Necromunda The Sump: General hobby venting thread (Beware: old men shouting at clouds)

[spafe]

A place to vent... mainly about any frustrations with the new necromunda. If you have a issue with the release schedule, rules, omissions, or other, lay it bare here, don't derail other threads.

At the least it'll get it off your chest, it potentially will highlight views that others share, and it will keep the rest of the forums a more productive and postitive attitude. Please bring it all here folks, and dump it in

THE SUMP!

UPDATE!
Okay, as of P83, we are drawing a line under the Gang war releases, we're aiming to avoid an echo chamber of complaints, therefore moving forward the sump is for compendium era releases onwards. With this hopefully marking a turn around on GW's part for the level of quality in the necromunda releases and game as a whole, any complaints here will be fewer and further between until we can let the sump sink below the hive once more.

 

[ntw3001]

rar im angry

 

[Thorgor]

Bookmarked! This will undoubtedly prove handy in the future

Right now, the thing that makes me the most sad, angry and worried about the future of the game is that the game has been released 4 months ago and we still don't have an ETA for the promised FAQ. And the game desperately needs one. I can't, in all good conscience, recommend it to new players in its current state.

The more we wait, the more I need this FAQ to be perfect and the more I know I risk being disappointed when it's finally released.

 

[FerociousBeast]

I've got a lot of issues, but I think the underlying problem is this: There doesn't appear to be a team behind the game. Obviously there's some great effort behind the models and the marketing, but rules? There were two guys and now there's one, and I don't see any evidence that he has any help. If this is true, then it answers a lot of our questions:

• Q: Where is the damn FAQ?
• A: There's only one guy.
• Q: The game doesn't work. Who playtested it?
• A: There's only one guy.
• Q: Why hasn't Gangs of Legend's armory been updated?
• A: There's only one guy.
• Q: Why is Gang War 2 so skimpy in comparison to the rulebook and GW1?
• A: There's only one guy.

With only one guy working on it, I don't see much hope that things will get better anytime soon.

Think about it. We've given GW a lot of crap about the game being broken, but think about what Necromunda Underhive actually is: It's a new edition of Warhammer 40,000 SECOND edition, since that's what Necromunda was originally written on top of. 40K 2E was second only to Rogue Trader in complexity. And there's one guy doing it.

 

[The_Worker]

In addition to what @TheFerociousBeast says, the game does appear to be the result of Andy Hoare's gaming group playing Necromunda extensively for years.

It is a collection of house rules, ideas, and other things built up by a close-knit group of gamers, released in several books over a spread of time, with little to no centralised editing or clarification... because the people involved know how it works, and assumed everyone else would too.

It's not that it's a bad game - it isn't - or that it's never going to get better - it will - it's that, right now, it desperately needs external editing, querying, and that FAQ. Once that's in place - happy days. Right now, it's just a case of requiring house rules and common sense when you hit a speedbump (e.g. Toxin, lack of chainswords (!!) in initial lists or the trading post, etc).

And I am damn glad it was released. I love the figures, love the boards, love the art.

 

[Thorgor]

I think that one guy alone would actually produce less of a mess. To make self-contradicting rules like that, you actually need to be "helped" by a few people that either don't care about the end result or have diverging opinions about what it should be.

It is a collection of house rules, ideas, and other things built up by a close-knit group of gamers, released in several books over a spread of time, with little to no centralised editing or clarification... because the people involved know how it works, and assumed everyone else would too.

Wow. And here I thought I was being critical towards GW

Btw @spafe, shouldn't this thread have a [N17] tag (instead of a [Necromunda] one)?

 

[The_Worker]

I think it's less that they don't care about the end result than it is a combination of pressures from above - "we need this released yesterday!" - and poor communication and editing between teams or individuals.

Things like GW2 going to press with Stub Guns losing pistol are so obviously a copy-paste error or similar that it is quite frustrating.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

I don't know what it is. Laziness? Too small a team? Unrealistic Deadlines? A 'release it now, patch it later' mentality (like in computer games these days)?

What I do know, is that if you charge for premium price, I expect a premium product, not an amateur one. Combine the mistakes with the sparsity of the material, the premium price and the slowness to fix the product and you've completely removed my incentive to buy.

Add in the strange release schedule (the weapon packs really should have been ready for release in December or January in order to keep people buying in between the bigger releases) and the whole thing is starting to feel like a bit of a flop.

 

[Tiny]

Lack of weapons options on the sprues... I for one am very disappointed now I have looked to actually assemble some of the new Goliath minis. One pistol (aside from the stub/plas combi) and its a bloody stub gun. 8 different 1-handed weapons and 3 2-handed weapons is not a lot of variety to outfit 10 guys. Not a single arm holding a knife! WTF?

I am actually thinking of just selling off the rest of the sprues from the box, which is a shame as the minis themselves look great.

What I do know, is that if you charge for premium price, I expect a premium product, not an amateur one.

This.

GW are charging top dollar for a half-arsed mess of a game made up of house rules by people who seem to not talk to each other. The core mechanics are really, really good. James Hewitt did an awesome job of those. Sadly the gang creation and campaign rules are mostly a load of crap and the mistakes and contradictions are unforgivable for a product from the market leader.

