Meet the Gang! (Ward Eight, Part 2)

Time for the next installment of my Necromunda gang, which will have some pics of other gangs and battles as a special bonus feature at the bottom as well as a quick blurb on where we've gotten so far.

Email in: Yet Another Necron List at 1,500

"Hi Kirby!

First of all, thank you for the first army list critique you did for me back when I was playing primarily with the Space Marine codex. I disagreed with a few choices for stylistic reasons, but it pointed me in the right direction. It's safe to say it changed the way I built lists for the better, and allowed me to become a much more competitive player.

But now, we have awakened, and I can finally return to my true army, the Necrons. Can you please have a stab at the list below for me? This is the list I'm currently using, though it's still fairly malleable.

Meet the Gang! (Ward Eight, Part 1)

Having finished the first few models of my Necromunda gang, Ward Eight, and gotten ahold of a halfway-decent camera to get some pictures with, I think it's high time I finally posted some actual models of mine for people. And thus: an introduction to the members of my gang.

It's Necromunda time! (Part 2: Skills)

(Pictured: not my gang, but only barely.)

Likely the most problematic section of the Necromunda rules are the skill lists; even the designers have as much as admitted that they are atrocious, releasing several semi-official changes to them that help some, but still leave them with some fundamental problems. The most obvious of these is simply balance- some of the trees (Techno) are far better than the others (Muscle), with the latter in particular being basically complete trash.

Worse, most of the trees have at least one or two skills that are amazingly narrow- Escape Artist (from Agility) is a good example of this; the skill does absolutely nothing for you unless you first go down and then out of action and then roll a particular, non-common result on the Serious Injury chart, in which case you... get to pretend the whole thing didn't happen. Yeah, uh, that's totally worth it.

No, the skill charts in Necromunda are far and away its most problematic section and, even if I hadn't done anything else, they would have required fixing. With that said, many of the fixes others have written (or that the designers have offered) help a lot, so quite a bit of my work was already done for me.

It's Necromunda time! (Part 1: The Armory)

Necromunda.

It's a good game, playing much more like the older editions of 40K in many respects, since it's skirmish-sized and requires a rather small up-front investment of models. (Terrain, on the other hand, can be a pain, but that's a story for another day.) Also unlike 40K it is continuing, with what occurred in the previous battles being relevant to what happens in the later ones; your gangers might get injured or gain experience, get a windfall of cash or go broke and have to eat the new recruit, "Lunch." Poor guy. Because it's very much aimed at being a casual game, it leaves itself open to many of the strange and wacky happening that don't function as well in something that is designed to be a properly-balanced gaming system.

Roland Does: Specialty Games

I've decided to add a new little subsection here into the 3++ Realm and begin discussing two of my favorite Specialist games out there: Necromunda and Infinity. The Specialty Game series will go through the ins and outs of the games, Army Lists I'm tinkering with, and some background. Hopefully by the end of the series I'll may have sparked some interest amongst you all in checking out some of these other games. They both offer very different game mechanics from 40K and and can be more tactical for different reasons. Plus, they offer a break from large and long (2+ hour) games as at most they'll have less than 15 models (usually) games go by quickly allowing more to games to be played on a given game night. Also the fewer the models the quicker and easier painting and converting becomes as you have less to work with, and more time to spend on each model.

So the first part in this series will be on Necromunda. I'll point out GWvsJohns posts in Part 1 of the Necromunda guide, but to hold you over until then...check out my gang as it slowly forms!

Necrooooooooooooooo-Mundaaaaaaa!

Sooooo I'm in the midst of doing my NOVA write up (Gramps hit up most of my "Good, Bad, and Ugly" points in his article so my first article will go over Battle 1 and touch on a few things I have in addition to what Gramps said. In the interim though, my gaming group and I have decided to take the next few month or so off of competitive 40K and start a fun and relaxing Necromunda Campaign. What is Necromunda you ask? Well GWvsJohn wrote some excellent basic intro article earlier linked here, here, here, and here. Basic gist of it is a 40K "skirmish" game where you control a "gang" of anywhere between 3 and 12+ Gang members. Like the 5th Ed Battle Missions scenario "Kill Team", every model you have is basically an independent character - they move by themselves, don't need to maintain coherency, and can shoot whatever they want. Since most gangs are between (usually) 8-12 gang members, games go by quickly, with the average game lasting maybe 90 minutes.

