Mordheim 2022: Undead Final game

Once I heard the words “Meat Grinder” spoken aloud in a tavern. Did I see who said these words? No. It could have been anyone in that squalid domicile. I knew they spoke of a vampire. Certainly. A no life king that could not be seen via conventional means, the corrupting touch of wyrdstone stealing ever more of what tied it to the realms of mankind. Murmurs told of Reiklanders twisted until deformation, rupturing into bloody pieces. Bands of mercenaries flayed into grisly smears. By 2020 IC, talk of the “Meat Grinder” faded to obscurity, save rumors that even the ratmen of Eshin chittered of a faceless stygian terror in cursed tunnels. And now in the calendar year 2022, the ratmen are gone. I hear people whispering of it everywhere. Perhaps everyone touched by that place has known all along. I am called back to the City of the Damned. I am called to Mordheim.

- Naewen, savant of Thrax

Late last month I got the opportunity to play a fabulous Mordheim event in Houston Texas! While we had an initial post showing some photos from the event, I also wrote one detailing the first three games I played at the event with my Undead warband. I had the opportunity to play one final game at the event, which I wanted to recount in this post. It was against the legendary Jimmy Henriksson (@the_phoenecian), who also took part in Mordheim 2019!

Mordheim 2022: Undead games 1-3

The Undead warband for Mordheim 2022.

Once I heard the words “Meat Grinder” spoken aloud in a tavern. Did I see who said these words? No. It could have been anyone in that squalid domicile. I knew they spoke of a vampire. Certainly. A no life king that could not be seen via conventional means, the corrupting touch of wyrdstone stealing ever more of what tied it to the realms of mankind. Murmurs told of Reiklanders twisted until deformation, rupturing into bloody pieces. Bands of mercenaries flayed into grisly smears. By 2020 IC, talk of the “Meat Grinder” faded to obscurity, save rumors that even the ratmen of Eshin chittered of a faceless stygian terror in cursed tunnels. And now in the calendar year 2022, the ratmen are gone. I hear people whispering of it everywhere. Perhaps everyone touched by that place has known all along. I am called back to the City of the Damned. I am called to Mordheim.
                                                                                                        - Naewen, savant of Thrax

Mordheim 2022 Invitational: Zombie painted

A zombie alongside some unfortunates from the City of the Damned.

Just in time for Mordheim 2022, which is only days away, I painted the zombie that was converted earlier in the year. The zombie will supplement the Undead warband I created for the Mordheim 2019 event. I will make sure to let you know how the zombie does at the event!

Mordheim 2022 Invitational: Zombie

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.” H.P. Lovecraft

Later this year we are going to be playing in a Mordheim event with a bunch of talented hobbyists. Although we plan to primarily use our warbands from the Mordheim 2019 event, we still want to build and paint a few additional models. I recently got the Exiled Dead Warhammer Underworlds warband and realized the one armored undead warrior would make an excellent zombie for Mordheim! The model already seemed very suitable for Mordheim, and therefore did not require much modification. I did sculpt a few fish skeletons on the model’s waist, along with the twin-tailed comet on their shield and helmet, since they are some of the most iconic symbiology present in Mordheim.

Mordheim 2019: Sisters of Sigmar games

Sound the dread alarm.

The smoke has finally settled after the chaos of Mordheim 2019. We recounted the games played with the Undead and Witch Hunter warbands earlier, and now it is finally time to talk about the exploits of the Sisters of Sigmar!

Mordheim 2019: Witch Hunter games

The grim figure of the Sigmarite Warrior Priest Vieuxpont goads his pack of blood-thirsty warhounds into battle, followed by two fanatics proclaiming prophecies of impending doom.

As a follow up to Eric’s post describing the endeavors of his undead at the Mordheim 2019 event, I wanted to write about my experience using the incredible Witch Hunter warband that Ana Polanšćak created! The first game was against Johan Egerkrans' Undead Warband, and the second was against Ana Polanšćak’s Cult of the Possessed and Mikko Luoma's Chaos Dwarves.

Mordheim 2019: Undead games

Church of the Ever Burning Saint attempt to banish a vampire twisted and warped by wyrdstone.

My brothers and I played a multitude of games of Mordheim during the Mordheim 2019 event, all of them unique and filled with surprises. With this post, I wanted to describe the two games played with my undead warband, the first against Nicky Grillet‘s Sisters of Sigmar and Alexander Lunde’s Witch Hunters, and the second against Erik Blomqvist’s Sisters of Sigmar.

Mordheim 2019: Undead warband

A living death awaits us all.

It is hard to imagine Mordheim is twenty years old; it means that I have been a part of this hobby for over two decades! And while I never got the opportunity to play the game when it was first released, I remember poring over each new issue of White Dwarf, looking at the new warbands being released, battle reports, and their dedicated magazine the Town Cryer. Games Workshop’s skirmish games have always been my favorite games they release, with GorkaMorka being the first of their games we really played extensively. Games like Necromunda, Inquisitor, and Mordheim allow the player to dive deeply into the strange and morbid worlds Games Workshop has created, and actively encourage you to carve out your own unique niche within their creation. Mordheim 2019 has been a fantastic opportunity to explore the Old World like I have always wanted to, building upon imagery and models that have always inspired us. While Alex defined the basic motivations behind the major factions, Tears of Envy, another incredible hobbyist involved in the event (who made Mordheim 2019’s excellent logo), had the fantastic idea of looking at the city of Mordheim through the lens of the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic/Stalker. This science fiction classic explores the aftermath of an extraterrestrial visitation. Despite the alien visitors abrupt departure, their presence irrevocably and mysteriously changed the environment where they visited. These “Zones” were eventually cordoned off from the wider world to be studied. Could the meteorite that hit Mordheim have a similar effect, and what would happen to the city after being poisoned by this wyrdstone for 20 years? How would its inhabitants and the city itself be affected and corrupted? And what sort of adventurers would risk their lives to find fortune by venturing into the City of the Damned? This concept really captured my imagination, leading me to start experimenting with different warband designs.

