Oct 9
Digital Zombies
The Summer rush is starting to wind down a little bit. We just got our first two inches of snow and, I can’t wait to get back into Mordheim again.
I just placed another broken electronic item on my Mordheim Desk to be dissected. I now have a pretty large amount of left over electronic pieces but nothing to do with them. I am a big fan of steam-punk, but have as of yet failed to create anything of merit.
Placing the broken roam phone on my Mordheim desk got me thinking about it again. Then it hit me:
Use the Mordheim Undead Warband rules to field an engineer with his army of crappy electronic zombies. They aren’t undead, they are steampunk fighting machines powered by wyrdstone (think medieval robot wars). I haven’t been able to come up with a good name for them yet, but here’s what I have so far:
Terminator (Vampire)
Engineer/Crazy Scientist (Necromancer)
Part collectors (Dregs)
Electronic (crappy) robots (zombies)… I need a good name for these…
Digital Golumns (Ghouls)
Dogs (Dire Wolves)
Feel free to recommend better names. Maybe the Dire Wolves could be “Swords on wheels” lol.
lol,
Ashton Sanders
Well, have you looked at the army lists or characters for the Necrons in 40K? They are, after all, also based on the undead mostly.
Couldn’t the ghouls be Cyborgs? I mean, originally, they are sorta half-undead, but still alive. Just like a cyborg.
The Zombies then… hm, I dunno… Rusted Automaton? Like, a barely functioning object that only has the most basic automated functions, such as “Stand” “Walk” “Eat brains” etc.
I really dig the idea of a robotized band of Zombie killer-machines :D. I’m really looking forward to the pictures.
I kind of concur on Jon’s idea of calling the ghouls Cyborgs since they are actually still partly alive (like cyborgs) This might hint too much towards 40K’s Cyborks however. Perhaps you can call them Destructo-droids or something like that.
As for the zombies, perhaps you can call them ‘Zombots’ as a subtle hint to their undead counterparts.
Anyway, great to see you blogging again. You’re inspiring a lot of people to do a lot of cool stuff.
- Vince
Thanks for the comments guys. I like the ideas a lot. “Cyborg” and “Automation” are fantastic. “Zombots” is freaking hilarious.
I’ve got a little bit of 1:1 scale building to complete before I can get back to blogging.
Thanks again for the ideas guys.
Just wanted to say that your site is what finally gave me the nudge to start up mordheim again, and create a web blog about it.
It’d been so long I’d forgotten how much fun painting and played was! So, thanks!
p.s. included the link to the site. Any feedback is more than welcome! Just started so there’s not just on there for now! watch that space though
just set up my mordheim table for the first time, tommorrow our first game
about the dire wolfs, how about clockwork K9?
Maybe the dogs should be like the robot vacume cleaners (Roomba?) or the automatic lawn mowers.
hey, whats the name of that shit-my-pants scary vacuum-cleaner/childmolester from the Teletubbies? I cant imagine anything more scary than a pack of those coming at you with throbbing hoses held high! (:-S
Much scarier than a measly dead dog.
Also, what model of Terminator are we talking about concerning the vampire?
Too cool. Your steampunk idea is fabulous, and I like the sound of digital golumns in particular. I have a friend who’s also converting the undead list to his own uses. He’s making a sort of undead nature army, using wood elf druids as zombies. He hasn’t worked it all out quite yet, but the creation process will be fun.
I realy like the idia but I would stay away from digital refrances, perfering to stay with more steam and coal tech. I like the cyborg idia for the gouls, and would sigest the following as names.
gear brains(zombies - seems like it would work)
scavengers(dregs - for those post-apocoliptic nic-nacks)
the enhanced (gouls - basicly a more midevil virsion of cyborg)
blacksmith (vamp - need someone to work that iorn, allso someone who would be abnormaly strong.)
mad sientist (necromancer - seems like the best fit)
iron beasts (wolfs - everything else I could think of sounds to modern.)
ashton: great idea, sounds really fun
christian: nice names, i especially like ’scavengers’ and ‘the enhanced’
)
i’m not sure bout gear brains (seems too much like ‘gearhead’ which basically means the opposite of zombie
maybe just ’steampunks’, but that sounds a bit modern; as is the same for ’steamdroids’ (which sounds nice to me)
i agree with christian that the theming and naming should relate more to steam, coal and wyrdstone
Sounds like a fun concept. Some ideas for names:
mecha (vampire). I don’t think that the warband leader should be a construct (why would the scientist serve his own creation?), but an evil overlord in a steam powered mecha would fit nicely into the troupe.
mad sientist (necromancer)
scavengers(dregs)
automata (zombies). I think that ‘automata’ (sing. automaton) is a good term for robots it a Victorian/steam punk setting.
clockwork golems (ghouls).
steam spiders (dire wolves). Steam powered robotic spiders would make quite good dire wolves substitutes, I think.
Good point. More Wyrdstone-driven machines would make more sense.
@Azrael: Haha. I love those names. Great idea about the warband leader and scavengers. The whole warband doesn’t have to be machines.
Does anyone else remember the NOW comics Terminator issue all about the Terminator Wolves? They were creepy as all hell and would be a great conversion idea for this. .
I’ve never heard of that, but that’s a great idea. Ironically I also happened upon a sweet wolf modification with similar terminator things:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5098806#post5098806
Enjoy,
Ashton
i have recently just found Mordheim even though i remember it when it first came out i was more interested in 40k. Now that i have grown up a bit and have stopped my unnecessary obsession with space marines. Although there seems to be very little support for it now. I am trying to get an original box set to start off and the get a beastmen warband (to match my glorious army). Is there any pointers you can give me?
So, I still play Mordheim and I still like this idea. Though this post is only to say this. Mr. Sanders, It would be great if you could resume blogging. This is one of the highest ranking sites when you type mordheim into Google. (it is 3rd. Right under the Mordhimer site) And I think this is a great place to see what mordhime is about. I know I got several great ideas from it, and it is by far the best looking blog in its class. (Not a HUGE amount of competition mind you, but it still means something.)
Thank you, Christian. I do hope I can do some more blogging in the near future. I’ve got warbands to paint and boxes of stuff to be made into terrain… I haven’t given up, but I’m not sure when I’ll be back. =(
Just wanted to say that i like you’re site.Makes me wish I had the time to knock the dust off my stuff and get my daughters started on the joys of mordheim as i really miss it.Best thing GW ever designed to me.Anyway, as far as the names go how about “Zombots” .As far as your necromancer he definately could be a twisted engineer or maybe even a chaos dwarf engineer.Either would bring in your steam technology.Another possible idea would be a clan Skyre Warlock outcast trying to regain power.This means the wolves could be replaced with automaton giant rats…. just some thoughts
haha. Thanks John. I’m glad you like the site.
Those are some great ideas.
Idea. Buy a cheap clockwork clock. Some POS mantel clock with little bronze gears. Use these (likely cut in half) to make normal pieces seem more mechanical.