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

It's not min-maxing, that's literally what it'll cost. The points values of everything (Minus the wave 2 stuff like bikes, drop-pods, basilisks, etc) is out, the physical cost of everything is out.

The White Dwarf Death Guard force people were costing out is a little tricky to cost as some of the boxes haven't been released yet, but my guestimate is:

1x Starter box (£120)
2x Astartes Legionary box (£60)
1x Kratos box (£30)
1x Xiphon box (£30)
1x Rhino box (£30)
1x Predator box (£30)
1x Sicaran box (£30)
1x Fire Support box (£30)
1x Fire Raptor box (£30)
1x Storm Eagle box (£30)
1x Reaver Titan (£35)

That doesn't use everything from all that; I think you'll have some extra Contemptors, Terminators, Assault Marines & Support marines, and maybe some extra Sicarans and/or Predators depending on how many end up in the box. Also doesn't use all your Auxilia from the starter box nor both Warhounds. That's pretty much what I said of £400 for a reasonably balanced force including transports for your footsloggers, aircraft, a Titan and plenty of tanks and support fires.

The Blood Angels list is almost impossible to cost out as around half the things on there aren't released yet so we don't know how many Drop pods or bikes are in a box. Though the Terminators alone would be £180 (lol) as you need to buy 6 Astartes Infantry boxes to get 12 bases of Terminators, so there surely has to be a Terminator-only box coming.

~£300 got me a 1.5k Astartes list and a 1.5k Solar Auxilia list, though that's because I've got something like 10k of Knights and Titans from AT so the 30% allies is 'free' for me.
Except we know - drop pods will be 4 to a box, bikes will come in a mixed box of fast attack units - 4 stands of bikes, 4 x 2 land speeders, 6 bases of jetbikes. So far every plastic box for LI is costed the same - 30 GBP from GW website (exception being repackaged titans, flyers, resin stuff and of course starter set).



I can`t be bothered to look for the full calculation, but the Loyalist list is super cost inefficient, the traitors were a bit better. Of course it`s possible to make super cost optimised list to limit the price, but that`s kind of not the point when one is trying to have fun in the game, instead of trying to penny pinch.

Edit: just the drop pods are 120 gbp if the 30 gbp price will remain (and to be honest, we have no indication that it will be otherwise).
 
Those articles had completely passed me by.

Based on that the Blood Angels force is made up of:

6x Astartes Legionary boxes (£180)
2x Bike/Speeder boxes (£60)
3x Sicaran boxes (£90)
2x Predator boxes (£60)
2x Kratos boxes (£60)
1x Xiphon box (£30)
1x Fire Raptor box (£30)
4x Drop pod boxes (£120)
1x Reaver titan (£35)

£665 from GW direct but you are left with:

2x Kratos bases, 1x Sicaran base, 1x Predator base, 2x Javelin speeder bases, 2x Land speeder bases, 2x Bike bases, 26x Marine bases, 12x Assault marine bases, 12x Plasma marine bases, 4x Missile marine bases, 11x Legion commander bases, 24x Contemptor Dreadnoughts

So disgustingly inefficient thanks to the Terminators and Sicarans, and Drop-pods probably being really expensive, and it doesn't feel like a realistic list. Who's going to buy a second box of Kratos but leave 2 of them on the shelf, or 6 marine boxes and not use the Plasma guys or the Assault marines or Dreadnoughts? It'd be like buying 4 boxes of Cawdor Redemptionists because you like one pose and leaving the other 20 chaps on the sprue, it's just nonsense.

EDIT: For clarity, I'm not saying it's not expensive. Nearly £700 for what looks like a probably fun army to play is a shit-tonne of money, and means this kind of force is realistically out of reach for most players :( But I am saying that this to me appears to be a list built for effect without thought to cost, and you can build a same-sized force for less. Also I'm still very sceptical that 3k is going to be the go-to size, that board in WD looked rammed.
 
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Well- for a comparison you can look at Battletech, which is also a 6mm scale game (whether or not you can classify LI as 6mm seems to be debatable, but I'm going to go for it just for the sake of comparing prices). The BT Alpha Strike rules are more comparable to LI (larger forces) than Classic Battletech, and a standard Alpha Strike game is between 300-400 points. With just buying CGL's BT lance packs (between $24-32 per box for 4-6 Mechs), you are looking at roughly 3 lance packs for a full "army" of 400 points, so about $90. Then you have to get the rules, which are $20 for the rulebook alone, or $80 for the boxed set which includes 13 Mechs divided into two factions (roughly half of what you need for a 300 point game).

