Over the Family Day long weekend I'd hoped to play through all three with the family - for some practice. I thought everyone was on board for this... We didn't end up playing any on Saturday - Finnegan had a couple friends over and played D&D (and that turned out okay, as I had a bit more painting and preparation to do). We DID play Blackstone Fortress on Sunday. On Monday we were all to sit down and play through the Necromunda scenario... but once I had everything set up, the kids were very slow at dragging their ass to the table. Keira showed up first, but just sat there sulking...? WTF!? I told her to go away. I like playing games with them, but only if they're actually interested. If they're only there because they feel the HAVE TO, NO ONE is going to have fun. Finnegan's response was pretty much the same, so I told him to get lost as well...
Teenagers...
Amanda was willing to play, but I knew she had other things she'd rather do, so I suggested maybe she go do that and I'd just solo a few rounds on my own....
Probably worked out for the best. It's been a while since I last played Necromunda, too long, really! I had to spend a lot of time looking up things. At this point in my life, I have just too many rules in my head for very similar, but slightly different games.
So I played through a couple rounds on my own and desperately tried to set up a few more playlists with other people over the next two weeks...
Here are a few pics of the solo run.
Initially the table was set up as a 3x6 battlefield... The scenario is a multiplayer, semi-cooperative game. Karloth Valois is back and heading for a more populated area of the under hive where he plans to "recruit" new members for his horde of followers. He must be stopped!
EVERYONE loses if Valois and any of his zombies can exit off the far end of the table from which they start. Generally, I am thinking of awarding Victory Points as follows
1VP per Zombie, Scavvy, or Enemy Ganger taken Out of Action
2VP per Enemy Champion or Leader taken Out of Action OR per wound of damage caused to Karloth Valois
5VP for taking karlothValois Out of Action.
So there IS some incentive for inter-fighting (I mean, they ARE still rival gangs!)... but they can't kill each other TOO much, of the zombie horde will just roll over them and they ALL lose.
I was thinking about having some Secret Agendas, as well, unique to each gang - things that each specific gang can get bonus victory points for - Perhaps a vendetta against a specific rival gang leader that will award them bonus points if they take them out, etc...
I decided to try and shorten it up to 3x5 - in hopes that we might actually get through the game in four hours. I may even shorten it to 3x4 - just for a more claustrophobic feel and to start everyone off almost in contact - also to give Valois and his horde a chance to get off the table.
I had initially planned for four players, but then decided to plan for (potentially) up to six. Although... this may not be the way to go... I should probably be planning for less! It looks like only one person has signed up so far (by contrast, Blackstone Fortress is full and two of the four spots for Hellboy are filled - and THOSE are the EASY ones to adjust for...)
My plan was to have each player control a smaller gang - to keep things moving and not have each turn take FOREVER. Everyone essentially gets a Leader, a Champion, three Gangers and a Juve. If there were FIVE players, I figured everyone could lose a Juve and play with five. If there were six players everyone could lose one of the Gangers and just have four.... Not sure what I'm going to do if there are LESS than four.
Going by who has pre-registered is never really a good indication of what is going to happen at ToonCon, though. Just about every year I've run it, the calendar on the page says there are less people signed up for the game. When I get there, though, the game is usually full AND there's a wait list... but then, of those listed as signed up, usually only HALF of those initially signed up actually show up for the game... NONE of the people on the wait list show up... but a few others show up hoping there might be an open spot... and I end up playing with a full group. So weird.
Amanda's signed up to play Terra Mystica during the time slot I'm running Necromunda, but she said she'd ditch that and come play Necromunda with me if I needed more players. She's awesome...
I digress...
One of the "gangs" is actually a squad of Enforcers... (using some old Adeptus Arbites as stand-ins).
Delaque Gangers
Escher.
Redemptionists and Karloth Valois and his zombie Horde (he also has some Scavvies working for him!)
Cawdor
Kal Jericho and Scabs... they are a force unto themselves - largely because Jericho is just so bad ass. I'll probably only use them if I have six players... Jericho has a special rule: A Charmed Life - it effectively gives him a 3+ invulnerable save against EVERYTHING!
Reemptionist snuck out from behind cover, only to get shot by a Scavvy - luckily only pinned.
