Welcome to The Underhive - an abridged history of Necromunda.

[Mr Mystery]

Hello, good evening, and welcome.

With the (likely triumphant) return of Specialist Games, us crusty old sods have been getting all a-quiver with excite at the prospect of a full on return to the depths of the Necromunda Underhive. Hopefully, before long, we'll be able to dust off our shotguns and resume stalking your poor rubes through the gantries and tunnels of quite possibly the greatest dystopian setting in modern Science Fantasy gaming*

But if you're new to GW or even just Hobby Wargaming, you may well be wondering 'oh Mr Mystery, just what is this Necromuna I'm seeing you froth about like a rabid dog that's scoffed some Alka-Seltzer?'

And that's where this thread comes in.

Ready?

Steady?

aaaaaaaand here we go!

Come, young one. To begin out story, we must travel back to ancient times, and White Dwarf 130. Cue wobbly sfx.....

[url=http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Confrontation_(game)]The story of Necormunda began here, when it was known as Confrontation[/url]

This was a game system serialised in White Dwarf over twelve months. And frankly, it was completely hatstand. The rules were all over the shop, and contained a lot of detail. Your ballistic skill didn't go from 0-10. Oh no. That's a sane scale. Here we're talking D100 to hit, so BS spiralled into the hundreds.

No. Really. Why? Different actions hit you with different modifiers. Blinded? -50%. Firing a Lascannon one handed, round a corner with a Weasel up each nostril? -200% to hit.

If you don't believe me, [url=http://www.angelfire.com/oz/datavault/files/Confrontation.pdf]just have a read for yourself. Utterly, utterly pants on hand bat poop loony nut loaf.[/url]. But importantly, if you could wind your merry way through the rules, it was a lot of fun.

Stylistically, think '80's Cyberpunk Captured In Little Lead Models. I've dug up some ooooooold pictures for you, because you might have missed the 80's....



More, you say?



Yeah. Space Marine with a Bolter...being attacked with Flintlocks. An idea only marginally less bonkers than the rules....



Is it a gang, or is it Sigue Sigue Sputnik?



Is it Sigue Sigue Sputnik, or is it a Confrontation Gang?

Right. Enough tomfoolery. At least for now. Much as I've ribbed it, Confrontation was a helluva game - and over time, it fell by the wayside. To the best of my knowledge, it was never published outside of White Dwarf.

One can only assume it was put in the bouncy room in its huggy coat, and remained there until the medication kicked in.

And the pills worked! For in 1995, my gaming world was rocked by the arrival of Necromunda. It was a saner, cleaner system, it's character refined but not diminished.



It also came in a single box, instead of spread across numerous White Dwarfs.

The Gangs and setting were better defined in terms of character, look and rules. To be honest, a surprisingly large amount of Confrontation was retained in a more user friendly way.

If you've read the Confrontation rules posted above, gone were the multiple, weapon dependant injury tables, replaced by a single chart. The body of the rules were identical to 40k at the time, but with some additions - such as ammo rolls and advances for your gang.

The more bizarre elements were gone, but the fun remained. We were left with a massively accessible game. Gangs rarely ran to more than a dozen models. But not only was it accessible from a monetary point of view, but the somewhat clunky 2nd Ed 40k rules suited that small scale perfectly. A novice gamer could get into the swing of things really easily.

Weapons considered traditionally the best in 40k were near worthless in Necromunda. Take the Bolter. A truly iconic weapon. But in Necromunda, it's range counted for little (close and claustrophobic meant most fire fight were short ranged), it's strength most overkill, and horribly prone to running out of ammo. Lascannon? Look, seriously. Just how badly do you want your opponent dead?. And conversely, the humble las pistol and lasgun were near King. Reasonable range, decent accuracy modifiers (yep, those were/are a thing!) and a frankly superb ammo roll of 2+ made them super reliable, especially for a starting gang.

Necromunda took everything you'd expect in 40k and turned it on it's head

And that's just a brief overview of the gaming importance.

If you ask me, the true genius of Necromunda was we got to see a microcosm of the savagery and violence of the 41st Milennium. This wasn't a struggle for survival of mankind. This wasn't a tale of genetically engineered psychopaths.

Necromunda was a tale of the horror of existing on an otherwise secure Imperial World. This is a game all about the little man (and indeed woman) and what it takes to carve out, however pitiful, a life in The Imperium. Crawling and scraping through the flotsam and jetsam of ages past. The Underhive underlined the inherent insanity of living in a Hive City. There was nothing on the line except your life. Your little guys fought and died not for a noble cause, not for galactic domination. You fought for piles of scrap - the remains of thousands of years of unfettered industry.

Yet this smaller scale made the games more intense. If you lost badly enough, it could cost you a piece of turf. Not so bad when it's a common slag heap, but borderline disastrous when they took a settlement off you (those generated free Juves!). You got so much more attached to your gang of desperadoes than you ever do a 40k army - not only did they progress in skill and prowess, but often you'd spend hours converting up their latest iteration, arming them precisely for WYSIWYG, only for their head to be blasted off their shoulders the very next game. (reports that ganger mortality were directly related to the amount of time spent modelling and painting are true)

It's emotional, dude! To know that Bubba-Sue my Cawdor Heavy would fight no more was horrible. He was a crack shot with his Grenade Launcher - he once bagged the gang a massive pile of creds when a long ranged overwatch shot at a sprinting Malcador Spyrer lead to his capture. And what happened? Two games later, a totally green Juve got lucky, and stuck a knife through his throat

Necromunda for me was a big part of the heart and soul of 40k. It's a far more personal game. As well as attachment to your Gang, you build up serious rivalry with your regular opponents in the campaign (note, Necromunda is rubbish unless played in a campaign. There's no evidence for it, but it's a scientific fact). In fact, not just your opponents, but your opponent's Gang. See that Juve that shanked Bubba-Sue? We did horrible things to him next time we met his gang. Horrible things. We disarmed him. Then we disarmed him.

To me, Necromunda is damned near gaming perfection. It definitely has it's flaws (hence the damned near), not least of which is wonky gang progression can lead to a one sided campaign, but when you're in a campaign with like minded gamers the few issues fall by the way side in the name of cohesive fun.

And that? That friends is why I'm am all excite of it's impending return. It's gonna be ace.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust off laspistol. I'll see you in the Underhive, yeah?

*Other opinions are available. Just don't expect me to agree

[eldargal]

God I miss Necromunda.

[Mr Mystery]

Right, all finished. You can read it now

[grimmas]

I'll just add these.

I was going to put them in a Necromunda wishlist but I got distracted



I think rules wise confrontation was really a forerunner to Inquistor. Theme wise it was Advanced Necromunda. I always thought Necromunda could've used some of the extra depth it provided, it was quite mental though I always seemed end up with a lot of guns with no ammo and lots of different ammo without the guns for it.

[Mr Mystery]

True.

It's was the separate injury charts for different weapons that got me - sadly they're missing from the link I provided, and I can't find them online. I know I didn't imagine them - Lascannon chart was basically 'dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, wishing you were dead, dead, dead, dead

As I said - proper nutso gaming!