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Hey guys! I just wanted to start Necromunda Gang. How do you customize a gang?
-Thanks

Do you mean mechanically "what is the process?", or "what options do you like?"... Or

For the first, you get a budget and build the basic gang to match. In general, you need a leader and some regular gangers, and may want 1 heavy and a handful of juves.

The models basically come 'naked' so you need to select weapons for each. Think ahead, and make sure everyone has an option or two before spending money on extras like grenades. Everyone should probably start with a ranged weapon and a melee weapon (knife, I think was the basic weapon) so they aren't completely worthless at anything. Later as gangers gain experience you may replace these or strip the ranged from a melee specialist.

For options, my Ratskins loved muskets and lasguns.

As to making them: have fun!

Ok how do you customize a gang?

You glue stuff on the models.

I know that but how do you make a gang? What are the basics?

I repeat (with a sentence completed):

Do you mean mechanically "what is the process?", or "what options do you like?"... Or "How do I model them?"

Modeling

Buy minis. Add appropriate weapons. Paint.

Looking at GW's online store, most of the current items are either 'gangs' or 'boosters'. A lot of the models in these can be used as-is if you're OK with the weapons included.

The 'Gang' sets look to be 1 Leader, 1 Heavy, 4 Gangers, and 2 Juves (Younger rookie gangers) with a mix of weapons.

GW's site is terrible at showing how these are packed. They used to be a lot better as you could order specific gangers if desired, and had a much better component service. I thought some of the gangs had been re-done with hands attached to weapons, but I may be wrong.

You may need to go to bitz services if you don't know someone with a cache of weapons. They used to have some great metals sprues for these as well as some plastic Space Marine weapons that could be sued, but they're hard to find now. Still, ImpGuard players might have lasguns and some heavies, and Space Marine players can often provide spare bolters and such.

I don't remember anything specific in the rules, but my group did not require modeling a lot of the add-ons and grenades and such, but we did try to get all weapons modeled.

For weapon swaps, keep in mind that the core element for a lot of GW's weapon designs is the muzzle. An AutoGun and a LasGun can be swapped as long as you move from the blunt muzzle of the autogun to the angled muzzle of the lasgun or vice versa.

Could I make a custom gang with 40k sets?

You can use any models as long as there's an attempt to make it clear what they are and what weapons they carry.

Ok so could I do like a mix of DE and IG Catachans or something?

Sure, if you want. You'd need to pick one of the existing gangs to use for rules (or home-brew something) but no one can stop you.

Necromunda is pretty 'human-centric' so I would recommend using human-ish weapons as some people may not want to deal with weird proxies.

Ya I was thinking of buying Imp. stuff to do that. What is home brewing?

Home brewing is making stuff up yourself.

Oh ok that's what I thought.

For example, if you're using modified Imperial Guard minis, but say you're using them as House Van Saar gangers, no one should complain. They're about the right shape, potentially have proper weapons, etc.

On the other hand, if you say "I'm using Cadians, and because they're Imperial Guard I think they should be able to have rule sunsupported in the written rules to allow them to field a bunch of Chimeras" people will probably complain and not want to play against you.

Oh ok and thanks. How is the gameplay like?

I like the Necromunda rules. They work pretty well with the over-the-top action 40k is built around, and I think it would have been neat if it has been a bit more of an 'open' design so you could do things like have 3-4 gangs try to take a squad of Space Marines.

The basic game rules are derived from 2nd edition 40k. Models move and fihgt independently, but there's advantages to being close to your gang leader. Shooting is pretty clean, while Melee has some complications as models may be able to parry attacks.

It plays best with the Campaign rules which add some neat meta-game stuff and balance out some of the Gangs. The campaign rules are based around each gang generating a number of territories they control, and each game they can roll to do various things with these. Models gain XP, so a ganger that gets a bunch of kills can roll and get a skill. The skill tables are somewhat random, so don't be surprised or annoyed when your sniper gets a melee-focused skill.

The skill tables are also one thing that sets the various Houses and other gangs apart: The Van Saars are techy so get a lot of ballistics and gadget-creation, while the orlocks are brawlers and focus on toughness and melee.

The 'Post game' process (which last I saw, could have been organized a bit clearer, but I digress) in a campaign gets fun. As mentioned above, you have various territories and can sometimes attempt to take one from an opponent. You can assign gangers to work territories or to use other skills to try and cobble together weapons and such. ("Hey, look! I found the parts to build a boltgun!") "Killed" gangers have to roll on a table and may make it out fine, but may also be killed, captured by the enemy (and ransomed back), horribly disfigured, or not right in the head.

Wow. Looks pretty fun. I'll be sure to look into it more.

Reading most of this hurt my brain

Best of luck on your first games of Necromunda. Its my favourite game that they have ever made.