As you might have seen, things have been a little quiet on the old hobby front. This year is an important one for the day job and the last few months have seen me working additional hours as part of the push to the finish. This has, of course, meant that I have ended up with zero time for wargaming (aside from updating The News Stand each week). The paint pots remain sealed, the printers have been quiet, and several plans had to be cancelled. One of them was being involved in this year’s Necromunda campaign run by our group, which was annoying as this one was taking a step away from the Underhive in favour of the Ash Wastes. I had started preparing a gang (even printing out a vehicle), but the need for overtime caused me to have to put that project aside.

However, man can not live on overtime and catered food alone. I’ve been taking a long weekend at the start of each month as a rest period, a chance to properly decompress. The start of May saw me taking the break over the Bank Holiday weekend, which just so happened to line up with one of our group’s big Scout Hut game days, giving me a chance to get out of the house, see my friends and roll some dice. Now I just needed to get a gang together, including some vehicles.

As previously mentioned, my plan was to run Enforcers, pulling from the Bastions of Law book. This meant I could take the Tauros Venator, an updated version of a Forgeworld kit I used to long for when it appeared in White Dwarf for the Elysians. The kit had been picked up during my buying spree at the launch of Bastions of Law, and starting in our usual Monday hobby time, I built the vehicle up over a couple of sessions. It is mostly stock, with the only additional parts being a spare lasgun from the bits box next to the drive and a pair of 3D printed heads – my Enforcers are supposed to be space mercs (hence the colour scheme) and so come with a variety of heads from Anvil Digital Foundry, with this set including a sci-fi cowboy head for the gunner and a jungle fighter head with cap and aviators for the drive (who is also leaning over to shoot with his pistol because how could I not use those pose). This gives me a cool scout vehicle with double stubbers, providing some nasty firepower that could clear some space before moving enforcers on foot into the target area.

Speaking of moving the Enforcers in, they need something to keep them off the horrible GW sells a plastic kit for the Cargo-8 Hauler (something that is much beloved of our Necromunda master and former housemate Dreadquill), but I am a 3D printing man and so went looking for a suitable alternative. The Colossus from PrintMinis got me excited from an initial look, but going deeper, I discovered the combo set for an absolute steal. This is an incredible, multipart, modular setup that lets you build a regular hauler, the open-topped and gun-toting Line Breaker or the enclosed armoured Bullwark APC. But, because this is a modular kit, you can open up the folders, pull out the literal pile of parts and decide what sort of vehicle you want to create. For example, I decided that my truck full of space mercenaries would be a primarily civilian vehicle that has been retrofitted as a troop transport/armed convoy escort vehicle. After assembling the common base, the unarmoured truck cab upfront would nail the civilian but not unarmed look, while the rear bed used the extension pieces from the Linebreaker release. Thanks to how the kit works, you can create a ridiculous variety of vehicles, and I’m already pondering a few more (it even includes a printable shipping container, so I could really make a big old convoy through the wastes).

Now, this is where I get to admit one of my failings. My first attempt to print this vehicle involved printing out all the individual bits and assembling them as a kit. However, I soon discovered a problem – while my printer produces items I am very happy with, it’s not as well-calibrated as it could be. This led to a pile of pieces that looked fine but barely fit together, looking far more ramshackle than I’d like (or would make sense as a vehicle). The biggest problem was the bed at the back – designed to form a single space to be on top of the truck, a mismatched set of pieces made it look more like something that was just begging to explode. As demoralising as this was, and I will admit this failure did temper my excitement a great deal, I came back at the start of the week before the game day with a new plan – assemble the pieces in Blender and print as a single piece. This worked incredibly well, and I was able to finish assembling the truck in literally two evenings (one evening building the STLs and the other carefully glueing them together). A few heavy stubbers from AlpineWeiss3D’s Not So Enormous Tank Update kit, and I had myself an armoured truck to roll around the wastes in. True, not a painted one (I’m not a miracle worker), but good enough to get on the board.

Now the pieces are in place, let’s talk about putting them on the board – this will be where all the Ash Wastes players start looking at the truck and chuckling because THEY know how much that son of a bitch is going to cost. In Necromunda, you start with 1000 creds to build your gang. In Ash Wastes, you get an additional 400 creds to spend exclusively on all things high speed.

I proceeded to immediately spend 725 creds on building the Custom Rig – adding a transport bed and an extra hardpoint, making the pintle hardpoint 360 degrees and then buying a trio of heavy stubbers and a crew for the vehicle. Combine that with 315 creds for the Tauros Venator and it’s crew, I’m suddenly 1040 creds down and don’t have a leader yet. I just about managed to get a rough set together, with an Enforcer Leader (with an actually practical plasma pistol and power knife loadout), a Champion (armed with a stub pistol) and a Juve (also with a stub pistol). I’d then rely on Emergency Deputisation to get myself an extra body, but as someone used to running a small gang, even this felt ridiculously small.

However, something was wrong. The leader, although well armed and with Munitioneer to keep the guns going, just didn’t feel very exciting. Maybe it was the lack of painting on my converted Severina Raine model (originally designed to lead my eternally unfinished Escher gang), or maybe it was just the lack of bullshit I’m used to pulling (shouting TRUCK TRUCK TRUCK apparently not shenngihans enough). So at the last minute, I decided to change my gang to a Secundian Incursion gang, drop a regular leader and replace her with the Yeld Spyer. In the Underhive, this type is one of the weaker ones, but now we’re on the surface with the need to suddenly travel great distances, the fact that she has the same movement as my vehicles and her wings let her ignore most terrain means she is now a real threat. Plus, having a small missile launcher might be handy if people get too close.

And with that, it was time to play.

Game day came along, and after a lazy morning, I turned up for the afternoon session. The guys actually properly playing in the campaign had already been going at it, with the morning games across two tables seeing some shennighans among the various gangs. One thing that is cool with the Ash Wastes is getting away from the single-level Underhive fights and moving onto maps with verticality and larger spaces. Dreadquil has done a fantastic job of building terrain for this campaign (which you can read about on his blog), filling one table and partially filling another (helped out by various gantries that the Dastardly Regular Opponent has been keeping from me). This also leads to some fun plays, especially as now tools such as drop rigs and photogoggles (especially when the weather rolls in) are incredibly useful.

