N18 Advice on Van Saar tactics against Delaque?

[Master Ciaphas]

Hello!

I have recently started playing my first Necromunda campaign, and will be playing my second game on Sunday. The first game was against House Orlock, which I won on account of my opponents really, really, really crappy rolls (as in after four turns of shooting, he had managed to hit a total of three times, wounded twice, and inflicted a single flesh wound...).

Sunday, though, my Scurriers (https://yaktribe.games/underhive/gang/flashheart's_scurriers.59129/) will be playing against House Delaque (https://yaktribe.games/underhive/gang/the_silent_serpents.101280/) in a Sector Mechanius game (still unknown which scenario). I have been looking at the Delaque list, and am cautiously optimistic...were it not for the Fast Shot Long Rifle Champion, Hip Shooting Web Pistol Champ and Gunfighting Flechette Pistol Leader.

Any advice on how best to handle these snake oil peddlers? And also, which SecMec scenario to aim for, if I get to chose...?

Cheers in advance!

Kindly,
Master Ciaphas

 

[BearsWillEatYou]

A few things come to mind.

First of all, that Delaque list seems to be kitted out for closer range combat than your guys. If you can, try to keep your distance a little while and pick them off as they close in.
You should also have a pretty big durability advantage with your much better armour saves, but there's one big exception to that... Watch out for the web pistol! It ignores armour, so prioritise picking off that Champion or at least pinning them to prevent Hip Shooting. This might be easier said than done given all the Smoke, so don't be afraid to throw your Juve or a Ganger forward to try and tie them up. In particular, try to keep your Leader out of the threat range of the Web Pistol as his multiple wounds and shield count for nothing against it.

A lot of the nastier Delaque tricks come from their tactics cards- depending on what they choose/draw it could make them very difficult to target or a significant mobility boost (and they're already naturally faster than you). If your opponent has the Delaque specific cards they might be able to Infiltrate fighters (like that web pistol...), turn the lights out to cover their advance, swap their fighters around and more. With that in mind, if you get to choose the scenario try to pick something where they won't get to choose cards and/or something that doesn't require you to out maneuver them to win. Border Dispute might work (though unless you're already winning you might struggle to get their icon), but anything where their side has to pick random cards will help to stop them choosing exactly the right dirty tricks to screw with you.

 

[Master Ciaphas]

Thank you very much for your reply! It is greatly appreciated!

As for the tactic cards, the Arbitrator in charge of the campaign has banned all tactics cards, so there willbo no shennigans of that sort. Instead, everyone has a flat 2 re-rolls to make due with.

I am "most" worried about the web pistol champion and the long rifle champion. The web pistol will be in range at some point, if he wishes to take part in the fight, but I highly doubt that I can get to the long rifle, as we will be playing on a 48x48 table...and that rifle has Range 48" with a +1 to hit...so it will effectively hit two shots pr. turn (which I find horrifying), wounding on 3+ with a -1 AP... brrrrrrrr

 

[BearsWillEatYou]

Ah, no cards is a shame. There's a lot of cool and characterful stuff in there as well, but given the various issues I can see why your Arbitrator took that route.

As for the Long Rifle, terrain is your friend. If they have to move then they can't double shoot, and if they deploy up on a tower they won't have much room to shift position if you break line of sight using terrain. How easy that is depends on the board set up of course, but open terrain will probably favour your gang over theirs unless they get very lucky with the long rifle. I'd expect they'll be even more worried by your Plasma Gun. ;-)

 

[almic85]

It sounds simple but shoot them.

He only has three weapons that shoot further than 16” so stay 16-24” away and shoot them.

Focus on hitting his fast shot long rifle champ every turn so that he needs to stand up and shoot and has wasted his skill choice on fast shot. This means hit it with your lascarbines champion or a lasgun ganger first every turn

Focus on shooting and killing his webpistol champ so that he can’t get close enough to hit you with it. This means shoot it with your plasmagun second every turn.

