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"Shadow war was a mistake as the game system was terrible"

For whatever reason, you have decided to take time out of your day to make use of the forum for the express purpose of making others question your knowledge of GW's products.

Shadow War is essentially the original Necromunda system re-released for 40k. Yes, a few rules were changed, and the campaign system watered down....but terrible?!

Pause and reflect.

Let be honest. SW:A wasn't a good system. It was based on Necro but removed pretty much eveything that made it flavourful

Okay, I'm confused. Are these bespoke er, Bespoke!™, ® and ℠ rules the campaign rules, tournament rules, or the basic play rules?

 Kirasu wrote:
Shadow war was a mistake as the game system was terrible...

What was terrible about it?

Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

You could just not use that rule...

We made various hacks to the Necromunda rules over the years. Most recently, we tried doing away with fire arcs just to speed things up a little, but we also had a long running house rule limiting how many of each type of weapon a model could carry, just for a touch of realism... Limiting Gangers, for example, to a max of 1 basic weapon made weapon choices a little more important, and also made Bounty Hunters and Heavies a little more special.

We also added a requirement to the 'Rescue' mission that forced a gang whose member had been captured to send Gangers out looking for the enemy gang's camp instead of working territories post-game, and you couldn't mount a rescue until that hunt ws successful.


And I think I mentioned earlier in the thread about our instant progression for starter gangs...


This is one of the beauties of a campaign system... While it's nice to have solid rules as a foundation (and for all their faults, the Necro rules are pretty solid) you have the freedom amongst your gaming group to tailor the rules to suit yourselves in a way that isn't always possible with one-off pickup games.

The issue SWA had was the campaign and pre-battle setup was very, very weak. Choosing your progress meant you could just select who to load with upgrades, instead of XP being tracked.

Gangs were highly unbalanced. Some (such as SoB and Tau) are borderline unplayable.

I'd prefer the Mordheim injury table where 1-2 is Knocked down, 3-4 is stunned and 5-6 is out of action, to make casualties a little lower in game since 40k weapons are much more powerful than Necromunda ones, since they're so much more common.

It's very easy to table an opponent in one or two rounds as some gangs simply had no staying power, while stuff like Inquisition Stormbolters+Sights existed.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Sounds line they will be taking on different Hives, and the Ash Wastes.

Bespoke!!! The new meme of 17!

I hope not as there is no realistic cross compatibility between different hives and even encounters with Ash wastes nomads would be rare in the extreme.

 Killionaire wrote:
The issue SWA had was the campaign and pre-battle setup was very, very weak. Choosing your progress meant you could just select who to load with upgrades, instead of XP being tracked.

Gangs were highly unbalanced. Some (such as SoB and Tau) are borderline unplayable.

I'd prefer the Mordheim injury table where 1-2 is Knocked down, 3-4 is stunned and 5-6 is out of action, to make casualties a little lower in game since 40k weapons are much more powerful than Necromunda ones, since they're so much more common.

It's very easy to table an opponent in one or two rounds as some gangs simply had no staying power, while stuff like Inquisition Stormbolters+Sights existed.

That injury table gives you the same chance of casualties as Necromunda: 50/50 flesh wound/ooa. It just reduces the amount of time models will spend crawling round waiting to decide their fate.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

No, but it's a convenient stick to use for a general whinge.

Will those Goliath models be available outside of the box? I'm guessing not. They'll be good for my post apocalyptic gaming.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:


Will those Goliath models be available outside of the box? I'm guessing not. They'll be good for my post apocalyptic gaming.

I would reckon yes, though several months down the road. With BB both the boxed set's teams were available roughly 3-6 months (I really can't recall how long it was) after the boxed set came out. Judging by the "expanded rules," available at day one And since this is also a specialist games product ran by FW I imagine the release schedule will mirror Blood Bowl pretty closely. At least we won't have to wait forever for them to get the core gangs out, since there are only six. Blood Bowl on the other hand......

