Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The movement rate thing is dumb. It makes me think the person who wrote it just took old necromunda content when the average move was 4" and just went with that. It makes no sense at all if you've read any GSC stories.

Maybe the Aberrants could be M4"? They look like big brutes, high on Toughness and Wounds like Goliath. I agree the others do not seem like slow walkers. Would be interesting to test them with standard move of 5". Think that would be unbalanced?

 Chamberlain wrote:
The movement rate thing is dumb. It makes me think the person who wrote it just took old necromunda content when the average move was 4" and just went with that. It makes no sense at all if you've read any GSC stories.

I suspect the same. Whoever wrote it seems to have just gone with M4 as the old human standard, without realising it's effectively been changed.

On a side note I was originally expecting M4 to be the standard with M5 being for the faster gangs (Escher, Delaque, Ratskins, maybe Cawdor). This would have also made sense with the Squats being M3. Shame they didn't go with that as it would have made things more interesting in my opinion.

From a game perspective they’re going to balance out profiles. You can’t have starting gangs that come loaded with immediately available memebers where opposition gangs have limited counter to. Genstealer Cult gangs in Oldmunda were a great example of how this could be done wrong. Infiltrating, M9 dodging combat monsters that appear out of nowhere were real campaign killers.

This seems like a counter to make GC a viable campaign gang. Fluff be dammed, it’s a game first and formost.

I knew I forgot to do something when I was at WHW yesterday - I was going to ask the guys in the FW bit if there was any word on an errata document for Newcromunda to clear up inconsistencies.

Mea culpa - I'm blaming this head cold for now, and the snow, OK?

On the other hand, did get to grab Gor and the Hired Guns

 notprop wrote:
From a game perspective they’re going to balance out profiles. You can’t have starting gangs that come loaded with immediately available memebers where opposition gangs have limited counter to. Genstealer Cult gangs in Oldmunda were a great example of how this could be done wrong. Infiltrating, M9 dodging combat monsters that appear out of nowhere were real campaign killers.

This seems like a counter to make GC a viable campaign gang. Fluff be dammed, it’s a game first and formost.

This doesn't make any sense. The game uses a points system for balancing. That allows the designers to make gangs play however they want, so long as an appropriate amount of points are paid. No one's advocating for GCults to be all that nonsense you mention. They're questioning why the alien guys with Agility skills don't have even an average human movement rate. GW games are all about rules matching fluff.

The most likely explanation here is sloppiness. *sigh* But I'm going to get these guys to work, even if they lumber around. I'm inclined to think that loading up on shooting -- backed by some solid countercharge -- is the best way to go with them anyway.

I did test some rules for Genestealer Cult in Necromunda 2nd edition about 15 years ago. I thought it was really cool to have a Genestealer, but found quickly out what's described above. It wasn't that insane, but had something like M6", WS6, S6, T4 and W2 if I remember correctly. It was still pretty much a slaughter in the same way as the Blood Thirster in w40k 2nd edition and Harlequins Solitaire in the more recent shadow war armageddon (charge across the table with WS 9 or 10, only 1 chance at stopping it with overwatch fire before it was over, and I think the solitaire had quite fancy anti-shooting tech too).

In the new team, there are no super killers. The closest thing is the Aberrants with S5, T4, W2. But they got slow M4" and no armour, so can either be pinned down or taken out more reliably with a special/heavy weapon (in most cases that's what those weapons are for!). The slow movement could give you more than one turn to do so.

 gorgon wrote:

 notprop wrote:
From a game perspective they’re going to balance out profiles. You can’t have starting gangs that come loaded with immediately available memebers where opposition gangs have limited counter to. Genstealer Cult gangs in Oldmunda were a great example of how this could be done wrong. Infiltrating, M9 dodging combat monsters that appear out of nowhere were real campaign killers.

This seems like a counter to make GC a viable campaign gang. Fluff be dammed, it’s a game first and formost.

