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.

How do?

Currently awaiting Mr/Mrs Postman to bring me my copy of House of Chains, the first in a new series for Necromunda, each focussing on a specific House.

Reckoned it might be worth a Q&A from interested, and even disinterested parties. However, no screen shots or rules will be divulged, as I believe that’s against Dakka’s rules as it can cause problems.

Anyways. It’s 9:38am and I’m expecting it to arrive in the next couple of hours. And if you’ve got one coming, or already to hand, chip in if you fancy. I’m not precious in that way

Postie just arrived with mine. First glance is positive, it's a proper chonker of a book.

Juves are definitely still in as an option, though they've been given a thematic name - they're now "Goliath Bully(Juve)". Similarly the Champs are now "Forge Bosses", the leader a "Forge Tyrant", and the ganger a "Bruiser". I like it, options remain, and they've managed to avoid any Bloodyblood Bloodbloods of Blood type nonsense.

I'm not 100% sure as I don't own them all myself, but it *appears* as if they've put all the Goliath-specific Gang Tactics into the back of the book either to choose from, or you can use the D66 chart they're presented in to randomise. Considering how ludicrously unreliable the availability of the cards is this is an excellent move, doubly so for people like me who grew up in the era of tables and rosters and find the whole cards thing an irritation.

And now I'm off to read all the background stuff.

It’s arrived!

Woot!

Cursory flick through, before I go walk the Dog (he’s been very patient)? Stimmers and Forgeborn are not limited to the equipment on their sprues.

Both can have much cheaper weaponry if you so desire.

Stimmers? Stub gun and Dumdum rounds, Assault Grenade Launchers, Fighting Knife, Pulverizer Serrated Axe, Paired Pulverizer, Renderizer serrated Axe, Spud-Jacker, paired spud-jacker.

Frag, Incendiary, Krak, Melta, Smoke, Stun Grenades.

Essentially as rumoured/speculated a very focussed form of Champion.

Forgeborn? Another type of ‘Gang Fighter’ rather than Champion. Very restricted weapon options, but don’t need to take the big expensive ones.

Each Fighter Type now has a starting equipment list all its own.

There are also House Specific Hangers On, some universal Hangers On that Goliath hire at a discount, and rules for allying with a Noble House.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also contains the weapon trait references, and the rules for all the weapons in the book.

So definitely only need this book and the rule book if you’re going Goliath.

And, unless I’m misreading (it happens), Juves, Gangers and Prospects are all Gang Fighters. So it seems there’s nothing stopping you from eschewing Gangers entirely, and just taking Juves and Prospects as the filler of your Gang.

You’ll hurt for options, but both share the ‘quick learner’ rule, so if things go well, you’ll rocket up in terms of power.

Oh...yeah. Seems ‘Specialist’ is now a one per starting gang, free upgrade to a single Ganger, allowing access to a special weapon.

And yes, Baxx. These are new rules.

Really pleased to see them do a d66 tactics table. They state that it’s an alternative to the cards

D18 table for the 18 new Goliath Tactics cards from the "2nd edition" deck. If you roll, does that mean your cards are no longer secret? How do you roll for something in secret?

What about the "old" 137 Tactics cards available to Goliath (13 specific, 124 generic)? Are they now "replaced", an alternative, or to be combined with the new ones? What I need is a D155 table.

Yes, the Tactics cards are getting out of hand (243!), so a hard reset makes sense. It is however a slap in the face to those of us who actually collected all the previous ones. How about they made this 2nd edition cards from the start and never bothered us with the rest?

From the book?

Each scenario details how many gang tactics each player gets and how they’re selected, with players either choosing the gang tactics they want or determining them at random. Gang tactics can be randomly determined either by drawing cards from a shuffled deck of Gang Tactic cards or by rolling D(6 (taking care to meep the result a secret) and referring to the tale below.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooooh!

Goliath specific terrain. Bought from the Trading Post during post-battle sequences, and added to the stash. Once bought, they remain available.

