mordheim: circus extraordinaire

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

Very cool stuff Do they have rules for a traveling cart or anything like that? Tamed bears/lions?

I'm basing the warband on the experimental rules set for "circus extraordinaire" on Mordheimer.com, but I have tweaked their rules with a few additions, basically filling glaring holes and adding flavour.
e.g. allowing pick pockets to actually pick pockets and 'work the crowd' during performances, options to apprentice impressionable youths to particular performers so they can be trained up, and a couple of others.

after the campaign I'll send a report to the website with my ammendments and suggestions.

the clowns, strongmen, and pickpockets (impressionable youths and toughs should I have any) are henchmen. the ringmaster leads and the performers are heroes. I currently only have 2 heroes, the acrobat and knife thrower, other options are: beast tamer, magician, freak (single mutation), and mysteries of the east (shaolin monk/prize fighter).

each beast tamer allows up to 2 beasts to be included. as the ringmaster can have a single performer ability my ringmaster is a beast tamer, hence the whip, so she will be getting some pets when I get round to making them.

was hoping to get a magician built before the campaign started, but they need to be painted too.

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

Really awesome stuff so far. The poses and realism are pretty mind blowing! One thing I would criticise, if it pleases you, is the pins the clowns are juggling look a bit uneven. I think if you tidied them up this would be beyond first class!!
Keep up the great work
Wascloud

glad you like them.

yes the juggling clubs are horribly lumpy, but they'll do for now. don't worry, they will be tidied-up/replaced when I get time.

[EmperorNorton]

Fantastic work.
The second stongman is my favourite.
Can't wait to see them all painted.

[Lucifer216]

Looking great! What else are you planning on? The warband could probably use a couple more performers in combat poses. I love the "Blue Raja"

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

most of the warband is now painted to a playable standard.
had the first 2 games this evening.

played against a possessed warband;
my pickpockets (3, kitbashed from empire militia so i'll post pics when they are painted) all got beaten up by mutants,
one clown was taken down by one of the darksouls, but another clown avenged him.
the strong men smashed down several opposing henchmen,
my ringmaster took out another,
and the marksman gave the enemy wizard such a stabbing that he actually died!!
unfortunately the possessed monster mushed one of my clowns and clobbered my acrobat.
to add insult to injury he dragged her off and sold her to the pits!! we found her later, devoid of all kit and nursing an arm injury that made her miss the next game.
on the plus side slapping the chaos filth untill there were just 2, out of 9, of them left caused them to lose their nerve and run away, giving us the vicory.

happily, most of my henchmen recovered. only had to recruit one pick pocket to recoup losses.
a distressingly pitiful crowd at the show resulted in a measly 55 gold in the takings tin.

the second game was relatively short.
the team found themselves racing ogres to find caches of weirdstone.

true to form one of the pickpockets snaffled a large chunk of weridstone early on an scarpered with it.
moxxi and the raja led the clowns and strongmen up the other flank after the rest.
the pickpockets failed to hit anything with their bows, but after the raja swung back and hurled a flurry of knives at one of the ogres the lightfingered duo happily set about the injured ogre with their kinves, and gave him a damn good stabbing. (so far their knives have been more effective than their bows!)

all that practice with invisible ladders paid off as the mime nimbly leaped atop the gate house and grabbed another chunk of weird stone. then he dodged the rocks the knoblars slung at him and charged one taking it out of action. the other clown charged a knoblar, but was intercepted by the spear of a knoblar hero and they both took each other out.

in the centre, one of the strong men was charged by the largest ogre, leaving him stunned on the floor. but a flurry of whirling kettle bells from the other mustacioed brawler saw the massive beast short of a couple of wounds.

a joint effort from moxxi and the apprentice clown dropped the other ogre.
having lost half their warband in one round the ogres fled leaving the weirdstone to the circus folk.

the extra shards coupled with the proceeds of the week's performances leaves us with a nice tidy 145 gcs to spend.

an added bonus was a full recovery for both the injured henchmen and no hero casualties.

exp:
having gained 2 advances and rolled the same both times Moxxi, my ringmaster(mistress), has now maxed out at WS 6
Raja, my marksman, has gained the eagle eye skill (+D6" to the range of a 6" range weapon is awesome!!). this goes very nicely with the "knife fighter" skill he started with (can throw three knives instead of one).
Harley, the acrobat, is just shy of her first advance but has recovered from her injury. unfortunately she lost her sword in the pits so will need some new kit.
the clowns have gained an attack, which stacks nicely with their juggling clubs.
taking down an ogre seems to have bolstered the courage of the pickpockets (+1 Ld)
and the strong men have got stronger. (maxing out at Strength 5 thanks to the "beefy" rule)

Moxxi thinks she may have found someone talented enough to add another act to the bill (the circus can't just buy extra heroes, skilled performers are rare)...

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

Looking great! What else are you planning on? The warband could probably use a couple more performers in combat poses. I love the "Blue Raja"

it most definitely could use a few more performers....
...any requests?

currently have:
1 beast tamer (out of a possible 2)
1 acrobat (out of a possible 2)
1 marksman (max)
0 magician (0-1)
0 freak (0-1)
0 mystery of the east/prize fighter (0-1)

need a funky character with cool model ideas.

think Moxxi needs some pets so I was going to make her a beast or 2 (limit 2 per beast tamer).
I have a few ideas but would welcome any suggestions.

the trouble is the model limit on the warband is 15 and I already have 11.
the henchmen are alowed to include 1 more clown (0-4), but I am already at the limit for strongmen (0-2) and pick pockets (0-3) so any others would have to be impressionable youths (cheap and rubbish) or toughs (WS4 BS2), but I prefer to make interesting models.

[Duke Donald]

Brilliant idea and excellent execution!

[Lord Azoth]

Bravo!!!!! bravisssimo!...the 2nd strongman looks amazing!

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

update time:

here are two of my henchmen this is the clown and the mime

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

the strongmen

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

and two of the heroes,

Moxxi and Harley:






(might have to do some closeups as alot of the highlights seem to have been lost in these photos , but you get the general idea.)

[benvoliothefirst]

I love this thread. Incredible musculature sculpting on that second strongman, and the leopard singlet is perfect.

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

here is the latest addition to my warband.






thought it would be amusing to have my magician pulling something out of his hat, and a sword would be kind of fitting. then when adding him to my warband roster at the end of last weeks session I rolled to see if i could include him (new performers are effectively rare items so have to be rolled for if you want to find them). we found the magician then rolled for his power from the lesser magic. aptly he rolled "sword of Rhezebel" which lets him counjour a magic flaming sword that boosts his combat ability, so I added flames to the blade.

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

and here is a sneak peek at the next figure

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

here is the latest addition to my warband
(as requested by Apologist)







currently entitled "dancing bear does lunch" but will need naming, suggestions are welcome.

out of curiousity, is the type of bear apparent from the sculpt?

[Apologist]

Squee – that's adorable
From the round face, am I right in thinking it's a panda?

[Lord Blood the Hungry]

and you can't just have one beastie...







was going to be jumping through the flaming hoop, but then I decided that would annoy me after a while. so, the hoops will be incoroprated into the circus equipment I am hoping to make to go with the warband.

[Student]

Good work. I particularly like the second of the strong men, the bald one, the sculpting of the muscles looks really good.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

The lion isn't finished yet I hope. It needs more musculature. Otherwise, cute bear!

[Grain Weevil]

Dressed panda with bamboo root ! Excellent idea