Mordheim: City of the Damned

This game is bad. And no fun. I consider myself as a fan of Warhammer and W40k. I have over 800h in Bloodbowl, Bloodbowl2 sooos.... JUST DON'T . Just don't. I was hoping its not that bad when I re-visited.it.
the ui is a nightmare of its own.
Just don't.

I do not recommend buying even at a discount.
The game is inconvenient and unpleasant in absolutely everything, from the squad menu to the battle map.
1--A huge number of conditions of everything that affects you, your enemies, the chances of hitting/dodging: is there an enemy nearby? You feel bad. Two enemies nearby? You feel bad. Did you jump unsuccessfully? You feel bad. Are you alone and no one nearby? You feel bad.
2--Your chances of hitting are always worse than the enemy's. And you will always inflict less damage than the enemy.
3--The enemy always knows which position is best: his archers will always be above you, his warriors will always surround the one from your squad who is farthest from everyone else, and at the same time they still have time to collect stones.
4--A terribly inconvenient camera that is always looking at the floor, then at your back, then out the window at the sunset, or somewhere else. The density of buildings also does not allow you to figure out any tactics in your mind. The best option: hope that at the beginning of the battle you will all be together and arrange an ambush for the enemy.
5--A task like "Run around the city and collect 60% of the stones" is impossible a priori: 100% you will get into an ambush.
6--A strange system of morale: I killed two enemies, two of my allies were killed, my best warrior got scared because of this and I lost the battle. It feels like I'm not playing a tactical RPG but some kind of horror where everyone is scared to death and they are just waiting to run away.
7--Strange concepts of difficulty: the task says the difficulty is "Very low or Low", you decide that it will be easy and then a vampire single-handedly kills your entire squad.
8--Deceptive Training in which both you and your opponents inflict approximately equal damage, everyone hits each other and there is quite a lot of open space.
The only plus is the Staff of the Chaosites: it's beautiful and does as much damage as a two-handed axe.

There are 12 Tutorial videos/scenarios. You only need to do the first 4 (re combat). Highly recommend you do the 4 combat tutorial sessions to really get the hang of the game mechanic and interface. It's not intuitive, but flows once the tutorial.

For 95% of you, this game is a 2/5 game, but if you're willing to invest time to learn a strategy game like me, this game is an imperfect 5/5. I've been stuck on this game for seven years on both Xbox and PC.

What is Mordhiem? Mordhiem is a tabletop game released and updated in the 90's, about a coming apocalypse in the history of WarHammer fantasy. It's a grimdark parody of Y2K fears. The video game, released in 2016 follows almost none of the tabletop mechanics, thankfully. After the city is destroyed, six factions and their mirror matches battle to collect wrydstone and survive. A campaign lasts until you die, kinda more roguelite than X-Com. You have eight story missions to play, different for each faction, for a total of 32, plus 16 more in the DLC. Unlike tabletop WarHammer or most X-Com variants, a mission swaps between teams according to initiative value. So the quick Skaven go before the slow humans, but more fairly than the tabletop. Unlike X-Com, you choose when to take on a mission; each day offers three or more. Every mission risks death and injuries of your favorite pieces. Every couple of weeks, your 'boss' will demand greater and greater amounts of wyrdstone. Fail four deliveries and you're dead! However, there is an overall experience tracker to give you a few buffs. The four factions in the main game are:

Sisters of Sigmar: A group of Nuns dedicated to the God-Emperor. They can't use ranged weapons and are slow in their heavy armor, but can cast the best spells in the game. They also have the single best unit, and they hit hard in melee. They collect the wyrdstone, so it can be stored safely. I love my Sisters army, and they play unlike the other factions.

Human Mercenaries: The normal, desperate people trying to make coin. They have some of the best shooting, and are otherwise, a good all-around army. They'll fill you with holes before you get close. They may be survivors of the apocalypse or smugglers. There's a compelling narrative about struggling to make money while also living after the end.

