So, after a long hiatus, my friend and I played a one off game Monday night to refresh ourselves on the rules. I won't go into heavy details on the game itself, as I don't remember the turn by turn blow; but, I'll give you a brief rundown.

Scenario: Surprise Attack
Attacker: O&G
Defender: Reiklanders

Five of the Reiklanders started on the board. Three of them were deployed on the upper floors of ruined buildings and the other two unlucky humans started on the ground floor of some ruins. What made these poor chaps unlucky was that my deployment zone ended up being right behind these guys.

The first turn consisted of my Troll, Uungar, and Warboss Rotgar charging one Marksman and wholly braining him. Krog and Grok, my Big 'Uns, charged another Marksman. The first stunned him and the other quickly took him out of action. No one else was reachable as they were deployed so high up that it was impossible for me to climb up and him to climb down. This would cause a lot of grief for me with my limited ranged capabilities.

For two turns, the Reiklanders failed to summon reinforcements as well as failing to wound any of my O&G. Finally, a Champion showed up on my board edge. He shot at my Shaman failing to wound him and was subsequently charged by the magic club wielding Shaman and a Goblin. The magic club proved deadly as it stunned the Champion who would then be dispatched by the knife wielding Gob. At this point, the Reiklanders were now taking Route Tests. If I was smart, I would have consolidated my forces and let him break; however, I got greedy and decided to advance my Troll, Warboss, and Big 'Uns towards some newly arrived Youngbloods. They had to move through an open pass that was covered by three Marksman. In two turns, my Warboss and a Big 'Un were shot down under a hail of arrows, both were critically wounded.

My surviving Big 'Un and a Gob managed to dispatch a Youngblood; however, I was taking route tests now. The Reiklanders failed their route test on the next turn with box cars. In the end, I had lost a Warboss and Big 'Un and he had lost two Marksman, a Champion, and a Youngblood.

We rolled for Injuries and Wyrdstone for fun. The Warboss suffered a Chest Wound, lowering his Toughness by one, and the Big 'Un suffered a Head Injury and was not subject to Stupidity. It was not looking good for the future of the Orcs. The Reiklanders lost one Marksman and the rest of his forces fully recovered.

With Wyrdstone, I netted 50GC worth and the Reiklanders netted 45GC. After feeding my Troll, I would end up with 35GC, enough to purchase another Goblin or an Orc.

Now onto my thoughts.

For Warband design, I'm a bit torn. With the ability to only start with four Heroes, the loss of one of them really hampers my ability to find Wyrdstone. The only way to get more Heroes is to take Orc Boys and hope that they get Ladded. I love Goblins as they're cheap and expendable, but they can never become Heroes. I am sold on taking a Troll in my starting Warband. He is just too good to pass up and the fact that he never dies from being taken out of action is phenomenal. I'll gladly pay the 15GC upkeep. I will probably adjust my list, removing the three Goblins and taking two Orc Boyz instead.

As for strategy, as I mentioned before, I got too greedy/aggressive and charged my Boyz forward when they has already done their job by forcing route tests on the Reiklanders. If I would have consolidated my forces and made him come to me, he would have eventually failed a route test and I would not have had to deal with that shooting gallery. In future games, at least in the first few games, I need to send my Henchman out first to die and hold my Heroes back. Once the Boyz go down, I should elect to Auto-Route.

The Troll serves as a great bodyguard for my Warboss and benefits from his Leadership. These two should be nearly inseparable, with the Troll standing in front of the Warboss taking all of the incoming missile fire.

One final note, the more terrain you have, the more fun the game will be! We have a lot of the Battlefield in a Box and Pegasus Hobbies pre-painted terrain and it looks great. I also purchased a large batch of terrain from Acheson Creations. They make plastic walls, fences, and the like. It works perfect for Mordheim. I recommend you all check them out. I definitely need to buy more multi-level terrain ,even though it's to my disadvantage .