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.

I don’t play necromunda but I do think the models much better than 40ks, already excellent, new releases.

Do you agree and for those that play both is necromunda killing it in the fun stakes aswell?

I haven’t played (well, new necromunda) but I’m honestly not the hugest fan of the new models. It’s sorta a boomer viewpoint but they’re just too new feeling. I guess I play orks and guard, old model factions, but there’s just a charm that newer sculpts lack imo. I can’t exactly place it, but it’s just something.

I made my Ogryns and Bullgryn out of the Slave Ogryn gang and got two cool units and a bunch of really awesome bits. I think they look way cooler than the normal ogryns and it works out cheaper too.

@OP
Yes but also no. For a one-box purchase to sort me for a while? Yes, the sculpts are very nice and lend to conversion well. Would I make Necromunda my primary game? No, the spectacle of 80 Guardsmen, a platoon of Tanks, and a battery of Artillery is too good to pass up.

@Da Boss
Not sure how you managed that when the Ogryn box is £32.50 for 3 and the Jotun's are £25 for 2.

here's the thing: Necromunda blows 40k out of the water at being the thing that the 40k rules writers/GW seems to THINK that 40k is - an expansive, sprawling, imbalanced sandbox game where you forge the narrative and yadda yadda yadda.

As a sort of pick up game, plan out your list and take it against a random opponent you dont know, maybe run a tournament round-robin? Necromunda is nonfunctional. Doesn't work for that.

hell I'll say it: I think in terms of Spectacle it's pretty tough for 40k to compete with Necromunda. Sure, you can set up 200 guardsmen and tanks and gak on the table and that looks cool...for a second...but then they're just removed and by battle round 3 youre playing with the absolute dregs of your lists.

In necromunda, you've got scattering blast weaponry knocking your models against walls, you've got gangers letting out wilhelm screams as they fall off gantrys, you've got gangers cowering in cover as they fumble trying to reload their guns as enemy fighters charge towards them, you've got actual possibliities for actual unexpected outcomes and emergent narrative through gameplay.

Everything in 40k atm is just declared, and everything skews super super heavily towards average results because there's so much rolling and re-rolling. From the standpoint of "I want to use the rules to see what happens" - Necromunda every time.

If you need the concept of big stompy robots and huge armies to have fun, Epic exists as well. Go for it - field the whole chapter of space marines. Treat yourself. It'll cost maybe a half-liter of resin? If the models just aren't big enough throw in a mainiple of titans, warlords are just as big as the biggest thing you'd see in a game of 40k (a knight)

Well, Necromunda is, and always has been, a campaign game. And whilst not universal, a great many of said campaigns freely adapt the rules as presented.

Players do get attached to gang members as they grow and develop, and losing one you carefully nurtured can suck.

The whole of the thing is incredibly permissive. The rules are a genuine framework, and don’t have to be stuck to religiously.

The setting itself is pretty much Anything Goes. You can insert Movie Marines without breaking canon, because the Imperial Fists have a permanent presence in Hive Primus, so there’s nothing stopping them going into the Underhive for a bit of a purge.

Being a smaller and more intimate setting, one can freely create unique, one off Xenos species. You don’t need to justify an entire army.

Me? I’m soon to be finally running the campaign of my dreams. Starts with the founding of a new settlement to exploit a newly discovered Dome. And as each campaign concludes, the settlement is intended to grow and develop alongside the discoveries.

40K itself can’t really do that in the same way. That’s not to say 40K is therefore inferior, just necessarily different.

And as each player only really needs a couple of dozen models at most, there’s a greater excuse to really go to town converting them, especially if you want/need to represent different load outs.

It’s just a very different experience.

Regarding the models I think the current Necromunda models are a bit hit and miss. While I own at least one of each Orlock, Escher, Delaque, Van Saar, Ratskin and Spyrer of the original release I am a lot less keen on the current crop.

I think the Orlocks are great, which is why they're my main gang. The other House Gangs I am less keen on though. While I see the appeal of Goliath and Cawdor I am in no rush to collect those gangs. I am talking from a purely aesthetic point of view by the way, not gameplay.

There's also the (at least partially valid) view that Newcromunda seems to have jumped the shark a bit in the technology department. For example, why are Van Saar flying around on hoverboards?


I also agree with the point that Necromunda and 40K are two different games and appeal for different reasons.

Background wise it also helps us explore just how bizarre functional the Imperium manages to be.

