Necromunda Necromunda Toolset Comparisons & Updates

[LeperColony]

Longtime users of this site know that the active development phase of Yaktribe is currently on hold. But Yaktribe is still very prominent in Necromunda spaces, and so new users routinely sign up without understanding the situation.

This post is my personal perspective on the existing Necromunda tools, of which I am familiar. I make no claim to universal knowledge. There are almost certainly other tools out there with which I may not be familiar. Additionally, some aspects are going to be a matter of preference, so your individual experience may vary.

I know there are some Excel Spreadsheets out there that have been formatted for gang creation and campaign administration, but my post is focused on gang creation tools because I prefer them to Excel/Google Doc.

If you know of another set of tools, please pass them on to me. I'd be happy to give them a look.

YAKTRIBE

Summary: N17 tools are essentially frozen around the time of Ash Wastes (though still missing stuff even from the Clan Houses). If you want to try the original Necromunda ruleset from the 90’s or the Necromunda Community Edition or NCE (a fan updated version of the original rules) it’s the only one of the 3 tools discussed here to support it.

Pros:

• Large and active community that participates on the forums.
• Support for the previous editions of Necromunda before the 2017 rerelease.
• Discussions of varying activity levels for GW's entire Specialist Games range (along with some titles from other companies).
• Social support in the form of Guilds, Rosters, etc.
• As far as N17 tools go:
  • Good custom creation support
  • The best execution on Alliance Delegation models adding to gangs (though sadly not all the alliances were programmed in)
  • Excellent gang search features
  • GotU support. I question how useful that is, but there must be some people out there who prefer to play under those rules.

Cons:

• Tools are no longer supported, and the date at which development stopped means that a large amount of N17 isn't available on YT.
• Initial decisions like not supporting named characters built in inherent limitations (though custom tools allow for users to mitigate them)
• Not open sourced

MUNDA MANAGER

Full disclosure, I assist in MM's development, but I don't own it and I attempted to do the same for Yaktribe as well.

Summary: Flexible and actively supported, MM has very nearly full RAW Necromunda functionality. The development team generally acts quickly to address reported bugs. An excellent toolset for N17.

Pros:

• Nearly comprehensive N17 support. And almost everything that isn't supported is planned and actively progressing.
• Open sourced
• Development team is available publicly, generally responds quickly to bug fixes and data errors
• Publicly available Trello site tracks fixes and features

Cons:

• Still a few areas where RAW features are not properly supported (like Venator legacies)
• Campaign support is somewhat inconsistent. For some campaigns, it's great. For others, it can be lacking.
• No custom creation tools. They are planned, but don't exist yet.
• Minimal or even no ability to browse other gangs, search campaigns, etc.

GYRINX

Summary: Also actively supported, Gyrinx has an underlying foundation that promises a lot of potential individual user-level customization. Its features are currently somewhat behind MM in most areas, though it is more effective in others (like Venator legacies).

Pros:

• Dark mode toggle!!! To be honest, I don't understand why the whole internet isn't dark mode by default.
• Clean layout. Some people may find it a bit sparse, but others will appreciate it. Includes mouse over page citations for many (but not all) rules.
• Open sourced and one of the developers is a Goonhammer contributor, so they may be able to leverage that community to build the userbase.
• Considerable, but still incomplete, N17 RAW support.
• Some very clever features like the way Weapon Accessories can be applied to specific weapons.
• Better custom support than MM, and philosophically they intend much more comprehensive customization than MM (or at least than MM's devs have publicly committed to).

Cons:

• The basic organization can be confusing or unhelpful. For instance, the Add Fighter menu is awkward to navigate and shoehorns all the options into one really long dropdown. Some of the labels are unclear to me (like what exactly "non-gang" means as a category).
• Still missing a significant portion of N17 content.
• Campaign support is still somewhat rudimentary.
• Although expansive customization is the goal, they're not there yet.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

Thanks @LeperColony for starting this thread, as discussed feel free to direct people here so they can see the alternatives.

Just a general note to future readers, please don’t criticise any of the options discussed above, they are all fan made projects free to the end user so keep it positive, constructive comments or highlighting differences is fine.

I guarantee each option is developed by people who love rolling dice and collecting models. They might even paint their grey piles of shame the mad bar stools!

 

[ClockworkOrange]

@MusingWarboss @Hobo86 I’d appreciate it if you could add your observations here, observing the rules above.

Carry on Yakkers.

