Necromunda, 2 decade redux

Back in the days of the HitPoint, one of the owners loaded up a massive gang with heavy bolters and the like and blazed away at some puny starter gang I had. A lopsided introduction to a cool idea- but it went no further. There seemed little point.
Over the years since I have read numerous comics, novels, supplements and codexes with scraps of info on hive worlds and necromunda.
And when I saw the Necromunda boxed set coming up this time round, some 20~ years later my first thought was-

looks cool- I wonder if there will be any point?

As a result of an excess of miniatures in 2 directions I have a reasonably substantial sisters of battle army, some death cult assassins, a calidus assassin, null maidens, celestine and some female inquisitors. What I was missing for an easy brigade was 30 standard sisters with boltguns to fill out the troop requirement of a Brigade detachment. I had a few but I'd like to fill out retributor squads to 6 etc. When I saw the escher gang- my first thought was"female scout equivalents". Maybe not everyone's first thought, but that's the way my brain works (*/doesn't work)

So I was in. And the terrain looked nice- good doors for scifi rpgs.

But I still wasn't sold- what would make this better than a small game of 40k?

Well having played 3 games, my answer is multipart- 

First: the gangs and terrain have a nice interaction. They play differently. Goliath seem a bit strong but we have just been using numbers of gangers not n]points rating of gangs- and goliath are expensive- that is, strong , tough with nasty weapons. Even so- they feel really different to esher. That's good. Shadespire does that too. GW seems to have learned something about differentiating armies.

Second: it is more simulationist. In contrast, 40k is more of a game. In it's current form it feels like 

"this represents the fire power of unit X" not "these guys X fire at Y with kit Z". 

Necromunda is more like

 "you fall off the bridge, such and such happens". 

"There is sludge- it's toxic if you fall over in it",

 "you hit this guy but it is only a flesh wound"

 "your frag grenade knocks that guy back into his buddy"

The end result of this is that Necromunda has more texture. 

Third:  it is a bit more complex but much smaller scale. Now the entire gang which gets individual activations is only the size of a reasonable single squad in 40k.  But the weapon ranges are the same. And the board is 4x4 or perhaps a bit smaller.

Fourth: it has several tiers of play. Basic, Advanced, Campaign and various ways to play with either 2.1D terrain or normal 3D terrain. The tiers look like a good way to introduce folks to playing- 

Basic: set up with flat terrain boards, simple missions, simple death results, use pregenerated gangs

all the way to..

Build your own gang. Model them

Control Territory. Use 3D normal terrain built to suit such territory

Progress and injure gangers. Spend XP, buy gear, resupply. 

Wipeout enemy gangs.

To my surprise this is a strong alternative to 40k. Not as a wargame, but as a gritty, textured, 3D tactical, gang warfare game.

Trans-dimensional Murder Souffle

Why does sonic the hedgehog have such relentless opponent? And how does that dude run so fast?

Stolen from reddit for future reference and protection from webroot.


That's easy. It's fear. Picture this:
You're an industrialist, trying to modernize a backward planet and raise up standards of living through the use of technology, for the common good. One day, some of your industrial robots are blown up by a sentient, supersonic blue hedgehog. That's scary as fuck. Now, said hedgehog has it in his head that you're a monster who's turning animals into robots and wants to take over the world and oppress it, in large part because of all the steroids, speed, colloidal silver, and other assorted shit he's been taking in massive quantities for the past decade. You decide to see if you can't reason with the guy, but for your troubles you get assaulted, and your ride gets trashed beyond recognition.
So you decide to deal with this like you would with any other pest problems: You put out some traps, like spike pits, modify a couple of your robots with .22 rifles, etc. The way you'd deal with any rodent, really. Soon enough, the hedgehog gets himself impaled, and you're done. Or so you think. Soon after, despite having quite clearly been drained of his precious bodily fluids, he's back and trashing your robots again. Maybe the other one was some sort of decoy? No matter, you're taking this into your own hands. You modify your ride, mad max style, adding a couple of guns, some spikes, missile, slowly swinging giant balls, that kind of stuff. Then you roll. You meet the hedgehog and after a brief struggle where he manages to make one or two lucky hits on spots you haven't really bothered armoring, you make him into thin gruel. This time you're sure he's done for.
How wrong you are. Soon after, he's back. You can't believe it. You try to kill him yourself once more, but this time he seems to know where to strike. He seems to know when to strike. He seems to know when you'll strike. Once you realize that, you try to change your attack patterns, but it's too late, he's done enough damage to blow up your vehicle, and you barely escape with your life. For the next few days, he follows you, destroying everything you throw at him, and it's obvious he won't stop until he gets you. You can't sleep. You watch as he destroys everything you've done to help people: one after another, chemical plants, oil refineries, amusement parks, all you've built, gets blown up by this satanic, unholy, immortal demon from the deepest pits of hell. When you do manage to take him out, he's back within hours.
Eventually, as you're trying to escape to the one place where you think you're safe, space, he defeats one of your latest creation, and for the first time, you're face to face with him. There's no steel plate protecting you. There's no vertical distance. He's there, staring at you with those empty, demonic eyes.
You run like you've never run before. You just fucking run.