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I’m starting a new Necromunda campaign on Sunday. I’m rather excited about it. Here’s my gang: The Dalston Reach Fighting Hellcats.

Leader: Blackheart Sal
Boltgun, Laspistol, Sword

Heavy: Suzy Bang Bang
Heavy Stubber, Clip Harness, Autopistol

Heavy: Nikolena Nikolova
Lasgun

Ganger: Kandy Kane
Lasgun

Ganger: Hester Rock
Shotgun w/ Man Stopper

Ganger: Dee Six
Autopistol, Sword

Ganger: Wildflower
Autopistol, Chainsword

Ganger: Dynamite
Laspistol, Flail

Juve: Gaga
Autopistol

Juve: Di
Stubgun, club

Juve: Muck
Laspistol

I’m slightly tempted to swap Dynamite’s close combat stuff for an autogun, giving me a more sensible ratio of basic weapons to pistols but reckon I’ll keep it as is because, well, it’s an Escher gang! Plus the laspistol-flail model looks like a psycho.

Immediate plans for post-battle are to buy a couple of side arms and/or grenades, hire a Ratskin Scout and then save up for a plasma gun for the second heavy. Hopefully I can get to the plasma gun stage before the juves mature and need decent weapons.

The Ratskin is perhaps a bit controversial at such an early stage. My thinking is that he only comes with 3 advances, so won’t be too overpowered and steal too much exp from my gangers; his Guide skill is always useful (until you can get hold of a Ratskin Map); but he’s mostly there for his Explore skill- the sooner I hire him the quicker he can pay for himself by finding me a new territory (assuming I can win a game or two!). In my experience Ratskins always roll up a useless set of advances: ‘+S, +I, Dive, great.’ But you never know, I might get lucky and roll an infiltrating, sprinting sniper with +BS.

As promised, here's a picture of the lasses:



I'll update on their progress in the 'battle for survival in the nightmare undercity TM' on Monday!

A ) fantastic work with the paintjobs, they look brilliant. I especially like the bases, there detailed without being over the top.

B ) your gang roster seems to be pretty solid, a good mix of range and close combat. Especially playing Escher you'll be surprised how quickly they start to gain close combat and agility skills. And smart move grabbing the man stopper rounds for the shotgun. So many people I play against forget all the cool ammunition you can get for the shotgun, using the different ammo makes it quite a versatile weapon and your opponent may forget this as well ;-) be sure to exploit this oversight.

C ) Your dead right with the Ratskin. Anytime I've used a Ratskin they would always get useless advances. Using him for this explore skill will be a smart move, as long as he finds you a decent territory.

D ) looking forward to hearing how this gang develops.

Cheers Grim! I'm in the process of repainting the gals- some of them still have the original paintjob from 1995/6 (done when I was 12) so I might start a progress log to show Dakka how and what I'm doing.

Games went well, will update in detail tomorrow.

Howdy. Time for a detailed update. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I played and won two games with my new gang on Sunday, which is almost unheard of.

First up I drank two cups of quite strong coffee and rolled up some pretty average territories: Friendly Doc, Chem Pit, Holestead, Mine Workings and Vents. Pleased with the vents (my first ones in god-knows how many Necromunda campaigns!)and the Doc, obv. I’m planning to give my territories names as well, so will have to give that some thought, although I probably should be doing more important things.

So next I whacked on some Dire Straits and we fought the traditional inaugural gang fight. My first opponent? Surprise surprise, an Orlock gang, called Streatham Contemporary Urban Music (S.C.U.M for short). Probably not huge fans of Sultans of Swing, but never mind. We fought on an interesting table which consisted almost entirely of walkways (from three sets of Industrial Battlezones, so not as sparse as it sounds!)- no buildings. For this reason I didn’t bother using the vents (the rules read something like ‘you may set up on the top level of a building’ and we weren’t sure what would be considered a ‘building’ in this context).

I managed to refuse a right flank attack with my heavy and a couple of gangers whilst advancing on the left with a couple of hand to hand groups covering each other. My juves all took some fire but were pretty lucky, with Muck taking two heavy stubber hits in one turn and emerging unwounded and unpinned. The game ended with my girls on the left reaching hand to hand. A juve and a ganger were taken down by the Orlocks but the retaliation was deadly: their ganger was taken down by Dynamite (thank goodness I didn’t swap her weapons for an autogun) and, it turns out, killed. I told you she was a psycho.
Things looked bad for the Orlock juve and already downed flamer-carrying heavy on the left flank and some of my fighters were starting to get into some good cross-firing positions, so S.C.U.M voluntarily bottled to fight on another day. First blood to the Fighting Hellcats.
Post Battle was fairly uneventful: a hand injury for Dee Six meant that she swapped her weapons with Hester Rock. Gaga the juve managed to gun down an Orlock so went up a couple of levels, picking up a WS increase and Counter Attack. Blackheart Sal was offered a Bio-Scanner, which she wisely turned down, hiring a Ratskin Scout called Bonzo Dog, who rolled up pretty well actually, getting Infiltrate, Dive and Sneak up.

