The Writing on the Wall

Scenario Competition Winner By James Burkhouse

The warbands have each heard rumors of a map drawn on an alley wall on Tyler Street that leads to great treasure! This alley is in the Poor Quarter, a cluttered and twisting section of the city. Whoever can decipher the map and keep this precious knowledge from their enemies will gain a great advantage in the hunt for a fantastic treasure!

Terrain

Each player takes it in turn to place a piece of terrain, either a ruined building, tower, or other similar item. If your terrain collection allows, a dense warren of narrow, crooked streets is ideal. In any case, the centre of the table should have two buildings, placed close together so as to form an alley, one inch wide. The map will be written in this alley. Because of the ruins, close confines of the alley, trash, etc., the alley is considered difficult terrain. We suggest the terrain is set up in an area roughly 4'x4'.

Warbands

The warband with the lower warband rating chooses whether to set up first or last. The first player then chooses which table edge to set up on, and places all of his warriors within 8” of that edge. His opponent then sets up within 8” of the opposite edge. Because of the dense, mazelike construction surrounding Tyler Street, skills or abilities which allow special deployment may not be used.

Special rules

The map on the alley wall was written by a madman, and the warriors in Mordheim will have a tough time puzzling it out in the middle of a fight! In order to understand the map, a hero must be moved into the middle of the alley, and must spend two full turns doing nothing but studying the writing. Heroes who have taken at least one Academic skill may decipher the writing in one turn rather than two. Once a warband has no further use for the map, they may ruin the wall so other warbands can't follow the directions to the treasure! The wall has 1 Wound, and a Toughness of 7. Attacks against the wall automatically hit, and any wound ruins the map. Anyone attacking the wall must be in the alley (they cannot ruin the map from the other side of the wall). The map doesn't lead to a specific treasure; rather it marks out good routes through the Poor Quarter. Warbands who have deciphered the map may add one of a kind in the next exploration phase, after rolling the dice. For example a player who rolled 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, and 6 could choose to add another 3 in order to find Prisoners (the result for a triple 3) rather than a corpse (the result for a double 3). Alternatively, the player could opt for an extra 5 or 6 in order to find something else entirely. This addition does not affect how many Wyrdstone shards the warband recovers.

Starting the game

The player with the lower warband rating has first turn.

Ending the game

If one warband is able to decipher the writing on the wall, and then ruin said writing, the scenario ends immediately, and that warband wins. If both warbands manage to decipher the writing, then the scenario ends in a draw. If one warband deciphers the writing and then routs, the game ends in a draw. If the writing is somehow ruined before it can be deciphered by either warband, the scenario ends in a draw..

Alternatively, if one side routs, the other wins. The winners are assumed to decipher and orient the writing at their leisure.

Experience