Good morning, Scummers! We’ve been at this for a couple months now, and we realize now that we’ve been remiss; we’ve barely talked about the best part of Necromunda: The missions. So join us for another week’s worth of blather as we wax poetic about all of the highlights and nuance involved in picking your game’s scenario!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Necromunda, and the one that makes the game so varied each time you play, is the variety of scenarios detailed in the Sourcebook. Whether you are playing one-off games or are involved in a full campaign, it is the variation of the scenarios which ensure that no battle is quite like the last. Gavin Thorpe (White Dwarf, 1995)

Here at Necromunday, we’re inclined to emphatically agree with Mr. Thorpe. Scenarios in this game are exactly the secret sauce that set it apart from other Skirmish systems, both those offered by Games Workshop and in general. There’s some straight-up death-match missions scattered around in here, sure, but there are just as many asymmetric scenarios where gangs can play to their strengths and win their objectives without necessarily slaughtering all opposition in the process. There’s more than one way to skin a Phyrr cat, and any mission where killing the enemy is merely a means to an advantage, rather than the sole win condition, gets our vote.

Unfortunately, for most of us playing in campaigns, many of these missions are locked behind specific rare rolls on the table, and even then only as “pick whatever you want, man!” When there’s over forty unique two-player scenarios, and you’ve been stuck on The Marauders for two of your past three games, suddenly having the entire menu at your fingertips can be a little bit daunting. So good news, scummers! We’re here to demystify, over-explain, and offer a couple tips on the plethora of scenarios available in this grand system, as well as maybe toss out a few suggestions to make your experiences even better. When you get down to it, there are some crazy fun scenarios that you should be playing, and every time two players look at each other and say “hey, let’s not play Stand-Off again tonight,” a Caryatid gets its wings.

SCENARIOS

Just for the sake of our own Willpower checks, we’ll be limiting our coverage today to solely the scenarios contained in the 2018 Rulebook. If you’re going off of the standard Scenario Generation Tables, this’ll keep you covered for everything in both the Dominion and Law & Misrule campaigns (for Uprising, you’ll have to have to wait a week). 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 first as standard:

Home Turf Advantage (HTA): If a scenario is designed to take place deep in the defender’s turf, they may have Home Turf Advantage. Bottle tests are harder to fail and Rally tests are easier to pass when your fighters are this close to home, and there’s a chance that the defender’s Hangers-On may be caught up in the battle. Most of these guys aren’t great fighters, and they’ll quit on the spot if they’re injured in the scuffle! (For more on Hangers-On, you can check them out in more detail Here and Here.)

If a scenario is designed to take place deep in the defender’s turf, they may have Home Turf Advantage. Bottle tests are harder to fail and Rally tests are easier to pass when your fighters are this close to home, and there’s a chance that the defender’s Hangers-On may be caught up in the battle. Most of these guys aren’t great fighters, and they’ll quit on the spot if they’re injured in the scuffle! (For more on Hangers-On, you can check them out in more detail Here and Here.) Sneak Attack (SA): The stealth scenarios, Sneak Attack will have the attackers skulking around the battlefield jockeying for position while attempting to avoid detection from the defending crew’s sentries. These scenarios are generally accepted to be House Delaque’s specialty, with their easy access to Gunshrouds. ( Rules Update : The Uprising Softcover Rulebook has finally clarified in print that when the alarm is raised mid-round, all defenders become readied and the round continues as normal.)

The stealth scenarios, Sneak Attack will have the attackers skulking around the battlefield jockeying for position while attempting to avoid detection from the defending crew’s sentries. These scenarios are generally accepted to be House Delaque’s specialty, with their easy access to Gunshrouds. ( : The Uprising Softcover Rulebook has finally clarified in print that when the alarm is raised mid-round, all defenders become readied and the round continues as normal.) Loot Caskets (LC): Many scenarios are based around capturing Loot Caskets, typically as objectives to be dragged back to a crew’s deployment zone and secured. These crates follow the same rules as the random caskets strewn about the battlefield in every single scenario, meaning you can open them if you really want to risk the booby trap for a chance at a paltry d6 credits. It’s usually a better idea to leave them closed, though!