The Skaven: Quick and agile ratfolk, using wrydstone to power their warp tech and poisons. They have the highest initiative, so they go first, and they move further than and faster than the other factions. They work best if they can use their speed to isolate and surround individual enemies. on the other hand, they have low health and armor. This makes every mission high tension fun, as you outmaneuver the enemy, but a single mistake can lead to a cascade of injuries. Skaven also have a few fun animations, and great character.

Chaos undivided is a random and difficult to master warband. Your heroes gain random mutations as they level up. Some mutations can be very useful, but others can ruin a character (don't try making a ranged hero) Chaos has a great leader and spellcaster, and some of the best henchmen. The possible mutations will have you rerolling characters over and over again to beat the story missions. It's honestly kinda frustrating, and would be my biggest flaw with the game. Do Chaos last, once you have some meta-experience from the other factions.

In addition, there's two DLC warbands, witch hunters, and undead. You'll encounter both groups, giving a good variety to the enemies. On story missions and the higher difficulty missions, you'll also encounter wandering demons. Lure the demons into your enemies for an advantage!

Mordhiem is a game that gives back everything you put into into it, but it's not for everyone. For me, it's a 5/5.

I remember loving this game so much. I can't imagine playing it now. But I think my past-self probably knew better than I do now. Maybe I'll play it again sometime.

Pretty good

I dream of a new version of this taken by another studio that wouldn't abandon the project after a few month following release. It's been almost 10 years.

While not the best I do thoroughly enjoy this game, and come back to it often. For me it captures the feel of Tabletop Mordhiem enough to scratch that particular itch, and while it doesn't excel it's consistently enjoyable! I would rate this over the Necromunda game.

its a really immersive and good tactical warhammer game for people who are into this universe and old warhammer , i especially enjoy the UI , unit customization and skill tree for the individual units , progression is satisfying alongside combat when done correctly with good warband builds - its an old game but still very good in my opinion and especially graphics are amazing alongside alot of attention to detail , can recommend!

This game gives you a worse hit chance than Xcom...

how?... just how?

Its mostly CQC scenarios with a 75% hit chance, but they manage to dodge all the time.

For anyone who is a fan of Mordheim tabletop it will be an enjoyable game once you get your head around the controls and game play. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it to someone not into the genre.

The Game wouldn't boot up, instant crash.
I have played the game on console and would recommend.

This game is dogshit. I cannot believe that it is still so janky after all these years
Moving around the buildings is so retarded it should be wearing a helmet, the RNG is stupid but it's PART OF THE GAME BNECAUSE ITZ A HARDCORE EXPERINZZZZ I PROMISE, the fact that computer AI always has better placing for battles and has perfect knowledge is ridiculous

Do not buy this game, it is a waste of time

Fun! True to the spirit of the original miniatures game. If you like original Mordheim, you'll like this

TLDR: I'll stick to the tabletop. The early game is absolutely horrendous and needlessly tedious for absolutely no reason. If you're hoping for an emulation of the tabletop, this gets close, but its also way too rigid and grindy. I didn't keep the game long enough to reach the end game. If you can grit your teeth and get through the early game suffering MAYBE this game would be good for you. I've heard many people losing their warbands to save issues, though I never encountered any. As it stands though tabletop is preferable, at least mechanically.

This game is super fun!

I'm only 29 hours in and I've lost 3 warbands due to the game not being able to load a save. I get stuck on the click to continue option after loading in and no matter what I try the game simply will not let me continue past that point

Mordheim: City of the Damned – A Unique Yet Flawed Warhammer Experience

Overall Impression:
It's not a bad game per se, but I can't say I’d recommend it. Once celebrated for its intense online battles, Mordheim now suffers from a dwindling community. As a result, the game has effectively shifted into a single-player extraction roguelike that rarely justifies the long hours required.

