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

The thing I didn’t like about Mordheim was that, apart from the leader/champion, everyone was faceless mooks. I like Necromunda’s take (ORB) that everyone is a named character who can rise to stardom.

But I never got the chance to play Mordheim, and I haven’t played Necromunda since the turn of the millennium…. (Is weeping allowed in The Sump?)
 
Complexity is one thing... but the core issue IMO is that it's easy to keep throwing stuff on top of the pile without too much care. Simple is hard to do! Alessio Cavatore quoted a saying that goes along the lines of "I didnt have time so I wrote you a long letter", in the sense, it takes a lot more time and effort to produce a condensed one.

I am most annoyed at n17 and following by the crappy gaming experience the rules offer most of the time. Yes orb got bit cray cray over time, but at least campaigns didnt snowball after 2 games like they inevitably do with N17 and successors (at least in my experience).

The amount of books they throw out is key indicator that it isnt to great of a ruleset. Less is more!
 
For me it’s the weapons, there’s no need for fifty different shotgun variants. Keep it simple with easily identified weapon types everyone carries. Heck the original descriptions for things like Autoguns even say that it covers a multitude of types. It gives an illusion of choice when all it really does is slow down gameplay whilst someone finds the special rule.

Also stuff is supposed to rare! hard to get etc not fancy flying hoverboards, well armed paramilitary groups and bloody working STC’s! Meh! And all this whilst strangely there’s a hive wide shortage of shoes!

I did like the scum kit though.
 
I am most annoyed at n17 and following by the crappy gaming experience the rules offer most of the time. Yes orb got bit cray cray over time, but at least campaigns didnt snowball after 2 games like they inevitably do with N17 and successors (at least in my experience).
Up until last year I didn’t have any of the big rule books. I had only the N17 box set book and a few Gang Wars plus I picked up a House book here and there over time.

The vast majority of games I’ve played were played with a remarkable little document that’s only 4 pages long - it’s the Gang Leaders reference sheet! Released in either late 2018 or 2019 it covers most of the mechanics of the game and it’s still usable now if you just tweak a few things.

“But it doesn’t have X, Y and Z…”

True. Skills, Weapon Traits and anything campaign specific aren’t included as it’s a reference sheet. Funnily enough though those were in the other books I had.

So what’s the point here? Well its that the core of the game isn’t overly complicated. It can fit on 4 pages of A4.

I’d argue that Skills and Weapon traits actually complicate things a bit by making it so you have to constantly check and remember what they do - or you have to write out that text as a reference. Even so a second reference sheet of those would only be a few pages too.

Most campaigns could be condensed down to a few pages also. I’d also say you don’t really need them or the missions either. If you do how many pages are they? 6? 12?

The whole base game could fit into a softback book.

“There are no gangs…”

Shush hypothetical reader - the Hive War book whacks all six houses into the back of it no issue, all it lacks is the Juve and the extra fluffy characters from the house books.

Again all of those could be condensed into a single softback. As could the hireable fighters/characters.

The amount of books they throw out is key indicator that it isnt to great of a ruleset. Less is more!

It can be fine. The game can be fun. The reason there are so many books is to generate profit. Problem is it turns us all into Librarians rather than players. I don’t want to have to initiate the Dewey Decimal system to find where a specific rule is (and it’s often felt like you need to).

The amount of books required makes it poor precisely because they keep splitting by things across books! They started like that with Gang War 1-4 and are still doing it.

They could’ve put all of the Ash Wastes in one big expansion. It was far more profitable to make you buy a box set and 2-4 extra books to get it all though.

They will do the same again with Secundus. People will still comply and buy the stuff. There is no incentive for them to do anything else except a cleanup compilation of the main/core rules every 4-5 years.

Alessio Cavatore quoted a saying that goes along the lines of "I didnt have time so I wrote you a long letter", in the sense, it takes a lot more time and effort to produce a condensed one.
I get his point (this is waffling on after all) but equally he made 40k 3rd Edition which sucked all of the fun out of the game.

It was so paired down it took two more editions to put back in much of the stuff that was ripped out from 2nd. Even then I think it fails to be anywhere near as fun.

So just because you can simplify down doesn’t mean it’s the best approach.
 
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We definitely misunderstood some rules (eg kinda forgot to roll for saves against toxin in the 1st game and I also didnt realize the flying dudes were pets not independent fighters).
The flying testicles are pets, but uniquely due to the Underhells campaign rules they don't have to stick near their owner. Malstrain fighters auto pass any Nerve test they need to take, so the pet being more than control range from their owner cannot ever cause them to break. So go wild with them, they can zoom all over the board without issue.

I've managed to play through 2 campaigns of the new box and the VS have won both because the Orrus is a total beast and rapidly snowballs. Their shooting is solid, but they will absolutely munch anything they charge. Both end scenarios were not even close, the Malstrain player is incentivised to run their 'Prime' away for 8 turns and try and avoid combat with them but an Orrus that can move 32" in a single turn (If you get some Movement increases which I'd highly recommend/luck out with) is basically impossible to avoid.

