Necromunda New Edition

[ThePenitentOne]

So I didn't watch the stream, just read the article, and it doesn't seem to explicitly say the Ash Wastes and vehicles would be usable at launch... But I can't imagine even GW doing an own-goal of that magnitude.

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

So I didn't watch the stream, just read the article, and it doesn't seem to explicitly say the Ash Wastes and vehicles would be usable at launch... But I can't imagine even GW doing an own-goal of that magnitude.

 

From what it sounds like the Ash Wastes/Hive Secundis factions are all in the 2nd book where as the main Hive factions are in the 1st book.

I guess the cults and stuff might also be in book 2, idk.

 

Edit:

Found the books in the article.

 

So anything in the Underhive on the left and anything outside or in Hive Secundis on the right.

Edited 18 hours ago by Indy Techwisp

[Northern Walker]

I think having female Goliath is a huge misstep both in theming and especially when they're put in opposition to Escher. 

[Castellan Wulfrik]

I'm getting Horus Heresy 3.0 vibes, oh dear. Whether they've actually ruined the game or not the marketing team has massively dropped the ball with this one. The wording, the lack of information; it just creates panic rather than hype. Shows a deep lack of understanding of the game, and the target audience. Sackable offence, frankly. 

[Silvereyes]

To be honest, I felt like this was going to happen sooner or later. Considering how most GW game systems (that they still support) have gotten new editions in the last couple years, I'm not sure why Necromunda would be excluded.

 

It definitely feels like a monkey's paw situation. Because honestly, as much as I love Necromunda 2nd edition, there is lots of reasons why a new edition makes sense. 2nd edition has produced a lot of books, and a lot of bloat over the years. The game has changed and evolved since really the launch of 2nd edition was the game's relaunch. As a couple users have talked about, we've seen the rulebook revamped a few times, with it being a bit more like edition 2.5. The game has a great number of models and gangs, but can be hard to understand if you don't want to do a standard House gang, something GW themselves seem to acknowledge with how the Squats and Palanite Enforcers recently received House-like books.

 

Stuff like Hired Guns especially are an absolute pain if you want to run them just by having to track down what book their rules reside in. Hired Guns will benefit massively from having all of them consolidated within a couple of a book. Also if we've reached the point now that the House gangs are in need of some refreshes and range expansions, and therefore new books, why not just strike with a new edition in the process?

 

And I guess on a personal level: again, love the game, but it absolutely could be made better. Hell, I think there are aspects of it that could be, dare I say, "streamlined", without losing complexity or fun. With so many books to keep track of, I don't think it's that surprising that they would hit the reset button. 

 

Now, I will say, I am worried too. There are ways that they can screw this up. Oversimplify things that don't need it. I don't want to see a ton of stuff from the Trading Post ejected because they don't have dedicated models. Hopefully all gangs that aren't House standard don't get left in the dust, and need to wait years for their own book to bring them back properly. Vehicle stuff is a concern, especially when already feels pretty unsupported anyway. (I don't believe GW even sells the vehicle dice in any capacity?) And I'd certainly hate for them to want to make the game like Kill Team. Kill Team's great, but Necromunda has its own niche, which is very much in how much role playing is involved, and it's campaign XP system. It would be a total shame to lose sight of that.

 

And honestly, even if the 3rd edition launch is a bit of a :cuss: show, I don't think staying with 2nd edition should be that difficult? Considering how the game doesn't have much online connectivity, certainly not as difficult as it would be to continue playing 10th edition 40K for instance. So I don't feel too worried about losing the game if things go south. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some Necromunda fans continue to support 2nd edition into the future, even adding new models and giving them 2nd edition stat lines, etc.

 

As a final thing, the slight rebrand is interesting. I think it makes sense to call it Warhammer: Necromunda, but I find it curious why it isn't "Warhammer 40:000: Necromunda"? Perhaps they think it's too far from the 40K armies to be under the same umbrella? Or GW wants to keep Necromunda as its own branding? The Skirmish sub-title is a bit on the nose, but, well, it is a skirmish game, and this is going to be a big jumping on point. Wouldn't be surprised if that sub-title is dropped eventually.

[Antarius]

The game could definitely stand to be streamlined, but I'm just not going to buy this unless everyone consistently says it's amazing.

I know people says Necromunda isn't on  the edition cycle, but I'm not sure that whatever it is, is any better. I mean, since 2017, we've had:
Launch rulebook
6(?) "gang war books"
Revised rulebook
Gangs of the Underhive (that compiled the gang war stuff and a bit extra iirc)
15ish "House of..." and similar books that invalidated "Gangs of the Underhive" almost immediately
3 (or is it 4?) slightly revised rulebooks in different sets
One more big revised rulebook

So I mean, it's not like it wouldn't be easier to just be on the release cycle, at least that way you'd have three years between having to buy new rulebooks and have the direction of the game change. As it is we've had a new rulebook almost every year and the amount of extra rules you have to keep track of is ridiculous, especially for a skirmish game.
And now we're getting yet another new rulebook and a couple of books, one of which is even called "Gangs of the Underhive", which is just a little too on the nose for me to take the bait this time.

