Darkness fell and the murmuring from the tap-room of the Twisted Goat Inn gradually got louder and louder. Reporting of a wealth of Wyrdstone in a hazardous, and thus unexplored, quarter of Mordheim ruled the banter. Many of the recently arrived clientele spoke of grandeur and treasures, whereas the Inn's patrons warned about the perils that lure in the distant and uncharted areas of Mordheim. However the ale flowed richly and with each mouthful the courage grew, and the still unfound riches were already spend...

 
This is a report of the Mordheim tourney, held at the "EuroGT 2000" in Bergen op Zoom, where 9 players and their warbands battled each other over an unexplored part of Mordheim. A large map was used to portray this piece of the City of the Damned, where each territory was obscured by a card, until one of the warbands had travelled towards it and received that card for that specific territory. Each territory card contained information like, what exits were available towards neighbouring territories and whether or not that part of Mordheim had any special rules. The Players then moved around, exploring the unknown areas until they would meet up with an opposing warband and fight battle, leaving personal markers on the territories that they controlled. The actual battles then took place on the tables that had been set up with Mordheim buildings. The winner of the tourney was the combined result of gold, rating and the amount of controlled territories of the warbands.

 
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
Before the competition started, the warbands needed to be given a starting position on the big map. On the night before, each player had drawn a symbol which would be used as their warband's marker. In traditional event planning, the digitised prints of these markers was delayed and the players were urged to provide a small set of new ones, until the computer was willing to cough up the actual ones. Micha "Xhilipepa" Lazarus' Witch Hunters started out in the Northwest corner of the map, with Thomas "Wegis" Wegebrand's Sisters of Sigmar just below him and further down to the Southwest side Samuel Ranzato's Skaven. All three started in an area contained by a river, with only two bridges which enabled them to cross over. Tommy "Punk" Fransson's Skaven appeared at the north part of the map, near the other side of the northern bridge. Starting in the Northeast corner were David Stillberg's Tileans (which had an uncanny resemblance to Reikslanders) and Roni "Anvar" Tabick's Undead, and just below them on the eastern part of the map, Gert Joris' Marienburgers. That left a reasonably large part of the map free for Paul "Muzmiz" Smith's Skaven, who started in the Southeast and Stefan Ramstorfer's Skaven on the Southwest corner of the map, just below the southern bridge. It is worth mentioning that the event was planned for around 12 players but late cancellations changed this and with randomised starting points it so happened that the south part was pretty unoccupied while the Northwest part was too crowded.

 
A WICKED DEAL...
The first turn saw some confused moves as the player discovered that the tiles had different exit routes and that it was not entirely easy to trace a route to one of the neutral trading areas where you could get Hired Swords. Thomas's Sisters were the first to see action, while exploring an unknown territory they encountered a Giant mutated Spider that attacked the surprised warband. The Sisters put up a good fight, and managed to slay this abomination, though when the licked their wounds afterwards, they found that one Sister had lost an arm and another gone stupid.

 
After a few turns Tommy managed to claim the area next to the northern bridge that connected the Northeast area with the rest of the map. This bridge was also next to a neutral area and on the other side Micha's Witch Hunters had claimed the tile accessing the bridge. A vile deal was struck between them, allowing the Witch Hunters to trace a route through Tommy's claimed tiles to hire the Hired Swords that they wanted. In return Tommy's Skaven were allowed to travel through Micha's controlled territories to attack Thomas' Sisters. A plan had been made with Samuel's Skaven to attack the Sisters from two fronts but Samuel was not able to attack in that turn so Tommy attacked alone to prevent the Sisters to react on this sudden turn of events. Tommy fought a tough battle alone against the Sisters and during that battle, he was informed that the Witch Hunters had double-crossed him, and were seizing his territories on the other side of the bridge. Loosing the battle to the Sisters, the rats had no friendly tile to retreat to and were dispersed back to his starting tile. Luckily for him, this was at the beginning of the tourney as he would otherwise have lost all Hired Swords, if he had had any, now he lost only one travelling turn.

 
Meanwhile, at the Northeast part of the Map, David's Reikslanders were completely crushing Roni's Undead in a Street Fight. The Undead's slow movement across the open street was an open invitation for the David's marksmen, and when the Undead finally reached the Reikslanders the leftovers were easily despatched of. Another missile heavy battle took place a bit further to their south, where Gert's Marienburgers tried to outshoot Paul's Skaven. With a total of over 50 shots fired, Gert's marksmen were only able to land five hits, but when the rats finally got near enough to start close combat, Paul routed and lost the battle.

