Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't - How a Mordheim Warfair City Was Built and Played

Oct 7, 2026

First-hand account of designing, building, and running a Mordheim fantasy/sci-fi city for Warfair. The process covers constructing a 8'x4' plywood board with individually mounted forest materials, rivers and cobblestones, and themed castles and buildings, plus paint, flocking, and resin river finishing. It also describes Warfair preparation, rules and encounter planning, play-testing, and a simultaneous turn sequence with player objectives, treasure, and constraints around magic items.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

City construction

Materials and terrain building

Painting, rivers, and scenery

Pre-event preparation and playtest

Rules collection and encounter planning

Turn sequence and player objectives

Samne if you pfay!>amne if you 9on't!6y ennis Sayson from cake decorations andappropriate miniatures. the Mordheim Cityas the central game forour Fantasy and sci-firoom.The Warfair staffagreed on the idea,and Iwas off to the design phase ofthe city. The trees are individuallybased on large sheet metalwashers.This makes themeasier to move around as thefigures pass through thewoodlands. Sarning!93 turn bac$ifwere you! Gow tBe City was conceise?an9 buift The graveyard section wasmade from from carved Shortly after I got the goahead to run Mordheim atWarfair,I pulled out all myold Warhammer Role Playbooks and White Dwarfmagazines to give me aflavour for the buildings andthe layout of the city.I thenasked my very talented wife,Mary,who has a design degreeto help me with the layout ofthe buildings.We bothdecided that the best size forthe game to be played on was8'x4'(the size of a full sheetof plywood).We then insulation foam covered withlatex house paint and blendedgreen turf.The tomb stoneswere made from balsa woodand old miniatures.Thecobble stones were carvedinto the base foam with a ballpoint pen.The cobblestoneswere painted black and thendry brushed.Most of thebuildings can be foundpainted or unpainted in localcraft stores.They were 4SβyAor9Beim? Since I picked up my firstcopy of Warhammer andWarhammer Role Play,I havewanted to build a medievalcity to run adventures in.When I saw the first articles inthe White Dwarf on Mordheim,I knew that thisgame would become extremely popular.Since I amalso a member of the WarfairAtlanta staff,and an labelled on the bottom to aidethe game umpires.The statueand monument were made enthusiastic GW games player,I thought that we should use considered transportation anddecided to cut the piece ofplywood into four equal parts.I had originally decided toscratch build each building,but upon discovering that'Wal-Mart'(an American storechain)had a medieval lookingChristmas village set,Maryand I went to all the storeswithin a 100 mile radius andbought all the buildings thatcould pass as medieval.Thetwo castles in the city werepart of my collection.Theinquisition castle was boughtfor me by my father in the60's from Germany and I'vehad it all these years.Thevampire count's castle I Samne if you plap!Samne if you 9on't! picked up in Germany in1984.The idea of a castle ontop of a large rock formationcame from as actual castle Isaw on wargame manoeuversin Germany.Now that I hadthe concept and the buildings,Mary and I laid out the city onour living room floor.Oncewe were happy with thelayout,Mary drew a map ofMordheim and we numberedeach building.The numberingreally makes setup a breeze.Next we applied a thin pinkfoam insulation sheet to thetop of the plywood.This foamenabled us to cut rivers,roads(complete with cobblestones)and rough terrain.We waitedfor a sunny day and placedthe plywood on some tablesand glued the foam on top ofthe plywood and cut themalong the plywood's fourpieces.After we glued thefoam in place,we put thevampire castle on the boardsand cut out the river sectionswith a foam cutter.We thenput every building in placeand labelled the foam undereach one to match thenumber on the house.Next,we took a ball point pen anddrew every street and everycobblestone.When everythingwas eventually drawn on,Itook all the buildings off andpainted the entire board awoodland green except thestreets,which I painted black.I then added pebbles andpieces of broken car glass tothe river bed and painted it abrownish mixture.Once thepaint was dry,I added thegrass using standard railroadflock by first spraying a gluemixture over the green areas.I then went back and addedrocks,shrubs,and bushes tothe ground area.The river ismade of a clear two part resinthat takes about 24 hours tocure.I needed to blend in thelarge castle with thesurrounding fields,so I used Samne if you pfay!Samne if you 8on't! some pine bark and blendedthem to match the colour ofthe castlerocks.The houseswere a

FAQs

What was the main purpose of building the Warfair Mordheim city?

To create a playable Mordheim environment where players could run adventures and explore encounters and treasure during Warfair play sessions.

How was the city board assembled and textured?

A 8'x4' plywood base was cut into sections, topped with foam for rivers/roads/terrain, then glued and cut; streets and cobblestones were hand-drawn and painted, and scenery used flocking, rocks, shrubs, and resin for the river.

How was the game run to keep turns engaging for many players?

Players moved simultaneously, and any order disputes were settled with dice rolls. Each party had a gold budget and a specific objective, with treasure and at least one surviving warband member required to finish.

Oct 7, 2026

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