Necromunda Part 2

Last post was some info on the world of Necromunda and the premise of the game, this time, I’ll talk about playing the game itself, the choices and setting up your gang to make your claim for glory in the Under Hive.

War on a different scale.

Thing is fucking huge.

I’m going to be controversial and assume most wargamers know about Warhammer 40k, chances are, if you stumble across this blog, you play it, you might have heard of Necromunda and wonder how it differs.

Warhammer 40,000 is typically played with a company of troops, maybe 100 models a side, depending on the faction, fewer for Space Marines, more for the horde armies like Orks, this can scale up to the thousands if you wish, with tanks and other larger war machines, up to the building sized Titans in your game, with Forge World recently releasing the massive Warlord Titan, which ^st Millennium.

stands at over 2 feet tall. These games represent the bitter struggles of armies of the 41

 Necromunda shows the grim reality of life for the downtrodden forgotten citizens of the Imperium of man. Gangs are around 10 strong and they’re regular citizens for the most part, to start with at least.

Because its smaller in scope, this means there is a lot more room for detail, each Gang member should have a name and will develop a story as they go on, gaining skills and injuries to show for their exploits.

Each gang member has a stat line, which looks the same as the current 40k one except it has a mysterious M at the start of it, this, if you play Fantasy Battle you’ll know, is the Movement Value. A typical human has a Move of 4, meaning in the Movement phase, they move 4 inches.

(This means that generally, it’s a little slower to get to grips with the enemy compared with the current 40k rules where most infantry moves 6 inches, it makes movement more important to get right and more of a challenge to think about, I have no idea why they got rid of this and replaced it with a standard movement and tons of special rules to make things move at different rates.)

Each Gang has a Leader, which in the typical 90s GW style, is your representative on the battlefield, which I always get a kick out of. The Leader has access to the best kit and is generally a little handier in a scrap and has better Leadership characteristics (obviously).

Most gangs then have a Heavy or some equivalent, for the standard gangs this is the guy who is a bit more capable than most and so is entrusted with looking after the best weapons, they’ll usually have a big gun, the most common starting Heavy will have a Heavy Stubber, maybe a Heavy Bolter if they’re very lucky.

The majority of your gang is then made up of Gangers, these are your average Joe or Jane Grox Pack, they have average stats and can have pretty average guns, Lasguns and Autoguns are popular, or a pistol and club if you want them to be more fighty than shooty.  As the system is more detailed, the amount of weapons you have can affect your combat ability, if you’ve got a Heavy weapon or a Rifle, its going to get in the way when things get up close and personal.

(Melee combat is very, very deadly in Necromunda but it’s a challenge to get into close range so it’s a gamble.)

Lastly, you’ll have the Juves, short for juveniles (this is common Mega City 1 slang for a young delinquent, unashamedly borrowed for the game set in a city which shares a lot of similarities with the home of Joe Dredd), these are the inexperienced kids, throwing their lot in with a gang for survival or for the glamour of being in a Gang. They’re lousy shots and worthless in melee and can only grab a pistol and a knife but after a few fights, they’ll soon toughen up and be a match for any other experienced ganger.

Your Gang isn’t just the bodies in it, its also its territory, as a Gang, you hold influence over an area of the Under Hive, what’s in your territory is randomly selected, you might have an archeotech horde with the promise of untapped wealth inside, a mine where you can work captured enemy gangers to death digging up the discarded waste of the millennia or just an old sump that you might be able to scrounge some water up from, each gang starts with a few of these and can expand over the course of the campaign, or of course, lose them if things go very wrong.

Next time I’ll go over the types of gang you can choose from and how they differ from each other!