However, before we jump in, it’s worth catching up with someone who has previously graced this very publication. The Blobbies have returned and are now in a more powerful form – motorised! I wasn’t involved in setting up this gang; this has instead been a labour of love (and not a small amount of spite towards Blender) as The Corporate Regular Opponent decided to not only build a vehicle but go all out. The two blobbies on maulers have been modified and tweaked, one waving handcuffs and the other waving a traffic ticket. The Stimmer, the one with concerningly muscular arms, is riding a tiny dirt bike as syringes full of drugs hang out of his back. Even the two “normal” blobbies have police hats on as they tote their heavy weapons. If you thought the first round was well done, this lot is even better.

The centrepiece has to be the truck, though. Using the same Colossus kit, the Corporate Regular Opponent scaled it up to fit the seated blobby inside, then went to work on the wheels, using clear resin and some sculpting to make them look more in motion. It’s a great effect. The paint job is a perfect final touch, with the British police stickers, crisp exterior white paint work and the Soviet turquoise interior all done incredibly well. Now, the fact that the truck isn’t a Custom Rig is a crime that will be fixed in our next campaign, but I felt the need to share just what the Corporate Regular Opponent had managed to get done.

All this is fine, but what about the game? Well, it was a death race – rushing down a rolling road board attempting to be further forward when time runs out. I managed to get priority and position myself on the central road, all lined up to get that road advantage through most of the game and shoot off. Against me, I had the Blobbies, a Goliath gang on maulers accompanied by a truck full of dudes, and a horde of Cawdor, spread across various light vehicles (including a two-legged walker whose rider had a krak lance) and one suitably large and imposing Popemobile.

I took the lead early, but very quickly messed up my fragile alliance with the blobbies due to the sentry turret I had deployed on the back of my truck opening fire on the ominous vehicle behind me. Overall, my heavy stubbers spent most of their time experiencing stoppages and forcing ammo rolls, with the most dangerous thing in my gang being the Tauros Venator’s ability to come out on top when rammed by the other vehicles. The sentry gun also overheated by turn 3, as it enjoyed a rather target-rich environment. The good news was that my nightmare (of enemy gangers boarding the truck) didn’t happen, but I could definitely see a few people eyeing it up.

Nearing the end, and with the bad guys closing in, I decided to make one final push. Initially leaping to the rocks nearby, the Yeld then used her skill sprint to move 21″, heading toward the board edge in the final turn. However, it was not to be – the Dastardly Regular Opponent managed to get a quad bike just a little further forward, a suitable victory after seeing one of his vehicles smashed and a ganger 66’d. However, this is Necromunda – while his Ridge Walker destroyed my Venator with a krak lance, another of his vehicles raced forward. At first, we assumed he had just failed, matching my Yeld’s distance and unable to push past the quad. But then, we realised that the ganger on the back of the vehicle hadn’t activated. With a victorious cry, the Cawdor faithful dived off the front of the vehicle and claimed victory for the Emperor.

Ash Wastes seems a really good tweak to the Necromunda I have been playing (which admittedly has mostly been the sweat box of the Zone Mortalis). In many ways, ZM is the purest version of the game, with small boards, a heavy focus on close combat and requiring both a careful tactical mind to get through the tiles and an ability to adapt when things go wrong. In contrast, Ash Wastes seems to be a lot less deadly and a lot more madcap. Listening in on the game, you hear a lot of ridiculous things happening (collisions, flips and big plays abound) while there doesn’t seem to be quite the same level of grinding melee combat that can make the Zone Mortalis less fun for those lacking in close combat. I’m really excited about trying to play some more, either by taking some time off later this month for the big finale or in next year’s campaign (where I shall hopefully be free of this project).

However, it was also nice to just get out and play with my group. I’m reminded that, especially with non-ultramodern games, the big thing about them is getting together to roll dice and see each other face to face. Our weekly paint chats are fun, but actually getting struck down with laughter when someone flubs a dice roll or scream in good-hearted anguish when they pull some shenanigans? That’s why I game and that’s why I still very much this group I’ve managed to find myself in.

The long weekend also made me realise how much I actually like doing the hobby stuff as well – it was actually realxing to puit the truck together in the end, so I feel that forcing myself to actually put figures together or put some paint on them may be a big help for long term happiness (rather than suffering a hobby depression and just resorting to games as a quick fix.) Plus, I do have some paratroopers to finish off, but that’s a story for another time (along with the one about the even tinier soldiers).

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.

As I previously mentioned in the epic saga of my last campaign, it appears that my Dastardly Regular Opponent has been truly bitten by the Necromunda bug – seemingly bitten hard enough to not only paint up his terrain (unlike someone) but also play multiple skirmish games with his Orlocks. Well seeing as I haven’t rolled some dice in a bit (and I had a pile of terrain to deliver to him), I decided to jump in and get a game in. Unfortunately, the best time for him was early on Sunday morning, a time which in my opinion shouldn’t exist. However, I set my alarm, dosed myself with a suitable amount of caffine, and headed over to introduce him to my new list.

Yes, my new list.

Well, more like two lists combined into one. As I mentioned last time, I was intrigued by the concept of the Secundian Incursion, a list variant where you combine a single Spyrer with a regular house gang, Venators, Squat Prospectors or Palanite Enforcers. You miss out on your regular leader (and need to pay a considerable part of your starting income on one of the Spyrers themselves), but in return, gain a solid, hard-to-kill core to the force. The Spyrer still keeps all their fancy rules (such as double activations, ignoring pinning from non-damaging hits, ignoring break tests from friendly casualties and the Kill Count upgrade system) but you only get one – if they die (be they 66’d or overcome with glitches), then that’s it, you don’t get a replacement. Frankly, I love this idea – the noble in their finest armour being assisted by a gang of paid mercenaries, the classic banter back and forth between two very different groups. For this skirmish game, I went for my favourite breed of Spyrer – the Power Fist-equipped Orrus. She was the MVP of the last campaign (able to stomp through gangers, statues and more) and so it makes sense that she’d make a reappearance.

So with 400 credits spent on one model, it was time to build the Enforcers to go with the noble brat. Unfortunately Enforcers share with their noble overlords the unfortuntate trait of being very expensive. This is still using the Book of Judgement rules, where each enforcer comes with all the gear they will need (armoured undersuit, flak and stub pistol) and therefore costs 70 points each. This meant I was going to have a pretty limited number of guys to assist (especially as the Orlocks would be clocking in at 45 before any gear). The advantage of all the equipment though it that you can run them pretty slick and they are effective – 5+ save and pistol is far better than most of the underhive.

