Mordheim

Getting Started

So you have never heard of Mordheim or Coreheim before? Here is what you need to know.

Games Workshop is a miniatures company that produces plastic and metal 28 mm miniature soldiers. Their main game is called Warhammer Fantasy and features hour-long matches between armies of 200+ of these soldiers on eigter side.

In 1999 Games Workshop released a smaller variant of this game called MORDHEIM, a so-called skirmish varriant because rather than huge battles it features skirmishes with ca. 15 soldiers on either side. Such games take up far less time per battle (about 30 mins. whereas a game of Warhammer typically takes more than two hours).

Another difference from the standard game was that with on 10-15 figures to keep track of, MORDHEIM featured, experience, levelling up and the possibilty of aquiring new weapons and equipment thoughout a series of games, called a campaign.

Mordheim was a brilliant game and the setting and mood of the background material was amply evocative. However, the game also suffered two problems:

1) The rules were poorly written, making players prowel through massive walls of text to extract information regarding anything from movement to combat. Besides being verbose, the rules wordings were also full of colloqualisms and sometimes even contradictory.

2) The rules were greatly unbalanced. Some warbands were much better than others, some weapons were way to cheap and effective compared to others that were overpriced and useless. Armour was completely useless and the movement rules concerning climbing and hiding were very awkard. But perhaps most importantly, the weapons choices were skewed so that the only viable option for ANY warband was always two hand weapons (rather than weapon and shield or two-handed weapons).

What Coreheim does is an attempt to re-write the rule-book from cover to cover. The rules are written with clarity firmly in mind so that players can easily find the information they need and consult the rules for clear rulings on different issues rather than getting stuck in endless arguments and constantly flickering through rulebooks.

The rules are also far more balanced than the original GW ruleset. While it is of course imposible to balance games such as these 100% we believe that the COREHEIM mod comes closer to balancing the game than any other mod or set of house rules. The rules have been tested in our own campaigns as well as in the campaigns of various groups all over the world. Whenever we notive an imbalance or a thing that could be improved, we update the rules. As such, if you have criticism we always welcome it a coreheim a| gmail.com

But why it is called COREHEIM, you ask? - Because while the original designers has a clear vision of a specific setting in mind, featuring only a handful of mostly human factions (called warbands in the game) fans of warhammer diluted the rules over time, adding Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Daemons and even Lizardmen to the setting. While it is surely exciting to have a dip at other races, the downsides to this, however, are that 1) it is impossible to balance a game with so many different factions and 2) it waters down the mood and setting of the game.

Here are the points of this page restated briefly:

 
If you already know Mordheim, you may want to take a look at the MORDHEIM TO COREHEIM introductory document (in .pdf).

Otherwise, go back to:

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