Necromunda 2017 and Dracula's America in Space

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to meet up with my good friend Cheetor/Sho3box. Now both of us have played our fair share of Necromunda from its initial release up until the past years with the Inquisimunda add-on but both of us had yet to really test Necromunda 2017.

Now the game is a sort of 'go to' for many of us, it's a game that 'feels' natural to us but that means we might miss the difference and changes in the new version by just repeating what we know.
That's why we decided to first play the 2 tutorials in the core rulebook to test it.

The first scenario is pretty straight forward and only uses the basic rules but it's already enough to get the changes with the actions, stats and tokens/cards/...

That done, we were ready (the book said so) to move onto the second scenario introducing the advenced rules which are the real deal and what you expect from Necromunda with the ammo rolls, damage rolls and those kind of fun things. It was also the opportunity to test a 2D version of the game with the zone mortalis rules.

The multiple activation rule is pretty cool and I have to say breaking the IGOUGO was mandatory at this point.

Although simple, the second scenario is already complex enough to show you how moement is important since you won't have immediate back ups.

Some good old habits like pinning opponents with grenades and those sort of things are still useful.

Now obviously a guy with a heavy stubber behind a cover in front of a corridor is someone you want to get rid of pretty early. ^^

Combat is a bit less forgiving now with the rules to count your friends as support and after getting rid of those awful combat rules from 40k 2nd ed.

All in all, I thought those 2 games were quite fun and very useful, they definitely helped me feel up to date for new games.

And that was nice because on friday night during our french Oldhammer event, we decided to play an impromptu game of Necromunda 2017 with 4 players.

We quickly built lists of roughly the same size and the Venator rules from May's WD were a big help to come up with a profile for Zoats. ^^

Amongst the participants we had Zoats (played with the Venator list):

A gang of chaos cultists (using the chaos cult rules from April's WD) :

A bunch of squats (using the venator lists once again) :

And I was playing bratts (using the Orlocks rules from GWII) :

The scenario we played was quickly improvised as well, bands all had to gather as many treasures as possible, treasures would pop on a 6+ (one action) for any model in contact to a junk pile. 

In hindsight I should have upgraded the roll to 5+ if  a model spent a 2nd action searching.

To make things a bit more fun, we obviously had explosive barrels and a very angry moohtant who probably was the model of the game since it took most leaders down; starting with my bratt leader...

Things got pretty personnal very rapidly between the zoats and the bratts for some reason.

And obviously because we had planned things so it would happen, barrels DID explode...

And the moohtant did continue its killing spree...

... Until it ran into a barrel of fuel and exploded ! (looting 2 treasures which made the scavvies win in the end... :/)

The chaos cultists got real close to winning the game but fate (and scavvies) had decided otherwise...

My thoughts on Necromunda 2017 for now are that it's the toolbox we've wished for for ages ! It still has the feeling of the loved we loved but with more opportunities to add actions of all sorts and creatures of all kind which is just perfect.

Flashback a week earlier, Cheetor/Sho3box, Theootovonbismark and I had a go at a game of Dracula's America (in Space).
The 2 of them had already had a couple of games with their bands so i'd be the challenger. Good thing for me, I decided to play my Ash Waste Nomads (which have been painted for this very purpose) and played as Dark Confederacy, giving me 1D3 zombies to begin with.

The game started with all 3 leaders and 2 body guards in the middle of a camp at the end of negociations with the others trying to exflitrate them. We drew some strategic plots and mine was to get my leader out alive (how fitting).

The others were close by but none of the leaders or their bodyguards could be activated in the first turn, allowing for back up to arrive...

I split my back ups in 2 groups with the guy and his carbine covering the ones with pistols.

The Sunblessed (zombies) would move in to draw attention by being closer in range to others (AKA meatshields/bulletmagnets).

My ganger with Rifle quickly climbed to the roof top to gain a good line of sight (with shooting bonus) on anyone who'd threaten his boss.

With some reinforcements, my leader felt a bit more cocky and tried to clean the camp...

The chaos agents were of course being total dicks by getting onto a roof top to cover the area...

And they thought summoning a giant 4 armed demonic sex offender was fun...

After soiling their respective underwear, the nomads fortunately managed to take the monster down before it could do too much damage.

The ratskins on their side decided to go all out and the skinwalker turned into a giant bear !

Taking the opportunity to wipe down the other ratskins, the pistoleros went into combat despite the threat of the champion holding a shotgun nearby...

None of the things the ratskin scout said about the nomads' mothers mattered at this point (and a lot of gravely exagerated anyway).

Things turned physical between the ratskin and the pistoleros but in the end, Suncho executed the champion without an hesitation...

The chaotic sniper was finally taken down, leaving a path for the centre of the camp.

So the nomads decided to strategically fall back...

Before their own sniper was taken down, putting an end to the game.

Now I have to say I deeply enjoyed Dracula's America. Simple rules, a fun activation system, and despite being the challenger, I managed to win !

The post battle sequence felt VERY familiar, it was like rolling for Mordheim so I was in a good place. I only regret the lay-out in this book is the way it is, plenty of thing smake little sense to me and can sometimes even be irritating but all in all it is stilla very good book I advise everyone to have.

It's the perfect balance between strategy and fun, it is simple without being dumb and it opens a vast array of opportunities.
I know we all wanted a frostgrave in space at some point but felt a little frustrated only the wizard would level up, NOT ANYMORE. Of course, Dracula's America has its own very intersting setting but it's open ended enough to allow for plenty of other things and just porting it into space without changing anything but the models proved it's a solid rule set.

I'm eager to try the expansions and have a real campaign now !

Next post will probably be about the scenery I did for last WE and I have plenty of cool things on the painting desk right now !