Proper reflection of Gang Rating

[EarthDragon]

So there has been a lot of interesting conversation coming out of the whether or not GLs need a nerf and in what way(s). One of the bullet points that came up was House Weapons Lists (HWLs) and how they often offer items to their gangs for at a different (usually cheaper) rate.

One of the other threads I've been active in is the Underdog Bonus discussion. This one revolves around what it should be, and what it should do. But a great note to pull away from this is the inaccuracies that can surface from things not recording their true value to the gang. This could be Injuries, Skill variations, territories giving battlefield advantages, and weapons acquired at variable costs.

When looking at both of these, there is a common issue of Weapons being purchased at different rates. Grenade Launchers seem to be over performing at their cost, but would it be mitigated if those 4 Goliath GLs still increased their Gang Rating by the 40 credits they didn't pay? You see a LOT of Escher gangs spamming cheap lasguns and pushing for the numbers advantage, but should those 8 lasguns bring the gang rating up another 80 points like they would for every other gang?

What I asking the yakkers is this: Should there be a standardized GR value for items, regardless of what cost was paid for them?

 

[TopsyKretts]

What are those 4 Goliath GLs? Goliaths got all GLs, not 4. I think different costs for the same weapon works just fine. It's like that in w40k, no? One army can buy this type of weapon/vehicle/soldier for x, others pay y. It all depends on the total. So Escher got cheap lasguns? Yet all they have is T3. Other gangs have other advantages.

I think GL should be kept out of this cause it's a separate question and it is overpowered regardless of HWL costs.

What I have a problem with is gang rating is so different from previous versions. In my mind, Gang Rating is what you bring to the table. While in N17, it also include what you got in the stable. I don't get that.

 

[Stoof]

In an ideal world weapons & gear would have a Gang Rating value (probably the trading post value) for Gang Rating purposes, and their HWL cost for actually purchasing or selling etc, therefore keeping the rating system consistent. But it would be more complicated to work everything out for the reasonably minor differences it creates.

 

[Thorgor]

I agree with @Stoof except I think it would actually make things simpler. It would solve some questions like "what value should I use for a weapon I can't normally purchase" or "what happens to my gang rating when I replace my ganger starting free flak armour with a mesh armour and give the flak armour to a juve?"

The actual calculation will likely be automatized anyway (either by the tools or your own spreadsheet).

 

[Ben_S]

What I have a problem with is gang rating is so different from previous versions. In my mind, Gang Rating is what you bring to the table. While in N17, it also include what you got in the stable. I don't get that.

To my knowledge, it's never included only what you bring to the table.

Yes, there can be cases where you have a higher GR than your opponent but are at a distinct disadvantage in a particular scenario. But I think your gang would still gain bragging rights (etc) from defeating their supposedly superior opponents.

GR isn't simply like points in 40k, it is also a more general reflection of a gang's reputation/status. Of course, it's not perfect, because in effect it's trying to do multiple different things, but I think it works well enough without over complication (though @Thorgor mentions some of the more glaring problems).

 

[TopsyKretts]

So you're saying a fighter in recovery or captured isn't part of the gang rating? I would like verification cause I've heard otherwise on this forum.

 

[TopsyKretts]

In an ideal world weapons & gear would have a Gang Rating value (probably the trading post value) for Gang Rating purposes, and their HWL cost for actually purchasing or selling etc, therefore keeping the rating system consistent. But it would be more complicated to work everything out for the reasonably minor differences it creates.

Why wouldn't it be ideal to use HWL costs over Trading post costs? Why must the same weapon have the same gang rating for all gangs?

I agree with @Stoof except I think it would actually make things simpler. It would solve some questions like "what value should I use for a weapon I can't normally purchase" or "what happens to my gang rating when I replace my ganger starting free flak armour with a mesh armour and give the flak armour to a juve?"

The actual calculation will likely be automatized anyway (either by the tools or your own spreadsheet).

I don't see the problem. What value should you use for a weapon you normally can't purchase? The cost in the trading post! Is there any other option? What happens to your gang rating when you replace armour? That doesn't have a good solution independent of whether you use HWL or Trading Post cost.

If you give the flak armour to the juve, you add the cost from HWL (or Trading Post if it doesn't exist in HWL) to the juve.

 

[Ben_S]

So you're saying a fighter in recovery or captured isn't part of the gang rating?

Was that a reply to me? Because I wasn't saying anything of the sort.

You said, in the bit I quoted, that GR is only what you bring to the table. I take it by 'is' you really mean 'should be' since, as your next sentence points out, that's not how it works in N17.