Can always be placed in your deployment zone, and where permitted no-man’s land (permitted by the item definitely, possibly by scenario? Need to read further at the juncture).

Some can only be used when you’re the defender.

Amneo Cannisters. 60 credits, Rare (9). A Goliath fighter within 3” can remove a single flesh wound during any End phase.

Furnace Barricade, 10 credits, Common. Can be deployed in no man’s land. Essentially a standard barrier piece, but a fighter within 1” ignores the Blaze or Melta trait, provided its giving them the benefit of cover.

Heavy River Cannon, 75 credits, Rare (8). Can only be used when defending. Basically a turret. Non listed stats though.....

Pillar of Chains, 20 credits, Common. When used, and you’ve the chance of capturing enemy fighters, you can re-roll one or both dice.

Relic of the Forge, 100 credits, Rare (10). Defender only. Counts as a Gang Relic, any Goliath within 3” ignores ‘Disarm’ trait, and can re-roll failed ammo checks. Enemy fighters (any House, oddly) within 3” much make a nerve test or wet themselves and become Broken.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vatborn, Natborn and Unborn.

Essentially sub-classes of fighter, each of which has a list of upgrades.

Some add to the cost, others lower the cost.

For example? Vatborn could have Reduced Bone Density, for -10 creds. When taken, reduce the Ganger’s cost accordingly, and lower either S or T by 1.

Or, if you cough up 5 credits, you can get Hardened Immune System, which means they’re only affected by Gas and Toxin Traits on a 6.

Natborn? Base Intelligence +2, Willpower +1, Cool -1. Leaders, Champs, Prospects, Juves and Speciliasts can increase their S and Y for 6xp, rather than 8xp. Gangers can simply choose to add 1 to S or T, rather than roll for an advancement. This adds a native +20 to their cost, and there’s a further upgrade option of your choice.

Unborn? +10 credits. As they’re outsiders ‘upgraded’ to being a Goliath, they get an additional Primary Skill Set chosen from the main ones. And yes, there are other upgrades. Decent way to add some flexibility to a Gang.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Should stress the sub-classes are in the ‘additional rules’ section, so are most definitely optional for the Arbitrator.

Certainly, I can’t see chunks of this book being allowed until all the Houses have had their release. Unless of course people just really like Goliath!

How do you roll secret? It pretty much breaks logic.

Those sub-classes sounds very interesting.

Just need to trust your opponent, or simply agree to pick.

I feel the option to pick should nix most distrust?

And yeah. The sub-classes are definitely interesting. Leaders and Champions can have two upgrades, everyone else one.

Until everyone has been similarly served, could make for an interesting NPC Gang?

The other gangs are going to have to suffer under the supreme power of Goliaths!!!

At least we can assume their pets are no longer Rare.

Sumpkrocs are starting options for Leaders, Champions and Stimmers!

House gangs now continue the trend started by the cults: Gang-specific pets are common.

Fair. Need to go back and read my other books!

Background so far is pretty decent. Delves into their origins, and how they came to be one of the major Houses. Great for Goliath fans, but also helps to further flesh out Necromunda as a planet.

I shan’t post spoilers, as I’ve never enjoyed background spoilers myself. But I dare say for those less adverse to such things, one can sniff around the inter webs elsewhere and turn it up

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s arrived!
.

Oh...yeah. Seems ‘Specialist’ is now a one per starting gang, free upgrade to a single Ganger, allowing access to a special weapon.

And yes, Baxx. These are new rules.

Specialists are gangers that use the same table as champs and leaders for xp. You could always start with a ganger with special weapon

It is a very good change, because having gangers equipped with special weapons never made sense. It was very often house ruled.

Background point of view?

I can at least answer the question of whether Goliaths are kin to Thunder Warriors.

And the answer is......kinda yeah, kinda no, depends how one defines it!

