Necromunda news & rumours

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**BaronIveagh**

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

That's kind of weird, doesn't GW plan releases years in advance?

Or is it because this was FW?

I suspect that it wasn't supposed to get so popular. Remember Black Industries? They couldn't keep stock on shelves, but GW's assumption that it would fail lead to the sale to FFG despite the fact it was wildly successful.

**Baxx**

They can be as reckless and careless as they wish for all their numerous games they have these days for all I care. There are so many new boxed games, I don't know their names and don't care either. That's not Necromunda, and it hurts they treated it like anything else. Rushed, zero play-testing, conflicting directives and developing too many games at the same time.

**beast_gts**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Kid_Kyoto wrote:

That's kind of weird, doesn't GW plan releases years in advance?

Or is it because this was FW?

I suspect that it wasn't supposed to get so popular. Remember Black Industries? They couldn't keep stock on shelves, but GW's assumption that it would fail lead to the sale to FFG despite the fact it was wildly successful.

GW top-bods massively under-estimated how popular Specialist Games would be - Blood Bowl was meant to be a splash release with possible additional FW teams later, AT was going to all-resin, etc. Their sales forced a rapid (in GW terms) change of direction.
They've just thrown AI out of the door and are trying to grow their team so they can actually try to do a good job of BFG.

**lord_blackfang**

zedmeister wrote:
Interview with James Hewitt which highlights the early development of the game. He only had a 6 month window to write it!

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-interview-with-james-m-hewitt-part-3-necromunda-and-needy-cat-games/

Expains a lot of the odd disjoint between Gang War, the original box and the proof reading problems...

Proof that N17 wasn't playtested.

**Albertorius**

lord_blackfang wrote:
zedmeister wrote:
Interview with James Hewitt which highlights the early development of the game. He only had a 6 month window to write it!

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-interview-with-james-m-hewitt-part-3-necromunda-and-needy-cat-games/

Expains a lot of the odd disjoint between Gang War, the original box and the proof reading problems...

Proof that N17 wasn't playtested.

Not that we needed any proof other than the finished product.

**Chamberlain**

James: So initially there was a directive. This was another one of those things that was quite frustrating. We had about three or four directives which were all quite contradictory. One voice saying “This game needs to feel like old-school Rogue Trader. Bring back Rogue Trader characteristics and go for the old-school vibe and that sort of thing.” Which is why Necromunda characters have got Intelligence, Willpower, Cool, and Leadership, which are terrible stats because they’re all kind of the same thing. [Laughs] There’s no clear delineation between them. That was an edict, and had to be that.

I'll admit that the three rogue trader stats did get me on the nostalgia angle. It never did occur to me before today that the three extra stats are kind of the same thing. James did a good job differentiating them I guess.

I've been using n17 as a rogue trader type game (well, inquisimunda) and it's been working so I'm glad it has those elements even if they were the result of an outside directive to force them in.

**Lord Damocles**

Lupe: So when did the decision happen to split necromunda into the board game with the 2D offering and the 3D through the expansion?

James: So initially there was a directive. This was another one of those things that was quite frustrating. We had about three or four directives which were all quite contradictory. One voice saying “This game needs to feel like old-school Rogue Trader. Bring back Rogue Trader characteristics and go for the old-school vibe and that sort of thing.” Which is why Necromunda characters have got Intelligence, Willpower, Cool, and Leadership, which are terrible stats because they’re all kind of the same thing. [Laughs] There’s no clear delineation between them. That was an edict, and had to be that.

Similarly, another voice was saying that the game needed to fit into a box and be sold as a box game because the trade sales team wanted to have a product they could sell on the shelves as a standalone box game. Okay, but that’s not really Necromunda though is it? Oh, but you also need to do separate rules for doing 3D combat. Okay that’s more like Necromunda, but that feels like a different version of the same thing.

So I initially wrote the rulebook, which treasted the core box as a self-contained board game. There’s a set of line of sight rules that are abstractions, because you can’t use true line of sight on a 2D board, because walls get in the way. And you can’t expect players to just pretend the wall is there. In an ideal world the rules for 2D walls would say “just pretend the walls are there and use true line of sight” but that’s never quite gonna work, so instead there’s a set of rules about the way line of sight works.

Then I wrote the Gang War supplement, which was this big 128 page thing, which had the 3D rules, the campaign rules, and the 6 gangs. The “proper Necromunda experience”, if you will. The problem was that because of the tight deadlines, the book had already been ordered with the printers, and they’d used Death Zone or something as a guide, so basically they could only do a 60-odd page book. And so it got split into Gang War 1 and Gang War 2. The problem is that a lot of Gang War 1 is administrative stuff that should’ve been in the rule book anyway, i.e. the rules for 3D games and the full gang lists. So, Gang War 1 as it went onto the shelf, to my mind, is not a very good value book, because it’s all stuff that should’ve been in the core book anyway.