I mean, life on Necromunda is harsh. You are one amongst untold billions. Most live their lives in the equivalent of a street or block. Never seeing sunlight. Never breathing truly fresh air.

Yet….you can get away with a surprising amount, if you’re wily enough.

Lord Helmawr doesn’t micromanage, instead being a skilled delegator. And provided Necromunda meets its tithes as and when they fall due? The wider Imperium pretty much leaves it alone to pootle along.

It’s an in-depth look at one facet of the Imperium, and it’s bloody fascinating. It’s every strength and every flaw of the Imperium writ, well, actually kinda small.

I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

I think the mechanics that make Necromunda cool and very good at creating unforseen spectacular events just wouldn't work with the # of models on the table 40k has.

Play a game of Rogue Trader where your entire army might be 20-30 models(at moderate pts levels). Then those very same mechanics; cool checks, concussive, empty magazines, etc work much better but that ship sailed a long time ago.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

wow, that's incredible. that's honestly the first time ever I've seen this opinion.

you look at primaris marines and think "aw yeah peak 40k right there" and then over at say...cawdor or Redemptionists or Delaques and think 'mmm not grimdark 40k enough too generic scifi'?

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

wow, that's incredible. that's honestly the first time ever I've seen this opinion.

you look at primaris marines and think "aw yeah peak 40k right there" and then over at say...cawdor or Redemptionists or Delaques and think 'mmm not grimdark 40k enough too generic scifi'?

The new Delaques certainly don't look 40k. They look like the goons from Dark City raided a GI Joe weapons depot. Maybe not generic, but definitely not 40k- I have no idea why they went for modern-style SMGs and whatnot.
Van Saar strike me as GI Joe live action villains played straight.

Cawdor are... weird. They look like hobos are trying imitate the masques and costumes from a stereotypical Illuminati orgy. But in rags. And fallout 4 style pipe weapons, for no reason, and even less realism.

Goliaths, Escher and Orlock are definitely generic post apocalypse. But that isn't a criticism, since I suspect that was the point. If they walked off a Mad Max set, no one would blink.


----
As for blowing 40k out of the water... no. Maybe if they did full kits rather than half kits and had done the weapon upgrades faster they might have something. Couple it with a more consistent ruleset and a broader game rather than revisiting the main 6 so much and it might be a thing. As is, its clearly a secondary game, with limited potential.
But then, I think its unreasonable to expect it to 'blow 40k out of the water.'

Where I live, there's 40k tournaments every weekend and nobody ever plays Necromunda. I would love to get into it but I'm not buying into a system that nobody around me plays.

I prefer necromunda over 40k these days, though getting people to play it for longer than a week before falling apart is impossible.

Well as they say, the best game is the one you can play. Bought pretty heavily into the new Necromunda and it's just sitting there gathering dust as I can't find anyone to play it with. All I have to do is sneeze to find a 40k player in these parts.

Voss wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

wow, that's incredible. that's honestly the first time ever I've seen this opinion.

you look at primaris marines and think "aw yeah peak 40k right there" and then over at say...cawdor or Redemptionists or Delaques and think 'mmm not grimdark 40k enough too generic scifi'?

The new Delaques certainly don't look 40k. They look like the goons from Dark City raided a GI Joe weapons depot. Maybe not generic, but definitely not 40k- I have no idea why they went for modern-style SMGs and whatnot.
Van Saar strike me as GI Joe live action villains played straight.

Cawdor are... weird. They look like hobos are trying imitate the masques and costumes from a stereotypical Illuminati orgy. But in rags. And fallout 4 style pipe weapons, for no reason, and even less realism.

Goliaths, Escher and Orlock are definitely generic post apocalypse. But that isn't a criticism, since I suspect that was the point. If they walked off a Mad Max set, no one would blink.


----
As for blowing 40k out of the water... no. Maybe if they did full kits rather than half kits and had done the weapon upgrades faster they might have something. Couple it with a more consistent ruleset and a broader game rather than revisiting the main 6 so much and it might be a thing. As is, its clearly a secondary game, with limited potential.
But then, I think its unreasonable to expect it to 'blow 40k out of the water.'

I said nothing about Primaris being peak-40k. Models aren't bad but they're awfully generic themselves.

And yes Voss said it for me. Most of them just seem to follow generic archetypes. In addition they all seem to have tech that's utterly new to 40k and in some cases better looking. If they had given the Palantines the typical Autoguns or Shotguns for example, then there'd be at least a small degree of similarity. Hell, even a couple of Aquilas scattered around would help.

mrFickle wrote:
I don’t play necromunda but I do think the models much better than 40ks, already excellent, new releases.

