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zamerion wrote:
More details about cults (from BOLS, sorry)

via Garro (Facebook 11-25-2017)

Genestealer Cults and Chaos Cults gang rules, and wargear will be coming to Necromunda early next year, after Orlock and gang war 2.

these will be coming through a pair of White Dwarf articles sometime in the spring (march-may). these will also include various additional wargear which other gangs will be able to take.

regarding the GCults; this version will focus on the mining cults of the ashwastes coming into contact with a genestealer, so will use the Neophyte Hybrids kit as its base. expect to see a larger more detailed cults gang at a later date when they explore hive secondus. but this will help provide an additional two gangs by the beginning of the summer.

don’t have much details on the chaos cults rules, but there are chaos tokens, and a tile with an eight point star in blood in the new expansion set of tiles coming with GW2. so would expect some cult ritual mission of some sort.

Garro on 11-26-2017

got some more in depth about the Genestealer and chaos cult gang lists coming next year.

-they’ll both be appearing in White Dwarf.

-both gangs will be based around the existing kits (No new models)

-Genestealer cults (GC) will focus around the neophite-hybrids with a sub-primus leader, and able to take Aberrants in the gangs. they’ll have full access to the entire GC armoury including weapons in the acolytes kits. these weapons should be added to the trading posts lists in the article, but will be in Gang War 3 (GW3) for certain.

-Chaos cults will be god neutral. but will be able to preform a ritual between games, to one of the gods. if successful, your gang gets a buff based on the god, and if it fails, a random member of your gang (other than the leader) turns into a spawn, and remains like it (spawn is added to the gang roster). you get bonuses to the ritual roll, if you stick to the same god, and get negative modifers if you chop and change.

-both gangs will have full gang rules, and access to trading posts .etc so will be able to include other non-faction gear as campaigns go on.

-both factions will have a low-power psyker option.



Summer will be a good time to make a campaign With 4 full gangs, 3 "renegades" gangs and big market.

Sounds great, but I was expecting to get rules for these much earlier. Seems like Necro will pretty much be unplayable till the beginning of the summer. Don't want to sound like a broken record, but I really think it would have been preferable to push back the release of the game till at least a few more gangs were ready to go.

As for the chaos cultist gang, they will be severly limited in term of gears. Hope there are rules for summing daemons, cause if not, they'll be boring as frag.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mymearan wrote:
To take a short break from the eternal discussion on the release schedule and actually talk about the game for once...

Who else is checking out the rules? Has anyone played a campaign yet? I’m reading through the books now and I’m seriously impressed. It looks to me as though they took the best bits of old Necro, removed or improved the worst, and added a whole bunch of great stuff that immediately stands out to us Necro veterans as “of course! Why didn’t I think of that...”. The new campaign system seems super fun and I love how they’ve incorporated “seasons” into the main rules, with a proper end to a campaign (with huge potential for additions in future supplements), in-between campaign stuff and rules for bringing your gang (or an off-shoot) into the next campaign. After reading this I’m VERY excited for future Gang War books as these systems seem busy it to be endlessly customisable with fun, narrative-creating additions! Huge kudos to Andy Hoare and his team!

Agreed. Rules looks great so far.

Did anyone catched a use for Willpower or LD yet?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
When it comes down to it, how different is this to Codex or Army books really?

For me, it again all comes down to the content of each volume. It’s one thing to add cost to a game, quite another to add value.

Gang War 1 works for me. It’s added a poop load of rules to a boxed game intended to be a complete experience in itself.

Gang War 2 promises a new Gang, plus further rules. If you’ll excuse the pun, on paper that sounds reasonable enough.

White Dwarf will carry rules for Chaos and Genestealer Cults. I’m ok with that.

Gang War 3? Well, it seems after Orlocks it’s Van Saar, so there’s some interest from me there. But, I want more. I can’t define what ‘acceptable’ content would be for me. GW are creative types, I’m not. But if the Van Saar rules are the only reason for me to buy it, that’s gonna be an issue. I don’t want to be paying near Codex prices for limited content.

From there? Much the same.

But now is the time to be feeding back to GW. We can’t tell them what we don’t want, because we’ve limited info on what’s planned. We can of course tell them what we do want to see. As YMMV, I’m not gonna say what you should want etc. I will again encourage peeps to engage with GW though.

I'd expect a gang war to contain the putlaw rules. But then, it might only be release with a gang that came with outlanders


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Good try bub, but hyperbolic sarcasm doesn't disguise the fact you're not actually addressing anything. You use those to add flavour to an argument where you're in the right, not in a desperate attempt to shift goalposts around to disguise the vacuousness of your position.