The total that you need to spend for two people to get into BT Alpha Strike at the minimum recommended point level, would be about $100-115 each- that would be either two players splitting the boxed set and getting two lance packs each, or two players each buying a stand alone rulebook and three lance packs.

For LI, it is $100 for two players to split the starter box or $60 each for just the book. The comparison is staggering in favor of something like BT as a per dollar investment into your hobby- you can get a full army for two players at the same cost of getting LI's starter box set, which is very much not close to even half the recommended point-value for a game.
 
I have been following this for sometime as I was interested but its way too expensive for me. I have a marine epic army which I thought I might add to with LI but the scale is esentially 10mm not the 6mm of the old epic game. Considering 700 pounds is equivalent to 1400 dollars Oz they can get stuffed. Also if its like there usual releases it will be half baked at best, unbalanced, and require a half dozen further releases before its even playable so its a big pass for me. If anyone has the old space marine or epic rules they want to get rid off on the other hand......
 
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Well- for a comparison you can look at Battletech, which is also a 6mm scale game (whether or not you can classify LI as 6mm seems to be debatable, but I'm going to go for it just for the sake of comparing prices). The BT Alpha Strike rules are more comparable to LI (larger forces) than Classic Battletech, and a standard Alpha Strike game is between 300-400 points. With just buying CGL's BT lance packs (between $24-32 per box for 4-6 Mechs), you are looking at roughly 3 lance packs for a full "army" of 400 points, so about $90. Then you have to get the rules, which are $20 for the rulebook alone, or $80 for the boxed set which includes 13 Mechs divided into two factions (roughly half of what you need for a 300 point game).

The total that you need to spend for two people to get into BT Alpha Strike at the minimum recommended point level, would be about $100-115 each- that would be either two players splitting the boxed set and getting two lance packs each, or two players each buying a stand alone rulebook and three lance packs.

For LI, it is $100 for two players to split the starter box or $60 each for just the book. The comparison is staggering in favor of something like BT as a per dollar investment into your hobby- you can get a full army for two players at the same cost of getting LI's starter box set, which is very much not close to even half the recommended point-value for a game.
The advantage of Battletech is there's no edition changes or new army books to purchase, so you could use the same book from the 90s, though there might be a few changes here and there. The disadvantage is that the rules are all over the place in Classic Battletech. Being newer, Alpha Strike has the Commander's Edition and is great for running more than a dozen mechs and other things, but it does lack the details of Classic Battletech.
 
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The advantage of Battletech is there's no edition changes or new army books to purchase, so you could use the same book from the 90s, though there might be a few changes here and there. The disadvantage is that the rules are all over the place in Classic Battletech. Being newer, Alpha Strike has the Commander's Edition and is great for running more than a dozen mechs and other things, but it does lack the details of Classic Battletech.
The Total Warfare book has all the rules you need for Classic. Or there's the Battlemech Manual which just has all the mech rules (no vehicles etc.).
 
Thanks for the tips guys. I have often wondered about Battletech as some of the Perth based players from Tactics (our local game shop) were very enthusiastic about the game. The 10mm Dropzone Commander always interested me too. I have 10mm Romans, Lizards, and Mongols so its a scale I am quite satisfied with. The scale really suits a mass battle feel and the terrain is easy to make and very evocative on a board.
 
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I remember there being TONS of Battletech rulebooks at the FLGS awhile back (before MechWarrior Dark Ages came out). Were those all the BT equivalent of codexes and campaign books? A lot of them had years in the title.
 
Most of those will be sourcebooks and campaign books. The ones with years could either be technical readouts, aka TROs (mostly fluff, with unit information, but no record sheets) or the record sheet books that complement the TROs. The record sheets can mostly be found online these days using things like megamek or flechs sheets.
 
