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Hi guys,
I'm taking advantage of being in forced isolation with my brother to play Necromunda with him. However it appears I am still using the "original" Necromunda underhive rulebook and the gang wars.
I know two books (the book of perils and mainly gangs of the underhive) were published later that really changed things, and now house of chains.
Is there any real difference between the two way of playing ? It's still the same edition with a little twerk or ... ?
If you could light me up, I'm a bit late to the party !

There is even a third version of the Rulebook at this point

First we got the softcover in the Underhive-Escher/Goliath-Box, which was supplemented by the gang wars booklets.
These were then compiled into the hardcover standalone books Necromunda: Rulebook and Gangs of the Underhive. These were the last translated books by the way.
After this we got the Books of [...] which are more of a sidegrade thing in comparison to the gang war stuff. They contain additional scenarios, different specialised campaigns and offshot gangs, which are not from the big houses and in the case of Chaos and Genestealer Cults not as fleshed out as the normal gangs.
Then with Dark Uprising we got a new rulebook with another campaign and the rules for Corpse Cults and Enforcers. This book includes like the hardcover did all relevant erratas to the point of its release.
And now we got House of Chains, which shook things up quite a bit as it clarified, streamlined or downright changed stuff about the basic gang structure. These changes will most likely be implemented for the other gangs as well in their respective books.

At the end it comes down to what you want to play. I would consider the two hardcover books essential, but I only bought the first gang war for the terrain rules and waited after this, so I can't say if or how much stuff they added for Gangs of the Underhive.
For the Book Ofs you should look whats inside each of them and if it interests you enough to buy them. I felt like they were good reads in themself but I like this sort of stuff so you should decide for yourself.

Are they WD Chaos and genestealer cuts different from the books chaos and genestealer cults ?

The gang wars books include, obviously, the gangs, lots of dramatis personaes / bounty hunters / adventurer, the market and black market, two or three different campaign, the arbitrator, lots of scenarios. And lots of reprint each time.

I think the books of... Maybe useful for me if I don't want to pay for the (slightly different) rules again but want to expand

 godardc wrote:
Are they WD Chaos and genestealer cuts different from the books chaos and genestealer cults ?

I checked with the pdf-document for the chaos cults and could only find a single difference in one of the psychic powers. Maddening Visions now uses the insanity system instead of a unique table...

 godardc wrote:
The gang wars books include, obviously, the gangs, lots of dramatis personaes / bounty hunters / adventurer, the market and black market, two or three different campaign, the arbitrator, lots of scenarios. And lots of reprint each time.

I think the books of... Maybe useful for me if I don't want to pay for the (slightly different) rules again but want to expand

I think you are fine, if it's not a problem for you to remember which gang war book has which rules inside and flick through them if necessary. If you have the standalone versions of the cult rules I think you could search for a Dark Uprising rulebook and would get both corpse Grinders and Enforcers and the rules in one place.

Thanks buddy, your really helped me sort this mess out !

So I have been gathering Necromunda stuff as it came out. I have all the books (I think)

If I understand correctly

Dark Uprising Rule book; Most current rules plus Enforcers & Corpse Grinders.

Book Of Ruin Corpse grinders , Helot Chaos Cults, Genestealer Cult

Book of Judgement; Enforcers Criminal alliances, etc

Book of Peril; Venator Bounty Hunter Gangs

Gangs Of the Underhive; 6 basic Gangs

House of Chains; Goilath codex/splatbook equivalent?

With owning the above listed books do i need to also lug around The hardcover rule book, the original soft rule book, or any of the Gang War supplements. If so what are the pertinent parts of those books?

The hardcover rulebook contains the standard campaign rules and scenarios for it, but apart from that everything has been republished elswhere as far as I know.

The hardcover rulebook and Gangs replaces the soft cover book from the boxed set and also updates/replaces the campaign stuff in the Gang War books (the soft cover books that introduce campaigns, Orlocks, Cawdor, Van Saar and other bits).

The core game book and the Gang War books are one 'set' of rules. The hard cover rulebook plus Gangs replaced them. You can play with either set but they are contradictory enough that it may be annoying. We tried to mix 'em and wound up just biting the bullet and everyone buying into the $110 worth of hard cover books.

Considering the hard covers came out around 12-18 months after the boxed game release, our group (especially me) was not super-thrilled to have to do that.

We're getting a total of 18 books for Necromunda (the first 5 are outdated and possible Gangs book will be outdated next year). Each book is contradictory to itself and/or one or more previous books. I suggest getting a fan made rules compilation, saves you all the trouble and you have a document that is consistent, up to date and a layout that makes sense.

This can be printed to booklet size of about 65 sheets of paper if you want it physical.