Who's Who in Mortenhoff

Greetings!

Before I plunge into a series of battlereports from the new Shadestorm Campaign and some follow-up articles to the Long One, I'd like to dedicate a post to the setting of the very first Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game I ever Gamemastered: Mortenhoff Campaign.

As seen in the lengthy feed of this blog's posts, every now and then I pop out a new version of the novel-style story I'm writing about the group's adventures. The Mortenhoff Chronicles, as the project is handily called, tells the story of my first group of Player Characters as they live their rather exciting lives in the Old World.

But who' who in this campaign setting I write an entire novel about? This post is here to answer that.

The location of Mortenhoff, a rather well-doing village east of Middenheim.

Shadestorm Campaign

Greetings!

I have already documented two Firestorm campaigns and a bunch of narrative ones here at ExtraBushyBeards, but now it is time to delve into Shadestorm! Despite the storm-y name, this one is not played using the Firestorm campaign pack; instead, we use the Map Campaign Lite ruleset I translated from WFB to AoS.

The war takes place on the Kolkfjara Coast somewhere in the Realm of Ulgu (hence the campaign name) and has five contending factions: three from Grand Alliance Order, one from Death and one from Chaos. The rules for the campaign can be found here.

Heroes in this campaign will be named and personalized, earning rewards and titles for feats on the battlefield. Should they die, however, they are gone for good. An example of Hero reward generation can be found here.

May the best faction win!

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The Last of the Ulgumgi

Greetings!

A while ago I managed to finish all the remaining units I had planned for my Ulgumgi army: two new heroes, 10 Huntsmen and 5 Fenrir Riders. With them done, I have finished yet another army project of mine.

Here are some pretty photos of the newcomers!

Groupshot of the reinforcements. The typical rust-and-leather look of the Ulgumgi is evident in these chaps as well, and the red gems on their bases tie them nicely into the rest of the army.

Memory in the Mortal Realms

Greetings!

It's been a while since I last wrote up something for the Ponderings section of the blog, so here it comes:

Spells Without End

Greetings!

As a part of my Miniature Collection Inventory I tallied up my non-fighter miniatures as well. You know, the neutral ones. I'm speaking of Endless Spells, of course!

I bought the Endless Spells box a healthy while after it was released, managing to snatch myself one of the last copies my local game store had on their shelves. I got to painting them almost straight away, as they will be useful in nearly all my armies and I will gladly share them with my opponent if they'd like to tap into these incarnations of wild magic as well.

Some of the spells I painted according to the box art, the stuff I already liked the look of. A couple of them got their scheme from the accompanying Malign Sorcery rulebook, in which some of the spells had brilliant art that was cooler than their suggested paint schemes, in my opinion. The rest had their colours either improvised or inspired by some astounding painters out there in the wider world! (Copied from a googled image)

Battle of the Valley of Fallen Gods

Greetings!

The end of the year was so busy for me that the finale of our three-player Firestorm campaign never got written into a narrative battlereport.

I'm here to fix that.

This is the final battle of the Firestorm II campaign which began last summer, and was brought to its conclusion before the year's end. Here's what happened on the battlefield that determined the overall victor of the campaign...

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Mortenhoff Chronicles: Chapters 1 to 5

Greetings!

I am happy to inform you that my WFRP 2nd Edition campaign has progressed quite a bit this year, and I have managed to write the Mortenhoff Chronicles up to date with our finished sessions!

Below you will find two links, one to the brand new fifth chapter of the book, and another featuring the entire book from the very beginning to the end of this most recent chapter. Even if you have read/downloaded/skimmed through the previous files featuring as much of the story as had been written back then, I highly recommend you take this new one as well. Why? Because I've had my players read it through in search of typos and other errors, all of which have been fixed in this latest installment.

