Despite finishing our Necromunda campaigning back in July, somehow I’ve found myself continuing to play Necromunda. It seems that York squad, after being dragged kicking and screaming into the Underhive at the start of the campaign, has latched on to a resurgence of gaming on that dammed planet and gone in hard. Or perhaps it’s just that the Dastardly Regular Opponent has a pile of Dragon’s Rest Sector Fatalis that I printed for him and now he wants to get proper usage out of. Either way, we have returned to the Underhive in our usual monthly slot and someone even celebrated his birthday with Necromunda.
I’ve already covered one of our weekend games on the blog before, but this post will cover a trio of events that sees me take out my Enforcers (in various forms) and put them on the table again. So let’s run through them!
Event 1 – The Introduction
First up, we have a rarity – a game hosted at my house! Yep, the sea of unpainted/rattle canned terain is my own set of Sector Fatalis, using the thin tiles that they include complete with the studs to hold things in place. I will be writing a full blog post about this set (as I’ve printed a fair chunk of it by now, but it’s definitely a set of terrain that is ideal for my usage. I still need to do a lot of work on it (and get more doors and barriacdes printed) but it’s going to be a very useful part of my collection.
Across the table from me was the Creative Regular Opponent and this was his first game. Over 2020-2021, most of us in our scattered hobby group had built Necromunda gangs in preparation for a blowout campaign once we all got out of lockdown(s). This included the Creative Regular Opponent, whose impressive speed of painting and skill meant he hammered out a very impressive Cawdor gang using Bretonnian parts. Cut forward to 2025, and he hadn’t yet managed to play Necromunda. With the prospect of a large event on the horizon (we’ll cover below) he decided he should probably put some figures on the board.
To ease him in, I decided to do the just and honourable thing of using the Secundian Enforcers on him. Led by my favourite power-fisted Spyrer Vi-olence, I backed her up with a solid block of Subjagator Enforcers (and a single Palanite Rookie). This included a Champion with Maul and Shield, a Specialist with the SLEDGE and a grenadier with the frag and choke launchers. The Rookie had a pistol (but at least I gave him flak).
The other side of the table was a horrible mix of the great unwashed masses of House Cawdor. And I mean masses – even after the scenario rules for gang size, Cawdor gets to add a single extra ganger and D3 juves. Additionally, The Creative Regular Opponent’s chosen flavour of Cawdor was all about doom and gloom, meaning one of his acts of faith was to bring even more friends to the part. Cawdor gangers are garbage statwise but there are some nasty surprises in there – long rifles, blunderpoles and a leader more useful dead than alive.
And how did the game go? Well I messed up by grouping up in a small area, then Cawdor pulled some shennighans and took a first turn blunderpole template. This went VERY poorly for my troops, burning one enforcer down and setting the other two on fire for almost the entire game – liter. Additionally, later turns would see the long rifle (and a careless disregard for shooting past your friends) to absolutely slam down fully armoured enforcers, while a krak crossbow bolt managed to ding my Spyrer and take her out.
Things didn’t go all the Cawdor ways though. Before my Spyrer was taken out, she managed to smash her way through several of the Cawdor Gangers and Juves (and even delivered a blow to the leader to take him down). The Subjugator Sergeant also worked hard despite being on fire – with his armour protecting him from the flames, he managed to eat the pile of stub and auto rounds coming his way, distracting them a little bit. On the whole, it ended with a Cawdor victory but there were a lot of dead peasents on the board.
This was my first time fighting Cawdor (despite it being one of the more popular choices among our groups). Sticking close together set me up to receive a template on my force at the start of the game, while my small numbers let them achieve board control and riddle me with bullets. It was, however, still a ridiculous game and a good intro to Necromunda for the Creative Regular Opponent. It was also amusing for another reason – the CRO has been learning how to play Infinity recently, so he had to stop himself from thinking in the ways of reaction fire and overwatch and try to refocus on the specifics of Necromunda.