For my champion, I went with a Palanite Sergeant with a Concussion Carbine (a must have for its ability to bounce enemies around the map) and also gave him a Hardcase Cyber Mastiff. Now, technically this is 130 points that would probably be better spent on another ganger, giving me another ranged attack. However, the Hardcase is a unique toy for the Enforcers and it’s abilities inclujde such delights as “still getting to have a final activation in the round it’s killed” and “whoops, you charged my owner, I get a free move to enter combat” made it such a MVP of my first campaign. It’s a good way to deal with anything close combat-y something that (other than the Spyrer) the gang isn’t designed to deal with.

The rest of the gang were pretty standard. One Patrolman with an Enforcer shotgun, one man with an Enforcer Boltgun and the last one with an Autopistol paired with his Stub Gun (because I already have the model and it’s cool). This give me six models (technically only five gangers) which is not a great starting point but should give me enough to push forward and secure. It also JUST hit 1000, meaning i’d managed to get as much as possible out of the points.

Now it was time to see how well it would do.

To make sure we finished with plenty of time, my opponent set up the board before I arrived. We also decided on a simple scenario, Tunnel Skirmish, and got to playing. His gang was a good mix of classic Orlocks – leader, champion, cybermastiff, gangers and juves. A good mix of weapons meant we were about to have a gun fight, with a few close-quarters weapons hiding among them.

I deployed on the front edge of the central tile on my side. The Dastardly Orlocks took the far left corner, out of my line of sight but in cover. This was going to be a firefight across the central area so my goal was to stick to the cover, and take advantage of my ace in the hole.

As you might have been able to predict from the list, said ace would be the Orrus. I had planned my game around her – with the long corridor at the side combined with the Bulldoze card, I’d be able to push the flank and get in behind the Orlocks, without having to charge across a gunline. This did unfortunately mean he’d need to smash through a pair of Juves – not the highest priority or best immediate use of points BUT if I could get the flank, I’d be in a good position to do some real damage by smashing into the Orlock attack from behind.

And speaking of real damage, paired power fists can lead to some devestating attacks. As you can see above, the first Juve I charged at ended up taking 11 damage dice from the special rules (especially Power) – even without Pulverise to turn all those flesh wounds to serious, that is still one very dead Juve.

The other Juve however decided to introduce the Orrus to one of Necromunda’s great levellers – fire! Only a single wound from the hand flamers (and in fact they would soon run out of ammo) but for two activations, all that my 400 point gorilla could do was stand up, run around, roll back and forth on fire. Not the most cinemate response. However, once she managed to get back to her feet, one heavily singed noble brat decided to give the jetpack boy both barrels – with an incredible dice roll for two short range Bolt Launchers going guns blazing he got shredded.

However, before I could really get the Orrus to smash through the wall and unleash the master plan, I had a slight problem with my centre – it was getting absolutely torn apart. An attempt to counter the Orlock advance with a Concussion Carbine Sergeant and his dog led to some bouncing around of the Orlocks, but then resulted in some absolutely terrible dice rolling in combat. This then meant that the Sergeant went down hard while fighting the Orlock Leader and Champion (a bad situation for Enforcer Sergeants who focus on ranged combat due to their lacklustre melee stats), taking one of my key figures off the board. The centre was also a shooting match, with the Orlock armed with a boltgun, causing my own fighters to stick to cover and pin down any Orlocks crossing the gap.

There was one glorious moment of Necromunda Shennighans showing how well the ruleset captures the madness of the underhive. When the shotgunner (whose gear seems oddly similar to my own airsoft set) went click on his salvo shotgun, the Orlocks pushed forward. My Patrolman pulled his sidearm (remembering Gaz’s instruction), pointed it at the advancing ganger and took him down hard with a stub round only for the slide to lock back empty. And then took a round through the cover that knocked him down with an injury.

Seeing as I had the grand total of three figures still standing (and one of them was wearing a poncho for Emperor’s sake), my Orrus decided we needed all hands on deck before the Orlocks mopped up. So I pulled him back, coup de gracing one Orlock before preparing to assist his fallen comrade at the end of the turn. Turns out power fists are very bad for medical work – he rolled two Out of Action dice, meaning no chance of the patient getting back into action.

On the other hand, rushing back to the centre meant we got one final round of Spyrer murder, even able to put some serious wounds on the cybermastiff when it attacked. The Orrus was able to fight through the attackers, dropping another ganger but found herself way out of position and unable to deal with the remaining Orlock leadership.

The game came to an end with a stand-off. The Patrolman, armed with two guns and already dealing with an early game flesh wound versus the Orlock Champion. It was a quick shoot-out, the Patrolman blasting away but unable to find their mark. The return volley took ripped the gunslinger off their feet, leaving the Enforcers almost entirely out of the fight. The end phase brought a failed bottle check and the Orlocks won, keeping the ground. But at great cost; you can see above the sheer number of markers placed for fighters taken out of action and many of the lasting injuries would have resulted in pretty banged-up fighters going into the following week. The Rep for winning would also go to the Orlocks, although seeing as this was our first meeting of the gangs, the loss of rep for bottling would have been balanced out

Overall, it was a fun game. There were some appalling and incredible dice rolls on both sides, with some glorious combat and much fun had (even while half asleep). It’s also definitely a time slot that I should be using more – sleeping in is lovely but between the Dastardly Regular Opponent often having the slot free and the collection of PC gaming friends who can use the time, I’ll need to keep my lie-ins to Saturday and make Sunday be the chance to be social. I also love how much Necromunda has taken the Dastardly Regular Opponent. Between the walls he’s printed up, the doors I delivered to him and multiple games, he’s fallen a little bit in love with scrapping in the underhive. He has also managed to control himself and currently has only one gang (a rarity for Necromunda players – even I have two mostly complete gangs and two more in construction). We have both agreed we want to keep Necromunda at the forefront of our minds, especially as the next full campaign is probably going to be adding even more rules through the addition of vehicles.