The Total Warfare book has all the rules you need for Classic. Or there's the Battlemech Manual which just has all the mech rules (no vehicles etc.).
The Total Warfare book has expanded rules and there are also expanded rules spread out throughout other books, but none are really needed other than the core rulebook. I'm waiting for the revised combined arm rules in the Mercenaries KS. I'm planning on getting the Techmanual, as I like designing mechs and really like the Solaris VII arenas - bought Classic Battletech: Mappack Solaris VII (FPR35002).

 
The 3d-printer community for BT is pretty good- plenty of good vehicle and mech models available at reasonable prices (or better if you print yourself).
 
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I was wondering if they were going to do this. Saw it on Facebook.
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Okay, I was going to post this in the thread where this was originaly posted, but I think sump is much better place for that.

Damn, I didn`t know I could get shivers from just looking at a book. And I mean wrong kind of shivers. Why do we need this? Why does this even exist? Who is ever going to need more necromunda rules and "twists" over hundreds upon hundreds of pages of the stuff that already exists? I have trouble keeping up with just reading the new stuff that comes out, let alone ever play it!

I mean, with how many gangs, weapons, equipment, scenarios, special rules, etc. are already out there, there must be hundreds of thousands of permutations of how many significantly different games there can be played, it is physically impossible for average person to ever play that many games to even properly experience all of that, and they just keep pumping out hundreds of pages of "new" rules, scenarios, etc.

Sorry, I think it was a first time when a tabletop game gave me an existential crisis.
 
Why do we need this? Why does this even exist? Who is ever going to need more necromunda rules and "twists" over hundreds upon hundreds of pages of the stuff that already exists?

It comes down to that often quoted, not so sure if implemented, Sand Box Game.

You just dip in and pick something to use for a game or campaign, I very much doubt they intend people to run every rule all the time - that would be exhausting.

This book, much like the Apocrypha PDFs seems like Book of Peril - and to some extent the Succession series too - it’s an Arbitrators tool.

Or at least, that’s how I’d implement it. Its totally optional and I wouldn’t expect all players to have access to it, only whoever is overseeing the campaign would need it.

There might be some stuff in there that applies to individual gangs, like the extra Gene Smithing or the Delaque vehicle crew which sucks, but then again most gang vehicles appeared in the Succession books too - which also sucked and we should moan about that.
Would’ve been much better to release a book solely of vehicles for the gangs and be done with it.

So - yeah you don’t need it but it might be fun for the occasional game.
 
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The kicker is the word "updated" in the description. If it was just a collection of out of print/never printed optional extras, then fine (there's far too much luggage already, but fine).

But the word Updated is there. So this contains unspecified changes to something you or your players may already have. Because everyone adores a fluid ruleset with different versions bobbing about in the effluent.

It's very N17+, insofar as it's a bloody nightmare.
 
I guess that’s down to the nature of the updates. I suspect (having given it a minutes thought) that if they’re dragging older content in from Gang War, White Dwarf and other sundry publications that were all designed to be played with the N18 ruleset- it may be that they updated them to be in line with procedural changes in the N23 Core rulebook instead.

In which case this book might make a nice companion to the core book and if you continue to play with the N18 one, you just don’t need this??

I know Topsy’s various threads mention all sorts of creeping changes from HoC onwards which messed up how some scenarios ran etc, so if they’re fixing those… cool I guess.

I totally agree though that they needed to draw a line under various versions so where all knew where we stood. As it stands it like someone turning up to play 40k with the latest book only to find the other players are using a mix of 3-7th editions.

I definitely think any thing pre-HoC should probably be considered part of the N18 line though.
 
Can only imagine the constant stream of "sand box" rules are there to satisfy a constant stream of new players. Otherwise, why do you need the 5th attempt at something? If you already got several books worth of optional random stuff, is it good to have another one? It's a lot of work to read through everything, then make a decision what to use. Based on what, your personal taste? And even if you manage to do that, those special rules are in my (somewhat outdated) experience likely to be either irrelevant, broken or imbalanced.
 
I can see the point of “sandbox rules” if they expand the setting and include new rules for that setting. I just don’t think that they’re going about it the right way. For example, having a core rule book (like they just released) for the Underhive and then the Ash Wastes Expansion (with new gangs, complete vehicle rules, weather, and terrain).

The original game did it well. And that leaves room for things like the Battles in the Underhive supplement or the new Apocrypha collection.