New Van Saar cards, (includes insta-kill)

[TopsyKretts]

Just thought about having a little discussion of the new cards for Van Saar. Was slightly shocked when reading the Dangerous Footing card (Gang Tactics, usable by all gangs):

Play when the opponent activates a fighter. Place a Pitfall Crater beneath the fighter. Pass an Initiative test to make a move action to safety, or be taken Out of Action. The marker stays for the rest of the game.

Isn't that a bit much? Funny it came in the Van Saar deck, cause it will be most effective against their Leader. 1st turn 66% change to take the Leader OoA!

Also how nice of them to skip the "Zone Mortalis" label on cards that let remove barricades or crawl easier through ductways.

What about the Comm Burst card, the Leader can make Rally actions for Broken fighters. Where is the Rally action? Is it written anywhere else than in the skill sections for Escher/Goliath in the rulebook?

We now have a total of 99 cards! I need a bigger deck box...

 

[Stoof]

Dangerous Footing looks like another Click - take it whenever possible and stand a reasonable chance of taking a big threat out immediately Even if you don't take them out you've made them waste an action if they didn't want to move.

I suspect Rally is from an earlier draft of the game and was meant to be more of a thing than it is - in the leader skill sets or as part of the main bottling mechanic.

 

[D34dB34t]

My brother played "Dangerous Footing" on my heavy bolter guy last night on his first activtion. We decided to house rule that it won't cause any serious injuries, just takes you OOA.

 

[TopsyKretts]

Haha yeah, not only can it cripple your game, you could even suffer critical stat injury like BS, T or even death! Damn. I think you made a good call there.

It's so funny it came with the Van Saar deck. This card will be less useful against most or all other gangs, cause they all got better Initiative than Van Saar. Van Saar leader with Initiative 5+, Champions with I 4+, think about the discussions here on this forum about all the sorts of equipment and weaponry one could load onto these characters. Or the Aberrant with I 5+, some times a really important part of Genestealer Cult gangs. Chaos Spawn could end up with I 5+ too. All fighter types in Venator Bounty Hunter gangs can start with I 5+ also. And they would all more than likely be taken out by this card and then potentially devastate the fighter (and the team as a whole) with injuries or death described above.

I mean, if someone played this card on turn one and took one of those key fighters out with -1 Toughness, Wounds, BS, WS or Death, I would start the gang over after the game.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Ouch. Sounds like a nasty card.

They really should do a bit more thought on these, particularly if they’re offering a ‘choose it’ system as these nasty and efficient cards will be the only ones ever in play!

Yes, they should really think about including ones which effectively nullify stuff instantly. It’s 2nd Edition Virus Outbreak all over again!

 

[Thorgor]

This card makes the Rigged door card from the base box pales in comparison. Same idea (pass an Initiative check or nasty things will happen to you) but Rigged door only works when the enemy fighter is standing in an open door, can only be used after the target fighter got an action, and doesn't force a move action if the test is passed.

 

[RobStrachan]

I’m glad my group always plays random tactics cards. It kinda originated from when we first played the game and no one could be bothered to spend up to an hour reading all the cards. It’s so much more fun having to try out random cards and seeing if you make them work rather than just clicking your opponent’s heavy first round.

 

[Coenus Scaldingus]

When I first saw that card in use (Twitch battle report), I thought I had missed some information, but it really is as straightforward as that...

The cards themselves I quite like; they offer additional tactical options, i.e. more choices to make and variation in games. When drawn as such, I quite like the random aspect too - in narrative games like this, randomness adds something to the story, so more fun. Removing an opponent's key model turn one, with nothing to defend against it, however, I do not consider to be particularly fun. It won't be enjoyed by those on the receiving end, and will likely influence the rest of the game strongly too. Same with "Click" (unable to continue using a cool big gun), but quite a lot worse. Would rather play with no cards, than with these...

 

[KopMcGinty]

Big fan of having cards but there is way too much discrepancy in how effective they are.

Playing as Escher, I'm ok with this card.. it's way more effective for me than it is against me but it run is a bit much as written.

I can see the cards becoming their own headache for me as arbitrator actually.

 

[TopsyKretts]

I suspect Rally is from an earlier draft of the game and was meant to be more of a thing than it is - in the leader skill sets or as part of the main bottling mechanic.

I kept thinking about your comment and it makes sense. The Rally action is something of a cecum, some left-over part from an earlier stage. It sure is used in the boxed game (what I like to call the demo system), but has absolutely no part in the Skirmish or Campaign games based on the Gang War system (what I call the actual Necromunda system, full game).

This just makes me wonder:

• Are the Van Saar cards released in May 2018 based on some early development in 2017 where Rally was in use? Or was it a slip where they simply forgot Rally wasn't used anymore?
• Are the cards mainly focused on the boxed game or the Gang War system? I think one could find cards that are aimed in both directions.