With the test game down, I had to start thinking about what I would be running for the Necromunda day. Naturally, I’d be taking my Secundian Enforcers, but a starting list of 1500 creds meant I could get a few toys out. Additionally, the new Bastions of Law book changed a few things about building Enforcers, something that I hadn’t really taken advantage of for the first game. For the event, I decided I wanted to try and get as many enforcers as possible while still keeping the list themed around two heavy hitters. While my beloved Spyrer would be one pilar, the other would be a new arrival – a Sanctioner Automata, the Enforcer specific brute. The loadout I went with was definitely slightly more silly (it has both a webber AND the assault ram) and definitely not a cheap member of the gang (coming in at 345 creds). The postive side is that it was both a webber AND an assault ram AND a ram grenade launcher AND a grenade array, giving it a pile of weapons, some special rules to make it suitably robotic
One major change in the new book is that Enforcers no longer come with a pile of toys – that lovely flak armour, undersuit and stub gun all have to be paid for. While initially not something I was a fan of (it’s fun to have the Enforcers as the most armoured boys), being able to ditch the armoured undersuits saves 25 creds that can go elsewhere. Additionally, you can now purchase Rookies/Juves from the start (rather than only receiving them as replacements), letting you fit a few extra bodies into the team. The weapons were a mixture of bolters and shotguns, with the Champion and Specialist bringing a concussion carbine and sniper rifle, respectively, while yes, one of the rookies got the autopistol and stub gun combo.
Now let’s see them in action. I was very excited to play at a higher starting credit account – if you’re not playing a campaign then 1000 creds can limit your ability to take all the fun toys. 1250 or even better 1500 lets you bring in the weirder side of Necromunda, especially as you’re not thinking about long-term economics and can really max out the hitting power of what you bring. We didn’t go with allowing anything off the trading post (which meant less absolute madness), but even the extra bodies would change how things played.
I also included another toy – the Trazior Pattern Sentry Gun. This is something I’ve always wanted to pick up for Necromunda, and I spotted it when I picked up the final figures for my Enforcers. These guns are special terrain items, complete with some perfect rules to really evoke the Aliens sentry guns feel – very powerful (with either twin heavy stubbers or twin grenade launchers) but liable to overheating. They can be bought normally, but they also have a habit of appearing via tactics cards, something I fully intend to take advantage of. And speaking of…
Event 2 – The Birthday
The second Necromunda event of the season was all due to the Dastardly Regular Opponent and the celebration of his birthday. We’ve previously played a selection of games for this event (including Chain of Command), but with the recent focus on Necromunda, it was natural that it would end up being this year’s extravaganza. We were invited along to the local administrator’s birthday party, complete with our 1500-point gangs.
The first game for me was very much a teaching game – another player with the original Spyrers (which are tiny compared to the new models) needed running through how they work in the new version. I got to play around with the webber on my new automata and other shennighans, but overall, it was mostly showing how best to use the rich bastards in the new version. However, I did win, meaning I recovered a present in preparation for the final games, which would take place after a delicious pie from the butchers near the scout hut.
We split the group in half, with each group of four taking a table. I ended up on the same table as the Creative Regular Opponent (with his Cawdor), a Former Housemate (with his Cawdor) and another Enforcer player. The goal? To deliver our presents to the gift-giving table in the centre… the one right next to the big fan. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.
It went immediately wrong. I attempted a gentleman’s agreement with the other enforcer player to make sure that we’d be able to focus on the horrible Cawdor gangs. This held for a chunk of the game until an accidental webber spurt into a group of other enforcers led to a break of the truce, not helped by the Spyrer then piling in. I managed to keep the Creative Regular Opponent in check with one well-placed Heavy Stubber turret, which hammered away hard enough at the horde of Cawdor to overheat at the end of the first turn.
