Somehow, I've managed to collect sixteen gangs' worth of Necromunda. There is only one sensible thing to do - make them fight to the death in an arena to determine the ultimate victor.
Over the coming few months, here, live on The Woffboot Chronicles, join us in Knockromundout! A knock-out league where the gangs will fight for your entertainment. There can be only one winner: you, when you tune in.
Here's the gangs and their current backers:
- House Cawdor - General Bubonicus
- House Delaque - General Pootle
- House Escher - General Stylus
- House Goliath - General Stranger-come-knocking
- House Orlock - General Monkey
- House Van Saar - General Jhnlk
- Palanite Enforcers -
- Chaos Cult -
- Corpse Grinder Cult -
- Genestealer Cult -
- Spyrers -
- Ironhead Squats - General Rapid
- Outcasts - (it'll be a gang of renegade psykers on bikes, The Psyker's Bikers, unless anyone wants to alter it)
- Venators -
- Slave Ogryn Gang - (currently not yet painted)
- Malstrain Brood -
Games will be hosted at my end.
I'll be using some kind of online random match generator to pitch them against each other. An initial round to get to the Quarters, then the Semis, then the final, and I totally reserve the right to switch the draws around to suit whichever players are free on a given night.
Now, look, Necromunda is not the most balanced or comprehensible of games, especially to anyone not playing it regularly. There are some broken, broken things you can do with any gang, some gangs are inherently a bit more capable than others and let's not even get started on the state of the trading post. In the interests of safety and simplicity, there are a few house rules I'll be making, and I'll list them at the bottom of this article for both players and interested visitors. Or bookies, if that's your thing.
Quite a lot of the balance issues in the game are due to the Campaign system, in fairness, where you can randomly lose people to injury and have it scupper your next game, or where a winning gang ends up with a huge cash advantage that translates to bigger or better-armed gangs. I reckon a knock-out system eliminates a fair amount of that, and just leaves the horrors of our dice instead.
Much as I'd love to plunder the many many rulebooks for the best missions and switch it all about, that's also not the most balanced way of playing. Instead, I'm looking at the fun we had playing MCP last year, and I'm going to try and concoct a Necromunda version of that. All gangs will play the same mission in each round. I may switch it up for subsequent rounds, but I'll think on that later.
There are probably more gangs than players, so anyone who wants to stop me playing against myself and gaining easy access to the final is very welcome to take command of a gang whenever they want. We're here to see which gang is the best, after all, not which player!
Team Selection
1800 points per team, selected only from the relevant rulebook. I have (because I'm a nerd) already made 1800 point lists for all the gangs, so if you're feeling lost and confused, you're welcome to take what I've chosen, I'll provide helpful notes on what does what.
1800 is a pretty decent amount of points. It should let you bring a strongly-flavoured gang, trying out all the toys from your House and maybe a few of the more esoteric bits of gear that a starting gang would struggle to include.
No Trading Post stuff is available - only weapons and gear from your starting lists, even if your list would usually allow it (Outcasts, I'm looking at you).
If you're making your own list, I recommend YakTribe as a helpful place to do it. The guy who made it has gone a bit awol lately, though, and not all gangs are available there, so Spyrers, Malstrain, Outcasts and the new stuff for Squats have to be done by hand.
You are welcome to use your 1800 points to buy hangers-on, brutes or other scum available to your house. Your gang's reputation counts as 10 (so no more than 2); bear in mind that anything that is mostly useful on the campaign side of things like Rogue Docs, Sloppers or Fixers is going to be pretty useless in this.
You can buy Leaders or Champions stat advances or extra skills, a maximum of three per model. This adds to their cost and is listed somewhere in one of the rulebooks if you need it.
No XP, no missing a game for injuries - anyone dead or injured just gets replaced.
Flamers are going to be slightly cheaper than listed price (see below).
I have a mild preference for WYSIWYG, but as long as we all know what is what, I'm not too fussed.
You're welcome to change your list between rounds, all the more so if you've been eliminated.
Qualifying Round Rules
It's going to be a Zone Mortalis game, i.e. close corridors under a steel roof. Expect close range encounters. There might be a couple of holes in the floor here and there, but no other fancy hazards, I'll save those for later rounds.
The table is 4'x3', gangs deploy within 6" of the short edges.