Oh no. My intent was to mock the hyperbolic bluster of individuals whose posting styles equate to pounding one piano key repeatedly for months on end. Hope that makes things clearer.

Here's the Cliffs Notes version of the rest -- any vast difference in the two situations only exists due your skewed personal definition of 'complete game experience'. You're obviously already highly committed to your particular point of view, so why would I even bother to fully engage with you on the topic? This is why I have you on ignore....not because you're an offensive poster but because usually there's just no point in trying to exchange ideas with you.

When the rule writers themselves state that the game really shines as a campaign game, it's pretty much an admission that the rules in underhive are incomplete

Willpower is gonna be more of a thing when psykers start turning up but, for now at least, there’s the Fearsome skill which as of Gang War requires a Wil test.
For Leadership you have the Inspirational and Regroup skills that basically allow you to substitute one model’s Ld check for another’s Cl check.

Mandragola and yodhrin are making the case better than me. "Immoral" is an overstatement. This doesn't make them evil people! I am also sure the design team have a genuine passion for what they do, and probably don't call some of the more questionable shots here.

When I talk about business ethics, I simply mean holding yourself to some principles, and generally treating customers in a straightforward way. As Mandragola says, this is more about good sense than a moral right/wrong. What makes me angry is as much the frustration with what a senselessly daft move it is as how much it affects me personally. Will impede the emergence of an active player base and hurt the game.

I should have known that you lot would find a way to defend this, nevermind have a go at me for trying to voice me frustration. This psuedo-zen "buy or not buy" is bs. I don't know how much money you guys have, but I am poor. I have loved this game for years, and excitedly saved up for it. My birthday was a week before the release so I treated myself and was super excited.

As I maybe didn't make clear enough, they could have released the rules for extra gangs, codex style. It would feel a bit cheap, but I wouldn't have been that annoyed. As it stands, the game really feels incomplete on release, and there is every indication that I will have to buy a number of books I simply can't afford if I want to fix that, even if I don't want to play those gangs.

And that is the very definition of a gouge.

 Party Boy wrote:
Mandragola and yodhrin are making the case better than me. "Immoral" is an overstatement. This doesn't make them evil people! I am also sure the design team have a genuine passion for what they do, and probably don't call some of the more questionable shots here.

When I talk about business ethics, I simply mean holding yourself to some principles, and generally treating customers in a straightforward way. As Mandragola says, this is more about good sense than a moral right/wrong. What makes me angry is as much the frustration with what a senselessly daft move it is as how much it affects me personally. Will impede the emergence of an active player base and hurt the game.

I should have known that you lot would find a way to defend this, nevermind have a go at me for trying to voice me frustration. This psuedo-zen "buy or not buy" is bs. I don't know how much money you guys have, but I am poor. I have loved this game for years, and excitedly saved up for it. My birthday was a week before the release so I treated myself and was super excited.

As I maybe didn't make clear enough, they could have released the rules for extra gangs, codex style. It would feel a bit cheap, but I wouldn't have been that annoyed. As it stands, the game really feels incomplete on release, and there is every indication that I will have to buy a number of books I simply can't afford if I want to fix that, even if I don't want to play those gangs.

And that is the very definition of a gouge.

yeah, for some, it seems to be a duty to defend any moves made by GW. Makes you wonder if some of these posters are actually GW employees.

WatcherZero wrote:
The current release schedule looks something like this:
Q1 Orlock, Gang War 2, 3 hired gun models, Orlock weapon sprue, Badzone Delta-7 tile set (including duplicate arc template set)
2 White Dwarf articles containing rules for Genestealer Cult and Chaos Cultist gangs using existing Neophyte Hybrid and Cultist kits
Q2 Van Saar, Gang War 3, Goliath/Escher weapons sprue
White Dwarf article containing rules for a bounty hunter gang
Q3 Cawdor, Gang War 4
Q4 Delaque, Gang War 5

They also apparently told retailers they have an 18 month release schedule planned and this could indicate two quarters of releases after Delaque already planned (unless it suddenly flops).

