Over the past few months we have been discussing and playtesting a few modifications to Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition.
These changes are mostly small tweaks and guidelines with the aim of improving clarity and ease of play, and removing tedium, confusion, over complication, and the just plain broken content, while retaining as much of the idiosyncratic character and flavour of the original rules as possible.
This encounter was a playtest of some of these ideas.
1000 points seemed like a good size battle based on our time and collections available- large enough to feel like a proper Warhammer game and give us a diverse selection of troop types to trial, but not so large that we might be overwhelmed and lost in the detail and be unable to resolve it quickly.
A basic scenario and win conditions were created through a bit of collaborative improvised storytelling.
The beleaguered Empire forces would defend the village of Seelanwald from the onslaught of a nefarious Necromancer and his minions. For the Empire to be victorious they would need to survive and remain in possession of the central square of the town until the sun came up: determined by rolling a d6 after Turn 4. On a 1-3 night remained, 4-6 the sun rose. If at the time the sun rose, no empire forces controlled the square than the Undead would win the game.
The Empire army was chosen from the updated list in White Dwarf 147, while the Undead was based on the list in Warhammer Armies 3rd Edition. Thanks to Morglum Quiebracuellos from the Crown of Command Discord for the map assets, please do check out Herohammer
for more old school Warhammer goodness, and more of his excellent graphic design.
The Siege of Seelanwald
The acrid
smoke of tar and pitch hung low over the town of Seelenwald, stinging Hans’s
eyes as he hauled crates of black powder toward the gun line. Around him, the
air thrummed with tension—sergeants shouting, priests daubing symbols of Sigmar
in ash upon trembling brows, and the iron tang of fear sharper than the smell
of blood. Beyond the outer palisade, the horizon shimmered with the pale dust
of a thousand shuffling feet. Even at this distance, Hans fancied he could hear
it: the dry rattle of bones like wind through dead leaves, the hollow moan of
things long buried but not at rest.
The gunners
worked in grim silence, eyes darting toward the hills as the sun sank blood-red
behind them, and Hans, clutching his powder horn, began to wonder whether the
barricades he’d trusted would hold when darkness finally came.
A chill wind
rolled down from the barrows as twilight thickened, carrying with it the faint
toll of a bell. Men froze where they stood, half-believing the sound to be in
their minds. Then, slowly, the ravens took flight from the western ridge, black
silhouettes wheeling above the dying light.
“Signals,”
muttered a sergeant, though his voice quavered.
Hans
followed his gaze and saw them—pinpricks of corpse-fire flickering among the
hills, spreading one by one like stars being kindled. The dead were lighting
their beacons. And with that terrible understanding came another sound: the
thump of drums, distant but steady, like the sound of nails sealing a coffin.
All along
the ramparts, the militia stirred. Lanterns guttered as men fumbled for their
weapons, muttering prayers that dissolved into the crackle of pitch torches.
From the chapel tower, Father Reimund’s voice rose, hoarse and fervent,
invoking the Hammer of Sigmar, but even his words seemed to falter against the
encroaching dark. The drums grew louder—no longer distant, but pounding just
beyond the fields where the wheat had blackened and died.
Hans gripped
his powder horn tighter, his palms slick with sweat despite the cold. He
blinked through the haze, trying to steady his breath, when a new sound tore
through the din—hooves, pounding hard and fast over the cobbles. Shouts rose
from the northern gate, and out of the smoke burst a dozen riders, cloaks
snapping behind them, horses lathered white with sweat and mud.
The
Kislevites had returned.
For a week
they’d been the bane of Seelenwald’s taverns, swaggering through the streets
with their shaggy ponies and their endless thirst, drinking the town’s ale
cellars near dry and mocking the townsmen with songs of the steppe. But the
laughter was gone from them now. Their faces were ash-pale, eyes wide and wild
as they galloped through the market square, scattering the last of the
townsfolk.
“Back! Get
inside!” one of them roared in a thick, rasping accent, wheeling his horse so
sharply the beast nearly slipped. “They’re right behind us!”
Hans pressed
himself against the wall as the riders thundered past, their lamellar armour
scorched and dented, arrows jutting from saddle bags. He caught a glimpse of
their leader, Ataman Ostrogski, a burly man with a fox-fur mantle and a sabre
blackened with dried blood—leaning low in the saddle, shouting orders in
Kislevite that sounded more like curses.
Behind them,
the gatehouse shuddered with another impact. The undead had reached the
northern wall.
