Hey everybody,
Last week, I had a game of Necromunda for the first time in ages, my Delaque vs James and his Orlocks! The last time we played was well over six months ago, and not only have we both had another child each since then, but we’ve played a bit of 40k, so it was very much a case of getting back into the rules, etc.
I’m very pleased to say, though, that it went really well, and didn’t seem to take a great deal of time to get back into the swing of things. I think the biggest thing, for me, was remembering all the little bits and pieces like accuracy modifiers, ammo checks, and so on. But once we got into it, we managed to get pretty much through three unhurried rounds where I seemed to have amazing dice rolls, and systematically eliminated the Orlocks until only the leader remained.
It was pretty epic, in fairness, that final battle. James charged his leader into mine, whereupon his servo-claw missed, but my shock staff did some damage. My champion then came in with his web gauntlet and webbed him, then another ganger came along and took off another wound. With him webbed and seriously injured on the ground, we called it a night. But throughout the game, it surprised me how things went.
We were playing Hit and Run, from the Dark Uprising book, and I was the Defender, so set up in the centre of the battlefield. The Orlocks were then arrayed fairly close-in around me, as their guns were better in short range, but it did mean that I had a lot of gangers who could support each other and eliminate fighters where one would shoot to pin them, then the other could charge in and deliver a coup de grace. I think I took out three fighters in this way, and a fourth Orlock was lost to stray shots from friendly fire.
The bottle test was brutal though, as two fighters just immediately fled at the start of the third round, leaving just two active Orlocks left, whereas I had 8 remaining fighters through sheer dumb luck and good dice rolls, so I never had to test!
A learning point for us was close combat, however, where we just assumed a reaction attack would mean the fighter also activates. But it seems the internet tells me otherwise! Seems very powerful, if a Ready fighter is charged, so gets to fight back (if he survives, I guess!) and then can fight as well, though of course if the fighter who charged survives a second attack, he too can then make a reaction attack, and on it goes? Seems like a proper scrap, I kinda like it!
I was trying out one of the new Psy-Gheists, as well, equipped with a Psychoteric Wyrm exotic beast. The psychic element of Necromunda is quite interesting, I think, especially for Delaque, where their native psykers have a high Willpower stat to start with. Psychic Tests are done on Willpower, which is a 2D6 check, but the Psy-Gheists have a Wil of 8+. I don’t think I managed to get it off at all, and ended up using the Wyrm to bite the ankles of one of the Orlocks to pin him, then swooped in with another ganger for the coup de grace.
For the next outing, I’m definitely going to try and build a few more generic ganger-types. A lot of my current 10-strong painted gang have special weapons, as I did kinda go to town a little with the Forge World upgrades, so I’d like to get them a little more playable, and a little more normal! I am going to get the upgrade set so that I have more shotguns and stuff, but I think I need to try and be more circumspect in what I’m doing, as I’d like to have a good setup.
We’re going to play another game before launching into a campaign, which should be very interesting. I’m thinking it might be good to go for more of a straight-up Dominion Campaign as our first taste, but we’ll no doubt be talking about it in the coming weeks and making a better decision then. It’s very exciting though, I have to say!
spalanz.com 
Great write up!
Hopefully your next game will be sooner than 6 months!
I’m hoping so, too! I’m really excited for Necromunda, so fingers crossed for some truly epic games to come!!