 
When Tommy was finally free to move again, Micha's Witch Hunters moved into yet another of his tiles and Tommy choose to defend it. A tough battle started, where the victory and defeat were close to each other and the chances swapped from side to side regularly, though as there can be only one, The Witch Hunters defeated the already backstabbed Skaven. However, after the battle Micha's Witch Hunter Captain managed to get robbed and lost his blessed sword, while Tommy's Black Skaven managed to roll multiple injuries which resulted in frenzy, reduced Toughness and having to miss the next two games.

 
While Tommy was rallying his troops and trying to recover the initiative he was once again attacked by Micha's Witch Hunters, (it seems that Witch Hunters have a serious issue with Skaven), this time in an unholy alliance with Roni's Undead. The new vile alliance of the Witch Hunters, forced Tommy to respond to the attack instead of moving, loosing the chance of conquering a strategic tile. The multi-player-game was played according to the White Dwarf optional rules, and the scenario rolled was Ambush. Tommy's Skaven managed to generate a total of 12 (!) shards of Wyrdstone that his heroes carried, and Tommy managed to get all of them off the table. The Witch Hunters and Undead Dregs tried to shoot the Skaven but they had set-up in a rather bad way and Tommy was free to move directly away from them. The greater move of the Skaven meant that only the Undead's hired Ogre and his Direwolves had any chance of catching up with him. A single giant rat was attacked by Roni's ogre but, this rat somehow managed to survive the first round and, even more surprising, it was able to score a wound on the ogre! During the following turn the giant rat once again survived and managed to score yet another wound on him! Loo and behold, the third turn even saw the Ogre being taken out of action by a lone rat! As for the rest of that battle, Roni and Micha completely failed to encircle Tommy's rats, and with some good old lucky dicerolls the Skaven managed to stave off the Direwolves racing down his right flank. Tommy then rolled 4 shards for income to receive an impressive total of 16 shards (!). Too bad that you can only sell eight at a time.

 
PITFIGHTING IN SILKS
Gert's Marienburgers faced David's Tilean Reikslanders, who started to shoot the Marienburgers to pieces, while at first refusing the Hired Alter Ego, Donato Ranzato, a famed Duellist. The Reikslander missile fire was rather successful, and made the famous Donato suddenly decide that it was better to run after the skirt of a "Tilean" female youngblood. On the left flank Gert charged heavily but, Sigmar had blessed David's dice and Gert's charge ended up with four heroes and two Henchmen being taken Out of Action. Gert failed the very first rout test after that disastrous charge. Then to add insult to injury the Marienburger Captain was sold to the pits, which was played out according to customised Pitfighting Rules. This allowed the spectators to bet on the outcome of this pitfight, and that was, of course, a welcomed chance of income to most of the other players. Wagers took place and the Marienburger Captain was wagered favourite against the Pitfighter, who had Micha betting for him. A report of the strange behaviours of this Witch Hunter Captain, has been send to the Grand Theogonist. But a pitfight is a dirty fight, and the Marienburger's Cathayan Silk clothes were dragged through the mud after he was defeated by the Pitfighter. Consequently, the betting had a strange outcome, where players who had wagered almost all their gold on the Marienburger Captain, were now at a loss, while the Witch Hunters again profited from their despicable actions.

 
A Surprise Attack from Stefan's Skaven got Gert's Marienburgers in another difficult position. He could only set up a third of his warband. And only after three turns Gert's Swordsmen decided to show up but than he had already had lost three members of his warband, so Gert decided that the best thing was to run away to live and fight another day.

 
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.
As the evening drew close, a full day of gaming resulted in something nobody had expected. Strange alliances between the Witch Hunters and almost all the warbands they oppose. Stefan and Paul having a field day, racing through the empty southern part of Mordheim, claiming it for themselves. Roni's Undead paying David's Reikslanders for passage, as they got stuck in the Northeast corner, and then having a bad experience fighting David's Warband. The Marshals came up with a cunning idea on the spot when they noticed that the players were more interested in exploring the tiles and equipping their warband instead of fighting the other warbands. They raised all the prices with five gold crowns, then with another five gold crowns! This certainly inspired the players to fight each other but also resulted in garlic clocking in at a hefty price of 11 gold crowns apiece. This was a total surprise to Tommy who had just come back from two hard battles and wanted to invest in garlic for the upcoming battle against the Undead and Witch Hunter alliance.

