Watchtower of Solace

This Sunday afternoon I added a fresh piece of terrain to my already heavily populated Marienburg campaign table. Apologies that proper stills of the board haven't made there way into the Liber gallery just yet, there are some professional quality images being uploaded quite soon, honest!


Sigmar's Solace, Witch Hunters headquarters in Marienburg

A plastic kit Warhammer watchtower has been gathering dust on the modelling desk in my flat since the beginning of the Summer. I collected it from a local hobbyist for 5 gold crowns (well, pounds sterling) pre-assembled and had to break off the steps and reattach them so they fit properly. A few hours were spent painting the tower to loosely match it up with the rest of my buildings and fortresses which were scratch-built and kit-bashed by Carl Merrell (aka Shanks on Tom's Forum).

Watchtowers are iconic in Warhammer games. The Watchtower is symbolic of the old Town Cryer articles for Mordheim by the same name. This handy guide to reference past articles was resurrected by Chris Templin a few years ago. Here is a link to his article Rebuilding the Watchtower. These dusty gems still serve us in one format or another.

What prompted me to work on the tower was a new entrant in the campaign I am running. David Jarezembowski has brought the Templars of Sigmar to Marienburg! The classic Witch Hunters warband suits Dave perfectly. He's one of those gamers whose competitive nature gives the more casual players a fright! Dave's zeal is happily balanced with a head for the Warhammer background, so although he plans to burn or drown any witches & heretics he encounters, his motives are laying the foundations for a fun-packed adventure story. Dave is a veteran of every Games Workshop game apart from Mordheim. His vast experience of Warhammer and Necromunda set him in excellent stead for the intrigue and battles to come.

Witch hunters have absolutely no jurisdiction in Marienburg. Sigmar has little to no favour in the city-port and Imperial laws are void since is seceded from the Empire's rule! I figured that a 'temporary' base of operations for the templars was still only fitting. The witch hunter captain needs somewhere to interrogate suspects once they get a license to pursue their investigations signed and sealed by the Executive Council of the Stadsraad. A small fortified watchtower seemed perfect to represent Sigmar's Solace, or 'Sigmartrost' in Reikspiel.

One of the new scenario ideas I had for this city setting is 'Stockade'. In this core scenario a fortified tower surrounded by a defensive barrier is used as the battleground for what I originally intended to be a homage to the scenario 'Blockade' from Border Town Burning. A few of the other new scenarios have been completed for 'Mutiny in Marienburg'. We have been using these plus original Mordheim and Border Town Burning scenarios to playtest the 7 gangs of Marienburg. Yeh, that's 7 new warbands folks!

In a new scenario called 'Dead Bait' the warbands enter a fighting pit in the Marienburg underworld. The forces from each gang are split. 3 warriors are nominated as Champions to fight in the baiting pit against each other plus the hulking pit gladiators! The remainder of the warband are (supposed to be) spectators but inevitably end up baiting one another while the pitfight reaches its bloody conclusion.

This weeks scenario we've been testing is 'Creature from the Black Market Lagoon'. One warband is using a kidnapped damsel as live bait to distract an aquatic monster that is menacing their secret smuggling dock. While they load their illegal goods another warband leads a rescue party to save the damsel.

In addition to the witch hunters arrival, there are a couple more clandestine entrants to the campaign. Steve Hume (aka 'Canada') has already won his first battle using Cathayan Battle Monks. Trev (TreGod on Tom's Forum) is lining up his Elf warband. for which you can view from his WiP thread on Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum. He is plotting to foil my uranai rangers with his druchii corsairs. Trev is actually stylizing his elves based on the Sea Elf Rangers warband list, but because I am already playing with this gang in the campaign we agreed it would be more fun if he uses the Dark Elf warband list from the Lustria setting. The corsairs are infiltrating Marienburg in the guise of sea elves to wreak havoc by fulfilling their hateful prophecies.