They’re definitely genhanced. 100%. They’re a designer worker class. Remit was strong, resilient, resistant to Necromunda’s environment, yet docile and unquestioning. Said remit was fulfilled by Houses Van Saar (for the tech) and Escher (for the chems and genetics).

So they’re not simply primitive Thunder Warriors, and likely aren’t based on the same know-how or template.

But. They may be viewed as kin. In the way I’m related to a distant branch of my family.

It’s also not clear whether House Van Saar used their STC database, or perhaps simply the tech it produced?

Who knows, maybe we’ll get snippets in the books yet to come.

And now?

An Overview Review Type Thing

Behold my opinion! It is possibly a bit wonky.

So, House of Chains. £28, hardback and weighing in at 160 pages. Having read through it, it’s not left me feeling short changed.

Yes, it presents another House Goliath gang list. And also includes the weapon traits. So there are elements here that are re-print, and you’ll have already if you bought Gangs of the Underhive.

But, most of it is new content to my eyes. The Gang List is expanded, with two new classes of fighter (Stimmer and Prospect). And the background is very, very welcome. I’ve been into Necromunda since it first launched way back when, and this is the most fleshed out I’ve seen it. I think it’s all new, but all I can for certain is that it’s new to me. It even made Goliaths far more than mindless muscle Mary’s.

As well as fleshing out the House, it does the same for the wider setting. So even, if like me, you’re not into Goliaths, there’s plenty here to enjoy. It also has a section of Additional Rules, providing a delineation between ‘player choice’ and ‘arbitrator discretion’ which might help with quarrelsome TFGs who don’t quite get the spirit of Necromunda Campaigns.

The overall quality bodes well for Necromunda. Once all the Houses have their books, I suspect Necromunda will be in rude health for the future.

However, there are flaws. The main one that springs to mind is the Goliath specific scenery. The concept is solid....but? The rules aren’t quite complete. For example, there are no set dimensions for the Furnace Barricade. Nor can I see anything on how the Heavy Rivet Cannon turret actually functions. The first suggests using the existing Necromunda barricades - but they’re not of uniform size. The second is just nonsensical. It’s got a weapon profile (yay), but nothing on how it targets, hits etc., which is very poor. Thankfully nothing an FAQ can’t fix, but even so.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
However, there are flaws. The main one that springs to mind is the Goliath specific scenery. The concept is solid....but? The rules aren’t quite complete. For example, there are no set dimensions for the Furnace Barricade. Nor can I see anything on how the Heavy Rivet Cannon turret actually functions. The first suggests using the existing Necromunda barricades - but they’re not of uniform size. The second is just nonsensical. It’s got a weapon profile (yay), but nothing on how it targets, hits etc., which is very poor. Thankfully nothing an FAQ can’t fix, but even so.

I wonder if they're planning (hopefully plastic) terrain boxes for them.

I'm tempted to post this in the rumour thread, because they probably don't read anything outside of there, and really do deserve to have their noses rubbed in it, but House Panic was wrong about most, if not all, of their concerns.

- "regular Juves" are better than they were before
- the new fighter types are not hard-locked into the equipment their kits are supplied with
- all the fighter types have distinct characteristics that give them a niche without obvious overlap

This book is great, but the Genesmithing is frankly broken with Arbitrator intervention. A 10 credits-per-fighter tax for T5 on the whole gang is mental. Thank god this game isn't really played competitively.

 Altruizine wrote:
I'm tempted to post this in the rumour thread, because they probably don't read anything outside of there, and really do deserve to have their noses rubbed in it, but House Panic was wrong about most, if not all, of their concerns.

- "regular Juves" are better than they were before
- the new fighter types are not hard-locked into the equipment their kits are supplied with
- all the fighter types have distinct characteristics that give them a niche without obvious overlap

This book is great, but the Genesmithing is frankly broken with Arbitrator intervention. A 10 credits-per-fighter tax for T5 on the whole gang is mental. Thank god this game isn't really played competitively.

