Kewn here,

About a week ago Vincent and I were just chatting a bit about the Mordheim game. Our entire group agrees that Mordheim is held together a bit too much by random battles, and we’re planning to do something about it. One of these ideas is something I’d like to share with the Mordheim community, because a few opinions about it would be nice.

Ok, so the basic idea is to create a minimap to keep track of your warband’s travels, but to keep the minimap small and portable to be able to take it with you wherever you want. In order to achieve this particular function it is ofcourse required that the minimap consists out of a few separate pieces which you can put together. One of the most ideal forms in order to do that is the hexagon, which GW is also using for their ‘macro-battle’-like game called ‘Mighty empires’ (it’s called ‘planetary empires’ in the 40k game). >link

But instead of using this rather pricy format, I think it might be a neat-o idea to create a couple of hexagons of our own, and then put more and more of them on the field as each of our warbands explores more and more of the cursed city. By making pictures of our ‘war terrain’ for each hexagon on which we fight, we would be able to go back to previous terrain by simply putting our terrain pieces in the same way as the are on the picture. Doing so will create a bit more consistency in the campaign itself. The city will actually ‘exist’, instead of being random every time (As if you’re playing diablo 2).

Another cool thing is that because of this minimap you’ll be able to track the adventures of your warband. This way you’ll actually have a sense of time and effort that your little group of adventurers is putting into this perilous journey for wyrdstone, and you’ll be able to talk in a different way about your battles too. Rather than talking about ‘last sunday I had a battle with Jeroen’, you’ll be able to implement more fluff in the conversation (which we all love, ofcourse). This results in you talking about the battle you had in sigmar temple in the temple district against the mighty orc warband of Jeroen. Apart from that the other player will actually have the opportunity to *go* there, and meet someone else in the process.

Apart from ‘cooler ways to talk about your miniatures to your friends’ , the minimap also has a more practical use. Because the minimap exists, you’ll also be able to place down an encampment, or even allow certain hexagons to contain vendors or your own encampment, in which you can rest and refreshen yourself for the next battle. Unless another player finds your encampment first, ofcourse . These things can be easily implemented using a few simple house rules, and I think they will increase the depth and complexity of the game by a whole bunch, making the entire experience a whole lot more statisfying than just matching up guy A with guy B and fight until someone routes. You will actually somewhat less control over who you’re fighting, if you’re even fighting someone (I mean, you’ll even be able to use ‘empty’ squares for item searches or exploration).

This whole concept is only in a beginning stage. I haven’t given it too much thought yet, mostly because we’ve only started playing Mordheim and I’m already trying to design a whole new game around it before we’re even somewhat familliar with the rules of Mordheim itself. I was however hoping to inspire you, the reader, to enhance the Mordheim experience with more depth and fluff than it has right now. This because I seriously think all those stories around Mordheim and the warbands can be used in better ways than just a bit of background info.

I’d like for you to leave me a note in the comments section, saying what you think about this whole concept. Is it too much in your opinion? Or did we just thought about the coolest thing in Mordheim history?

Thanks in advance! Oh, and RATS RULE!

Tags: kewn, minimap, modular terrain, Mordheim, terrain

18 Oct 2009
Tags: kewn, minimap, modular terrain, Mordheim, terrain
Posted in General | 4 Comments »