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 insaniak wrote:
... because your gear can change so quickly...

Maybe in Oldcromunda. Not so much these days. No model = no rule is pretty much ingrained in Newcromunda these days, to the detriment of all.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
... because your gear can change so quickly...

Maybe in Oldcromunda. Not so much these days. No model = no rule is pretty much ingrained in Newcromunda these days, to the detriment of all.

lol, more evidence you don't actually play Necromunda.

It's incredibly common for a ganger to progress from, like, pistol at creation --> lasgun mid-campaign --> boltgun late-campaign, or for a champ with a CC loadout to eventually get a rifle (or for a shooty champ to get a backup CC weapon). And this trend is seriously amplified for anyone whose group uses the (common) houserule of allowing weapon swapping.

What do you mean by "no model = no rule"? There are literally dozens of weapons -- in both House lists and the Trading Post/Black Market -- that don't have models and can nonetheless be bought and used by models.

 Altruizine wrote:
lol, more evidence you don't actually play Necromunda.

You're a funny fether, you know that right? I've been playing Necromunda since it was released. Both times. I mean who honestly comes at someone with "You don't even play the game!!!". What a weird fething attempt at a dig. Just fething wow...

 Altruizine wrote:
It's incredibly common for a ganger to progress from, like, pistol at creation --> lasgun mid-campaign --> boltgun late-campaign, or for a champ with a CC loadout to eventually get a rifle (or for a shooty champ to get a backup CC weapon).

What do you mean by "no model = no rule"? There are literally dozens of weapons -- in both House lists and the Trading Post/Black Market -- that don't have models and can nonetheless be bought and used by models.

You cannot take weapons outside of house lists, which for a lot of it means only the things that are on the sprue/accessory packs.

Wargear and equipment - that's fair game - but actual weapons, no, better not stray from that.

It's so anti-Necromunda at its core. House weapon lists have gone from something to give gangs a bit of flavour to a damned chain around their necks.

 Altruizine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
This becomes less of an issue if you reject the burdensome doctrine of strict WYSIWYG. Games Workshop loves that paradigm for it's campaign games, because it means that Gamer X, who has the money and will, may literally buy multiple models to represent the same character as that character upgrades its gear..

Historically, GW has always been far less concerned with WYSIWYG than the players have been... and even there, WYSIWYG has only ever been as strictly enforced as the players choose to make it. It's not an ironclad rule embedded in the structure of the universe, just a convention intended to make games with a lot of different stuff in them easier to keep track of.

Doesn't nearly every one of their rulebooks contain a similarly-worded blurb that says, "Models are equipped with the weapons they're modeled with, but don't worry about grenades and wargear"?

Even if not most gamers never expect that level of realism in 32mm models. It's just far too small a detail, nice if its accurate, but otherwise its small stuff that easily get swapped over all the time and at 1ft away is nearly invisible. So its just model decoration.

In general weapons are the major point since they are often the most defining part of a units stats/performance/ability. Most of the rest of upgrades and such are tweaks that affect stats ,but don't "define" the model's role. Meanwhile if you've a close combat weapon or a two handed heavy plasma that does define your role on the table quite significantly.

 Altruizine wrote:

Doesn't nearly every one of their rulebooks contain a similarly-worded blurb that says, "Models are equipped with the weapons they're modeled with, but don't worry about grenades and wargear"?

No.

But that's probably a discussion for elsewhere, rather than derailing this thread further with it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
lol, more evidence you don't actually play Necromunda.

You're a funny fether, you know that right? I've been playing Necromunda since it was released. Both times. I mean who honestly comes at someone with "You don't even play the game!!!". What a weird fething attempt at a dig. Just fething wow...

 Altruizine wrote:
It's incredibly common for a ganger to progress from, like, pistol at creation --> lasgun mid-campaign --> boltgun late-campaign, or for a champ with a CC loadout to eventually get a rifle (or for a shooty champ to get a backup CC weapon).

What do you mean by "no model = no rule"? There are literally dozens of weapons -- in both House lists and the Trading Post/Black Market -- that don't have models and can nonetheless be bought and used by models.