This doesn't make any sense. The game uses a points system for balancing. That allows the designers to make gangs play however they want, so long as an appropriate amount of points are paid. No one's advocating for GCults to be all that nonsense you mention. They're questioning why the alien guys with Agility skills don't have even an average human movement rate. GW games are all about rules matching fluff.

The most likely explanation here is sloppiness. *sigh* But I'm going to get these guys to work, even if they lumber around. I'm inclined to think that loading up on shooting -- backed by some solid countercharge -- is the best way to go with them anyway.

Points don’t necessarily balance a game if that means you can buy a model that has little/no weaknesses. No movie marines for example.

Presides who says a mutated half-bred inherits all of the best bits of its two vastly different parents. The change from a human knee joint to the genestealer could create any sort of shambling monstrosity. The clue is in the name afterall.

 notprop wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 notprop wrote:
From a game perspective they’re going to balance out profiles. You can’t have starting gangs that come loaded with immediately available memebers where opposition gangs have limited counter to. Genstealer Cult gangs in Oldmunda were a great example of how this could be done wrong. Infiltrating, M9 dodging combat monsters that appear out of nowhere were real campaign killers.

This seems like a counter to make GC a viable campaign gang. Fluff be dammed, it’s a game first and formost.

This doesn't make any sense. The game uses a points system for balancing. That allows the designers to make gangs play however they want, so long as an appropriate amount of points are paid. No one's advocating for GCults to be all that nonsense you mention. They're questioning why the alien guys with Agility skills don't have even an average human movement rate. GW games are all about rules matching fluff.

The most likely explanation here is sloppiness. *sigh* But I'm going to get these guys to work, even if they lumber around. I'm inclined to think that loading up on shooting -- backed by some solid countercharge -- is the best way to go with them anyway.

Points don’t necessarily balance a game if that means you can buy a model that has little/no weaknesses. No movie marines for example.

Presides who says a mutated half-bred inherits all of the best bits of its two vastly different parents. The change from a human knee joint to the genestealer could create any sort of shambling monstrosity. The clue is in the name afterall.

I sincerly don't get your argument. Points would be able to balance a model with no weakness. He would cost a lot more realtively to models who have lots of weakness, but it wouldn't be necessarly unbalanced

I have spent 1000 creds on a mix of a dozen lowly gangers armed with a range of Imperial Standard flashlightslas-weapons.

My mate Dave has spent his 1000 creds on 1-3 high toughness, rapid movement killers.

Once Dave is in charge range he will cut through my gang without mercy particularly as Overwatch is a hard to get skill and my thematic weaponry is highly unlikely to prevent his charge happening no matter my tactics or manoeuvre.

As I say old GC had this and it broke every campaign I every saw it in. I take it that GW might have learnt from previous errors.

 notprop wrote:
I have spent 1000 creds on a mix of a dozen lowly gangers armed with a range of Imperial Standard flashlightslas-weapons.

My mate Dave has spent his 1000 creds on 1-3 high toughness, rapid movement killers.

Once Dave is in charge range he will cut through my gang without mercy particularly as Overwatch is a hard to get skill and my thematic weaponry is highly unlikely to prevent his charge happening no matter my tactics or manoeuvre.

As I say old GC had this and it broke every campaign I every saw it in. I take it that GW might have learnt from previous errors.

But the new GC doesn't have any standouts like that. They have less armour than average, no juves, and some combat specialists who compete with champions (but aren't much more impressive than a goliath champion). Making them slower just doesn't make sense.

 notprop wrote:
I have spent 1000 creds on a mix of a dozen lowly gangers armed with a range of Imperial Standard flashlightslas-weapons.

My mate Dave has spent his 1000 creds on 1-3 high toughness, rapid movement killers.

Once Dave is in charge range he will cut through my gang without mercy particularly as Overwatch is a hard to get skill and my thematic weaponry is highly unlikely to prevent his charge happening no matter my tactics or manoeuvre.

As I say old GC had this and it broke every campaign I every saw it in. I take it that GW might have learnt from previous errors.

I think you're in desperate need of some context here. We're looking at these statlines, and nothing like what you're talking about.

