Wednesday 21 November, 2007: Necromunda

Greetings once more,

It’s now this week which means it’s nearly time for next week and I haven’t yet posted for last week - or some such metaphysical nonsense. As you will recall – from reading just a little further down the page – we were aiming to play Necromunda this week. We succeeded in this goal and details of how things panned out are as follows:

We got two games in: Pit Slaves VS Delaques and Esher VS Ratskins. The Pit Slaves and Delaques, due to rather catastrophic confrontations with Esher and Ratskin hordes which currently have the resources and members to bring to bear the firepower of something approaching an imperial guard platoon, are rather well-matched in gang ratings. It is quite pleasing really as they are the two gangs which started our Necromunda campaign. The newer gangs have overtaken them in power and prestige but the veterans sit in their drinking holes and shake their heads muttering darkly about “pride coming before a fall”. Personally, I think they’re jealous.

The Delaque/Pit Slave game went well resulting in a victory for Drillius and his outlaws. As I said, the gang ratings for these two are pretty close and the game was well-matched (Delaque firepower against Pit Slave numbers). In the end, the dice favoured Drillius although the rapid firing Scummer Crochell Reek and the equally fast-shooting Sawhead did send a fair number of hapless slaves sprawling. A concentration of bolt pistols and a fearsome burst of plasma gun fire (from the overwatching Techno, Sparks) saved the day however and the Delaques made a tactical withdrawal. A great close game though which was made more fun by its even ebb and flow. It did demonstrate the bottling perils of gangs with limited numbers of fighters. The fights between these two also most involve our house rules on “buying” sScummer hired guns into your gangs by hiring them for five games in a row (thereby meeting their gang rating price in credits). (Snakehand) Svint and (Sober) Kriel for the Pit Slaves and Crochell Reek for the Delaques are our current examples. In case anyone’s interested in introducing this system we ruled that they must be paid for in each post-game sequence (either counting as an additional gang member when working out income for “House” gangs or being paid for as a standard human outlaw in outlaw gangs). They can be used to work territories/scavenge for resources and are subject to serious injuries (as standard) but may not gain experience as they start pretty good and the penalty for this is that they may be overtaken by regular gang members. A great system for hanging on to favourite characters though, I recommend you give it a go.

The Ratskin game nearly worked. The Esher, upon reviewing their troops, discovered that one of their veteran gangers – Hana – had been captured by the horde of Ratskins which infested this part of the Underhive. Mounting a daring rescue mission Lienna and four hand-picked warriors snuck into their base. Faced by just one sentry, they felt victory was assured … and then the sentry revealed himself to be a highly-skilled veteran who leapt away from a stealthy charge and called upon his reinforcements. After a nice bit of target practice, the only person to run away was the captive herself, the rest lay injured or slipped away to safety (once more I lay a virulent curse on Olly’s dice). The Esher did offer resistance however and were startled to lay the Shamen out with a well-placed bolter round. Nadienna, the leader’s little sister who started as a lowly Juve, also dispatched Totem Tim, one of the two Totem Warriors, in combat and Lienna herself bravely fought several drawn rounds of close combat with the second of these terrifying opponents. The game resulted in the capture of yet another Esher but, rather than risk the mauling of the previous game (and because the time was getting on), A ransom was agreed for her safe release. Even so, the Esher, a large organisation in these parts, will be back for their revenge. The game was a kind of Esher victory with the captive just escaping but, as she escaped as the result of a bottle role, we felt that the Ratskins should keep her equipment – yes, the two swords, frag grenades and flak armour (which is so easy to find down here, isn’t it?) – to compensate for not actually getting the captive to my board edge as laid out in the victory conditions. (A tricky bit of rules interpretation and bargaining that one but a great example of how compromises can be reached – almost a lesson in itself.)

All in all, a great week. It was fun to get the Necromunda gangs out after what we discovered was quite a while. We also had more suitable scenery as I have fairly recently bought the Mordheim box game and the buildings in that were more than adequate for the run-down hive slum in which we currently find ourselves. The building terrain, in my opinion at least, made the games this week. Both the Overwatch and Hiding rules were much more useful and the games proved a great deal less one-sided with a nice solid wall between a hapless ganger and the sights of a veteran lasgunner or, more importantly, the terrifying entity that is the Frag grenade in Necromunda. Combined with jacket potatoes it was an awesome night.

Our next session will be a 3-way 1000 point Warhammer game with my Orks and Goblins, Johnny’s Wood Elves and Olly’s Dwarves – yes a genuinely non-human game – battling for … well fun mainly. Don’t forget to check back in a few days to see how that went. Also feel free to leave comments and remember to pop back to see the replies.