Gangs bring everyone on their roster. Bringing lots of cheap bodies might help you score more on positions, but you'll also be offering more points to your opponent.
No Bottling Out - your gang is stuck in the arena until the ref lets you out!
Gangers and Juves who lose their last wound will go straight out of the game. This is to keep things fast and simple. Leaders and Champions (or equivalents) will roll injury dice as usual.
Each team gets to pick two Tactics from their House List. No tactics that add extra models to your team will be allowed. Tactics will be revealed and discussed before each match, and your opponent or the ref can veto your choices if they're particularly egregious.
The middle of the board will be split into three lanes - a central, relatively clear lane and two tight and twisty lanes on either side. Each of the lanes will have one objective marker in the middle. If you've got more bodies within 3" of the marker than your opponent in the End Phase, you hold it.
Each game lasts 5 turns, to keep it short and sweet.
You score as follows:
- Holding an Objective - 2 points
- Taking a Leader out of the game - 2 points
- Taking a Champion out the game - 1 point
- Getting any number of your gang into the opponent's Deployment Zone in an End Phase - 1 point
- Every two enemy gangers or juves (or equivalent) out of the game - 1 point
Highest score at the end of 5 rounds is the winner!
Quarter Final Games
TBC
Semi Final Games
TBC
Final Game
TBC
House Rules
I've played enough Necromunda to have opinions about things! This is a list of my pet peeves as much as anything else, but also a couple of balance ideas. I'm very happy to negotiate anything, but the rules here are final until we change them.
- Template Weapons - have to take an ammo test each time they're used, just like grenades do. This is a rule from original Necromunda, and helps them be a little less oppressive, especially in close quarter games. You're still guaranteed at least one shot, and you can always reload them!
- Blaze Weapons - being on fire is a very powerful way of keeping a model out of the game, and isn't much fun because there isn't currently much you can do about it. Currently, you get set on fire on a 4+, then you can't opt to drop and roll until after you've taken your random move (and your hit for being on fire), and friends can't really help you unless you happen to end up next to them after the random move. Let's change most of that! Now you'll only be set on fire on a 5+, and if you're in cover you can swap your armour save for a dodge save (5+ for full cover, 6+ for partial, you take no damage but are still pinned if you make it). Next, you stop burning on a 5+ rather than the original 6+. Finally, anybody can now spend an action to try and extinguish you if they’re within 1”. Test to extinguish and add two as usual for the help, so on 3+ you’re out. This still means fire is not your friend, and will still be very disruptive, but you should have a bit more counterplay against it.
- Flamers - Seeing as I've nerfed templates and Blaze, I think they need a bit of a discount. Hand Flamers cost 60, Flamers are 120, Heavy Flamers are 180 credits, and are no longer Unwieldy (i.e. you can move and still fire with them), they're utterly rubbish and very over-costed otherwise. If you can already get them cheaper than this, good for you!
- Servitor-Cherubs - Sorry Bubonicus! I feel quite strongly these are far too good for their points. You can now only transfer a hit from the owner as long as the Cherub is within 2" and isn't pinned, so they can only effectively shrug off one shot a turn. Ten credits cheaper to reflect this, although I think they're still a steal at 45!
- Faith Dice - Sorry again Bubonicus! Not sure what works best here, but I wonder if the Miracles are a bit too easy to fire off. Either only generating Faith Dice on a 6+ instead of a 5+ or limiting the number you can spend on a single miracle to 3 max feel like reasonable steps to me, but I wasn’t the one rolling these dice. What do you reckon?
- Overseer - this is a skill that lets a leader attenpt to skip its own turn and give someone else an extra one. Double activating someone can lead to some nasty power plays. Let’s do without it.
- Combat Consolidation - rules as written, you can’t use your follow-up move to start a new combat. I don’t like that, especially as you can shoot fairly easily into a fight and that there are quite a few combat skills that only shine after the first round of melee. So now, you can!
- Facing - we’re playing over Skype, where it’s pretty hard to tell. Facing will be reckoned broadly as ’whichever way you went or shot last’ and will be assumed to have been done for advantage as much as possible. Backstabs and shield facings will have to be on Ref’s rulings.
- Priority - I like the MCP system of giving it to whoever didn’t go last, so +1 to the Priority Roll if that was you.
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