As for the gang, I think it’s definitely a very strong start that plays to my style (elite, armoured, packing a punch) without straying too far from the original setup of a Necromunda gang. Spyers were great fun, but very quickly you realise that they do not engage with many of the systems in the game. In fact, due to the inability to earn credits, most missions become more focused on Rep (not always very important) and Kills/Terror level increases. Instead of a variety of objectives, you realise most missions become Team Deathmatch – highly appropriate for the gang but can be unpleasant for another player to deal with (especially if you find yourself locked in ONLY playing a Spyrer player).

By taking a Spyrer leader with a regular gang, you get to have an incredibly powerful early game figure (and one with a cool custom ruleset as you still level up via kills), combined with still playing the same campaign as everyone else. And with Enforcers, you get a gang that fits both thematically (perhaps a young noble has come down to make sure his house’s enforcers are doing what they should be) and mechanically (focusing on shooting alongside a close combat monster). It was great fun to be back using actual Necromunda tactics of using the cover and relying on only a single activation, rather than simple eating shots with high levels of armour and moving super fast. I will definitely be doing more with this gang.

Now, there was an elephant in the room when playing this game – this would be the last game using the old Enforcer book as the new one (Bastions of Law) had been announced with no release date. That was until, obviously summoned by my blood ritual of scarifising enforcers, that evening we got the announcement that pre-orders would be going up the following week. I got my pre-order in with Leodis Games (always buy from your FLGS) for several pieces – I expect I won’t be collecting the Enforcer Weapons and Upgrades spure this weekend due to an issue that has cropped up, but there is plenty to play around with. I was also tempted by the Haunts (because Psychic Cops) but the prospect of Forgeworld Resin makes me far more tempted to convert my own. The big changes are in the rules and I’m excited to play around with the new list building.

Now, if only I had some kind of game day that I should be preparing for. I hear the Dastardly Regular Opponent has a birthday coming up and there have been rumours that I may be busy in a few weekends time. Time to prepare a delegation from my noble house to ensure the workers aren’t slacking too much. The fun police, if you will…

Outside of the Regular Opponents subsection, I am lucky to be in contact with a larger wargaming group. From the Tyne in the North to Wakefield in the South, from York in the East to the wrong side of the Pennines, I have found myself with a solid group of friends interested in sharing the wargaming hobby both online and in a weekly hangout session. And despite my own eclectic mix of games (matched only by The Creative Regular Opponent in his desire to play everything), the group has narrowed down on a pair – The Old World (as I’ve written about in the past) and Necromunda.

I’ve written about Necromunda in the past (having run through a previous campaign with my Enforcers). I really like Necromunda as an experience with friends – there are very few other games that can provide quite the same mixture of excitement distilled from list building, scenario planning, campaign-based madness and general shenanigans that happen when you unleash the madness of a game where characters being bounced around a room with shotguns and grenades. going insane and being controlled by another player and dropping into a big pit is not only normal but actually expected and welcomed (usually with a chant from the others around the table). While the core of Necromunda is relatively easy to learn (especially if you grew up with older GW games), I do find that I can end up being quite a heavy mental load – there is a lot going on when you play a game of Necromunda, with everything from the basic rules (designed to cover lots of different situations), the pile of wargear in the game, tactics cards, scenario rules and more to all keep in your heard when trying to plan your moves. This is made worse by the big gaps in the time between play sessions, meaning the first few games usually end up being spent frantically relearning the game. However, despite all of this, when my former housemate over at Dreadquill announced a new campaign was in the running – time for Emperor Falls, pitting various gangs (controlled by various friends) against each other in the interior of a spaceship-sized statue.

• Planning
• Game 1 – Familar Foes
• Games 2 and 3 – Weekend Madness
• Games 4 and 5 – Dastardly Danger
• Games 6 and 7 – The Grand Finale
• Wrap-Up

This is going to be a big one, so grab a drink, take a break and use the contents to jump around if needed.

Planning

For this campaign, I had a few choices for who I would be deploying. The Enforcers were complete and all ready for the table (as well as some extra sprues for when additional recruits were needed). There were also two other new gangs I could go with – either Eschers (needing to be started from one or two assembled figures) or my Outcast gang around a rogue psyker (all models completed by still needing a few final touches). However, a new player entered the scene with the announcement of Spyrers returning to Necromunda. Spyrers, noble assholes wearing suits that upgrade the more they kill, have been a favourite of mine from the lore, even when the old models were slightly janky and the old rules aggressively overpowered to the point of being banned. The new version of the rules are at a much more sensible power level while still keeping that vibe of hunters deep in an untamed place, jumping targets in the depths of the underhive, spreading terror as rumours grow. I really like playing this style of list – very powerful when used correctly, but vulnerable to being swarmed or taken out by high damage, high penetration weapon systems (such as a melta bomb).

The other bonus is that Spyrer gangs are tiny; while everyone else is looking to start the campaign with 7+ figures at least for their 1000 creds, I entered with only three models and with very limited chances to expand the gang or buy new items (the noble assholes don’t really engage with the local economy except to remove workers from the streets and keep the sausage man well supplied with injuried juvies/meat). The other upside to me was that it wouldn’t take much to get them painted… and yet I entered the campaign with them at least obeying the three colours rule and not much else (as you might have spotted, I’m suffering a little bit of a drought in my painting). It doesn’t help that new GW models are dripping with detail, meaning it can be hard to focus up and finish painting a figure while also trying to hit all the details and I REALLY want to capture all the details.

For my list, I went with one Hunt Master (mixing Malcadon and Jakara weapons to be a pretty nasty close combat machine) and then a pair of Orrus hunters. These brutes are both fantastic models and absolute nightmares to fight. Both started off with the basic loadout but I specc’d one to be more smashy (with Flurry of Blows) and the other to be more shooty (with Gunfighter to make them better at blasting way with both hands). Overall, it’s a small list (and not ideally kitted out as I had to save money to fit two big guys in), but it has the potential to do some massive damage and be pretty hardy against return attacks.

Unfortunately for me, the campaign managed to drop right at a busy moment in my day job schedule (boy, I hope you enjoy hearing that phase for the next 12 months for some reason). This meant I had to miss the first few weeks of the campaign (also not helped by me falling ill on the first weekend session), leaving my gang of noble miscreants behind in terms of rep and XP versus the gangs who managed to play a load of games (many of which had the sneaky habit of living closer to the Arbitartor in the frozen north). However, there was some good news. First up, the Campaign Arbitrator decided to bump me to Terror Level 4 (only 1 point away from the first tier) to make sure I could start getting the fun stuff before the campiagn ended. I also did well through the campaign system (every character gaining 2XP in the first week, 1XP per week from the following weeks even without playing) and managed to rejoin the game during Downtime.

