Ankh-Mordheim Town Cryer issue 1

MUTANT RATMEN RUN AMOK IN ANKH-MORDHEIM!

Ninety percent of Ankh-Morpork may have been wiped out in the collision with Mordheim so perhaps we should be more welcoming to all of our new inhabitants. But this writer is unnerved at the sight of not one but two gatherings of mutant giant rats that can not only walk, not only talk, but can fight as well as craft gunpowder weapons! This past week the leader of one of these "Warbands" was brought into the testing laboratories at the Unseen University but it is understood his loyal followers were able to free him before much information could be extracted.

INTERIM PATRICIAN LOOKS TO WARBANDS FOR SAFETY

You read that right, folks. Interim Patrician Black has declared that the recent influx of Warbands into Ankh-Mordheim is a good thing. He thinks they can help protect us against the rampant invaders from the North as well as the tyrannical oppressors from the South. Consequently he has decided to reward them with MORE territories! Whether this support of gangland warfare will be a good move or not remains to be seen, however...

Week 2 of the campaign will see an extra random territory awarded from the neutral pile to each victor. This is for every game in week 2 only.

ADVENTURERS WANTED! APPLY WITHIN!

In another move to help defend Ankh-Mordheim from outside forces, interim Patrician Black is assembling an expedition in two weeks time below the city into the depths of the dungeon. Whomever recovers the most artefacts contained within will be rewarded handsomely.

Week 3 of the campaign will see a multiplayer game of Warhammer Quest for the leaders only of each Warband that wishes to partake. Locations and rare items are up for grabs for the leader who grabs the most loot!

Ankh-Mordheim Back Story part 5

5.

Rain lashed down amongst Captain Kenton Black and his men. They had hurried ashore with the Norsemen band and the Seer had claimed that they were not far now from their destination. It was only a day and a half since they witnessed the events that would change their lives forever, yet it seemed as though months had passed.

During their trek across the sea the sky blackened as the sun was eclipsed by something the Seer had dubbed a “disc world”. Kenton’s grasp of the Norse tongue was limited but he was able to glean some bizarre tale about a giant reptile marching amongst the stars and carrying four hairless mammoths on its back. These mammoths were balancing another world between them which was a flat round world, much smaller than Kenton’s own Old World, but still large enough to eclipse the Sun for a full week as it passed in front of it. A shining bolt which one of Kenton’s men preposterously claimed was an arrow shot by Sigmar, appeared out of nowhere and the Seer had claimed that one of the hairless mammoths had perished as it slammed into the giant reptile carrier.

Regardless of how far-fetched the Seers claims may have seemed at the time, the fact remained that there was now another world balanced atop the Old World. Trying to imagine this new combined world in its entirety, Kenton thought of a ball with a plate precariously balanced atop it. And the point the two made contact was at their destination, the city of Mordheim.

“Black, here” barked the Norse leader. Kenton looked at what the Norseman was pointing at and saw a huge ornate gate containing a pair of giant black oak wood doors. He motioned for two of his own men to investigate the door whilst his other six scoured the wall the gate was set into.

“One of ten”, the Seer murmured. “Two are ruined. Others will come. Will be hard keeping them out”. Kenton nodded in acknowledgement as his men opened the gate and the Norsemen raiders darted inside.

Whatever lay inside was a strange new world but one that Kenton Black would enjoy exploring. One he would enjoy pillaging. One he may even enjoy finally calling home.

Ankh-Mordheim Shield rules ammendment

Should a ranged attack originate from the front 180 degrees of a base of a model equipped with a shields, the models armour save is increased by plus two (5+ base if no other armour) instead of the usual plus one (6+ base if no other armour). No cost increase will be incurred for shields.

The reason for this is to encourage the use of shields and assist in making hand weapons and shields the norm as opposed to two hand weapons. As the standard rules stand, almost everyone opts for dual hand weapons with no penalty which assumes that everyone in the Warhammer Old World is ambidextrous. Having read much feedback about off-hand penalties, dual wield penalties, and other such solutions I have deduced that the simplest one is to simply offer a viable alternative. Hence the above rule.

