N18 House rules for running our first campaign.

[Dkay1981]

Hey guys! Me and a few friends have been playing a few skirmish games here and there in necromunda and want to start our first campaign.

We want everyone to enjoy the game and wanted to put in place a few house rules to help with that and make sure we are playing with the rule of cool more then facebeater lists.
The gangs likely to be in the campaign are Goliath, esher, vansaar and Cawdor with maybe showings from the enforcers, corpsegrinders and slave ogryn.

So some of the rules I’m thinking are:

1: you can only take 1 of each type of genesmithing ( trying to avoid dermal hardening spam)

2: in your starting gang you can only have 1 of any special or heavy weapon and no more then 2 of a basic weapon. ( trying to reduce spam and encourage more fun weapon play.

3. 50% of games with be zone mortallis and 50% will be sector mechanicus. ( trying to give each ganger some missions they have ad advantage in)

4: Adjust the credit cost of some
Of the weapons that are just plane bad or unuseable. Ie make the riven gun and rad weapons a little cheaper and take the -1 to hit off the wild bow. ( these are cool weapons with cool models I want our players to not regret building models with them).


These are just a couple of ideas. These are really only for a few campaigns while we all get used to the game to make sure we are playing on an even playing field and having the most fun we can.

If there are any other kinds of house rules you guys can think off then I would love to hear them.

Thankyou.

 

[Kiro The Avenger]

Those all look like strong rules!

One major thing I will suggest is change stray shots so that cover helps against them. It's a fairly common occurrence and often grates against the sense of realism otherwise.

 

[Dkay1981]

Those all look like strong rules!

One major thing I will suggest is change stray shots so that cover helps against them. It's a fairly common occurrence and often grates against the sense of realism otherwise.

We are very much rules as intended type players so i doubt that rule will be an issue for us but it’s something I’ll bring up with the group

 

[The Forgemaster]

A few of my common house rules:

• The following Tactics Cards should not be used - they are OP.
  • Dangerous Footing
  • History of Violence
• Consider making a deck of up to 20 tactics cards per person for the campaign, then whenever you select cards you select from these, also an option with the small(er) deck is when it says pick X cards, randomly select X+3 from the deck and keep X.
• Skills that can be picked by the player are 0-1 at gang creation and 0-2 during the campaign (i.e. CGC initates can all still infiltrate, subject to below, but say a Van-Saar gang cannot take fast shot 3 times - or 2 times at creation)
• Infiltrate (Cunning) Skill - make 2x normal Move actions before the first round instead (it can break some of the scenarios if you can start much closer)
• Overseer (Leadership) - still costs a double activation, but only generates 1 action, and you cannot duplicate this action, i.e. you can’t move with overseer then move again normally (or shoot twice), but you can move with overseer, then with the normal activations, Take Aim, and Shoot.
• Starting gangs (i.e. before the 1st game), can also be equipped with any wargear from the trading post with the "Common" type in addition to their house lists for the normal costs.
• "Lookin’ Good": In addition to regular XP rewards, each fully painted and based fighter gains +1 XP at the end of a battle in which they participate.
• If you challenge a gang with a gang rating of more than 500 credits more than yourself (or get challenged by one), each member of your gang that survives the battle, gains +1 additional XP.
• Pets & Familiars are limited to 0-1 per ganger
• Between various skills, equipment & tactics cards some models (e.g. CGC models) can move ridiculous distances in a single turn – as such no model may move more than a distance of equal to 3x their standard move in one turn for any reason.

I would also narrow down/disallow some of the scenarios - some of them are really slanted one way or the other in the favor of one gang.

I would also allow any number of basic weapons (from your house rules) but still keep the limited heavy/specials.

also I would give everyone access to TopsyKretts's fan-made compendium of rules - then you always work from the same book. consider having a spare set of dice/templates/cards available for people in the campaign to use?

