Old Swords on new contracts!

In this post I introduce you to a new way of promoting Hired Swords in your games of Mordheim and present a new massive article by the infamous Werekin.

What I like most about Mordheim is the diversity of the various warbands and the possibility to personalise your own band of shady adventurers. Aside from the character evolution of your Heroes and Henchmen one great way of adding character to your warband is by including Hired Swords. With these specialists the Mordheim rules set provides a flavourful way of not only adding depth to your warband but also to adjust it further to your own style of play. Thus you can choose the warband that fits your style of gameplay best and deepen this even further with the inclusion of one or two specialist Hired Swords. Unfortunately, as cool as this system is at first sight, it does have one major flaw: The upkeep costs for Hired Swords (with a few exceptions) are very prohibitive and often times you are better off investing in better gear or actual henchmen than in a pricey sell-sword. However, with what they add to campaign play it would be great to promote the use of these characterful individuals and encourage players to hire them more often. But fiddling with all upkeep costs or, even worse, re-writing the overall fine system for using Hired Swords is not an option. Instead, all it sometimes takes is a tiny additional rule on top to put things in balance and provide new possibilities.

Some time ago Werekin told me he was working on a compilation of all Hired Swords ever published, which I thought would be a wonderful thing as a convenient piece of reference - albeit a somewhat crazy task with all the stuff that has been published in past issues of Town Cryer and various supplemental materials. Yet, the idea went further: What he was mostly concerned with was the lack of use of Hired Swords in Mordheim campaigns as we have experienced it in our gaming groups. In his article "Swords of the Empire" he thus not only compiles all the Hired Swords you could ever want, he also introduces a system for tying them to the warbands, based on the allies rules in the bestiary of the Border Town Burning supplement. Also, some Hired Swords are categorised as Traders, which lends additional useful functions to their warband. Thus, the article takes a fresh perspective on the use of Hired Swords, provides a handy reference of the many different sell-swords and takes a peek at what awaits the players in the upcoming supplement.

Download the article: Swords of the Empire (PDF, ca. 3.2 MB)

All published resources from the Marienburg manifest can be downloaded here.

We'd love to hear your thoughts so feel free to leave a comment, get in touch or post in this thread on the Boring Mordheim Forum.

Raise your Swords!