Ooph… after the last two of these, I kind of expected my Goliath crew to skate by. After all, I didn’t get super creative with this list. If anything, I made a last minute change from converting a mini from a combi-bolter/plasma gun to using an existing ForgeWorld mini that already had a a combi-bolter/plasma gun and a sweet cape to boot! So… yea me, right?
Well… spoiler alert, apparently I kicked myself in the balls with this one. I had to go and get fancy and head-swap a ForgeWorld mini not thinking they’d fuck over the lists the way they’ve apparently decided to do.
(As an aside, a member of my gaming group is still holding out hope that house lists will be expanded with the journals and everything might be fine. I, also, hope that this is the case but… I also can’t hold my breath hoping it’s so. Until the journal comes out for every house, these rules are the rules for a gang. And if GW were to go bankrupt… let’s say a year from now… we’d have to either decide to go back to the N23 rules or just accept the N26 rules as is, knowing nothing new is coming.
Anyway… there’s nothing like diving in to look at the differences, so let’s do that.
First up is my leader, who I mentioned is no longer legal in this edition. This is because the combi-bolter/plasma gun is off the menu. It had been legal, which is why I used the Axon Hammer model as my leader… well… that and he had a cool cape. I did swap the head to something a little bit more characterful but that was it. Other than that, he was a stock ForgeWorld model that had been around for years. And since the gun was on the house weapon list, I didn’t give using him a second thought.
Well… those days are over. My old, poor Chad, leader of the Bro Down is now retired. At least until something like him returns as a legal build.
As such, I basically had to create a new guy.
So I built and old guy. Which I think was kind of their whole thing.
I built the dude with a power hammer and a combi-bolter/plasma pistol. Since that exists in the actual gang kit and not just the weapon sprue, it’s hard to see how they could write that one out of the list and it’s, frankly, the only build with the current house list that even reads half-way as heroic! I really hate to say it but, unlike the Escher and Orlocks, the lists that the Goliaths were left with are very, very boring. And you’ll see why as you read on.
Here’s one bright spot, though. Because this is a 1,200 credit list and I have a few credits to play around with, I decided to have some fun. So I took advantage of the cheaper pets in this edition and bought the leader a sumpkroc as a pet. They didn’t just get cheaper but their cost was slashed in half. But the best part is they maintain their 5+ armor save and their Counter-charge rule that allows them to interrupt a fighter’s charge on their owner with a charge of their own.
This is a crazy fun benefit and for just 65cr!
No wonder they’re putting these beasts out in plastic. Before, fielding a sumpkroc was a real nice to have. Now, they should be required for any leader, champion, or ganger you want to keep around.
But, returning to theme, I was not able to field Chad as he was. Hence the rebuild.
Moving on to Animal, my Stimmer, he’s basically the same, minus the gene-smithing stuff. Which means he should be significantly cheaper but is actually 20cr more when you subtract the kroc I gave him and forget that he doesn’t get the +1 to Toughness or +1 to Strength he used to have. It’s a strange choice in an edition that seems to have lowered the costs on so many things that the base price for a Stimmer has gone up. I can think of a lot of problems with the old edition and people littering their Goliath crews with too many Stimmers wasn’t one of them. But, them’s the breaks, I guess…
Still, because everything else got cheaper, I was left with money to spare and gave him a sumpkroc too.
Technically, I know target priority is now an optional rule, that said, I have a hard time imagining the groups I play with playing without it. Seems a little wrong to ignore the beast charging your way to take out a champion 12″ away. But I think having a sumpkroc there, not just to counter charge but to soak up some hits is also a good idea for a close combat piece like the stimmer. It’s like an extra layer of protection. And at 65cr, it’s not a crazy cost if you lose it when a Refraction Field costs 50. Also, unlike a field, you can give a kroc a name.
And that, really, changes everything.
If there’s one thing I want to give the rules team credit for, it’s the new Paired (x) trait. This trait now means you don’t need to look up what Paired means, how it interacts with everything else… now, you just add that number of attacks to your base attack number and you don’t get a second weapon. I love it! That is simplicity and it’s easy to remember.
