As the Carnival of Chaos suggests, towns throughout the world are often delighted by the presence of a travelling circus. Unfortunately, not every travelling troupe finds themselves able to support themselves on entertainment skills alone. Many end up venturing into the ruins of Mordheim to supplement their incomes, and others to expand their fame and stories of the strange and bizarre.

Choice of Warriors:

• Ringmaster: Your warband must have one Ringmaster, no more no less!
• Performers: Your warband may include up to a total of 4 Performers. Performers have the following Sub-categories with their limits:
  • 0-2 Beast Tamer
  • 0-2 Acrobats
  • 0-1 Exotic Mystery of the East
  • 0-1 Freak
  • 0-1 Marksman
  • 0-1 Magician
• Impressionable Youths: Your warband may include any number of Impressionable Youths.
• Trained Animals: Your warband may include up to four Trained Animals, but only 2 for each Beast Tamer.
• Pickpockets: Your warband may include up to three Pickpockets.
• Clowns: Your warband may include up to 4 Clowns.
• Strong-Men: Your band may include up to 2 Strong-Men.
• Toughs: Your warband may include any number of Toughs.
   

Special Rules:

• Entertain the Masses: In the Exploration phase, the Circus may opt to spend time entertaining the poor souls who inhabit the ruins they adventure through. When the warband chooses to use this option they may roll an extra 2d6 for determining the number of Wyrdstone shards they collect, but cannot take time to explore (do not get doubles/triples/etc... on the tables)
• Superstitious: Most entertaining troupes have been around long enough to know not to press their luck with the gods. When a Circus warband is given the option to loot the dead they must always decline.
• Lure of the Road: Whenever the Circus Warband encounters a lost person (or people) on an exploration roll that would normally provide an Undead warband the option to add more zombies, or other warbands the option to sell people as slaves, the Circus may add such people to their group as Impressionable Youths.
• Apprenticeship: If a Youth is promoted to Hero by “Lad's Got Talent” he may be designated as an apprentice to one of the performers. Should that a die, the Youth will gain the Special Rules associated with the performer they have apprenticed to in order to replace the lost performer's act (This may put the Circus beyond it's starting limits for any given Performer Specialization). Impressionable Youths promoted to Heroes are not subject to the Dream Chasers special rule.
• Hard Luck of the Road: In order to hire a new Performer, the Ringmaster must make a Leadership test. This test suffers a -1 penalty for each performer the Ringmaster has lost due to combat, and a further -1 for every performer after the first the Ringmaster tries to hire at the same time. (Thus a Ringmaster trying to Hire 3 performers would be at a -2, and at a further -3 if they were to replace performers lost in battle.)
   

Starting Experience:

• Ringmaster starts with 20 experience.
• Performers starts with 8 experience.
• Henchmen start with 0 experience.
  

Circus Extraordinaire' Skill Tables

• Ringmaster may choose from the Combat, Shooting, Academic, Strength or Speed.
• Most Performers may choose from the Combat, Academic or Speed.
• Marksmen Performers may choose from the Combat, Shooting or Speed.
• Freaks and Mystery of the East Performers may choose from the Combat or Strength.
   

Circus Extraordinaire' Equipment List

Heroes

1 Ringmaster; 60 gold crowns to hire
The Ringmaster of the Circus Extraordinaire is usually a “Jack-Of-All-Trades” in the Circus. As the performers wouldn't follow just anyone, the Ringmaster is generally skilled enough in each of his performer's specialties to understand the tricks of their trade and respect the skill each requires to be able to perform.

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
4	4	4	3	3	1	4	1	8

Weapons/Armor: A Ringmaster may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Performer's list.

Special Rules:

• Leader: Any warrior within 6" of the Ringmaster may use his Leadership characteristic when taking Leadership test.
• Performer Skill: For an additional 20 gc, the Ringmaster may select one of the Performer specializations for himself. In this case he counts towards the maximum number of that kind of performer the Circus can support. If this option is paid for, he is considered to have an extra 4 EXP.
  

0-4 Performers; 35 gold crowns to hire
Performers take many forms in the Circus and are the core of the group's income. Many are not required to come with the Ringmaster on his errands into the ruins, but most are willing to come for the thrill of it.

Weapons/Armor: A Performer may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Performer list.