Do you agree and for those that play both is necromunda killing it in the fun stakes aswell?

I quite enhoy the skirmish games more so than mass battles.

Necromunda is a great wee game. Models are excellent.

That said, it's not open ended gw game. And it's got lots of moving parts so can get bogged down. If you want to break it, it's easy to do so. We tend to play 'low power' necromunda, and stick with knives, pistols, shotguns, las/autoguns and *maybe* a fancy thing for the boss. We also tend to simplify things on the fly just to keep moving (egheavy ccws tend to just be generified treated as s+1 rather than the million versions of 'on a 6, this thing happens' that are all very very similar.

Bit of front end work, it's a solid game.

mrFickle wrote:
I don’t play necromunda but I do think the models much better than 40ks, already excellent, new releases.

Do you agree and for those that play both is necromunda killing it in the fun stakes aswell?

I agree. I haven't bought a single 40k model that was released since the end of 7th while I got tons of Necromunda stuff, and still want to expand my collection.

Necromunda the game is also a lot of fun, but it's a whole different experience from 40k. Not only because it's a skirmish, it's mostly due to the fact that it's basically a narrative based game which should not involve min/maxing as it's way easier to break than 40k competitively.

In my area it's still very niche, unfortunately it's really hard to find Necromunda players here.

I've been toying around with the idea of getting my Nephews into Necromunda.

They really enjoy the narrative part of 40k and Necromunda is a "cheaper" alternative. It's a little easier to work on and evolve a gang than building up a 40k army.

 Valkyrie wrote:

Voss wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

wow, that's incredible. that's honestly the first time ever I've seen this opinion.

you look at primaris marines and think "aw yeah peak 40k right there" and then over at say...cawdor or Redemptionists or Delaques and think 'mmm not grimdark 40k enough too generic scifi'?

The new Delaques certainly don't look 40k. They look like the goons from Dark City raided a GI Joe weapons depot. Maybe not generic, but definitely not 40k- I have no idea why they went for modern-style SMGs and whatnot.
Van Saar strike me as GI Joe live action villains played straight.

Cawdor are... weird. They look like hobos are trying imitate the masques and costumes from a stereotypical Illuminati orgy. But in rags. And fallout 4 style pipe weapons, for no reason, and even less realism.

Goliaths, Escher and Orlock are definitely generic post apocalypse. But that isn't a criticism, since I suspect that was the point. If they walked off a Mad Max set, no one would blink.


----
As for blowing 40k out of the water... no. Maybe if they did full kits rather than half kits and had done the weapon upgrades faster they might have something. Couple it with a more consistent ruleset and a broader game rather than revisiting the main 6 so much and it might be a thing. As is, its clearly a secondary game, with limited potential.
But then, I think its unreasonable to expect it to 'blow 40k out of the water.'

I said nothing about Primaris being peak-40k. Models aren't bad but they're awfully generic themselves.

And yes Voss said it for me. Most of them just seem to follow generic archetypes. In addition they all seem to have tech that's utterly new to 40k and in some cases better looking. If they had given the Palantines the typical Autoguns or Shotguns for example, then there'd be at least a small degree of similarity. Hell, even a couple of Aquilas scattered around would help.

I mean agree to disagree I guess. It's not like there's a rule that only space marines are allowed to bring new weapons, and heck, now every single marine unit uses a pumped-up version of the old standard marine equipment, so marine spank fanboys cant even cry that palanites get some bolters or whatever, because marines dont use bolters anymore they use aquila-class heavy executor infiltrating light medium bolt rifstolbines.

My eschers have, outside of standard equipment:

-needlers. These are a thing, inquisitors and genestealer cults have access to them
-power whips. These are a thing, sisters of battle have always had them, as well as arco-flagellants.
-chem throwers. You put chems in a flamer. Doesnt seem that crazy for a poison-based faction.

some of the standard tech looks different, you know, like how all 40k weapon designs are always different based on which faction has them. Krieg lasguns, Vostroyan lasguns, Catachan lasguns and cadian lasguns look different.

van Saars are really the only necromunda gang that is a significant departure from established 40k aesthetics and I will 100% agree they look VERY high-tech cyberpunk compared to most 40k stuff.

But c'mon. Not everything 40k has to be 100% covered in skulls and aquilas, especially when theyre not supposed to be imperials. The bar for 'what makes something 40k' is apparently (given how many people love Kriegers) "take a historical miniature and slightly change the appearance of his rifle to make it a lasgun."