Gameplay and Pace:
The pace is excruciatingly slow. Most of your time is spent waiting for enemy turns, leaving you staring at a static screen. While a speed hack via Cheat Engine can help by assigning hotkeys to speed things up, it's disappointing that the game lacks any native option to quicken the flow.

Progression and Rewards:
Progression feels just as sluggish. Early battles yield meager rewards, and building up and equipping your hero is a far grueling process—sometimes feeling even more challenging than taking a fatal hit. You could easily invest hours without perceiving any tangible progress aside from learning the basic mechanics.

Randomness and Tactical Options:
The randomness is extreme. Imagine having a 70% chance to hit, yet missing repeatedly, or enduring consecutive hits despite a 50% dodge chance. Unlike titles like XCOM, where diverse tactical options and positional play help offset such luck factors, Mordheim’s encounters devolve into relentless, overwhelming wall-to-wall skirmishes with adversaries who are consistently stronger.

Combat and Hero Development:
In combat, success is almost solely determined by numbers. The game rarely offers satisfying duels or meaningful moments of hero development. Even after numerous battles, a level 10 fighter might only boast roughly a 20% increase in combat power over a beginner. Although equipment can slightly influence the balance, the rewards are disappointingly trivial—often minor stat bonuses that hardly justify the effort.

Magic and Class Dynamics:
Mages, who should ideally deliver powerful spells, end up playing roles more akin to archers or even tanks until an elusive threshold is reached. And when that moment finally comes, the odds of casting a decisive spell remain as slim as tempting divine retribution against yourself.

Final Thoughts:
Mordheim demands hundreds of hours to reveal its secrets and allow any meaningful progress, a perplexing format for a single-player session game. With no substantial narrative, evolution, or truly engaging tactical variety—only an unrelenting grind—the game might only appeal to those who thrive on hardcore challenge. I strongly recommend watching some let's plays before purchasing to decide if this demanding, repetitive journey is for you.

Conclusion:
Not a bad game, but not one I'd recommend for anyone seeking dynamic, rewarding progression.

awesome squad building turn based game

If you enjoy warhammer its a fun game.

Currently unplayable.
I love this game dearly and have poured a fair amount of hours into it. I'm making a negative review in hopes of attracting any additional workarounds to be able to launch and enjoy this game again. I've scoured forums and done just about everything I can find, but the game refuses to launch. Worth your money if you're a fan, but beware that it may not be playable.

Oldie but a goldie - excellent sandbox warband game - just don't get too attached to your characters, it's very George RR Martin like that

Good adaptation from the tabletop game

good all round game

Got to love the Skaven, yes-yes!

Rewarding, aggravating, and more "oh crap, this is bad" moments than I've ever experienced in a turn based game. Oh, and 95% change to do X, really isn't 95%. Just sayin'.

.

I know this is a cult favorite, but unless you
1. already know the rules
2. are willing to deal with the bonkers controls
3. have real people and not the soulless CPU to play with regularly
This is a hard pass. Sure, given a dozen hours I could probably figure out the mechanics a lot better than the scant tutorials, but the reality is that Mordheim is a miniatures game and not a video game. You're supposed to kitbash your own rag-tag team, and laugh or scream with your friends when the dice inevitably swing one way. This game gets kudos for being slavishly faithful to the tabletop game, but honestly it makes for a terrible video game.

Good game !

It's fun but the early game is really brutal and the level scailing system somehow make endgame missions easier than said early game.

It has still a lot of potential and could use a few updates, reworks and DLCs or even a sequel. It also need a lot more story missions.

This is fun but it needs a lot of work. The game tries to constantly keep you underpowered forevery fight as a means of keeping the game challenging and to keep you from progressing too fast. The game is really fun at first until you realize the game design and it just feels like the game wastes your time on purpose and prevents you from progressing. When you do finally progress and seem to have some experienced and geared fighters, the game always puts the enemies just slightly more powerful than your units and your always at risk of losing a unit forever. It just feels bad to lose a guy you spend 10-30 games on trying to gear and level and it doesnt even feel like a mistake you made. This game should have been a lot better but even at $2 I was pretty let down.