Ankh-Mordheim campaign rules

Ankh-Mordheim campaign rules

1.   Your warband must adhere to all the rules for starting a warband as found in the Mordheim rulebook (500 GCs) but you may only choose from the following warbands:

a.     Amazon Warband                     Averland Mercenaries               Beastman Raiders

b.     Bretonnian Knights                   Carnival of Chaos                      Cult of the Possessed

c.     Dark Elf Warband                    Dwarf Treasure Hunters                       Halfling Warband        

d.     Kislevite Warband                    Lizardmen Warband                  Marienburg Mercenaries

e.     Middenheim Mercenaries           Night Goblin Warband               Norse Warband            

f.      Orc & Goblin Warband               Ostland Mercenaries                  Pirate Warband           

g.     Sisters of Sigmar                                    Skaven Warband                       Tomb Guardians

h.     Undead Warband                      Witch Hunter Warband

2.  Before your first game, take the three location cards that are allocated to you by the campaign narrator. The names of these location cards are public, but the effects are to remain secret until used.

3.  During every pre-battle sequence, add the following:

1A          - The attacker may name any one of the defenders’ location cards to be the terrain the game is to be played at. The defender chooses a location card at random and places it face down on the table. Whoever loses the ensuing game loses the territory that their opponent chose.

E.g. Paul is attacking John. Paul chooses John’s Hen & Chicken field to be the location of the game and therefore a field is present on the battlefield. Paul then shuffles and fans out his location cards and John, picks one blindly and places it face down on the table. If Paul wins the ensuing game, he claims the Hen & Chicken field. If John wins he claims the random territory.

4.  After your first game, if your entire warband is fully painted, you gain an additional 25GCs after selling Wyrdstone.

5.  At the end of the last game to be played on Thursday 29^th August, whichever player owns the Patrician’s Palace card will be named Patrician of Ankh-Mordheim. Whichever player has the most location cards in total will be named Ankh-Mordheim’s head of city watch. Only if a single player is named both Patrician and head of city watch may he then lay claim to be the returning King of Ankh-Mordheim.

Ankh-Mordheim Back story part 4

4.

Lora could feel her heart beating so hard it felt as through it was about to burst through her chest. Looking up from her prone position in the corridor she could see the hail of arrows that had just flown over her, now embedded in the wall at the end. A black ink oozed from the tip of one of the arrows, onto its shaft and then dripped onto the floor below. The Amazonian woman had seen these before; poisoned arrow traps.

Picking herself up and dusting down her shorts, Lora’s trained ears caught another familiar sound and she leapt into the air. Sprawling both her arms and her legs she swiftly found the walls of the corridor and clung onto the craggy surface. Looking down she saw what she fully expected; the floor had opened up to reveal a pit laced with sharpened stakes.

It took Lora the best part of three minute to clamber down from the wall onto a safe part of the floor. In addition to being cautious, Lora had taken the time to secure a nearby vine to the corridor roof above the pit in order to assist her exit of her surroundings. She had lost track of the time she had spent in this temple. It took her at least an hour to dodge the traps on the ground floor and as she each ascended each of the twelve storeys, the new floor was smaller yet filled with even more traps. So far Lora had been shot at by at least a dozen poisoned arrow traps, avoided seven pit traps, dodged nineteen spears that shot out of various parts of the corridors, and encountered fifteen corpses of other adventurers that had been foolhardy enough to ascend the interior of this particular temple in Lustria.

Opening the door at the end of the corridor, Lora discovered a short corridor only a few yards in length and ending in a set of spiral stone steps. She had ascended eleven similar sets in this temple thus far but her research told her this was the final flight. Oddly enough there was no sign of activity in what she suspected was the final corridor. No footprints, no corpses, no missing parts of rock, not even a broken tripwire. In fact there were no tripwires. Lora ran her hand through her long, sweaty red hair. Then she realised. No one else had ever made it this far up. She had outlasted all of the other adventurers. This made the last chap on the floor below her who had been charred to the bone by a runic fire trap her nearest competitor. After mulling the situation for a few moments, the Amazon woman reached into the small pack attached to her belt and retrieved her water skin. Swallowing the final few drops of water from within, Lora crouched down and threw it down the corridor, skimming it across the floor. It shot harmlessly along the length of the corridor and crashed into the bottom step at the end.