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

Yes, I hate the idea that my dudes aren't able to use their brain and shoot at the targets that really matter, it just feels so wrong.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

No, but it's a convenient stick to use for a general whinge.

Gotta work on those mind reading abilities of yours.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

Yes, I hate the idea that my dudes aren't able to use their brain and shoot at the targets that really matter, it just feels so wrong.

I wasn't a huge fan of the rule personally. We just house ruled the Mordheim rule which allowed you to shoot at any target if you were elevated above them, otherwise you had to make a leadership test to shoot a model other than the closest target (if they failed they still got to shoot, albeit at the closest target as normal). I thought that does a pretty good job representing how often undisciplined and untrained gangers would fight.

Shooting the nearest target represents the fact that these little guys aren't robots, and sometimes won't do what you, the gang leader, want them to do. IMO, things like that are preferable to being able to do exactly what you want to do, all the time. The higher a model's Ld, the more likely they are to be able to judge that that guy in the back behind a pip is more of a threat than the one running at you with a club.

As for "bespoke rules for the gangs and world", I'm not sure this means anything more than "it's not just 8th edition 40k". Compared to 2nd edition 40k, Necromunda had "bespoke rules for the world" - pinning, ammo rolls, injury rolls, etc.

I've played a necromunda campaign recently so I'm not looking back at it through rose tinted glasses. The rules are old fashioned and clunky. They were good for their time but they are classic GW - lots of rolling and lots of random effect tables. The turn sequence is also very old fashioned. The flavour of necromunda is still great but there are more modern skirmish rule sets to be inspired by.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

Yes, I hate the idea that my dudes aren't able to use their brain and shoot at the targets that really matter, it just feels so wrong.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Well I can't say I ever had a problem with that rule, but that rule alone is enough to make you not play the entire game?

No, but it's a convenient stick to use for a general whinge.

Gotta work on those mind reading abilities of yours.

Still whinging, I note. Just change the rules if you don't like them. Job done and no need to sob to strangers on forums.

If the models will come as stand alone releases after the main box then I'll probably wait for those. Quite happy playing necromunda the way it's been since the 90s and my redemptionists aren't retiring just yet.

plessiez wrote:
I've played a necromunda campaign recently so I'm not looking back at it through rose tinted glasses. The rules are old fashioned and clunky. They were good for their time but they are classic GW - lots of rolling and lots of random effect tables. The turn sequence is also very old fashioned. The flavour of necromunda is still great but there are more modern skirmish rule sets to be inspired by.

Rolling on lots of tables is literally the whole point of these campaign games and the exact reason they're so well regarded and have lasted so long in the first place. If they want to tweak profiles or exactly how some skills work or mess about with the turn sequence(it appears they do), OK, I can deal with that if the changes are actually improvements and not just change for the sake of change, but if they chuck out rolling for effects during gameplay and for results during the postgame it won't be Necromunda any more. Modern != inherently superior, and if they want to go really far from the original game frankly I'd rather they just do their own new thing rather than cacking on something a lot of people have a lot of affection for - this Shadespire game sounds very "modern" mechanically, and also totally uninteresting to me because I don't want some hyper-streamlined competitive game drowning in wierd gimmick mechanics, but it's there for people who do find that sort of thing appealing.

 Yodhrin wrote:

plessiez wrote:
I've played a necromunda campaign recently so I'm not looking back at it through rose tinted glasses. The rules are old fashioned and clunky. They were good for their time but they are classic GW - lots of rolling and lots of random effect tables. The turn sequence is also very old fashioned. The flavour of necromunda is still great but there are more modern skirmish rule sets to be inspired by.