Honestly the rest of his gang is pretty bleh. The leader needs to get close to shoot you and will run out of ammo pretty quickly. The shotgun gangers are probably the next biggest threat if they can get close enough. The long rifle ganger And lasgun ganger will be nuisances more than anything else

If you need to use your juve or a lasgun ganger to take the first rush from his webgun champion and/or gunfighter leader and then shoot them until they die.

It’s a shame your arbitrator has taken tactic cards out of the game as they are one of the few things that elevate Delaque (and Cawdor) above being a mediocre gang.

Also worth pointing out that his leader is illegal. Delaque leaders don’t have primary Shooting so he can’t take gunfighter. They have Primary Cunning, Agility and Leadership. The Champions have primary Shooting and Cunning.

 

[MrAndersson]

You have 80 credits in your stash. Buy Hotshot packs for all your lasgun gangers. That will make a huge difference.

Necromunda is a game where a lot is won in the list-building phase. As you would expect with anything that comes from GW.

 

[Master Ciaphas]

Hello!

Thank you all for your advice. We played the game yesterday, and I came out on top. It was a bit tight during the middle part, where the Delaque ganger with the web gun made a double move and the template just touched my leader's base, rendering him Seriously Injured. In the next turn, he misjudged the distance and failed to hit my champion with plasma gun and a ganger, allowing me to bring in my last champ and render his OOA.

We played the mission Border Dispute, and I came out with six fighters vs his five. He chose to deploy aggressively with his leader up front along with another ganger, while the last three were further back field. After the first turn I got my last to fighters into play (the las carbine champ and a ganger with lasgun).

House Delaque chose to bottle out after turn four, as his Leader had two flesh wounds, another ganger had two flesh wounds and a third a single flesh wound, while a champion and a ganger was OOA.

All in all I ended up with +3 REP, +80 credits and a tonne of XP for all my fighters; my leader has 11XP now for example

Kindly,
Master Ciaphas

 

[Master Ciaphas]

And for those interested - here is my gang following yesterday's battle and update of the gang roster:

Necromunda: Underhive

Necromunda Underhive online tools by YakTribe.games greatly enhances your Necromunda Underhive experience by providing gang management, campaigns, customization and more. No more spreadsheets, manage your gangs online and print out battle tracking sheets and even ganger cards.

yaktribe.games

For my next game, I will try to get it on with either the Venators, Goliaths or Cawdors, who are also in the campaign.

By the way, with all the XP I have now accrued, what would be a sensible thing to spending it on? I am thinking of splashing out 9 XP to get the +1T on my leader, Alucard (which is good against anything but a Web gun...).

Kindly,
Master Ciaphas

 

[almic85]

For Van Saar you would probably want to take Wounds, Toughness and then maybe movement.

Random rolling on shooting for your leader could get you something good as well but if the rest of your guys want skills I would look at selecting from the shooting or savant skill trees.

 

[Master Ciaphas]

Cheers! I hadn't thought about taking an extra Wound; that could be nice as well. Movement certainly, is something I will look into for my leader, as having him sprint 10" and slagging someone with his plasma pistol would be sweet.

 

[almic85]

I think you’ll be surprised how much better M5 is than M4 for a hip shooting fighter. And M6 is exponentially better with a 12” move and shoot instead of an 8” move and shoot.

All of a sudden your leader has a 24” threat range and is better at engaging enemies at that distance than you las subcarbine champion.

 

[TopsyKretts]

A person not involved in your battle can decide how you can or cannot play with? Damn!

 

[Scabs]

As for the tactic cards, the Arbitrator in charge of the campaign has banned all tactics cards, so there willbo no shennigans of that sort. Instead, everyone has a flat 2 re-rolls to make due with.