Which was good news for me because Spyrers are weird and Downtime is the only point where you actually get to spend money – it’s unlikely Rich Folk would be engaging in the local Economy other than to suddenly cause a massive labor shortage so you only collect and spend credits during the Downtime Phase (presumably to represent some rich patrons uphive sending down gifts for their darling offsprings). This meant I had 250 credits to spend, which got me a few minor tweaks to the list – these included one of my Orrus’s getting a pair of power fists (a loadout that would be very handy in the games I played), gave my leader a lucky flying baby as a pet (Necromunda continues to be delightfully weird) and then made sure the entire gang all had bioboosters to make sure injury rolls were less of an issue. This meant I was good to go for the campaign when my first opponent arrived.

Game 1 – Familar Foes

Turned out I wasn’t the only one struggling to get games, as my Former Housemate (and arch-rival during the last campaign) also had the world pile on top of him during the campaign. I ended up being one of only two games he played, and seeing as how he was playing the Delaque with their god damn webbers again, there was probably much rejoicing at the absence of those bastards (less so for him not being there, hopefully we’ll get more games next time).

For this game, we decided to go thematic – a public execution. An imperial scribe had found himself in deep trouble with the Delaque and now a group of Spyer’s were here to horribly interrogate rescue him. The Delaque managed to set up in the centre of the board with doors and plenty of cover (as well as a patch of darkness to stop them getting sniped), with the only easy access being via the vents.

And then I got to introduce them to the Spyrers’ party trick of “Ooops, all activations all the time”. With 2 activations per turn, the Spyrers were able to move out rapidly, setting up positions to breach in a single turn. Once turn 2 started, I was able to utilise the Bulldoze card to Koolaid man his way through. That Orrus’s following activation then saw him utterly annihilate a poor Delauque danger. My gang leader also got to show off how destructive he can be, utterly shredding the enemy leader in a matter of moments thanks to the naga blade/poison whip combo.

The problem, of course, was that I forgot I was facing the Delaque. The other Orrus found itself taken down very early in the game with rounds flying through the vent (you can see it even before I breached into the corridor) and I had to burn a tactics card to get him back on his feet. However, the next gun shoved through the vent was a webber that flued him to the floor, followed up by a teleporting Delaque ganger who managed to curbstomp him while he was wrapped up in the web. The other Orrus (not pictured) found itself bounced by the reinforcements, webbed and then stomped by a sneaky boy.

And as for the objective? Unfortunately, my success in shredding Delaque put them on edge, leading to the timer rapidly ticking down. By the time we got to the end of round 3, the ticker reached zero, and the unfortunate imperial servant found a stub round in his head. Victory to the Delaque.

Not a great start for the Spyrers, their first mission failed and a reminder that, as much as the Spyers can be incredibly destructive, it doesn’t take much to knock them out.

Games 2 and 3 – Weekend Madness

One excellent feature during the campaign was that we had use of the Scout Hut thanks to the Dastardly Regular Opponent for four weekends. This gave us a chance for the group to get together and play, allowing those without terrain to have a go and for the newer players to be coached through their first few encounters. Unfortunately, I missed the first two (one due to illness and the other being unable to spare the day other than to drop in to deliver some prints), so by the time we got to the third I was raring to jump in.

This was also the first week of the Damnation Phase, meaning things were about to get very grim. Unlike a regular Necromunda campaign, where credits and trips to the trader are the aim of the game, the Uprising campaign shows the decline of a community as Chaos’s tendrils sneak in. I had missed the whole of the “regular” stage of the campaign and so leapt feet first into hell. Now, the goal is hunting for meat as rewards (often by taking out rival gangers or working territories), with the choice to eat into your supplies to keep your fighters in the best condition. If you don’t feed them, then they have less strength and a nasty habit of chowing down on the downed enemies mid-battle.

The good news for the Spyrers is that they are very cheap when it comes to food portions, with a full gang needing only a handful of meat. The lack of The Trading Post also meant that everyone else was now limited to scavenging for gear (while I was running a pretty useful set), so much of the power increase had slowed down. There was also the slight problem that this week’s event meant every game had zombies running around.

The first game of the weekend saw me going up against the campaign master himself (while my Corporate Regular Opponent had his intro game with gang far less unusual). Mr Dreadquill brought out his Beast House gang (a team assembled using the Venators inspired by the criminal group from the Dark Hersey game), which meant I got have encounter some interesting creatures, such as a big Ogryn lad and some horrible flying things. The scenario in question was Meat Harvest, with the Spyrers attempting to take a slice out of the Beast House’s supplies. This is actually a very fun scenario for the Spyers, giving them a chance to speed around the board, mutilating civilian figures with ease and building up the stockpile of meat to run through the rest of the campaign.

It didn’t go all my own way, though, as the Beast House were pretty effective at getting their civilians off the board (blissfully unaware they are about to end up beast chow). I once again found myself having to use a tactics card to bring one of my Orrus’s back to life, but we did also see a flying baby (also known as a Caryatid Prime) curbstomp an Ogryn. The end result was a close Spyrer victory, but more importantly, it set me up for the rest of the campaign in terms of supplies.

The Big Event of the weekend was a four-player game at the end of the day. We had all been dispatched into the depths of the statue, looking to find the source of the cannibal zombies that had been distracting us all. Turns out we had a chaos icon in the depths that needed to be destroyed, playing the Urban Renewal scenario. Two groups of Escher (including a corrupted gang), my Spyrers and of course, the House Party entered into the arena to destroy the icon and stem the flow of horribly hungry fellows.

Now you may notice a trend in these photos, and that’s because the ungrateful little git known as Corporate Regular Opponent decided that he wanted to directly engage the man who helped bring his House Party to life (you can see the process on making them elsewhere on the blog). When the first round of shooting took out the Orrus attempting to do the objective (while shouting HULK SMASH with his power talons), I took that personally and proceeded to introduce him to the Spyrers. This included their nasty habit of multiple activations in a turn and the rather horrifying effect of their weapons – my gang leader managed to chew his way through several of the pink bastards.