Rolling on lots of tables is literally the whole point of these campaign games and the exact reason they're so well regarded and have lasted so long in the first place. If they want to tweak profiles or exactly how some skills work or mess about with the turn sequence(it appears they do), OK, I can deal with that if the changes are actually improvements and not just change for the sake of change, but if they chuck out rolling for effects during gameplay and for results during the postgame it won't be Necromunda any more. Modern != inherently superior, and if they want to go really far from the original game frankly I'd rather they just do their own new thing rather than cacking on something a lot of people have a lot of affection for - this Shadespire game sounds very "modern" mechanically, and also totally uninteresting to me because I don't want some hyper-streamlined competitive game drowning in wierd gimmick mechanics, but it's there for people who do find that sort of thing appealing.

There's nothing stopping you from playing Necromunda Community Edition with the new gangs then. I just think the turn sequence of "I move everything then you do" is really lacking compared to systems with either alternating or random activation.

For instance the "Songs of Blades and Heroes" system has a simple system where you can attempt to roll up to three actions (e.g move, aim, shoot) and then roll for success. But if you two failures then the turn hands over to your opponent. So do you aim to do a lot with higher risk or stick to a single simple risk free activation for each model? That is a very simple mechanism which creates some interesting friction and keeps things engaging during the turn. "This is not a test" is a post apocalyptic skirmish game and pretty much the spiritual successor to necromunda and has activation rolls on a D10 based on initiative with failure turning the turn over.

There's nothing wrong with necromunda but things have moved on and it's a good opportunity to provide a new set of rules, set in the same universe, and hopefully lifting some of the best concepts from the last 20 years of rules development.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Shooting the nearest target represents the fact that these little guys aren't robots, and sometimes won't do what you, the gang leader, want them to do. IMO, things like that are preferable to being able to do exactly what you want to do, all the time. The higher a model's Ld, the more likely they are to be able to judge that that guy in the back behind a pip is more of a threat than the one running at you with a club.

As for "bespoke rules for the gangs and world", I'm not sure this means anything more than "it's not just 8th edition 40k". Compared to 2nd edition 40k, Necromunda had "bespoke rules for the world" - pinning, ammo rolls, injury rolls, etc.

Closest target makes sense but I think there should be some kind of minimum distance for it to kick in. Say if there's a target within 18 inches you must target that.

Someone being 47 inches away isn't much more of a threat than someone 48 inches away.

plessiez wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

plessiez wrote:
I've played a necromunda campaign recently so I'm not looking back at it through rose tinted glasses. The rules are old fashioned and clunky. They were good for their time but they are classic GW - lots of rolling and lots of random effect tables. The turn sequence is also very old fashioned. The flavour of necromunda is still great but there are more modern skirmish rule sets to be inspired by.

Rolling on lots of tables is literally the whole point of these campaign games and the exact reason they're so well regarded and have lasted so long in the first place. If they want to tweak profiles or exactly how some skills work or mess about with the turn sequence(it appears they do), OK, I can deal with that if the changes are actually improvements and not just change for the sake of change, but if they chuck out rolling for effects during gameplay and for results during the postgame it won't be Necromunda any more. Modern != inherently superior, and if they want to go really far from the original game frankly I'd rather they just do their own new thing rather than cacking on something a lot of people have a lot of affection for - this Shadespire game sounds very "modern" mechanically, and also totally uninteresting to me because I don't want some hyper-streamlined competitive game drowning in wierd gimmick mechanics, but it's there for people who do find that sort of thing appealing.

There's nothing stopping you from playing Necromunda Community Edition with the new gangs then. I just think the turn sequence of "I move everything then you do" is really lacking compared to systems with either alternating or random activation.

For instance the "Songs of Blades and Heroes" system has a simple system where you can attempt to roll up to three actions (e.g move, aim, shoot) and then roll for success. But if you two failures then the turn hands over to your opponent. So do you aim to do a lot with higher risk or stick to a single simple risk free activation for each model? That is a very simple mechanism which creates some interesting friction and keeps things engaging during the turn. "This is not a test" is a post apocalyptic skirmish game and pretty much the spiritual successor to necromunda and has activation rolls on a D10 based on initiative with failure turning the turn over.

