NCE New to running a campaign - a player is interested in Outlander Gangs (Help please)

[Garfunkle13]

Hi all

I'm hoping anyone with some experience in playing a old school 2021 NCE campaign with Outlanders can share their views.
Me and 3 friends have started a campaign. 3 of us have gone for regular gangs, but the fourth is interested in Redemptionists, Scavvys and Pit Slaves.

Having seen a little of what Spyer Hunters are capable of, I'm a wary of other outlander gangs causing a major balance problem. Having looked at their rules, these are the concerns I have

Redemptionists - It seems the heavy emphasis on flamers might become very tiresome. Overwatch + auto hits - now you have no approach, and now great melee comes for you while you're pinned/ on fire. Has anyone found this to be a problem, or created boring, feels bad games?

Scavvys - Are two Scaly's just going to roll us most the time? Is the Savvy player's capacity for bigger gangs going to mean we have to avoid full gang fights completely?

Pit fighters - Pit Fighters seem the most balanced to me. I believe a pit fighter can buy a few strength upgrades and swing out High Impact hits quite easily? Will it quickly get to the point that Pit Fighters almost always win their combats?

Are any of these gangs going to have more than a modest advantage over original ones?

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Iv only ever lost to such gangs, but I know a bunch of yaks who know the pros and cons very well:

YOO HOO!
@Stoof @Ardavion @radulykan @spafe @Tiny @ClockworkOrange @DarkMouse

(kinda feels like Im asking my bullies for help)

 

[Stoof]

All of the Outlander gangs are modestly broken one way or another. Redemptionists and Pitslaves are the two which "normal" gangs can handle easiest in my experience - Redemptionists don't need anything particular, standard "shoot the close combat monsters and stab the shooters" tactics. Pitslaves seem hard to play as, and are the easiest to counter IMO. They don't have great gun access and there are usually few of them. I haven't played with them myself but I have fought loads and they're manageable.

You deal with Spyrers by shooting them and trying to stay out of range of charges (in my experience anyway). Expendable hired guns is the way, if you have the creds. We've seen some impressive anti-Spyrer gunlines at Tribemeets.

My hardest/most frequently lost fights on an individual game level were against Scavvies. Simply completely overwhelming enemies with way more models than they can shoot down, then mobbing them when in range is a solid and very effective tactic for them in any game where large portions of gangs end up on the table. Any games with restricted gangs and the Scalies muller you instead. But they suffer post battle and struggle to progress, so later in campaign their life becomes harder.

 

[Tiny]

Scavvy regular here!

The Scalies aren't the real strength of the Scavvy gang. In my experience they usually don't do a lot. The sheer number of bodies on the table is what wins games. Add in a beastmaster Wyrd and I've had starting gangs with 20+ models.

If the Scavvy gang gets to choose the scenario, they'll pick a Scavengers or similar scenario where they get the whole gang and they will most likely win.

A few games into the campaign and they'll have an inflated gang rating from all the XP increases and you'll get to turn the tables on them. Choose scenarios where you can get the drop on a few of them. A few bad games and a few guys in the pot to make up for low income and they really start to struggle.

Ignore the Scalies unless you have a big gun. Concentrate fire on taking as many of the T3 fighters down as you can. Force them to make as many injury rolls after every game as possible. Every OOA fighter means fewer credits scavenged. Every death / captured fighter is hard to replace.

 

[spafe]

As someone who has played all of them with pretty decent success, my advice is, if you are new players, be aware all the outlander gangs are playing on some level of 'hard mode'. The easiest of these are Ratskins (which dont seem in contention and are the easiest to abuse as a new player).

Spyrers are pretty tough to play well, but once you get the knack down, dear emperor are they deadly and can easily become 'not fun'.

Pit slaves are the hardest to play and the weakest of the outlander gangs. The poor ranged options means games against them 'should' be alot of them sneaking/darting between cover and trying to ambush you. Yes after a few games they will reliably murder whatever they get their hands on, but thats what juves are for to tempt them out into hte open then machine gun them down after the juve dies (usually about 0.2 seconds after meeting the aforementioned pitslave). In a campaign the player using the pitslaves will find it tough due to how income works and their low numbers (watch this correlation across the following gangs)

redemptionists are best viewed as a more risky outlaw house gang. They have slightly better short range firepower, but less longer range stuff. They are more or less akin to a house gang in fighters. They can snowball but also suffer if they take a bad game or two as they dont have the income table/territory safety net of law abiding gangs. Generally they have good skill access for their play style and will be a 'mid ranged' competitor. IF they start to do well for a game or 2 and get some good income, they can go up in numbers quickly, getting to 15-20 fighters and snowball, as the larger gang size allows them to average out income and mitigate losses in game who cannot generate income. Once this happens they become nasty as they have good weapons, numbers, high LD and can sustain loses without problems.