And honestly, while the setting is great, almost all the models are fantastic and the game is obviously a work of love, it has not actually functioned well as a game at any point past the first "Gangs of the Underhive", where I guess things were at least "okay" and the game hadn't spiralled completely into madness yet.
Actually, I was very surprised and quite overwhelmed at how much better the ´95 version was, when I tried it again a couple of years ago. It's not just nostalgia either, it's just a much better skirmish game and a lot less clunky than the current one. It feels a little annoying to say it, but it's true.



The minis and terrain are nice, though.

[ZeroWolf]

5 hours ago, Silvereyes said:

To be honest, I felt like this was going to happen sooner or later. Considering how most GW game systems (that they still support) have gotten new editions in the last couple years, I'm not sure why Necromunda would be excluded.

 

It definitely feels like a monkey's paw situation. Because honestly, as much as I love Necromunda 2nd edition, there is lots of reasons why a new edition makes sense. 2nd edition has produced a lot of books, and a lot of bloat over the years. The game has changed and evolved since really the launch of 2nd edition was the game's relaunch. As a couple users have talked about, we've seen the rulebook revamped a few times, with it being a bit more like edition 2.5. The game has a great number of models and gangs, but can be hard to understand if you don't want to do a standard House gang, something GW themselves seem to acknowledge with how the Squats and Palanite Enforcers recently received House-like books.

 

Stuff like Hired Guns especially are an absolute pain if you want to run them just by having to track down what book their rules reside in. Hired Guns will benefit massively from having all of them consolidated within a couple of a book. Also if we've reached the point now that the House gangs are in need of some refreshes and range expansions, and therefore new books, why not just strike with a new edition in the process?

 

And I guess on a personal level: again, love the game, but it absolutely could be made better. Hell, I think there are aspects of it that could be, dare I say, "streamlined", without losing complexity or fun. With so many books to keep track of, I don't think it's that surprising that they would hit the reset button. 

 

Now, I will say, I am worried too. There are ways that they can screw this up. Oversimplify things that don't need it. I don't want to see a ton of stuff from the Trading Post ejected because they don't have dedicated models. Hopefully all gangs that aren't House standard don't get left in the dust, and need to wait years for their own book to bring them back properly. Vehicle stuff is a concern, especially when already feels pretty unsupported anyway. (I don't believe GW even sells the vehicle dice in any capacity?) And I'd certainly hate for them to want to make the game like Kill Team. Kill Team's great, but Necromunda has its own niche, which is very much in how much role playing is involved, and it's campaign XP system. It would be a total shame to lose sight of that.

 

And honestly, even if the 3rd edition launch is a bit of a show, I don't think staying with 2nd edition should be that difficult? Considering how the game doesn't have much online connectivity, certainly not as difficult as it would be to continue playing 10th edition 40K for instance. So I don't feel too worried about losing the game if things go south. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some Necromunda fans continue to support 2nd edition into the future, even adding new models and giving them 2nd edition stat lines, etc.

 

As a final thing, the slight rebrand is interesting. I think it makes sense to call it Warhammer: Necromunda, but I find it curious why it isn't "Warhammer 40:000: Necromunda"? Perhaps they think it's too far from the 40K armies to be under the same umbrella? Or GW wants to keep Necromunda as its own branding? The Skirmish sub-title is a bit on the nose, but, well, it is a skirmish game, and this is going to be a big jumping on point. Wouldn't be surprised if that sub-title is dropped eventually.

On the branding, I don't think its supposed to be Warhammer Necromunda Skirmish but instead Warhammer Skirmish: Necromunda. I just think the logo has been badly designed. I think the idea is they can swap out the Necromunda title for a different game system...maybe one set in the old world where gangs fought over warpstone for instance...

[Bouargh]

My fav part of the reveals. The zone mortalis scenery is especially attractive.

[brother_b]

Check the rules when they’re released. If they’re better, play them.

 

If not, play the edition you prefer.

[m0nolith]

Necromunda is the main game I play, I love it, imo it’s the best game GW has ever done, with Mordheim a close second. 
 

From my end, I do feel sad to see an obsolescence to an amazing series of campaigns books that were available for this edition, but not wholly unexpected given the nature of GW. 
 

As for the rules, like many I love this present edition and I’m anxious about the “streamlining” they’re talking about as the complexity of Necro is one of the things that really appeals to me about the game. I feel the market for more simplified games is more than covered by GW’s other offerings, but then again we have presently no idea what they mean by that. 
 

I’ll reserve judgment until I have the book in hand and I try a few games to get a sense of it. If I and my local group doesn’t like it, we’ll continue playing N17, which usually doesn’t work for larger games but is possible for smaller games like this as the community is a lot more tight knit. Believe it or not there’s people out there who still play N95! 

 

Regardless, I think there has been way too much doom and gloom about this, as is the case with every new edition for every game. Granted, few other GW games have had to suffer the loss of 9 years of campaign books, not to mention that no other games have campaigns as central to its core and as a robust campaign system as Necromunda does. Still even with that, I’ll wait and see what Specialist gives us.

 

That all being said, new models look amazing!

Edited 58 minutes ago by m0nolith