 
The somewhat unbalanced set up of the Tourney map, had Stefan and Paul claiming all the tiles in the southern part of the map, while at the Northern section everybody had to struck deals or attack each other for every new territory that they wanted to claim or move through. Tommy in particular never had a chance to recover after a battle before he was attacked again. There was a movement phase every other fifteen minutes, and Tommy was often being informed by a Marshall that one of his tiles was about to be attacked and that he had five minutes to complete his current game if he wanted to respond. This lead to some out of sequence moves as Tommy finished his game, ran straight to the map-table and responded to the attack and then ran back to finish his after battle sequence. However it added to a great atmosphere as it really represented that when you went to battle you couldn't protect your other territories.

 
Not every game played was a Mordheim Skirmish, as at several locations, a portal was situated, where members of the warband could travel through and play a game of Dungeon Quest. These portals were also enabling the Mordheim warbands to form an alliance with any of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle teams, which resulted in better deals during the hiring and trading of the Mordheim tourney. So, while everybody else fought hard for their territory, Gert's Marienburger Captain went on a Dungeon Quest, and came back a tad richer. But Dungeon Quest was not always an easy street to some extra income, Stefan's endorsements in the Dungeon Quest were less profitable, as he never managed to come out alive.

 
After dinner, time was spend on insightful babble about Insanity rules for Mordheim, R2-D2's ability to carry weapons, and if so whether or not he would use them (yes, real intelligent discussions). Also Dungeon Quest was a favourite pastime, Gert's Captain got in again and managed to escape the dungeon with a stunning 350 gold, which he had to share with his Dwarven WHFB allies. David's Youngblood 'Fiona' got stuck in there, unable to get out in time, just like Roni's Dreg 'Igor" (Mathter! Mathter!). Again, Micha's Witch Hunter Captain had more luck, escaping the Dungeon in both consecutive games he played. David's second game was only surpassed in his wandering skills by Marshall Donato, who got stuck in a rotating room which failed to rotate for half the game. Gert's final Quest looked promising when he carried two potions, a treasure chest and about 500 gold coins. Then the Dragon woke up and toasted him.

 
After a good night's sleep, the fighting continued almost on time. It quickly dawned to David that Roni didn't have any path back (so he couldn't defend) to the territories he had left in the Northeast, so David started to chew them up. However, Tommy attacked David who had to break off this aggression, but was unlucky enough to be the defender in a surprise attack scenario. Tommy was only able to deploy six models on the board while David placed his entire warband, including five crossbows, within short range of half of those Skaven models. David's Tileans proceeded to cut down the Skaven left in the open and when the reinforcements arrived, with Tommy's luck, they showed up on the opposite table-edge. The only exception was the Warlock who dared to start real close to the Tileans in open space, in order to try to cast Warpfire on his Trollslayer, Youngblood and Champion. But, the Warlock failed to cast the spell and was butchered by the Trollslayer. The only thing the Skaven were able to perform, before they routed, was to sling one of the champions out of action.

 
Both the Skaven warbands from the south were steadily advancing north towards Gert's Marienburgers, while on the far side of the river, things were getting crowded. While Micha had crossed the bridge, fighting against Tommy, Thomas' sisters started to chew on his turf. Samuel's Skaven tried to cross the southern broken bridge, to his surprise, two Trolls showed up, asking (politely) for toll. Samuel, however had just recruited an Ogre, and was unable to pay up. Thus, two irritated Trolls started to gang up on his Skaven warband. If bets could have been made here, everyone would have wagered their money on the Trolls, and even Tuomas strongly doubted whether a Mordheim warband was able to stand up to these two. After a long battle the rats managed to slay both Trolls, without a single casualty of their own.