Mordheim 2019: a recap

A few Witch Hunters carefully advance through the broken streets of Mordheim.

Last weekend was the culmination of over a year of work by many talented hobbyists, who gathered in Helsinki to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Old World Skirmish game, Mordheim. This collaborative event, known as Mordheim 2019, was hosted by Alexander Winberg of the Echoes of Imperium blog. We were fortunate to be able to make the trip to Finland to take part in the event, using the warbands we have been chronicling over the last few months (as well as one created by the estimable Ana Polanšćak of Gardens of Hecate). The event was far too big and filled with all manner of excellent people and exciting happenings to ever be covered in a single post, so we plan to separate our coverage of Mordheim 2019 into multiple posts (covering all of the games we played), and maybe a few podcasts. This post is going to be a short one, showing a few pictures, and ultimately thanking everyone involved, especially Alexander Winberg for inviting us and hosting the event. It is hard to put into words how wonderful the weekend was, filled with fantastic models and even better company. It was great to see old friends and create new ones, putting faces to people we have long admired. And although the event is over now, we are more inspired than ever to keep building models, crafting stories, and connecting with the hobby community!

Mordheim 2019: Wraiths

Contrary to widespread belief, the undead are not invulnerable. Bones are scattered or ground to dust, corpses are burned or rot until they are untenable, and finally, the death of the necromancer themselves cuts all motive force. Perhaps that is the true horror of Mordheim, that these inviolate laws no longer hold any sway? That these reanimated relics of a life long past persist indefinitely, with no animating force or corporeal locus. - Naewen, savant of Thrax


While we recently created a model to represent the sorry state of some inhabitants of Mordheim, and the intangible manifestation of raw emotion, months ago we created some models to look at how the corpses and undead creatures that filled the city were affected over 20 long years. Using some Nighthaunt Bladegheist Revenants as a base, I wanted to show how the rotting corpses filling the streets slowly lost their corporeal forms. Since creating the initial two, I went back and modified them slightly, adding more nails to their backs, as well as created a third. With this post I wanted to show the finished conversions, as well as the initial efforts at devising a paint scheme for them.

Conversion Corner: Dreg

Wyrdstone is well know to corrupt, but might it also draw out and strengthen elements that are already present? Perhaps those wretched dregs of humanity, invisible in life, traveled to the City of the Damned to become something greater, only to find themselves more soulless than they were before? - Naewen, savant of Thrax

The last model we created for the undead warband for Mordheim 2019 explored the idea of emotion given intangible, yet lethal form. This closely paralleled some of the anomalies present in the novel Roadside Picnic. Diverging from this, we also wanted to show how wyrdstone might affect the wretched human inhabitants that have persisted in the city all of these years. Perhaps after persistent exposure to the corrupting influence of wyrdstone, some gradually lose their hold on reality and begin to disappear? Having learned how to make silicone molds for resin casting, we decided it would be fun to try to convert a downtrodden inhabitant of Mordheim and cast them in clear resin to represent them becoming invisible.

Mordheim 2019: Anomaly

My God's have gone, into the fountain.

The corrupting touch of wyrdstone is manifested in many inexplicable ways. As the years stretch on, hushed rumors tell of rage and malevolence given invisible form, of agony haunting singular locations, that bring doom upon those that haplessly wander too close to the City of the Damned.

Mordheim 2019: Into the Zone

The City of the Damned.

We are excited to announce that Alexander Winberg (of the excellent Echoes of Imperium blog), invited us to take part in an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Mordheim, Games Workshop’s Old World skirmish game! More than probably any of GW’s other games, Mordheim really delves into the dystopian horror elements that lurk within most of their settings, bipedal rats, ambulatory fish, shambling skeletons, religious zealots, and rotting tenements. Being 20 years since the game was released, the Mordheim event is also set 20 years further in the timeline, Imperial Calendar 2019. While Alex defined the basic motivations behind the major factions, Tears of Envy, another extremely talented hobbyist involved in the event (who made Mordheim 2019’s excellent logo, which is on each of the pictures included on this post!), had the fantastic idea of looking at the city of Mordheim through the lens of the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic/Stalker. This science fiction classic explores the aftermath of an extraterrestrial visitation. Despite the alien visitors abrupt departure, their presence irrevocably and mysteriously changed the environment where they visited. These “Zones” were eventually cordoned off from the wider world to be studied. Could the meteorite that hit Mordheim have a similar effect, and what would happen to the city after being poisoned by this wyrdstone for 20 years? How would its inhabitants and the city itself be affected and corrupted? And what sort of adventurers would risk their lives to find fortune by venturing into the City of the Damned? This concept really captured our imaginations, leading us to start experimenting with different warband designs, which we wanted to share some of our early work in progress.