N18 half Baked no interest

[Beebopalulla]

Not really a question but more a rant. I tried very hard to get interested in the Ashe Wastes with very mixed results. I m Ok with fighting outside. I love the Squat but i have zero intereste in the nomads. they seems to borrow from too many things and lack an identity of their own.

As for Hive secundus i m a big fan of the setting and of the miniatures. but i found it very limited.

Here is the issue for me. It's already hard to focus on one gang and have a campaign so why pushing player to adopt a policy of on setting/ one gang. It seems that the lessons of Mordheim Have been completed forgotten or put aside. In Mordheim, each setting has it's own rules but nothing prevented you from playing the same band in differents environement. You could move your band from Mordheim to Lhemri for example and just add the rules about water.

The separation of the setting seems so artificial that even the justification in the lore seem not substancial enought to actually justify it.

I want to play my squat gang anywhere and not having a squat gang per setting.

 

[Hobo86]

Mordheim was more melee based (and as such, somewhat less affected by different terrain)

I agree it's a way to try to sell more models.

I suppose a way around this would be to create/rebalance a system to streamlining / simplifying terrain / environmental hazards.
So instead of wildly varying zone mortalis, mechanicus 3D terrain or ash waste boards, a terrain that would work for all 3 these 'situations'
Perhaps to create a more claustrophobic system based on a limited vision range and rebalance some weapons/skills based on that?

 

[Beebopalulla]

I don't say it's a way to sell more models but i think it's really artificial to tell gangs " oh please don't go there".... I just wish each gang has either no limitations on where to go or two profiles one for their favorites environement and one for the other. I m lucky squat don't depend that much on wastelands with only one skill related to the ashes. The nomads are too munch liknked to the ashes games wises (lorewise it makes sens) to have a chance elsewhere.

 

[Hobo86]

I do think it's a way for people to buy more models; a lascannon will work worser on ZM tables, shotgun may not get used on ash waste boards.
it nudges people to create different gangs or gangers for mixed settings*. Even the nomads could work in a ZM zone by using melee, web, pets and venomcasters. I haven't read their desert spirit rules in detail yet.

*in mordheim a sword was equally usefull in all settings...

 

[HugeSamples]

I share your sediment, but as @Hobo86 it's to sell more stuff. These games--Ash Wastes and Secondus--are different games that happen to have the Necromunda Brand on them. I understand why they want to brand things as Necromunda, but I really wish they didn't.

 

[Xisor_of_Karak_Izor]

I'm in broad agreement. I think having vehicles in ZM should be obviously "hard" and fraught with difficulty, but stuff like "No mounts" (or conversely: "Born in the Saddle" as a rule) are just Negative Play Experience rules.

As you say: they're artificial.

I'm not sure they embiggen the game either. In fact, I'm quite sure they diminish it.

It's exhausting. Coming up with the ideas to maybe try to fix or realign things is fine enough or many folk, but the hassle of having to explain it to each arbitor, to petition and plead and negotiate each and every time, it's a bloody nuisance. It's not impossible, but I'd love for the rules to have been a little bit otherwise. Not even *balanced*, but farther away from the feels-bad bits. (I'm looking at you, Power Pack weapons, your so expensive it's a bleeding nightmare trying to contemplate the expense, when another ganger and an IH autogunner is *right there*.)

It's led me to come up with a few suggested House Rules:
- Don't differentiate the settings by rules. But stuff like 'Rolling Roads' could be more like 'Chase X" ', and Visibility X" could be generalised to have a default setting of, I dunno, Visibility 48"? That way you avoid a lot of the weirdness. (Haha, non-Rolling Roads being Chase 0" makes some sense, from a config sort of perspective.)

- Rules like "in an Ash Wastes scenario" should be redone to plainly be more beneficial in Ash Wastes. Like the Squats' air-drop clan specialty: have it be so you can't deploy within 6" of terrain or obstacles - you'll find options very limited on ZM tiles (except for wider open ones) - but it's not a totally verbotten rule.

- "Born in the Sadlle", maybe change to allow then to Fighter Card without their mount, but apply something like a -1 penalty to their Cool & Initiative stats whilst unmounted.

- flatten the Custom Vehicle rules to pretty much let you add anything onto anything. Keep the "slot" limitations, but make explicit mention that some of the options "4 wheel drive" are generalisable non-wheeeled types. (Someone suggested 'articulated ankles', for walkers, which I thought was a geniusly simple way of, hah, articulating it.)

- overly restricted equipment: Halls of the Ancestors and Tribes of the Wastleands really bug me with this. The Exo Kyn weapons being only available to the EK&M just makes me sad where Kitbashing's involved. Similarly, the Shad'ar Hunters' weapons being limited to those Specialists? It's depressing. What I'd rework, given space from 4y/o yammering in my lug, would be to make the equipment available more widely, but to bake something in to those fighter profiles that adds a little pizazz or rasmataz that lets them obviously use it, but doesn't lock the other fighters out of the picture entirely. Shamans and Chieftain and Watchers wouldn't ever pick up the insect bits in the same way? It's very much putting the bug in "HUMBUG!".

