Ahoy hoy, Scummers! We’re back, we’re refreshed, and we’re hoping you’re not sick of us typing for pages on end about Scenarios because that’s just what we wanna do. If you’ve been skimming past the missions in the most recent Necromunda books (for shame), or only sticking to the options on the Determine Scenario table for your campaign (boo), give us a couple minutes of your time this week. There’s some more bangers in here too, and we don’t want you to miss out!
If you’re keeping track at home, so far we’ve covered all of the Scenarios from the 2018 Rulebook. These scenarios chronicled a year-long journey as the design team introduced the Necromunda reboot with some simple missions to play around in, to some wilder ones as they got a feel for the system and started to explore the possibilities of asymmetric objectives and gameplay. They’ve gone even harder on that theme in the year that’s followed, with scenarios in the Book of Peril and the Book of Ruin that just straight-up wouldn’t be possible in any other game. (And thanks to our impromptu vacation last week, we’ve also had time to include the four new scenarios from the WD Gang Raids supplement!)
Our rallying cry last week was “Stop playing so damn much Stand-Off,” and that still holds true, but if you’re only using the base rulebook you’re missing out on so much more. Grab the other two books, read along, and maybe give Manufactorum Raid or Propaganda a shot next time you get to choose the Scenario. You won’t regret it.
Also to recap from Part One, there’s a few rules that will apply to multiple scenarios that will have an effect on your games, so we’re listing them here again as a refresher:
Scenario Rules, Click Here to Expand Table of Contents Interestingly enough, the scenarios in the Book of Peril are (mostly) actually good! The uninitiated might not be aware, but the Book of Peril is pretty much an afterthought in Necromunda. This is not a good thing, as it is not billed as an unnecessary supplement, and because the rules in the book are actually fun! The Badzone rules are a really good way to shake things up a bit in your campaign, and four out of the five scenarios detailed within are actually worth while. Let’s get on with it! Deployment: Standard. Balance: Very balanced! No inherent imbalance exists in this scenario. Rewards: Moderate. The rewards in this mission are ancillary to victory, but could potentially be very lucrative. However, carting around Loot Caskets will effectively remove a fighter from the board, trading rewards for combat effectiveness. Some folks might argue that this is how it should be. Fun Potential: High. A balanced mission that is predicated on crossing the battlefield will ensure a fast-paced and deadly action, and when you throw in the potential for high rewards, it really comes together as a fun scenario. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Very balanced! The attacker used their whole gang, and the defender gets to to custom select D3+5 fighters, but the rest of their gang comes in as reinforcements. While this might seem like a small starting gang for the defender, the fact that they get to bring in their reinforcements anywhere means that the attacker has to get on their horse to plant the bombs and win this scenario. Rewards: Moderate to nothing. If the attacker wins, they get 2d6x10 credits, otherwise no one gets any credits. Honestly, the defender should get some sort of reward if they win this game, and if you’re an arbitrator, we suggest you make it so. Fun Potential: High! Balanced gameplay and objective-based scoring mean that this game is going to be a good one. Deployment: Hoo boy. The defender deploys in the middle, and then things get weird after that. Balance: Balanced! Custom Selection (10) on both sides. Rewards: Potentially very high, but probably moderate. Note: the defender can only win credit rewards in this game, so it will probably never get picked in a campaign, as the player to pick this game is automatically the attacker. Fun Potential: Despite the garbo rewards structure, this game will be a blast. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Balanced! Custom Selection (10) on both sides. Rewards: None! Fun Potential: Low! This scenario sucks! It’s guaranteed to be multiple injury rolls on both sides with zero upside. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Balanced! Custom Selection (10) on both sides. Rewards: High! 3d6x10 for the winner. Fun Potential: Very high! This one’s a good ‘un. Discounting the first two scenarios in the book, these are undoubtedly the best missions to hit Necromunda so far. Blood Rites and Slaughter are actual interesting takes on the Stand-Off death-matches of yesteryear. Ritual and Propaganda use fluff-driven mechanics to craft a story in the middle of an inconceivably chaotic (even for Necromunda!) battle. Public Execution even offers a new way for your gang to jailbreak a captive, if you you’d prefer to accomplish a daring and heroic rescue in your own particular idiom! Those first two scenarios, though. Ugh. Naturally they’re both in the Uprising Campaign’s scenario table, front and center as most common 6-7 result. Have no fear, though, we’ll be working on that soon. Deployment: Standard. Balance: This is not a balanced mission. This is a meat-grinder. Rewards: Absurdly high for the Attackers, considering likelihood of payout. Fun Potential: None? That’s a bad start, and we promise that there are plenty of fun scenarios in this book, but this ain’t it. Deployment: Special, Defenders deploy into a 6” area in the center of the battlefield. Balance: Custom Selection and non-restrictive deployment options give Attackers an overwhelming advantage. Rewards: Absurdly high for the Attackers, considering likelihood of payout. Fun Potential: Not quite as horrible as Show of Force, but still lacking. Deployment: Standard. Balance: This is one of the most well-balanced asymmetric scenarios in Necromunda so far! It’s easier for Attackers to destroy Weapon Caches than it is for Defenders to escape with them, but Defenders score more victory points for each one. Rewards: Medium to High. Destroying Caches is less lucrative than Escaping with them intact. Fun Potential: We’re into the good stuff now, and this is a great scenario. There’s nothing stopping gangs from treating this like a deathmatch, but if one crew refuses to play that game and focuses on the mission instead, they’re likely going to win. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Very well done, in the same manner as Search and Destroy. The Defenders have a more challenging objective that rewards more victory points than the Attackers’ objective. Rewards: Medium to High. Rescuing Hivers is worth more than harvesting them for meeeeat. Fun Potential: You owe it to yourself and your friends to play this scenario. Managing movements and reactions of the Hive Dwellers can be a bit exhausting initially, but their mechanics go a long way to creating the image of a chaotic battlefield teeming with panicking civilians. Deployment: Standard, plus a dozen NPC Houseless Gangers. Balance: Evenly balanced. Rewards: High, although the Houseless Gangers can be targeted and killed it’s likely most will survive, as priority targets will be the gangers from the opposing crew. D3x10 credits per surviving Houseless Ganger adds up quickly. Fun Potential: With such small starting crews, games in this particular scenario rapidly turn into a proxy war as players convince unaligned NPCs to fight for their cause, only for them to be coerced to the other side and back again on subsequent rounds. It’s hard to come up with a coherent strategy in all of the chaos, but it’s certainly a good time. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Yep, this one is balanced! Rewards: Medium, each gang gets 10-30 credits for each piece of Loot recovered. Fun Potential: Solid, a neat change of pace from the ultra-violence in some of the scenarios in the Book of Ruin. Gangs win by outlooting their opponent, and keep all credits gained for the Loot even on a loss. Deployment: Special, Attackers close in on a Prisoner held by the Defenders in the center of the battlefield. Balance: Like any asymmetric scenario with Reinforcements, an advantage is gained by the Defenders the longer they can delay their opponents. Rewards: Attackers can get their captured fighter back, always a plus. Defenders even get a couple credits if they can fend them off and succeed in the execution (they also still get credits for the prisoner as if they’d sold them to the Guilders). Fun Potential: This is a great alternative to the traditional Rescue Mission if you’ve got a captured fighter that needs rescuin’, and you don’t happen to be a particularly sneaky sort of gang. Deployment: Standard, with three Landmarks placed at least 12″ apart. Balance: Skewed slightly in the Defender’s favor since they’re able to wait out the Attackers, but splitting their attentions between the three objectives can allow the Attackers to barrel through. Rewards: Moderate. While the Attackers only claim victory if they take over all three Landmarks, they can gain credits for each one they hold. Fun Potential: High, if you’ve ever wanted to play an Attack/Defend-style scenario in Necromunda, this is your chance! Deployment: Special. The battlefield will remain in a sort of motion for the entire scenario. Balance: Attackers can show up, shoot, and then essentially re-spawn, to shoot again. Defenders at a significant disadvantage due to sheer attrition. Rewards: Low, Reputation and XP only. Fun Potential: Unknown? This is a weird one, guys. The Defender’s crew spends the entire game running down an endless corridor with tiles replaced ahead of them to forever lengthen the road, and attempt to survive for nine rounds. Deployment: Special, Defenders deploy within 12″ of center while Attackers start in contact with a board edge. Balance: Not too lopsided, unless the Defender is a Helot Cult. If they are, you might be doomed. Rewards: No credits, only XP, Reputation, and a hell of a story. Fun Potential: Look, you already know we’re suckers for the Insanity condition. Go to page 75. Do it now. Read the possible results on the Daemonic Ritual table, cackle maniacally, and then go play this scenario. Deployment: Standard. Balance: We’d liken this to an asymmetric Stand-Off, but the Blood Ritual twist makes this scenario considerably more interesting than a straight death-match. Defenders are still trying to kill all of their opponents, but Attackers only need to collect five Blood tokens from downed fighters for victory. Rewards: Low, Reputation and XP only. Fun Potential: Though substantially more macabre, Blood Rites offers several new gameplay mechanics when compared to the ol’ Tunnel Skirmish that make it unique and fun. Deployment: Standard. Balance: Solid, with an edge given to melee-based gangs and crews with Blast/Template weapons. Rewards: Low, Reputation and XP only. Fun Potential: Medium, though it’s pretty fun to watch an opposing Goliath get so mad that he charges his own leader, while another is so furious that he’s too far away from the action that he starts punching himself instead. Gang Raids debuted alongside the