I was pointing out that it's not how it's worked ever. Of course, sometimes you bring everything to the table anyway, but as far as I'm aware every iteration of the rules has potentially included things not brought to the table in your GR. So there's nothing new about N17 doing this.

 

[Thorgor]

@TopsyKretts : If you work on the assumption that gang rating is supposed to represent a gang power-level, then a lasgun is a lasgun and what you paid to get it is irrelevant. If anything, a lasgun is more powerful in the hands of a Van Saar than a Goliath (because better BS) but taking this into a consideration would make GR calculation too complicated.

 

[TopsyKretts]

Was that a reply to me? Because I wasn't saying anything of the sort.

You said, in the bit I quoted, that GR is only what you bring to the table. I take it by 'is' you really mean 'should be' since, as your next sentence points out, that's not how it works in N17.

I was pointing out that it's not how it's worked ever. Of course, sometimes you bring everything to the table anyway, but as far as I'm aware every iteration of the rules has potentially included things not brought to the table in your GR. So there's nothing new about N17 doing this.

Ok I misunderstood. So Gang Rating in original Necromunda and/or Community edition would have Gang Rating include fighters who were captured or injured? I don't remember that.

 

[TopsyKretts]

@TopsyKretts : If you work on the assumption that gang rating is supposed to represent a gang power-level, then a lasgun is a lasgun and what you paid to get it is irrelevant. If anything, a lasgun is more powerful in the hands of a Van Saar than a Goliath (because better BS) but taking this into a consideration would make GR calculation too complicated.

Why? Isn't that just how it is? If you play w40k, your space marines may not pay the same price for a lascannon as imperial guard does. Maybe a devastator heavy bolter has a different price than a tactical squad heavy bolter. This is just how it's always been in my experience.

Traditionally in miniature games, the price you pay is the same as the one used for the value of the gang/army. One item may be priced differently between armies/gangs and may even be priced differently within one army! I just assumed the same applied in N17. Why wouldn't it apply here?

 

[Stoof]

Ok I misunderstood. So Gang Rating in original Necromunda and/or Community edition would have Gang Rating include fighters who were captured or injured? I don't remember that.

The only time a fighter was not included in your Gang Rating in original Necromunda was when you either fired them or they were killed/sold to slavers etc - gone with no chance of returing. Being captured or missing a game due to injury didn't count. It was specifically mentioned in NCE at least: "Note missing gang fighters do still count towards the gang's rating and for the purposes of any gang recruitment limits." - NCE pg. 83.

As for the costs here in N17 - I'm of the "lasgun is a lasgun" opinion. The cheap Escher version adds the same ability to the gang as the standard cost trading post version*. So, IMO, they should count the same towards gang rating regardless of how much was actually paid for them. But I don't consider how it works to be a major problem - it would just be nice to have it uniform.

(*Weapon stats wise. A lasgun in the hands of a Van Saar Champion is "worth" more than a lasgun in the hands of a Goliath Ganger, because it's more effective, as @Thorgor says. 40k points costs are balanced to include the abilities of the units using them are they not? Something we don't have the luxury of in N17 (well we could but the maths would hurt my brain))

 

[EarthDragon]

The problems start to arise when a gang acquires these weapons from multiple sources. Now it's not even a matter of "An Escher Lasgun is a different Lasgun but only for Escher" but "Ganger 1 has a trading post Lasgun worth 15, Ganger 2 has a captured Lasgun worth 10, and Ganger 3 has a captured Lasgun worth 5"

In 40k, you aren't concerned with "captured" or "traded" goods. Those costs can be balanced against that Army list with no worry that their stats will improve, and to encourage flavor (and others are ALSO just irresponsible oversights, at least they were when I was still playing). But here, with variable stat lines and acquired skills, there really is no point to have these weapons reflect variably against your Gang Rating. This really wouldn't even be a complex change either, at least not to level some you might make it out to be.

Every weapon would just have a second number in parenthesis for how much it impacted your gang rating. So an Escher Lasgun would be written as "Lasgun 5 (15)" to know it only costs you 5, but the gang rating still goes up by 15.

NOW.......I'm gonna bust out of the big guns of where this is potentially an unneeded problem and concern: Captured Fighters.

I capture an Escher Champion. Rescue mission fails. I ransom the Escher Champion for 5 Lasguns. These Lasguns were procured for 25 credits. I now have 5 Lasguns worth 5 for my gang. This is absolutely within the rules to do something like this. As of now, I don't think you'd get much of a consistent ruling of how much those Lasguns should impact that Gangs rating, BUT as of now, since we are allowing those Escher to only have it count against them for 5 a piece, I don't see where you could justify arbitrarily raising the GR value for the gang that just traded for 25 credits worth of guns since the only offer time "cost" is ignored is Trading Post D6X10 fees.

