As I’m writing this, I played Border Dispute just last night and there’s a reason this is a classic banger of a scenario.
It’s pretty simple, each gang has a relic that you want to get to the other side to despoil. What makes it unique is the setup. Each gang fields d3 + 3 fighters and can bring d3 more random fighters from the rest of the gang every End Phase as Reinforcements. Additionally, both gangs need to set up the first fighter with one-inch of the center and the rest of the starting fighters within twelve-inches.
Because we’re talking about a maximum of six fighters on each side and they’re no more than twenty-four-inches from one another, this means the action kicks off quick. Which is great.
This addresses one of my minor pet peeves about the game. Almost always, the first round of any Necromunda game is moving fighters into position from where you set them up to where they might actually have a chance of engaging a target. I’ve seen more Group Activations in the first round than throughout the whole rest of the game, usually because players just want to get to the good stuff and the action economy doesn’t matter all that much when everyone is just doing the same thing.
This addresses one of my minor pet peeves about the game.
But that’s not a problem with Border Dispute. Starting two fighters within two inches of one another is essentially a recipe to kicking things off with violence from the very first activation. And then you can bring in your buddies to keep the pressure on.
I played an Orlock opponent last night who loves to overcharge his jump packs and that made for a fun challenge where a fighter won’t just jump in to do some damage but can be gone just as quick. Like swatting at flies with those guys. But it was also fun because I was playing Goliath dumb-dumbs who, once they did get their hands on you were dangerous to deal with. So it was a nice balance of strength and toughness versus agility and speed. My leader was armed with a combi-bolter-plasma gun and I didn’t roll an ammo check once so it was quite a lot of fun for me to melt my enemies with three hits of a strength five weapon.
But… then again, when my leader was set ablaze, he spent two or three turns, running around like a chicken with his head cut off. On the upside, the blaze hit never wounded him because Toughness beats Armor every fucking time.
Neither of us got close to defiling each other’s relic… well.. that’s not totally true. He did jump a prospect in and got close but then, finally, my leader, who he hadn’t noticed lying there, recovered and melted the poor kid where he stood.
It was a more bloody battle than one that would’ve happened had this been a campaign game because the number of lasting injuries that would need to be rolled would be punishing in a campaign environment. But for a skirmish, it was good fun. And the reinforcement mechanic helped it feel like more dudes were on the way to keep it going.
And for those people who like murder dice:
When we were dealing damage to one another, we dealt a lot. Except in the case of ol’ One Punch, in which case, he usually rolled only one or two dice but… ooph… the single die skull on my stimmer hurt. It hurt bad.
Pros
- Game starts fast – setting fighters up next to one another means no useless round moving them around. It’s straight to blood.
- Limited fighter count – Starting with 4-6 fighters means that the first round or two are quick. And adding d3 per round after that doesn’t slow things down much because you’re moving them while still engaging with your original fighters.
- Good objective – Hey, not everything has to be Shakespeare. Sometimes actually having a goal other than “kill” can be motivational.
- Easily modifiable for underdogs – It’s not strictly an underdog scenario but you could play it as one where the Underdog gets reinforcements whereas the stronger gang doesn’t.
Cons
- Probably played a lot – It’s a classic for a reason. Border Dispute is one of those go-to scenarios because it is so good, so you may have played it more than once in the last year.
- Board dependent – if the board is an Ash Wastes board and you’re not playing strictly to weather, then it can be a turkey shoot. Likewise, if the underhive board is boring, the game may not be fun. Take some time planing things for maximum fun.