Many scenarios are based around capturing Loot Caskets, typically as objectives to be dragged back to a crew’s deployment zone and secured. These crates follow the same rules as the random caskets strewn about the battlefield in every single scenario, meaning you open them if you really want to risk the booby trap for a chance at a paltry d6 credits. It’s usually a better idea to leave them closed, though! Reinforcements [R]: Some scenarios will allow for more attackers or defenders to come streaming into the fight as the battle rages on. Any scenario that allows Reinforcements will specify how many random fighters will deploy starting from a given End Phase. This can potentially allow a gang’s entire roster to wind up fighting, far beyond a scenario’s stated crew size, so gangs with plenty of cheap gangers waiting in the wings (like Helot Cults and Cawdor) tend to do well here. Do keep in mind that Bottle tests are measured against your gang’s starting crew size, so reinforcements aren’t going to ultimately make anyone braver!

CAMPAIGN SCENARIOS

First introduced in the old Underhive box and the following Gang War softcover, these first scenarios were copied into the 2018 Rulebook while retaining some elements of an outdated design philosophy, namely a strict adherence to Zone Mortalis and Sector Mechanicus battlefields. These restrictions were abandoned pretty quickly once the game moved forward, and there’s really nothing game-breaking about playing any specific scenario on either style of board as long as you compensate with a slightly smaller than usual Sector Mechanicus battlefield. If you want to run a Rescue scenario in the tunnels for whatever reason, go for it!

As a side-effect of the battlefield pseudo-segregation, many of these early scenarios are thematically mirrored for both flavors of terrain style. Sneak Attack is Border Dispute, but one gang is being sneaky, Forgotten Riches is Looters, but there’s also an ineffable monster lurking, and Stand-Off is Tunnel Skirmish. There’s no twist whatsoever with that last one, so just shoot and stab each other like its post-apocalyptic Counter-Strike.

All standard campaign scenarios for Dominion and Law & Misrule are included in these dozen scenarios, and in their defense, they’re all relatively balanced. You’re not going to find any standard scenarios that get into the truly weird modifiers and esoteric objectives, but credit and reputation rewards for the winners tend to be reasonable instead of insane jackpots that can cause gangs to spiral out of control early on.

Stand Off

Deployment: Standard.

Balance: Gangs are evenly deployed and selected.

Rewards: Low.

Fun Potential: As this is the “base scenario”, it is one of the less-fun. However, the balanced gameplay will make up for it.

The flavor text is pretty useful here: “Two gangs meet in neutral territory and a firefight ensues.”

This is your bog-standard deathmatch scenario. The players deploy, and immediately go at it.

Rewards are low, and so are the potential gains for reputation.

This is a balanced, if unimaginative, scenario. It won’t catapult a gang into the stratosphere, and it won’t immediately screw over any players with wonky setup and deployment rules.

If you’re looking for the epitome of “a good clean fight,” this is as even as you’ll find.

Tunnel Skirmish

Deployment: Standard.

Balance: Gangs are evenly deployed and selected.

Rewards: Moderate.

Fun Potential: As this is the Zone Mortalis version of the “base scenario”, it is one of the less-fun. However, the balanced gameplay will make up for it.

This is the exact same scenario as Stand-Off , but it, for some reason, gives the winner extra cash. Otherwise there is nothing special about it.

, but it, for some reason, gives the winner extra cash. Otherwise there is nothing special about it. That being said, it’s still a balanced scenario.

Looters

Deployment: Special. There is an attacker and defender for this game, and the defender sets up loot crates anywhere and then sets their gang up near them. Afterwards, the attacker picks a board edge and sets up near that.

Balance: The attacker can use their whole gang, but the defender can only use Random (d3+4), but they get reinforcements. So, pretty balanced.

Rewards: Probably low. The attacker only makes money by stealing the other gang’s credits, and most players I know don’t keep a lot of liquid capital in their stashes.

Fun Potential: With the ambush-style deployment, stealing loot crates, and reinforcements, the capacity for fun is high with Looters.

The attacker runs in, tries to grab as much stuff as they can, and then beats feet off the board with their new, ill-gotten gains.

The defender starts with a skeleton crew, but then gets reinforcements as the battle goes on. Reinforcements are kinda broken, though, in that each time one is placed the players roll a dice and on a 1-2 the attacker gets to place them, which kinda sucks.

However, with good deployment, the defender can make it very hard for the attacker to knock their fighters out of the game before the reinforcements show up.

