Short version: The leader of my Goliath gang was killed in the very first activation of the campaign.
Long version: So a series of events lead to the death of my leader in the very first activation of the campaign, and I'd like to tell you about it.
My buddy and I are starting up a Dominion campaign. There's only two of us, and there's no Arbiter. I'm playing Goliaths and he's playing as Escher.
We roll on the alternative scenario selection table from Goonhammer, and we select Border Dispute. We've both heard good things about this scenario, and it seems balanced so we go for that.
We roll our starting crews (D3+3 each, randomly selected) and we both get 6. I have 7 people in my gang total, he has 11. We randomly select our crews. I select everyone but one of my champions. He gets both his champions and his leader, plus 3 gangers.
In Border Dispute, you randomly select one member from each gang to be setup 1" away from the centre of the battlefield. The idea being that the two gangs were having a meeting and it all kicks off.
I randomly select my leader (Grenade Launcher, Power Axe)
He randomly selects one of his champions (Las Pistol, Power Sword).
We set up those two, then set up the rest of our gangs as per the instructions.
We roll for priority. He wins.
His champion charges my leader. She hits him twice with her power sword, one of which is a 6 (meaning that attack does two damage). It's S4 vs my T4, so he needs 4+ to wound. He wounds me with both.
Because of the AP of the weapon, I get no save (and the 6 from the power weapon would have negated any save anyway).
He rolls for injury. Gets an out of action.
Rolls on the Lasting Injury chart, he rolls 64. Dead unless seen by a doc.
...my leader, who cost 245cr out of my 980cr list (25% of my total value) is dead before I've even activated a fighter.
(Also, because it's Border Dispute, you have no tactic cards in the first round, so I couldn't play Unstoppable Behemoth or something).
So from that moment on the remainder of my gang (6 guys) went up against 11 Escher, outnumbered almost 2-1.
I did everything that I could, but had awful rolls. My champion with a power axe (3 attacks on the charge, 3+ to hit, wounding on 2+) failed to kill a ganger. I shot the champion who killed my leader in the face with a Krak grenade and she took a flesh wound. There was a point where I had 4 of his gangers seriously injured (including his leader and both champions) but they all recovered to flesh wounds, and I was never in a position to Coup de Grace because I was being pinned by las gun fire (good play on his part).
Unsurprisingly, I lost and ended up voluntarily bottling out.
When we rolled for income, he rolled 40 credits, I got 10. I killed one of his fighters (the only one I managed to take out of action), but he then got a replacement juve from his settlement (unsurprisingly, I didn't).
So, going in to the next game I have 3 fighters not in recovery against his 11.
I know this'll mean I'll get the extra tactic cards from being the underdog next time. (If I'm lucky I might get that one that lets me place a duct, woohoo!)
Right now, I genuinely can't see any way back / any point carrying on. I'll never be able to get to full strength again, and even if I do, he'll be way out ahead by that point.
I don't mind losing, of course. When I've made some tactical error, or moved a guy to an exposed position when I shouldn't have. Fine. But to have my leader randomly selected to go in the middle, and then to die before I've even got chance to use him? Nah. That's not fun, and it's soured the entire campaign going forward.
I'm not asking for a solution. I know there isn't one. This is just me shouting in to the void about how a few moments of fate can disrupt the campaign from the get go. Which is a shame, as I was really enjoying Necromunda in the 6 pre-campaign skirmish games we played.
Ahh well.
Long version: So a series of events lead to the death of my leader in the very first activation of the campaign, and I'd like to tell you about it.
My buddy and I are starting up a Dominion campaign. There's only two of us, and there's no Arbiter. I'm playing Goliaths and he's playing as Escher.
We roll on the alternative scenario selection table from Goonhammer, and we select Border Dispute. We've both heard good things about this scenario, and it seems balanced so we go for that.
We roll our starting crews (D3+3 each, randomly selected) and we both get 6. I have 7 people in my gang total, he has 11. We randomly select our crews. I select everyone but one of my champions. He gets both his champions and his leader, plus 3 gangers.
In Border Dispute, you randomly select one member from each gang to be setup 1" away from the centre of the battlefield. The idea being that the two gangs were having a meeting and it all kicks off.
I randomly select my leader (Grenade Launcher, Power Axe)
He randomly selects one of his champions (Las Pistol, Power Sword).
We set up those two, then set up the rest of our gangs as per the instructions.
We roll for priority. He wins.
His champion charges my leader. She hits him twice with her power sword, one of which is a 6 (meaning that attack does two damage). It's S4 vs my T4, so he needs 4+ to wound. He wounds me with both.
Because of the AP of the weapon, I get no save (and the 6 from the power weapon would have negated any save anyway).
He rolls for injury. Gets an out of action.
Rolls on the Lasting Injury chart, he rolls 64. Dead unless seen by a doc.
...my leader, who cost 245cr out of my 980cr list (25% of my total value) is dead before I've even activated a fighter.
(Also, because it's Border Dispute, you have no tactic cards in the first round, so I couldn't play Unstoppable Behemoth or something).
So from that moment on the remainder of my gang (6 guys) went up against 11 Escher, outnumbered almost 2-1.
I did everything that I could, but had awful rolls. My champion with a power axe (3 attacks on the charge, 3+ to hit, wounding on 2+) failed to kill a ganger. I shot the champion who killed my leader in the face with a Krak grenade and she took a flesh wound. There was a point where I had 4 of his gangers seriously injured (including his leader and both champions) but they all recovered to flesh wounds, and I was never in a position to Coup de Grace because I was being pinned by las gun fire (good play on his part).
Unsurprisingly, I lost and ended up voluntarily bottling out.
When we rolled for income, he rolled 40 credits, I got 10. I killed one of his fighters (the only one I managed to take out of action), but he then got a replacement juve from his settlement (unsurprisingly, I didn't).
So, going in to the next game I have 3 fighters not in recovery against his 11.
I know this'll mean I'll get the extra tactic cards from being the underdog next time. (If I'm lucky I might get that one that lets me place a duct, woohoo!)
Right now, I genuinely can't see any way back / any point carrying on. I'll never be able to get to full strength again, and even if I do, he'll be way out ahead by that point.
I don't mind losing, of course. When I've made some tactical error, or moved a guy to an exposed position when I shouldn't have. Fine. But to have my leader randomly selected to go in the middle, and then to die before I've even got chance to use him? Nah. That's not fun, and it's soured the entire campaign going forward.
I'm not asking for a solution. I know there isn't one. This is just me shouting in to the void about how a few moments of fate can disrupt the campaign from the get go. Which is a shame, as I was really enjoying Necromunda in the 6 pre-campaign skirmish games we played.
Ahh well.