Special Rules:

• Specialist: Each Performer may select one specialization from the following list, as limited by the Maximums listed.
  • 0-2 Beast Tamer: Allows the Circus to support 2 Trained Animals. While the animal is within 6” of the Beast Tamer it does not have to test for Fierceness.
  • 0-2 Acrobats: Naturally adept at movement, acrobats begin the game with the Dodge skill.
  • 0-1 Exotic Mystery of the East: While the character cannot or will not use weapons, they are a master of close combat. The Model is always treated as carrying a pair of clubs, but can never be given equipment.
  • 0-1 Freak: The Performer may purchase a Mutation from the Cult of the Possessed Mutations list.
  • 0-1 Marksman: The Performer may select either Knife Fighter or Trick Shooter as a starting skill.
  • 0-1 Magician: The character has the Wizard Special Rule as per Warlocks.

0+ Toughs; 25 gold crowns to hire
Toughs serve as security for the Circus, as well as any other role that benefits from their lack of training and abundance of strength. The average Tough is little more than a street thug on the Circus payroll.

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
4	4	2	3	3	1	3	1	7

Weapons/Armor: Toughs may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Hireling list.

0-3 Pickpockets; 25 gold crowns to hire
Pickpockets are hired by less scrupulous Circus groups to “work the crowd” while the performers provide a distraction.

Weapons/Armor: Pickpockets may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Hireling list.
 

0-2 Strongmen; 25 gold crowns to hire
{Description}

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
4	2	2	4	4	1	2	1	7

Weapons/Armor: Strongmen may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Hireling list.

Special Rules:

• Beefy: The Strongmen's Maximum Strength Characteristic is 5.
   

0+ Impressionable Youths; 15 Gold Crowns to hire
Impressionable Youths are generally children that have run away to join the Circus. While they come to the Circus freely, their cost represents the time and funds taken to teach them to make themselves useful around the tents.

Weapons/Armor: Impressionable Youths may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Hireling list.

Special Rules:

• Dream Chasers: You may never have more Impressionable Youths than the number of all other Hirelings combined. If the Circus looses Hirelings to the point they are outnumbered by Youths, then an appropriate number of Youths will come to their senses and leave the warband.
   

0-4 Clowns; 25 Gold Crowns to hire
{Description}

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
4	3	2	3	3	1	3	1	7

Weapons/Armor: Clowns may be equipped with weapons and armor chosen from the Hireling list.

Special Rules:

• Goofy Clothes: Clowns are known for their outrageous outfits; stilts, baggy pants, and the like. Often these outfits can double as a sort of armor as an attacker can't be certain what is man and what is costume. This provides a 6+ armor save which cannot be negated by Strength, but is lost if the Clown carries/wears anything else that grants an armor save.
   

0-4 Trained Animals; 20 gold crowns to hire
These can vary from anything between Lions and Bears to strange exotic critters of unknown origins. The key to remember is that people don't pay to see stupid animals, they want to be frightened and amused. Thus many circuses don't overly train their creatures to be nice around people, and most are little better than wild animals.

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
6	4	0	4	3	1	4	1	5

Weapons/Armor: Claws and Fangs.

Special Rules:

• Animal: As an Animal, they can never gain experience.
• Ferocity: Trained Animals are not stupid, and just barely under control. When not within range of their trainer, and not in close combat, they must test for Stupidity. If their Stupidity test would have them just stand around, they instead charge the nearest model (friend or foe.)
• Oddity: For an additional 60 points at purchase, the animal can be made Large (like a small Elephant or similar creature), in which case it's Ferocity is exchanged for Stupidity and it gains an +1 Wound and +1 Toughness. Only one Trained Animal in the Circus may be an Oddity.
• Tamer Limits: The Circus can only support 2 Trained Animals for every Beast Tamer Performer.

Warband Development Progression

Designer Notes

I spend a lot of time traveling... that combined with almost a lifetime of making stuff up for various games and nothing better to do kinda leads me to writing stuff up for various games. The inspiration for the Carnival actually was the Carnival of Chaos... the idea here was exactly as it's written, the idea was that the CoC can do it's thing 'cause there are other carnivals out there that aren't evil...

Fluff, I'll have to work on, see if i have something worthwhile... but for the most part, without trying the band out to see if it's even got some character to it to start with... back that by the fact that i know next to nothing about the Warhammer world (haven't done more than give the main book a once over)

So there are probably better people out there to do the fluff stuff... but the only other guy what's mentioned a Circus warband was Tkitch, and we seem to have notably different opinions on the mechanics of the warband, and personality behind it (he seems to see a band of criminals and thieves, and i see more
Barnum&Bailey...)