Hot Dogs and Hot Lead: Skypromunda

Hive time! Once more, Rapid's Omega Dawn cult take on the Delaque shadows of the Darker Knights, run by me, Kraken. This time, it's a mission to win hearts and minds - the excellent Propaganda mission from Dark Uprising. 

So the twist for this gunfight is that we're trying to convert innocent hivers, if such a thing exists, to our respective causes. At stake is a territory, a Rogue Doc's clinic, and to win it we just have to run the other gang off the turf first. 

However, the surgery waiting queue is long, with twelve patients standing around the doc's snack stand (don't ask where the offcuts for the sausages came from, or where the guy ahead of you in the queue went). Our gangers can spend actions to try and have these dewy-eyed greenbacks join our teams, which is good, because we're only taking four gangers each to the fight. 

I am, anyway, with leader Sir T Fyable and champion Sir Lee taking the two uninjured gangers I have left after our last run in. Rapid is only bringing three, his heavy-weapon-packing Disciples and his Demagogue, Jackie Omega. The fourth ganger is a spawn, because of course that's what you'd bring to convince people of the benefits of joining a chaos cult. Or the penalties for not doing so, of course. 

Donate kindly or Brother Spawn will sing to you.

Hearts and Minds (and Spleens)

We set up on opposite sides of the central clinic, where the sickly hivers are clustering in defiance of all social distancing guidelines. A lucky draw of tactics cards gives me some infiltration, so my champion Sir Lee sneaks into cover near the hivers, only to have the cult play one of theirs. Careful planning lets Rapid immediately send three of his team forward, ready to open the doors and spread the good word. 

Now, most of those hivers have laspistols and knives, but there's one in the middle with a heavy stubber. Omega Dawn is going to be straight in on that guy, I expect, and I'm behind a few closed doors before I can get in on the preaching. Plus there's a particularly vicious spawn out there, sampling the sausages and making small talk with the crowd, that I have no wish to get near. 

As Rapid gets the early initiative, I'm left scurrying about in the service tunnels, trying to get away from the spawn and into the impressionable hivers. Whereas Jackie Omega strides confidently into their midst, handing out Tzeentchian pamphlets and scented candles. Heavy Stubber Guy and one of his mates buy into this nonsense, so I'm already losing the numbers game. 

Worse, the blessings of Tzeentch are with Omega Dawn. Using his one-off bonus of ignoring penalties to hit for a single shot, Gamma Ndegs plants a krak grenade on my infiltrated champion. I somehow get a mere flesh wound from this, but all I can do in return is fail to pick Jackie out of the crowd and shoot an innocent bystander. Way to impress the locals, Delaque. 

Conversion Field

Would you believe it all goes south for the Cult after this strong start?

The first of my gangers to arrive flings a flash bomb right in the middle of the crowd, and that leaves about half of the cultists, both new and original, reeling. While they're indisposed, my wounded champion Sir Lee gets up and charges in, taking out the cult's heavy stubber with his poisoned stiletto. Jackie tries to help as Sir Lee piles on to the grenade launcher, but instead shoots her pal in the back (luckily to no effect). 

Flash! Ah-aaah

And during this confusion, the rest of my gang arrive and start converting cultists with aplomb. The Spawn can't help as it can't plough through the crowd, so it begins the slow and careful process of tearing through the closed door that stands between it and me. It can't open it, it doesn't have fingers!

As stairs to the Dalek, so doors to the Spawn

In all the confusion, Jackie Omega gets sprayed with toxic flechettes and goes out of action. With two down, her gang bottles, although they don't quit the field yet. Instead, they retreat to the sausage stand, where Gamma Ndegs keeps the new recruits standing tall. 

But his fiery words aren't enough. The Delaque gangers whisper of their House care packages and insurance deals, and the new converts turn and pass on the good word. Within a couple of turns, the three remaining Cultists are huddled together on the sausage stand, surrounded by a swarm of proto-Delaque!

It's a One-Off

So it's looking bad for the cult, and good for me. I outnumber them almost three to one at this point, they're surrounded and failing to even the field despite their heavy weapons. Heavy Stubber Guy in particular is spraying lead in all directions except the ones that count, and it's really looking like I'm going to be rolling in credits and cheap medical care after this showdown. 

Which means, of course, that I stuff it all up. 

Greed is my first downfall - all my new converts concentrate on trying to get the last of the spare hivers on side instead of swamping the cult's sausage stand. This leaves them bunched up, which is just what Mr Grenades wants. Gamma drops a frag grenade right in the centre of a big pack, and suddenly there are hivers flying in all directions, panicking, running off and falling down holes. 

Well, you're not the Avon Lady.

Over-confidence is my other downfall. I actually take pity on the Spawn's futile attempts to eat a door, and send my Leader to let it in. Cockily, I have a stupid idea that I can use my shock stave to drive it off. Poking a Spawn with a cattle prod proves exactly as effective as you'd expect, and the Spawn powers through three of my gangers in short order, one after the other, without breaking a sweat. 

They tried to run, but they also tried mixing this with shooting. Idiots.

Gamma is now rolling strong. He won't run off, and as long as he stays in, the nearby cult converts stay in the game too. A couple of my initiates dash in and try and pull him off his pedestal, but he hammers them down with the butt of his grenade launcher. 

This leaves that battered champion who infiltrated, Sir Lee, in charge of all the newbies. Seeing as most of them are scattered, bleeding or dead by this point, it's down to him to point his flechette pistol at Gamma Ndegs and try and take him out. 

Now, Rapid and me share a trait, in that we roll more ones than anything else. Sir Lee has already been bounced into a sludge tank by a grenade barrage (he found a lucky penny in it), Gamma has run out of grenades and missed some obvious targets and his Heavy Stubber guy has yet to hit a single target over about five or six rounds. It's a true Battle of the Ones, a One-Off if you will. And something has to give eventually. 

It's both of us, in the event - Sir Lee manages a lovely flechette shot that poisons Gamma off and out, collapsing amidst the savory links. But this finally Heavy Stubber Guy, who finds his mark and riddles Sir Lee with bullets. That's my last ganger, so I'm off the table, and that's the game!

Wurst for Wear

Necromunda is just as fun after the battle as during, as we send our gangers shopping. I've taken more casualties, but nothing too serious this time (although I'll be short-handed next time), and Rapid is also fine with nothing more than mild bruises. 

"You put the muzzle on him first, then I'll collar him."

First up, he has to restrain his Spawn, sending a couple of the guys from home base to round it up. That goes off without a hitch, so he then sends Gamma Ndegs to lead a ritual to the Architect of Change, netting him an experience bonus and another blessing for next time. Then Jackie hits the Black Market and picks him up a contraband Lightning Claw as a reward for his spectacular service. 

Plus Omega Dawn now have the Rogue Doc territory, which grants them a free hanger-on. And a free cultist from their settlement, so they're doing alarmingly well in the campaign overall!

My shopping is less impressive - a sword for one of my gangers, a free juve from the home turf and that's it. There's plenty of creds in the bank, but not as many as I could have had. All those conversions in the match, and most of them got blown up! I save the rest of my income for later, when I can find some better gear. 

Great and silly fun, as ever. Necromunda is a teetering tower of rules, badly organised over a lot of GW book releases. We're using the Yaktribe compilation rules, which are much better laid out, but there's still more than you could ever hope to use (or explain!) in one session. It's still one of my favourite games from their stable, and I'm looking forward to more!