Gaming | Empire in Flames Mordheim Campaign

It’s a new year, it’s a new Mordheim campaign. That’s just how it is. Last time, we started in the city, but this time around we’re taking a page out of the Mordheim: Empire in Flames supplement. Which means we’re arriving in the rural areas surrounding the City of the Damned. Our mission: loot and burn the greedy peasants’ and their households. 

We have four players for this campaign. I’m playing as the Norse Explorers, which, in addition to the normal types of hooligans I get, I get a werewolf who lets me bring wolves. The other warbands are the dwarves, of the Treasure Hunters variety, Beastmen, and Marauders of Chaos. For this opening match I was pitted against the Beastmen. For narrative hooks, I’m looking at it as if we started as part of the same Chaos army, but with the opportunity for destruction and mayhem, we’ve gone our separate ways. 

The table was set up with lots of rural terrain.  A lot of this has been tucked away in a garage, so I’m happy to finally use a lot of this again. I do think this is one of the prettiest boards I’ve played on in quite some time. We even got some spectators to come by and ogle at my goods. That’s just one of the joys of the hobby. 

Our objective was to approach the buildings, deal with any peasants that arrive to disrupt our shenanigans, rob the recently deceased of their possessions, and then burn their homes to the ground. Standard Chaos behavior. 

My wolves, of which I had 5, are speedy little missiles, so I sent them to all of the buildings in reach to trigger the peasants. D3 peasants would appear at each home. They were quickly dispatched on our table, as they were quite weak. On the other table, things were a little different. Their peasants seemed to have a reason to fight, as one managed to bring down the Marauders leader, and another lasted the whole game. Pathetic showing if you ask me. 

Back on my side of the table, I had several of my heroes die to fire related injuries due to setting buildings on fire while inside said buildings. These are not Archaon’s chosen warriors. Meanwhile, a scrum was breaking out between the buildings as we vied for control. My warband was the first to fall below 25%, but my brave lads held. The Beastmen were not so lucky, and broke and run. This was a close run game, and the building looting and burning mechanics kept it from devolving into a random fight in the middle as many games do. 

In the after action report, I only lost a single wolf, and I gained Frezy on my Bondsmen, Fear on my Berserker, and Hatred (Beastmen) on my other Bondsmen. Plus I got to ransom one of the Beastmen heroes for extra gold. So you can say it worked out pretty well for me. 

The other side of the table had turned into a slugfest, as peasants survived for too long and the sturdy dwarves refused to die. Eventually the dwarves were able to take the day. 

I really liked this first mission, it had some nice mechanics, it made for a nice narrative, and it made more of the board playable. I would recommend this supplement so far.

-The Space Dinosaur