Development discussion

[TopsyKretts]

Ah, I didn't know that! That must be very frustrating! (If trying to play a game according to the latest official rules, though I think you've given by up on that for some time!)

Frustrating you say? Game constantly changing! This is why we have the sump:

Necromunda - The Sump: General hobby venting thread (Beware:grumpy grognards)

In the finest grimdark tradition I'm not holding much - if any - hope for the Ash Wastes. Considering what a farce the whole release schedule, editing, proofreading, rules writing, etc, etc, ad nauseum for Necromunda has been I'm sure it will follow in the same vein. Which is sad in my opinion...

yaktribe.games

 

[Petitioner's City]

Thanks for the kind words! Our campaign got disrupted by COVID so I kind of shifted away from Necromunda for a while due to lack of options (I still painted quite a bit and dreamed of the day when the Necromunda dice would roll like thunder across my gaming table, of course!).

But, then a few of us were vaccinated enough to be able to get back together for a smaller 4 person mini-campaign late last year.

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It inspired me to revisit the material; in addition to various updates to the pre-existing content, I wrote up two more campaign styles Free-for-all and Bracket Busters. Free-for-all is basically "skirmish plus" and lends itself to multiplayer scenarios and thus all of the battles in our Free-for-all campaign have been 3 or 4 player affairs which have allowed us to maximize or limited gaming time and has helped make up for having a necessarily smaller group due to quarantine. Bracket Busters is meant to be a bracketed tournament style set up, using a single elaborate "Tourney" scenario for all battles which is intended to provide various tactical and strategic challenges that allows every type of gang an opportunity to utilize whatever they are optimized at for at least part of the map.

They might be worth checking out, and also some other new content is available as well including a few new gang list writeup re-expressed in our house-ruled model...

Campaign (Necromunda 2017)

A fan site and resource for playing table top miniature games using the Necromunda line of products published by Games Workshop

www.killershrike.com

I will read these excitedly - I've found your work inspiring for years

Bracket Busters is really fun - while it's a tournament, to an extent, i haven't really seen a good example of it for NM. And I've seen a few people comment how - at higher gang ratings - NM is a really good skirmish game; nice to see another implementation of this!

One question I have is - have you ever had any issue with your site? Is it a private server - and thus not really "take-a-downable"?

I'm starting to wonder, maybe we could turn YCE forum into homerules/homebrew discussions? Maybe with pinned rulesets made by the fans. And perhaps one day this could evolve into a proper community edition. We have varying views on what the game needs to be improved, but I bet that we have some solutions that repeat themselves throughout rules. I think that 'Rules and mechanics' should be for discussing original GW rules.

That's a brilliant idea

 

[Killer Shrike]

One question I have is - have you ever had any issue with your site? Is it a private server - and thus not really "take-a-downable"?

The site's been around in one form or another since the late 90's, and its changed hosts various times over the early years but I've used DiscountASP.Net as the host for quite a long time now. There's been some technical glitches now and then due to framework upgrades, policy changes, forced https, and the occasional server migration or upgrade. But by and large, its had very solid uptime.

Ironically thanks to being such an old site, though I have periodically put some effort into upgrading bits of it here and there over the years, it is built with very dated tech. When I need to code new bits of it (vs just add more content), its a blast from the past and at times I have to re-remember how we did things back in the day. Every few years I momentarily consider redoing the entire thing using whichever more modern framework of the day has caught my eye, and then remember just how much custom code I'd have to port / rewrite, and I get over the urge.

 

[Fireborn]

I'm starting to wonder, maybe we could turn YCE forum into homerules/homebrew discussions? Maybe with pinned rulesets made by the fans. And perhaps one day this could evolve into a proper community edition. We have varying views on what the game needs to be improved, but I bet that we have some solutions that repeat themselves throughout rules. I think that 'Rules and mechanics' should be for discussing original GW rules.

That could be good. Most the time when I’m reading posts that’s what I’m looking for. Ideas on how people are twiking rules to help play. Sometimes I see problems with using them. Sometimes they really good. I don’t think there could be a perfect rule set. And any rules tweak should consider that groups are using core rule book at it base.

 

[Wasteland]

I am tempted to give this a try. A few questions before I do:

- Has the statline madness of the official rules been addressed? I could never figure out a sensible formula in what way stats of Ganger, Champion and Leader would differ. Necromunda back in the 90s was clear about that. Modern version failed horribly.

- The GSC from WD have a Champion with only one wound. Has his wound value been raised to 2?

- Vintage Necromunda had a muscle skill which allowed to move & fire heavy weapons but modern version disallowed that. What´s the verdict on that?

- Starting gang equipment: Back in the day special and heavy weapons were restricted to champions and leaders equivalents. Today anything goes. What´s the verdict on this?

