Well, scummers, it’s official, the new version of Necromunda is coming out for pre-order on August 1. And, with that, it means we’re going to get a bunch of days of promo articles detailing what’s going to be new and what’s changing with the game.
As I’ve written, it’s always natural to be a little jittery about changes, especially to a game like Necromunda that’s been more or less ticking along for a decade without any major re-writes. So some changes can look particularly scary. While others… might actually add a little clarification.
I actually have an upcoming article on how to play beasts in Necromunda but here’s a quick rundown of how it seems they’re currently played:
Rules as written, when activating a fighter with a beast (or a pet), you can activate either the owner or the pet in whatever order you want. However, when the pet’s activation ends, if it’s outside of leash range, it must make a cool check or break. This is kind of a pain because it means that if you run your pet out ahead of you, even if you’re following right on their tail, they might break before you get to them. The way it was written was unclear as to whether it meant the entire activation of the group or each miniature’s activation. And it seemed the popular interpretation was it was each miniature’s activation.
This is one of the problems of using the same word to describe several different things.
On the upside, they’ve uploaded this shot of the new rule book:
And this page pertains specifically to pets! And in it, you check at the start of an activation of someone with pets whether any of the pets are outside of leash range. If they are, they’re now panicked (which is what I assume is the new “broken”). But then it specifically states that the fighter and their pets can activate in any order.
So you can charge your pet out ahead and no one needs to check for leash range or panicked state until the start of the next activation. Which means having pets will now function the way I always thought they should.
Close combat, now fought in initiative order, only allows fighters to make one attack if it isn’t their activation, so powerful brutes can succumb to weight of numbers if you’re not careful. Only guns that shoot a ton of rounds or are prone to malfunction need a Firepower dice roll, while bottle checks test against the highest Leadership on the field rather than making Cool checks for every individual ganger.
That is from the article. And it does pose a couple of questions. Looking at the stat sheet, Initiative is no longer a target number. Here, it’s just listed as “4”. On the old Escher ganger it was 3+. So, it makes one curious, if close combat is now in “initiative order”, does that mean by who has the highest or lowest stat? That could be interesting and have scenarios where you have a weaker but faster fighter fly into combat against a tougher, slower opponent, and hit them half a dozen times…
There are a few other things that changed. For instance, none of the “head” stats seem to be target numbers any more. It will be interesting to see how this factors into how the game is played. For instance my Sarah from my Psyker Sarah Clan has a Willpower of 3+ which is pretty important when using psyker powers. I’m curious to find out how psyker skills are going to be used going forward and how these stat changes effect them.
All in all, I’m still cautiously optimistic about the new edition. Change is inevitable. The important thing is that my model collection remain valid and, to that end, it seems like they will be. So… that’s okay then.
Rather than start a new post for everything they’ll post this week, I’ll just go ahead and update this. So if you’re interested in a lengthy discussion about Necromunda and the upcoming changes, bookmark this and check back every evening.