After losing the chainsword carrying ganger (I imagine Dynamite wrapped her flail round his throat), S.C.U.M’s gang rating fell pretty low, so I was ready to be raided, ambushed or something equally unpleasant, but my opponent rolled a 4, allowing the gang with the highest rating to choose. I went easy on him and stumped for Scavengers, thinking we could both do with some extra cash. We grabbed a cuppa and a doughnut, rolled 5 loot counters and set up a more normal-looking table.

To the strains of a rather jarring harpsichord piece on BBC Radio 3, I set my heavies up on the ground with a very nice long, wide fire lane covering a loot counter out in the open. The rest of the gang went for the more cluttered terrain on the right flank. Bonzo Dog stayed in reserve with Infiltrate and the now shotgun-equipped Dee Six and Gaga scuttled into the gang’s vents. They popped out at the end of the first turn on the far left near a loot counter, whilst the sneaky Ratskin appeared on the far right bang on top of one.
Suzy Bang Bang made an early, unlikely overwatch shot on the Orlock’s first turn, taking a ganger down and demoralising an already quite demoralised opponent. Whilst Bonzo Dog fell back to Escher lines with his loot, the juves sped off towards the other counters under encouragement and threats from the gangers covering them. Gaga and Muck eventually made it (Muck encouraging her ‘invincible’ reputation by surviving point-blank autopistol fire whilst standing entirely in the open), but Di got shot down, grimly hanging onto the second level platform she’d reached.
By this point the bulk of my gang were hiding behind some containers on the right and I’d negligently allowed them to be flanked by Orlocks coming up the middle of the board. Needing to act I impetuously charged them forward, forgetting about the heavy stubber standing on overwatch above. The main force of girls were quite lucky to get away with one ganger downed and another pinned. They did reach hand to hand though, Wildflower cleaving through the flamer-carrying heavy (who again ended up with no serious injuries).
I had three out of five of the loot counters, with one being in the hands of the Orlocks and another contested. Luckily at this point the lads from Streatham failed their bottle roll and pegged it, leaving the Hellcats victorious again.

After a quick break for several bags of Morrisson’s delicious pork pies we did post-battle. Hester Rock picked up an old battle wound from her experience at the wrong end of a heavy stubber, which was annoying; and the gang were offered a Force Field at the trading post. Tempting, but for 90 creds there was no was no way it was happening. After paying Bonzo Dog (who didn’t manage to find me a new territory- never mind, early days) the gang has 55 creds, which seems a bit measly considering their 4 loot counter haul.

After looking at the plasma gun stats in the Communtiy Rules I’m not sure whether it’s the way to go anymore. In the new rules, low power is S5, +1 to hit at 0-8 and ammo 4; high power is sustained 1, S6, +1 at 0-12, ammo 6. You also have to roll on the plasma weapon table, which I believe looks something like this:

1: Critical –weapon explodes (so that’s a S5 hit on my precious heavy!)
2: Overheats – 1 hit at D3 S;
3-4: Recharge,
5-6: OK.

I’m not sure that the sustained fire dice and extra S (but still not high enough to be High Impact) is worth a 1/3 chance that my heavy takes a hit; and the low power version isn’t good enough to warrant the 90 cred price tag. Maybe if the heavy picks up and extra wound and/or the weaponsmith skill (ignores weapon explosions on a 4+) the plasma gun would be a better choice.
What to do? Since the model was sold and can be used as heavy plasma gun that’s quite tempting- the weapon is much better on low power with High Impact and a small blast template, but saving up the requisite 240 creds will take me an age. Alternatively I could go for a melta or a grenade launcher. Both are weapons I’ve not tried before (I’m not really up for a flamer- been there, done that). In the Community Rules it’s not move or fire and is significantly cheaper, so the grenade launcher is a much stronger option than it was in the original rulebook and indeed could be fun if I stumble across some rare grenades for it. I’ve always considered the melta was a bit of overkill and not worth the creds, but that was before the High Impact rules appeared. Now it’s a weapon with good a metagame benefit- other players will keep their distance if I hole my heavy up somewhere in overwatch; and of course it’s basically an instant win condition in any game where I have to wreck a water still or gateway.