Don't expect a specific 'pattern' to the Gang War books. The first one is not a template for the remainder.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

WatcherZero wrote:
The current release schedule looks something like this:
Q1 Orlock, Gang War 2, 3 hired gun models, Orlock weapon sprue, Badzone Delta-7 tile set (including duplicate arc template set)
2 White Dwarf articles containing rules for Genestealer Cult and Chaos Cultist gangs using existing Neophyte Hybrid and Cultist kits
Q2 Van Saar, Gang War 3, Goliath/Escher weapons sprue
White Dwarf article containing rules for a bounty hunter gang
Q3 Cawdor, Gang War 4
Q4 Delaque, Gang War 5

They also apparently told retailers they have an 18 month release schedule planned and this could indicate two quarters of releases after Delaque already planned (unless it suddenly flops).

Don't expect a specific 'pattern' to the Gang War books. The first one is not a template for the remainder.

I could just about get over it if they use GW 2 to patch up the rules, then release multiple gangs with subsequent books and only include non essential rules. I know this is a bit of a loose criteria but the rules as are are definitely incomplete. I would consider "expansion" stuff like vehicles, outlaw gangs, etc acceptable extra content to incentivise purchase. This is a) optimistic given what we have seen so far and b) still a bandaid on a pretty patchy release.

On that note, let me add something positive. My criticisms of release policy isn't a criticism of the game they are actually releasing which looks pretty good (having played 1 test game).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


Don't expect a specific 'pattern' to the Gang War books. The first one is not a template for the remainder.

They said each quarter will have a new gang kit and accompanying Gang War book they also said the contents of Gang War 2 are Orlock and Hired Gun rules (novice mercenaries with weak stats/weapon options such as armourer, scout and medic) and Harpoon guns,
Gang War 3 will have Van Saar and Bounty Hunter rules (veteran mercenaries with many skills/weapon options) as well as expanding the trading post/armoury to allow the playing of all Imperial weapons and wargear.

So that sounds pretty template following, each one contains a gang and a small expansion of the ruleset.

They said each quarter will have a new gang, and that GW2 would have rules for the Orlocks. Where did they say that each gang war book would be for that gang?

As I said, don't look to the current Gang War book as the template going forward. Things are not as set in stone as you think.

When they said the rules for each gang not accompanied by a kit would be in White Dwarf rather than a gang war supplement but that they could do a Bloodstealer and Chaos Cultist kit with expanded weapon/equipment options and own rule books after next year. They said Gang War 2 had been completely written and Gang War 3 was mostly complete.

But that's not the same thing as say that each Gang War would follow the same style (1 Gang/1 Hire Gun/1 Rule Expansion/etc.).

Anyway, I'll stop messing around: I'm not guessing when I say things like this. I'm not interpreting rumours. I'm not extrapolating detail.

I've been told. Direct.



[EDIT]: Sorry, that came off as really smug. I've altered the wording.

We don't know the contents of gang war 4 and 5 and they might indeed not follow the same template but the first 3 are already written do follow that template.

I personally would expect some kind of Omnibus next Christmas or Q1 2019 that collated the books so far to make it easier for late starters and possibly a revised starting set for next Christmas.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But that's not the same thing as say that each Gang War would follow the same style (1 Gang/1 Hire Gun/1 Rule Expansion/etc.).

Anyway, I'll stop playing with you: I'm not guessing when I say things like this. I'm not interpreting rumours. I'm not extrapolating detail.

I've been told. Direct.

No points for vagueness. Share with the class if you want people to believe you.
Not that you can or will, but surely you realize how ridiculous that sounds?
"My uncle works at nintendo..."

*shrugs*

If you know who I am you know what I've done, and doubting me would be foolish. Suffice to say a lot of my initial reactions and thoughts (especially the negative ones) were completely wrong. I jumped to too many conclusions, and have since been set straight.

You can choose to believe me or not, that's up to you.

HBMC has been playing the long game, NOW he strikes with slightly misleading Necromunda release schedule implications!
We were such fools.

WatcherZero wrote:
We don't know the contents of gang war 4 and 5 and they might indeed not follow the same template but the first 3 are already written do follow that template.

I personally would expect some kind of Omnibus next Christmas or Q1 2019 that collated the books so far to make it easier for late starters and possibly a revised starting set for next Christmas.

Some kind of compilation later on would be helpful just for the sake of not having to haul around too many books. Also having to pick up and flip through and switch around multiple books is annoying and slightly time consuming. This is more apparent for me as this is my first venture into the game, and half the time i'm not sure if i've got the rules right. Right now I only have to do it with 1-2 at the most with the current setup, which is tolerable. I think it's safe to say each new gang war book will contain one of the four remaining clan houses. I wouldn't mind it if they did another underhive tile set that was more gang territory specific, with graffiti and and house specific iconography. However that suggests just aesthetics..but that is fine by me. They also said the new badzone tiles will have unique rules (also having had a look at some better images of the tiles I am really excited about them, they look a lot more interesting and flavorful than the initial set while still fitting in perfectly.) I know people like to bag on the tiles but having a modular and easily transportable setup is convenient sometimes. It is likely Orlocks will fare better than Escher on the tiles..so that is something to keep in mind.