What's strange is that the Comm Burst card in particular is aimed both at the boxed game mentioning Rally and at the Gang War system mentioning a skill that is only ever used in Campaign mode (increasing experience). That's quite a conflict! If you're ever using Rally as an action or skill in Necromunda, you're absolutely not going to deal with Experience. But if you are dealing with Experience in a Campaign game using the Gang War system, how can you possibly deal with the Rally action/skill?

 

[Domino]

I’m glad my group always plays random tactics cards. It kinda originated from when we first played the game and no one could be bothered to spend up to an hour reading all the cards. It’s so much more fun having to try out random cards and seeing if you make them work rather than just clicking your opponent’s heavy first round.

During the ORB, Event cards were produced that gave D3 events that could effect the game in various ways. Your group seems to have resurrected the idea of random events.

In the ORB Event deck only one card was an instant kill, 'Live Wire', but had criteria that had to be in place to activate it.
This is a 48 card deck made generic so that any one could draw it if they were lucky.

 

[Jam Warrior]

We too have moved to always random cards. When you can pick it's always the same few choices over and over, which kind of removes the point of the cards to my mind.

 

[FerociousBeast]

As more and more card decks are added to the game, I think a deck building mechanic needs to be introduced. Something like:

• Build a deck of 20 cards from those in your collection (probably want to base the number of cards in your deck on the number of cards that could be taken by one side in the base, boxed game, to ensure that everyone will have enough)
  • Your deck cannot contain any duplicate cards
• Shuffle deck
• Determine how many cards you can draw, based on Underdog bonus, scenario rules, etc.

• Draw your cards for the game randomly

Otherwise, those who have larger collections of cards will actually be penalized for having more cards, since they'll be less likely to draw the really good ones like Click or Dangerous Footing.

 

[TopsyKretts]

My friends don't have cards so they wouldn't be able to build decks. What I do is bring the very big deck (we got 99 cards now!) and draw from that. We also do the "draw x+3 cards, keep x cards".

 

[neil mccrea]

this card got my van saar leader yesterday in a game vs my brothers van saar gang really nasty normally we use random but this time we picked

 

[Killer Shrike]

As more and more card decks are added to the game, I think a deck building mechanic needs to be introduced. Something like:

• Build a deck of 20 cards from those in your collection (probably want to base the number of cards in your deck on the number of cards that could be taken by one side in the base, boxed game, to ensure that everyone will have enough)
  • Your deck cannot contain any duplicate cards
• Shuffle deck
• Determine how many cards you can draw, based on Underdog bonus, scenario rules, etc.

• Draw your cards for the game randomly

Otherwise, those who have larger collections of cards will actually be penalized for having more cards, since they'll be less likely to draw the really good ones like Click or Dangerous Footing.

These are our house rules:

Tactics Cards Deck
Each gang should build and maintain a deck of Tactics Cards with up to twenty cards in it. The following ten cards are required and must be in every deck unless a gang list specific restriction or allowance is in effect:

1. Hidden Passage (ZM only)
2. Rigged Door (ZM only)
3. Blood Debt
4. ...Click
5. Frag Trap
6. Group Tactics
7. Last Gasp
8. Lucky Find
9. Makeshift Armour
10. Melta Trap

Each player may select up to ten other cards their gang is allowed to use and include them to form their deck. It is permitted to have multiple copies of the same card in the deck, and unlike in the official rules it is permitted to use multiple copies of the same card in a battle.

Ideally physical cards should be used, but it is permissable to make a chart with the Tactics Cards text and items numbered 1-20; when random determination is used to select Tactics Cards a D20 can be used to randomly determine which cards are "drawn". A player using this option must bring a D20 with them to the battle.

A player may swap their card choices during the Update Roster step of the Post-Battle Sequence if they choose. Note that this is deliberately not allowed in the Pre-Battle Sequence to prevent overt min-maxing for the upcoming battle as well as to avoid the wasting of time involved in messing about with cards. A well balanced selection of cards is suggested.

 

[Killer Shrike]

We agreed as a group to not allow Dangerous Footing in our games. It's just too problematic and overpowered for our tastes.

 

[TopsyKretts]

Each player may select up to ten other cards their gang is allowed to use and include them to form their deck. It is permitted to have multiple copies of the same card in the deck, and unlike in the official rules it is permitted to use multiple copies of the same card in a battle.

This sounds awful and just enhance the bad aspects of the cards.

 

[Killer Shrike]

It hasn't been a problem for us, YMMV.

 

[TopsyKretts]

A deck of 20 cards, 10 of those cards can be insta-kill ones? And you can use multiple in the same game? How is that not a problem?