Mordheim: City of the Damned

I am writing this as a new player to Mordheim. Do the tutorials, I find doing the first 4 to understand how it works is helpful and then have a go in game and then finish the other tutorials off shortly after is a good way to do it. They not big or over long just very useful. The community will help you on the forums if your stuck with questions. The game itself : You are in charge of a Medieval gang that is aligned to some faction. Mercenaries is the faction I usually play, they are human. It is set in the City / Town of Mordheim. Your goal other than beating up rival gangs / factions is to get stronger, get more gold and keep sending off Wyrdstones to your faction boss. The game is battle after battle with different objectives and lots of locations around the town to fight over. You don't actually get to keep the turf you are fighting over, its more to get Wyrdstones and kit and the opportunity to beat other people up. This is not a game that will pander to you like so many other games out there. This game will punish you for stupidity and on occasion just bad luck, and that is part the reason it is a good game. Your warband members matter. If you throw them as axe fodder then they may end up permanently injured or dead. So you got to think about how you are going to get wyrdstones and keep your members intact. The environment is great there are traps about so keep your eyes open and don't rush about. Very satisfying when the enemy is approaching you and they step on a trap. If you like gang warfare this is the game! If you do lose a member you can get another and build them up there are a lot of options on how to build your squad to suit your playstyle. If you want to practise with your squad without the risk of losing them then there is the skirmish mode where you can set up a game of one of your warbands and see how they fare in an environment that wont punish your main game if you make a mistake. There are specific missions for your warband / faction in the main game it is up to you if you do them or just play as a gang making their wyrdstone payments. Each day you get the battles to choose from, if you don't like the look of them you can spend some of your gold to send scouts out to find more missions. These range in deployments and mission goals and secondary objectives. After the battle you get to see how much xp your members have got and if they got enough you can choose which stats to build up. The downside : I said about secondary objectives and collecting wyrdstones. There is a morale meter, in a sane world if you make the enemy flee the area you can continue to complete your secondary objective / collect more loot / wyrdstones. In Mordheim if the enemy routs (or you do) then that is it, the ending screen tells you how you have done. So all that loot on the battlefield / cobbled roads are left uncollected. You do get some of the left over loot but keep that in mind might want to strategize a bit and collect lots of wyrdstones before pulversing the enemy / getting pulverised by the enemy. That is not a huge game ender, just a bit 'where is the logic in that?' Does not ruin the game at all (imo). This is not a game about bravery, this is a game about gang warfare and using dirty tricks and ganging up where you can because if you dont do it , the enemy will be trying to. I like the way you got different stances if you got some movement / offensive points left over after your go. You can set up ambush points or 'overwatch' for your ranged units. That is part of the charm, because you got multiple areas to form up defensive / offensive play at. You could have an ambusher waiting near a point where you know the enemy will be trying to climb up to or going up the stairs and bam! you smack them one or shoot them as they poke their head up the stairway. Different factions have different ways of play but cannot really speak for them because I so far mainly play the human mercenaries. I bought this on sale and recommend if you can get it on sale to buy it too. IF you like the idea of braining a Skaven (rat creature) and then shooting his rodent friend for fun, this is the game for you. If you like the idea of gang warfare on medieval German sounding town, this is the game for you. If you like to go train spotting, this is not the game for you.