Necromunda Pre-Delaque/GW5/Compendium Release Ramblings

[CaptainDangerous]

The ‘wait and see’ might be reference to that they are splitting it into two books?
So to get just the Delaque rules you only need to buy the Gangs book,
Which, if true, means there is no new or updated content going into the compilation??

 

[Thorgor]

Here is my personal wishlist for those books:

Must-haves:

• The Compendium is based on the aggregation of the latest version of all the existing rules, including the 3 WD gangs, the WD scenarios and the changes from the Gang Leader Accessory Pack
• It incorporates changes, errata and clarification for every single (serious) question that people have sent to the FAQ e-mail address
• It is been proofread and playtested with both veterans and first-time players. There is no ambiguous or non-sensical rule left, no internal inconsistency, and every change compared to the latest iteration of the same rule/profile is either self-evident or explicitely motivated
• There are no two weapons with the same name and different profiles depending on context. Weapons with different profiles now have different names. More generally, the same word is never used for two different things (ie 'Pistol' is not a weapon trait and a weapon category, or at the very least the rules never refer to 'Pistol' but always to 'weapons from the Pistol category' or 'weapons with the Pistol trait')
• Common items from the HWL are never more expensive than their Trading Post counterpart
• Both books combined are less than £50
• There is no rule printed on the inner cover

Nice-to-haves:

• The free online FAQ is updated to reflect all the changes so that people with the Gang War books are not forced to purchase the Compendium just to get the erratas
• The Compendium-exclusive content (Delaque & co.) is made available separately as either a free pdf or a reasonably priced e-pub at the same time as the Compendium
• The Compendium books are also made available as an e-pub
• The rules in the Compendium are laid out in a sensible fashion. No "advanced rules" non-sense or separate Sector Mechanicus rules, and the Dramatis personae are all found in the same place
• The Compendium does not use the same greyish background as the Gang War book but a plain white background instead
• An index and a reference sheet are added at the end of the rulebook
• The most blatant exploits and unbalanced costs have been fixed
• All the first-game-only limitation non-sense either has been removed or is now enforced at all time
• Some kind of limitation as to how many gangers can take special weapons and how many champions a cult gang can have have been added
• Both books combined are less than £35

If any of the must-have is not there, I won't purchase those books.
The first thing I'll do when I get my hands on the books is check the rules for Charge and Fearsome. If I still don't understand how charging and/or this skill are supposed to work afterwards, I'll know SG has failed us once again.

 

[el_ojo_y_la_sombra]

I have similar must have for the books. But for me there are really very little hopes.
the only similar product from GW is the Blood blown book compiled and I have not read those. But in other re-editions or compilations (like the SWA rulebook publised with all the army lists) even have the same erratas.

I fear we will found the same type of rulebook, updated with the few changes of the leader accessory pack, a few updates on the scenarios but the same sistemic failure. [[[My bet is the the defender bottling out scenario problem will not even be addressed]]]EDITED:This is corrected in the Leader accesory pack, so will be in the new rulebook.

For me these compendiums are really the original way N17 was though and later were sliced into the GW to sell it twice, that would explain some strange rules or the WD gangs not really though for Turf wars format but for Dominion. So is unlikely the compendiums will be a real review, only simply the original books with a few erratas updated but not the enough changes needed (that really will put N17 in a 1.5 edition.)

 

[FerociousBeast]

Proper thing to do for those who've bought all the Gang Wars so far, and don't want the Compendium but do want Delaque, is to release the gang rules for free. Why not? You've still got to buy the rules one way or another to actually play the game, and if you have GW1-4 already, the only thing you'll be missing by not getting the compendium is the Delaque rules. (Then go ahead and do the same for the other five gangs.)

Or, they could just make the compendium same price as GW5 would've been.

Either way, Delaque players wouldn't be screwed by releasing a compendium in lieu of GW5.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Anyway, I wonder something about the future of N17: assuming the Compendium is as good as I hope it will be, but they then go back to the incremental one-book-per-quarter scheme, will you ever consider buying those individual books? Or will you wait for a second Compendium?

Rule Book per quarter system; as already been issued. No. Will not buy in.

A magazine per quarter, much like Blood Bowls at a magazine price, which specifically states it’s got demo/testing rules in which are legal to play now but a fully realised compendium will be available later on. Yes. Though maybe not every issue.

There are massive issues with how they handled the Gang War series, most of which stem from the fact they’re pitched (and priced) as Rule Books but actually read like magazines of rules-in-development.

No new rulebook should invalidate a previous one. They can offer alternatives but simply replacing previous material making the previous purchase worthless is a slap to the face.

I hope with the new compendiums coming out those books are now Finished*. Then any future settings, Outlanders, ash wastes, other hive, Gorkamorka desert... can have their own compilation book with the setting specific stuff but still use the core rules. It can be down to GW/FW/SG if they can crossover and how.

*as much as any ruleset can be.

 

[enyoss]

Unfortunately the completionist in me means I will be forced to buy both GW5 AND the compendiums as and when they appear.

Same here. And those money grabbing bastards at GW know it.

GW5 is the nerd equivalent of a fixed odds betting terminal right by the exit.

 

[RobStrachan]

Lol, chill out guys. It’s just a few quid for something you can enjoy for hours. It’s like going to the cinema and having a few drinks.

