Writing the last piece was surprisingly elucidating. It’s one things to look at the rules in the abstract and try to understand how they affect things but it’s an entirely different thing to look at them through the eyes of your favorite gang.
It’s also interesting to look at because I’m interested in what I now call the “New Edition Tax”, the number of models you can’t play with any more by the base rules and/or the number you need to build anew in order to keep your gang together. In the case of the Escher rundown, the New Edition Tax really only took my Grenade Launcher specialist. Fortunately, I have a lot of other Escher built, so swapping her out wasn’t a big deal. But, for other gangs, it might be a bigger pull.
So let’s dive back in. Not just looking at the rules changes but, also, where a built and painted miniature that was completely legal under the last set of rules is no longer valid. This is the New Edition Tax and something I’ll go into on its own later.
Unlike with the Escher, the biggest kick in the balls happened not with the specialist but, right away, with my leader. As you can see with the previous build above, Garth had a plasma pistol and a chain sword, a variation on my favorite combo: a plasma pistol and a power sword. I think I could have gone power sword in the last edition but I know I deliberately chose a chain sword because it felt right for an Orlock. Well… the plasma option is gone now. Not just a little, it’s all the way off the house list.
If you read my Escher article, you’d know I had a theory about what’s legal now versus what disappeared and that was that what had been in resin is no longer legal. That remains true, and surprisingly so for the Orlocks that got most of their weapons ported. But, more on that in a bit.
Needless to say, with Plasma pistols off the menu, that means my gang leader is no longer valid. Which is an extra kick in the balls since I just built him in the last year. But, also, it’s weird because if you look at the Orlock extra weapon’s sprue, there are four plasma pistols per box. This seems like possibly a really large oversight.
I’ve had it suggested that this might be because these guns are in the Trading Post but… that doesn’t ring correct given that everything on the Escher weapons sprue is on the gang list. As are the Goliath weapons. But here, they’re not.
There is another suggestion that the special gangs that might come out in the journals might have a use for them. But, if so, this continues my sad belief that they care less about the conversion side of the hobby and just want to limit the rules to what is in an actual gang’s box.
I have more about this to say when we get to the Wreckers but let’s keep on with the other changes here.
Without Legendary Names and the change to the Berserker skill (where you must charge if within 6″), I chose to replace Garth’s skill with Munitioner, allowing him to at least let those smart enough within 6″ to reload for free.
The bolt pistol, versus the plasma pistol does have Rapid Fire (1). But it also lacks the overcharge potential that made the old plasma pistol so charming and effective. If facing a scummer, you could use the lower charge. But if facing down an ambot, why not dial that baby all the way up and risk your own safety? Now, it’s a rapid fire die and it’s somehow sadder.
Sadder still that, despite running all the way through the Escher list, I’ve found the first model I need to rebuild and paint and it’s not just a ganger, it’s the leader of my Orlocks! That’s a real kick in the pants.
Continuing the theme of the high ranked fighters taking it on the chin, my Arms-Master Willie also got nerfed by current rules. If I tried to move the same model over one-for-one, I’d be a full point lower in Ballistic Skill. Also, without Shotgun Savant (admittedly, a skill that makes no sense in this context any more), running a combat shotgun just isn’t optimal any more. It’s it’s like they’re trying to force all Arms Masters to be the hammer wielding monsters on the box art.
Instead, I completely reinvented Willie. As he was, it just wasn’t a good build. So, instead, I have him the Gunfighter skill that is kind of like Twin-guns Blazing but is actually better and I gave him a pair of bolt pistols and a maul just because it’s funny. Since his skill is now spent on Gunfighter instead of Shotgun Savant (which was specifically range based) does this make it better?
Probably not.
An old school Arms Master with a combat shotgun and Shotgun Savant got to use the combat shotgun at long range while reaping all the benefits of short range. This was a very fucking dangerous character. And not just in theory. While this version of Willie doesn’t have a dog, I’ve played him in the past where he does and then you also need to go through the dog before he shotguns you to death.
He wasn’t the best fighter in the game, and if he went toe-to-tow with a Death Maiden or a Stimmer, he’d be toast. But if you wanted a guy to clean up the outfield while the rest of your gang focused on the infield, this guy would be your guy. He’s a one man wrecking crew who used to keep the gang from bottling. I don’t see any rule that helps in that regard now, if he doesn’t take a specific skill, but he’s still a force to be reckoned with.
I don’t have anything to say about Orlock Gangers or Juves and almost everything you would have given either is still legal, so there’s no real issue there. Instead, let’s just skip to the next most important thing, prospects, or what the Orlocks call Wreckers.
I have two wreckers and only one of them is a legal build any more because of one important change: flails were removed from the weapon list. Flails were fun because they had Entangle, which prevented an opponent from using Parry against you and could often disarm your opponent, which was important when it came to reaction attacks.
But, importantly, a flail was never included on any Orlock weapons sprue that I could find. Never made in resin and it’s not on the current plastic sprue and has never been included in either the base gang box or the Prospects & Champions box. But there were two in every Hive Scum kit. So it was an easy hand swap to bring one over. I admit, I did use a couple of third party resin flails for diversity but there was a GW option.
Removing flail from the weapon list seems, again, aimed at keeping what’s on a gang’s list solely targeted at what’s available for that gang that’s in plastic. Why else remove a perfectly valid option one could build from another GW kit?
Obviously, the modeling and converting side of the hobby is no doubt dwarfed by the massive number of people who just build models as instructed but Necromunda is not that game. Every person I’ve ever played in this game has always customized their miniatures at least a little. And to remove something that is available in another plastic GW kit does begin to feel a little spiteful. Necromunda isn’t Kill Team. We’re very different players who like this game for very different reasons. And I don’t think you can force Necromunda into being Kill Team. Eventually, I think the players will push back or abandon it in favor of rules that let us do what we came to this game for.
In terms of the New Edition Tax, rebuilding three miniatures isn’t the end of the world. If that’s all I need to do to bring them into legal play, it’s actually pretty minimal, maybe a dedicated weekend’s worth of work. But it’s not the specific miniatures being replaced or the weapon that can no longer be equipped that’s the problem. It’s the lack of possibilities when building the next gang that might damp enthusiasm in the long run.
I was building an Escher gang of sisters in Sororitas armor. It was a lark and definitely an abuse of the rules. But it had been a legal build. I can still field them with 90% of how I built them but the armor, the thing that made them a unique build, is now flat out off the table. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about.