The fucking game should portrait the grim dark, not make their players misserable by essentially rigging the numbers on the AI favour, is pure bs how they'd be dogging eveything, also different factions play the same and is like a 25% of what the tabletop is

changed my mind

Good tactical game, that can be enjoyed for a longe time once the not so intuitive controls are figured out.

Mordheim; City of the Damned is a slower turned based combat skirmish game, where you play one of many Old World 'War Bands' in an attempt to gain riches, fame, and most importantly Wyrdstone in the ruined city of Mordheim.
This game can seem to be somewhat repetitive, due to the limited game play maps and missions, but depending upon how you build your 'War Band' makes the difference. This also comes out when playing the Campaign Missions.
All in all, I recommend Mordheim; City of the Damned as a game to play to chill and kill sometime.

This game is a good mix of enjoyable frustration. An example of this is when you have a 95% chance to hit and you still miss, but it reminds me a lot of D&D yet set in the Warhammer universe when it comes to the dice roles. The story-lines are intriguing and give you bite sized chunks of lore that you can savor as you enjoy the overall tactical strategy experience the game offers.

I have to call this one off after playing the tutorial and first mission. It's not enough fun for its level of difficulty. Getting defeated in the tutorial and first mission is not fun. Slow turn-based combat with pretty standard weapons. Weak and uninteresting magic so far. Multiple factions, but all of them some level of dark/evil.

RNG is absolute BS. I had 85 percent hit rate for 3 turns with 2 attack each turn. Missed all 6 attacks (warband leader no less) guy attacking me never missed and was at almost full health after 4 rounds when he killed me. Set an ambush and never hit, guy with 2 hander never misses and one hits me to death. Want to talk climbing or jumping down? SCREW this. I have played the wargame and love it. This is pure dog doodoo. It would be one thing if they didn't hit every single time, but they pretty much did and wearing armour might as well have been a hospital gown.

Now do you wanna talk about the controls? OMG clunkly? With a mouse and kb I hate this game. Maybe with a controller its better, but wow not great. Spacebar for some things, pushing on the scroll wheel for other, E and Q for weird stance buttons. I get you shouldn't have to follow conventional norms but have it be intuitive at least.

Wanted to like this game. Love the concept and wargame version, but this game is too frustrating, even though this opinion doesn't matter as its long dead and a 10 year old game. Did I mention that it also crashes ....so yeah 3/10 on my books and not a recommend and this is as a fan of the game.

Great fun. Lost of roleplay value while leveling your warband. Love making a story for my guys whether I lose them or keep them.

Great game that I used to play on tabletop.

Great game, hard at first but once you learn it you see the great complexity and customization available.

This game is not without its flaws but if you like turn based wargames games, then this could be a game for you. It usually goes on sale once a month and for 2$ its hard to beat for value.

The random number generator isn't!!!! This game had a lot of up-side and potential. but falls short on fun and pliability when good tactics see your Waveband devastated. I once missed a 5 95% hits in a row and the AI dodged the 6th. Play it or not. I loved the table top game, this sets up faster but play is lacking. Where are the dwarf's and other raises of the world. Typical GM 75% is what you get.

How in the hell do I have a 90% to hit and keep rolling misses????? I NEVER have luck this bad during physical tabletop or even ttrpgs. Like seriously what are the odds of having this terrible of a time playing?

This game goes on sale for $2 six months of the year (can check “steam db price history”) and it is more than worth it. If you’re reading reviews, just pull the trigger and buy it.