Oof. That's gotta smart for the people who were defending the initial release model in 2017.

**Chamberlain**

Oh wait! they're not really the same thing. RT was made during the 80s when Call of Cthulhu and Runequest were popular RPGs in the UK. they are just intelligence, power, charisma and sanity from those chaosium rpgs given new names

**ekwatts**

It actually sounds like the designers managed to lever some kind of a hack into the rules of that original boxed "Necromunda" that could be exploited and turned into something that much more resembles what you might expect from a game bearing that name. It never needed to be a carbon copy of the original (nor should it have been), but what we're getting at this stage represents an aesthetic and spiritual successor to the Necromunda of the 90s.

That's kind of genius (though entirely down to only two factors: the designers and the high sales figures).

On reflection, it's infuriating to see that the "new management" at GW still lacked faith in boxed games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda at that point, but seeing the gang books and a nearly complete roster of original teams for Blood Bowl in 2020, it's a better place than we could have imagined ourselves back in 2016.

**Chairman Aeon**

Chamberlain wrote:
James: Which is why Necromunda characters have got Intelligence, Willpower, Cool, and Leadership, which are terrible stats because they’re all kind of the same thing. [Laughs] There’s no clear delineation between them. That was an edict, and had to be that.

It never did occur to me before today that the three extra stats are kind of the same thing.

It didn't occur to you before today because it's not true. Rogue Trader was an RPG masquerading as a skirmish game. Old school Warhammer is basically a D&D character listed horizontally. Those stats maybe terrible for a skirmish game like Necromunda, but they are hardly the same thing.

Wonder how the pandemic will affect the Necro roll out...

**Yodhrin**

I'd say pretty much every release from every company past the end of this month is now in doubt to one degree or another.

Unlike some GW probably have enough stuff in the pipeline they can keep up some semblance of a release schedule over the next year or so, even if that means putting stuff out in white boxes for want of Chinese-printed packaging, but it probably won't be what they and we were expecting. Books especially could be hit hard. Which only reinforces in my mind the idea that GW are properly wonko for *still* not bringing their printing in-house like they did with plastics - all the shortages and limited runs and "we're not going to fill the remaining demand after launch day because we don't estimate that it's more than the minimum order size we'd have to make, and we hate holding stock" nonsense was already sufficient to justify a change in approach, but if the global supply chain and publishing especially does end up hard hit by the virus it should hopefully drive home to the management bods that having your manufacturing in-house isn't much use if your whole release schedule can still be at the mercy of events because all your packaging and rules product has to come on the slow boat from China.

**Chopstick**

I don't know, maybe don't write 2 books with 2 different list building for the gang? Lots of deflecting the blame back to GW, and "directive", I reckon the "nostalgia" voice was Andy Hoare.

Gang Wars is the after thought while Underhive is a game with no thought for future expansion whatsoever.

**H.B.M.C.**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Proof that N17 wasn't playtested.

Patently false. We are the playtesters.

Necromunda characters have got Intelligence, Willpower, Cool, and Leadership, which are terrible stats because they’re all kind of the same thing.

I disagree there. Willpower and Cool have some overlap, but the other two are very different.

**lord_blackfang**

Albertorius wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:
zedmeister wrote:
Interview with James Hewitt which highlights the early development of the game. He only had a 6 month window to write it!

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-interview-with-james-m-hewitt-part-3-necromunda-and-needy-cat-games/

Expains a lot of the odd disjoint between Gang War, the original box and the proof reading problems...

Proof that N17 wasn't playtested.

Not that we needed any proof other than the finished product.

Proof for the ones always bending over backwards to make up excuses for GW's shoddy work I mean

**Baxx**

Chamberlain wrote:

I'll admit that the three rogue trader stats did get me on the nostalgia angle. It never did occur to me before today that the three extra stats are kind of the same thing. James did a good job differentiating them I guess.

The main 'mental' stat any gang or fighter needs is Cool. The others are situational, like willpower, to borderline useless like leadership.

**Chamberlain**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:
Proof that N17 wasn't playtested.
Patently false. We are the playtesters.

If only they took full advantage. GW's response to the issues assembled on yaktribe has been very lackluster. The threads there are so comprehensive. The first post of the house of chains thread lists 22 errors and contradictions with other publications and other parts of the same book. Previous books had similar threads. Then when they get sent to GW they are only partially addressed and often the FAQ doesn't show any understanding of the actual error or gets the correction wrong. Some are not included in the FAQ at all but are changes put in the next book that comes out. But not with any sort of note, it just contradicts the earlier book and says nothing about it being a fix.

If any of this stuff had been used once by someone who had to use the text rather than play the way they know it should work because they wrote it or the guy who wrote it just tells them, then it would have been caught.