 

[Dkay1981]

A few of my common house rules:

• The following Tactics Cards should not be used - they are OP.
  • Dangerous Footing
  • History of Violence
• Consider making a deck of up to 20 tactics cards per person for the campaign, then whenever you select cards you select from these, also an option with the small(er) deck is when it says pick X cards, randomly select X+3 from the deck and keep X.
• Skills that can be picked by the player are 0-1 at gang creation and 0-2 during the campaign (i.e. CGC initates can all still infiltrate, subject to below, but say a Van-Saar gang cannot take fast shot 3 times - or 2 times at creation)
• Infiltrate (Cunning) Skill - make 2x normal Move actions before the first round instead (it can break some of the scenarios if you can start much closer)
• Overseer (Leadership) - still costs a double activation, but only generates 1 action, and you cannot duplicate this action, i.e. you can’t move with overseer then move again normally (or shoot twice), but you can move with overseer, then with the normal activations, Take Aim, and Shoot.
• Starting gangs (i.e. before the 1st game), can also be equipped with any wargear from the trading post with the "Common" type in addition to their house lists for the normal costs.
• "Lookin’ Good": In addition to regular XP rewards, each fully painted and based fighter gains +1 XP at the end of a battle in which they participate.
• If you challenge a gang with a gang rating of more than 500 credits more than yourself (or get challenged by one), each member of your gang that survives the battle, gains +1 additional XP.
• Pets & Familiars are limited to 0-1 per ganger
• Between various skills, equipment & tactics cards some models (e.g. CGC models) can move ridiculous distances in a single turn – as such no model may move more than a distance of equal to 3x their standard move in one turn for any reason.

I would also narrow down/disallow some of the scenarios - some of them are really slanted one way or the other in the favor of one gang.

I would also allow any number of basic weapons (from your house rules) but still keep the limited heavy/specials.

also I would give everyone access to TopsyKretts's fan-made compendium of rules - then you always work from the same book. consider having a spare set of dice/templates/cards available for people in the campaign to use?

Oooo I like some
Of these.

I could Deffinetly do the card decks and the banned list as I can see that getting out of control.

Limiting movement is not bad

We are looking at banning overseer in general for this campaign.

We are all only using the regular gang boxes and some upgrade sprus so allot of the pets and brutes and so on won’t show up much yet.

Only reason I was limiting on basic weapons is to mitigate some of the Bolter spam. I know Goliath don’t have the best be but lots of bolters can be annoying.

We are really just learning atm so I wanna keep it fairly simple. Nobody has a great grasp on the rules so there won’t be much cheese going on.

Tho I really like your list.

 

[The Forgemaster]

thing is there are so many basic weapons that don't break the game - autoguns, lasguns, shotguns etc. bigger gangs like Escher & Cawdor might struggle if you limit them like this.

you mentioned changing some costs as house rules - consider increasing the cost of bolters instead if you are worried about them?

 

[Dkay1981]

thing is there are so many basic weapons that don't break the game - autoguns, lasguns, shotguns etc. bigger gangs like Escher & Cawdor might struggle if you limit them like this.

you mentioned changing some costs as house rules - consider increasing the cost of bolters instead if you are worried about them?

That sounds fair I might just put the limit of bolters instead of all basic weapons

 

[Kiro The Avenger]

You could increase the cost of a bolter and/or change it's type to a special weapon, both are good options.

 

[JawRippa]

Grenade launcher is another problematic weapon when spammed en-masse.

A few more that haven't been listed:

1. Fighters count as having 360 degrees LOS, which means that infiltration outside someone's vision arc does not work. This helps cutting down on deployment time and gotcha moments.
2. Recovering fighters may pass a Willpower check not to miss next battle
3. Fighters cannot shoot from pinned state. It causes way too many arguments over LOS from my experience.

Lastly, if you are feeling extra spicy, make blasts target only fighters instead of ground like conventional weapons - there are a lot of ways to abuse current wording of blasts. Do note however that Corpse Grinders would become a really tough match for everyone.

 

[Dkay1981]

Grenade launcher is another problematic weapon when spammed en-masse.