After waiting a few more minutes, Lora decided that enough was enough and she was only going to discover any more potential traps by venturing down the final corridor herself. She proceeded with caution. Every step she took was as light as possible and began with her eyes and ears scanning her immediate surroundings. It took twelve strides for Lora to make it to the steps at the end of the corridor, but they took longer than any of the strides in her entire life. She bent down and picked up her water skin. It was then that she heard it. A click followed by an unknown sound. Almost like thunder but with some kind of a rolling noise. Then another click. More rolling thunder. A third click…

Lora was halfway toward the door when the ceiling disappeared and a gigantic boulder that filled the corridor landed precisely where she had just been stood. It then became obvious to Lora what the rolling thunder sound was as the boulder began rolling down the corridor after her! Even though the floor did not seem slanted, the boulder quickly began to gather pace and crashed through the doorway Lora had just ran through. But Lora was now at full sprint and thanking herself for tying the vine to the roof above the pit that was now in front of her. With cat-like reflexes she drew a throwing star from her belt and used it to pin the vine to the corridor wall whilst simultaneously rolling into the pit. Both her arms and her legs shot out to her sides as she pinned herself to the inside of the pit with a sharpened stake just inches from one of her eyes. Barely a second later the boulder crashed over the pit and continued its rumble of terror further down the passageway.

Grabbing the vine pinned to the wall, Lora clambered out of the pit and retrieved her throwing star. It was only then she noticed the gash in her arm as one of the staves in the pit must have caught her. She took off her belt and tied it around her arm to stop the bleeding before heading up the final set of stairs. The steps were identical to each of the others she had ascended in the temple and ended with another identical door. Taking a deep breath and scanning the frame for traps, Lora opened the door.

The room beyond was far from flattering. For an adventurer like Lora, this was quite the anti-climax. No vast treasure trove. No glittering jewellery. No collection of arms. Instead, here was a simple box room with a single hole in the far wall where daylight shone through. Two strides were all it took for Lora to reach the hole. She bent down to peer through and gaze upon the lands of Lustria beyond. From this vantage point she could see the entire continent stretching as far as her eye could see. Everything seemed to move in slow-motion as the few people she could see looked like ants at this distance. Lora’s eye then caught something unusual. She blinked and rubbed her eye to check she had seen it correctly. She shuffled to one side to allow her other eye to look through the hole. Yes, she was certain. A giant four-legged grey-coloured creature was striding across Lustria, its trunk swaying in front of itself as it made its way across the continent.

Ankh-Mordheim Back story part 3

3.

The doors to the top of the mage’s tower crashed open as the Swordmaster of Hoeth fell through them.

“Aledraan. For a High Elf, you display as much natural grace as a drunken mule” responded the Dragon Prince.

“Prince Kildarin, I apologise for disturbing your meditation, but I have news of the most urgent order.” The Swordmaster had spent several hundred years wielding double-handed weapons whilst wearing a full suit of chainmail. So for him to have beads of sweat dripping from his brow, his haste with bounding up the towers step must have been a frenetic one. The Dragon Prince glanced over towards the elven mage in the centre of the room and saw that the magister still had not interrupted his meditation.

“What is it, Swordmaster?” asked the Dragon Prince.

“Prince Kildarin, it is Zoriath. He has awoken!” Aledraan exclaimed.

“Zoriath? My attuned dragon?” asked Kildarin. The Dragon Prince had not been able to converse with the Emperor dragon since their youth. The mages within the High Elf council had bound the souls of the Prince and the Dragon just a day after Kildarin had been born. The Dragon had been sick and it took the magic and the heart of the High Elves to preserve Zoriath.

“My Lord, it has been four hundred years to the day since his eyes closed. And now they are open once more and glow with the brightness of all the forges in Ulthuan!”

“Haste is the answer, young Prince” stated the Elven Mage, his eyes still closed and his body relaxed. “Zoriath has a journey to take you on and you must leave immediately”.