I had managed to ally myself with the Escher gang on the other side (the only other non-corrupted gang on the board (I am always keen for gentlemen’s agreements in these games), and so was able to focus the most effective building destroyer (the other Orrus with the Power Fists) on getting the job done and purging the heretical icon.

This success (accompanied by the first game’s setup) definitely had me feeling like this group is less of a group of nobles on a jolly and more of a team, sent in to perform specific tasks for their House. So yes, once again, I find myself controlling a Special Forces team, just one full of arrogant, noble assholes.

Games 4 and 5 – Dastardly Danger

Of course, the Dastardly Regular Opponent may have been unable to join us for the multiplayer day but I was able to get over the following day for a tussle or two. His Orlock gang was built over Lockdown around 2020, 2021 and only just managed to get itself on the table. However, he has since managed to leap in feet first and get stuck in, playing far more Necromunda than I have in the last year and even keeping it up after the campaign is over.

At this point, however, we were mid-campaign. Just in time for me to jump in and pit his guys against my Spyrers. The other thing was that I was getting closer and closer to the next tier in the Terror level tracker. I had already added a second lucky flying baby to the gang and now I was looking to try and add an additional low cost Spyrer to the group. With a few good missions, I’d get myself over that threshold.

And then I got a good few missions.

The first game (and original plan) was for us to play a game of Search and Destroy – Spyrers hunting down the arms caches that the Orlocks have been laying around. It started off poorly for my gang, with one Spyrer being knocked down after smashing through a wall to avoid a hail of heavy bolter fire, while another found himself on the wrong side of a melta bomb. It looked like the Spyrers were about to be taken out very early on. But then the winds changed, Bio-boosters and tactics cards coming into play.

While the revived Leader found himself hunting cannibals, the power fist Orrus went into full-on smash mode. He grabbed the heavy bolter gunner and knocked him out cold (hitting him hard enough to be captured) before proceeding to rampage his way through the Orlock back line and knocking out a couple more gangers. The Orlocks had started with a fraction of their total gang size (literally only four defenders for the caches), so they ended up bottling as the first reinforcements

Seeing as I’d just managed to capture one of the Dastardly Regular Opponent’s hottest items (a heavy bolter and suspensor) and seeing as the game ended so quickly, I decided to offer him a chance to get his boy back. Time for another round of Public Execution! This time, the Spyrers were on the defensive, and worse entirely surrounded by horrifying cannibals. The Orlocks also brought the whole gang out (including the leader and his dog) AND managed to setup in a big enough group to potentially cause me problems. Surely nothing could go wrong?

In fact, everything went wrong. It seems my opponent’s dice were cursed, leading to dud demo charges, gangers getting 66’d (meaning dead dead dead) and even a rescue attempt ending with a jetpack trooper plummeting into the pit. Seeing how much the Orlocks were getting kicked, I decided to offer my opponent a deal – let me take out his leader, thus giving me enough terror to recruit a new spyrer, and in return I would bottle voluntarily, costing me 1 Reputation but gaining me far more. The deal was signed, the Orlock Leader got stomped but the Heavy Bolter (and it’s gunner) was saved.

Overall, a fun morning of games, but also a pretty nasty blow to my Dastardly Regular Opponent’s meat stockpile, thanks to playing two games in a row. There was definitely some consternation about needing meat to get his leader healed up after his beatdown, which unfortunately meant that several blasting charges ended up in the inventory of a certain Ogryn. Surely nothing bad will come of that.

Games 6 and 7 – The Grand Finale

Alas, all good things eventually come to an end. By the start of the final week, all things narratively were going to hell in a hand cart, as the starvation mechanic had changes into a bonus to strength rather than a negative. The end times were upon us and so, we gathered for one final weekend of Necromunda.

The first game of the final day was against the hordes of The House Party, as blobbies and spyrers clashed in a round of Slaughter. This was all about the murdering, with special rules making shooting less effective and a bloodlust roll for each activation that meant the stronger fighters found themselves charging enemy and friend alike, outside of player control. It ended up being an absolute slaughter fest, with plenty of blood being drawn and the horrifying Blob-oth unleashed. This was also my first taste of just what a full-powered Stimmer can do, with something like 10 attacks in a single round at a horrifying strength. It was amusing to play against these creatures, especially with the comedy pinned markers featuring Mr Blobby in peril.

However, the big finale saw five gang on the board yet planning to try and get the hell out of there before the station was destroyed by the Imperial Navy to prevent the spread of the horrors inside. Alongside my Spyers and the House Party was the Dastardly Regular Opponent’s Orlocks stuck in the middle of a two-way shooting range with the religious zealots from the two Cawdor gangs that had spent the morning scrapping.

The objective? Get to the centre of the board, climb the landing pad, get into the lander when it arrives and then get the hell out of there. There are a few minor problems – every turn we played things are getting worse and worse, so random events are in full effect. Everyone is rolling to check for insanity as they move across the board (this will be important later. Finally, the Arbitrator is rolling a big dice every turn and not telling us what it does.

Oh, and did I mention that one of the Cawdor players (controlled by my Other Former Housemate) had dumped a load of mines around the objective? Yeah, I sure hope that’s the only trick he pulls.

The game itself was a glorious slug fest of a match – a game with 5 players takes a while to play (Necromunda works with each player taking an activation and working around the table in priority order), especially when two of the forces are made up of the unwashed masses that are the Cawdor gangs. I again made a gentleman’s agreement with the Cawdor next to me (because there was a pile of them and I really didn’t fancy getting into a scrap on the deployment zone) and even managed to (for the most part) hold off fighting the House Party (who had been joined by a hanger-on – perhaps the mysterious Noel?). Instead, I focused mostly on securing the objective, clearing the mines (or at least playing with them) and getting ready for the final fight.

However, a game this size had no chance of being sorted peacefully. The conventional fighting saw the Orlocks, both sets of Cawdor and the House Party start beating the shit out of each other. The Orlocks, caught in the middle, found themselves pretty beat up, barely able to get out of their deployment. The House Party also got stuck in against the Other Former Housemate’s forces, leading to some absolute bloodshed on the other side of the board. And then a literal demon stepped out of the darkness right behind the Other Former Housemate’s Cawdor gang, leading to even more bloodshed.