Seems like an odd thing to be smug about tbh, but I suppose some people really need the win.

 Altruizine wrote:


This book is great, but the Genesmithing is frankly broken with Arbitrator intervention. A 10 credits-per-fighter tax for T5 on the whole gang is mental. Thank god this game isn't really played competitively.

I see where you’re coming from, but for now I’m reserving judgement until I’ve seen what the other Houses get in terms of equivalent perks.

But overall I’m glad that the general feel of the Genesmithing is definitely ‘arbitrator’s discretion’. Necromunda has always been reliant on responsible campaign runners. For instance, in ones I used to run, a couple of players would go for broke to become Outlaws, because some things were utterly broken in that regard.

Me? I’d take the same approach as ‘no spamming weapons or skills’. I mean, a Delaque Gang of a mind could take to the field with nothing but Web Gauntlets. Risky, but devastating as I put down and keep down your Fighters, completely ignoring your number of wounds and armour. Yes they’re pricey items, but not prohibitively so.

That done I just need keep out your LoS whilst closing in.

Same with Genesmithing. An all T5 Gang? Go play Ogryns!

beast_gts wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
However, there are flaws. The main one that springs to mind is the Goliath specific scenery. The concept is solid....but? The rules aren’t quite complete. For example, there are no set dimensions for the Furnace Barricade. Nor can I see anything on how the Heavy Rivet Cannon turret actually functions. The first suggests using the existing Necromunda barricades - but they’re not of uniform size. The second is just nonsensical. It’s got a weapon profile (yay), but nothing on how it targets, hits etc., which is very poor. Thankfully nothing an FAQ can’t fix, but even so.

I wonder if they're planning (hopefully plastic) terrain boxes for them.

And replying to my own post - the box-out on p.110 makes it sound like there aren't actual models coming -

Goonhammer have an expanded review here:
https://www.goonhammer.com/necromunday-house-of-chains-review/

From my point it's definitely worth it and it feels like a full fledged codex. The fact that each ganger has its own restricted equipment list is certainly a boon and will hopefully reduce instances of snowballing somewhat. Also, the likelyhood of the Goliath starting gang with 2+ grenade launchers will reduce which is nice!

I'm excited to see how they flesh out the other gangs over the next year and a bit.

 Altruizine wrote:


Me? I’d take the same approach as ‘no spamming weapons or skills’. I mean, a Delaque Gang of a mind could take to the field with nothing but Web Gauntlets. Risky, but devastating as I put down and keep down your Fighters, completely ignoring your number of wounds and armour. Yes they’re pricey items, but not prohibitively so.

My current mini campaign i set a limit of only one of each type of special and heavy per gang, so one plasma, one melta, one grenade launcher is fine, but no spamming grenade launchers or smoke grenades etc. Working quite well, think it could easily be expanded as a concept for rarer weapon types, perhaps with a limit of X per 1000 gang rating.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im loving this book, the options make building the narrative for you gang so much fun and so much variety. All stimm mad idiots, a big gang of mostly hopefuls who havnt quite made it as goliaths yet. Shooting goliaths may even be a possibility!

Speaking of shooting. I can't remember off the top of my head so not sure if this change happened in previous books, but, this new book removes Unweildy from the Rivet Cannon. May actually be worth taking now for some close range shooting

 zedmeister wrote:
Goonhammer have an expanded review here:
https://www.goonhammer.com/necromunday-house-of-chains-review/

From my point it's definitely worth it and it feels like a full fledged codex. The fact that each ganger has its own restricted equipment list is certainly a boon and will hopefully reduce instances of snowballing somewhat. Also, the likelyhood of the Goliath starting gang with 2+ grenade launchers will reduce which is nice!

I'm excited to see how they flesh out the other gangs over the next year and a bit.

