice rolled for Exploration... he may not choose to keep some dice and re-roll others!

ending the game

The game ends when all warbands but one have failed their Rout test. Warbands which rout automatically lose. If two or more warbands have allied when the other warbands have all routed, they may choose to share the victory and end the game, or they may continue the game until one warband is victorious (ie, break the alliance and fight it out!).

experience

  • +1 Survives. If a Hero or a Henchman group survives the battle they gain +1 Experience.
  • +1 Winning Leader. The leader of the winning warband gains +1 Experience.
  • +1 Per Enemy Out of Action. Any Hero earns +1 Experience for each enemy he puts out of action.
  • +1 Attacked by Plants. Any Hero who gets hit at least once by an attack from a plant gains +1 Experience.