For me, however, the bigger threat was madness (something only the non-corrupt gangs had to deal with). I ended up losing two of my very expensive Spyrers to losing their minds, failing willpower checks and then rolling badly to end up losing their mind. In Necromunda, this can result in their coming under the control of another player, allowing them to do all sorts of aggressive actions to remove them. And unfortunately, my hunt master ended up in control of the Dastardly Regular Opponent (who had spent the game being pummelled and fresh off the previous weekend’s game), and the Yeld found herself dunked in the fire pit by the Other Former Housemate, a man whose Necromunda gameplay is best described as no holds barred. One of my Orrus also got a little mad, leading to an accidental fight with the Blob-oth as the Cawdor fighter waded in.

When the lander arrived, my Orrus were among the first onboard and I was fully prepared to take control, fight the others and make sure I was in control. I even had a tactics card to drop a template attack on the craft, to hopefully clear out the single Blobby and the trio of Other Former Housemate’s Cawdor that had managed to claw their way onboard. However, my activations were not friendly, and so I settled for merely forcing the ship to take off quickly (heavily armoured nobles with power fists can be very persuasive), extracting my surviving Spyrers, the trio of Cawdor and the Blobby we assumed was hanging off the edge of the ship. Mission accomplished!

(until the Navy blows the shuttle up to prevent corruption because 40k)

Wrap-Up

Something I think is worth mentioning before I wrap up is just how much a campaign game like Necromunda brings out some of the best parts of the hobby. The gangs had a fantastic mix of set-ups, each one unique to the player running them (even if we didn’t all manage to get them painted). However, there were also other elements that are awesome – the MDF wall pieces that Dreadquill and the Other Former Housemate brought along looked awesome, really setting the mood (and including some incredible artwork by the Other Former Housemate’s partner and some great posters). There were also conversions galore (such as the Caged Heretic using a GW zombie) and the return of an old favourite, the Arvus Lander (or The Pig).

Additionally, I want to also call out Dreadquill for running an incredibly fun campaign. Being the campaign Arbitrator isn’t easy, requiring a pile of work behind the scenes – organising game days for players to actually play the game, keeping track of territories and advances, keeping everyone informed through weekly updates (all delivered by MailChimp to our inboxes each Monday) and answering the literal pile of questions every Necromunda player will find themselves asking. This was increased by this campaign being the first for quite a few people, with lots of new players learning their ways into an aggressively newcomer unfriendly game. But thanks to Dreadquill’s hard work, the campaign was a joy to take part in.

If you want to see more from Dreadquill, you can find more hobby stuff at his blog and on his BlueSky page.

With the campaign over, I have plenty of thoughts:

First up, Necromunda is still awesome to play. The game is a little clunky with the sheer number of pieces to it (especially in the larger multiplayer games), and there is still a load to learn even for me. But as I said at the start, there is no other game quite like. No other game has had the mix of excitement, glee and inevitable disappointment from a single day of gaming. We also got to play around with a whole load of new toys with all the different gangs, and Dreadquill really rolled out the shenanigans with weekly modifiers and multiplayer games. It’s actually made me really interested in looking at the other ways of playing, including some weirder campaigns. As much as I may have enjoyed my Necromunda time, this campaign really got me excited to play more.

Second, turns out playing games with friends is actually really fun. This year has been a little light on games due to a variety of factors (including work) so having an excuse to actually put time aside to get out there and play games. Having access to the Scout Hut really helped us to have a common space that we could get to (especially one a simple stroll from the local Co-Op) and with plenty of space to run a stack of games.

Third, Spyrers are 100% the gang for me. In contrast to their original version, they are far less overpowered and far more in the glass cannon category. You are always going to be outnumbered (although double activation helps) and by late campaign, you’re also going to be outgunned. In fact, even a starting gang can cause some serious damage to a group of rookie Spyrer. There are lots of tricks and toys to keep them in the game (including a tactics card that literally brings them back when taken out of action, which is basically mandatory), but if you mess it up, you’ll soon eat the curb. On the other hand you can also absolutely rip and tear. The campaign economy for the Spyrers is also odd – in some ways, it disincentivises actually doing the missions in favour of simply pulling the enemy gangs apart to keep the terror level ticking up. I’d love to see how they do in a full campaign, getting a chance to really tick up the nightmare. The Orrus are definitely my Spyrers of choice – with a few upgrades and advancements, they very quickly become a high speed monster that hits like a freight train while still being able to take a hit or two.

So what happens next? Well, as I said, I’m really excited to keep playing Necromunda – it seems like multiple people in the group will be continuing to play even during the downtime. This includes the Dastardly Regular Opponent who got a whole set of terrain printed ready for the future. It also seems like we’ll be taking a look at the Ash Wastes version of the game, exchanging the cramped hallways for the open road (and potentially needing to get some vehicles).

For me personally, I’ll need to decide what gang I want to run next. My Spyers still need finishing off, but there is also an update coming for my beloved Enforcers, which I’m very interested in seeing. I do also have two other gangs in the work in progress state (Escher and Outcasts), so there are lots of possibilities for the Underhive next time. Maybe I’ll even combine them – after all, you can run a Secundian Incursion gang where you combine a single Spyrer with a regular House or Enforcer fight. As someone whose man of the campaign was a big lad with two power fists, what better commander for the next run?

Damn, it it’s happened again.

My former housemate/sneaky Delaque friend is someone I keep meaning to play more games with (seeing as he is close by, a good friend and someone who is fun to play against). However, thanks to the churn of life, we have ended up missing out on a few opportunities until literally on Monday he popped up and asked if I fancied some Necromunda this week. And after pulling myself out of the Vietnam Flashback of the last campaign we played, we agreed to jump back into one of our favourite games. Although we did change it to the Tuesday, as I already had plans on the Wednesday.

Our original idea was to get out and build up two new gangs (myself with some Escher (as you can see above with my Stubber girl with big coat) and Former Housemate with the new spooky Ash Waste Nomads) for an unpainted new mini fight. But then Monday happened and we realised our folly, leading to us instead going into our boxes and breaking out our existing figures. I went for my team of tooled up Enforcers, who would find themselves ambushed by a gang of Orlocks named the Blue Suns while navigating the tunnels beneath the hive city.

This is actually a really fun scenario, using an unusual cross shaped arrangements of tiles to give the attackers a choice of four angles, without filling in a mass of space to run around. I got a quite nice and defensible tile (read: no pit) which I then barricaded up to cut down the firing arc. Additionally, the deployment is interesting – I deploy my groups of gangers at different times, rolling to see if they deploy in the centre or give me the chance to flank. Unfortunately the dice gods were not on my side, so both of my group deployed in a central position – obviously my Enforcers had fallen back to a defensible point just as the trap was sprung.