The last of
the riders turned his mount in the street, bow already in hand. He loosed a
shaft back toward the gate, and for an instant Hans saw its flight lit by
firelight—then the arrow struck something unseen, and a figure tumbled through
the air with a hiss of corpse-light.
The
Kislevite spat, spat again, and shouted, “They’ve crossed the river! The dead can
walk on water!” before spurring his horse toward the temple square.
Hans could
only stare. The men who had been laughing drunkards days before were now ghosts
in their own right, driven by terror and fury.
Then,
through the wavering haze, he saw them: the first of the dead cresting the
ridge. Pale figures, tattered remnants of soldiers, their armour mottled with
rust and grave mold. They advanced without sound save for the grind of bone and
metal. In their midst towered a shape clad in corroded plate, its eye sockets
burning like twin coals.
The breath
hitched in Hans’s throat as he realized the truth—this was no mindless horde.
It marched beneath command. And somewhere beyond the hills, the necromancer
watched, patient as the grave.
The first
impact came like a thunderclap. A screaming skull crashed against the palisade,
bursting into splinters and flame as the pitch caught. Hans turned his head to
get a better view. Sigmar save us! The skull had landed right next to Schwarzmantel
Zygulski the town’s mage and Margraf Lazslo von Wurstdorf the leader of the
garrison! If either of them had been hit, all hope would be lost. The defenders
answered with fire of their own— arrows hissed, arquebuses spat sparks, cannons
roared, and the night lit up in flashes of orange and blue. Yet for every
corpse torn apart, two more stumbled over the ruin to take its place. The air
filled with the reek of burnt bone and black powder, thick enough to taste.
Hans rammed
a charge into the mouth of a falconet, his hands trembling. “Fire!” the gun
captain bellowed, and the cannon bucked with a deafening crack. The blast
overshot the dead. The sergeant backhanded Hans over the face with his heavy
gloves. “It’s your bloody hands Hans” He shrieked “Stop them from shaking or
I’ll bloody well cut them off myself”!
Somewhere
down the line, a scream cut through the din. It was a sound unlike any other
which cut through the chaos: a deep, wet, ragged shriek that made his blood run
cold.
He looked
up.
From beyond
the northern wall, something vast and vile burst through the smoke—a thing of
rotting sinew and tattered wings, each beat scattering ash and embers into the
night. Its long neck craned downward, serpentine head snapping at the air as it
rose higher, higher, until it vanished against the blood-red stars. For a
heartbeat, its silhouette blotted out the moon, and the whole town seemed to
darken.
Hans froze
where he stood, his powder horn forgotten in his hand. His mind refused to name
what he had seen—a carrion beast, dead yet alive, stitched together by
nightmare and necromancy. The cries of the men below seemed distant, muffled,
as though he stood underwater.
Through the
haze and firelight Hans could see them now—rank upon rank of the dead shuffling
forward, their outlines breaking through the smoke like shapes in a fever
dream. Spears jutted from broken hands, rusted armour clinked in hollow rhythm,
and the ground itself seemed to groan beneath their weight.
Then the sky
screamed.
A skull
wreathed in green flame streaked overhead, trailing a comet-tail of witchfire
before bursting among the halberdiers on the southern wall. Four men vanished
in a storm of bone and ash, their bodies hurled apart like dolls. Yet even as
the survivors reeled, coughing and bleeding, they did not run. The line
wavered, but held—Sigmar’s name on their lips, their knuckles white on hafts slick
with sweat.
Far off, a
shock of emerald light flared across the hills, throwing long, ghastly shadows.
The ground at Hans’s feet shuddered, then split. Fingers—grey, soil-stained,
and horribly familiar—clawed their way through the earth. One by one, the
long-dead denizens of Seelenwald dragged themselves from their graves:
cobblers, soldiers, wives, and children, faces half-remembered from portraits
and dreams. The horror struck the living like a hammer. These were their
ancestors, the very folk who had built the town stone by stone—and now they had
returned to tear it down.
A fresh
shriek rent the night as the carrion beast dived out of the darkness. It struck
the mortar position on the western hill, claws snapping through armour and
flesh. Crewmen vanished in a spray of blood before the rest could turn their
guns. The arquebusiers just behind the embedded cannon fired at near
point-blank range; the volley thundered through the smoke, killing two of their
own and missing the monster entirely. With a beat of its ragged wings, the
beast tore the mortar apart, scattering wheels and limbs in the mud. The last
gunner fled down the slope, screaming, but the carrion swept after him—caught
him in mid-stride—and ended him in a single bite.
Below, the
Kislevites saw the carnage and spurred forward in fury. Their steppe horses
plunged through the mud, bows snapping in unison. Arrows hissed into the tide
of skeletons wielding scythes, felling three before the rest closed ranks
again, silent and unfeeling.
