Mordheim: The Warhammer Game Games Workshop Abandoned and Fans Refused to Let Die

In 1999 a city fell out of the sky. Mordheim, the City of the Damned, was Games Workshop's small skirmish game about desperate warbands fighting over glowing wyrdstone in a ruined city. Players loved its brutal campaigns, where heroes lost eyes and arms and came back for one more night in the ruins. Within a few years the official support faded, in 2013 the whole Specialist Games range was wound down, and the free rulebooks disappeared in 2014. Games Workshop never explained why. This is the origin story of Mordheim, from Tuomas Pirinen's design notes and Town Cryer magazine to the Living Rulebook, Broheim, the video games, and the fans who kept the city alive for twenty-five years. Chapters 0:00 The city that fell from the sky 1:12 A young designer from Finland 1:59 The City of the Damned 3:26 The box 4:47 After the battle 6:13 A night in the ruins 7:19 A magazine of its own 8:50 The quiet goodbye 10:00 The fans who stayed 12:01 On the screen 13:08 The one that came back 14:24 The designers who came back 15:55 Mind the wyrdstone Sources Games Workshop — Mordheim Rulebook, Tuomas Pirinen, Rick Priestley and Alessio Cavatore (1999) Tuomas Pirinen — "Mordheim Design Notes, 15 Years Later" (Jul 2015) Goonhammer — "Mordheim: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About GW Release Cycles and Love a 25-Year-Old Game" (Oct 2024) TheGamer — "Why Does Everyone Love Mordheim?", Ben Sledge (Jul 2023) TheGamer — "Mordheim At 25", Ben Sledge (Oct 2024) PlayLab! Magazine — Mordheim review, Jukka Särkijärvi (Nov 2017) Bell of Lost Souls — Specialist Games range report (May 2013) Hobbinomicon — Mordheim overview (Sep 2026) Broheim — Mordheim community archive, update log (accessed Oct 2026) Wikipedia — Mordheim; Mordheim: City of the Damned; Mordheim: Warband Skirmish; Necromunda; Trench Crusade (accessed Oct 2026) Bedroom Battlefields — Tuomas Pirinen on narrative gaming (Mar 2026) Wargamer — "One of Warhammer's best ex designers just released a free wargame, and it's basically Mordheim 2.0", Timothy Linward (2026) Destructoid — Trench Crusade Kickstarter raises more than $3 million (Nov 2024) Games Workshop Group plc — Results for the 52 week period ended 31 May 2026, regulatory announcement (Jul 2026) Photo credits Warhammer World and Games Workshop HQ — John Sutton / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 Warhammer games at Games Workshop, Nottingham — Mick Garratt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 Warhammer game at Games Workshop HQ — Jesusbella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Warhammer game — Arnaud Ligny / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 Warhammer painting — Thomas Sly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 Games Day Budapest 2014 and 2015 — Christo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Games Workshop Belfast — Ardfern / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Games Workshop Oslo — Kjetil Ree / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Warhammer Fantasy game — RedCraig / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 #Mordheim #Warhammer #GamesWorkshop #TabletopGaming #Wargaming