 

[Ben_S]

GYRINX

Pros:

• Dark mode toggle!!! To be honest, I don't understand why the whole internet isn't dark mode by default.

I'm not a tool-user, but I use dark mode on the forum here. Doesn't this also apply to the Yaktribe tools?

EDIT: Perhaps not. There's a dark background to the screen, but the text all seems to be on white boxes.

 

[Hobo86]

@MusingWarboss @Hobo86 I’d appreciate it if you could add your observations here, observing the rules above.

Carry on Yakkers.

Joesoes from mundamanager sendt you a pm on mundamanager, apparently he tried to contact Malo but he didn't receive a reply earlier

(reserved for feedback)

edit: I agree with everything written about Munda Manager
(my experience with the other platforms is insufficient)

perhaps relevant:
-mundamanagers team is global / multinational so the support is close to 24/7 (European, US, Australian, ...)
-they base themselves on necroraw and are being mentioned on necroraw
-It may be relevant to place an explicit disclaimer mundamanager & gyrinx are not fully finished yet
-compared to yaktribe they have options for the more niche gangs; genestealer infested, chaos corrupted, campaign variant gangs....
-copy gang & (optional) individual ganger portraits have since been updated on mundamanager

second edit:
i've tested gyrinx app in the meanwhile:
-the biggest difference is you're shown all your possible options in different submenus (equipment, weapons, ...) & weapon stats in the app
this helps newer players not aware of weaponstats, ranges, etc... but may make Gyrinx less intuitive for more experienced players
who might have ideas as how to create a gang.
-there is a clear communication about what functions are still being worked on and their site is well thought out / contains more context.
-The focus of gyrinx seems to be on readability and cross platform compatibility at the cost of (any) necromunda related artwork*
-There is an integrated dice rolling included in the campaigns (injury rolls, ...)
-weapon attachments & pets can be assigned to specific gangers & guns

*you can add individual ganger pictures, for both Mundamanager & Gyrinx

 

[ClockworkOrange]

See PM @Hobo86

 

[Punktaku]

I'm not a tool-user, but I use dark mode on the forum here. Doesn't this also apply to the Yaktribe tools?

EDIT: Perhaps not. There's a dark background to the screen, but the text all seems to be on white boxes.

No, it applies. I use Yaktribe Light. Because I am a good and holy alien human person.

 

[Hobo86]

I've updated my feedback above;
mundamanager would include 'copy gang' one of the coming days as well (I received a message about it)

 

[Beebopalulla]

I said it another post but i put it her too for coherence sake.

Some features i would love to see and are absent from all these:

- an option to select a minimum or maximum of body.
- an option to select one fighter from each type.
- an option that say that each fighter must have at least one weapon
_ an option to allow or exclude x in an campaign like no hangers on

For example i want at least one of each type of ogryn with a minimum of X body and each must have a weapon.

Like that it make it easier to select because the app has already excluded why you don't want.

 

[Hobo86]

both gyrinx & mundamanager have channels to propose that.
especially the last option looks interesting (and it would fit well in the apocrypha book's living settings)

edit: nudge @Tizdale

 

[Beebopalulla]

I will look at it later. Good idea .

 

[MusingWarboss]

YakTribe had the option to export as XML or JSON, can either of the others import that data?

I can understand why YT can’t import as when it was created there just wasn’t anywhere to import from.

It would make moving existing gangs between managers easier than reentering details and also give the opportunity for third party tools to access and process gang data themselves.

I can understand this isn’t a priority at all (at least not until they’ve got their systems stabilised) but it would be cool to do.

I’m also wondering if there may ever be a way of interoperability between managers? They’re both ostensively open source projects so an open standard would be useful.

That would allow individuals to use whatever Manager they prefer, which could then link to a central database, maybe hosted on an Arbitrator’s Dropbox or similar?

Just some thoughts.

 

[Hobo86]

I'm not 'in the know', but the underlaying design philosophies of both gang builders would make that difficult, they're both quite far in their design history.

I do think that if Malo had 'given away' coding acces to mundamanager or gyrinx this might have been possible, but as it stands both newer gang builders started from 0 and there are now 3 'diverging' gang builders, making these cross-compatible would likely be quite technically complicated for low/no budget apps based on volunteers.

 

[MusingWarboss]

That is most likely. But who knows what may happen in the future. The ability to drop data out in XML or JSON format from whatever internal systems they’re using might prove useful. Getting it back in again could be trickier if the system isn’t set up for that.

Essentially though outputting some kind of standard markup language would be nice.

