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Hi there!

Me and my club have currently been kicking off a Necromunda Campaign lately and it's been terrific, however I'm rather new to the whole system but do know some of the rules, but I'm just wondering about the tactics of the game. Just figured it'd be best to ask here and understand what I should and shouldn't do, what weapons are trash and not, and whether hiring scummers and bounty hunters are really worth their time? I ain't really looking to list build here, as I'm limited to my cawdor models, but just an idea of how not to suck at necromunda would be terrific thanks!

When I start a gang its always the same;

Heavy Stubber - for long range shooting (S4 + 48" range) and area denial (2 dice auto on overwatch).
Flamer - for shifting groups of gangers from cover (template, auto hit + S4)
4 juves with Auto pistols (these are are better than las pistols
4 gangers with Lasguns (these are better than Autoguns)
1 ganger with a shotgun to accompany the Flamer heavy.
Leader gets a chainsword and either a Plasma pistol or bolt pistol (because its frickin' 40k!)

I always take plenty of Juves as they will level quickly and if enough of them survive early on you will find you have a sizable and hard to break gang.

Cover is king, if in doubt hide in cover! If you and your chums are new to Necro you need tonnes of cover terrain. Not enough and it can become a boring shooting fest. There should be no open areas so plenty of scatter terrain is a must. this applies to raised areas as well. This is needed so gangers can run between cover and close down distances. Here's an example of a previous game we hav had:


Tactics wise you want to try to maximise fire on your opponents advancing elements as allot of shots will miss due to cover or only pin (which makes them harder to hit as well), while you try to outflank them so they loose cover or charge into combat.

Charging pinned or downed gangers is a good way of getting them out of action, so flaming 3-4 gangers (or grenades) that think they are in cover and then charging all the pinned/down ones with juves for easy kills can be a devastating game winner.

Redemptionists. 4 knives each all with incinerator attachments.

For overall tactics, you'll want to make good use of cover (as mentioned) and keep your gang in mini-squads. I usually go for groups of 3 or 4. Try to not put all your dudes of a particular type (ranged, cc) all in one place as your opponent will find it easier to get cover from them/avoid them/shoot them down.

Weapon-wise, you can spam in necromunda for fun and nasty results; all gangers with lasguns is the classic one, or for a more elite force, all shotguns with bolt ammo. That gives you bolters that have an alternate anti-cover firing method.

I used to favour the wall of pistols tactic, having lots of juves with autopistols or bolt, run until in range, saturate the enemy when you've got a +2 to hit, sure to hit something. Hand flamers and incinerators are also eeeevil as you don't have to roll to hit with a template (guaranteed pin, they lose a turn if they don't have someone unpinned within 2" at the start of the turn) and you can hit multiple dudes at the same time. You might even get a wounding hit in!

Also, don't ever be afraid to run away. Bottling is a noble underhive tradition to keep your gangers alive to work territories and fight again another day. If you've taken 25% casualties and think you'll take another 25% in your opponent's next turn, run away! Of course if you've got your opponent right where you want them, stick around and make *them* bottle.

Other tips; keep your gang size to units of 3 because it drastically affects your income. If you've got 9 dudes, don't buy another until you can afford 3. Likewise, if you had casualties, buy yourself back up to 9 or 12 as soon as you like. Maximising your dudes-to-income-ratio is the way to get ahead, as you'll bottle later, work more territories, and have reserves when you've been hit hard.
Skills-wise, if you get a 2 or a 12 (pick any table) 99%of players choose techno. The chance of Medic is worth it alone, but Specialist, Inventor and armourer all have their merits over a campaign.
Since you're playing Cawdor, I'd suggest focusing on Agility skills first (to outmaneuver your foe) then combat skills for those that need it. If you have someone with WS4, get them Sprint and Leap before fancy combat skills, because that way you get to choose who they charge for nasty beatdowns. Going combat skills is great but it's harder to choose who you fight that way; Ferocity I tend to only go for with my leader as it's alright but not as good as agility or combat.

Scenario-wise, if you get the choice, it's always fun to play Ambush. It's brutal but very Underhivey. And if you take at least 3 out for only one casualty, you can steal a territory from them!
If you're defending on a raid or rescue mission, your sentries should be high WS, I, W and T. Wounds and Toughness are the most important there.
Scavengers is a great, fun, fair game to play if you don' want to be ambushing all the time. Place counters in the open if you're shootier than them, deep in cover if you're stabbier.

Also, always always laugh. stupid occurences are the name of the game in this - one of my heavies took himself OOA three games in a row with an overheating plasma gun that failed to wound the foe. CC is crazy-random sometimes. Don't worry too much about casualties unless they actually roll up dead; every gang has The Runt with every second injury on the table limping 3" a turn with ws/bs 1, and their story is the one you'll be telling for years to come.

Anything else? don't bother shooting if you'll need a 6 to hit and you're not using a las-weapon, get in cover and outflank your opponent's cover, always try and make it so you outnumber your opponent in every encounter through maneuvering. CC is AWESOME and unless your opponent has combat master, throw more dudes into the fight than you think you need.