The credit rewards are kind of a shame in this game, seeing as how they’re taken from the defender directly. If the attacker ends up looting a cash-poor defender, then they get nothing from the battle.

Ambush

Deployment: Special. The defender sets up in a 6” bubble from the center of the board. This bubble cannot have any large pieces of terrain in it for the defender to hide behind.

Balance: The attacker gets to use their whole gang, while the defender can only use Random (d3+5). The defender does not get reinforcements. This game heavily favors the attacker.

Rewards: Low. No cash rewards.

Fun Potential: The defender is at a huge disadvantage in this scenario, especially if they have a large gang. Combining the fighter selection with the rule prohibiting large terrain features in the defender’s deployment zone means that this one’s probably gonna be a bad time for the defender.

While the defender is undoubtedly going to suffer casualties, the attacker is likely going to be unable to secure the entirety of a 6” deployment bubble, allowing weak points for the defender to escape.

As the attackers only win if they manage to take OoA more defenders than those who escape, if the defenders just book it and move-move to the table edges it’s surprisingly common for the attackers to fail to kill enough of them in time, and end up losing the scenario in the end.

If you absolutely need to inflict some Lasting Injuries on a rival, this is the mission that’ll do it, but do keep in mind that everyone else in your campaign is doing that in their games to their opponents and probably playing a mission that rewards credits, too.

Border Dispute

Deployment: Mostly standard, except for one fighter per side, who are set up 1” away from the center of the battlefield.

Balance: Both gangs use the same crew selection process, Random (d3+3). The rest of both gangs are used as reinforcements. Balanced!

Rewards: Low.

Fun Potential: This scenario rules. It’s a ton of fun. It is the best.

With just a single objective added, Border Dispute instantly becomes more engaging and dynamic than Tunnel Skirmish and Stand-Off . You can still win by deathmatching the opponent into bottling, but the real win condition is to defile the enemy relic

instantly becomes more engaging and dynamic than and . You can still win by deathmatching the opponent into bottling, but the real win condition is to defile the enemy relic Forcing a total bottle is harder when the relic provides bonuses to Cool and Leadership, meaning even after bottling begins the bottling gang will be more inclined to stick around on the field.

You still bottle normally, but winning this scenario comes down to both crews being in bottle status, trying to pass rolls to keep their dudes on the table and in the fight in spite of it, and relying desperately on the bonuses from their relic to enable that to happen, as more dudes stream in on both sides and more and more tactics cards come into play.

It is literally capture the flag in Necromunda.

This is Merton’s favorite scenario.

Sabotage

Deployment: Special. Sneak attack is in effect, so deployment is a little all over the place, literally.

Balance: Not balanced, at all whatsoever. The attacker gets to use their whole gang against the defender’s five sentries, but the defender gets to bring in d6 reinforcements per turn after the alarm is raised, and they’ll most likely show up behind the defenders and turn the battle into a massacre. This game heavily favors the defender.

Rewards: Low.

Fun Potential: Sneak attack is a cool mechanic, and will mitigate how hard the attacker has to work to achieve their objectives. Let’s go with moderately fun.

Not only do attackers have to destroy target, they have to avoid having more than half of their force taken out in the process.

The Target you’ll be trying to destroy is Toughness 6 and has 4 Wounds, which is an ungodly amount of durability to tackle while trying to be sneaky. To put it in perspective, if you were to smash at it with a Strength 6 auto-hitting melee weapon, you’d destroy the target in an average of eight turns.

Unfortunately, this also means that the most reliable way to attempt this scenario is to eschew the objective entirely, and attempt to kill as many of the defenders as possible before they raise the alarm. Then, evaluate how many are left once the alarm is raised and decide whether you can stick around and deal with their reinforcements or bottle out and accept a loss.

So really we’re looking at a scenario that’s just sneaky assassinations that turns into a deathmatch, where the central objective is ignored until it is automatically destroyed at the very end. What a shame.

We’d say that lowering the Toughness or Wounds of the Target could help balance this scenario considerably, but it would also essentially turn it into more of a shadow of Sneak Attack, which you should really just play instead of this one.

Rescue Mission

Deployment: Special. Sneak attack is in effect, so deployment is a little all over the place, literally.

Balance: Even though it’s just a modified Sabotage, getting rid of the super-tough target and replacing it with a captured fighter does a lot to improve the balance of this game. However, the attacker is still at a slight disadvantage.