There's nothing wrong with necromunda but things have moved on and it's a good opportunity to provide a new set of rules, set in the same universe, and hopefully lifting some of the best concepts from the last 20 years of rules development.

Dayum, those goalposts must have rocket engines on them. I was addressing your disdain for random rolls/rolling on tables, which as far as I'm concerned are integral to and inseperable from the enduring appeal of the system, and in so doing specifically said I'm willing to give things like tweaked turn sequences a shot, and your response is about turn sequence changes....?

Also, the "you can just play the old version, GW aren't sending the Modelstapo to burn your old books" line is a cop out and people who use it well know that - if GW replace an existing system with a new, actively supported system the existing system is almost certainly dead unless you already have a large group who all choose to stick with the older version as well. The hypothetical ability to stick with the original rules is meaningless when the practical reality will be that Newcromunda will be the default going forward unless it's a complete and total 100% garbage fire, which is unlikely.

If, as you say, there's nothing wrong with it, then it's change for the sake of change. I think I'd rather they keep as close to the original as possible, since it's fans of that who've kept the system alive for all the years GW abandoned it, and rather it's people who're bored of the system as-was or who want their newshiny "modern" mechanics who should be looking for an alternative set of rules to use with the new models.

Vorian wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Shooting the nearest target represents the fact that these little guys aren't robots, and sometimes won't do what you, the gang leader, want them to do. IMO, things like that are preferable to being able to do exactly what you want to do, all the time. The higher a model's Ld, the more likely they are to be able to judge that that guy in the back behind a pip is more of a threat than the one running at you with a club.

As for "bespoke rules for the gangs and world", I'm not sure this means anything more than "it's not just 8th edition 40k". Compared to 2nd edition 40k, Necromunda had "bespoke rules for the world" - pinning, ammo rolls, injury rolls, etc.

Closest target makes sense but I think there should be some kind of minimum distance for it to kick in. Say if there's a target within 18 inches you must target that.

Someone being 47 inches away isn't much more of a threat than someone 48 inches away.

The strict can target all/can target only the closest model system should probably have never existed in the first place. Yours has merit and would be easy to implement. Make leadership worth something and allow models to freely choose targets within double (or triple if necessary) their LD value in inches. Anything beyond that, you must target the closest model. Hand out a small boost to that for the marksman skill instead of a blanket allowance and there would be a lot fewer complaints about one gunner mowing down entire gangs late in campaigns.

Failing that. even a simple LD check before shooting to determine how freely a model may choose would be an improvement.

In my experience Necromunda worked better without meat shield juves, but you don't have to have extremes. There's a middle road.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well it kept the awful rule that you have to shoot at the closest target, rather than being able to pick and choose. That's basically the reason I am not interested in it, same with Necromunda

Having played a fair bit of Necromunda in the last couple years I think that the closest-target-rule is pretty much essential to the game. In a game where almost no combatants have armor, and where the fluff suggests that close combat should be part of the game it's very important to keep longer ranged weapons from dominating the battlefield. It also helps to somewhat ameliorate the benefits that shooty gangs like Van Saar have. Further, IIRC, the rule has always allowed you to shoot the easier-to-hit target, so if you have a juve nearby in cover you can choose to shoot the further away ganger in the open.

Having said this, having only played a couple games of Shadow War I don't feel qualified to offer quite so stong an opinion. However, it seems to me that it might prove be even MORE important in SW:A to have some rules in place to keep high BS shooters with powerful weapons from dominating.

For a bit of fun I'm going to start posting pictures of my Necro gangs when I comment on this thread.
Gang 1. My prized Van Saar. Some of these were bought in my earliest years of minis gaming, though not painted properly til now.


More pics and process here: https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2014/10/12/new-paint-for-old-friends-necromunda/

 Yodhrin wrote:


Dayum, those goalposts must have rocket engines on them. I was addressing your disdain for random rolls/rolling on tables, which as far as I'm concerned are integral to and inseperable from the enduring appeal of the system, and in so doing specifically said I'm willing to give things like tweaked turn sequences a shot, and your response is about turn sequence changes....?

