Necromunda N20 Ruleset separation

[Thorgor]

The biggest change as far as the tools are concerned is probably that each fighter type now has its own Equipment list (as opposed to a single House Equipment List for the whole gang). Btw, I wonder how it affects Venators and their house legacy.

Other changes include the new fighter promotion paths and the new gang composition rules, but I don't think those are currently handled by the tools.
The rest is mostly new stuff (new Muscle skillset, house-specific terrain, new weapons, etc.) that shouldn't be an issue.

I think we definitely need a new N20 (or N21) forum tag though. I'll be quite surprised if we don't get a new rulebook/compendium in 2021 (either Q3 or Q4).

 

[Ben_S]

I'll be quite surprised if we don't get a new rulebook/compendium in 2021 (either Q3 or Q4).

If we get a new rulebook in late 2021, then we can introduce a new forum tag then. To do it now would be pre-emptive though, since any discussions now are still based on the current (i.e. N18) rules, even if they're using Gang of Chains with them. That will only cause confusion if N21 changes things.

 

[Thorgor]

If we get a new rulebook in late 2021, then we can introduce a new forum tag then. To do it now would be pre-emptive though, since any discussions now are still based on the current (i.e. N18) rules, even if they're using Gang of Chains with them. That will only cause confusion if N21 changes things.

From what I read, House of Chains already supersedes parts of the N18 rulebook (and definitely some from Gangs of the Underhive), which is why I'm pretty sure a new rulebook will eventually be required.
N20 Goliath are very different from N18 Goliath at the very least, and we need a quick way to differentiate the two in the Gangs & Loadouts sub-forum.

 

[Malo]

The biggest change as far as the tools are concerned is probably that each fighter type now has its own Equipment list (as opposed to a single House Equipment List for the whole gang).

Yep, this is the biggest change to the db structure by far. In fact it's finally going to force me to create an admin interface for assigning equipment to ganger types as there's no way I'm going to be doing it by hand.

 

[cardyfreak]

I don't think we really have a new 'N20'. While we may have a new 'Codex' and hence new toys for each house (in time), the core game rules don't seem to be changing.

I appreciate that there may need to be some fiddling with the tools to accommodate the new stuff, but I don't (as yet) see any need for a new prefix to separate N20 discussion from N18 discussion, if anyone's actually advocating that.

It's mainly about the tools support for now and how we're going to implement the house books, but there is mention of a new prefix.

The problem is going to arise more and more as house books are released and players are discussing their gangs. Is the question going to arise everyone someone posts a gang for review "original or house books"?

I can also see a condensed book coming in the future, something like GotU that has house weapons lists for the gangs and their genesmithing and other equivalents included, but much of the fluff reduced and probably excluding things like alliances etc. This would give the core of the new gang rules and keep the extra flavour in the codex. When that happens all of the gangs will behave very differently to the current setup, despite the core rules being the same. Having a way to differentiate this would be handy.
Personally I like HoS for ‘House of... Series’, but I don’t know if the acronym would be too abstract. N20 is probably the easiest for us who have been following the new game ‘edition’ releases to understand, but I wonder would someone understand it who starts playing in two years time? Would Book of Houses (BoH) work?

Edit- neither of my suggestions feel as clean as N20. I think I’d give that my vote.

 

[Jacob Dryearth]

I can also see a condensed book coming in the future, something like GotU that has house weapons lists for the gangs and their genesmithing and other equivalents included, but much of the fluff reduced and probably excluding things like alliances etc. This would give the core of the new gang rules and keep the extra flavour in the codex. When that happens all of the gangs will behave very differently to the current setup, despite the core rules being the same. Having a way to differentiate this would be handy.
Personally I like HoS for ‘House of... Series’, but I don’t know if the acronym would be too abstract. N20 is probably the easiest for us who have been following the new game ‘edition’ releases to understand, but I wonder would someone understand it who starts playing in two years time? Would Book of Houses (BoH) work?

Edit- neither of my suggestions feel as clean as N20. I think I’d give that my vote.

For differentiation in the tools, I too like naming the new gang "House of..." while also renaming the current versions "Underhive Goliath" for example. That way they sort properly and people can assume Underhive gangs are less strongly linked to their House and so do not get all the new rules.

As far as a compilation book, I just don't see it happening with the House of series. They don't release Codex compilations of all the Space Marine chapters unless it is a watered down generic book at the start of a new edition of 40k (unless they do, in which case I'm wrong).

What I can absolutely predict happening is for Gangs of the Underhive to go away once everything except the trading post is obsolete, and a new Rulebook that includes the trading post to be released, hopefully with better cover art.

 

[cardyfreak]

Yeah I raised the possibility of a future compilation as it may inform a future tag for the current ruleset. But fwiw I think you’re right about the rulebook.

 

[Galtarr]

Even if they release a new rulebook, It wouldn't require any change to Ruleset for Malo in terms of the Gang creation tool. So splitting the ruleset for the gang creation tool still seems best choice now.