What makes something 40k in my opinion is: does it look like gritty, brutal, blunt, inelegant science fiction, or did you take a fantasy or historical trope faction and shove it into sci-fi with the barest of modifications. Other sci-fi settings have high tech sleek walker suits, 40k shoves a half-dead corpse into a coffin with just enough articulation on the stubby legs and brutal weapons sticking out of it that the soldier inside can continue to do murder.

The vast majority of necromunda models fit that first description to a T, and theyre all doing basically new stuff. Every other concurrent 40k release has been "but what if another space marine" or "but what if thing you know holding different weapon."

what if destroyer but with sword instead of gun
what if space marine
what if sister of battle but with shield
what if another space marine
what if dreadnought but sister of battle
what if another space marine but you have to spend 200$ to get

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Well, Necromunda is, and always has been, a campaign game. And whilst not universal, a great many of said campaigns freely adapt the rules as presented.

Spoiler:

Players do get attached to gang members as they grow and develop, and losing one you carefully nurtured can suck.

The whole of the thing is incredibly permissive. The rules are a genuine framework, and don’t have to be stuck to religiously.

The setting itself is pretty much Anything Goes. You can insert Movie Marines without breaking canon, because the Imperial Fists have a permanent presence in Hive Primus, so there’s nothing stopping them going into the Underhive for a bit of a purge.

Being a smaller and more intimate setting, one can freely create unique, one off Xenos species. You don’t need to justify an entire army.

Me? I’m soon to be finally running the campaign of my dreams. Starts with the founding of a new settlement to exploit a newly discovered Dome. And as each campaign concludes, the settlement is intended to grow and develop alongside the discoveries.

40K itself can’t really do that in the same way. That’s not to say 40K is therefore inferior, just necessarily different.

And as each player only really needs a couple of dozen models at most, there’s a greater excuse to really go to town converting them, especially if you want/need to represent different load outs.

It’s just a very different experience.

Think this says it as well as I could have hoped to! Completely agree.

Toofast wrote:Where I live, there's 40k tournaments every weekend and nobody ever plays Necromunda. I would love to get into it but I'm not buying into a system that nobody around me plays.

This is definitely a limitation of the Necomunda system. 40k is probably the ultimately 'pick up' game in that you can collect it, travel to most towns or cities in the Western world, and you'll probably find someone to play against.

That being said I would definitely recommend trying to get a close group of gaming buddies that you can choose to play what you want. My mates and I take in turns choosing a game system, we all collect and play that for some months (usually one of us does the planning/organising etc. if they are more familiar). We're currently running a Blood Bowl league, have Fallout lined up after that and possibly Necromunda after. All games that benefit from having a kind of GM and promote campaign/development play.

For me, it's a different experience, but some of my favourite wargaming memories come from Necromunda. Just the way the characters build up over time, the stories you can write in, the rivalries that are created when you've played for a few times. That Juve that takes out 2 gangers in close combat, becomes a leader, is hated by all of the other players (they are all trying to kill him ) - nothing can match that in terms of emotional attachment in a one-off, mass combat game like 40k where you just shovelling dice and miniatures on and off the board. So I think if you're really into wargames, you definitely owe it to yourself to give it a try and find some other willing souls.

No, but it makes Kill Team look crap in comparison.

 Gert wrote:
@OP
Yes but also no. For a one-box purchase to sort me for a while? Yes, the sculpts are very nice and lend to conversion well. Would I make Necromunda my primary game? No, the spectacle of 80 Guardsmen, a platoon of Tanks, and a battery of Artillery is too good to pass up.

@Da Boss
Not sure how you managed that when the Ogryn box is £32.50 for 3 and the Jotun's are £25 for 2.

I paid for the Slave Ogryn gang boxed set, of six, which came in around 65 euro, compared to two boxes of ogryns for 42.50 each, or 83 euro total. I checked and that box set appears to have been limited, but I bought it when it was available, I didn't realise they were gonna discontinue the box! Glad I picked it up when I did. Yeah, it's way more expensive now when you have to buy them two to a box!

SamusDrake wrote:
No, but it makes Kill Team look crap in comparison.

The latest version?

I prefer the latest Kill team for pick up and play missions and need a lot less terrain in a smaller area. I think it addresses a different 'need' (more thematic, narrative and personalised gaming vs a more tactical challenge in kill team).