The last
imperial cannon thundered from the churchyard, its ball ploughing through a
knot of skeletal horsemen that had dared to cross the river’s black surface.
One rider shattered in mid-gallop; the others kept coming, hooves splashing
across the water as though it were solid ground. Hans looked beyond them and
almost dropped his powder horn. There were three more waves of skeletal
horsemen charging across the river beyond the first. Fingering the hammer
around his neck he whispered one last prayer to Sigmar that he would survive
the night.
On the
temple steps, the mage Zygulski raised his staff. Flame coiled from his
fingertips and burst into the night, streaking toward the zombie horde. The
fireballs struck home, scattering burning corpses across the square—but still
they came, staggering onward, aflame yet unbowed, as the bells of Seelenwald
tolled over its own funeral.
The ground
split in a blaze of white light as Zygulski vanished from the chapel steps. For
a heartbeat, his voice echoed like thunder in the minds of the men around
him—and then he was gone, a smear of brilliance sucked into the smoke. Far out
on the plain, he reappeared amid the shrieking gale of necromantic energy,
robes snapping like banners in the storm. The skeleton horsemen wheeled toward
him, sockets burning with corpse-fire, yet the mage did not flinch. Zygulski
could feel it now—the pulse of will that bound the dead, a presence close and
cold as the grave.
“Show
yourself,” Zygulski hissed, and his staff blazed with runes of binding.
At that
moment, the horde surged. The last of the newly risen clawed their way from the
earth and joined the press, dragging rusted blades and shovels still caked with
grave soil. They fell upon the barricades in a tide of bone and rags, the night
alive with the clatter of shields and the shriek of steel on wood. Men screamed
and prayed as the enemy came, the glow of their eyes flickering through the
smoke.
Then came
the shriek of the skull catapult.
The
projectile hurtled overhead, trailing emerald flame, and for one terrible
instant Hans thought it would strike the knights arrayed before the northern
gate. Instead, it arced wide—straight toward the mortar where he stood.
The world
exploded.
He tasted
ash and bile, felt his stomach heave as the concussion ripped the breath from
his lungs. For a moment he could not hear, could not see—only the pressure of
fear turning his insides to water. He retched, dry and shaking, the stench of the
grave in his nose.
When the
smoke cleared, he blinked through tears and realized the mortar still stood,
its barrel blackened but intact. Around it lay fragments of shattered bone and
the charred remnants of a barrel, but the gun itself was untouched.
“Sigmar
preserve us,” he gasped.
But the
words died in his throat.
Screams rose
from the lower town.
Through the
haze of smoke and fire, he saw the carrion beast descending once more, a vast
silhouette of ruin and hunger. It struck the granaries first—rending through
the rooftops with its claws, scattering wheat like snow into the night. Where
the grain fell, it blackened, curling into rot before it touched the ground.
Then the creature turned its fury upon the streets. Hans watched, frozen, as it
tore through fleeing shapes—women, children, the old—its jaws working
mechanically, heedless of their cries. The creature’s touch blighted everything
it brushed; the very air around it shimmered with a sickly green mist.
Beyond the
farmlands, a light flared behind a sagging farmhouse. Not fire this time, but
something worse—a steady emerald radiance pulsing with unnatural rhythm.
And there,
upon a rotting horse whose flesh sloughed with each step, sat a dark figure.
Robes of shadow fluttered around him, and in one skeletal hand he raised a
staff tipped with a chunk of warpstone that burned from within. With each
motion, the ground split, and more dead heaved themselves up to obey.
The
necromancer had come to Seelenwald.
The
Kislevite horse archers wheeled about in perfect unison, turning in their
saddles to loose a storm of arrows behind them as they retreated toward the tree
line. Their horses’ hooves churned the earth into mud, and shafts hissed past
like angry wasps. From the gun line, the arquebusiers spat curses at their
backs.
“Cowards!”
one shouted. “Flee back to your frozen steppe!”
It was only
the deep, commanding voice of Margraf von Wurstdorf that stayed their hands.
“Hold your
fire, you fools! Aim at the dead, not the living!”
The
sergeants bellowed the order down the line, and the arquebuses turned outward
again, muzzles flashing as they spat lead into the advancing ranks. The
halberdiers of Captain Radziwill surged forward through the smoke, the hafts of
their weapons gleaming with holy oil.