Conversions are all equally easy, so I put it out for discussion: melta, plasma or grenade launcher? Or something else that I haven’t considered..?

I'd go with the melta, unless you own the Catachan grenade girl (sweet model!)

I know the one you mean! Sadly not.

So, one vote for melta. What's your thinking?

I have to say I was swinging that way myself, but only because a melta looks better than a grenade launcher! At the end of the day though I'm hoping to stick magnets on my heavy so I can arm her with any of the above, so it's largely game mechanics I'm thinking about.

Nice log! I'm definatly subscribed.
I'm doing Necromunda myself. Feel free to check my blog, it's in my signature

Looking forward for more updates.

A frag template at long range cant be dismissed in my opinon, sure a melta gun will vapourise someone but i like the versatility of grenade launcher.

Argh! A vote for the grenade launcher! Dissent! Dissent is good though. Keep it coming folks.

The danger of a nicely planted 2" template will certainly keep my opponents on their toes and I can imagine it being insane in an ambush scenario.

Nice log Scrazza. How's the gang coming along? Two chainswords for your leader will look ace on the model, give him two parries which makes him a very difficult customer in hand to hand and all of his hits will be at S4. The only problem is the cost and the worry that he he might pick up a S increase which will be fairly useless. I'd be tempted to go for Chainsword and a normal sword. You still get the parry but it's a bit cheaper. Are you using the community edition rules for your campaign?

I really don't like Grenade Launchers and Missile Launchers in Necro. The fact that you have to buy the Krak ammo really takes away from their versatility, just my opinion

Hm, I'm not sure I agree. The launcher itself is 60 creds, frag are 25 and krak 40 in the community rules.

So that's 85 for the basic setup, which I can pay in two handy instalments, perhaps buying the frags now and the launcher at the end of the next game.
Krak grenades might be a bit of overkill at this stage in the campaign. I can save up later on and pick them up when my opponents have more dangerous multi-wound guys running around.

And actually I've just realised that I remembered the costs wrong for the other special weapons. Plasma guns are 80, meltas are 95.
I reckon I'm heading towards the grenade launcher now. But I don't like the -1 to hit at long range and the 6 ammo roll.

i've never seen the community rules.....

whenever we had a necro campaign we just used the LRB from GW

http://anthony-case.me.uk/necromunda

They're really very good. Much more balanced than the old GW ones. The skills especially.

We still use the old rules. The original GW ones.

Thanks for viewing my blog I hope the dual chainsword gang leader will work out, modelswise speaking. I have the basics done, he only needs some greenstuff. But I'm not too happy about him, where he stands now.

Some good advice. The moment he gains a strength advance I'll have to change his weapon loadout.

I'd go for meltas though. Grenade launchers aren't that handy for necromunda IMHO. With the scattering rules and all that stuff...

We use the old rules too! If you guys aren't particularly the competitive type, some of the more unusual grenade types can make for a really fun narrative - hallucinogen grenades in particular can be loads of fun! A friend of mine's gang leader lost their final wound to one of his own juves who developed paranoia from a gas cloud - it was the first shot he'd fired that game that had actually hit anything

Great models, by the way, and your skirmish reports were a really interesting read - sounds like SCUM had kind of a hard time of it! Do you have many other opponents, or is it just the two of you?

It has been forever since I have played Necromunda, but I still dream about it and will keep an eye on your blog.
Here is another Necromunda thread that I found extremely enjoyable. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/289517.page

As for my opinion (and take it with a grain of salt, because it is outdated and based on memory), I vote for the grenade launcher for its versatility. I liked the better range over the plasma and melta (I think ) and I would use it to keep enemies pinned in cover until I could get to the positions I wanted. Granted I played Delaque who also had vents and relied heavily on shooting. Since Escher will become more CC oriented maybe you will want something more up-close and personal. However, I would think you might like the range and versatility even more from the grenade launcher.

BTW, your gang looks great.

Scrazza, you should give the new ones a try at some point! Maybe your next campaign? They're mostly just tweaks like making stubguns and grenades a bit more attractive. Anyway, I'll shut up about them now because I'm starting to sound a bit obsessive!

My thoughts on leaders are that they should cover the main weakness in your gang but still be flexible. Hence my leader focuses on shooting.