Commander Portman Greetings once more,

It’s now this week which means it’s nearly time for next week and I haven’t yet posted for last week - or some such metaphysical nonsense. As you will recall – from reading just a little further down the page – we were aiming to play Necromunda this week. We succeeded in this goal and details of how things panned out are as follows:

We got two games in: Pit Slaves VS Delaques and Esher VS Ratskins. The Pit Slaves and Delaques, due to rather catastrophic confrontations with Esher and Ratskin hordes which currently have the resources and members to bring to bear the firepower of something approaching an imperial guard platoon, are rather well-matched in gang ratings. It is quite pleasing really as they are the two gangs which started our Necromunda campaign. The newer gangs have overtaken them in power and prestige but the veterans sit in their drinking holes and shake their heads muttering darkly about “pride coming before a fall”. Personally, I think they’re jealous.

The Delaque/Pit Slave game went well resulting in a victory for Drillius and his outlaws. As I said, the gang ratings for these two are pretty close and the game was well-matched (Delaque firepower against Pit Slave numbers). In the end, the dice favoured Drillius although the rapid firing Scummer Crochell Reek and the equally fast-shooting Sawhead did send a fair number of hapless slaves sprawling. A concentration of bolt pistols and a fearsome burst of plasma gun fire (from the overwatching Techno, Sparks) saved the day however and the Delaques made a tactical withdrawal. A great close game though which was made more fun by its even ebb and flow. It did demonstrate the bottling perils of gangs with limited numbers of fighters. The fights between these two also most involve our house rules on “buying” sScummer hired guns into your gangs by hiring them for five games in a row (thereby meeting their gang rating price in credits). (Snakehand) Svint and (Sober) Kriel for the Pit Slaves and Crochell Reek for the Delaques are our current examples. In case anyone’s interested in introducing this system we ruled that they must be paid for in each post-game sequence (either counting as an additional gang member when working out income for “House” gangs or being paid for as a standard human outlaw in outlaw gangs). They can be used to work territories/scavenge for resources and are subject to serious injuries (as standard) but may not gain experience as they start pretty good and the penalty for this is that they may be overtaken by regular gang members. A great system for hanging on to favourite characters though, I recommend you give it a go.

The Ratskin game nearly worked. The Esher, upon reviewing their troops, discovered that one of their veteran gangers – Hana – had been captured by the horde of Ratskins which infested this part of the Underhive. Mounting a daring rescue mission Lienna and four hand-picked warriors snuck into their base. Faced by just one sentry, they felt victory was assured … and then the sentry revealed himself to be a highly-skilled veteran who leapt away from a stealthy charge and called upon his reinforcements. After a nice bit of target practice, the only person to run away was the captive herself, the rest lay injured or slipped away to safety (once more I lay a virulent curse on Olly’s dice). The Esher did offer resistance however and were startled to lay the Shamen out with a well-placed bolter round. Nadienna, the leader’s little sister who started as a lowly Juve, also dispatched Totem Tim, one of the two Totem Warriors, in combat and Lienna herself bravely fought several drawn rounds of close combat with the second of these terrifying opponents. The game resulted in the capture of yet another Esher but, rather than risk the mauling of the previous game (and because the time was getting on), A ransom was agreed for her safe release. Even so, the Esher, a large organisation in these parts, will be back for their revenge. The game was a kind of Esher victory with the captive just escaping but, as she escaped as the result of a bottle role, we felt that the Ratskins should keep her equipment – yes, the two swords, frag grenades and flak armour (which is so easy to find down here, isn’t it?) – to compensate for not actually getting the captive to my board edge as laid out in the victory conditions. (A tricky bit of rules interpretation and bargaining that one but a great example of how compromises can be reached – almost a lesson in itself.)

All in all, a great week. It was fun to get the Necromunda gangs out after what we discovered was quite a while. We also had more suitable scenery as I have fairly recently bought the Mordheim box game and the buildings in that were more than adequate for the run-down hive slum in which we currently find ourselves. The building terrain, in my opinion at least, made the games this week. Both the Overwatch and Hiding rules were much more useful and the games proved a great deal less one-sided with a nice solid wall between a hapless ganger and the sights of a veteran lasgunner or, more importantly, the terrifying entity that is the Frag grenade in Necromunda. Combined with jacket potatoes it was an awesome night.

Our next session will be a 3-way 1000 point Warhammer game with my Orks and Goblins, Johnny’s Wood Elves and Olly’s Dwarves – yes a genuinely non-human game – battling for … well fun mainly. Don’t forget to check back in a few days to see how that went. Also feel free to leave comments and remember to pop back to see the replies.

Commander Portman