Yeah, see, that's kind of my problem with all this. I don't feel like I need a codex to play Necromunda. I'm here for the campaign play, for the emerging narrative. Having multiple sets of "juves", "Gangers" and/or whatever with varying stats and weapon choices? I... I don't feel like I need that. I am perfectly happy with crappy starting weapons and looting/buying after that, myself.

I don't know, I feel like this is not what I want this game for.

Bright side there that this is optional, provided you've already got Gangs of the Underhive.

This is an expanded list of options, rather than an outright replacement - at least for now.

Much of it is firmly optional in nature. Things like House specific terrain, the Genesmithing etc.

 Albertorius wrote:


Yeah, see, that's kind of my problem with all this. I don't feel like I need a codex to play Necromunda. I'm here for the campaign play, for the emerging narrative. Having multiple sets of "juves", "Gangers" and/or whatever with varying stats and weapon choices? I... I don't feel like I need that. I am perfectly happy with crappy starting weapons and looting/buying after that, myself.

I don't know, I feel like this is not what I want this game for.

For emerging narrative i think this book gives loads of benefit. Your gangs narrative can still be basic starting gang which develops with experience, except now rather than carbon copy trading post purchases there is more flavour to how that aspect proceeds. Gangers stay gangers, your juve and prospects advance, push unique combinations of alliances and fighting styles, hire different styles of fighters through gene manipulation. Its got all the options, but you dont have to explore all of them.

For me this is better than what they did with Necromunda at the start when they gave each gang a little bit of flavour but really it just left it skewed, with this its seems the options let you stretch out what (Goliath) means to you, without leaving yourself handicapped because you dont fit the narrow vision of what GW said your gang did.

It's not a criticism, as such, and it's probably my bias that skews more to the roleplayer in this. Personally, I've reached a point for the stuff in the game where, simply, less is more in that regard.

Setting material? All for it. New rules to make the same stuff? Less so.

Plus, I've never seen something like "carbon copy trading post purchases".

Frankly, I'm just overjoyed that Bullys (Juves) now are S4 and T4 out of the box. I play hardly ever, but it drove me nuts that THIS gang member was S3, T3, and THAT gang member (based on the exact same model) was S4, T4. Now the Prospects are smaller in actual play, as well as per the rules, and Juves are just inexperienced, not weedy.

Of course, then they made the Stimmers bigger, but not any Stronger or Tougher. Sigh.

Does anyone know if any arms are cross-compatible with the regular Goliath sprue?

Also, half-thinking of using a Stimmer model with one grenade launcher arm, and one pulverizer (or whatever the axe is called) and making him my Leader. Use the Genesmithing to increase his Strength & Toughness and he would look pretty appropriate, though I kind of like my current Leader with Heavy Bolter and Power Axe.

Wasn't going to buy the Stimmer/Forgeborn box set until I saw the Forgeborn Hired Gun and I really like her, so I will get some at least to make that model, and I'd like to use as much of the pieces as possible.

This whole book strikes me as a massive step backwards for the game.

We're going to spend the next year and a half retreading old ground as they do another round for the same 6 houses. Sure, there will be new things bolted onto the gangs to make them far more diverse than their original design, but we're still just dealing with the 6 houses.

Where are the Outlanders? Where are the Ash Wastes gangs? Where are the other settings (secundus, that big space station, etc.) that they've teased? Where are any of the missing hangers ons/pets from the first go round?

They're treading water, and it doesn't make sense.

When you look at it, this is the third time they've released rules for making a Goliath gang. They're not just going over the same ground. They're going over the same ground for a second time.

Again, this isn't moving forward. It is, at best, moving sideways. They're reprinting things that are already in other books. It's great that they're expanding on the lore and whatnot, and making the gangs more unique, but as I said, where's all the other stuff they talked about?

They've spent time in multiple seminars talking about the rich settings of Necromunda and instead we're getting House Goliath 3.0 (or 4.0 if you want to stretch it to include the original rule book in the base Underhive boxed game).

OTOH, it seems to be in line with how frequently does GW want you to buy again the rules to play your faction, from their core games.