- Loads of Specialists: again, give them an oddly unique skill or capacity to use a thing at a discount price or whatnot, but don't just lock it all down to them. (I'm looking at the Van Saar specialists arms' & equipment. Boo!)

- Unusably expensive unwieldy stuff (coughHeavy Flamercough). Maybe a sort of generic rule for 200cr+ ridiculous equipment, or one that is recommended as a common thing at gang creation: buy and use the first one for your gang at 50% value? (Full price and value thereafter.) Used with some vim and vigour, it would encourage the "use lots of different things" rather than "only use the most efficient item(s) on repeat".

I dunno, but some and any would be welcome - to my mind - in trying to make it all fit together in a more satisfying manner. Not even "neat and tidy", but shaving off the irritatingly rough edges.

 

[Beebopalulla]

Quite a good list. For vehicle if flying skate board are ok I don't see why other vehicle of similar size couldn't be use.

On the never use it because there's cheaper and better option, I name the heavy stubber. I have said it many times any iteration of a stubborn should not cost as much or close to other weapons for far less efficiency.

 

[HugeSamples]

I might be in the minority, but I feel that the mounts and vehicles don't belong in Necromunda. I think the introduction of the Van Saar hover boards was where they began to jump the shark.

I'm fine with "fighting outside", but in my opinion the mechanics for mounts and vehicles are different enough that they are their own game (like gorka morka). I suppose this separate game taking place with the Necromunda theme isn't inherently bad, but trying to marry the two incompatible games was a bad play IMO.

I'm not sure where Secondus falls on this spectrum, but I don't see it getting a lot of support. i.e. making tech hunter equivalents for the other house gangs. The Malstrain Genestealers also don't function outside the campaign they were designed for. I saw the writing on the wall for Secundus and decided to save my money .

I understand they need to keep churning out new products to keep people engaged and interested, but I feel like there is still a lot to do in the core game, such a releasing models in plastic that have been restricted to forge world, reducing the book bloat, releasing "house of" books for the other factions (to their credit, they've been doing this), etc.

Most of the exotic pets, hanger-ons (these are less important), and brutes for the house gangs are limited to forgeworld/3d printing proxies. That said that's stuff you buy once, so I guess from a business standpoint they are doing what then need to be doing .

 

[MusingWarboss]

I said when the Ash Wastes was released that I thought it should be a separate game set on Necromunda. Adding vehicles is such a fundamentally different mechanic from usual you may as well be playing a different game for those missions.

A lot of the vehicle rules seem overly complicated for what’s necessary and not as much fun as the Gorkamorka ones which were apparently bashed out in two weeks back in the late 90s.

Perhaps that time limit made for a simpler but more fun system?

I also don’t like that we need another batch of specialty dice for Ash Wastes either. They’re pretty hard to get hold of now too.
My enthusiasm for it has been pretty low to the point that I’ve not really bothered with any vehicles. I’ve got two Orlock Quads which I got from a split of an AW box (along with all the Orlock stuff). Still unassembled, I’ll probably do them eventually.

The irony here is that I’m more than happy to make and take vehicles to TribeMeet events as the rules have been much simpler and unobtrusive to playing that game! Even with ships!!

Conversely GWs Sump Sea PDF was lacklustre. There’s several fan made versions out there now (including our own Yak ones) which better represent naval battles in the Sump. If you care.

With Secondus… is another in the line of “it should be a campaign setting expansion” but they’ve decided to make it the focus of a whole boxed release.

I’ll tell you all for why… IMO.

It’s to get the plastic kits into production.

Vehicles would be so far on the back burner for Necromunda production that unless the team made a starter box, we’d be getting them by 2040. Delaque still might.
You can see by the fall off of vehicle releases that they lost interest in it.

Same goes for Ash Waste nomads, Squats, Genestealer Mutants, random Van Saar upgrade teams etc.
I think Spyrers would’ve had legacy pull to do it on its own, but they’ve taken to opportunity to use them as a springboard to get other stuff done too.

I very much doubt these would have much pull as a single release without the weight and hype of a box set behind them. Was anyone really calling out for more random Van Saar?

FWIW people online have been going on about Ash Wastes since the revival of Necromunda. Which is odd as it was never in the original game and only appeared in a GW published semi-fan made supplement in the early 2000s.

Now you’ve got an official one and it’s kinda cack.

Unfortunately that has been the overall impression modern Necromunda has given since release - it’s what you asked for… but not how you wanted it.

 

[Beebopalulla]

"FWIW people" ??? What is that?

 

[ClockworkOrange]

For what it’s worth?

 

[Scabs]

You kids! Why, when I was your age, Necromunda was brand spank'n new on the FLGS's shelf. Bought it the day it came out. Played the heck out of it for years. Even playtested and co-wrote vehicle rules that improved on those fan-written rules in Fanatic magazine.

Then...17 years of desolation. Nothing new until N/17. Now, 5 box sets (?) and 30 rulebooks later (I have them all!), y'all say maybe GW makes stuff just to sell more? Well...uh...perhaps.

Ash Wastes is a little fussy for what it does, or tries to do. With tasteful limits, it can almost play like Mad Max. But, it's pretty easy for it to burgeon into Max Madness. Less can be more.