Those of you who have been reading the previous chapters will already be familiar with my campaign's player characters:
- Nywon Nuntius, a human scribe
- Toga, a human protagonist
- Dracoh Rigulah, a human cadet
- Kalós Malákas, a human pit fighter
- Mellion, an elf apprentice wizard

In chapter four the group got drawn into a feud between a priest of Morr and a travelling plague doktor in the small hamlet of Bebbanburg. Our adventurers then headed off into the Middle Mountains and entered negotiations with the dwarven outpost that resides there, getting on the tracks of whatever was driving the Gloomfang goblin tribe down into Middenland. The fifth chapter picks the story up from where chapter four left it (naturally!) and sees the group acquire a new task and a new friend. Of sorts...

If you've read this far and have no idea what this is all about, let me explain: I'm the GM of a game of 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, in which my players play the characters listed above. I have taken it upon myself to write down our every single game session in a novel format, with full-blown dialogues, event descriptions and action sequences from our roleplaying sessions.

Welcome to the Mortenhoff Chronicles!

Mortenhoff Chronicles: Chapter Five

Mortenhoff Chronicles: Chapters One to Five

Enjoy!

PS. I've been thinking about posting a Who's Who in Mortenhoff? article in the near future, as our group has plenty of character art drawn that I could use to show you some of the most important NPCs and, of course, our PCs! What do you think?

Show Me What You've Got

Greetings!

Today's post is a special one. There's never been anything like it on the blog before. Ever.

What is it, then? A complete assortment of statistics about my miniature collection, of course!

Over the course of two days I took out every single box, bag and crate that I use to store miniatures, to record the number of armies and models I currently have in my entire collection. I also made a note of every miniature that I've finished out of this collection, with Painted-Percentages for the total as well as for each army individually. I compiled all this data into an Excel-sheet, from which I then created some diagrams for you to look at.

Here it is, the cold, hard truth. I currently own 1457 (yes, fourteen hundred and fifty-seven) individual miniatures. Each base holding any number of models (like the Anvil of Doom) was counted as a single miniature, although I keep my war machines and their crews separate, so a Cannon with three crew would still equal four miniatures. Simple!

Volcrest War -Campaign Finished

Greetings!

The recent half-a-year's campaign, the Volcrest War, has reached it's conclusion after six thrilling Acts that saw both Ghurian land and ancient artefacts change hands in bloody battles across the Sclavinian Valley.

Check out the Campaign Chronicle here to get an idea of the war as a whole.

A huge thanks to our campaign's gamemaster, who tirelessly wrote our glorious victories and bitter defeats into the constantly evolving story of the war, with amazing custom scenarios and in-game bonuses for alliances along the way!

Painting and Preparations

Greetings!

It's been over a month since the last post, I know. My studies got in the way momentarily and disturbed my hobby life, and although I was able to get in a few games here and there, I haven't had time to write battlereports of them. Fortunately that is now in the past and y'all will have lots to read on your holidays as I catch up with my battlereport output!

But first, I have something to show you. I recently got some Citadel Contrast paints in the hopes of this new technological advancement speeding up my backlog, and guess what... it actually works.

Take a look at these Highborn Spearmen / Dreadspears I finished just yesterday:

That's 30 Spearmen with two command groups to allow me splitting the unit (and because I have another 20 Spearmen already painted that have to command). I worked on this unit a couple of hours a night over a week, and some days were too busy to have me paint at all. Yet the unit still got finished a lot faster than I anticipated; trust me, I know. I just painted 40 Highborn Archers with regular paints before these ones. Ungh!

I'm very happy with how the unit turned out. The colours are bright and clean, shadows and highlights are good tabletop quality but on larger surfaces like the shield you still get some natural variation in the saturation of the colour, making it look like the shield was actually covered with a painted cloth of whatever.

The recipe was deceptively simple. Wraithbone base coat for warm colours, Celestra Grey for cold ones. Then you just splash on the colours of your choice: warm on warm and cold on cold. Add some texture to the base and boom. Unit done.