So with Paired Pulverizers, Chad essentially has a base Attack stat of 5. 6 on a charge. Hitting on a 3+. That’s a brutal close-combat piece that no one should want to face. And with a sumpkroc to keep him safe or to counter-charge other close-combat fighters, he’s almost certain to get up close and personal to a few enemy fighters.
The next fighter to consider is Trevor. In my N23 build, he was a champion who took a Power Hammer and a stub gun and the skill Crushing Blow. But… my leader now has a Power Hammer and a pistol. This felt like duplication.
Strictly speaking, I could run him as he was. But that wouldn’t be a huge amount of fun. In Necromunda, because you’re really talking about 6-12 fighters, every player I know tries to add at least one unique element to each fighter. But two guys with Power Hammers just didn’t feel terribly unique. So I reinvented him.
Instead of paying for another champion, I made him a standard ganger and gave him the Brawler speciality, which granted him the Berserker skill. Which was fine because I gave him a “cleaver” and a hand-flamer. (They dropped the “brute” from “brute cleaver” and it just so happens I was building this model anyway…) He doesn’t have any kind of special armor, just his 6+ save but he’s 75cr cheaper than his previous incarnation! So that’s something.
My bog-standard gangers are, well… in this edition, bog-standard. Without gene-smithing, there’s not really anything to set them apart. And with such a limited list (and, without wanting to add a whole bunch of new model builds) there just weren’t a lot of exciting options. So they got built almost exactly as they had been.
What’s interesting is that Rudy and Mikey got almost exactly the same builds, again, without gene-smithing stat changes, but were 15cr cheaper each. Hamilton gained a Fighting Knife but lost gene-smithing and cost exactly the same.
So then we’re down to the (former) juves. Penis Face and Cock Breath (come on, the theme for this gang was frat boys…) dropped to just 55cr each. They were 70 and 75cr previously but this was because of gene-smithing. Which is, yeah, you got it… gone now. Red Wings, somewhat unexpectedly, got more expensive because the plain “Axe” option was removed and the only non-two handed axe option was the “Pulverizer serrated axe”, which isn’t exactly what he’s armed with but… good enough for government work, so that’s what he’s got now.
With the Pulverizer versus the old axe, he actually loses a point of Strength but gains an AP -2 and a Lethality of 2 versus an old Damage of 1. So… he may have actually gotten more dangerous for a 15cr increase in cost.
It should be noted that none of the fighters listed besides Animal have additional armor. The fact is, the way the new armor system works and the armor available on the Goliath house list, just doesn’t inspire spending credits to get it. I did give Mesh Armor to Animal as it grants a +1 to the save in close combat and I hope that’s where he spends most of his time. But, for everyone else, it was a tough sell, especially when you can get nine fighters and two sumpkrocks for the same price I once just got nine fighters. Admittedly, it was as the cost of a BS 3+ combi-bolter/plasma weapon… but of the gangs I’ve rebuilt so far, the Goliaths, cost-wise, have benefitted the most.
Technically, I only “lost” one miniature in this change but I did decide to rebuild Trevor because of it
That said, while cost is working for them, color is working against them. Yes, Goliaths are a tic tougher than almost every other gang (Squats rebuild a’comming), but that doesn’t scream freed forge slaves. Part of that used to be their armor, it was literally called Forge Plate. A large part was embodied in their vatborn/natborn/unborn stratification. And an even bigger part was in their gene-smithing. Without these things, they read as just a slightly tougher version than every other gang. And removal of weapons from their house list isn’t doing them any favors in that regard either.
But, if I go back there, I’ll just be a broken record. At least the Goliath never had a resin weapon set that’s now been Damnatio Memorie’d away.
So, verdict: you can mostly play a legal gang list from N23 in N26. Just be on the lookout for fighters that have unconventional load outs, especially those that never got proper house weapons, that you maybe kitbashed. Those might be on the bubble or, worse, no longer valid because of the cutting of the house list.
Technically, I only “lost” one miniature in this change but I did decide to rebuild Trevor because of it. So that’s two gangers that need new models because load out was made illegal. The New Edition Tax keeps at it. But I’m still looking forward to getting these guys into combat to see how they play under the new rules.