 

[Killer Shrike]

- Has the statline madness of the official rules been addressed? I could never figure out a sensible formula in what way stats of Ganger, Champion and Leader would differ. Necromunda back in the 90s was clear about that. Modern version failed horribly.
....
- Vintage Necromunda had a muscle skill which allowed to move & fire heavy weapons but modern version disallowed that. What´s the verdict on that?

- Starting gang equipment: Back in the day special and heavy weapons were restricted to champions and leaders equivalents. Today anything goes. What´s the verdict on this?

I can't speak to any widespread "verdicts" or general consensus, but concerns with exactly these sorts of things is what led to the homebrewed content at http://www.killershrike.com/Necromunda/Necromunda.aspx

Gang lists, stat lines, cost normalization, mechanics, and so on are addressed to suit our preferences (with a over all desire towards balance, consistency, and in some cases nostalgia). Skills, weapon traits, tactics cards, gear, campaigns and scenarios...basically a top down replacement of content / mod meant to be used collectively rather than mixed and matched with the official content. We use the official combat rules / game engine basically as is, but with the homebrewed content.



Side note, our version of Bulging Biceps is defined as simply allowing the fighter with the skill to ignore the Unwieldy trait on one weapon that they carry. For House Gangs, Specialists may carry a Special weapon and gang's may start with one Specialist at creation (Gangers & Juves can be promoted to Specialist via Advancement during campaign play). More generally, access to weapons is controlled by gear lists; access is dialed in very specifically by gang and fighter type to keep the focus on the gang members and the hierarchy of henchmen vs heroes. Attempts have been made to make each gang feel distinct and favor specific playstyles, without spinning off into radical extremes and jank. Anyway, its stuff to look at and maybe of interest to you; YMMV.

 

[Jacob Dryearth]

I am tempted to give this a try. A few questions before I do:

- Has the statline madness of the official rules been addressed? I could never figure out a sensible formula in what way stats of Ganger, Champion and Leader would differ. Necromunda back in the 90s was clear about that. Modern version failed horribly.

- The GSC from WD have a Champion with only one wound. Has his wound value been raised to 2?

- Vintage Necromunda had a muscle skill which allowed to move & fire heavy weapons but modern version disallowed that. What´s the verdict on that?

- Starting gang equipment: Back in the day special and heavy weapons were restricted to champions and leaders equivalents. Today anything goes. What´s the verdict on this

GSC Adepts have 1 Wound according to the Book of Ruin.

Bulging Biceps allows models to use Cumbersome melee weapons with 1 hand. You need a suspensor, servo rig, or extra arm to move and fire Cumbersome guns.

At the start of a campaign Special and Heavy weapons are restricted to Leaders and Champions, and a single Ganger may be promoted to a Specialist. Although some gangs will deviate: Van Saar Specialists may use some heavy weapons, Enforcer Subjugators can take grenade launchers, Outcasts don't get to start with a Specialist, etc ..

Edit, oh this is about the community edition. Ignore everything I typed, it is referring to the actual rules. Sorry.

 

[TopsyKretts]

I don't think the community edition has moved past core rules yet. So gangs are still future work. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[JawRippa]

I don't think the community edition has moved past core rules yet. So gangs are still future work. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you are talking about YCE, it has been past core rules for a while by now. However, I've decided to pause the english book and focus on russian rules made for my own group for the time being for multiple reasons, mainly I haven't been getting much feedback for the english rules, but I have a constant feedback/playtesting for russian ones from groups other than mine. Maybe I've altered the rules too much for general public liking, maybe I haven't been too active in promoting it or maybe people have been burned out by a previous failed attempt of creating a community edition which fizzled out (sadly).
I plan on polishing the russian version first through the course of multiple campaigns, then returning to adding content to the english one (including campaign rules). That is if if the work and IRL stuff won't intervene too much, which they seem to do.

I am tempted to give this a try. A few questions before I do:

- Has the statline madness of the official rules been addressed? I could never figure out a sensible formula in what way stats of Ganger, Champion and Leader would differ. Necromunda back in the 90s was clear about that. Modern version failed horribly.

Check YCE house legacy, it should answer most of your questions. In this example I gave an explanation how I was calculating costs of a fighter, the goal is so a leveled up ganger and an identically statted starting leader had the same cost, unlike current GW rules:

Spoiler: Cost calculation

 

[Spenetrator]

Check YCE house legacy, it should answer most of your questions. In this example I gave an explanation how I was calculating costs of a fighter, the goal is so a leveled up ganger and an identically statted starting leader had the same cost, unlike current GW rules:

Spoiler: Cost calculation

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This is excellent. Something I wanted to do for myself!