It is a fun campaign, and I'd love to see more takes on a dedicated 2-player campaign in future box sets, which you know are coming, and it has got at least 1 new player in my group wanting to play 'full' Necromunda.
 
but an Orrus that can move 32" in a single turn
???????!!!!!!! 😯
So a move of 8" on them? Their base movement is 5", so three rolled Movement power boosts. Twelve personally downed opponents to get the three Power Boost d6 rolls, each one rolling a 3. It can happen, definitely. It is probably pretty rare, given that it is a one in six chance each time? (A quick visit to a dice probability calculator says the probablility is 0.462963%, so 1 in 216 times that your first three Power Boosts on your Orrus will each be a Movement boost).
 
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The flying testicles are pets, but uniquely due to the Underhells campaign rules they don't have to stick near their owner. Malstrain fighters auto pass any Nerve test they need to take, so the pet being more than control range from their owner cannot ever cause them to break. So go wild with them, they can zoom all over the board without issue.

I've managed to play through 2 campaigns of the new box and the VS have won both because the Orrus is a total beast and rapidly snowballs. Their shooting is solid, but they will absolutely munch anything they charge. Both end scenarios were not even close, the Malstrain player is incentivised to run their 'Prime' away for 8 turns and try and avoid combat with them but an Orrus that can move 32" in a single turn (If you get some Movement increases which I'd highly recommend/luck out with) is basically impossible to avoid.

It is a fun campaign, and I'd love to see more takes on a dedicated 2-player campaign in future box sets, which you know are coming, and it has got at least 1 new player in my group wanting to play 'full' Necromunda.
That reduced those pets (in that campaign) to unlimited range GA. It is a little bit strange as it should be confusing to keep track of which pet belongs to which owner?
 
So a move of 8" on them? Their base movement is 5", so three rolled Movement power boosts. Twelve personally downed opponents to get the three Power Boost d6 rolls, each one rolling a 3. It can happen, definitely. It is probably pretty rare, given that it is a one in six chance each time? (A quick visit to a dice probability calculator says the probablility is 0.462963%, so 1 in 216 times that your first three Power Boosts on your Orrus will each be a Movement boost).
You're forgetting you can spend XP to increase movement, and the Orrus hoovers up XP. Movement is only 5XP and due to the starting stats of the Orrus (and the limited opponent selection in the campaign) there isn't a lot of point advancing most of the other stats.

After 5 games my Orrus had achieved 18 kills and 48 XP, my opponent's was similar (I think off-hand just under 16 kills as they'd only got 3 power upgrades). I went into the last game with 8", my opponent had to make to with only 7"
 
Up until last year I didn’t have any of the big rule books. I had only the N17 box set book and a few Gang Wars plus I picked up a House book here and there over time.

The vast majority of games I’ve played were played with a remarkable little document that’s only 4 pages long - it’s the Gang Leaders reference sheet! Released in either late 2018 or 2019 it covers most of the mechanics of the game and it’s still usable now if you just tweak a few things.

“But it doesn’t have X, Y and Z…”

True. Skills, Weapon Traits and anything campaign specific aren’t included as it’s a reference sheet. Funnily enough though those were in the other books I had.

So what’s the point here? Well its that the core of the game isn’t overly complicated. It can fit on 4 pages of A4.

I’d argue that Skills and Weapon traits actually complicate things a bit by making it so you have to constantly check and remember what they do - or you have to write out that text as a reference. Even so a second reference sheet of those would only be a few pages too.

Most campaigns could be condensed down to a few pages also. I’d also say you don’t really need them or the missions either. If you do how many pages are they? 6? 12?

The whole base game could fit into a softback book.

“There are no gangs…”

Shush hypothetical reader - the Hive War book whacks all six houses into the back of it no issue, all it lacks is the Juve and the extra fluffy characters from the house books.

Again all of those could be condensed into a single softback. As could the hireable fighters/characters.



It can be fine. The game can be fun. The reason there are so many books is to generate profit. Problem is it turns us all into Librarians rather than players. I don’t want to have to initiate the Dewey Decimal system to find where a specific rule is (and it’s often felt like you need to).

The amount of books required makes it poor precisely because they keep splitting by things across books! They started like that with Gang War 1-4 and are still doing it.

They could’ve put all of the Ash Wastes in one big expansion. It was far more profitable to make you buy a box set and 2-4 extra books to get it all though.

They will do the same again with Secundus. People will still comply and buy the stuff. There is no incentive for them to do anything else except a cleanup compilation of the main/core rules every 4-5 years.


I get his point (this is waffling on after all) but equally he made 40k 3rd Edition which sucked all of the fun out of the game.

It was so paired down it took two more editions to put back in much of the stuff that was ripped out from 2nd. Even then I think it fails to be anywhere near as fun.

