Middenheimer Warband

Greetings vaqueros! Today we'll be looking at this Middenheimer warband I've made for games of Mordheim. 

Mordheim, as I may have mentioned previously on this blog, remains one of my favourite games; the rule system is far from perfect, but the atmosphere, miniatures and nostalgia form a potent brew that I will keep quaffing until my last breath, after which my soul will wander the mean streets of the City of the Damned for all eternity. Something to look forward to!

My best friend/favourite enemy used to play Middenheimers when the game was first released, back in 1999, mere months before the End of Times ushered in by the Y2K virus. In the desolate wastelands of the new millennium, our gangs fought and died, me with my Witch Hunters, and he with his hairy norsemen, and together we had a jolly old time, when we weren't arguing bitterly about whether the grease haze from the nasty McDonald's apron we were using as river terrain could actually block line of sight.

In order to pay homage to his old warband, I decided to make a Middenheimer warband, and in order to make it extra special, I decided to go to town and saw up some precious and desirable miniatures. I began with this Knights of the White Wolf grandmaster, as he was spare and I really like his bald pate and huge eyebrows. As he is normally astride a horse, I had to cut off his legs and lower body, and in searching for some legs, found an unfortunate late 80's Jes Goodwin chaos warrior who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Together these two mighty warriors formed my Middenheimer mercenary captain, who I named [PLACEHOLDER TEXT].

INTERESTING FACT: The Empire knights of the 4th edition WHFB era were sculpted by the Perry brothers, but the grandmasters of each order was sculpted by Jes Goodwin, which is why they are slightly different in style. And before you ask, no, I don't have any sources for that, I just know it in my bones, which makes it less of an INTERESTING FACT and more like bold conjecture.

The two champions were made from a pair of White Wolf knight torsos and the legs of two Marauder Reiksguard footknights, whom were doubles that I found in my leadpile. I took a jeweller's saw and carefully cut them in half (and I didn't return the saw to the jeweller because screw that guy).The result was very pleasing - one looks like he is shoulder charging into his enemy, which is slightly less effective than walloping them with your overlarge hammer, but does look pretty sweet. I named them [TBA] and [IPSUM LOREM].

INTERESTING FACT: long hammers like the ones wielded by these three are technically pole-arms and were used by foot troops, not by cavalry, who had a smaller version for use on horseback, so I've actually made these minis MORE historically accurate with my butchery. So yeah. Take that Perrys! And maybe Jes also.

And here are the heroes all painted up. The youngbloods are stock miniatures from the Mordheim releases, with the rare and welcome addition of a female being notable in a time where you could count the female releases on one hand (if your hand had like, 8 fingers). I named them both [INSERT TEXT HERE].

INTERESTING FACT: Akshat Saxena from Uttar Pradesh, India is the world record holder for highest number of digits. He was born in 2010 with seven digits on each hand and 10 digits on each foot, for a total of 34 digits. You go ahead and Google that. I'll wait. 

Choosing some henchmen was pretty easy - I was longing for an excuse to build some of these plastic militia guys, as it has been at least 15 years since I last did so. I still had an untouched box of Empire Militia from that special era when they came 20 to a box, so there was plenty of big hammers to go around. The crossbowmen are metal 'plug in' miniatures; that range efficiently allowed for the same body to take a crossbow, zweihander, halberd or sword and shield, and made for some nice consistency across your army, provided you didn't mind painting the same 4 guys over and over *eye twitch*.

These are the pages White Dwarf didn't want you to see.

And here we have some of the bold Middenheimers making the streets run red with the blood of filthy chaos worshippers. These Slaaneshi types will be the subject of their own blog post, COMING SOON. 

And what's next? Well, to put it in plain terms, a shitload of goblins.

Because sometimes a buttload just isn't enough...

See you next time!