Rewards: The return of a valued comrade is a huge reward in most cases.

Fun Potential: Lots of fun if the attacker’s gang isn’t too roughed up.

Just like Sabotage , the pro strat is silently murdering all of the sentries before even trying to get the captive free.

, the pro strat is silently murdering all of the sentries before even trying to get the captive free. Though, because the tough sabotage target is replaced in this scenario, it is a lot easier.

The Trap

Deployment: Special. The game board is a 5-tile cross, and the defender has to set up the majority of their gang in the middle while the attacker can set up anywhere else.

Balance: Both gangs get to use Custom Selection (10). The attacker will probably go first, but other than the slightly wonky deployment, this scenario is pretty balanced.

Rewards: Low

Fun Potential: This one really ratchets up the intensity early by forcing the gangs into close confines. It guarantees an action-packed and bloody game.

This is supposed to be like Zone Mortalis version of Ambush , but there is no escape clause. Instead it puts the gangs in very close contact from the start.

, but there is no escape clause. Instead it puts the gangs in very close contact from the start. This one can be a truly tough battle for the defender if they aren’t smart with Zone Mortalis tile placement and can’t take advantage of LoS blocking terrain to their advantage. The biggest thing thing the defender can do to even their odds in this game is to place the correct center tile.

The pro strategy here is to grab a tile with an L-shaped intersection of walls on it to close off the firing lanes from half of the map. And then, if they’re available, throw some hazardous tiles, like the wind turbine or ritual circle in the sides that aren’t blocked off, to make it way harder for the enemy to come get you.

Even with the deployment shenanigans, this scenario is otherwise balanced. It will be a violent game, though, so be prepared either way.

Forgotten Riches

Deployment: Special. There are 7 ZM tiles used in this mission and five of them have loot crates in them. The other two are the tiles that the gangs deploy into. These tiles may end up being adjacent to one another, which makes for a very short game.

Balance: Both gangs start with an equal number of fighters and an equal deployment situation. It’s very balanced.

Rewards: High. Each loot crate returned to the gang’s starting tile is worth d6x10.

Fun Potential: It’s a balanced game with a ton of potential for big-time rewards. This is a fun one!

This mission is an excellent way to have a balanced game with a very high potential to come away rich.

Arbitrators should watch out, though. A canny player could game the system by choosing to play this scenario over and over, so it might be a good idea to randomize scenario choice.

This is Dan’s favorite scenario.

The Marauders

Deployment: Standard.

Balance: The attacker only gets to use Custom Selection (6) for their crew, and the defender uses Random Selection (d3+2), but gets to put the rest of their gang in reinforcements, d3 of which come in every End phase. The attacker will quickly be outnumbered. Combined with that are random difficult objectives for the attacker. This game heavily favors the defender.

Rewards: Low.

Fun Potential: This game is really hard on the attacker. They’ll probably bottle out quickly and have to deal with some Lasting Injury rolls. It’s not a fun one.

It’s a cool idea to have random objectives, but the attacker’s tiny starting gang makes this one an uphill climb.

Making the defender both immune to bottling and giving them reinforcements is actually a clever method to encourage the attacker to deal as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, and then get the hell out. This is a theme also explored a year later with Hit and Run in the Book of Ruin, only far less effectively the second time around.

Sneak Attack

Deployment: Special. It’s a Sneak Attack Mission.

Balance: Better than Sabotage or Rescue Mission. The attacker simply has to defile a relic instead of destroying a thing, and the defender only brings in d3 reinforcements a turn instead of d6. Unlike Sabotage or Rescue Mission, though, there is no mechanic for the defender to flee the battlefield. So once the battle is joined, it’s not over until one gang flees or is completely taken out.

Rewards: Low, but each gang gets something regardless of what happens.

Fun Potential: This is probably the most fun sneak attack game.

With its improvements to balance, Sneak Attack is easily the best of the “stealth” missions.

is easily the best of the “stealth” missions. This game will devolve into a deathmatch at some point, though. But it will start a little more slowly than say, The Trap.

Smash & Grab

Deployment: Standard.

Balance: Hoo boy. The Attacker gets Custom Selection (10) and the defender gets Random Selection (d6+3) and NO reinforcements. This game heavily favors the attacker.

Rewards: High.