Hello Scarpa, thanks for the input! So far I've only fought SCUM. There's another (unnamed) Orlock gang in the campaign too who belong to someone who's only played once and another couple of potential players who might come in later. Since we've only had three games in total it won't be too difficult for latecomers to win games yet. It's so hard to get everyone together for a game! Not like the old days when our only commitments were school!

I'd love to get my hands on some hallucinogen but in my many years of playing I've never rolled them once on the rare trade chart!

Cheers Boogeyman, will check that link out; and I've added another vote to the grenade launcher.

Just starting munda myself (now to find more players) i have read bopth sets of rules and i like the community edition a tad better myself. just put together my gang today as a matter of fact (my silly orlocks) any rate keep up the awesome!

Cheers all.

Just trying to organise another session, annoyingly it's looking like 14th July will be the earliest we can do, so don't hold your breath for updates!

Alabama, good choice with the Orlocks; they're the best all-rounders, perfect for a first gang.

More violence this weekend as the Dalston Reach Fighting Hellcats faced off against their Orlock rivals in another three encounters.

Out for an innocent stroll in the local settlement, gangers Wildflower, Kandy Kane, Dynamite and Di the bulletproof juve found themselves face-to-face with the leader, heavy and a ganger from Streatham Contemporary Urban Music. Eyes were narrowed, insults were traded and the street was cleared in seconds.

I’d won the roll to choose the scenario and went for a shoot-out. Why? I hadn’t done one for long time; the girls have a lot of pistols and some initiative advances, so stood a decent chance of whipping the guns out before the Orlocks; it would be quick, so the chances of getting another two games in would be quite good (and therefore a higher chance of me being able to buy and use my grenade launcher by the end of the day), and finally there was a small chance that I’d be able to nick a territory, something that’s high on my list of priorities for The Hellcats.

The build-up was, as always, very tense. First I was ahead, then behind and finally we both landed on exactly 15 on the same turn with our gangers lined up at point blank range.

SCUM’s heavy got a worryingly high quick draw score but luckily my girls rolled even higher and pinned him before he could bring the big stubber to bear and took a wound off a ganger into the bargain. The return fire from their leader had little effect, so he charged and as the other Orlocks picked themselves off the floor the tense firefight became a desperate scrap. Multiple hand-to-hand combats later the girls came out victorious.

Not much to report from post battle apart from the tons of experience the girls got from the fight; with Kandy Kane going up three levels from the 20 bracket to the 50 bracket and outrageously picking up three initiative advances! So that’s an otherwise vanilla ganger with an initiative of 6. Useful. I didn’t get a free territory from my Ratskin, but I did save up enough creds to finally buy the grenade launcher.



After a lovely spot of lunch, my opponent won the roll for scenario and went for an outlaw scenario: Heist.

Heist can be great, but it’s a hell of a risk. If you roll a high number for your crates and if you can get the rival gang to bottle and if you get a decent number of ‘gear’ counters then you’re onto a winner. That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ though. Turns out I was defending only four counters and the table was set up quite nicely in my favour.

The game opened with a lucky long range shot from Blackheart Sal taking out a ganger who’d dared to take a pot shot at her the turn before. The bolt exploded and the unfortunate chap went down and lay very still. Down on the floor my gangers shuffled round a bit to get into better firing positions now that I knew which direction the attackers would be coming from. I’d put my one decent sniper (Wildflower) into my vents with Ga Ga the juve to keep her company. They popped out under cover on the left flank, but I was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to chuck some close combat gangers in there instead. There were Orlocks taking up dangerously effective firing positions on a tower on the right and there was not a thing I could do about it. A bunch of chainsword-armed psychos popping out on top of the tower would have soon put a stop to it, but alas, they were on the ground hiding in cover!

Meanwhile on the left flank the Orlock heavy was about to cause mischief, so I sent Bonzo Dog the Ratskin after him whilst Blackheart Sal and Nikolina Nikolova kept him covered. Before Bonzo could even start climbing up to where the heavy was skulking, there was a mighty roar. One of the Orlocks had been fitted with a Berserker Chip, one of the new bionics detailed in the Community Rules. When activated, the Berserker Chip adds 2” to your movement, +2 strength and makes you frenzied until your next turn, after which the effects wear off and your initiative drops to 1. This dangerous individual charged 12” and very much made mincemeat out of the poor Ratskin Scout. There followed a hail of rather accurate reprisal fire, taking the frothing maniac out and a few others too which took SCUM below their 75% threshold and they promptly bottled.