You cannot take weapons outside of house lists, which for a lot of it means only the things that are on the sprue/accessory packs.

Wargear and equipment - that's fair game - but actual weapons, no, better not stray from that.

It's so anti-Necromunda at its core. House weapon lists have gone from something to give gangs a bit of flavour to a damned chain around their necks.

Bickering aside, what, specifically, do you dispute about my description of model progression in campaign play? Do you start all your gang members fully geared, with a roster of 5-6 fighters? Or do you start them low-geared and never upgrade their weapons? Or do your campaigns not last longer than a handful of games per player, so that upgrading is not a realistic objective?

Leaders and champions can use TP/BM weapons. And a gang can now consist of (slightly less than) 50% champions. That's a ton of opportunity to use any number of exotic options.

Taking multple loadout is mostly pointless since by the rule those are randomized in many scenario too.

Lasgun are cheap enough to just outright buying it at start, there're no need to wait for mid campaign or buy pistol first if the ganger are going to be range gunner anw.

A more realistic progression of a Lasgun ganger should be lasgun > hotshot pack/grenade/armor > then special/heavy weapon when they're promoted in late campaign.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You cannot take weapons outside of house lists, which for a lot of it means only the things that are on the sprue/accessory packs.

During campaigns, which are the soul of Necromunda, models can get weapons outside their house list immediately after game 1. Most of those weapons don't even have an official bitz and aren't available outside proxies or conversions using 40k bitz.

If you only play single skirmish games then you're (mostly) right, typically you play with what's in the box or from FW accessory packs.

YMMV, but to me the gang boxes are cheap enough from third party that I’d rather just buy another box than try and magnetise all of those teeny Escher arms! And certainly among my group we don’t generally worry about war gear and secondary weapons, or sometimes even primary, so long as the model can be clearly identified.

Pretty much. Pistols can be handwaved too.

Problems only REALLY occur when it's things like:

"That guy with a lasgun actually has a bolter. And the guy with the bolter has a meltagun. And the guy with the Meltagun is carrying a Lascannon. And the guy with a Lascannon actually has a Lasgun" and then everything gets deeply confusing. If it's one or two guys, it's generally not an issue.

I have enough trouble seeing the difference with the variants of lasguns and pistols on my Van Saar.

I’d rather just buy another box than try and magnetise all of those teeny Escher arms!

Meh All magnetised.

 Graphite wrote:
Pretty much. Pistols can be handwaved too.

Problems only REALLY occur when it's things like:

"That guy with a lasgun actually has a bolter. And the guy with the bolter has a meltagun. And the guy with the Meltagun is carrying a Lascannon. And the guy with a Lascannon actually has a Lasgun" and then everything gets deeply confusing. If it's one or two guys, it's generally not an issue.

Yeah, this works. So does something like "all the guys with autoguns actually have lasguns." Just be consistent, logical and verbal and you're fine.

I opted not to magnetize anything for Necromunda because I find that when you're dealing with magnets that small/weak they aren't capable of holding a limb in place vertically (ie. the bond will be strong enough to hold the arm to the model, but it will rotate when moved or bumped) and that ruins poseability. I generally buy two boxes of each gang I want to play so I can build/convert a variety of loadouts, and then use soft proxying as described above if it becomes necessary later in a campaign.

Use superglue. If you ever need to change, stick the mini in the freezer and it will go brittle. Then you can apply torsion to remove the part you don’t want. Then you can clean up the joint with superglue debonder (contraindicated for the first step as it will mess up the paint).

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Use superglue. If you ever need to change, stick the mini in the freezer and it will go brittle. Then you can apply torsion to remove the part you don’t want. Then you can clean up the joint with superglue debonder (contraindicated for the first step as it will mess up the paint).

Necromunda models work out to around £1.50 each. Buy two boxes per gang instead of doing this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
... because your gear can change so quickly...

Maybe in Oldcromunda. Not so much these days. No model = no rule is pretty much ingrained in Newcromunda these days, to the detriment of all.