Tactics Cards are NOT shenanigans! If they were, they would be called "Shenanigan Cards." And, RE-ROLLS! What kind of 40K imitating popinjay Arbitrator is running this show! I suggest you poor oppressed ruffians stage a violent overthrow of that scoundrel! Or, not. Tactics Cards are great, but not a deal breaker.

Welcome to a great game, you hooligan! One good thing about Van Saar is when you lose, you can truly blame the dang dice.

 

[BearsWillEatYou]

A person not involved in your battle can decide how you can or cannot play with? Damn!

Lot's of campaigns use an Arbitrator. Might not be for everyone, but there's nothing wrong with it. It's a shame they're not playing with cards, but just swapping them for re-rolls is very straightforward solution to the complaints a lot of people on here have expressed about tactics cards. Maybe cut people a little slack, eh?

Congrats on the win Master Ciaphus! As others have said, investing in some hot-shot packs would be a good boost in power for your rank and file gangers.

 

[spafe]

Personally I'd go for higher T to start with, as it helps against more stuff, all those autoguns, lasguns, and other str 3 weapons needing 5s to wound is great, along with bolt weapons needing 4s. But wounds arnt a bad shout either tbh.

Congrats on the win.

One other thing I would consider is mesh armour on the juve. This is mainly because he will be taking the majority of the fireso get the most use out of it.

 

[One_Snek]

You have 80 credits in your stash. Buy Hotshot packs for all your lasgun gangers. That will make a huge difference.

Necromunda is a game where a lot is won in the list-building phase. As you would expect with anything that comes from GW.

It hurts how true this is.

 

[kueppe]

Let's not derail this nice post in a tactics card discussion. Especially if u got lot of newer players I can fully understand why u ban cards. How many are there by now? If u include them, u need a house rule for a deck, banned cards etc...... and in the end it might feel more like playing a match of magic.

 

[Master Ciaphas]

Alright - so cheers for all the advice so far. My gang is now so experienced that I can start to look into getting advancements for them. I rolled for the first ganger - Goedkin - and rolled an underwhelming "9" on the chart, meaning he gets an "amazing" +1 to Intelligence or Willpower. I have decided to go with Intelligence, because I "feel" that is more the Van Saaar way.

As for Alucard, my leader, I opted for the +1T for a 30 Cred increase. When I get the next two XP, I will be getting the +1 Movement increase, to make him that bit scarier.

The last two I have to play with is my Champion ""Dutch" Vanderbilt, who has 8XP. I am leaning towards also giving her the +1T increase? But if there is advice to go in another direction with her, I am all ears. She has a laspistol and a plasma gun. The last is the Juve, Brigitte, who has 4XP, which is just enough to get something lacklustre...and I am leaning towards saving up and getting her something better after the next game.

...and the next game will be against Goliaths! Sadly, the Arbitrator has ruled that we can only buy stuff duing the Downtime phase, so I will not be able to get either mesh armour for my last two gangers, nor any hot-shot laspacks for any of my lasguns. Evidently this means that my two plasma weapons will be doing a lot of work that game.

The Goliaths look like this:

Dustfall Ramchargers

Goliath gang with a rating of 1000 by Andreas A

yaktribe.games

Any advice for taking them on? We will most likely be playing on a Sector Mechanicus board at my place, akin to this:

Cheers!

 

[spafe]

Should be an easy enough game with that board and his gang. Target the grenade launcher asap, stick in cover so his Stub cannons are barely able to hit you and take em apart at range. This should be an textbook game for VS, the champs are the 2 threats. first grenade launcher then the other champ due to the stimm slug stash giving him an unexpected burst of speed. Good luck!

Oh, and yeah, save the xp on the juve. Personally I'd go +1T on the champ as a solid choice

 

[Master Ciaphas]

Cheers for the reply!

As for the terrain, I am busy painting up an old resin Void Shield Generator from 2014 that will be added to the amount of terrain above, as I am probably a bit on the sparse side with regards to terrain.

Target priority is always good to hear about! I will make certain to go hard after his grenade launcher champion!