Yaktribe and the Necromunda Comprehensive Rulebook PDF hack/pirate document are the only reasons I'm still playing and buying necromunda stuff.

**Kanluwen**

To be fair, some of the things that some people consider to be "issues" are normally fixed by "not being a tool" or "reading".

**H.B.M.C.**

More excuses there Kan. Gotta protect poor defenceless GW! White Knight to the end...

Chamberlain wrote:
GW's response to the issues assembled on yaktribe has been very lackluster. The threads there are so comprehensive. The first post of the house of chains thread lists 22 errors and contradictions with other publications and other parts of the same book. Previous books had similar threads. Then when they get sent to GW they are only partially addressed and often the FAQ doesn't show any understanding of the actual error or gets the correction wrong. Some are not included in the FAQ at all but are changes put in the next book that comes out. But not with any sort of note, it just contradicts the earlier book and says nothing about it being a fix.

Oh I know. Baxx gathered together a long list of issues fpr me and I sent them directly to Andy Hoare. I'm not so certain that the next FAQ covered them, much as you said.

**Albertorius**

Kanluwen wrote:
To be fair, some of the things that some people consider to be "issues" are normally fixed by "not being a tool" or "reading".

To be fair, many games manage not to need it, at least at the same extent.

**Kanluwen**

When you have people complaining that "Thing is different on pages Y and Z but then page X has it the same as page Y...WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!", you don't really get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

When you have a slew of so-called "issues" that amount to "THING DOESN'T WORK AS WRITTEN, SO IT'S USELESS!"...when it's clear from the intent as to how it's supposed to work? You don't get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

Not when all you do is come into these threads and complain or act like the whole frigging system is a failure because you can't take a few moments to discuss a thing with your opponent.

**Chamberlain**

Kanluwen wrote:
To be fair, some of the things that some people consider to be "issues" are normally fixed by "not being a tool" or "reading".

Spoiler:

You're simply wrong.

Had a single person playtested this stuff who didn't know how it was "supposed to work" it would have been caught. If you actually tried to give a Sumpkroc a random muscle skill that would let you know a chart was missing. But I guess no one ever actually did that. When you go to shoot with a weapon and your opponents says: hey, that gun has a range of 18" not 24". Well, which is it? Any actual play of this stuff would have caught it and none of it is people not reading or being tools.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:
When you have people complaining that "Thing is different on pages Y and Z but then page X has it the same as page Y...WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!", you don't really get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

When you have a slew of so-called "issues" that amount to "THING DOESN'T WORK AS WRITTEN, SO IT'S USELESS!"...when it's clear from the intent as to how it's supposed to work? You don't get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

Not when all you do is come into these threads and complain or act like the whole frigging system is a failure because you can't take a few moments to discuss a thing with your opponent.

Contradictory numbers will not always have a third instance to guide you to the right one. Most don't.

Also, just think about what you are saying, that you have to decipher the game and search for other possible mentions of numbers and hope they line up with one of the previous two different ones you already found. That you as the player, need to fix it with your opponent in order to play it.

You're sort of making the case against yourself here.

**Kanluwen**

Boy you lot must be fun to play games with.

**Albertorius**

Sure, because people discussing rules inconsistencies on a forum must perforce be doing the exact same thing in the meatspace instead of playing.

Don't you think possible for someone to be able to criticize stuff and still be able to play like a regular human being? Are those two mutually exclusive?

See, I'm a professional RPG translator, been for the last 15 years. And stuff happens, every time. We manage to fix some stuff from the original because we publish afterwards, but not everything, and humans being humans, we also make mistakes. Sometime it's my fault, sometimes it's a layout error, whatever. Whenever it happens we fix any error, thank whoever detected it, and move on. And we don't repeat the same mistake again, even though we might make new ones.

And all of the ones people talk about above? Those are errors. Not "issues" to be "fixed". Errors, to be fixed, improved on, and not be repeated. And they have been consistently repeated, over and over again.

So yeah, I might be more critical due to my job, but that's because I know how I work, and what I do to fix stuff.

**JWBS**

Kanluwen wrote:
Boy you lot must be fun to play games with.

Ah, the old "You must be fun aka I have no rebuttal but I'm compelled to speak anyway".

**Chamberlain**

Kanluwen wrote:
Boy you lot must be fun to play games with.

So attack the person and ignore what they are saying?

Lame.

I can tell you exactly what it is like when we play Necromunda and come upon these contradictions because it has happened a lot. We would take a minute and look up the weapon. We'd see they contradict. The person gets the best version. Always side with more awesome. Revisit it after the game.

