Maciek's journey to Mordheim - a stroll through the ruins (wildcard)

 Wildcard month

Ruins of van Kessel's house

February is a short month so I built and painted a grand total of one model. It is large and completely scratch built. But still the only way I can get away with it is because and I am using my wildcard month. For February I give you the ruins of van Kessel's house from the Mordheim Merchant's  quarter.

 Fighting for warpstone over the ruins*

The house is designed with game-play in mind. Several access points as well as windows and openings to provide firing lanes from all sides. Debris inside is flat to facilitate movement of models. 

 

I wanted to give it that retro feel so it is built mostly from the classic crafting materials:  foam-board, cardboard, balsa wood, coffee stir-sticks, matches, plasticard, green stuff and a generous application of wall filler. One exception are the insides of windows. Could not get hold of wire mesh in my local craft store so I used 3D printed inserts.

Creative mess in progress. Building the city from scratch to ruin.

Two things I am really happy about are the plastered outside walls and the doors. The filler plaster provides a nice organic texture for painting. I also like how the door details turned out and they were not difficult to make.

These are made from wooden stir sticks, plasticard, greenstuff and a wire coiled on a brush. I would not have braved these details if not for the immortal holy text of crafters: "How to make wargames terrain". 

It was a fun and messy build that took couple of evenings. Took me back to early 2000s and a short-lived initiative for group crafting sessions with friends.

In March I will be working on the Beastmen Raiders and probably some leftover sisters.

Cheers, 

Maciek

*Terms and conditions apply. Miniatures visible on the photos are for illustrative purposes and not included in the February entry :-)

Maciek's journey to Mordheim - Sisters of Sigmar

 Rank & File month #1

 

The trip to Mordheim was supposed to start easy. A visit to a friendly house -  Sigmar's Rock, the fortified monastery of the Order of the Merciful Sisters of Sigmar, the only place to remain unscathed after the comet hit. 

 

Sisters are some of last remaining locals and certainly the only group that can be deemed good among the greedy or deranged warbands in Mordheim.  Obviously inspired by the 40k Sisters of Battle, but significantly less fanatical. I have never seen them played and always wanted to try them out - they have many weapons and skills to smite Chaos and the Undead.

 Sisters of Sigmar being unfriendly with the undead (by Paul Dainton, Inferno! #19)

For January I give you 12 sisters, mostly the original Mordheim models. They were a joy to paint -  characterful faces and not too overloaded with detail. 

I expected January to be an easy month. You know the feeling - motivation is high, models ready, maybe some free days at the start of the year, workload under control. What could go wrong? Several things apparently. For starters being away from home for over a week (took models but no conditions to paint) and an unexpected additional wave of work. Both significantly reduced my painting time. 

I wanted to use an earthly, muted palette to fit Mordheim and correspond to colours of real-life monastic habits. Grey and brown should provide a nice contrast. I tried out two potential schemes (and couple versions of skin colours from "pale flesh" to warm "bronzed flesh").

Honey or mustard robes?

...and went with the honey-coloured ochre for the robes. Less realistic, but pops more on the table. I also experimented a bit with using thinned down contrast paints as washes over standard paints. I liked the results, more subtle than standard wash. All this also took some precious time. Of course the learning from that is to do colour scheme testing before OWAC starts. But who am I kidding...

In the end I made it, but by the skin of my teeth. Shields are missing and couple of the sisters require further work to get to my usual standard (close-up shots coming next month). In February I will go for wildcard and aim to bring a small piece of Mordheim to life. Go crafting!

Cheers, Maciek

Journey to the City of the Damned – Maciek’s intro post

 

Greetings!

For my third attempt at OWAC I shall reap the benefits of the “special edition” and go full scale into Mordheim. A game where rival warbands fight over the ruins of a former capital of Ostermark in search of magical "wyrdstone". For me it will always be – hands down - the best miniatures game that Games Workshop has ever produced.  

The haunting cover art by Geoff Taylor

There are many reasons why I found this game so alluring. First, the mad apocalyptic artwork - reminiscent of (and clearly inspired by) Hieronymus Bosh. A print of the cover hangs on my wall and I still like to pore over all the disturbing details. Second, the grim-dark atmosphere that is somehow both post-apocalyptic and yet full of portents of even more impending doom… When released in 1999 it stood out from the colourful Warhammer 5th edition and harkened back to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay – just the stuff I loved.

 

Then there are the extensive role-playing elements – individual equipment, experience, skills and injuries for warband members. All great for building stories and personalizing the members. Chaos and chance are always close – I had warbands rise to glory only to have mighty heroes laid low by critical hits, crippled by injuries or dying from minor wounds after the visit to the barber-surgeon. To add to the immersion the warbands collect the most unmistakably Warhammer resource of all:

 

Aaaah.... Waaaarpstone!*

The project

For OWAC VI, I plan to paint more damned denizens of Mordheim! I already have a number of warbands but some iconic actors are missing. The plan is to build at least four full-sized warbands and more terrain.

- Sisters of Sigmar

The excommunicated Sisters are the true force of good more than capable to smite the minions of chaos and evil. For this OWAC I focus on the original metals but some alternatives are added for variety.

- Witch hunters

Fuelled by hate and gold from the coffers of the Church of Sigmar these merciless zealots will cleanse Mordheim of all they consider heretical. Or unnatural. Or mildly suspicious. There are too many good witch hunter models to fit into one warband, so I went a bit overboard with numbers to have some extras.

- Middenheimers

Mighty men and women of the north. High concentration of hammers, wolf cloaks and some fierce hairdos. Low on helmets. However they are still soldiers of the empire so not all mercenaries follow the “barbaric” style, which is a good excuse to use models dressed in a classic imperial fashion.

- Beastmen raiders

The obligatory minions of chaos - savage beasts intent to defiling and dancing on the rubble of civilisation. Those of you with good memory may recall these models from my attempt at squad challenge in late 2021. Sadly I got as far as… one model. The rest remained untouched and a painful addition to the pile of shame. Their time will come in OWAC VI.

- Wildcard and Leader months 

Primary objective for the wildcard month is to build and paint at least one building, preferably more. True to the original intent, buildings will be crafted form easily available materials, no 3d printing. As secondary objective I have couple of hired swords (elf ranger, witch/warlock) and some quick-quick Skaven reinforcements.

For the leader month I will deliver the four warband leaders and the minotaur (if things go well, also the ogre bodyguard).

There may still be some additions or replacements of the models picture above, but I will document any changes.

Offering 

 

As offering to our mighty Overlord, considering his love of horror, I present one of the early 90s mummies by Gary Morley. This one has crawled out from the vaults of the Imperial History Museum in Mordheim, awoken from slumber by the hit of the warpstone comet.

Good luck to all challengers, I look forward to seeing all the projects of OWAC VI… and to bringing more souls (and fish and apple cores) to the merry dance of Death in Mordheim!

Cheers,
Maciek 

* Image originates from Shadow of the Horned Rat, another 90s classic  :-)