 

[cardyfreak]

Lol, chill out guys. It’s just a few quid for something you can enjoy for hours. It’s like going to the cinema and having a few drinks.

Going to the cinema AND having drinks? You must be a millionaire!

 

[RobStrachan]

I used to be. But I spent my family’s fortune on going to the cinema.

 

[Thorgor]

It's not (directly) about the money. It's about not enabling shady practices and finally getting a rulebook worthy of the name.
The way the rules have been delivered so far has been, quite frankly, unacceptable.

 

[Petitioner's City]

So on reddit someone wrote

Here's what ACTUALLY happened.

Necromunda was originally scheduled to come out this year, and Adeptus Titanicus was supposed to come out last year. Originally AT was going to be all resin models but after Blood Bowl's success, GW gave Specialist Games the go ahead to make AT in plastic instead.

This delay meant they had to accelerate their plans for Necromunda, unfortunately not all the rules for all the gangs were done yet, so they compromised and released it over time.

The rulebook and first two Gang Wars were written by one guy who left shortly after the Necromunda Underhive box was released. Gang War 3 and 4 were written by two new people.

Due to the fact they can only basically afford to make one gang per quarter, I think they way they did it worked out just fine. Going forward I expect there will be something similar to Spike! Magazine that mainly has rules for that quarters gang.

Someone else agreed, writing:

my understanding of the situation is the same as /u/notevenjk-lol - James Hewitt was the original writer of the rules but he knew he was going to leave so gang war 1 was not his best work. He was serving notice during the writing of gang war 2 which is why it is a pretty useless book (mentally he had checked out which many of us can understand having been in the same position). It is also why, despite him having left the company at the start of the year, James was doing ama's about the Adeptus Titanicus rules which he had written a year before (and to be fair to him are very good).

JTY was hired as his replacement for gang wars 3 and 4 which are a big improvement. A lot of the problems were fixed (typos, layout, contradictions). Rules that were not properly playtested like the original campaign system were also given alternatives like Dominion.

Whilst I have no doubt that GW are capable of decisions to increase revenue by writing 1 book and splitting into 6, in this case I believe it was just down to them being behind the curve. I expect that we will see many things in the comoendium that corrects prior books in a way that makes it unlikely that this compendium was the original document all along.

Of course I could be completely mistaken.

 

[Stoof]

If that's true (if being the key word there), it does somewhat go towards explaining - if not exactly excusing - JTY being ratty and occasionally throwing his toys out of the pram whilst firefighting rules snafus on Facebook.

Nobody likes being held responsible for, and being tasked to fix, somebody else's shoddy work.

 

[TopsyKretts]

I don't think anyone would complain if they just kept Necromunda secret, waited 1 year instead and gave us the finished game in November 2018.

 

[dabbk]

Maybe their release calendar, and finance department?

 

[Stoof]

Pah release calendars are just words and in my experience Finance Departments can usually be swayed by an argument that a complete, good quality product will sell better than a rushed, incomplete one!

 

[SirFrog]

I... well, let's say I respectfully disagree. The ones I've encountered were absolutely obsessed with deadlines, even if they're just arbitrary estimates. Better rush, then fix it in post.

 

[Stoof]

I work in a finance department. Maybe I'm too easygoing/sensible for this line of work
I know the kind you mean though, I've dealt with my fair share of finance teams more obsessed with things being done to budget and on schedule than anything to to with the - often very good - reasons why things are over budget or not on schedule.

(I am reminded of a story my previous boss told of a colleague being hounded for his monthly figures and there being "no valid reason for them being late". The guy had been killed in a car accident a week earlier.)

 

[dabbk]

The part that I dont understand in all of this is: did they really have all the plastics ready to go more than a year early for them to be able to release n17 when they did? Or did they also rush that part? If so, why not rush AT instead?

I wonder which of AT and N17 is modt successful comercially, and if screwing up N17 for AT was that much of a good idea...

 

[Ardavion]

I don't think anyone would complain if they just kept Necromunda secret, waited 1 year instead and gave us the finished game in November 2018.

I fully agree.

Pah release calendars are just words and in my experience Finance Departments can usually be swayed by an argument that a complete, good quality product will sell better than a rushed, incomplete one!

It depends on whether your finance department (or more specifically the CFO, I guess) has a big say in release schedules or not; most finance departments could look at a product release and just plan for the expected change in workload, rather than question when a product should be released - it's not up to them necessarily to drive new product or maximise profit, it's down to production to keep costs down, marketing to push the product, logistics to ship the product etc. whereas

I wonder which of AT and N17 is modt successful comercially, and if screwing up N17 for AT was that much of a good idea...

For me, the potential for using gangers as irregular IG or converting them for use as "other troops" in 40k (Goliath being used as Khorne IG/cultists would be pretty neat, I reckon) would swing me to buy N17 over AT.

GW probably don't think in terms of making N17 models transferrable to 40k though, whereas AT models supposedly convert over better from a battle force standpoint (giant models stomping around war-torn battlefields probably make more sense for more armies in GW's head than gangers, who would be predominantly IG/SoB at best thematically).

 

[TopsyKretts]

When the game was first released 1 year ago, I actually expected something much closer to a full game (maybe not 100%). But as most people, I was quickly disappointed.