Whilst the shoot-out was very much a ‘fun’ luck-based mission and didn’t attract any particular complaints about jammy dice rolls, I have to say that I was pretty lucky in this game. If they boys had hung around for another turn they would have been able to take pot shots into my gang from both sides of the battlefield and I’d have been in trouble, especially if the heavy had come online. I made a lot of placement mistakes and came off very lightly. Having said that, my position wasn’t untenable (leader and both heavies in good firing positions) and as long as dependable Suzy Bang Bang stayed on her feet the girls could have still pulled it off.



In the post battle Blackheart Sal racked up her first kill; that lucky first turn boltgun shot took down an unfortunate green ganger and he stayed down, his brief adventure Underhive brought to an inglorious close. But, as a certain brightly bespectacled pop legend has pointed out on a number of occasions, the circle of life keeps on turning: Ga Ga graduated to ganger status with another BS increase and got given Nikolina’s old lasgun. One hopeful falls and another steps up to take his place. Kandy Kane managed to somehow get captured, despite being shot down well outside enemy lines, so most of my payment for a successful defence went towards paying off her ransom and the fee for my Ratskin, who in his injured state couldn’t even be sent out exploring.

I know this is a log of my gang’s progress, but I feel I should also mention the genius heavy in SCUM who rolled a six for his inventor roll and came up with a force field! I also, of course, reported the lads to the guilders for their part in an outlaw scenario but they came out clean.



For our final game we rolled up ‘Gang Fight’. Since we’ve already had one of these I insisted that we use either the treacherous conditions from Outlanders or the random event cards from Battles in the Underhive. Despite his paranoid hatred of the treacherous conditions he vetoed the random event cards and we rolled up… ‘shadowy’ (no effect).

So, it was a straight fight. I set up mostly on the ground and sent the ever-capable Wildlower, Nikolena and Muck the juve into the Pylos Ductworks (the name of my Vents territory). Suzy Bang Bang and Dee Six started on the top of a building ready to run into cover behind a tower. Straight away SCUM decided to up the tempo of this game by setting their heavy up on an opposite tower with a lasgunner pal. Whoever got the first turn would get a free shot against the other’s heavy. I have to say I was not expecting this, and the situation ended up dominating the battle.

I took the first turn and moved the girls on the ground forward. The cover on my side was dense enough that they were able to run and still be unseen. The idea at deployment had been to take a large building in the centre of the table and hold it. The group in the vents would pop out into the light structure on the left of the target and hold it until this until the main body of the gang got there. From here the gals would catch the Orlocks in the open. Suzy would look threatening and make sure the boys kept their heads down early on and away from the right flank.

But I panicked and after a long deliberation I moved Suzy and Dee Six behind the tower so that the Orlock stubber couldn’t shoot her (and she couldn't see or shoot either). My logic was that he was in soft cover and that I’d have to hit and at least pin his lasgun-armed mate before I could take a shot at him. With the heavy in such a good position there was no way that my forward party in the vents would be able to hold the building on the left, so instead, I popped them out behind some boxes on the building beyond this: well into the enemy half of the table. Bonzo Dog joined them for extra support, his Sneak Up and skill and Blindsnake Pouch making him all but immune e to overwatch fire.

There was a turn of trading careful shots (entirely failing to bring the pesky heavy stubber down)and manoeuvring into positions after which Bonzo stiffened, his preternatural hearing picking up a familiar bionic hiss. This was followed seconds later by a roar as he was charged again by his old foe with the Berserker Chip, followed by SCUM’s leader and a juve. Bonzo Dog held out for long enough to be joined by Muck but they were both eventually brought down by the frenzied fighter. Meanwhile the girls in the middle of the battlefield got bogged down in tricky firefights whilst Sal and Ga Ga supplied the only good news, getting into a decent position where they could fire on the Orlocks in the building opposite.

The drama continued on the left flank as I sent in more gangers in to save Wildflower and Nikolina Nikolova from the dire situation. Di the Juve managed to take down the bio-enhanced ganger over a number of turns (in fact prolonging his suffering by inflicting three flesh wounds over the course of three rounds of combat) and Nikolina kept the juve pinned down with point blank autopistol fire. Both gangs reached bottle threshold as Suzy’s heavy stubber and a few well-placed shots from Sal and Ga Ga finally took down the Orlock heavy and his mate on the tower, and two Escher gangers being taken down in hand-to-hand in the middle of the board. SCUM passed their bottle roll but The Fighting Hellcats failed theirs, resulting in the first loss of the campaign so far.