The beating of the dragons leathery wings soon drowned out the conversation in the tower as Kildarin and Alderaan strode over to the window of the mage’s tower. A huge taloned claw the size of the Elves themselves smashed through the window, bringing the Dragon Prince and Swordmaster together and clutching them firmly yet gently around their waists. With the agility of a cat and the strength of a thousand bears, Zoriath hoisted Kildarin and Alderaan onto his back as he soared upwards towards the clouds. From their vantage point thousands of yards above the ground, the High Elves could only see the tallest of towers in Ulthuan and what looked like a giant grey creature marching along the horizon...

Ankh-Mordheim Back-Story Part II

2.

“You appear to have returned empty-handed” scowled the Chaos Sorcerer. The Troll that stood in the doorway to his library shrugged in response. The Sorcerer had dealt with the creatures for years since his venturing into Troll Country. Casting numerous spells on the humanoids, he not only had control over a unit of sixteen Trolls but also increased their intelligence. The magic was sufficient for them to understand his orders, but not enough to question them. The creature here was the Sorcerer’s chosen unit leader and supposedly the most intelligent. But it was times like these that made him question that appraisal and infuriated the Chaos worshipper. He tried a different approach.

“I asked you to bring the amulet back from the Goblin leader”

“Yes boss” said the Troll, his thick-set brow furrowing into an almost confused state.

“And?” quizzed the Sorcerer.

“An’ we got too da Goblin cave an’ stomped ‘em”

“All of them?” The Sorcerer could see this turning into a long conversation.

“We left da leader so weez could ask ‘im where da amulet woz” the Troll beamed. He knew his boss would like what he had just said.

“And what did the Goblin reply?” snapped the Sorcerer.

“Da Goblin sed da amulet was in ‘is chest” replied the Troll, a large smile forming on his even larger face.

“So did you open the chest?” The sorcerer was beginning to lose his patience now.

“Yes boss.” The Troll saw the sorcerer nod appreciatively, so he continued. “But when we’ze cut open ‘is chest all we’ze found inside ‘im was ‘is ‘eart an’ lots ov blood”.

The sorcerer let out a loud sigh. He was half amused by the fact this creature understood biology, yet could not comprehend the basic domestic knowledge that treasure is often kept in treasure chests.

“Did you not look inside the Goblin lair for a treasure chest?” demanded the Chaos sorcerer.

“Yes boss!” declared the Troll, the smile on his face turning into a fully-fledged grin.

“And was the amulet inside the treasure chest?”

“Yes boss.”

“So why did you not pick it up?!” demanded the sorcerer, his voice stepping up an octave.

“Cos it ran away, boss.”

There were several moments of silence. Silence where the Troll thought his boss was mulling over how to reward his minion. But silence the Chaos Sorcerer was actually using to attempt to decipher what the Troll had said.

“It what?” he eventually managed.

“It ran away, boss” repeated the Troll. He must have done well; his boss wanted to hear it again!

Patience was never the Chaos Sorcerer’s most plentiful character trait. But he struggled to understand how anyone could possibly accept what this creature was telling him.

“The treasure chest ran away?” he implied, sarcastically.

“Yes boss.” The Troll’s grin grew larger still. The Chaos sorcerer’s face, meanwhile, developed an expression somewhere between anger and anxiety.

“Explain to me exactly how the treasure chest was able to run away?”

“Cos it ‘ad legs, boss” answered the Troll. He must have done really well. The last time he was able to answer this many questions in a row, his boss gave him double food rations.

“Right” said the impatient Sorcerer. “So the treasure chest had legs and ran away with the amulet inside it?”

“Yes boss.” The Troll’s stomach rumbled with the thought of more food.

“Why didn’t you follow it?”

“Me an’ da rest ov da boyz did, boss. We’ze went afta da trezza chest but it woz really fast an’ den da uvver boyz woz ‘urt wen annuver Troll walked over dem.”

The Chaos Sorcerer was alarmed by this last statement. He’d had many conversations with his Troll leader and long ago gave up trying to teach him the names of various creatures. He understood that the creature often referred to unknown beasts as Trolls as well. And a beast that could simply walk over a Troll must have been very large indeed. This plot had suddenly thickened somewhat.

The Chaos Sorcerer shook his head, snatched his goblet and made his way over to a bookcase to look for his creature studies documents. This was going to be a very long evening…