Acolytes (0-2, operate basically as Champions) 85 credits
M4 WS3+ BS3+ S4 T3 W1 I3+ A1 Ld4+ Cl5+ Wil7+ Int6+

Neophytes (operate like Gangers) 45 credits
M4 WS4+ BS4+ S3 T3 W1 I4+ A1 Ld7+ Cl5+ Wil6+ Int8+

Some nice leadership stats there, and the Acolytes get S4. But we're talking about W1, A1, T3 champions that are also M4. For 85 credits. If three of those guys rip through your entire gang, you're doing something terribly, terribly wrong and should probably give up miniatures gaming.

EDIT: Aberrants are bruisers, and no one is arguing with M4 for them. But these guys?

I’m pointing out the dangers of skewed/overpowering profiles and why you’re not necessarily seeing what some would have imagined from a novel.

The drivers behind game and plot are different.

It's pretty frustrating how many errors are in the GS Cult WD rules (though hopefully the FAQ will fix this), but it's not a be all end all to me. My group and I were waiting for 4 gangs to start a campaign, so we'll be getting the GSC into action. I am working up some house rules and rule clarifications (the clarifications mostly come from the fine work done by the nice folks at Yakromunda), but I'm thinking of making the following changes to the GSC profile:

Acolytes: Up to movement 5 and come with a third arm (or drop the third arm, give it as a purchase option and reduce the cost by 20).
Neophytes: Up the movement to 5 and increase the cost to 50 (comparable to Orlock ganger but without Mesh armor).

I really like their general approach to the material, and I'm not an easy critic there. I kinda wish the execution was better...

In our group, I'm gonna push for the extra arm as standard for Acolytes. I can work around M4 (ick). I'm going to test out a strong base of Neophyte dakka (seismic cannons look PDG), a little Aberrant counterpunch, and probably infiltrating Acolytes deployed more as shooters than assaulters. We'll see how it goes.

I'm undecided on my Adept power, so I'll have to test out some things there too.

 gorgon wrote:
I really like their general approach to the material, and I'm not an easy critic there. I kinda wish the execution was better...

In our group, I'm gonna push for the extra arm as standard for Acolytes. I can work around M4 (ick). I'm going to test out a strong base of Neophyte dakka (seismic cannons look PDG), a little Aberrant counterpunch, and probably infiltrating Acolytes deployed more as shooters than assaulters. We'll see how it goes.

I'm undecided on my Adept power, so I'll have to test out some things there too.

Good luck with the extra arm (I'm guessing that it will probably be okay, it seems reasonable based on the Acolyte's cost), I'm really thinking that was GW's intention, and it explains the cost. Why else would there be no option for the Acolytes to obtain the extra arm when all the models have at least 3 arms? As is the Acolytes are hands down worse than a champion for the cost. This at least lets them compete considering their single wound and attack. I'm guessing we'll get an official answer on this from GW fairly soon.

Overall, the game takes a bit of work to make clarifications in the rules, but I love the game play. I think it's much more engaging and fun than the original Necromunda and I'm really happy GW decided to put it. Hopefully the FAQ will be out shortly and people can spend less time debating and more time playing.

I must admit I’m finding choosing skills extremely difficult generally.

At least random rolls took out the possibility of regret and second guessing yourself!

 notprop wrote:
I must admit I’m finding choosing skills extremely difficult generally.

At least random rolls took out the possibility of regret and second guessing yourself!

Yeah but then you often cursed the dice as you'd get the awful skills rather then the one or two good ones!

Acolyte are bad even if they have 2W. You don't want them but you have to take them anyway, because you need the post-battle action.

If you put them in Zerg rush mode, the other guy just have to gun them down. And you're crippled next battle because you can't do Post-battle action.

Goliath zerg rush are scary because everyone in the gang are scary, they have cheap special weapon (compare to the other special weapon) for champions and leader to provide support from safe range. Even Goliath Juve are no slope if they have a brute cleaver.