Yeah. As you mentioned further down, the House Lists are interesting as a starter.

But, when you can’t then re-arm from the trading post, it becomes odd.

Me? My house rule will be start up and additions use House List only. This to my mind represents what the individual or gang can get their hands on relatively easily. But once the campaign is up and running, you can buy whatever from the Trading Post and assign it as you please.

Further tinkering ideas? Any Gang specific weapons (Las Carbines, Stub Cannons etc) in the hands of other Gangs either need an advance spending to be able to use them (they’d be unfamiliar layouts etc), or perhaps have the Unstable trait for a bit (maybe the first game?).

Would also be pretty strict about WYSIWYG though, as the plastic models are so easily converted.

 Blackie wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You cannot take weapons outside of house lists, which for a lot of it means only the things that are on the sprue/accessory packs.

During campaigns, which are the soul of Necromunda, models can get weapons outside their house list immediately after game 1. Most of those weapons don't even have an official bitz and aren't available outside proxies or conversions using 40k bitz.

If you only play single skirmish games then you're (mostly) right, typically you play with what's in the box or from FW accessory packs.

That is not the reading I got from the House of X books. In House of Blades for the Gangers it says "In campaign play a ganger sister and specialist may be given additional weapons purchased from this list." and then a second bullet point says "In campaign player an escher gang sister and specialist may be given additional wargear from this list, the trading post, and black market"

This is repeated for Juves. So only champions/Leaders/prospects can shop at the trading post for weapons in a campaign, and for the prospects they only can get pistols and close combat weapons from the trading post. Juve and Gangers are house list only.

TBH, in Oldcromunda, sure you could change the weapons more freely but how many people did so without changing their miniatures to be WYSIWYG ? Especially when you know Oldcromunda models were mostly metals and, well, a pain in the ass to modify. The official miniatures had very specific equiped weapon as well too. It was a natural restraint already.

Newcromunda's stricter weapon carry rules don't bother me that much on that aspect. It's usually the champions and leaders who do the main firepower, and it's them that tend to have the best weapons as soon as possible in priority anyway. That the game focuses more on them for customisation makes sense to me...also it puts less pressure on me to put magnets / use different miniatures for all the gang.

But anyway, these rules are certainly the easiest to modify according to your campaign and personnal choices.

balmong7 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You cannot take weapons outside of house lists, which for a lot of it means only the things that are on the sprue/accessory packs.

During campaigns, which are the soul of Necromunda, models can get weapons outside their house list immediately after game 1. Most of those weapons don't even have an official bitz and aren't available outside proxies or conversions using 40k bitz.

If you only play single skirmish games then you're (mostly) right, typically you play with what's in the box or from FW accessory packs.

That is not the reading I got from the House of X books. In House of Blades for the Gangers it says "In campaign play a ganger sister and specialist may be given additional weapons purchased from this list." and then a second bullet point says "In campaign player an escher gang sister and specialist may be given additional wargear from this list, the trading post, and black market"

This is repeated for Juves. So only champions/Leaders/prospects can shop at the trading post for weapons in a campaign, and for the prospects they only can get pistols and close combat weapons from the trading post. Juve and Gangers are house list only.

Champions, leaders, and prospect are half the gang. And if you play without the expansions, using Gangs of the Underhive rules, even juves and gangers don't have those restrictions and can take all kind of weapons of the type they're allowed to carry from the Trading Post. Cawdor and Delaque don't even have their expansion book (yet).

A lot of my gangers and juves equipped with valid & legal (a year ago) FW weapons were invalidated by the new books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Use superglue. If you ever need to change, stick the mini in the freezer and it will go brittle. Then you can apply torsion to remove the part you don’t want. Then you can clean up the joint with superglue debonder (contraindicated for the first step as it will mess up the paint).

Nah, once a mini is done, it's done. I don't ever go back and redo those finished. Got way too many unfinished waiting. Instead, I make a small surpluss of minis for each gang, which allows me to swap weapons and gear freely without having to glue or paint anything.

