Mordheim Warband: Cult of the Possessed

Who
Cult of the Possessed

Boxes
Forsaken (10 bodies)

Optional
Free Company (20 bodies)
Flagellants (10 bodies)

Why These
After the new chaos release the perfect box for your possessed warband's heroes has emerged! All of that lovely mutation from cloven hooves, great claw, extra arms, tentacles, etc is pretty much all there. Besides the beautiful models you'll have all of your heroes in a single box with options to switch them out with different builds. I also suggest either getting Flagellants or Free Company (Empire Militia) is for your henchmen. The Free Company box will of course give you a larger selection of equipment for you to field while the Flagellants box just has some crazy people that goes perfectly with this warband. Either way your warbands heroes will really stand out and you will be feared after your model count goes above four.

Thoughts
Possessed is a slow warband to start due to their high cost heroes since they are 380 gold minimum without equipment for all five heroes. That is also just taking the cheapest mutations which you'll probably want something a bit better like Scorpion Tail. One of the strategies I've read about which I'll probably try in a campaign is just taking the Magistrate, two Mutants with Scorpion Tails, and a naked brethren. Then for the first few games I'll send the brethren to die and rout. Not very interesting but since I'd get the underdog bonus in almost all the matches I'll be able to level my mutants very fast and I'll have enough rounds to get a possessed or two and with that I'll have strong enough heroes to wreck.

For myself I grabbed a box of Forsaken and am currently in the process of deciding what legs should go with what bodies, but I feel the more deformed combinations will be saved for my Possessed while my Mutants and Magistrate will get the less mutated models respectively to set them all apart.

After looking at the mutations table, I'd love to have 400 gold to hire a single Possessed or Mutant with! I can just imagine what a hero would be like with Great Claw, Scorpion Tail, and an Extra Arm as his mutations. Three extra attacks in combat will absolutely destroy. Out of all of them the Scorpion Tail will probably give you the best results since it is S5 by default. Another thing to remember is that Possessed already cause fear so remember not to give them that mutation.

All in all the Cult of the Possessed has some nasty heroes that can absolutely ruin someone's day if you spend some gold on them.

Mordheim Warbands: Mercenaries

And so it begins...

Who
Reikland, Middenheim, and Marienburg Mercenaries.
Averlander, and Ostlander Mercenaries.
This also covers 90% of all the other human based warbands such as Pirates and Norse warbands.

Boxes
Empire Militia (20 bodies)

Why These
The Empire Militia box (Free Company) is the most versatile box of humans in the whole line of Warhammer miniatures, not only does it contain 20 models (5 more then the average max warband size) but it also comes with virtually every bit you'll need for any equipment a human warband can take. It has swords, daggers, bows, crossbows, pistols, axes, clubs, halberds / spears, double handed weapons, rifles / blunderbuss's, and more.

The only thing it really doesn't have that people use on a semi-regular basis is shields / bucklers which can be modeled with some plastic card or even Popsicle sticks. However due to how useful having a second weapon like a free dagger or a club is compared to a small boost in armor save or a parry that can be negated easily in most cases.

Along with the coat, the axe on the back really makes my Captain stand out.

Thoughts
I do suggest mercenaries to be the first warband for anyone to get since they are very versatile, you just have to pick which mercenary warband to use based on what you want to focus on.

• Movement Phase: Averlander's Trappers who can block off paths of approach.
• Shooting Phase: Reikland's BS4 Marksmen
• Combat Phase: Middenheim's S4 Captain and Champions.
• Out of Combat: Marienburg's +1 to find items and +20% gold at the start of the campaign / one off game.
• Equipment: Ostlander's double barrels, dwarf axes, prayers as no other Mercenary warband can use spells / prayers, and an Ogre!

One of my big modelling suggestions involve having your five heroes use the torso with the coat. I did that and visually they are all very easy to find as it is a common trait separating them from the henchmen.

Marksman, Warrior, Young blood, Swordsman.

Personally I really do like the Reikland Mercenaries more due to their better Marksmen. When looking at my list it is split into three parts. My dedicated two to four archers places on the tops of different buildings for a wide angle of shots. My warriors and swordsmen act as my dedicated melee users who pretty much rush up and act as a buffer between their melee characters and my firing lines. Then finally my heroes who push up behind the front line of henchmen and either act as archers or melee depending on the situation.

For expanding the warband I think a warlock would be a good choice as most mercenary warbands have zero magic presence along with a war dog or two to help flanking. Beyond that see what you are suffering from as you play and boost that aspect of the warband with more henchmen. Generally though more melee characters are better since piling on three characters into combat with a single one, especially a strong hero will give you better odds of killing him compared to the low strength range attacks.

My two champions, another marksmen and warrior, then my other young blood on the end.