The last game was incredibly bloody and fierce and I learned a few good lessons from it. Mainly about use of vents! I was much too cocky putting a team so far forward and they got stuck behind cover by the heavy stubber and then sliced up in hand to hand. Meanwhile at the back of the table I had a heavy who did very little until the very end of the game (thanks to my indecisiveness) and accompanied by a ganger who did absolutely nothing for the whole game (incredibly Dee Six has taken part in four games and is yet to pick up an advance!). I let the Orlocks call the shots and despite my aggressive positioning I played into their hands. In my next games I’ll be trying to resist the urge to send my shooters into the vents and maybe try a more mixed/ assault oriented team.

In the post-battle I lost my first fighter: despite Friendly Doc Herbert West’s best efforts Muck the juve kicked the bucket. Sadly for her it was no great loss: she’d only picked up a single advance. I also somehow captured SCUM’s heavy: the bloke who caused all the problems in the first place. Despite the urge to play dirty by flogging his stubber and selling him into slavery I ransomed him back: my income was very low because I hardly had any gangers standing at the end of the game! Speaking of which, my last juve Di graduated, in honour of which she got a name change to ‘Bulletproof’.

At the market Sal was offered an Isotropic Fuel Rod and a Stinger Patch: both great items. I had to snap up the rod, but at 66 creds it meant Bonzo Dog would have to go. Sadly he’d never had a chance to find me a territory but I think he was probably pretty sick of being set upon by berserk Orlocks anyway and was probably happy to leave. I had to turn down the Stinger Patch and do some real hard deals to get Bulletproof equipped but the chance to change my Chem Pit into a guaranteed 30 creds a turn and a free juve on a 6 was too good to miss.



What next for the girls? Well they’re still all rather poorly equipped: I could do with some side arms and some grenades and a couple of new juves would be handy to replace any gangers that I might lose along the way. I’m hoping that the new settlement will provide, both in terms of a bit more cash and if I’m lucky a juve or two!

After the storm of replies and excited chatter on this thread last week I thought you all might want to hear about the on going antics of the Dalston Reach Fighting Hellcats and their victories and defeats this weekend (I will try and fail to keep it as brief as possible).

Recap! Last week The Hellcat’s winning streak was finally broken by Streatham Contemporary Urban Music and largely thanks to the Orlocks’ buying power (them and their Archeotech Hoard...) and their heavy inventing an expensive power field they had a higher gang rating than my Escher gang. Unfortunately both gangs are probably a bit too intimidating for new gangs to face off against so it’s basically become a two man campaign. This weekend we played four games, three of which were over very quickly.

First we rolled a ‘lower gang rating can choose’ and I decided to warm up with Package Run This is one of the scenarios in the Community Rulebook. The defenders are being paid to deliver a package through the attackers’ lines; the attackers are trying to mug them and rip off the package but don’t know which defender has it. Two fairly elite teams of five faced off against each other. Deploying first, I spread a loose net of fighters across the board and in hiding; the Orlocks set up their heavy and a mate up a tower and three runners on the far right. Great! In theory I could just ignore/avoid the heavy and set my five fighters on his three runners as they tried to get across the board. I had my work cut out relocating my shooters out of sight of the heavy and get my fighters across the board to intercept the runners. Blackheart Sal was on the far left and would have had trouble getting to where the action was going to be so I decided to try and sneak her over to where the enemy heavy was and see if she could make a bit of mischief (probably a mistake in retrospect). Crucially I had forgotten about the star player in SCUM: a ganger called Donkey Chong equipped with a Berserker Chip. This bionic allows him to charge 12” once a game, frenzied and with +2 S. He activated and charged in, won a couple of combats and a few turns later I bottled without having done any damage to the Orlocks. Lesson learned? Fear the Berserker Chip (or at least try to remember who has it and shoot them before they get anywhere near your lines)!

Three gangers had been downed, so couldn’t work territories. Dynamite was captured as well and rather than risk losing her in a Rescue I paid the ransom, meaning that my income was pretty wretched. Despite this I bought a juve called Pandora and kitted her out with another ganger’s autopistol. We rolled a Gang Fight and again decided to use Treacherous Conditions to make it a bit more interesting, getting a Thick Fog result which reduced shooting range to 16”. This was indeed interesting. Meanwhile, the Orlocks hired a Telekinetic Wyrd and rolled up a rather intimidating psyker with Displacement and multiple minor powers: Float, Jog Trigger Finger and Fearful Aura.