Mordheim City of the Damned is an unappreciated diamond in the rough. I just discovered it a month ago after all these years, and it more than stands the test of time in both gameplay and visuals. The people that left bad reviews for this game either don’t understand probability (complaining about AI “cheating” cause they missed missing 2 80% chance to hit attacks in a row) or weren’t in the right mind space to play the game thinking every unit is an unkillable god and getting upset when units die or become crippled. I believe a good approach to this game for a new player is to treat it like Darkest Dungeon; understand that characters are going to die, you’ll get attached and lose units you care about for reasons mostly out of your control, and while the game is hard initially yes, that’s part of the enjoyment. The whole game’s system is built off of you overcoming disadvantageous odds, which makes victory more sweet and giving units the opportunity to carve their own path and make clutch plays/stories defending off 3 units etc.

If you want to see gameplay for Mordheim or informational content on it, I recommended checking out MercyTheMad on YT and/or Twitch. He doesn’t make videos on the game but he still streams this game on and off and is very informative, yet fun to watch. Also highly recommend lordramon2019 on Twitch as he has almost 8000 hours in mordheim, has hosted almost every PvP tournament for the game, and streams Mordheim a couple times a week.

I never write reviews for games but seeing this one had mixed reviews, I had to say something.

quite fun

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a rat, and you satisfy his rat desire. And this game gives you PLENTY of rats. No complaints, easily top 3 Skaven experiences of all time.

I'm Sean Prime and I approve of this game!

As this is the only PC representation of the famous TT game, you aren't spoilt for choice, and therefore need to accept the flaws if you wish to enjoy Mordheim on PC.

The graphics are more than adequate for a game of this vintage, and as an adaptation of the TT rules, whilst not perfect, it does allow quite a representative experience for the PC gamer. The flaws, however, render it incredibly frustrating and virtually unplayable without a signifcant amount of good luck.....

The main flaw is that the AI is utterly brutal. You can't even choose to opt for a low to moderately strategic AI as you become acclimatised to the setting, or familiar with the tactics......the AI is also uncannily lucky in crunch situations which skew results very much in it's favour. With all the hours I have wasted in game, I have one warband that has actually survived to rank 10, and every single other one has been deleted due to crippling loses and injuries - no matter the Warband, or how conservatively I play them. A secondary, but notable flaw is that the economy is very much either feast or famine.....you either have enough GC to render any purchase or skill training inconsequential, or you're perpetually struggling for gear and training, which puts your warband even further on the back foot.

This leads us to the other flaw - the Undead are, by far, the most powerful Warband at early levels. Never mind their propensity to peak after rank 8 or so, they allow you to consistently accomplish misisons without the loses other WBs experience, so my the time they do peak, you're in a position to bolster their strengths to the point that they remain S-tier. Terror and Fear are incredibly powerful traits for your warband to deal with and aside from the units that are immune to psychology, you'll be lucky to survive to higher levels when the training of skills and spells makes a difference.

If you buy the base game, Globadiers (probably the most powerful Heroes in that they can add healing and crippling debuffs) and the Undead DLC you'll probably have fun. Otherwise, no matter what the various guides might opine, it's a frustrating and ultimately unenjoyable experience.

I wholeheartedly recommend this game!

The negatives of this game are the minor bugs it has (at least for me), a low player count, repetitive gameplay, and what looks to be no updates and support. There is also sometimes genuine heartbreak when losing a character or having them injured to the point where their main strengths are negated. There is one story mission for the Chaos cult faction that is nearly impossible but that's just one mission for one faction.

The positives are that the gameplay is addictive, challenging, and well thought out. The atmosphere created by the music and visuals are on point. The factions are fun and unique (still wish there were more). You can play the game very simply and do okay or you can min/max and strategize to your hearts content. You have a lot of choices both in a match and out of one. The developers also made the most of the maps that exist so it rarely feels like it's the same experience over and over again.

I love turn-based strategy games and this one allows for so much customization, gameplay options, and ultimately playability. Don't get me wrong, the game can be punishing, especially in the early game when your warband is weak and you don't know what you are doing. But it is so rewarding leveling up your own little squad as they venture into the hellscape that is Mordheim! I do recommend all of the DLC (extra factions and characters) to give yourself as many options to play the game as possible. I got it for quite cheap on sale so would recommend doing the same.