 

[Thorgor]

I'll try to fetch the rules, but IIRC it's written somewhere in GW1 that you always use your HWL cost for gang rating purpose (and Trading post cost if the item is not part of your HWL) so the question only arises when you get an item that is specific to another house* (and it could be house-ruled that it's not allowed, as houses guard those items jealously and would never give them to other houses, yadda yadda.)

*: btw @TopsyKretts , that's what I meant when I said "items you can't normally purchase". Items from the trading post can normally be purchased

 

[KopMcGinty]

Is this really necessary?

I'd be fine with only what is fit and healthy counting towards rating but beyond that a lasgun really doesn't need to count the same towards rating for all gangs imo.

Is this not something that would be in danger of fixing something that isn't actually broken?

 

[Thorgor]

I think it's broken (not OP broken, or 'makes the game unplayable' broken, but still something to be fixed)
Then again, I think house-specific discounts (and especially rare-to-common rarity changes) is heresy in the first place.

 

[EarthDragon]

Is this really necessary?

I'd be fine with only what is fit and healthy counting towards rating but beyond that a lasgun really doesn't need to count the same towards rating for all gangs imo.

Is this not something that would be in danger of fixing something that isn't actually broken?

Are we claiming that Goliath Grenade Launcher spam isn't a bit broken? Cheap access is certainly a reason for it, and misrepresentation of "Gang Value" due to this discrepancy may be something to address. The Lasgun is just the example being used, but last I saw, Escher gangs using lasgun spam were performing significantly better then their gangs actually trying to do melee.

But that's what the discussion is for. Just saying "It's fine" doesn't make it fine, in particular if someone is running a beneficiary gang of this. Nor is, admittedly, saying "This needs to be fixed" a reason to fix it.

My overall concern is that Gang Rating was plain and simply NOT calculated as best it could have with relatively minor and easy fixes, and even the NCE didn't bother to address those areas (injuries, territories, etc.)

Now we have another layer that may be mucking it up. So the question is should it? I see no harm in trying to lock down better measures for Gang Rating. A gang starting with over 1000 gang rating isn't necessarily a bad thing, in particular if that gang's "value" is past 1000

 

[Ardavion]

I'm of the opinion that items bought for A, B, C, D... but have a consistent, "available to everyone" price of X should be worth X at any point, regardless of how they were procured. If you trade as part of a prisoner exchange 5 lasguns worth 5 each when they were bought by the Escher, but can still be acquired for 20 by everyone, if their gang rating value is therefore 20 then the Escher gang will drop their GR by 100 as yours goes up by the corresponding amount; they'll work to the same standards as all other gangs for their rating.

It then also means that the "actual value" rather than the "monetary value" of an item is used when trading for captured fighters; when I played NCE and traded an experienced captured ganger with skills and advances back to their gang, the player usually traded more than their 50 credits cost for the ganger, even if I kept their equipment, as their actual value was more than the hiring cost, and their gang rating (cost of all fighters +equipment + experience) reflected that.

It was also simpler in pre-N17 as all items had a base cost, rare items had an additional variable cost that was only at the point of purchase, and ability to acquire items was represented either by the rare trade rolls (ignoring HWL) or spending rare trade rolls to get items common on another gang's HWL (considering HWL).

 

[TopsyKretts]

40k points costs are balanced to include the abilities of the units using them are they not? Something we don't have the luxury of in N17 (well we could but the maths would hurt my brain))

Yes, the costs are balanced for the abilities of different units. Isn't that the exact same thing here?

 

[TopsyKretts]

The problems start to arise when a gang acquires these weapons from multiple sources. Now it's not even a matter of "An Escher Lasgun is a different Lasgun but only for Escher" but "Ganger 1 has a trading post Lasgun worth 15, Ganger 2 has a captured Lasgun worth 10, and Ganger 3 has a captured Lasgun worth 5"

In 40k, you aren't concerned with "captured" or "traded" goods. Those costs can be balanced against that Army list with no worry that their stats will improve, and to encourage flavor (and others are ALSO just irresponsible oversights, at least they were when I was still playing). But here, with variable stat lines and acquired skills, there really is no point to have these weapons reflect variably against your Gang Rating. This really wouldn't even be a complex change either, at least not to level some you might make it out to be.

Why is that a problem? If you capture a lasgun and give it to one of your fighters, are you going to adjust the value of that fighter with something different than the weapon's HWL cost?

I used to spend most of my miniature gaming years playing 40k. So this notion of the same weapon has different cost for different models just falls natural to me. It is how it is. I don't see why it can't be like that here as well.