I also tried my hand at a third Bolt Thrower. The war machine itself is mostly regular paints, but the crew and the bolts are almost all Contrast (except metallics). I didn't have a large enough base for the Bolt Thrower to get all the extra flags and ammunition on it, so I decided to give the bonus goodies to the crew.

Works fine, in my opinion. I just didn't want to leave out such evocative bits from the unit. So, with this post the blog is back on track, with several battlereports, campaign finales and Warhammer Roleplay content on the way.

Make sure to pop by every now and then on your holdays. Until then!

Second Battle of the Prismatikon

Greetings!

Once again the forces of Hammerhal and Anvilgard met upon the battlefield, this time fighting it out to the rhythm of Battleplan: Protect the Wards from the Malign Sorcery book. The Hammerhalians had three Foci on the table, objectives that boasted 15 Wounds and a Save of 3+ each. These Foci could be destroyed in close combat like any other model, but until destroyed they would prevent any and all Anvilgard models from entering the Hammerhal deployment zone.

Should the Anvilgardians get even a single unit into the Hammerhal deployment zone by the end of the 5th battleround, they would be victorious. Any other result would be a successful defense on the part of the defenders!

Onwards, to battle!

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Lord Aenarel watched the mage tap the crystal thrice with her staff, causing the focus to flicker into an arcane life. Golden light danced within the prismatic crystal, growing stronger by the moment and linking up with similar grow from the two other crystals spread out in a line before the assembled ranks of the Hammerhal army. The foci reached out for each other, linking their golden light, and suddenly a bright flash of light washed over the onlookers. As the aelves blinked the colourful afterglow out of their eyes, they beheld a barrier of shimmering, arcane force that stretched out before them, forming a magical palisade in between them and the cloud of dust in the horizon that they knew to be an Anvilgard invasion force.

"The ward is strong and stabilized, my liege," the mage reported, a hint of a proud smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"Very well," Aenarel replied, sighing. He was weary to the bone. Losing his eldest son in the incessant fighting over the last few weeks had taken its toll on the old noble.
"Take up position at the altar on our eastern flank. I need someone there to look after the barrier's integrity during the battle. Lothar will make sure the centre holds. No doubt our foe will try to disrupt the foci in any ways take can possibly come up with."
"I'd be disappointed if they didn't," the mage remarked before bowing and taking her leave.

Battle of the Razorfang Sprawl

Greetings!

Here comes another battlereport from the Firestorm II campaign, once again with the aelves of Hammerhal and Anvilgard duking it out and seeing who gets to control the Razorfang Sprawl.

The Battleplan we used featured two Watchtowers in the Anvilgard deployment zone, and the aim of the game was to either 1) wipe out the enemy or 2) for the attacker to have any models within 3" of either of the Watchtowers.

Anvilgard was the defender in this scenario, giving them the benefit of cover and the control of the towers, forcing the army of Hammerhal to try and win them over.

On with the story!
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Lord Aenarel soared above the verdant fields astride his dragon, taking in the vista opening up below him. Long columns of mounted Dragon Blade Knights and Reavers were snaking towards the horizon amidst the grassy hills, followed by the army's baggage train with its Levy Spearmen escort. Far ahead the main column, scattered wide into the landscape, were the Lion Rangers Lord Dawnspur had assigned as their trackers, guides and scouts.

As soon as the news of his nephew's failure in the Vitriolic Swamps had reached him, Aenarel had mustered all available cavalry and set out to the east, leaving the Eyes of the Prismatikon to the garrison of spearmen and archers. He pressed on into the Razorfang Sprawl in an attempt to divide the Anvilgard domain here on the Flamescar Plateau in two, leaving the enemy weakened and open for a killing blow. More than that, he knew Lord Rinos would press his advantage after the Anvilgard victory at the swamps, and the only way to stop the enemy general from achieving that was to strike first.

Volcrest Campaign Chronicles

Greetings!