The release schedule will ultimately kill this game. Blood Bowl is getting away with it because the rules haven't changed much so folk could still just use their existing teams, or teams from other manufacturers. Also the player base is already a lot larger. N17 is competing with NCE, which is just plain better, along with a whole host of other, more established skirmish level games, most of which are better in terms of rules writing.

 

[hellodarren]

I don't know who the source for this is, so take it with salt, but it rings true...

 

[MusingWarboss]

Oh boy. This thread is gonna full up quick!

Though saying that so far you’ve all been wonderfully polite and reasoned! I like it. It’s certainly a case that the actual manufacturing side has been as high quality as we’d expect. Lovely quality box, card components, unique dice, fantastic artwork, the sort of sculpts we’ve been wanting to see for years and the books are nicely printed.

It’s just two big problems. 1. The release schedule doesn’t work for how they’ve split up the books and material.
2. The actual text is just garbled and poorly written.

It’s the last one that’s so disappointing as it makes it hard to drag people in when you have to explain all the mistakes and inconsistencies to them and then have a group think and come up with soloutions. That’s not a professional product. That’s a work in progress that’s been accidentally published.

One thing’s for sure all the RAW guys can clear off when it comes to this version of Necromunda as if we tried that we’d have 1/4 of a game and several duplicated rules which contradict themselves.

 

[FerociousBeast]

I don't know who the source for this is, so take it with salt, but it rings true...

Is that from Reddit or something?

 

[Thorgor]

@hellodarren : This looks entirely believable, and does not bode well for the future

the books are nicely printed

There is just one small thing that is really bad about those books: rules printed on the back cover. That's just... you don't do that, that's all.

 

[MusingWarboss]

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that if you weren't in Andy hoare's gaming circle a lot of the choices made in game design, like the high cost of hired guns are no going to make sense, particularly if like most of us you remember the legacy rules.

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion Andy H is either a very poor games designer or he’s house ruled stuff to a very specific function that he seems incapable of explaining to members outside his gaming group.

That sounds incredibly cruel I know but... c’mon, how did they get to some of these decisions? It’s like they cropped up in a campaign, they whipped up some rules to cover that specific scenario and now have been shoved out as a general rule. I agree with @Malo that the rules are difficult to comprehend but I feel that’s mostly because we’re not being told (or will be sold later) the bigger picture as to how these HG fit into N17.

 

[MusingWarboss]

@Thorgor well they’re certainly better than my SW:A book which fell to bits after about two uses!!

Rubbish quality.

 

[Malo]

Maybe we just can't understand the way it's designed because we're coming from the old version and the way things were and can't see the big picture? I wish the big picture were more clear. I mean does anyone here who hasn't played the game have the same issues with the RAW and design, or just us old fogies who can't let go of the past?

 

[Vonvilkee]

I have less issues than the rest of you. I went through this same type of big change but not big change with 40k. I have come to try and avoid applying old rules and expectations over the new. These rules are vaguely similar but should not be approached as similar, they work very well on their own if you don't crunch them to hard compared to the old rules. Funny thing is the old rules were parted out to an extent as well but time has erased our memory of waiting...

 

[Punktaku]

It’s mid-February and i DON’T have this YET! (but my latest Yakling is sooo adorable, so there is that)

 

[Domino]

I remember buying the original Necro. You had a box set with everything you needed to start and rules that, though a little unbalanced, worked for a fraction of the N17 price tag. If you wanted, the expansion could be added and still worked. The costs and effects of weapons weren't contradictory.

I've heard and seen a few things that skew my perceptions and have led me to sticking with what I know.

Cost: This is the biggie as I have to game on a budget and has put me off GW in the past.
Rules: Some elements made me think 'Rogue Trader' then I saw some demos and became thoroughly confused. One you-tube channel I saw brought up the points differences in books.
Points system: Looks and feels contradictory.
Gang Weapons: No problem with restricted availability or new weapons, we already have this in NCE. It also makes sense to turn tools into weapons (how many times have we seen Nail Guns used Lethal Weapon style?).
Terrain: Looks very nice, but to me doesn't look decaying underhive and pre-imperium enough. It should look like a patchwork of the makeshift, not Adeptus Mechanicus. Also the price (ouch!).
Look: It's very pretty, but I have learnt over the years that the substance is more important.
Balance: In an effort to give the gangs a unique feel they have unbalanced the system far more than the original.
Supplements: The individual supplement books make me suspect an almost 40Kesque codex, expansion and new edition approach. I hope not as this is what put many established gamers off GW.

Until I see a product that resolves many of the issues cited, I think I will stick with NCE.

 

[Elita1]

Well this will be a fun first post!

Rushing aside how does gw not know how to lay out a rule book yet? Surely this is a codified art or system by this point. I can understand some new comer games company like Spartan and the horrific mess that was their "rule" books.

My friends and I left gw years ago because we want rule books, not suggestion books. I came back because I was genuinely excited by the mini's and the prospect of hitting the hives again with my friends but now I have a very hard sale to a group of nerds who are frankly used to better at this point. We went of and played Warmachine and while we may not like the game anymore THAT is how you write rules!

Heck 10 years ago Fantasy Flight Games's rules books where confusing nightmare pamphlets but the new Twilight Imperium's rule books are a god damn dream. It has a real index! Not a glorified table of contents at the back! And Necromunda doesn't even have that.



Also 1 day with a heavy handed friend and I can see the spine in my rule book. Why is my $40 book bound with freaking pva!


(huff puff)