Fortunately now we have the ncr.pdf and yaktribe people who have spotted these issues and figured it out. So when we look up the weapon or add it to our gangs, it's already has a note about the contradiction and perhaps a comment about why one number is more appropriate.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Albertorius wrote:
See, I'm a professional RPG translator, been for the last 15 years. And stuff happens, every time. We manage to fix some stuff from the original because we publish afterwards, but not everything, and humans being humans, we also make mistakes. Sometime it's my fault, sometimes it's a layout error, whatever. Whenever it happens we fix any error, thank whoever detected it, and move on. And we don't repeat the same mistake again, even though we might make new ones.

And all of the ones people talk about above? Those are errors. Not "issues" to be "fixed". Errors, to be fixed, improved on, and not be repeated. And they have been consistently repeated, over and over again.

Forgeworld's game designers are probably as rushed and overworked as James describes them as being in 2017. It's the best explanation of why their work product has so many more errors than the typical 40k or AoS book. They have less resources, more work and less time. So they produce 20-40 errors per book while the typical battletome or codex has 0-5.

**Baxx**

Chamberlain wrote:

If only they took full advantage. GW's response to the issues assembled on yaktribe has been very lackluster.

Yes! I would like to add, the latest book "House of Chains" has considerably better quality than anything from 2019. It includes some updates and clarifications which would help a lot of new players out. I've seen many discussions on the topic of versatile, blaze and reckless. These have improved wording now! There are some nice updates to balance too, like master-crafted weapons are once per battle instead of once per round. Fighters starting without armour removes a long and cumbersome journey with countless discussions.

You are of course still right, there are some silly copy-paste errors, incorrect costs, conflicting weaopn profiles, but I'd argue less critical mistakes now than before.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:
When you have people complaining that "Thing is different on pages Y and Z but then page X has it the same as page Y...WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!", you don't really get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

When you have a slew of so-called "issues" that amount to "THING DOESN'T WORK AS WRITTEN, SO IT'S USELESS!"...when it's clear from the intent as to how it's supposed to work? You don't get to call what I posted as "white knighting".

Not when all you do is come into these threads and complain or act like the whole frigging system is a failure because you can't take a few moments to discuss a thing with your opponent.

I think taking a few moments to discuss a thing with opponents is an unfair description of the reality. I've spent a lot of time discussion rules, scenarios, xp, weapons, wyrd powers, gang composition, skills, weapon traits and everything else. Then I documented a lot of it because I wanted consistent clear rules for the friends I play with. I don't see how the intent is clear. I'd like a more detailed discussion about what clear intent is, but it should be somewhere else. I've heard others say the same thing, but when the details unravel, it's not such a clear case afterwards.

Kanluwen wrote:
Boy you lot must be fun to play games with.

I think you mix how we play and how we discuss a game online. When I play, I usually quickly agree or roll off any disagreements.

**Chamberlain**

Baxx wrote:
Chamberlain wrote:

If only they took full advantage. GW's response to the issues assembled on yaktribe has been very lackluster.

Yes! I would like to add, the latest book "House of Chains" has considerably better quality than anything from 2019. It includes some updates and clarifications which would help a lot of new players out. I've seen many discussions on the topic of versatile, blaze and reckless. These have improved wording now! There are some nice updates to balance too, like master-crafted weapons are once per battle instead of once per round. Fighters starting without armour removes a long and cumbersome journey with countless discussions.

You are of course still right, there are some silly copy-paste errors, incorrect costs, conflicting weaopn profiles, but I'd argue less critical mistakes now than before.

I'm actually a big fan of the entire recent batch of books. The rulebook, the gangs book, the books of x, all of it. House of Chains is really good. I hope House of Blades continues the trend.

Fortunately yaktribe peeps are quite fast at spotting and discussing issues and many times a book will come out and errors will be spotted and discussed before my next monthly gaming day. When the book of judgement came out yaktribe managed to get it all spotted even before I finished painting my enforcers.

**Albertorius**

Baxx wrote:
Yes! I would like to add, the latest book "House of Chains" has considerably better quality than anything from 2019. It includes some updates and clarifications which would help a lot of new players out. I've seen many discussions on the topic of versatile, blaze and reckless. These have improved wording now! There are some nice updates to balance too, like master-crafted weapons are once per battle instead of once per round. Fighters starting without armour removes a long and cumbersome journey with countless discussions.

You know, even though I don't agree with Necromunda going the codex direction, I find this quite heartening.

**Dysartes**

It sounds like some of the issues come from the same core problem we observed with the Munitorum Field Manual - no central repository that information can be pulled from when writing a new book.

For example, it would not be difficult to have a weapons stats spreadsheet on a shared drive with one tab for weapons which are used by all gangs, and then a tab per gang for their unique stuff. If you're reproducing an existing weapon, you copy the details from the central file; if you're creating a new weapon, its final profile gets added to the file for reference.

**BaronIveagh**

Dysartes wrote:
It sounds like some of the issues come from the same core problem we observed with the Munitorum Field Manual - no central repository that information can be pulled from when writing a new book.

It's called a Setting Bible and I've been advocating GW create one for years.