This post is up to chronicle the events of the Volcrest War, a new campaign that recently begun in our local gamestore. The campaign advances in two-week Acts, which are divided into Map Conquest Acts and Narrative Quest Acts: the former type is for claiming regions on the campaign map, the latter for acquiring campaign bonuses for your faction.

The campaign is set in a lush valley just east of the Uzhag Plains in the Realm of Ghur. The area is nominally under the control of the Order-aligned Empire of Sclavinia, but since the discovery of an ancient Stormvault in the flying city of Volcrest, the capital of the Empire, forces from the other three Grand Alliances have begun to flock to the region. The aim of the campaign is for the participants to secure their Grand Alliance a region adjacent to the flying city of Volcrest, in order for them to find a way in and pillage the vault... which is easier said than done, since the despotic Emperor Ioann has sealed himself and his loyal followers into the city, preventing all means of entry.

This post will chronicle the events of the war as four Grand Alliances vie for chances to close in on the city and discover a way to get in.

Siege of Kazad-Zul

Greetings!

Time has come for another game of Old Skål, this time using the rules for Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th Edition despite what I decided back in the Old Skål article. What can I say, well, a little change of pace in WFB is always welcome, so you'll most likely see both 3rd ed and 6th ed batreps here under the Old Skål banner from now on. The game mechanics do not show through the narration anyway, so what does the edition really matter?

This game pitted the stout Dwarves against a fearsome horde of Warriors of Chaos in a siege scenario. There was no time limit for the battle, and the side that shattered the opposition first would be the winner. The Chaos forces totaled up to 945p while the defenders got about a third less, 616p. On the other hand, the defenders did get a huge castle as compensation. I'll include the army lists down below if anyone's interested.

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The eleventh day of the siege dawned warm and hazy, the sun shining down upon the upturned fields surrounding the dwarven hold of Kazad-Zul. Where once had been fields of hardy mountain wheat swaying in the wind, now lay dozens of corpses rotting in the warmth. The air that had once rang to the merry whistling of dwarven workers now resonated with the buzzing of corpse-flies that fed on the waste of the conflict around them.

Ten days before, a sizeable Chaos army had fought its way to the gates of Kazad-Zul, setting camp and laying siege to the hold. Earthworks and palisades were erected around the siege camp to protect the invaders from defender raids and sallies, and thick-timbered catapults had been hammered together and brought to bear against the castle walls. Day after day the hordes of the Dark Gods bashed their might against shieldwalls and masonry, yet no ground was gained. The dwarf hold was well stocked with supplies and fresh water underground, the siege camp was not. Disease and daily skirmishes took their toll on the followers of Chaos.

Painthammer Quest: Layers over Hammerhal

Greetings!

Since I got a colleague of mine into trying out Warhammer Quest: Shadows over Hammerhal a while back, I decided to see throught the painting of the box's miniatures. So here comes a collection of painted heroes, adversaries and the big baddie!

Battle of the Vitriolic Swamps

Greetings!

And welcome to another report from the Firestorm II campaign. The forces of Hammerhal and Anvilgard met once more to do battle, this time deep in the Vitriolic Swamps, which gave us a prime opportunity to play with a plethora of special rules and shenaningans!

First of all, the scenario was Glory Seekers from the Open War cards: both players add up the Wound values of all slain enemy models and score that many Victory Points, with x2 points for monsters and heroes.

Battle for the Eyes of the Prismatikon

Greetings!

I am happy to bring you yet another battle from our ongoing Firestorm II -campaign, this time pitting my Hammerhal Aelves against a ferocious legion of Seraphon. The Battleplan was one of the surprise battles introduced in the Firestorm rulebook, establishing an interesting betting system to determine which side would be the Defender and which the Attacker.

Well, to put it as simply as possible, the betting system works like this: both players secretly write down a number they are willing to bet in Victory Points. Once the numbers are revealed, the player with the higher number will be the Attacker, whilst the one to bet lower is the Defender (who in this scenario had some special rules hindering his forces). The gist of the system is that at the end of the game, the Defender gets as many Victory Points extra as the Attacker bet at the beginning of the battle!