They met the
zombies in a crash of iron and rotting flesh. Fear clawed at their hearts, but
discipline and rage held them firm. Each stroke of the halberds tore through
blackened ribs and burst decaying skulls, the soldiers crying Sigmar’s name as
they fought to avenge the innocents ripped apart by the carrion beast’s
rampage.
Hans, still
trembling, rammed powder and shot into the mortar. He lit the fuse—boom!—but
the ball screamed wide into the night. He winced, waiting for the sergeant’s
wrath. When none came, he turned—and saw the man’s discarded gloves lying in
the mud. The coward had fled.
Before Hans
could curse him, a thunder of hooves shook the earth.
The Imperial
knights charged, their lances levelled, smashing into the tide of skeletal
horsemen. Steel met bone in a storm of splinters and sparks, the dead were
shattered beneath their mounts. For a fleeting moment, it seemed the charge
might carry the day. Then a cold light rippled through the melee—sickly green,
pulsing with unnatural brightness.
Before the
knights’ horrified eyes, the shattered bones of their foes began to knit
themselves together. Broken skulls reformed, limbs reattached, and the fallen
dead rose once more, open mouths shrieking soundlessly as they hurled
themselves back into the fray.
Still the
halberdiers pressed their attack. Their blows came harder, faster—so fierce
that the necromantic bindings could no longer hold. Zombies collapsed into
heaps before the blades even touched them, the black magic leaking from them
like smoke. The line of the living surged forward. A great shout rose from the
ramparts—the first sound of triumph.
Atop the
hill, the skull catapult fired again—and failed. Its sinews tore, the bone
frame groaning, but by dark sorcery it was held together.
Hans loaded
his final mortar ball, sighted down the barrel himself, and fired. The mortar
leapt like a living thing, the blast hammering inside his chest. The shot
struck true. The skull catapult vanished in a cloud of green fire and shrapnel,
the blast tearing its skeletal crew apart.
A cheer rose
from the defenders.
By the
blackened wheat fields, the mage Zygulski lifted his staff. His voice cracked
the night like thunder as he uttered a word of power, and a blazing sigil
burned in the air above the knights. They roared as the spell took them—blessed
frenzy filling their hearts. They became like madmen, hacking and slashing with
inhuman vigor, cutting the undead cavalry to pieces.
Then a new
sound drowned out the cheers—a scream that was not human.
The carrion
beast, drawn by the roar of the mortar, turned from the burning granaries. It
descended in fury upon the hill, crashing into the mortar emplacement. The last
of the crew were torn apart in an instant. The mortar was smashed to splinters
beneath its claws.
Hans dove
for cover as the creature’s shadow swallowed him whole. He felt its fetid
breath, the stench of grave-rot filling his lungs. For a moment he thought he
was dead—but when he opened his eyes, the monster was still above him, its maw
wide.
Somewhere
beyond, the necromancer stepped into view.
He was a
vision of death—robes rotted to tatters, flesh stretched thin over bone, the
stench of the grave clinging to him like fog. From his blackened staff he
conjured orbs of sickly green fire, hurling them one after another at Zygulski.
Each struck like a thunderclap.
The mage
staggered, aflame, his robes burning to ash. No one could have survived—but somehow,
he had remained on his feet.
Bleeding,
dying, but refusing to acknowledge it Zygulski rose to his full height one last
time. His eyes blazed with light. He whispered a single word—a word older than
faith—and hurled a final fireball across the field before collapsing utterly
spent.
It struck
the necromancer squarely in the chest, consuming him in white flame. His scream
echoed across Seelenwald, and for a moment he was entombed in blazing white light,
then he was gone, devoured completely by the holy flame.
And in that
instant, everything changed.
As the
necromancer burned, the witch-light faded from the eyes of the dead. Skeletons
crumbled where they stood, zombies fell like puppets with their strings cut,
and the carrion beast froze above Hans, its jaws inches from his face. With a
groan like splitting stone, it collapsed into dust.
Hans
staggered to his feet, covered in soot and blood, the world suddenly silent
around him.
The siege of
Seelenwald was over.
As he looked
down from the hill, his heart broke. The town was gone—its streets strewn with
corpses, its granaries gutted and black. The women and children lay where they
had fallen. The winter stores were ash.
The living
gathered in the square at dawn, hollow-eyed and shivering, staring at the
rising sun.
Von
Wurstdorf spoke first, his voice low and hoarse. “We live,” he said. “But only
just. And those who did this still linger.”
Hans turned
his eyes toward the dark horizon. Beyond the smoke, somewhere in the haunted
hills, rose the black silhouette of a ruined tower.
It was
there, they said, the necromancer had come from. And it was there, they swore, they
would go—
to repay
death with death.