Worried about my two losses I spent a while choosing the table edge and formulating a plan. I deployed on the left and sent some strong fighters, including Sal and Nikolina into the vents, planning to draw the Orlocks into a sparse open plaza, hit them from the front and right side, soften them up with close range fire and then charge in to wipe out any survivors. I needn’t have been so thorough however...

The Hellcats prowled forward under the cover of the rolling green fog. Their rivals were out there and the Escher were going to make them pay for the embarrassing defeats in their last few encounters. They crept forward, ducking low and scampering into what cover there was purely from instinct rather than necessity. Suddenly, a thin, piercing scream ripped through the air. The Escher braced themselves, looking round for hostile fire or other danger, but there didn’t appear to be any immediate threat. Meanwhile shouts, screams, gunfire and weird, inhuman noises continued to echo around the structures in the dome.

Hilariously (for me) the Orlocks had tried to use their wyrd’s Displacement power straight away and it had failed with a vengeance. The plan was to get him up to a high vantage point and then use it to charge members of the gang through buildings and into hand to hand but he rolled a double 1, became possessed and charged into the back of the freshly deployed gang. After pulling down their leader, a juve and Donkey Chong with S9 High Impact attacks, the daemonic creature showed no sign of burning out, so SCUM bottled on their second turn, leaving me with a victory of sorts.

Remarkably, the wyrd’s victims got away with no real serious injuries (apart from an aversion to hiring wyrds again in the near future partially manifested by a Bitter Emnity result rolled by their leader), so whilst I toyed with the idea of not taking a territory (3 of his gang had been taken out of action to none on my side) I ended up going with it, netting myself another settlement. With the giant killer financial bonus and the underdogs extra experience this was a very successful post game for the girls. They came out with a ton of advances, including the Medic skill for Nikolina Nikolova and Ga Ga’s BS increasing to a very respectable 5; and a few fancy items: mesh armour for Suzy Bang Bang (who also picked up Weaponsmith and so swapped weapons with Nikolina) and a hotshot pack for Wildflower as well as a couple more side arms. Amazingly the stars aligned and I was offered a Needle Sniper Rifle as well, but obviously the chance of me affording such a thing was zero and even if I could I’m not sure if they’re really that good anyway. In an attempt to add insult to injury I reported SCUM to the guilders for employing an unsanctioned psyker but they weren’t outlawed.

I won the roll again and always on the lookout for a bit of cash, I went for a Scavengers scenario. We rolled 3 loot counters, which went on my left in cover, centre and right on the top of a couple of tall buildings. SCUM set up first and as usual the heavy went up a tower with a ganger to keep him company. I put Dee Six by herself on the ground on the left to grab the lone loot counter in cover. The majority of girls stayed in the centre whilst Pandora and Bulletproof were sent into the vents to drop near the loot counter on the right. The plan was to get these two counters and reassess. If the game was going well then push forward and go for the last one or try to force SCUM to bottle; if not make a run for it with 2d6x5 creds worth of loot.

Things started poorly. SCUM’s heavy could see Wildflower and took her out of action in one fusillade. Sprayed with her comrade’s blood, Suzy Bang Bang promptly broke and stayed hidden under a tower for the remainder of the game. The gang moved forward a fraction but I began to realise how poor the terrain and my placement in it was on my side of the table. In a slightly suicidal move, Pandora and Bulletproof dropped out of the ductworks on the right, hopefully out of range of the basic weapons in the Orlock gang. The heavy stubber opened fire and took out the unprotected juve, but as usual, Bulletproof escaped without harm (all part of the plan…). Annoyingly, the lasgun next to the heavy was just in range and took her out no problem (she’s bulletproof, not las-proof), taking me to bottle roll threshold. On the left Dee Six grabbed the loot counter and just managed to hang onto it long enough to make a run for it with the rest of the gang.

Another disastrous game with one side caving and capitulating without even earning a wounding hit. I failed my bottle roll but would probably have voluntarily bottled anyway. I don’t like to blame the terrain, but the position I was in was dire: leader and two gangers behind a wall with nowhere to go and nothing to shoot, one heavy broken and another with a somewhat tenuous bead on two shooters who were far too far away to do me any damage anyway. Lesson learned: if your terrain is poor you’ll need some careful planning to deal with it.

I got away without any deaths, although I did end up gambling on a Medic re-roll to stop Pandora from receiving an Old Battle Wound. Another harsh truth of The Underhive: in some ways it’s better to have a dead juve than one who doesn’t turn up for the fight. Patched up and now wanting a game which didn’t end in the first few turns we rolled another Gang Fight. The Treacherous Conditions roll brought us Long Shadows meaning that all models could run and hide in the same turn.