Fun Potential: This scenario is too unbalanced to be fun.

All you need to know about Smash & Grab is 10 vs. d6+3. This one is brutal for the defender. Yeah, the defender could roll well, but on average it’s 6 or 7 on 10.

Most likely, the attacker is going to make 3d6x10 credits with very little trouble.

NARRATIVE SCENARIOS

These missions first introduced in the Gang War III softcover were a bold departure from some of the more standard fare offered by previous scenarios. Asymmetric objectives evolved beyond simple attack/defense into convoy hijackings, political assassinations, and tense rescues of wounded comrades. There’s shootouts in the middle of hab-blocks teeming with innocent civilians, frenetic drug harvests, and encounters with psychotic robots.

These scenarios are generally bonkers. Aside from a few outliers, even the scenarios with wildly differing objectives are able to create the feeling that each gang involved at least has a chance of success. All of the conventional wisdom about how a typical game of Necromunda should proceed goes out the window when it doesn’t matter how many enemies you can snipe, because the walls are literally closing in on you and you only survive if you can escape to the middle.

Unfortunately, there are some balance concerns on the credit reward side of things. Several missions dole out game-breakingly large jackpots, but we heavily recommend our fellow Arbitrators to tone down the rewards rather than banning these missions outright, as they’re some of the most entertaining and story generating scenarios you’ll find!

Last Stand

Deployment: Special. The defender deploys in a 6” bubble at the center of the battlefield, and the attacker deploys along the edges.

Balance: This scenario is built to be unbalanced. It is a Last Stand in both name and mechanics. Unsurprisingly, the attacker is heavily favored here.

Rewards: Moderate.

Fun Potential: If played for narrative reasons or at the end of a campaign, this game could be a ton of fun. However, if chosen as a mid-campaign game, it could be disastrous for the defender.

So this one is the heroic last stand for a gang. They’ve been cornered and must fight overwhelming odds to survive as long as they can.

This is the kind of game that probably shouldn’t be allowed mid-campaign. The attacker doesn’t actually lose fighters in this scenario. They are recycled into the attacker’s reinforcement deck.

Like we said, players could have a ton of fun with this game as a campaign capstone, but we suggest you avoid it in any other situation.

Escape the Pit!

Deployment: Special, but not that special. Both players deploy within 6” of opposing board edges.

Balance: Both gangs are Random Selection (d3+4), and have the same objectives. This one’s reasonably balanced.

Rewards: Moderate.

Fun Potential: Oh yeah. This one’s a blast.

This scenario represents the gangs travelling to a dangerous and unstable part of the underhive to snag as many valuable loot crates as they can and send them up the ladder to their comrades.

The cool mechanic in this game is that the battlefield will shrink as the game progresses. This forces the gangs to engage one another at increasingly close ranges and force unpredictable and dangerous circumstances.

This game is excellent for players who want to try something a little different than the normal shoot ‘em up.

Downtown Dust-Up

Deployment: Special. Players may deploy anywhere!

Balance: Both crews have Random Selection (d3+4) and the same objectives. This one’s balanced.

Rewards: Zero to negative. If any neutral hivers are taken OoA by a gang, then they owe d3x10 credits.

Fun Potential: Certainly. Who doesn’t love when an accidental meeting turns into a shootout on the main drag?!

This scenario represents members of two gangs having a chance meeting while in town that quickly escalates to violence.

It includes the use of neutral hivers that can impact the game in a number of ways.

This is a bad scenario for rewards as the highest amount of credits a gang can win is zero. This might be a good game for two high-powered gangs to play in, as they might end up losing money or reputation as a result of this game and give the gangs lagging behind a chance to catch up.

Shoot-Out

Deployment: Special. Players deploy their gangs at opposite ends of a long corridor.

Balance: Both gangs get Random Selection (d3+1). Usually that’s fine, but when the gangs are so small, having one gnarly fighter can swing the game big time. Can’t say this one’s balanced.

Rewards: Low.

Fun Potential: It’s a fun little time, but it isn’t really a game, more of a 35-minute diversion.

This scenario is less of a full game and more of a quick demo on the combat rules.

While it is fun, the Shoot-Out is not a real game of Necromunda.

Caravan Heist

Deployment: Special. The Defender places a vehicle or suitably large marker to represent the caravan, and then sets up their gang near or on it.