Voss wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I would love to get into Necromunda, but the models themselves just don't do it for me. They don't look 40k enough, and in some cases just look like "generic sci-fi model set #302". I think I was put off a bit by Shadow War Armageddon and how bad I found that.

wow, that's incredible. that's honestly the first time ever I've seen this opinion.

you look at primaris marines and think "aw yeah peak 40k right there" and then over at say...cawdor or Redemptionists or Delaques and think 'mmm not grimdark 40k enough too generic scifi'?

The new Delaques certainly don't look 40k. They look like the goons from Dark City raided a GI Joe weapons depot. Maybe not generic, but definitely not 40k- I have no idea why they went for modern-style SMGs and whatnot.
Van Saar strike me as GI Joe live action villains played straight.

Cawdor are... weird. They look like hobos are trying imitate the masques and costumes from a stereotypical Illuminati orgy. But in rags. And fallout 4 style pipe weapons, for no reason, and even less realism.

Goliaths, Escher and Orlock are definitely generic post apocalypse. But that isn't a criticism, since I suspect that was the point. If they walked off a Mad Max set, no one would blink.


----
As for blowing 40k out of the water... no. Maybe if they did full kits rather than half kits and had done the weapon upgrades faster they might have something. Couple it with a more consistent ruleset and a broader game rather than revisiting the main 6 so much and it might be a thing. As is, its clearly a secondary game, with limited potential.
But then, I think its unreasonable to expect it to 'blow 40k out of the water.'

Just what does it mean for something to "look 40k" though? It's a setting that has a massive amount of variety in aesthetics to the point that pretty much anything you can think of could potentially be found within it. Just the Imperial Guard alone shows that there is no specific "style" for large portions of the setting, where we have miniatures for regiments based around: Schwarzenegger-like/Vietnam guys, WW2 Soviets, A combination of the Western Front, Steampunk-ish Sci-fi Cossacks, Mongolian Warriors, 19th Century British Infantry, Middle Eastern Etc and that's without going into all the other aesthetics which have - albiet briefly - featured in artwork before, like ANZAC, Samuari, Medieval, Roman Centurians, Gladitors etc regiment aesthetics.

Well, I’d argue 40K is Science Fantasy, rather than Science Fiction in its stylings.

The technology can be mind bogglingly advanced, but doesn’t really look it.

Even Tau, Necrons and Eldar have a certain feel of age about them. This is quite nicely reflected in Necromunda too.

Even Van Saar don’t look overly high tech, as their stuff doesn’t really look, well, practical, I guess.

Van Saar have mastered the mighty art of the curve... on that basis, they are basically heretics

The_Real_Chris wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
No, but it makes Kill Team look crap in comparison.

The latest version?

I prefer the latest Kill team for pick up and play missions and need a lot less terrain in a smaller area. I think it addresses a different 'need' (more thematic, narrative and personalised gaming vs a more tactical challenge in kill team).

I honestly hate what GW has done with the latest edition of Kill Team. Not so much for the rules( although list building and customization is very much marmite ) but for the lack of releases so far and the obscene price of the softback books. It honestly feels like they've deliberately gone out of their way to tell us to look elsewhere for our skirmish kicks.

Over the last few years I've looked at Necromunda with envious eyes( model support and optionals ) and nearly jumped on board with Hive War, but Stargrave and Five Parsecs won out instead. Between those rulesets and Necro's model range its working out really well!

Lack of releases? Kill Team has the entire 40k range of bits to be utilized and is getting entirely new stuff regularly every quarter as well as monthly content in White Dwarf. That seems like a fine pace that can easily be sustained for long instead of a big splash and drop of support soon after.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Lack of releases? Kill Team has the entire 40k range of bits to be utilized and is getting entirely new stuff regularly every quarter as well as monthly content in White Dwarf. That seems like a fine pace that can easily be sustained for long instead of a big splash and drop of support soon after.

I flicked through the Thousand Sons article in the news agents and it looked like their material from the compendium. Not sure what the point of that is, especially if a player has already dropped £30 on the compendium. I can understand an index being replaced by a codex...but replacing it with an issue of White Dwarf seems bizarre.

Kill Team needs at least something to call its own - not merely previewing forthcoming 40K kits. Its bad enough locking away the only four teams behind two £100+ boxsets, but its even worse that they are just ordinary 40K kits* with alternative sprues of knick-nacks. Not saying those aren't welcome but its really not much to look forward nonetheless.

*Kreigs and Kommandos are obviously going to be released as 40K kits later on, and GW are using them in a Pariah Nexus fashion.