A thought on lugging books around. And only a thought.

Traditionally, that’s not what Necromunda is, game wise. Least ways not in my experience.

What I’ve found is that much like a TTRPG, it’s on the games master to have the necessary books at the gaming locale. And like TTRPG, my gaming circle has always had a single gaming location for any campaign.

This time, it’ll be round my flat. I’ve got a beautiful antique, glass fronted bookcase. You need the rules? They’ll be in there alongside most of other Rule books.

And if I don’t have a given book or article, no using it. I’m the GM, so I need to know the stuff inside out. Again, no different to a TTRPG.

Of course, you may want to buy the books relevant to yourself (or all of them. It’s your money) so you can bone up yourself. But there’ll be little need to lug them over to mine. You’ll just need to bring your Gang, and your roster. And beer, because you’re not drinking my beer. That’s my ticket to Lobotomy Bay and we are not sharing a cabin!

See, Necromunda at its best isn’t particularly well suited to random pick up games. It’s a campaign game at heart. And like any campaign game, there have to be ground rules set out. That covers attendance, consequences of missing games etc. Part of those should be a discussion about what format of rules are acceptable. My thoughts on that are just above - you’ve probably read them already. Recap? No need to bring your own books, you can use mine. But no using rules I don’t own myself.

Feel free to adopt, adapt or ignore. It’s your campaign, I’m just some intergoon giving a non binding speech. If you want to accept photocopies of the rules salient to the arranged game, cool. If you want to accept hand written copies, cool. Just make sure your players know what’s in and what’s out, and keep it consistent. Someone kicking off about a GM choice? Maybe they’re not someone you particularly want in the campaign?

Remember, more than 40k or AoS which are Wargames, Necromunda is very much a Hobby Game. As well as buying your models, you need to literally create a Gang, and a background for them. It’s expected that you’ll choose and paint a theme for them. It’s also generally required that new equipment is reasonably modelled on the models, because WYSIWYG is incredibly very bloody important in Necromunda. If you’re not spending st least as much time painting and modelling as gaming, you may be missing out on a huge part of the Hobby’s appeal!

Which reminds me. Must see if my Bro still has those Eldar close combat weapon Sprues. That Powerfist is effing ideal for an Escher Powerfist...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A thought on lugging books around. And only a thought.

Traditionally, that’s not what Necromunda is, game wise. Least ways not in my experience.

What I’ve found is that much like a TTRPG, it’s on the games master to have the necessary books at the gaming locale. And like TTRPG, my gaming circle has always had a single gaming location for any campaign.

In some ways you're right, but then again for Necromunda we really only had three books.

Just by virtue of me being an obsessive terrain hoarder, I own several copies of the Necromunda rule and sourcebooks, so there was enough that we could have 2-3 games going on and people in various stages of the post-battle sequence. If one of us was playing a gang from a Gang War or Necromunda Magazine issue, then they just kept that with them.

Having a separate books for the main gangs though could be an issue. I do wish they'd release the scenarios online, so you could print them and put them in an ever-growing binder.

And the physical act of carrying books is still not the point... ;-)

Never said it was.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Never said it was.

Not everyone is replying to you. ;-) My point built on yours as part of a prior discussion. It is in no way a rebuttal of your post simply by being consecutive... look at the first line of MDG's post.

 Party Boy wrote:

When I talk about business ethics, I simply mean holding yourself to some principles, and generally treating customers in a straightforward way. As Mandragola says, this is more about good sense than a moral right/wrong. What makes me angry is as much the frustration with what a senselessly daft move it is as how much it affects me personally. Will impede the emergence of an active player base and hurt the game.

That's where I am. I went from "Necromunda's back! Gotta check this out!" to "Eh....let's wait till the game is actually complete, and preferably not gratuitously split up into a half-dozen premium books."

But they are treating us in a straight forward way?

Necromunda Underhive is a deliberate, 'all in one' boxed game. With no need to expand upon it. It's a complete gaming experience in and of itself.

Necromunda Gang War are expansion rules for those of us who want to delve deeper.

