87. Round-up at the Mordheim Corral
Source: The Fanatic Online Archives
Setting: Mordheim
Author: Andy Tabor
Broheim notes: Two to four wild boars have eaten a merchant’s Wyrdstone. Warbands must kill randomly moving and aggressive boars to recover it. Optional suggestion of using mutations. Really good fun.
Giovanni was a travelling merchant, and not a very good one. Perhaps it was his choice of wild boar as merchandise; perhaps it was his accent, but whatever the case he’d been kicked out of every town on this side of the Reik. Mordheim was his last hope.
He approached the ruined city with some trepidation, and the sprawled bodies near the gates didn’t make him feel any easier. Mind you, beggars can’t be choosers, and as there was nobody else about he examined a few of the bodies to see if they had any easily portable wealth. There were a few trinkets, but most intriguingly there was a handful of green stones that glowed with a faint inner light. This must be the fabled wyrdstone. Giovanni smiled. At last his luck had changed.
Whistling merrily to himself, Giovanni and his assistants herded his charges through the streets, looking for somewhere to put his boars on show. Soon he came across the old market place, complete with pens for livestock – the perfect site. He really was in luck today. Giovanni and his hapless assistant were attempting to guide the boars into an old pen when he slipped and fell. The boars may be thickskulled, but they know an opportunity when they see one and they jumped on him.
His assistants tried to intervene; all but one were trampled, gored and tusked in the fray, and soon there wasn’t much left of ‘lucky’ Giovanni and his men. The boars, on the other hand, were loose. Their taste of merchant mixed with the wyrdstone they had wolfed down at the same time (that had been hiding in the pockets of the unfortunate Giovanni) all added to their naturally belligerent, vicious and mean character making them even nastier than usual. On the other hand, word from the sole survivor soon travelled throughout Mordheim: there’s a bunch of boars running around Mordheim with wyrdstone in their stomachs…
terrain
Each player takes it in turn to place a piece of terrain, either a ruined building, tower, or other similar item. We suggest that the terrain is set up within an area roughly 4' x 4'. The centre of the area should be empty to represent a pen or open area for the boars to run off in a random direction. This could be a good scenario to set in the Market Square (located in the North-east section of Mordheim – see the map in either the old Necromunda magazine or on the website).
set-up
All players roll a D6 and whoever rolls highest chooses which warband sets up first. If more than two warbands, please use Mordheim Annual 2002 page 27 Diagram 1.
special rules
Once you have placed the terrain, place D3 + 1 boars for each warband involved in the game. All boars start in the middle of the table. The boars will go first. In this scenario, boars move in one of two ways. If there is a non-boar model within 7" then they will charge the nearest one they can reach. Otherwise, use a Scatter dice and 2D6 to determine direction and distance of the movement of each boar. If a boar moves into a non-boar model anyway, then it counts as a charge.
Each boar must be killed in order to search for wyrdstone. No boar would allow anyone to perform a cavity search whilst it was alive…
When the boar is killed the warrior must roll a D6 to search for wyrdstone. On a 1-3 the warrior cannot locate the stomach of the boar and must wait next turn to try again (yuck!). On a 4-6 the warrior has located the stomach or intestines of the boar. He then rolls a D3 to determine how many shards of wyrdstone he’s found. If more than one model is in contact with a dead boar the second (and subsequent) may try to find the wyrdstone if the first fails.
Wyrdstone can’t be transferred to another warrior. Animals cannot carry wyrdstone, but can cause a kill. If a warrior carrying wyrdstone is killed, stunned or knocked down then place wyrdstone counters beside it to represent the dropped items. These may be picked up by anyone who’s allowed to carry it.
war boar
Large, ferocious and bad-tempered – a perfect mount for an Orc Warlord. Orc warbands occasionally make use of these noisome beasts while exploring the ruins of Mordheim and beyond. It isn’t common though, as the bigger and meaner Orcs tend to take the boars for themselves.
| Profile | M | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boar | 7 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
A boar has an Armour Save of 5+.
special rules
Ferocious Charge: Orc war boars attack with +2S when charging, due to their bulk. Note that this applies only to the boar, not the rider.
Thick Skinned: The thick skin and matted fur of the boar makes him very hard to wound. Boars confer an additional +1 bonus to the rider’s Armour Save (making +2 total).
If an Orc Hero (not Henchmen) comes in contact with a boar he may roll 2D6 to try and tame it. On a 10 or higher the boar can be tamed and the boar will discharge D3 wyrdstone for the Orc Hero. Sounds nasty, but Orcs don’t really care about the smell. Anyway the Orc would make a Goblin or Snotling clean off the wyrdstone for him.
optional rules
On the beginning of the war boars’ second turn they may begin to mutate due to the wyrdstone they have swallowed. Roll a D6 per boar. On a 5+ they mutate that turn. Once mutated the boar will not mutate further. Roll on the table below for the mutation each boar gets:
| D6 | Mutation |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tentacle: A tentacle emerges from the boar’s body. It may use this to grapple its opponent in close combat to reduce his attacks by -1, down to a minimum of 1. The boar may choose which attack is lost. |
| 2 | Blackblood: If the boar loses a wound in close combat, anyone in base contact with it suffers a S3 hit (that will not cause a critical) from the spurting corrosive blood. |
| 3 | Spines: Any model in base contact with the boar suffers an automatic S1 hit at the beginning of each Close Combat phase. Spines will never cause critical hits. |
| 4 | Scorpion tail: The boar’s tail changes and grows a poisoned barb. It gets +1A per turn in close combat. This attack is at S5 (or S2 if the target is immune to poison). |
| 5 | Hideous: The boar causes fear. |
| 6 | Scales: Armour Save increases to 3 |
starting the game
Roll a D6. The player rolling highest has the first turn, and order of play proceeds clockwise around the table (based on where players placed their warbands).
ending the game
The game ends when all warbands but one have failed their Rout test. If two warbands are left they may ally together to end the game. This should be agreed before game begins. Routing can only happen by losing 25% of your troops. No voluntary routing.
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. A Hero earns +1 Experience for each enemy he puts out of action (including harpies).
- +1 per Wyrdstone Counter. If a Hero or Henchman group is carrying a wyrdstone counter at the end of the battle, he receives +1 Experience.