SCUM chose sides and set up first. As usual the heavy went up in a tower with a buddy, two shooters deployed above ground in the centre and the rest of the gang was split up into two groups on the floor. I set up Nikolina with her heavy stubber in sight of the Orlock heavy but in hard cover with Hester Rock to act as a shield and to allow her to test to avoid pinning; Blackheart Sal was on the left with some shooters (Wildflower and Dee Six); Suzy Bang Bang, Ga Ga and Dynamite went into the vents and the remaining group (Kandy Kane, Bulletproof and Pandora) were in the centre of the deployment zone. The stubbers would duel and hopefully my cover advantage would see me through. Meanwhile Sal’s group would come round the left and into a building where they’d hopefully be in range to take out the heavy if Nikolina failed and generally provide covering fire onto a raised platform in the middle of the battlefield. The girls in vents would pop out on the right and distract one of the fighting groups, and the hand to hand group in the middle would go after the two Orlock shooters.

I took the first turn and took down the ganger accompanying the Orlock heavy with a hail of heavy stubber fire. The heavy’s reprisals pinged off the tower Nikolina was in but didn’t find their mark. The duel continued with Nikolina pinning and knocking the heavy off the tower, but his T4 kept saving him. Meanwhile the vents party took a few pot shots at the tower but missed and then split up, Dynamite dramatically (and riskily) using her Leap skill to jump the 3” gap between two first floor buildings* towards the Orlock shooters who had become a bit bogged down in cover in the middle of the table. Ga Ga moved forward towards the Orlock deployment zone, the ground team on this side having fallen back and come round to the centre. It had become very tense with both sides running and hiding every turn, manoeuvring into good firing positions but with no targets to shoot at. One such stalemate was developing on the far left: Sal and her shooters were all hidden and in overwatch behind cover and were keeping a large group of Orlocks at bay. One of them tried to break the impasse with a smoke bomb which allowed a few of the gang to advance a little further, but he ran out of ammo straight away and it came a bit late as my hand to hand group in the centre had reached the Orlock shooters up on the platform, who were also being harassed by the vents party on the right. There was a sudden flurry of firing at close range, leaving Pandora and Dynamite pinned, but the reprisal was deadly and the girls took two Orlocks down, one shot coming from Ga Ga who was now well behind the Orlock’s lines. In a difficult position, SCUM bottled, ending the final (and by far most dramatic) game of the day.

Rather than go into great detail about the post battle, here’s how the gang stands now:





I rolled up a ridiculous 7 rare items at the end of the game and there was some good stuff in there, but after equipping Pandora (who became a ganger) with twin swords, the choice was between a Berserker Chip or a Ratskin Map and Hotshot Power Pack. I would have loved a Berserker Chip but I have a weakness for Ratskin Maps and the Hotshot Pack was a bargain at 17 creds. The map was a wash-out (20 credits, rolled a 2 for ‘treasure map’ result, didn’t get a subsequent 6 for a free Archeotech Dome) and Ga Ga who now has a BS of 6 got the Hotshot Pack. Very happy that two gangers have picked up WS advances as well; that was something sorely missing from the gang.

Next up: I can buy another juve without going into the next bracket on the income chart, but with two settlements I slightly resent paying for one, so will probably wait until I get a freebie or someone else dies. Speaking of which we’ve only had one death so far. Seems ominous… I’d still like some grenades. I reckon Dynamite might be as good candidate as she’s got BS4 but is still equipped for close quarter fighting. Sal might get a supply too and/or a boltgun reload (which are common in the Community Rules). Krak grenades for the launcher would be good too, though I’m yet to hit anyone with the frags yet.

I’m very tempted to go for a Heist too as I wouldn’t mind some free gear but I’m worried about getting outlawed!



* Typically, managing this 3+ dice roll and doing something as simple as jumping a gap between two buildings 3” off the ground was one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in the campaign so far. Such is the game of Necromunda.

Cool read, thanks for posting these!

It'd be great if you could take some photos of future fights so we can see the set ups too.

Yeah, I'd like to break up the thread with pictures, but the light where we play is very poor so I haven't been able to get any good photos yet. Also, I get so into the game that I forget to take more than a couple in the first few turns. Maybe I'll have a concerted shot at it next time we play (whenever that may be...).

Maybe just a pic of the initial setup and the the end of the game?

But I get it if you can't be bothered, I'm sure typing out the reports takes long enough!