Balance: While it’s 10 on 10 in this one, the caravan defenders actually have kind of a tough time. They’re generally going to be in the open or only in partial cover, and it might be perilously easy to pick them off.

Rewards: Extremely high. This is the get-rich-quick scenario for the attacker.

Fun Potential: Does finding a large unmarked bag of money seem fun? This scenario is like that.

This scenario is kind of a thorn in an Arbitrator’s side. It’s a fun and mostly balanced mission, but the attacking gang can get campaign-breakingly rich off of it.

To illustrate how broken this scenario is, we will give you an example. The attacking gang gets 10 fighters, and manages to take out enough enemies that the defender voluntarily bottles out. The attacker has taken no casualties. Per the scenario rules each fighter that isn’t OoA or seriously injured at the end of the game gets d3 loot tokens for each fighter. On average that’s two tokens per fighter. Or 20d6x10 credits. Again, on average, that would net the attacker 700 credits . That’s almost enough money to hire another gang to fight the rest of the campaign for you.

. That’s almost enough money to hire another gang to fight the rest of the campaign for you. It is a good idea to cap the amount of loot tokens that can be taken in this battle.

Ghast Harvest

Deployment: Standard

Balance: Same crew size, same objectives. This one’s balanced.

Rewards: High

Fun Potential: Ghast Harvest has the potential to be extremely fun.

So in Ghast Harvest, players are attempting to gather the reality-bending substance known as ghast. It is very lucrative work, but it has one important peril: it can turn fighters into psykers or make them attack their comrades.

Ghast Harvest will invariably be one of the crazier missions as players have to test for Toughness every time they attempt to harvest some ghast, and when they fail things tend to go awry.

Ghast Harvest, however, is another scenario where the rewards can end up being spire-high. The mitigating factor here is that the crew sizes are smaller than in Caravan Heist. With that limitation, this scenario is a lot better for an Arbitrator.

Archaeo-Hunters

Deployment: Standard

Balance: Similar sized crews and the same objective make Archaeo-Hunters a balanced experience.

Rewards: High

Fun Potential: Rushing to the center of the map to power up a mining automata to open a vault full of untold riches is exactly the kind of fun most Necromunda players are looking for.

In this scenario, players deploy at opposing ends of a table and a door to a vault is placed between them. There is a mining robot at the center of the battlefield, and players must pass an intelligence check to power it up so that it might go open the vault door. Once the vault door is open, fighters from each gang may leave the battlefield through the open vault door and collect its riches.

This is a great scenario. It’s mostly even (random crew size can give one player a two-fighter edge), it has high, but not spire-high rewards, and both players can get these rewards, win or lose. It probably won’t be campaign-breaking money, either.

Escort Mission

Deployment: Standard

Balance: Decently balanced, for a scenario with wildly different objectives. Defender has a larger randomly chosen crew to escort an Uphive Agent through danger, while the attacker has a smaller crew of their own choosing to assassinate them instead. The attackers also receive reinforcements, but only one fighter randomly per turn.

Rewards: Moderate. There’s nothing paltry about d6x10 credits for saving a man’s life, but you’d think an uphiver would be a better tipper.

Fun Potential: This is the classic Protect the VIP mission translated into Necromunda, and it plays out pretty well! While there’s nothing preventing the would-be assassins from concentrating all of their firepower into the Agent rather than their bodyguards, the Agent’s Displacer Field gives him a healthy amount of survivability.

The Agent only has 4” of Movement, and the extraction site is pretty much the enemy’s deployment zone on the far side of the battlefield. It’s going to take some time to get all the way over there.

While the attackers do have reinforcements, they’re only a trickle and not necessarily the right fighters for the job at hand. Don’t dawdle, but it may pay off to take a safer route through cover instead of charging blindly down the middle.

Fighter Down

Deployment: Standard for both crews, but the injured ganger is stuck deploying within 8” of the center of the board.

Balance: Scenarios with random crew selection at a miniscule d3+2 fighters per side are already inherently unbalanced, but the defenders start the game handicapped as one of their crew members will spend the entire game permanently Seriously Injured as a sort of crawling objective.

Rewards: No credits, win or lose. Gangs will get a bit more Reputation depending on whether they were able to successfully rescue or kill the wounded fighter.