Against me, the Orlocks were… much MUCH more numerous. By picking out a group of gangers tooled to the gills (including a heavy bolter for comedy), I was definitely leaning on the quality of my armour and gear to fight back the Orlocks. Statlines are pretty comparable, but thanks to the opposing force being on the cheaper side (and the Juves missing their armour) I was outnumbered 2 to 1. Made worse once the Orlock player dropped a tactics card and added a crazed Rebel Lord with a pair of terrifying weapons (played here by one of my chaos warriors).

And then the game started, the attackers had priority and with the first activation from an autogun wielder, my Heavy Bolter was immediately taken out of action. Well it’s fine, I’ve got a guy with a shield and frag trap ready to defend…

Oh. Damn. The first and last round (thanks ammo checks) from the Orlock Champion’s boltgun ripped the shield carrying Enforcer apart, luckily without setting off the frag trap he had been given for this job. On the other hand, his death did cause both the Sgt and the Grenade Launcher equipped Enforcer to make a break for it, leaving only the Rookie to hold their cool.

At this point, my opponet looked me in the eye and asked if I wanted to reset. However, I said no – let us descend into the madness of Necromunda, and maybe the game will turn around.

Thanks to my rookie it immediately did. Striding forward to the barrier, a gun in each hand, the muzzle flash lighting up the tunnels as they fired at the oncoming attackers. The stub gun hammered away into nothing but the burst from the auto-pistol took out one of the attackers, showing the enforcers were not out of the game yet.

The third group of Orlocks started flanking on the left side, leading to a bit of a fire fight between my grenade launcher wielding Subjugator and a shotgun totting Orlock. Well, I say fire fight – the first shotgun blast plinked off his armour while the return grenade knocked the ganger off his feet. Unfortunately, my opponent dropped a Click card on me so I suddenly had one less useful crowd control weapon to use.

The gunfire from my Rookie had forced the harpoon launcher to flee towards cover and get away from the line of sight of this steely eyed newcomer. Luckily for me, it also moved him away from the Dreaded Pit which has claimed most of our fighters in previous games.

However when he activated, harpoon boy was quickly up to his predictable tricks, moving to the edge of the pit and attempting to drag my Champion into the darkness and out the game. Everything seemed to be going wrong as the harpoon hit, went through and then started dragging him forward. Luckily, it didn’t drag him far enough (although it was closer than I would have liked). Even better, the harpoon ran out of ammo.

Meaning it was the perfect time for me to spring a counter attack! Out of the gate, my Hardcase Cyber-Mastiff sprung into the attack, hitting the harpoon guy and taking off one wound. This was closely followed by my Champion moving into position to take a stub pistol shot, causing a serious injury and knocking him down, all ready for the dog to provide the finishing blow the next turn.

You can also see the Orlocks attempting to shoot my champion in the back, although this did little more than piss him off.

In contrast, attracting the attention of the Rebel Lord led to my grenade launcher getting his limbs ripped off by a chainsword and whip. Having to deal with 4 attacks on the charge, most of which do rending or cause multiple damage per wound is pretty nasty, leading to another out of action.

At the same time, a shotgun blast also seriously injured my Rookie, forcing them to crawl into cover while frantically trying to reload their manstopper rounds.

Speaking of nasty wounds, despite having managed eliminate one of the Orlock Juves and seriously injure /prepare for dog food an Orlock ganger, the Enforcer champion then found himself in close combat with both an Orlock Leader and an Orlock Champion, fighting off a dangerous combo of servo-claw and chainsword. Despite pummelling his opponents and almost putting the Champion down, a servo-claw to the jaw does a pretty good job of knocking you out for the count. Luckily, having an angry dog is handy to stop anyone even attempting to stomp you.

Now, it can’t be understated just how all out this Rookie went. From the inital blast putting me back into the game, to distracting the attacking Orlocks rushing in, Cassidy is now propped up against the barricade, blood bubbling out of her mouth as her blood slick hands finished reloading her pistols. The Rebel Lord stood over her and… at the end of the turn, she recovered from her serious injury and stood back up for a last standing. Choosing between her two opponents, a blast of Stub and Autopistol blazed out… and took off one wound from the Rebel Lord. Close but not close enough. A chainsword and shock whip sent her back to seriously injured, at which point the Orklock autogunner, pumped up after having killed the Heavy Bolter at the start of the game, ended the game with another ganger out of action.

Of course, my rookie wasn’t the only one to stand back up in the Recovery phase. My Champion, having turned his serious injuries into a second flesh wound that diminished him to Toughness 1, now came under attack from the Orlocks again. Seeing as we’re now into the stage where anything but ones would cause damage, I managed to breath a sign of relief when the Orlock Champion rolled snake eyes.

In my counter attack, the Enforcer Champion brought his shock baton down and smashed his attacker to the ground, dealing serious injuries.

However, this glorious defence could not last forever. Even with his hound beside him, the return of the servo-claw meant I ended up taking two more damage. With the last dice roll of the game, my champion fell, quickly followed by the curbstomp to my Rookie. The Orlocks had sprung their trap successfully and walked away with a pretty solid victory, even if I ended up wiping out half the gang.

Overall, Necromunda continues to be a really fun game. Its approach to balance (“Balance, what balance”) leads to a game that can go wildly well or terribly from the start. It’s exactly the type of game I like – less focus on making something competitive but instead making something emotive, something that setups a story and lets you play through it. We could have restarted after I lost two figures at game on, but instead pushing on presented us with a much more heroic last stand.

I’m also reminded how much I love the guys I made. Between building them up with all my custom parts and then statting them up over a campaign, I’ve made a set of characters I’m really connected to. Ser Hjalte, my champion, is 305 points by himself (well, with him and his dog) and includes a pretty dangerous stat line; but it also includes the bionics that was required after his back was broken in the previous campaign. It made me really think about not rushing my assembly of the Eschers – to instead take the time to make a gang I can be as excited about as my green armoured mercs.

Finally, and most importantly, it was also fun to get a game in with my Former Housemate, as well as getting in some hang out time. We’ve already booked in our next game session in a few weeks, and I’ve offered to run BPRE 28mm. Which means, I have some models to paint before then.