The rules are simple; a warrior must reach the Pillar of Pain and be the only one to touch it, thereby winning the game. But though there are only one way to win, there are several ways to loose. And though The Game is said to amuse the wizard, it is hardly amusing for the losers.

Terrain
Each player takes it in turn to place a piece of terrain, either a ruined building, tower, or other similar item. We suggest that the terrain is set up within an area roughly 4’ x 6’. The first piece of terrain should be a Pillar of Pain, placed in the middle of the table. No other piece of terrain may be placed closer than 8" to the pillar.

Setup
Each player rolls a D6, setting up using the normal set-up rules for multi-player games (see ‘Setting up the Warbands’ in the multi-player rules from WD242).

Special Rules
Allies: Warbands cannot ally in this scenario. There can be only one winner.

Routing: A warband cannot rout voluntarily, except by picking up a wyrdstone, as explained below.

Wyrdstones: When terrain has been set up, each player place three wyrdstone counters in his set-up area. The counters must be at least 4" apart (or as much as the set-up area allows, evenly spread). If a model picks up a counter, the warband whose set-up area it is, will have to rout voluntarily when it becomes that players turn (disregarding all other routing rules). A warrior can carry any amount of wyrdstone without any penalty. Warriors cannot transfer their wyrdstone to another warrior. If the warrior who is carrying a counter is taken Out Of Action, place the counter back on the table where he fell.

The Pillar of Pain: In order to win the game, a warrior must touch the pillar for two consecutive rounds without anyone else touching it. In the shooting phase, the Pillar of Pain will feast upon the energy of anyone touching it, causing a S3 hit with no armor save possible. A warrior who is Knocked Down can still touch the pillar, although a Stunned warrior cannot.

Starting the Game
Each player rolls a D6. The player rolling the highest has the first turn, and order of play proceeds clockwise around the table (based on where players placed their warbands) from there.

Ending the Game
The game ends when one warband manages to touch the Pillar of Pain for two consecutive rounds, without anyone else touching the pillar. That warband is the winner.

Experience
+1 Survives: If a Hero or Henchman group survives the battle they gain +1 Experience.
+1 Winning Leader: The leader of the winning warband gains +1 Experience.
+1 Per Enemy Out Of Action: Any Hero earns +1 Experience for each enemy he puts Out Of Action.
+2 Winning Warrior: The warrior who touches the pillar for two rounds and wins the game earns +2 Experience.

The Winnings
After the battle, warbands may keep any wyrdstones they collected. The winning warband also receives a magical artifact. Roll once on the magical artifact table Mordheim Rulebook pg. 141.

Though not exactly in the nature of a true Mordheim skirmish, this scenario is great fun. As part of the campaign, this scenario won a lot of gamers hearts as there are a lot of tactical considerations to be done. You can send cheap troops forward to take enemy fire, but can they survive the pillar of pain ? You can steal the other player’s wyrdstones, earning gold and getting them out of the game. But no matter what you do, you are almost bound to split up your force, setting the players relying on heavy troops (such as vampires, rat-ogres, trolls) back, and favoring fast troops as Skaven. Although Skaven have a hard time surviving the pillar for some reason.

I really hadn’t expected the scenario to be as big a hit as it was. Because of it’s complexity I had expected it to be played less (like Monster Hunt). This in turn meant that the reward had to be revised, as chances were that players would end up with a whole lot of unique artifacts. So I started making a list of lesser artifacts for players to gain after the scenario. But this never really had as impact, as only one of the many games we played, actually had a winner. Normally troops gets really beaten up when they get near the pillar, and the fact that only one model can touch it at a time, gives everybody else a really good chance of inflicting some serious damage (or running off with your wyrdstones).

Notes on terrain – The pillar of pain can easily be made from green stuff, with arcane sigils scratched into the surface, and painted menacingly. Unfortunately mine was at a display in the local store when we did the photo-shooting, so I used the square center thing supplied in the splendid Mordheim boxed set.