Easy example:

2 mini with lasgun
2 mini with autogun
1 mini with laspistol & sword
1 mini with autopistol & axe
1 mini with boltgun

Save the boltgun mini for later in the campaign. The remaining 6 minis can be gangers or juves or whatever. Then a mini can be upgraded to better weapon, replaced with the boltgun mini. And now, a fresh fighter can be recruited (the one replaced).

Playing games like Warhammer Underworlds and Blood Bowl is a lot easier, because you can do a lot of modification and customization that's not represented by changing the model.

Baxx wrote:
A lot of my gangers and juves equipped with valid & legal (a year ago) FW weapons were invalidated by the new books.

And a lot of models that had to be champions before can now be gangers or juves. It wasn't a one way change.

 ohreally wrote:

Baxx wrote:
A lot of my gangers and juves equipped with valid & legal (a year ago) FW weapons were invalidated by the new books.

And a lot of models that had to be champions before can now be gangers or juves. It wasn't a one way change.

Having gangers with special weapons and heavy weapons never sit right by me, it's simply not 'Necromunda' in my opinion.

Van Saar Juves with Flamers is very Necromunda to me

(I'm pretty sure they could get the old Techno skill that gave them Special Weapon access, but my memory might be letting me down there.)

As a general thing, my gangs have always been their own little projects... it's kind of part of the appeal. So I build the minis I need for the gang I start with, and afterwards I either mod the minis (if unpainted) or "retire" the old mini and build a new one appropiate for the ganger.

Strict WYSIWYG is entirely pointless in a game that will almost always feature less than 30 models on the whole table, and functionally never more than 50.

WYSIWYG is for games like 40K where there are hundreds of models to keep track of, many of them will be duplicates, and there are plenty of opportunities for an unscrupulous person to pull "oh no mate, that squad with the melta isn't the one that actually has the plasma, it's this melta squad that has it, honest" shenanigans.

In a game like Necromunda all that's actually necessary is that your models are readily identifiable as individuals(put names on the bases, model each one as a very unique character, write descriptions of the model on the roster, whatever), and you provide your opponent with a copy of your roster - it's far quicker to glance at that if you need to be reminded what models have than trying to figure out from feet away whether that dude has a lasgun or an autogun, doubly so now that all the gangs have their own unique design aesthetic so there are dozens and dozens of weapon silhouettes to remember rather than just a handful.

And even not taking into account aesthetics, now there are scores of weapon stats, so...

THAT is the issue though.

In the new regime, you don't get the option, when you have gang specific weapons, that they fall into enemy hands. You have to have WYSIWYG, especially for that case in point of the age old issue "That guy with the Autogun is a lascannon, now...".

It is built into the game. And to see the gang change in three fights, and/ or through a campaign, you don't have the logical time to rebuild Roland the headless Lascannon Gunner three times in a row, as he evolved from Juve to full fledged ganger, to Lascannon fether.

each ganger has their weapon loadout. It should be apparent with either a weapons change, or having an added weapon on a base sitting behind the guy.

Since gangers can't drop their weapons I don't see any issue if the autogun dude at some point buys a lascannon but the model is still the same autogun dude.

We even have official cards for keeping note of the actual wargear and with 5-12 dudes per side it should be rather easy to avoid confusion.

I dunno, having autogun dude actually (also) have an invisible lascannon sounds kinda confusing to me...

Yeah, invisible heavy weapons are a bit too far... they could carry it slung over their back I guess? Not necessarily invisible but neither a drastic modification of the mini.
Also something you could do with blutac and an appropriate bit if you bought it between games in a games night.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I dunno, having autogun dude actually (also) have an invisible lascannon sounds kinda confusing to me...

The key is associating models to actual names, which come with detailed datasheets. I mean, I never had trouble with proxies in 40k once we had established pre-game who is who and that's with large armies. Using factions with 5-10 dudes is way easier.

If you get confused so often just paint the name of the dude in the base, some players do it, and keep the updated roster near the table. I'd prefer self made tokens with the name of the models or remembering them by heart as I dislike anything written on bases though.