The part of the company running this show is comparatively tiny. Finite resources, finite man hours. So they've plumped for a longer release schedule so they can get the product out on shelves sooner rather than later.

They've not been dishonest with us at any point, so where's the 'business ethics' there?

This all boils down to 'well it wasn't like this in the past'.

Yes. Yes it was. Necromunda didn't launch with everything released. I can't remember the exact release schedule, but it wasn't a one and done. You may have come along when everything was out - but it still took time to get there. Hell, this was a time when GW were releasing one Imperial Assassin a month, let alone all the models for an entire game system.

Ultimately, GW are doing what they think is the right thing in the situation. That you happen to disagree doesn't make them wrong.

As for longevity? Having fairly regular releases and additions is a way to keep the game's profile up. If everything was out on release day, you get Shadow War Armageddon - lovely when it comes out, but soon lost amongst the tumult of general releases.

I went from being curious at first (Atia rumors in September 2016) to the more I saw the more I like it. Also an interesting bit of info, HBMC, thanks for posting.

So... is there any info on how you actually go about recruiting Gor Half-Horn (or any other hired gun for that matter) in a Newcromunda campaign game? Because going by the rules pdf, apparently you need to spend 235 credits to have it for just one game, and that can't possibly be right.

...right?

Yeah the 235 for a one-off hiring in a campaign seems far too steep. There's got to be more to it, but we have to wait 'til Feb sadly.

@Neronoxx H.B.M.C. is probably being as clear as he can within the terms of his NDA. He's worked on lots of 40k stuff as a freelancer, mostly the RPGs and is well known to the design studio, and Andy Hoare in particular (who also did a lot of work on the RPGs I believe). It's really not a stretch to imagine he's got information we don't, but is not yet at liberty to make it public.

I confess to being a bit disappointed with the speed of the release schedule from what we've heard so far, and I'm a little unhappy with the incomplete nature of the gang war book. Some of the disparities in points, and the weirdness with wargear lists are concerning, and I think that maybe new players who are less on the hype train than I am will be put off by that.

But on the other hand, I'm enjoying assembling and painting the models, and I'm fortunate that I will likely only be playing a campaign with a friend, rather than attempting to play pick-up games or store-based campaigns, which means houseruling will let me patch any holes (hopefully).
Also, if the rumours about Cults are accurate, I'll be a happy chap.

I think my impatience with the release schedule is mostly due to the glimmers of really great stuff that are already present in the game - I really do think that when (if?) we have a complete ruleset, it will be a really good system. So I'm positive, but I think some mistakes are being made.
My main concern is that by having a fragmented, drawn-out birth for the game may make it hard to build any real momentum, and GW will drop it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes. Yes it was. Necromunda didn't launch with everything released. I can't remember the exact release schedule, but it wasn't a one and done. You may have come along when everything was out - but it still took time to get there. Hell, this was a time when GW were releasing one Imperial Assassin a month, let alone all the models for an entire game system.

I agree, mostly... but it launched with all the "core stuff". That being full house rules, full trading post, full hired gun rules, full campaign rules in the box... what most people call the core of the Necromunda game, in other words. And they have not done that, not even buying the separate Gang War book.

It's almost there, but for me, rules for using bounty hunters, scum, ratskin scouts, pit fighters et all should really have been in the Gang War book, particularly because they have released a hired gun already, and we really don't have any idea of how they're actually supposed to work.

 Albertorius wrote:
So... is there any info on how you actually go about recruiting Gor Half-Horn (or any other hired gun for that matter) in a Newcromunda campaign game? Because going by the rules pdf, apparently you need to spend 235 credits to have it for just one game, and that can't possibly be right.

...right?

I'll pop my one open tonight, see if the rules inside explain that.

One concern I have is with the sprues for the Eschers and Goliaths. They're great and have some really nice parts but I wasn't expecting to get two of the same sprue for each gang.

I expect that there is scope for more releases later on, a veteran ganger box with heavier equipment and some more bling parts, and bodies with slightly different poses/details on them, and a juvie box with the opposite of that but adding more variety in parts. With three sprues that would really expand the scope of what you could do. It's just, listening to you all go back and forth on the release schedule for the core gangs it makes me wonder if that is actually something that will happen and how long it might take.

I'm not super worried about the current trickle, it's going to take me a while to get around to painting it all up and finding some games anyway, if at all. I'd just like the chance to make a larger number of unique gangers and while kitbashing outside the range is going to happen for sure sooner or later only having that one sprue is going to be a limiting factor.