December 2019 WD as a supplement, and was teased as a series of missions that would allow “30 Minute Necromunda.” In that, it’s a grand success, offering some off-beat scenarios set on lesser boards with smaller crews on both sides, in the same vein as Propaganda and Meat Harvest. Restricting champions and eschewing leaders (and disabling Infiltrate) does wonders for tamping down mid-campaign power creep, and really puts the everyday ganger into the spotlight for these specific missions. Of the four scenarios, Clandestine Rendezvous is the only real miss, with the other three being a solid mash-up of fun, quick, and overall chaotic. Bar Brawl is the best of the set if you’re looking for a great game with low stakes (though one member from the loser’s crew does get locked up in the drunk tank overnight). For our weekend events we’ve often tried to come up with a plan for what to do when two players finish a match early and are stuck waiting around for another hour or so before the next set of challenges and pairings. We’re thinking that these scenarios might be great for folks to run as supplemental games without having to worry about going over time! Deployment: Special. A 3’x2’ grid of tiles are set up, and a fourth tile to represent the Vault is added to the short edge as the Attackers’ Deployment Zone. Defenders deploy in the remaining tiles to prevent Attackers from escaping with the Stash off of the far edge. Balance: Decently matched! Roughly 36” between the vault and the escape edge means that the Attackers can theoretically reach the edge before Defender reinforcements complicate things at the end of Round Four. If the game lasts that long, Defenders have a heavy edge. Rewards: Medium Fun Potential: Absolutely, grab that loot and just start runnin’. Deployment: Special. Players set up a five-tile cross (similar to The Trap) with a marker placed at the very center of the board, guarded by a Servitor. Players start at opposing edges of the battlefield. Balance: Identical deployment and crew sizes mean that the scenario is perfectly balanced between the two gangs. That said, let’s be real here – This mission heavily favors the Defence Servitor. Rewards: Varies, thanks to a unique and nifty Secured Loot table. Can gain anything from 30 credits to a free Servo-Skull. Fun Potential: High, but challenging. Gangs gain surprisingly little from attacking each other, as the only way to win the scenario is to wreck the Defense Servitor and escape with the loot. That first part is a bit of a doozy, though! Deployment: Special, 2’x2’ suggested size, Defender deploys in a 6” area in the center while Attackers deploy anywhere outside of that bubble. Balance: It’s even-ish, but pretty streaky. Attackers have priority for the first round and have a decent chance of killing the Corrupt Enforcer, but if they fail to do so they’ll have an extremely hard time preventing them from escaping. Rewards: Low. No credits, only Reputation and XP for the winners. Fun Potential: Not that great, considering the entire mission is essentially decided by the outcome of the first few activations. Deployment: Special, 1’x2’ suggested tile size, gangs deploy fighters 3” away from each other and add d3+3 Hive Dweller NPCs to the fray afterwards. Balance: Whichever gang has more melee-focused dudes will have an edge, but the brawl itself will generally be chaotic enough that it shouldn’t matter too much. Rewards: Low. No credits, only Reputation and XP for the winners. Fun Potential: Hell yes. Rules for intoxication, no guns allowed, rowdy hivers throwing bottles and chairs, this scenario has it all. It’s a bit of a departure from the usual sort of scenario, but it’s a blast if you want to try something a little bit different, kind of like Propaganda but without all the shooting. There you have it! We’ve touched on just about every scenario in Necromunda save some White Dwarf scenarios (that not everyone has) and multiplayer scenarios, that we’ll have to touch on in a different article. Thanks for bearing with us over the holidays, as we’ve been a couple of busy bois! Next week, we are going to (finally) outline our suggestions regarding new Determine Scenario tables that are actually good and fun (and, we assure you, contain 100% less Ambush). We’re rather disappointed with the mission tables we’ve been given so far, so we’re going to suggest a set of better ways for Arbitrators to use going forward should they be so inclined. Make sure to tune in, Scummers! Until next time! Questions? Complaints? Just wanna say hi? Leave a comment below or shoot us a message at contact@goonhammer.com, and we’ll try our best to get back to you when we can. While it feels a bit weird to be linking to a fellow GH contributor, Kevin’s a great dude who’s been ripping it up with his Genestealer Cult in Dan’s local Law & Misrule campaign, who also happens to write crazy statistical articles for the site. Last week he went through two mathy breakdowns to some Necromunda mechanics that I thought were super neat. If, like me, you’ve spent the past two years grumbling about Blast weapons, you should check out a dude who’s capable of articulating exactly why they seem so busted most of the time.
THE BOOK OF PERIL
Escape the Badzone
Manufactorum Raid
The Conveyor
Fungal Horror
Toll Bridge
THE BOOK OF RUIN
Show of Force
Hit and Run
Search and Destroy
Meat Harvest
Propaganda
Scavenge
Public Execution
Takeover
Hunt Them Down
Ritual
Blood Rites
Slaughter
WHITE DWARF: GANG RAIDS
Daylight Robbery
Mercator Storehouse Heist
Clandestine Rendezvous
Bar Brawl
Conclusion
I Don’t Care, It’s Still Merton’s Community Corner