I think a separate tag N20/N21 may be called for in terms of people posting forum threads asking questions about equipping hive scum? or Juve Advancement... Hopefully any future rulebook would consolidate these rules that are being tweaked in the house of books, and therefore remain in that tag (N20).

We already have both N17 & N18 tags in use..
Waiting till House of Blades may help inform this choice. Ultimately its too early to tell if N18 (GotU) will still be played by many beyond Mid-2021.
N18 or even N17 could be phased out though guess its tricky once tags are already in a Dataset.

 

[Zadgrub]

I think you're seriously over-blowing things a bit by calling it "N20," it's only the gang lists that are changing (getting more options, really) the actual core game rules are not changing at all.

But as far as that goes (sorry if I'm repeating anything, I didn't have time to thoroughly read the entire comment thread), I think that for now you'll want to keep the current lists as they are, maybe change the names to (for example) "Goliath - GotU" or something like that, and create new lists from scratch for the gang lists from the "House of..." books so that both options will be available. Maybe actually name the new list tools after the books directly, "House of Chains" for the new Goliath list, "House of Blades" for the new Escher list, etc. (Slave Ogryn gang list can just be that, as it's completely new). That should solidly differentiate which list tool is for which type of gang. Some people are still going to want to use the "old" GotU gang lists until all of the House books are out, and some people might even want to just keep using the GotU and not "upgrade" to the House books at all. But in any case, doing it like this, so the new lists are just completely different gangs, should allow mixing & matching any of the "new" and "old" gangs together in a campaign.

On the plus side, once you're figured out how you want to set-up/lay-out the new House of Chains list, you should be able to use that as a template for the rest of them, yeah? So it should get easier. The wild card will be what each House's "special rule" equivalents to Goliath Gene-smithing will be. I anticipate that it will be something completely unique and characteristic for each House...

 

[Punktaku]

What if... GW is doing their releases this way just to mess with YakTribe and Malo?!?

 

[MusingWarboss]

I think more likely we’re out of Beta testing phase now and the “House of...” books will represent how they game progresses from now on.

N17 - Alpha test
N18 - Beta test
N20 - Codex time.

 

[Zadgrub]

I think more likely we’re out of Beta testing phase now and the “House of...” books will represent how they game progresses from now on.

N17 - Alpha test
N18 - Beta test
N20 - Codex time.

In the Twitch Feed last week, Andy literally compared the Gangs of the Underhive to the 40k Indexes that came out at the launch of 8th edition, and the House books to Codexes, so it wasn't so much "beta testing" as it was getting the complete basic game rules out for everyone to play a complete game with before expanding it the the level they wanted. Even the Gang War releases weren't so much Alpha or Beta testing as they were assessing the long-term financial viability of maintaining the game over the long term. The steady increase of interest and sales of Necromunda have proven that it has long-term marketability akin to 40k and AoS, if not as broad a customer base as the other two (yet).

 

[TopsyKretts]

I see comments saying the core rules doesn't change. That's not true, many universal rules have changed. Not core rules like move, actions, attack etc. But there are many clarifications and updates that will put an end to uncertainties and speculations. Stuff like how alliances and hired guns are included in crew and when to roll for fleeing the battlefield.

 

[Zadgrub]

I see comments saying the core rules doesn't change. That's not true, many universal rules have changed. Not core rules like move, actions, attack etc. But there are many clarifications and updates that will put an end to uncertainties and speculations. Stuff like how alliances and hired guns are included in crew and when to roll for fleeing the battlefield.

Those are not "Core Rules," those are gang-building specifications and campaign rules, which can vary from gang to gang and from campaign to campaign. When we talk about "Core Rules,' that means game-play rules, i.e., turn sequence, movement, combat, injuries, etc., everything in the hardcover Rulebook from pages 40-73. None of those have changed. The Dark Uprising book contained all the same "Core Rules" as the hardcover Rulebook. "Clarifications" are not "changes," those things you mentioned were always intended to work that way (we know that because of some of the battle reports and interviews with the writers on Twitch feeds), they just weren't overtly clear to everyone. Just because some players were playing something a certain way based on their understanding of the rules in question, and then a clarification changes the way they were playing, that's not a "change to the rules," that's just the writers clarifying what they intended all along. And even if there were some major-ish changes, as sometimes happens in FAQs, those changes don't constitute a new "set of Core Rules," they just change certain individual rules that may have been either Over-powered, or may have contained typos.

When we went from the Gang War books to the Hardcover books, that constitutes a new Core Ruleset, because there were numerous changes to the way some of the core mechanics worked (and even that was just barely a "New Core Ruleset," because most of the mechanics stayed the same). But The "House of..." books aren't changing any of the Core game play rules. They're just expanding on and clarifying some of the gang building and campaign elements.

 

[Thorgor]

Changes to how fighters are promoted in all campaigns, to how hired guns behave, and the addition of a brand new fighter category are arguably changes to the core rules.