A few more that haven't been listed:

1. Fighters count as having 360 degrees LOS, which means that infiltration outside someone's vision arc does not work. This helps cutting down on deployment time and gotcha moments.
2. Recovering fighters may pass a Willpower check not to miss next battle
3. Fighters cannot shoot from pinned state. It causes way too many arguments over LOS from my experience.

Lastly, if you are feeling extra spicy, make blasts target only fighters instead of ground like conventional weapons - there are a lot of ways to abuse current wording of blasts. Do note however that Corpse Grinders would become a really tough match for everyone.

Some of these pretty easy to implement.
I like the willpower check for recovery. That should be a quality of life change for us newbies lol.

 

[Dkay1981]

So looking at balancing some of the weapons I could youse some feedback.

Vansaar have some amazing cool thematic weapons that really are just meh.
So what would you say a reasonable credit drop would be on them to make them playable? 25%?
Also I was either tho on g of dropping the cost of the laser weapon or make them upgradeable with hotshot?

The wild runner bow I was thinking of dropping the -1 at range or making it’s a 3” blast template ( which could be pretty thematic)

The rivet gun for Goliath I could remove the unwieldy trait or make it a little cheaper?

I’m not looking for break the game but I’d like to encourage taking these more thematic weapons.

Any more I should be looking at?

 

[JawRippa]

Also I was either tho on g of dropping the cost of the laser weapon or make them upgradeable with hotshot?

Whatever you do, do not buff lasguns, they are already crazy good. 18" short range is insane.
Also as for cool thematic weapons it is hard to make them better through price changes alone. Van Saars started picking radgun once we've buffed it's radphage to trigger on 2+ instead of 4+.

 

[Dkay1981]

Whatever you do, do not buff lasguns, they are already crazy good. 18" short range is insane.
Also as for cool thematic weapons it is hard to make them better through price changes alone. Van Saars started picking radgun once we've buffed it's radphage to trigger on 2+ instead of 4+.

Oh nonono i don’t wanna buff lasguns. I am looking at the other laser weapons like the lasrifle and suppression laser which are basically laser autoguns and shotguns but more expensive. I figured if you could upgrade them with hotshot they would have more use in a campaign.

I like the idea of making radphage better instead. Tho I’m thinking more a 3+ than a 2+ but that’s somthing I can discuss and play test with the group.

I like the idea of a 3” blast on the wild bows for esher as it’s thematic for a gas bomb on an arrow

The rivet gun is where I really struggle as it’s pretty meh most of the time but can shred when you get the right situation.

 

[JawRippa]

The rivet gun is where I really struggle as it’s pretty meh most of the time but can shred when you get the right situation.

12" instead of 9" and "Impale" on overheat mode. It already can move and shoot by GW.

 

[Dkay1981]

12" instead of 9" and "Impale" on overheat mode. It already can move and shoot by GW.

I like that change. Deffo makes it worth taking in a campaign.

Any other weapons I am not listing? I looked at the arc welder but it’s one of those swing weapons if it goes in your favour it could horrible to face so it’s not worth changing.
The Crawdor, orlock and delaque weapon choices all Seem pretty solid

 

[JMISBEST]

How about adding in The 2 house rules my group used that I like the most?. Here they are, with the 1st house rule I'm saying the reason that my group uses it and with the 2nd house rule I'm saying how my group justifies it

The 1st lets A Player buy XP for his models at a cost of 10 Credits for 1D6+1 XP, you can even do it to models you've had for several or even lots of games and the main reason we use it is to give Juves a chance of earning enough XP to become Specialists and to give Specialists and Prospects the chance to earn enough XP to become Champions

The 2nd is that even though only House Escher Gangs can actually buy Chems Escher Gangs can to sell the Chems they buy to any Gang that can afford to buy them that want to buy them that The Escher Gang is willing to sell them to and the main reason we use it is because Gang Queens are, supposed, to be very intelligent and assuming they are then they are smart enough to know the benefits of selling their Chems to any Gang that can afford to buy them that want to buy them that The Escher Gang is willing to sell them to