I can’t remember what Malo wrote about the builder on here (it’ll be buried in one of the threads somewhere) but he did mention what it’s written in once.

EDIT! Ah ha! My search was fruitful!!

it’s written PHP7 running on LiteSpeed

Chances are it probably has a MySQL database and the frontend will probably be HTML/CSS with JavaScript?

While the information is from 2017 and refers to the Necromunda tools, at the back end of the thread he confirms that it will be retooled for the Underhive version. Essentially two separate instances.

Update - Necromunda Tools Upgrade

With the new version of YakTribe, the Necromunda tools has also received a complete face lift. In fact the entire toolset has been almost completely re-written from scratch with modern PHP techniques, more efficient construction and far less overall code. It now runs on PHP 7 on lsphp so it's...

yaktribe.games

It runs on his server separate to the XenForo forum software, which is why no-one other than him has access to it.

 

[Beebopalulla]

And that's a good news? It's really question. You lost me at the second line.

 

[Hobo86]

As i understand it, some people from mundamanager (and possibly gyrinx as well) first tried to get in contact with Malo without much succes.
I assume this was to offer to take over/support the gang builder, but as there was no response (and they where worried 'using bits' without permission could later be seen as er... legally dubious) we are were we stand now....

As for the technical base of mundamanager & Gyrinx you'd need to ask them on their respective discords.

A small detail; but the gyrinx devs tried to recruit users on the mundamanager discord, while everything went somewhat civil, I'm doubtful about their willingness to create one big platform + they also wrote a goonhammer article mentioning yaktribe was dead... I mean a bit more accuracy would've been nice.
And that's separate from the obvious qualities of the platform they created.

 

[MusingWarboss]

And that's a good news? It's really question. You lost me at the second line.

Was that about my post?

Basically this: they may decide to allow gang and campaign data to be exported (or scraped) from their app in the future.

I mean, it’s good news the forum is separate as that means the admin team can keep running it!

As for the technical base of mundamanager & Gyrinx you'd need to ask them on their respective discords.

I think I read Gyrinx uses Django, a python language app development system, CSS for front end and a bit of JavaScript.

Munda Manager says Next.js plus some kind of SQL database and CSS

None of that is particularly interesting to most users but it does underline that all three seem to be using different methods to achieve the same result.

A small detail; but the gyrinx devs tried to recruit users on the mundamanager discord, while everything went somewhat civil, I'm doubtful about their willingness to create one big platform + they also wrote a goonhammer article mentioning yaktribe was dead... I mean a bit more accuracy would've been nice.
And that's separate from the qualities of the platform they created.

Well, that’s… who knows. Maybe they just wanted to see if anyone was willing to help rather than poach people outright.

I won’t get into the “YakTribe is dead” thing again, except to say that clearly is inaccurate as we’re all here using it right now!

• The modern Necromunda tools are out of date.
• The classic tools for those who use ORB/NCE editions are fully functional.
• Forum is active.
• Vault is active.
• Gallery is active.

Unfortunately no one seems to have been able to contact Malo in a long time. I assume he’s ok.

 

[Beebopalulla]

Was that about my post?

Basically this: they may decide to allow gang and campaign data to be exported (or scraped) from their app in the future.

I mean, it’s good news the forum is separate as that means the admin team can keep running it!


I think I read Gyrinx uses Django, a python language app development system, CSS for front end and a bit of JavaScript.

Munda Manager says Next.js plus some kind of SQL database and CSS

None of that is particularly interesting to most users but it does underline that all three seem to be using different methods to achieve the same result.


Well, that’s… who knows. Maybe they just wanted to see if anyone was willing to help rather than poach people outright.

I won’t get into the “YakTribe is dead” thing again, except to say that clearly is inaccurate as we’re all here using it right now!

• The modern Necromunda tools are out of date.
• The classic tools for those who use ORB/NCE editions are fully functional.
• Forum is active.
• Vault is active.
• Gallery is active.

Unfortunately no one seems to have been able to contact Malo in a long time. I assume he’s ok.

Yes it was your post. Sorry.

 

[Hobo86]

it felt like they where advertising themselves as a better platform compared to mundamanager.
It's fine they take pride in their work and their system clearly has it's qualities,
but it would've been nice if they stuck to talking about their product.

 

[Petitioner's City]

.
Unfortunately no one seems to have been able to contact Malo in a long time. I assume he’s ok.

Can I ask is it Malo who pays for the site? So if he stopped, would yaktribe die?