So just because you can simplify down doesn’t mean it’s the best approach.
Fair points all over. I'd argue that not only the rules are spread out when they could be properly organized in a surprisingly small number of pages like you pointed out, but also a lot of critical elements Just Dont Work. My main beef is the underdog and (non existent) campaign anti snowball mechanisms.

By now I've played in more newmunda campaigns than orb/nce ones, and every single time after very few games things have snowballed and it isnt fun anymore to play.

Isnt it tragic that a campaign centric game... has a terrible campaign system that simply fails to do a basic job of keeping people playing together?

As for simplicity, I guess there could be different expectations. In another style of games, there are those who prefer the old world and those who prefer kings of war. In a way these two couldnt be more different to each other! And I know which one I prefer (I'm into both).
 
My main beef is the underdog and (non existent) campaign anti snowball mechanisms.
It is remarkable that they have steadfastly refused to address this since 2018. 2017 if you count Turf War.

I wonder if just importing the old ORB/NCE cost of living chart would help address that? Here’s your credits earned, cross reference against number of fighters in total in the gang and the figure indicated is what you get to keep.

As for currently it seems their solution is to just keep it short - play 6-7 games across the whole of the campaign and then end it regardless.
 
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It is remarkable that they have steadfastly refused to address this since 2018. 2017 if you count Turf War.

I wonder if just importing the old ORB/NCE cost of living chart would help address that? Here’s your credits earned, cross reference against number of fighters in total in the gang and the figure indicated is what you get to keep.

As for currently it seems their solution is to just keep it short - play 6-7 games across the whole of the campaign and then end it regardless.
I think the intention is for Newmunda to have a games master / arbitrator to sort it all out. To be fair whilst Oldmunda campaigns can run and run it loses interest for me when everyone gets souped up late campaign (2500 points plus) too much checking rosters and skills rules.
 
As for currently it seems their solution is to just keep it short - play 6-7 games across the whole of the campaign and then end it regardless.
To be fair, that is what my group tends to do- one gameday every two weeks (two battles per gameday), for two months to simulate a seven to eight week campaign. Usually with an intro and outro multi-gang single-fighter arena battle. It works well and doesn't require a lot of Arbitrator oversight to control overpowered gangs or other issues.

I do think that the majority of the issues with Necromunda is the spread out nature of the rules, but that is because (as others have said) GW is trying to sell books, not create a great set of rules. Overall the rules are ok, with some things that require minor house-rule tweaks/Arbitrator involvement, but not terrible.
 
It is remarkable that they have steadfastly refused to address this since 2018. 2017 if you count Turf War.

I wonder if just importing the old ORB/NCE cost of living chart would help address that? Here’s your credits earned, cross reference against number of fighters in total in the gang and the figure indicated is what you get to keep.

As for currently it seems their solution is to just keep it short - play 6-7 games across the whole of the campaign and then end it regardless.
We've tried it for a campaign - along with basically reworking how you get territories and income, because in the standard stuff the more you win the more territories you get and income and boons... and after three wins you're leaving no chance to your opponent if they've had three losses!
It helped a little but sadly this isnt IMO the only issue with the campaign system or the rules as a whole.
I think the intention is for Newmunda to have a games master / arbitrator to sort it all out. To be fair whilst Oldmunda campaigns can run and run it loses interest for me when everyone gets souped up late campaign (2500 points plus) too much checking rosters and skills rules.
Maybe. Who has time for that though? And it's a bit hard to have to have someone from the group say "maybe dont make that build it is a bit too strong".
I agree that orb/nce also gets a bit stale after a while... BUT to me the fact that usually going after the top ranked gang is the best strategy to boost yourself (even if you take a bit of a beating the extra xp and creds are worth it) says a lot about how healthy the campaign system is, and how good it is at keeping people engaged and playing with each other.
 
I wonder if just importing the old ORB/NCE cost of living chart would help address that? Here’s your credits earned, cross reference against number of fighters in total in the gang and the figure indicated is what you get to keep.
We are trying more or less that. Our "Ninety-Fivers" campaign setup is in the vault. In short, applying the income chart, making gangers have a special ganger-only post-battle action "work a territory" to get territory boon/income, and making use of an experience-boost-for-the-match Underdog bonus instead of tactical cards Underdog bonus, equivalent to the N95 Underdog system (because tactical cards don't help a behind gang catch up, but experience does).

But yeah, the official response to "runaway" and snowballing in a campaign appears to be "just end that campaign and then start a new one, after buying some new miniatures."
 
Oldmunda campaigns can run and run it loses interest for me when everyone gets souped up late campaign (2500 points plus) too much checking rosters and skills rules.
Isn’t there a paragraph in ORB/NCE that basically says give up after a gang has hit a certain limit?

I agree though that super long campaigns can get very silly towards the end.
 
We usually never get to the "end", before one or more of us starts a new gang to join the party. But we run more than one gang each, anyway.