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On the weekend, I managed to get another game of Necromunda in, this time with self-proclaimed "sexiest man in (NZ) Warhammer" James aka @Gas_Monkey_82.
This won't be a full battle report as the fight was fairly one-sided, with James' Orlocks victorious, but instead will be a quick post with some lessons learned.
The Heist
As James has been leafing through some of his old White Dwarfs, we decided to play the Heist, a WD scenario that included free cardboard crate tokens. A pdf of the scenario is available on Yaktribe here:
https://yaktribe.org/community/vault/the-heist.92/In short, one gang has been hired by the guilders to defend a warehouse containing 2D6 crates (which could contain guns, gear or a booby trap).
Numbers matter
This game really drove home that warm bodies matter in the early stages of a campaign.
James had 12 in his gang (leader, heavy, 6 gangers, 3 juves and a bounty hunter - more on him later). Each of his gang was armed lightly, without back-up weapons should he fail an ammo roll.
In contrast, I have 9 in the Neon Clash (leader, 2 heavies, 5 gangers, 1 Juve) all armed to the teeth.
Our separate choices are largely driven by the upkeep table (which informs you how much you have to earn in order to keep your gang fed, clothed and housed). It makes sense to sit at the top of the upkeep brackets (7-9, 10-12 etc) so you aren't paying more per gang member.
The other factor is bottle tests. You must take a bottle test at the start of your turn if your gang has 25% of its members down or out of action. Whether you have 9 or 12 in your gang, you still need to take 3 casualties before rolling to see if your gang has the stomach to keep fighting.
Tactically, James was able to take advantage of my poor deployment and swarm forward on one flank using his juves as a meat shield. I quickly found myself with too many targets and a lot of return fire should my gangers break from hiding and go on the offensive.
From a campaign perspective, having more bodies makes your gang more resilient. With 12 in his gang, James can afford to take more casualties without losing combat effectiveness. While with only 9 in my gang, each casualty really hurts my options.
Finally, by keeping his gang lightly armed to start, James can arm his gang with the right weapons depending on the skills they earn.
Hired guns
Hired guns seem flavour of the month in our gaming group for early campaign impact. Whether you go for the fully tooled bounty hunter, a scum or ratskin scout, a hired gun gives you a far superior fighter to anything you will find in a normal starting gang. The downside is that they are expensive to upkeep as you have to pay for them every game. However, once there job is done they can be abandoned as the rest of your gang gains experience.
James' bounty hunter was a real machine with high BS, a laser guided sight (+1 to hit), the ability to reroll damage and other skills. These skills came particularly handy for head-shotting my Juve out of action from distance and behind cover!
Arm your close combat gangers properly
Running an Escher gang, I was keen for my girls to get into hand to hand combat. However, I quickly realised I hadn't properly equipped them for the task.
Each of my gangers has a sword (very useful with parry), but they are also armed with weapons intended to help them on the way into combat (such as shotguns). Now it doesn't help if you don't get to fire that weapon because your opponent has pulled of an unsighted charge around a corner (need to get used to not needed LOS to charge). By having a shotgun, rather than another close combat weapon, I found myself regularly rolling fewer attack dice than James and so losing my experienced gangers and heavy to James' Juve! Oh the shame.
Overwatch
In my three games so far I haven't used overwatch once. This is something I need to change.
James used a ganger with overwatch to provide cover for his advancing gang members as they were running forward for close combat. It was a significant disincentive preventing my gangers from bolting from cover.
Deployment
Finally, a reiteration rather than a new lesson. Deployment really really matters. I found that by splitting my gang to protect the crates, I left myself in the open and easy to pick off. James could choose to only engage with half of my gang.
I should have deployed my entire gang on the landing pad - as it is high and only had one point of access, rather than splitting my forces around the middle of the board. I could have put my gang high and left the crates in a kill zone on the ground i.e. daring John to run the gauntlet if he wanted to pick up the loot.
Terrain set-up, before deployment
Crates set up on the tower and behind the barricades. My leader (chainsword, plasma pistol and flamer) guards the ladder.
The Orlocks mass on one flank to attack the compound
The Orlock heavy takes aim at the Escher ganger through the mesh and takes her down.
Orlocks advancing in close proximity until they hear the characteristic sound of an Escher flamer starting to warm up.
Jinx lines up the Orlock bounty hunter
The Orlock juve proving a star in close combat taking out the more experienced Escher.
Orlocks swarming the barricades.
The Orlock ganger opens the crate only to find that he is stuck in a net (luckily for him it wasn't a frag grenade)
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