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Is strange to put it mildly.

Juves turn into champions between campaigns if they have 5 or more advancements.

Yet it would take around 14 advancements to put them on par with a champion stats wise. So odds are you're just going to end up with a terrible champion. (even if you rule out the possibility of injuries along the way)

Why would you ever do this rather just waiting till you get the rep to straight out hire a new champion?

Where does it say they become a Champion after 5 advancements? I thought you had to roll and get Specialist first?

Its gangers that turn into specialists.

Juves turning into Champions is mentioned in the Downtime section of Gangwar.

Sorry, I missed you were talking about Juves rather than Gangers. I've found that bit now (p.25).

I think GW have done it that way for the story element - the top of p.27 says "Leaders, Champions and Juves are central to the gang's narrative".

Yeah i understand why Juves go to Champions for story element.

I'm just wondering why they will always be terrible (stats wise) versions of champions?

EDIT - let me reword it - The idea of juves earning their stripes and becoming champions is a good story element, but surely when they become champions they should be good?

Well, by spending XP for advances rather that randomly rolling for them you can choose what direction to take the Juve/Champion in - sniper or brawler, for example.

Because Juves are just bad in N17. The game is poorly balanced and Juves need a fix to become viable.

I got no Juves in my gang so far, and have no motivation to get some.

beast_gts wrote:
Well, by spending XP for advances rather that randomly rolling for them you can choose what direction to take the Juve/Champion in - sniper or brawler, for example.

Yeah i understand that having choice of what you level is an advantage, but still your going to be down like 9 stats.

And also you can choose direction for standard hired champions too.

I agree and for me the not only optimum path but also the coolest path is a background "Ganger" character who rolls specialist and eventually pays to become a champion.

Frankly what I think Juves need is to be good at something/have some purpose as Juves.

In Mordheim, which is pretty obviously where they're drawing the ganger/everyone else version of the henchman/hero paradigm from, "Juves" were just cheaper lower-stated Heroes typically given to 5-starting-hero warbands where giving them 5 full-on Heroes would have been OP, so they got Leader, two good Heroes, and two Youngbloods. Sure they were useful in the same sense as N17 Juves are, in the sense of beginning earlier in their experience track and so having more possible "builds", but they were also Heroes in all other regards, meaning they contributed to income and could perform postgame activities.

The tradeoff was being weaker to begin with in exchange for more chances to advance the way you wanted them to, but even if they ended up suffering missing limbs, Stupidity, and blindness while being stuck with all-shooting skills & stat upgrades they would still have added a lot of value to your band in the postgame.

Because nobody at GW spent even 5 minutes thinking about it, that's why.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Because nobody at GW spent even 5 minutes thinking about it, that's why.

Pretty much this.

Escher juv’s with fighting knifes are good - big movement is dirty. 9’’ charge 3 attacks back stab ap1. Not to be scoffed at - they can easily cut down gangers. My partner has killed more of my gang with her juvs that her champions.

Starting Juve might be fine for their cost as they are dirt cheap, its just when you level up they don't scale compared to champions.

For example lets look at echer.

Leveling a juve up to exactly match an escher champion (except with 6 move) would give them a value of 280 points.

Adding +1 move to a store bought champion would give them a value of 105 points.

I realise the advantage is in you get to choose how exactly to level your juve, (min/max towards a goal etc) but 175point difference? really?

I'm thinking of house ruling that when they turn champion they get +1W and +1A for free, that would go someway to close the gap (90pts) while still having them slightly weaker but specialized.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Frankly what I think Juves need is to be good at something/have some purpose as Juves.

They might have a purpose not mentioned before. In previous Necromunda, Juves were cheap, gained a handfull of level-ups and became Gangers quickly. After becoming Gangers, they could contribute by generating income. Now, Leaders and Champions generate income. But you could only have 2 Champions + 1 Champion per 10 reputation. But is this limit also prohibiting Juves from leveling up? I haven't found anywhere where it says so. If you don't have enough Reputation to increase the amount of Champions, lose Reputation or can't increase Reputation fast enough, what about using Juves and leveling them up? If you start with 1 Leader, 2 Champions 5 gangerse and 2 juves, you could end up with 4 champions after the first Turf War?

Baxx wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Frankly what I think Juves need is to be good at something/have some purpose as Juves.

They might have a purpose not mentioned before. In previous Necromunda, Juves were cheap, gained a handfull of level-ups and became Gangers quickly. After becoming Gangers, they could contribute by generating income. Now, Leaders and Champions generate income. But you could only have 2 Champions + 1 Champion per 10 reputation. But is this limit also prohibiting Juves from leveling up? I haven't found anywhere where it says so. If you don't have enough Reputation to increase the amount of Champions, lose Reputation or can't increase Reputation fast enough, what about using Juves and leveling them up? If you start with 1 Leader, 2 Champions 5 gangerse and 2 juves, you could end up with 4 champions after the first Turf War?

I would interpret this as you can't level juves to have more Champions than your Reputation allows, which I would assume is why they mention using downtime to create splinter gangs. Keep the narrative going without breaking the rules.

Ok, I didn't study those rules too closely. Doesn't that make the Juves even worse?

Baxx wrote:
Ok, I didn't study those rules too closely. Doesn't that make the Juves even worse?

It's currently rather ambiguous (there's a surprise). However I'm inclined to treat Juves as outside the normal Champion recruitment restrictions, for precisely this reason. Juves are already questionable given how slow you gain XP, their lower maximum stats, few equipment options and that they don't 'level up' until the end of the turf war. If you don't get an extra Champion out of it then really what is the point?

Here's my basic patch for the most glaring issues.





Going back to a random progression table for everyone is my personal preference, but I do believe the official system is not functional. Many reasons have been stated by others above.

That seems to solve ALOT of problems and also quite fun.

I could go with those changes. I prefer the random tables overall to paying for specific upgrades (everyone in our campaign has saved up for a toughness increase first, which is a bit predictable and boring). Not sure I'd do away with the specialist though and I'd change the order of some things on the table. e.g. I wouldn't put WS/BS at number 7, I'd put it at number 8, put the cool/willpower etc. at number 7, swap strength/toughness and move/init around and place attacks/wounds at number 9. This is closer to the original upgrade table from the old necromunda.