N20 is also its own version of the game and not merely an extension of N18 because:

• Nobody is ever gonna run a campaign with one Goliath gang built from HoC and another Goliath gang built from GotU
• some parts of N18 are not compatible with some part of N20 (how does a Slave Ogryn gang behave in an Uprising campaign? can a Venator hunt champion with Goliath legacy purchase Paired Spud-jackers?)
• When they are done with the 6 House of ____ books, at least half the N18 base rules (Gangs of the Underhive) will be completely obsoleted

And yeah, of course Andy Hoare is gonna sugar-coat things... but what he described is basically people being made to pay for an early access game (twice), and then again for the final (?) version.

 

[Aulenback]

differentiating the 2 version as Goliath N18 and Goliath N20 (or as MI2sjw suggested Goliath Underhive and Goliath House)

As a librarian, I would not recommend the "Goliath Underhive" and "Goliath House" for two reasons, one minor, one major.

Minor: Labeling the new set of rules the "House" rule set is not really intuitive. It implies that they are, well, house rules, rather than an official edition.

Major: "Underhive" is actually the official edition name for N03. And for N17. And for N18. And for N20. As a librarian, I will say that doing that was madness on the part of the publisher. Doing that would prove madness on your part as well.

I would actually recommend instead changing the tag [if that can be done] for ORB to "N95" and the tag for the 2003 edition to "N03." Since the "community edition" is a step beyond that one but not an official SG edition, if I understand correctly, THAT one could still be "NCE," to distinguish it from the GW-published editions.

N17, N18, and the N20 to follow. That keeps the editions clear, DESPITE the company having maned them all identically, and not numbered them. N20,because N18 is what was published in 2018 and 2019, so N20 should be what is published in 2020 and 2021 [and 2022?]. That edition launches with House of Chains.

The campaign structure doesn't care about rulesets, all it knows are the gangs attached to it and the territories etc. So mixing gangs from different rulesets is not an issue.

Phew!

I think we definitely need a new N20 (or N21) forum tag though.

For differentiation in the tools, I too like naming the new gang "House of..." while also renaming the current versions "Underhive Goliath" for example. That way they sort properly and people can assume Underhive gangs are less strongly linked to their House and so do not get all the new rules.

Yes, the tag will help. It won't help the old hands as much as it will help newcomers, sure, but using non-intuitive terms works as a gatekeeping method to prevent new folks from understanding enough to ask good questions and get good answers. Keeping things as simple as possible is good. GW didn't number their editions, and they named four editions the exact same thing. That was their bad choice. We don't need to go that route. Again, I don't know whether or how the tags already in use can be universally changed, or if that would require editing each thread and vault submission by hand. If possible, I would recommend changing [ORB] to [N95], and the Specialist Games "Underhive" edition to [N03], leaving the community edition as [NCE] to distinguish it, and then continuing with [N17], [N18], and [N20]. And hopefully not [N22]. No promises.

 

[Devilmixer]

Changes to how fighters are promoted in all campaigns, to how hired guns behave, and the addition of a brand new fighter category are arguably changes to the core rules.

N20 is also its own version of the game and not merely an extension of N18 because:

• Nobody is ever gonna run a campaign with one Goliath gang built from HoC and another Goliath gang built from GotU
• some parts of N18 are not compatible with some part of N20 (how does a Slave Ogryn gang behave in an Uprising campaign? can a Venator hunt champion with Goliath legacy purchase Paired Spud-jackers?)
• When they are done with the 6 House of ____ books, at least half the N18 base rules (Gangs of the Underhive) will be completely obsoleted

And yeah, of course Andy Hoare is gonna sugar-coat things... but what he described is basically people being made to pay for an early access game (twice), and then again for the final (?) version.

what would be the problem with ogryns in uprising?, wound they act like any other gang?
I do see a bit of a problem with the venators, but I would say he can.
GoU still has the trading post and some dramastic personale, so not completely obsolte, but close, espessialy if they do the TP as a pdf

 

[Gi11gamesh]

As a (newer) tool user I can simply say that already I am trying to add Goliaths to my existing gang and trying edit them to make their stats resemble the house of list so long.

 

[Petitioner's City]

• how does a Slave Ogryn gang behave in an Uprising campaign?

I don't get this; they seem to work well with being neutral, chaotic or order-aligned (just like venators), they have house list(s) to work with the re-equip rules, they can get festering injuries, they can scavange, etc. What's the issue?

On venators with legacies, too, I don't see the issue. If they are a hunt leader with Goliath legacy, they can purchase from the forge tyrant list; if they are a hunt champion with Goliath legacy, they can purchase from the forge boss list; if a hunter with Goliath legacy, them the bruiser list.... Seems quite an easy fix.

 

[Thorgor]

I don't get this; they seem to work well with being neutral, chaotic or order-aligned (just like venators), they have house list(s) to work with the re-equip rules, they can get festering injuries, they can scavange, etc. What's the issue?

My bad, I thought them having no set alignement for this campaign would be an issue, but it's really not.

On venators with legacies, too, I don't see the issue. If they are a hunt leader with Goliath legacy, they can purchase from the forge tyrant list; if they are a hunt champion with Goliath legacy, they can purchase from the forge boss list; if a hunter with Goliath legacy, them the bruiser list.... Seems quite an easy fix.

Why Forge Boss for Hunt Champion and not Stimmer?