To use our game here as an example, I secretly bet 125 VP, whilst my opponent bet 400 VP. When the numbers were revealed before deployment, it was thus established that I would be the Defender (having bet lower). BUT! at the end of the game I will received +400 extra Victory Points on top of the VP I got from killing off enemy units. Truly an amazing system in all its simplicity.

So, my forces began the game with D3 units "sleeping" in my camp, meaning they could not do anything, and my opponent also got the first turn. I rolled a 1 for the number of sleeping units, so only my Archers were useless in the first round.

On with the story!

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Having insisted on pressing east even after the battle against the hated Anvilgardians at the Caverns of Fulminax, as opposed to staying put and waiting for reinforcements, Lord Aenarel Dawnspur had put himself in a sticky situation. He had only allowed his depleted forces enough rest so that the accompanying artesans had had time to fashion his levy bowmen some basalt-tipped arrows, half a quiver each, before forced marching his army over to the Eyes of the Prismatikon, a massive array of tall towers tipped with lenses that could focus the searing energies of the Realm of Fire.

With the Caverns of Fulminax behind them now under proper Hammerhal control, they would have a steady supply of weapons utilising the new enhanced basalt that seemed to thrive in the Aqshyan climate, glowing bright hot and melting through armour like it was parchment. Now that he was staring at a Seraphon force descending down on his army's encampment at the Eyes of the Prismatikon, however, even the prospect of future superior weapon shipments did not cheer the old aelf up. The new test-batch of arrowheads would have to prove nigh-miraculous if he hoped to survive ths encounter with his forces intact.

Battle of the Caverns of Fulminax

Greetings!

Another battle went down between the aelves of Hammerhal and Anvilgard. As is the habit of the sinister Anvilgardians, the battle setup was an ambush, into which my army happily walked.

The aim of the game was to score Victory Points by destroying enemy units. Deceptively simple!

On with the story...


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With his son having been humiliated at the hands of Dreadlord Rinos Wildbringer, Lord Aenarel Dawnspur was full of righteous anger. After hearing the news he had rounded up all available troops in the landing site at the Coast of Ill Omen, putting together a sizeable legion which he marched off into the mountains in search of the deceitful foe.

They marched for days, making camp at sheltered valleys and hidden ravines amidst the mountains, but as they finally made camp at an old watchtower at the Caverns of Fulminax they were up for an unpleasant surprise...

Storming of the Oldentown Castle

Greetings!

This post marks the end of the year-long Streets of Oldentown campaign, as the two leading warbands clash in the shadow of the district's castle. The combatants must fight the neutral forces of the Oldentown Garrison in addition to clashing among themselves, and the warband with a model within 3" of the door to the Castle Tower at the end of any battle round is the victor.

And on we go to the battlereport! Below you'll find a collection of atmospheric pictures and descriptions from the fray, along with the story that concludes this campaign.

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A beautiful Marktag turns into a hazy evening in the Oldentown District of the capital city of the Puffington Empire. Workers, merchants and artesans all make their way back home for the night, flowing along the cobbled streets like living streams of duardin, aelves and humans.

Darkness begins to grip the edges of the horizon as the twin suns of Ghur descend towards the distant treelines, the massive city walls hiding the final warming rays from the tucked-in populace of the City of Order.

However, as the shadows gather and the streets grow quiet, sinister plans are put to motion right under the noses of the City Watch...

The Ulgumgi - Instahammer 2019

Greetings!

I am both happy and wistful to post about the end of 2019 Tales of Instahammer. Happy, because my Ulgumgi are now in good condition and I can focus on other projects. Wistful, because the event was so much fun over the six months, planning conversions and exploring the theme I had set for my army!

Now, however, the Ulgumgi have gathered in great numbers for a family portret. Only 20 Hirdmen and 20 Huntsmen remain unpainted, and I'll fix that soon as well.

Behold the descendants of the Lost Battalion!