MaltonNecromancer
03-24-2012, 09:00 AM
For those of you that remember it, Necromunda was basically a high-point of GW game design.
You controlled a gang of humans (of varying kinds) engaged in battles that came with a campaign system. Your gangs levelled up like in more conventional RPGs. You didn't need a huge investment in figures – just a small number of models which you were supposed to convert and modify until they were named characters, and each had a small place in your heart.
Now, I think we can all agree that most of us love 40K, and that we would all like to see other fantasy races in Necromunda. The problem is that it just doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense.
This is where Comorragh comes in.
In the retconned Dark Eldar codex, it is made plain that Comorragh is basically not a city so much as an alternative dimension, and anyone and anything can be found there. Obviously Dark Eldar predominate, but the bottom line is that you could feasibly justify anything. A Deathwatch kill-team, sent in to assassinate a high-ranking Dark Eldar noble. A group of Eldar there to try and make contact with their lost kin. A Tau SG team who walked through a starga… sorry, webway portal, simply to investigate. Orks who… well, they're Orks. Orks are everywhere. And so on.
It's been a long, dry season for 40K. And here on BoLS, we have a fan community par excellence.
Taking the Necromunda core rules as our starting point, is it possible for people here to create, collate, playtest and then release an updated version of Necromunda which doesn't use human gangs, but instead gives each army in 40K a selection of gang "types"?
My thought is that you would pick your race, and design a team accordingly. The rules would be closer to 5th edition – Space Marines would have a 3+ save rather than a 4+ for example.
Once you've designed your team, you have to choose an overarching narrative "goal" from a preset list, "Get Back Home" being the most obvious, for example. You would win XP for your gang based on their goal, so say an ADMech explorator team would gain XP for retrieving objects and weapons from the battlefield. An Ork mob would gain XP for kills. A Genestealer Cult would gain XP from infecting but not killing. A Lictor brood would gain XP for sowing terror, as would a Night Lord infiltration team. Grots would gain XP from simply not dying. And so on.
You would then have battle-specific goals, much in the style of Malifaux. In fact, in many ways, this could be the 40K version of Malifaux, only with a solid levelling up system.
Each team would obviously need to be of varying sizes. Grot mobs, you're looking at 25 people. Humans 10-12, same as for Eldar. Marine Kill-Teams, maybe five. Grey Knights? Just three guys.
Each force would also need variety. rather than the Juve/Ganger/Heavy, each force gets it's own relevant options. So Tyranids would have Genestealer Cults (comprised of one Genestealer and a few hybrids) and a Vanguard Brood (made up of Genestealers and Lictors). Dark Eldar would have the option for Kabals and Wych Cults, as well as the Haemonculi coven. Orks get Boyz, or Grot mobs, or even thinks like Klanker Mobs (a single Mekboy whose built a whole load of robots to keep him alive). AdMech would have Explorators looking for archaeotech, as well as Hereteks, hidden away building Iron Men and Silican Animii.
Vehicles would be limited to things like buggies, bikes, and the occasional walker. No tanks for obvious reasons!
An important thing would be that certain factions (Grots) would be woefully underpowered, and essentially designed as a "fun" option, while others (Marines, Grey Knights) would be significantly more powerful. The important thing isn't to "balance" the factions so much as it is to divide it into high/middle/low tiers, so anyone coming to the game would have a rough idea of the kinds of skill levels needed to succeed. Think of Blood Bowl's Ogre and Vampire teams, and you get the idea of where I'm coming from - difficult to use, but satisfying for it, even with defeat after defeat.
Each faction would get its own set of skills to level up in, as well as a set of universal skills that anyone could take. You would need to keep track of weapons and ammunition (largely through Comorragh's canonical black market), as well as allowing for some really neat conversions and customised paint jobs.
What do people think?
You controlled a gang of humans (of varying kinds) engaged in battles that came with a campaign system. Your gangs levelled up like in more conventional RPGs. You didn't need a huge investment in figures – just a small number of models which you were supposed to convert and modify until they were named characters, and each had a small place in your heart.
Now, I think we can all agree that most of us love 40K, and that we would all like to see other fantasy races in Necromunda. The problem is that it just doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense.
This is where Comorragh comes in.
In the retconned Dark Eldar codex, it is made plain that Comorragh is basically not a city so much as an alternative dimension, and anyone and anything can be found there. Obviously Dark Eldar predominate, but the bottom line is that you could feasibly justify anything. A Deathwatch kill-team, sent in to assassinate a high-ranking Dark Eldar noble. A group of Eldar there to try and make contact with their lost kin. A Tau SG team who walked through a starga… sorry, webway portal, simply to investigate. Orks who… well, they're Orks. Orks are everywhere. And so on.
It's been a long, dry season for 40K. And here on BoLS, we have a fan community par excellence.
Taking the Necromunda core rules as our starting point, is it possible for people here to create, collate, playtest and then release an updated version of Necromunda which doesn't use human gangs, but instead gives each army in 40K a selection of gang "types"?
My thought is that you would pick your race, and design a team accordingly. The rules would be closer to 5th edition – Space Marines would have a 3+ save rather than a 4+ for example.
Once you've designed your team, you have to choose an overarching narrative "goal" from a preset list, "Get Back Home" being the most obvious, for example. You would win XP for your gang based on their goal, so say an ADMech explorator team would gain XP for retrieving objects and weapons from the battlefield. An Ork mob would gain XP for kills. A Genestealer Cult would gain XP from infecting but not killing. A Lictor brood would gain XP for sowing terror, as would a Night Lord infiltration team. Grots would gain XP from simply not dying. And so on.
You would then have battle-specific goals, much in the style of Malifaux. In fact, in many ways, this could be the 40K version of Malifaux, only with a solid levelling up system.
Each team would obviously need to be of varying sizes. Grot mobs, you're looking at 25 people. Humans 10-12, same as for Eldar. Marine Kill-Teams, maybe five. Grey Knights? Just three guys.
Each force would also need variety. rather than the Juve/Ganger/Heavy, each force gets it's own relevant options. So Tyranids would have Genestealer Cults (comprised of one Genestealer and a few hybrids) and a Vanguard Brood (made up of Genestealers and Lictors). Dark Eldar would have the option for Kabals and Wych Cults, as well as the Haemonculi coven. Orks get Boyz, or Grot mobs, or even thinks like Klanker Mobs (a single Mekboy whose built a whole load of robots to keep him alive). AdMech would have Explorators looking for archaeotech, as well as Hereteks, hidden away building Iron Men and Silican Animii.
Vehicles would be limited to things like buggies, bikes, and the occasional walker. No tanks for obvious reasons!
An important thing would be that certain factions (Grots) would be woefully underpowered, and essentially designed as a "fun" option, while others (Marines, Grey Knights) would be significantly more powerful. The important thing isn't to "balance" the factions so much as it is to divide it into high/middle/low tiers, so anyone coming to the game would have a rough idea of the kinds of skill levels needed to succeed. Think of Blood Bowl's Ogre and Vampire teams, and you get the idea of where I'm coming from - difficult to use, but satisfying for it, even with defeat after defeat.
Each faction would get its own set of skills to level up in, as well as a set of universal skills that anyone could take. You would need to keep track of weapons and ammunition (largely through Comorragh's canonical black market), as well as allowing for some really neat conversions and customised paint jobs.
What do people think?