Fun Potential: While we really enjoy the story this scenario is trying to tell, in practice any gang attempting to rescue their fallen comrade is due for rapid disappointment. There’s way too many factors that make it super easy to just straight up kill the target before the defenders even have a chance to reach them.

In the two or so rounds it’ll take for the defending gang to reach the wounded fighter to begin to drag them away, the attackers will be able to cover enough ground to start shooting at him as well.

Prone only imparts a hit penalty at long ranges, so before long the wounded fighter’ll be getting shot at as enemies catch up.

Carrion Hunters are a neat little twist, but even if they’re hassling both sides evenly, they’ll inevitably slow down the defenders’ retreat more than the attackers’ advance.

Murder Cyborg

Deployment: Standard.

Balance: This one’s pretty balanced, with identical crew sizes and tactics available. Control over the Cyborg, once it reveals itself, is given to the player with priority, though it is forced to follow its programming.

Rewards: The gang that manages to kill the Cyborg collects a healthy 3d6x10 credits.

Fun: Take your standard Tunnel Skirmish, and add in the little wrinkle that every time a fighter takes a wound, there’s a chance that they’ll turn out to be a bloodthirsty robot that instantly becomes Target Number One. This scenario has a few design quirks, but if you’re willing to work with them you’ll have a great time.

Since the Cyborg only pops out when fighters are wounded, and there’s no incentive for the two crews to be shooting at each other in the first place, players may have to depend on the violence inherent in the system to get the ball rolling.

It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Unless you roll a 5 or 6 on its Mission Parameters, in which case it will instead run away and the scenario will end in a draw.

The Cyborg doesn’t suffer injuries normally, and will continue to crawl after its target even after being reduced to 0 Toughness. You’ll need to be close to finally kill it for good!

The Hit

Deployment: Special. The defender sets up their crew in the center of the board, Ambush-style. Like before, defending crew members can be deployed outside of the 6” bubble on a lucky roll.

Balance: None whatsoever, it’s going to be a slaughter of the defending team. Attackers’ crews are Custom (d3x5), while defenders have the same amount but randomly chosen.

Rewards: Minor reputation gain, no credits. Hopefully the bloodshed is reward enough, you monster.

Fun Potential: This scenario is the opposite of fun. It’s actively a punishment, a test offered to whoever chose this to see if they’d really go through with it.

Attackers start off surrounding defenders, who can only take a single action in their first round’s worth of activations.

Attackers also gain Reinforcements from the second round onward, and the defenders have no special mechanics for fleeing.

also gain Reinforcements from the second round onward, and the defenders have no special mechanics for fleeing. Imagine The Trap , except even more hostile to the defender, where it’s almost a guarantee that the fight will result in a Lasting Injury to the defender’s leader.

, except even more hostile to the defender, where it’s almost a guarantee that the fight will result in a Lasting Injury to the defender’s leader. If you’re the defender, just hide and try to voluntarily bottle out as soon as possible.

NOTE: Certain phrasing in this scenario suggests that it may have been intended that the defenders were supposed to get reinforcements rather than the attackers. This would definitely improve their chances, but we’ve been too busy actively avoiding playing this scenario to try it out.

Next Week: More Scenarios

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations!

Necromunda is all about off-beat scenarios that wouldn’t even be possible in other game systems, and the deeper you go the weirder they get. It’s a lot to take in and even more to digest, but hopefully you’ll give some of the odder scenarios a try. Basically, guys, just don’t play so much Stand-Off.

That one just gets boring, y’know?

We’ve barely scratched the surface of all the missions out there (beg pardon, scenarios out there), as they’ve only gotten zanier in the offerings from the later books which we’ll be getting into next week. We’ve got a few bones to pick with the “standard” scenarios that players roll for in the three campaign systems, and we think there might be a better way to do that, too. Swing back next Monday, and check it out!

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. We’re still trying to figure out how to muck around with the Caravan Heist to tune the risk/reward to a reasonable level, so if you’ve got any ideas there we’d love to hear them too!

Merton’s Community Corner

While we’re all saddened to hear that the venerable Chronicles of the Underhive will be airing their final episode this holiday season, a new challenger has stepped into the ring. I am an immediate fan of the brand new Sump City Radio, a Necromunda podcast. Give it a listen if you haven’t already, it’s good stuff! They’re off to a great start with their debut episode, and I’m looking forward to seeing them grow.