 
SPICEY QUESTIONS
It was now time for the now already famous Pub-Quiz, where the WHFB teams could win extra magical items, and the Mordheim players just joined in for the fun. Questions in the categories, Warhammer, Mordheim, Fantasy and Science Fiction Movies and TV-series had to be answered. Guest of Honour, Tuomas Pirinen had thought up 40 questions for all the players to answer. Lots of laughs, and frantic thinking took place, and worth mentioning was that the Mordheim Team made up from Thomas, Samuel, Roni, Micha, David and Tommy, made quite an impression when they impersonated the Spice Girls and their first hit, scoring extra points (that they didn't even need). The Mordheim team finished with 42 points with the runner up scoring only 27 points. The Quiz was enjoyed by all the participants and bystanders, the friendly atmosphere and hearty jokes was awesome to experience. This really proves that our games are more than just games, they fill an important social function as well.

 
Coming back to the tables, David had already amassed a fairly big chunk of territory, and a fairly high warband rating as well. However, he was quickly attacked by the Roni's Undead warband, who had some unfinished business with those Tilean Reikslanders. And while he was locked in combat with him, Gert, Tommy and even Paul started to cut up David's territory among themselves. The fight against Roni was a Breakout Scenario and David had to try to run across the table, escaping on the far side. Not an easy thing to do with a Reikslander warband, which got used to shoot everything to pieces. Facing the Undead, who carries a heft grudge, David was mauled, badly mauled, and then mauled some more. He lost two of his Halberd-armed warriors, as well as the promising Trollslayer Olif. Roni had effectively stopped him (un)dead in his tracks, and broken his winning spree. Although David had a fair amount of money, this was his last game for and he never had time to recover from his losses.

 
The campaign was now drawing to an end and Tommy and Paul, who desperately wanted to play a game against each other, challenged each other and moved straight into combat, without drawing a correct route to each other. They choose the park-territory as all other players had avoided it as soon as the Marshals started to snicker at its mention. A magical pool was situated at this tile, where strange things could happen, if a Hero would look into it. This was a Skaven against Skaven game and featured 40 (!) models in total. Tommy won the dice-off for starting side and choose to deploy next to a rocky hill, which left Paul to deploy in a rather open space. Tommy quickly scampered to high ground and started to assail Paul with his two Warlocks, one Hired Sword and his own Skaven Warlock, one casting Fires of U'Zhul on the Rat Ogre, and another one killing Paul's Warlock with Warpfire. Paul's Skaven moved forward a bit and assaulted some giant rats that had ran forward next to the pool, Tommy then turned his crossbow armed quickshooting Nightrunner and Warlocks towards the Rat Ogre and managed to take him out. At that same time ferocious close combat was erupting all over and at the base of the hill and both warbands were taking rout-tests after only three turns, with all unholy relics already been used up. The battle was very intensive and bloody, and in the end, only a single of Paul's Skaven were left on the table, and he was stunned. The skirmish ended when Paul failed his rout-test. The post-battle-sequence was equally bloody as Tommy lost six henchmen and the Hired Warlock. Another bloody battle was fought between Micha's Witch Hunters against Thomas' sisters, where Micha had to play without his leader, as he was stuck in a Dungeon Quest game. Both sides had heavy casualties, and in the end it the Sisters routed, giving, yet again, a victory to the Witch Hunters.

 
AND THE WINNERS ARE.
After two full days of fighting, it was time to reflect back on the actual goals, and guess what, the results all were really close, with a grand total of five warbands equally finishing on the fourth place! The top three places were reserved for the warbands, who had been able to score points in most of the different categories. Stefan's Skaven, who obviously had the most territory claimed ended on the third position, while Tommy's high warband-rating scored him enough points to occupy the second place. Winner of the Mordheim Tourney, was however, Micha's Witch Hunters, who scored reasonably well on all categories, but retained the highest amount of gold in his Treasury, tipping the balance just in his favour.

 
Another honourable mentioning was David's 'Tilean' Reikslander winning the Painting competition (he also won the speed-painting competition, where you had to paint a Warmaster stand within half an hour!) and Tommy winning both the EuroGT's overall best player award, voted by all the players, and the Mordheim Sportsmanship award. Reflecting back, all players of both tourney's felt like a winner, as they had participated in a weekend, where games and fun ruled all activities.

 
Back in the Twisted Goat Inn's tap-room, the Inn's Patrons got back to their usual discussions. They had survived this Damned City long enough to know that there will be new rumours tomorrow, and were just glad to be alive today. The sudden Gold hunt had past them bye, and besides helping out here and there, they had stayed as far from it as possible. They knew the worth of a good hot plate of chilli, and a full mug of Bugman's finest...

 
Tommy "Punk" Fransson
Remi "Ser Tachyon" Ebus