The main trick of the game was the literal pile of hazards around the board. I traditionally play on the more sane boards, so being exposed to the Badzone tiles (complete with all sorts of horrible things) always throws a curveball. In this case, we got three pieces taking centre stage. Between myself and the Creative Regular Opponent was the Chaos icon, which managed to drive a considerable number of our figures insane. Between the other Enforcers and the Former Housemate was a lava pit that got absolutely packed full of dead bodies during the game, usually after having been forced to be on fire even before they fell in.
The biggest killer (and ever-present danger) was the fan in the centre of the board. Blocking shots, sucking people towards the blades, and EVEN chopping a sump croc apart after it got knocked in by an Automata. It wasn’t intended to be the centrepiece of the fight, but it really became the standout fighter once the objective was put next to it.
Overall, I do feel that multiplayer games of Necromunda are one of the best ways to play. It’s madness, complete and utter madness – sure, it takes the whole afternoon to play, and there is some aggressive weirdness that you occasionally have to step through, but it’s a fantastic way to spend your time and roll some dice. It also helps that, thanks to The Dastardly Regular Opponent’s rules, he wrote and my habit of rolling terribly on “don’t suddenly blow up” tables, I ended up with a colossal number of points.
Meanwhile, I discovered this graffiti on one of the Dastardly Regular Opponent’s wall pieces.
Rude.
Event 3 – Finding The Madness
With the big weekend over, you would assume I’d want to take a break from the Underhive. However, the Dastardly Regular Opponent is absolutely hosing it and ONCE AGAIN, I found myself heading over to York to play Necromunda. After initially planning to play another Tunnel Skirmish (and after discussions around picking balanced 1000 credits lists), I decided to crack out the weird scenarios and drag him kicking and screaming into a Gang Moot. This scenario starts with the two leaders as the only active models, the other joining in as shots ring out or they get closer to the fighting (we did play it that using sidearms in close combat would also have a chance of alerting people).
Speaking of leaders, I decided with this game to try something different. Rather than going with my Secundian Enforcers, I went with a regular Captain (and his dog). This then meant that I was able to roll pretty hard with the rest of the list, including a Subjugator Champion with a Heavy Bolter (we opened up the trading post) and the return of my Automata. Action kicked off with our two leaders face-to-face, with both of us bringing pets to even the odds.
And then the game didn’t go anything close to how I expected it to. The initial fight between leaders turned into more of a slap fest (rather than an immediate victory I had expected), which meant the battle continued to escalate. In fact, all my careful plans ended up being thrown out as neither of my fire support (the autoturret and my heavy bolter enforcer) ended up being effective due to poor positioning and ammo rolls. In fact, this entire game was filled with awful dice rolls across the board, with everything that could go wrong going wrong. Constantly fluffed close combat rolls lead to dead enforcers, most of the people actually shooting ended up out of ammo, and even the Armsman of the Orlocks ended up getting popped by a plasma bolt to the head.
In the end I technically won as the opposing team bottled out but there wasn’t much left by the end of either side. It was an absolute bloodbath, the perfect combination of brutal combat, improbably awful dice rolls and more. Personally I think next time I’d use a different model for the captain and bring my beloved cape-wearing Subjugator as the sergeant he was always meant to be – leave the admin work to someone totting a plasma pistol.
Overall, it’s been a fun time with Necromunda at the moment. It’s definitely a game that is better the more you play and remember it, with a lot of the clunk stripped away by repetition and instead focusing on the fun action that Necromunda can provide. I’ve had great fun playing around with my gang. Although it’s obvious that the Spyrer’s are in control of my heart (dual power-fist Orrus is my true Necromunda love), I’m also excited to play some more with my Enforcers, especially with some of the new toys from the updated list.
That said though, I fancy a break from it – it’s been really fun, and I have a lot of stuff to build up ready for some future ash wastes shennighans. However, maybe it’s the ArmA Reforger I’ve been playing with my group, or maybe it’s Battlefield 6, but I’m feeling the need for some CQB action, some fire and manoeuvre and some vehicles rolling around. Time to plan some BPRE games and continue writing some ideas of my own.
Leave a Reply