With hired guns get a ratskin for the modification on missions and small chance of a new territory after a victorious mission. If the ratskin runs away, get a new one. The other hired guns are situational at best, a constant drain of money, and steal XP from your dudes.

If I think of anything else I'll post it later.

Use Juves as meat shields, have them at the front of any groups of gangers so they have to be targeted and downed first before your other more important gangers can be shot at.

Use this tactics with heavies too, stick a juve close by and in front to be 'the closest target' that the enemy have to shoot at.

If an enemy ganger strays out on their own, you'll probably be able to pin them turn after turn and render them useless in the game - likewise always try and give your gangers at least 1 buddy in proximity to help roll against pinning.

What ruleset are you using OP? another tip I remembered is "always buy a clip harness for your heavy" - stops you falling if you get hit while up high. dirt cheap too.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
What ruleset are you using OP? another tip I remembered is "always buy a clip harness for your heavy" - stops you falling if you get hit while up high. dirt cheap too.

Always always do this. And for your leader.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
What ruleset are you using OP? another tip I remembered is "always buy a clip harness for your heavy" - stops you falling if you get hit while up high. dirt cheap too.

Well I've been using just the main rulebook, but I believe the rest of our group has allowed the other rulebooks (this why we have one person with a scavvie list, which is brutal, around 17 models and all, with two of those big 2 wound blokes)! But I'll try and get that clip harness indeed! But to let everyone else know how the dudes are doing after their first 3 rounds : Lost a ganger and juve sadly, so down to 10 models in the gang. But the dudes I'm packing just as of now after the others' deaths are-

-Shotgun Ganger
-5x Lasgun Gangers
-Heavy Stubber Heavy
-Leader with Chainsword and Auto.
-2x Juves with Autos and Knives.

Also thank you everyone for the terrific advice! Here's the ganger, sadly minus the two (Miss ya Ol' Ned an' Gregor!) Also the first round went very bad for me, mainly as it was against the scavvy player, who had vents, with a scattercannon with the telescopic sight thing, brutal, also hallucinogenic grenades did some damage, and thus led to me losing 3x as many dude (didn't down a single bloke) and thus he took a chem pit and my drinking pit. Still got a settlement, mining pit and another territory. Other games went sour just to real poor luck (One early bottle test after losing two dudes) and a shootout before that with 2v4, and they had 3 autos and a flamer. Hopefully the remainder of the campaign goes okay for me now thaks to you all!

You can only lose 1 territory per game so I'd have words!

Those dudes are looking good. The choice of equipment is very solid as well.

And don't worry, if you fall behind in rating (due to casualties), you end up with MORE XP, which is awesome. And when you occasionally win you get cash money prizes.

So long as you have more than 7 you're still competitive; less than that I'd maybe retire. Your juves will 'come up' in a few games, then you'll be laughing

Well that's good to know and thanks! And I believe I lost two as he first one was up for grabs in our own scenario but if you lost 3x as many dudes, they'd take another too, though it's okay as I still got some decent territories still! I just hope I get the free jive from the settlement soon!

That's harsh. In the Underhive Edition rulebook, only the Ambush and Gang Fight scanrios resulted in the loss of a territory for suffering three times as many casualties as your opponent. The Raid can cause you to lose a territory, but it's gone, it doesn't go to your opponent, and you can't lose an additional one for taking heavy casualties.

Really good tips here. I'm too poor a Necro player to have any reliable tips (I've been winning less than half the time in our current campaign).

However, I have noticed that giving a leader a special weapon can be very powerful early in the campaign. Especially something like a grenade launcher or plasma gun. Runs a bit counter to the CC leader thing, but they've been quite nasty when I've faced them.

Also, the lots-of-cover thing is really important. Even the pretty dense picture in the second post seems perhaps a smidge sparse with lots of areas that are effectively open from a higher vantage points. I'd rather play on a 3x3 that is packed with cover than a 4x4 (70% more table!) with less terrain. If you lack some terrain, you can also push the terrain a bit towards the center. Not much is likely to happen on the 4"-6" closest to each table edge anyway.

Here's two aprox 3x3 layouts setup adjacent to each other.


Further, I recommend making sure everyone is on the same page rules-wise. We've had great luck with YakTribe's "Necromunda Community Edition", a tweaking of Underhive/LivingRulebook but whatever you do, make sure everyone is playing the same edition.

Lastly, if you all stick relatively close to WYSIWYG, you'll have much less trouble with spammers. Of course if one member is particularly willing to buy alot of figures or convert for game advantage this strategy might not work.

These are my Cawdor guys. how many bolt weapons do you see? That's right, there's bolt shells in the shotgun too.
Some people think it's risky to rely on 6+ ammo roll weapons so much but I say when eveyone's hitting at strength 4 then the 6 that causes the ammo roll is still the 6 that scored a strength 4 hit, and most opponents don't stand up to that sort of punishment for long. Who cares if you run out of bolt shells, you can finish them off with your boot heel while they're down.

