Whoever enters the Northern Wastes is most certainly doomed. Only few have ever dared to face the many horrors and dangers of these lands; but time and time again, tales of huge mountains that suddenly turn into pure gold, the prospect of powerful magical artefacts and hidden cities laden with treasure lure determined adventurers and fortune hunters to these dangerous lands.

The warbands described in this chapter are newly introduced in the Border Town Burning supplement. They follow all the normal rules for Warbands from the Mordheim rulebook. Most of them have not been designed especially for the Northern Wastes setting and therefore they are appropriate for any Mordheim game, whether set in the City of the Damned, the Empire in Flames or any other scenario.
This supplement contains five new warbands: the Merchant Caravans, the Marauders of Chaos, the Restless Dead, the Battle Monks from Cathay and the Chaos Dwarf Slavers. It is recommended that your gaming group have at least one Marauder player, but more than one or even none is certainly acceptable.
Other warbands that fit perfectly in this setting are: Beastmen, Norse, Orcs & Goblins, Skaven, Dwarfs, Undead and any type of Mercenaries but of course your gaming group can include whatever warband that is agreed upon.

Warband Rules
Sample Warband

Original release in
Letters of the Damned
issue #2

The primitive men who dwell in the Northern lands on the border of the Chaos Wastes are called Marauders of Chaos. They live in tribes and worship strange gods long forgotten by the civilised world. These Northmen are great warriors and they endlessly strive to win the attention of their patron gods by proving themselves in many battles. Some of the more ambitious chieftains lead their warbands south to the Cathayan Borderlands, leaving burned villages and bloody trails in their wake, seeking greater and greater challenges all for the glory of their dark gods.

To the east of Norsca lies the southern arm of the Frozen Sea and, east of that, the Northern Wastes, stretching many thousands of miles to the distant ocean. This cold and barren extension of the great northern steppes is home to fierce nomad peoples, of whom the greatest and most feared are the Kurgan to the west and the Hung to the east. These races are themselves divided into many inter-warring tribes, some more barbarous and bloodthirsty than others.

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Warband Rules

The land of Norsca lies to the far north of the Empire across the stormy Sea of Claws. This is a harsh realm of snow, where deadly forests of ice and mountains of frost reach skywards to the heavens, marching down to its impregnable coast.

Humans that live here are powerfully built, with tall, well muscled frames and long limbs. They are characterised by the pale hue of their skin, and common hair colours of red or fair blond. The Norsemen are bloodthirsty people whose society is based entirely around battle. They craft or produce very little in their inhospitable homeland. Instead their custom is to seize whatever they might need from foreign soil. Many times have their dreaded longships brought terror and destruction to the shores of men and the older races.

Note: This is not a re-write! This is an updated and corrected version of the original Norse warband by Derek Whitman from the Lustria - Cities of Gold setting. The warband was originally published in Town Cryer magazine 13 (read here: Cities of Gold pt 4) and is now re-published in the Border Town Burning supplement.

Warband Rules
Sample Warband
Warband Builder

Since the brothers Ricco and Robbio opened the Silk Road this dangerous but lucrative trade route attracts the most daring of merchants. Only few caravans brave the tales of raids and death that are told in the taverns of the Old World. An even smaller number survives the wide steppes that belong to Hobgobla Khan and the uncountable wolf riders that defend his empire to return with jewellery and fine silk cloths from the distant land known as Cathay.

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Warband Rules
Sample Warband

The borders of the Cathayan Empire are in permanent war with the Hobgoblin Wolf riders of Hobgobla Khan that roam the steppes to the west and the marauding hordes of Chaos barbarians and even worse creatures that come from the Chaos Wastes to the north. Beside the city guards that protect the fortress towns there is another group that helps defend the city's walls and that - at times of war - comes to aid the small farm villages around: the Cathayan Battle Monks.

These masters of martial arts are what keeps the hobgoblins, Chaos marauders and beastmen out. Their skills in close combat highly surpass those of the humans from the Old World - even when using no weapons at all!

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Warband Rules
Original version
(with conversion tips)

A Liche is a necromancer who was wise enough never to expend his own life energy to fuel his spells during his lifetime. As time eats away at his body, he retains his soul which allows him to manipulate magic, which is what separates them from pitiful wraiths. Unfortunately, the undead bodies of the Liche are not capable of retaining magic forever. They must absorb massive amounts of magic through the use of dark rituals and forbidden spells. The most common ritual involves the devouring of the soul of a human. The soulless human becomes a zombie under the Liche�s control. This continues until he is discovered.
When a Liche is found, great armies are sent against it. The Liche retaliates by creating armies of undead warriors to defend itself, expending vast amounts of stored magical energy to do so. Win or lose, the Liche is greatly weakened in this process. More often than not, the Liche is crippled such that he is incapable of bringing himself to his former strength. In this event, the Liche has two options. Most of them wander south to the forest of Lorien where they seek the wild and infinite magic of the wood. Some wander north towards the Chaos Wastes where they are almost always discovered and destroyed en-route. An even smaller percentage go west in ramshackle boats towards the lands of the High Elves... so far, only a small handful of Liches have ever lived in their undead state for very long; even fewer return to fighting strength after crippling defeat.

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Warband Rules

Original release in
Word of Hashut
issue #1

Few scholars know how exactly these Dwarfs came to be the evil and twisted creatures of Chaos they are now. A long and slow warping process has changed them forever. Sundered from others of their kind, trapped in underground holds on the ash-choked Plain of Zharr, darkness swept over them. From a worship born out of desperation, the bull-shaped god Hashut became their saviour and the Dwarfs of Karak Vlag became a perverted mockery of their former selves. Through infernal pacts with their mysterious daemon deity this bitter race has endured and gained an unnatural mastery of foul magic. They practice bloodthirsty rites which involve throwing captives into burning cauldrons of molten metal.

The Black Dwarfs constantly trade armour, weapons and machines forged out of precious metals with their hammers and vile sorcery, for fresh supplies and victims. Those condemned souls are brought back to the Dark Lands. Deep beneath the the ziggurat shaped obsidian tower they are sentenced to toil in the labour pits of Mingol Zharr-Naggrund, the City of Fire and Desolation.

Fell Sorcerer Priests mastermind tactical raids harvesting prisoners on the Silver Road to expand their labour force. Scouting for rich mineral veins and metal ores while scouring the land for wyrdstone deposits, has led detachments of the Children of Darkness to Mordheim.

Review:
On Chaos Dwarf Radio: Episode 3 you can hear a review of the Black Dwarfs list by the folks of Chaos Dwarfs Online as well as an interview with BTB co-developer Stu Cresswell ("Werekin").

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Warband Rules

In their natural environment Ogres move in herds. They exist in tribes spread across the Mountains of Mourn. Drifting through foreign lands, Ogres take up employment as hired muscle to anyone with enough coin and the nerve to go with it.

The call of the wild is too much for some bands and they prey upon merchants and travellers. The Ivory Road is never easy pickings as land trains are always guarded by heavily armed hirelings. Ogres sometimes end up fighting their own kind before looting the caravans and returning to their tribes with whatever is left of the spoils.

A company of these undisciplined savages who agree to fight under the command of a ballsy merchant will have their witless brawn put to good use in a fight. Spectacular mercenaries known as Maneaters all too often find themselves on the road, escorting a wealthy caravan great distances along dangerous trade routes. A few of these retinues make their way to the ruins of Mordheim.

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