Scavies are the more extrme version of the snowballing redemptionists, in that they start with the high numbers, and can grow. If they get hit early, they will struggle to establish as a gang and fizzle out, otherwise, watch out as after 4-5 games (usually by then one or two of those games have triggered a windfall of income), they can balloon in size (personal record was over 40 once you included zombies, beastmaster and the 2 pitslave hired guns), and they will be gruesome to fight and just keep running over stuff, until the opponents wise up and pick shoot out or other scenarios that limit numbers... then its generally always unfun as the games will generally be decided by scenario who wins it.

Overall, I'd suggest redemptionists as the 'most begginer friendly' and 'hardest to snowball and become unfun' combo. All outlanders (even pit slaves but excluding spyrers) get sill once they get a big score or two and can balloon their numbers, but I've only got pit slaves to do that once, wheras others who start with numbers get there quicker. Dont worry about individual rules, oldmunda can be broken (most easily) by logisitics. Logistics wins wars (and gang fights), so having more fighters and not being bound by the law abiding income table is how they get unfun. Avoid that and you'll be fine with any.

 

[Ardavion]

Pit Slave player here.

I would agree with the points raised re: Pit Slaves; they are undoubtedly the hardest gang to play.

The gang costs more per person than other gangs (not just for the Pit Slave, but for the mandatory Pit Slave weapon you have to buy them; the cheapest a model can be is 70 credits, and this is without any ranged weapons, so a stub gun for 10 credits would make it 80) and they lack juves to help bulk out the gang, so your typical "optimal" starting gang runs to 8-9 models.

The ranged firepower is incredibly lacking, but the two Technos and the Chief can provide some support, typically as "sniper" characters with hunting rifles or cheaper alternatives. I've always wanted to get some of my Pit Slaves the Specialist skill, which then technically let's them take two-handed, longer range special weapons (the RAW seemingly doesn't forbid their use completely, just the lack of initial access to normal/special weapons for Pit Slaves and Pit Slave Weapon arms only being replaceable by other Pit Slave weapons, although it could be argued that you could replace a Pit Slave Weapon arm with a Bionic arm, as both replace a normal arm) - I have however never yet managed to roll such an advance to try it.

For the rest of the gang, you are definitely hugging walls and dodging heavy weapons invariably always deployed on rooftops. Pit Slaves don't get Agility skills as standard, but when you can get Sprint and Leap it makes your guys move much better across the table.

I've never ran any Pit Fighters in a gang; the complete lack of ranged weaponry in a game primarily based on ranged combat seems to make them utterly impractical, and the Tool Upgrades only increase Strength and Save Mod stats, so the -1 WS or -1 combat dice etc flavour abilities of the Pit Slave weapons are relatively static. The only double up I can see as being truly beneficial would be double chainsaws, for almost always having a Parry (not having it cancelled out by the other model). Having a normal Pit Slave with a pistol is just infinitely more versatile, but I will concede that Fighters don't get BS advances, so they can become much more reliable HtH fighters than their more natural-limbed counterparts.

The lower model count does impact logistics, even when they can forage an additional credit, so the best bet is usually to spam Caravan scenarios to try and get a big payday and invest in extra bodies that way - Pit Slave gangs can never defend a Caravan scenario and have Hatred against the opponents, so they'll always be able to make the big payday if they get enough bodies across the board. Similarly, if you manage to win a decent territory (anything from the normal territory table, or some of the higher results on the Outlanders territory table) move in and always have it worked, and if you get a low-paying territory move on and roll a new territory in the next post-game phase until you get a better one.

Some saving graces for Pit Slaves is that they all have the Escape Artist skill, so they can never be captured, which is effectively another Full Recovery result in the Serious Injury chart (unless you attend events where everyone who is Captured gets put into a Pit Fight side-game, regardless of that skill...), and Arm and Hand Injuries to the Pit Slave weapon arm are ignored (the weapon arm is repaired before the next fight), so your guys can be more durable than most. Having Technos also means you can remove expensive bionics from captured fighters, which could be a money maker when selling them off.

Some people may reference the random starting advances as an equaliser against the other gangs, but I usually find they rarely make any particular difference, even at the outset (and can often make the book-keeping a bit awkward) - if I could spend 10 credits less per model and lose the advance, I'd be able to get another model in the gang.