Also, the "you can just play the old version, GW aren't sending the Modelstapo to burn your old books" line is a cop out and people who use it well know that - if GW replace an existing system with a new, actively supported system the existing system is almost certainly dead unless you already have a large group who all choose to stick with the older version as well. The hypothetical ability to stick with the original rules is meaningless when the practical reality will be that Newcromunda will be the default going forward unless it's a complete and total 100% garbage fire, which is unlikely.

If, as you say, there's nothing wrong with it, then it's change for the sake of change. I think I'd rather they keep as close to the original as possible, since it's fans of that who've kept the system alive for all the years GW abandoned it, and rather it's people who're bored of the system as-was or who want their newshiny "modern" mechanics who should be looking for an alternative set of rules to use with the new models.

Each to their own. My view is that the combat rules of Necromunda are not very good. Due to a great setting, interesting models, and good campaign rules, Necromunda is still a fun game despite the combat rules being clunky and a bit tedious. There's a crowded field of skirmish games which Newcromunda is going to be in competition with. Personally I hope that they take the opportunity to come with a set of rules which are as good or better than anything else out there and not stick with something which was good enough 20 years ago just for the sake of avoiding change.

Nice! I will get some pics of my Escher up!

I like those bases, what are they?

We already know it's changing...

raekone wrote:
Nice! I will get some pics of my Escher up!

I like those bases, what are they?

Thanks!
They are Champ Industries "Industrial" plastic bases.
http://www.champindustries.net/orders_b.html
They are only availble in two themes (urban and industrial) and with only 4 scupts each, but since they're made of polystyrene they're super easy to modify or glue bits onto to mix them up a bit. Also, they're only 30 cents each!
I'm a big fan of them and have used them for alot of projects.

You can see the urban design bases on my Chicago cops. These are stock with nothing but grey paint and a dark dip.
It just occured to me that though the weapons aren't ideal, wtih dum-dum bullets you could run these guys as a proxy Necromunda gang!

thats awesome, I am going to order some!

Yeah, you could paint them up in a village people policeman style, handlebar moustaches, leather and studs!!!

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Still whinging, I note. Just change the rules if you don't like them. Job done and no need to sob to strangers on forums.

Looking at the replies here, it seems most people wouldn't want to change the rule, so just '' change the rules if you don't like them '' doesn't seems doable.

 Eilif wrote:
However, it seems to me that it might prove be even MORE important in SW:A to have some rules in place to keep high BS shooters with powerful weapons from dominating

Its even worse in SW:A, where instead of gangers that are supposed to be quite undisciplined/on drugs or whatever, you have people that have been training since a very young and are apparently unable to figure out that the nearest target isn't the most critical.

Pseudomonas wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Sounds line they will be taking on different Hives, and the Ash Wastes.

Bespoke!!! The new meme of 17!

I hope not as there is no realistic cross compatibility between different hives and even encounters with Ash wastes nomads would be rare in the extreme.

There are different Hives on the planet. Each has different things/ gangs/ and events going on. That's where the underhive and ash wastes comes into play.

I don't have them in front of me, but there was several points that I remember.

There was a necromancer, I think he had a hive, or a portion of a hive that specialized in zombies. There was a quarantine on the hive, and if you went there, you were going to be shot..
Second was discussion on the different hives, they have different names and tempos, as well. There was even talk about a Mechanicus hive, which was forbidden to go to, but gave the hives their military equipment, and the weapons were sold on the black market, as well.

Third was the Ash Wastes, where there was a add on for vehicles, and batertown shantys, and the indian guys that were running around between the hives. ( Ash Ratskinners, or something. They were Indians, but they were like covered in hides and used scrapped weapons. one or two could join gangs, IIRC.)