Scabbs stepped out to take a long range shot at a Scavvy behind hard cover... he missed.
The rest of the REdempionists come out and shoot the Scavvy.
turn one and there's already some inter-gang violence taking place - Delaque echanging shots with the Escher gangers.
And the Escher Juve took a shot at a Cawdor ganger.
AT the very end of the round Valois and the Zombie Horde activates and surges forward!
Round two - Scabbs is down, Jericho is shooting up Scavvies.
I didn't get started until after supper in the end, and then had to stop just after I finished up the first round... for... reasons... I left it all set up and played another turn and a bit in the morning...
Escher ganger blowing zombies apart with her shotgun.
BURN!!!
(the Redemptionist Secret Agenda is they get double points for Scavvies and Zombies they take out, if they are killed with FIRE. Three of their gangers DO have flamers - but TWO of them are combi-flamers, which have the Unstable trait - so there's a chance they might blow up and kill the Redemptionist!!)
Scavvy though that charging Jericho might be safer than standing in the open and changing fire. He was so wrong. So, SOOOOO wrong...
What are these sneaky-beaky Cawdor Gangers up to...?
BUUUUUUUUURRRN!
Cherry-Picking Enforcers, setting up a "last line of defence"
End of the second round, the zombies surge forward again.
Delaque positioned behind Escher... There to back them up, or shoot them in the back...?
Here they come... well... slowly... I mean, they'll EVENTUALLY get here...
I stopped part way through the third turn. I felt I'd played enough to get a sense of how things might go down and reminded myself of how the game played. I do have another play test set up for this evening. Looks like I might have two players...? (and two more soft maybes that I'm not really counting on).
Last night and this morning I did some work on some more graffiti - and touched up some older stuff. The plan is to have NO BLANK WALLS for the ToonCon game!!!
(there are also some Noise Marines, there, that I've been working on!)
Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Hopefully a game report of a Necromunda play test with, y'know, some actual people playing!
The whole setup looks awesome! Good luck with players! I expect whoever does show up to play will have a great time.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteRan through it again this evening - with a Human opponent - at least for part of it. I think it went rather well...
Looks like a great game, its a little bit difficult trying to run a cooperative Necromundia game though isn't it? Do you need an some sort of back up to fight zombies if it gets late in the day, like additional VP for taking out zombies from a certain point otherwise the players might miss the point?
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
I like cooperative or semi-cooperative games for conventions. Conventions are always a bit of a crapshoot - you never know who is going to show up. Could be totally decent people who are fun to play with (often is!). But every once in a while you get a dude (and it's ALWAYS a dude) who is probably there because no one will play games with him otherwise and he is there to WIN - AT ALL COSTS! He's usually very good at absorbing rules and identifying loopholes and exploiting them to their fullest and arguing with the game master if they try to change any rules mid game to adjust for exposed loopholes. They generally ruin the game for everyone.
DeleteSo I have learned to run coop games at cons. Everyone plays against me. If they find a loophole and try to exploit it, I don't care - I WANT them to win. I like it to be a challenge, but ultimately I like if it people walk away feeling like "Hey, I won a game!" (Also, I usually have wandering monsters or extra units I can thrown at a unit if they're doing too good compared other others - whether by luck or by discovering aforementioned loopholes).
The Regina Trench worked really well a few years back - all played a different company attacking a series of German trench lines at Passchendaele. There were victory conditions that each accrued on their own (I think it was # of troops you had left in the game multiplied by the number of trenches you cleared...?) so it became a pretty good-natured race to the third trench line!
This DOES have the possibility of conflict between the players. But I WILL make if VERY CLEAR that they DO NOT WIN if Valois escapes off the far end of the board. The problem people are generally the people that WANT to WIN!!! So there will probably be less of them back-stabbing and being dicks and exploiting loopholes that target the other players. I actually fully expect THOSE types to be sitting back and cherry-picking and busily ENCOURAGING the other players to get in there and beat Valois and his zombie horde while not actually participating in the game much at all!
When I ran this game for the kids last summer - they DID beat Valois, and the one that "won" the game ended up being the one that set up closest to Valois and - though his gang was utterly wiped out in the end - he had accrued more points than anyone else from simply killing loads of zombies.