GWvsJohn talks Necromunda, Part 2: Building your gang

Ok, so you've chosen your House (this article is only about House gangs, sorry to all you Outlanders out there), now it's time to start putting your crew together. While Necromunda is all about having fun and looking cool, it still helps to put a little thought into your choices. This article is going to assume you want to build the best gang possible.

The first thing you want to think about is numbers. The income table has a few "sweet spots" where you can maximize both the numbers of models in your gang and the amount of credits you earn in the post game. The brackets break every 3, so gangs of 1-3 models earn, the same, 4-6, 7-9, etc. Since gangs of 10 and 12 models earn the same, and (all other thing big equal) a gang of 12 models is more likely to win a game, you'd much rather have 12 (or 6 or 15...) models than 10. For a House gang 6 models is just too few to have a realistic shot of winning. As we start buying and equipping gangers, you'll see that 12 models is just too many to actually have effective men. So, really, for a starting gang, your plan should be to recruit 9 members in your gang. Now, how are we going to divide those 9, and how are we going to equip them?

GWvsJohn talks Necromunda, Part 1: Choosing your gang

So the Vassalmunda campaign is well under way. I've gotten 6 games in so far and others (cough, professor curly, cough) seem to play 6 a day.

For those who don't know, our google group is here and the Necromunda rules are here. If you haven't joined yet, well, what are you waiting for?

By no means am I a Necromunda expert, but my gang is 6-0 so far and I'm starting to get a feel for the rules and flow of a game and an entire campaign. I'll be writing this series as a guide to help (mostly) new players get their feet wet with Necromunda.

The first article will be on choosing your gang. I'll be talking about the House Gangs and Spyrers in (some) depth, then the other outlaw gang quickly, because I haven't played with or against them yet.

Vassalmunda, part 2: Getting Started

Hey all, I've made a Google Group for our Vassal Necromunda campaign.

http://groups.google.com/group/vipers-cove?hl=en

You do need a google account to join (I think) but it's free, and gmail is solid.

Anyone who is interested can email me (tjbalt@gmail.com) or request membership through the group. Once people join up and start posting gangs, we can get started. :)

-GWvsJohn

GWvsJohn's Adventures in Vassal, Chapter 2: Necromunda

We've all seen them. It's not every day on Vassal, but it happens. Those two old friends, separated due to college, pushing a seemingly random assortment of sprites around a 4'x4' board, following the arcane 2nd edition rules. We know what's going on. They're playing Necromunda, and we're jealous.

Necromunda on Vassal makes a lot of sense. Many turn to Vassal because they don't have the time to play tabletop: Necro games are shorter than the usual 40k. The big downside to Vassal is that it's full of randoms, noobs and assholes: Necro lends itself to a league/campaign with people you already know and trust. Converting that random heavy who has a plasma gun, laspistol and a bionic eye is a huge pain: Vassal sprites are easy to label.

The problem of course is gathering that group that is willing and able to play regularly. I'm willing to put in some time and effort organizing a campaign. I can set up a Google Group (or something similar) to monitor the gangs. I can keep master track of games and gang changes. I can set up more fluff-type events and special games if the campaign is running smoothly.

So it really falls to you. Are any of you interesting in joining a Vassal Necromunda league? I'm starting here for the same reason I asked Kirby to let me post. I think this blog has the tightest and smartest group of readers (assuming the commenters represent the general makeup of the readers) of all the blogs I frequent. If the response here is encouraging, I will expand my search to YTTH and some other blogs, eventually looking to fill out the ranks on the forums.

So, drop a comment here if you have any interest in Necromunda at all, or if you have any ideas on how to make an online/Vassal Necro league work.

-GWvsJohn