Also with new alternate activation rule, overwatch are not really needed. And the actual Overwatch skill in the game are good, no 6+ to hit.

Really cool that the Genestealers have got a relaunch. I remember with the old version running a narrative for a campaign where the local arbites had offered a reward for having two nominated gangs try and hunt down a single purestrain (which we had made mentally tough in the rules, where it could disappear and pop out to snip a gangers head off, or even drag one away to give it the genestealer kiss - kind of like Alien). And in-between the guys playing the gangs couldn't help but have a shot at each other too, which kind of brought it back by itself

* that made some interesting additions to the 'out of action' results table at the end of the game..

Thebiggesthat wrote:
It's no more competitive than Necromunda. The teams are all imbalanced and proudly so

The many hundreds of people that attend BB tournaments globally (which have sustained since the Specialist Games days and through the relaunch) would seem to indicate that BB is more suited to the tournament format, as even though it was still popular you didn't get that volume of events for Necromunda.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It's pretty simple ATM I have no interest in buying N17 piecemeal.

I don't buy monthly comics anymore, I never bought a serialized novel and I won't buy this new game in quarterly installments.

Looking forward to the Necro Omnibus in 2020.

I've been doing a bit of reading about the releases and what is due and think I'm in the same boat, have got enough hobby-wise ongoing at the moment - will wait to see what things are like in a year's time. Hopefully the omnibus of WD rules and some FAQs will be out then, along of course with a selection of more gangs.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 notprop wrote:
I must admit I’m finding choosing skills extremely difficult generally.

At least random rolls took out the possibility of regret and second guessing yourself!

Yeah but then you often cursed the dice as you'd get the awful skills rather then the one or two good ones!

That was part of the fun. I had quite a few gangers whose careers went off in different directions to that envisaged when I hired them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:

Thebiggesthat wrote:
It's no more competitive than Necromunda. The teams are all imbalanced and proudly so

The many hundreds of people that attend BB tournaments globally (which have sustained since the Specialist Games days and through the relaunch) would seem to indicate that BB is more suited to the tournament format, as even though it was still popular you didn't get that volume of events for Necromunda.

Probably because you can play Blood Bowl as a series of games without necessarily bothering with advancement if you think that will unbalance things, and because a Blood Bowl tournament works narratively. Also because the fans spent a decade mercilessly removing all the more wacky elements of the game.

 notprop wrote:
I have spent 1000 creds on a mix of a dozen lowly gangers armed with a range of Imperial Standard flashlightslas-weapons.

My mate Dave has spent his 1000 creds on 1-3 high toughness, rapid movement killers.

Once Dave is in charge range he will cut through my gang without mercy particularly as Overwatch is a hard to get skill and my thematic weaponry is highly unlikely to prevent his charge happening no matter my tactics or manoeuvre.

As I say old GC had this and it broke every campaign I every saw it in. I take it that GW might have learnt from previous errors.

heh, at the very least it means that the points for these models were not balanced, it's not a proof of what you claimed previously

It's also got nothing to do with what's going on here. The gsc do not have some great stat advantage that needs to be balanced out by low movement. they're mostly regular humans and even the acolyte still has toughness 3 and not 4 like the goliaths.

I really do think that this is phoned in crap design work where they just took old necromunda content and did a quick conversion job and never proof read, edited or playtested it. Seems likely that the writer just plain missed that the average human is movement 5" in 2017 necro.

A quick conversation job? From what exactly? There was no Genestealer cult equivalent, there's a different stat line, there are weapons that only exist with the new GsC release.

M4 is weird, the proof reading mistakes are annoying, but not everything needs to devolve down into the most hyperbolic nonsense you can come up with.

From that

What is this?

Shadow War Armageddon perhaps?

Ahh yes, that is supporting the argument of a quick conversion job.

It's from shadow war. I tend to think of it as necromunda content, but I should have just typed shadow war.

N17 is such a good game. It's so much fun. The rules publishing though.

I find it disappointing they roll out Genestealer cults before the other houses and outlander gangs.