If you're using the house weapons list you'll notice that's where all the bolt weapons for Cawdor is coming from. The strange thing is the Cawdor skill tables don't really match up so well with the weapons list so its a bit of a mixed bag.

The other (slightly contentious) advice is that a list like this (lots o' bolts) doesn't really need a heavy. You can save the money you might be spending on an expensive heavy weapon and buy a couple more gangers and a subsidise the cost of all those expensive Bolters. You're still getting plenty of S4 shots every turn so you'll not miss that heavy stubber you could've had and when it comes post battle time you don't have some fat slob sitting back home on his lazy behind "checking the weapons" while everyone else goes out to get income. Instead you'll have more able bodies to send out to bring in cash and whatdya know, all your weapons will work just fine all the same.

Of course the danger of not having Heavies is the loss of access to the all too valuable Tech skills they can roll on from the get-go and the lose of long range range weapons.

18"-24" bolters aren't allot of use when there's a ubiquitous Heavy Stubber 30-40" away raining lead on you.

I'd rather have both plus the tech skills that will mitigate any ammo roll failures.

So what you're saying is I would miss that heavy stubber and my weapons will be less reliable... Hmmm. It's a fair point.

Indeed.

Plus there are some special weapons that are too useful (flamer) or just too fun (Plasmagun/Grenade Launcher) to wait for a ganger to roll special for.

I only say this as I (or anyone I know) could never see the point in pay a huge sum for a plasmagun. When I played against some random guy that had one in a club tournament and watch him run two PGs in to the middle of the board and deny most of the table me from the ability to throw 2x D3 S7 (i.e. auto OoA) shots after frying two gangers with great ease.

A tactic I've used before is hiring heavies up front but not giving them heavy weapons from the outset. Once they've levelled up a little I consider giving them something a bit better (and by which time there's usually a suitable juve to pass their basic weapon on to).

 Flamekebab wrote:
A tactic I've used before is hiring heavies up front but not giving them heavy weapons from the outset. Once they've levelled up a little I consider giving them something a bit better (and by which time there's usually a suitable juve to pass their basic weapon on to).

This sounds like a good solution to some of the problems inherent in my idea. The problem as far I was concerned is the cost of a heavy weapon and the fact that the guy can't generate income. But maybe the focus for a Cawdor gang should be less on the finances and more on fixing the crummy skills options and making the weapon list work for you. A pair of heavies may give a few more chances for tech skills to help with ammo rolls. I still resent their not generating income though. Maybe I should bottle earlier and save my guys for that but it was just never a Cawdor kinda thing to do.

If I had no heavies i could always give the leader a big long ranged grenade launcher but i suppose camping on a firing lane isn't a good use of a leader. I'd still rather give him a flamer. Again... Cheapest option! What's wrong with me?!

I've also done something similar when I have spent pointed elsewhere at the expense of a second heavy weapon i.e. if you want to max out of bodies..

In that case I took both Heavies but only one heavy stubber (always a must have). This was passed on to the first heavy to get a BS increase. By then the second heavy (or indeed whole gang) might have specialised in another direction and a suitable heavy/specialist weapon that synergised with that purchased.

I've never seen a heavy go fully hand to hand. It seems possible given the availability of muscle skills and also the usual perversity of advance rolls and injuries. I'm talking about the kind of zemblanity that would result in the guy wielding the big expensive long range move or fire weapon getting a WS advance followed by a S advance and 'Blind in one eye' injury. That's when it's time to start calling that big stubber a "massive club"

See I've had a HtH heavy more times than I can count. Starting with a heavy stubber pretty much guaranteed bonuses to ws, a, s and misplaced muscle skills.
My opponents, however, started with a heavy stubber and got bs6 in just a few games. I blame their superior paint jobs, and my way feels more necromundish somehow.

Yeah, there should be a word for this sort of thing. When a series of post battle events results in something totally contrary to what you'd hoped for.

I once saw a guy's leader die and in the same post battle sequence one of his juves levelled up to ganger but did so rolling a Ld advance that made him the defacto new leader. I think he may already have had impressive scars from a previous battle. Either way he was a crummy replacement leader!

I've also mentioned before a ganger called leatherface whose injuries and skills were counter productive and often resulted in his defeat. A head wound gave him frenzy so he would charge anyone he could but his horrible scars would cause them to run away and he'd be left out in the open and get shot. It's a crazy game sometimes.

In a more tactics related note: I'd agree with what's been said about hired guns. They're a drain on your resources and they steal exp from your games. That said there are times when it's totally worth it. I once saw a rescue mission (a leader and a pretty great ganger had been captured) where the remaining 5 members took on a bounty hunter to help them rescue their guys and the bounty hunter was prolific. He downed and captured 4 of the opposing gang in that rescue mission and made all the difference in wining the game. Totally worth it that time.