House Rules

 Why house rules?

The Necromunda ruleset is an amazing system. Nonetheless, to ensure that everyone has a good time, some rules need clarifications and some limits need to be imposed. That’s what we’ve tried to achieve here – a system that limits “gameyness” and emphasises narrative development and encourages building gangs for fun rather than pure competitiveness.

Rather than try to rewrite the fundamentals of the game we’ve kept these house rules as barebones as possible to make it easy to pickup – If you’re familiar with the rules from 2018-onwards, you won’t find much radically different. We’ve avoided trying to pre-empt every potential issue. Instead, be prepared for arbitrator rulings in the course of the campaign.

Don’t be a dick

The first and most important rule. Seriously, don’t. This is designed as a fun, fluffy, and open-ended setting allowing players to embrace the weirdness of Necromunda. Ask yourself if your approach or actions feels like an attempt to find a loophole or game the system. If it does, it probably is. Ask yourself whether you would enjoy playing against you. If not, it’s likely that other players wouldn’t either. Don’t. Be. A. Dick.

CHANGES TO WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT

We have made some changes to weapons and equipment that affect all gangs

Weapons

•Boltguns – Reclassified as Special Weapons (no longer Basic) for all gangs.

•Paired weapons – A Fighter with two of the same weapon with the Melee trait count as Paired weapons. The Fighter doubles their attacks after making a Charge (DOUBLE) action, in addition to gaining +1 attacks for charging and +1 attacks for having two weapons with the Melee trait.

Armour

•Ablative Overlay – Gains the Limited trait. After each piece of armour has been fully degraded (i.e. has taken two or more hits) it is deleted from the Fighter’s card.

ESCHER CHEMS

•Maiming – This chem is banned (for now).

Tactics Cards

Each player must select a deck of a minimum of 20 Tactics Cards. These may be selected from the generic Tactics Cards and/or gang specific Tactics Cards.

Banned cards

• History of Violence

• Dangerous Footing

• Worse Than It Looks

• Lights Out

 Overarching campaign rules

Alignment: Law-abiding and Outlaw

Gangs must declare their alignment as per page 38 of the Book of Justice. However, we may arbitrate to ensure a balance of law-abiding and outlaw gangs.

Income

Gangs can only draw income from rackets once per week, regardless of how many battles they fight.

Missed-weeks

A gang that does not fight a battle in the week, cannot claim any income or boons from its rackets. However, all its Fighters recover and it may visit the Trading Posts once.

Intrigues

Gangs may choose to play Intrigues (p.63 – 71 of the BoJ) if they wish.

Structure

DRAW STARTING RACKETS

One income, one non-income generating will be randomly drawn for each gang at the start.

Expansion phase (4 weeks)

The arbitrators will announce matchups each week. The gang with the lowest rating may nominate an unclaimed racket to fight over.

Mid-point and Downtime (1 week)

Fighters recover and experienced Juves are promoted. Additional credits may be handed out to needy gangs. A custom narrative scenario will also be released.

Justice phase (4 weeks)

The Arbitrators will select players allowed to issue challenges each week, while also ensuring that everyone who wants a game gets a game.

END

A custom narrative scenario will wrap up Chapter 2.

REGULATION

The Cog-Port authorities, acting for Lord Helmawr, are keeping a close eye on activities in the teeth – including those of the Enforcer squads. If one gang’s rating significantly outstrips all others the arbitrators will discuss ways the player can limit their growth to allow others to catch-up. Or they can face the Cog-Port Regulators (CPR), an elite squad of rib-cracking, heart pulping, competition reviving Enforcers ready to posse up with overly successful gangs’ rivals to set the Teeth straight again. More details on the CPR can be found later in this pack.

 Pre-Battle

UNDERDOG BOOST TABLE

If one gang’s Starting Crew has a lower rating than its opponents AND a lower Wealth, it gains 100 credits per 100 credits difference in crew rating to spend on the below table.

N.B.

1. This replaces any underdog benefits offered by the scenario.

2. Fighters hired from this table do not count as members of the crew for Bottle Tests and cannot be activated as part of a Group Activation.

Environments and perils

If you wish to add some more challenges, please use the below Environments and Perils from the Book of Peril.

SECTOR MECHANICUS

Environment – Sump Sea (always in effect) – The ground level is the Sump Sea. A Fighter in the sea must make a Strength check as soon as they activate. If they fail, they go Out of Action. If they pass, they can swim up to their Movement characteristic. If they reach a ladder or terrain piece, they may climb to safety. Place the Fighter on the edge closest to where they left the Sump Sea. Falling into the Sump Sea does not cause damage to a Fighter.

Peril – Howling winds (at the start of each turn roll a d6 on a 4+ Howling Winds are in effect for this turn) – Shots taken at long range suffer -1 to hit, in addition to other modifiers, and blast markers will always scatter. Gas or Smoke weapons have no effect on a 4+. Fighters who go prone within ½” of an edge must re-roll successful initiative checks to see if they fall.

ZONE MORTALIS

Environment – Unstable Dome (always in effect) - When a Blast marker is placed roll a D6. On a 5 or 6, place another Blast marker of the same size in contact with the first at a point determined by the Scatter dice. Fighters who become Prone within 1” of an edge must make an Initiative check or fall. Structures have -2 Toughness to a minimum of 1

Peril – Gunk Tank (Activates at the start of a turn on a 4+) - Before rolling for Priority, each player rolls a D6 for each of their Fighters. On a 1, the Fighter gains the Gunked condition for the rest of the turn: Reduce their Movement characteristic by 1 (to a minimum of 1); Don’t add D3" to their movement when making a Charge action; Reduce their Initiative characteristic by 1 (i.e., Initiative 3+ becomes Initiative 4+, etc); Gunked Fighters catch fire on a 2+; Fighters touched by Blast markers must also test to see if they get Gunked.

BUYING NEW WARGEAR

Gangs may purchase new Wargear through their House lists, the Trading Post, or the Black Market.

Players can only purchase a single item at each Rarity / Illegality level. Players may purchase as many Common item types as they like, but can only purchase one item of each type.

In addition, the arbitrators will announce restrictions on what is available from the Trading Post and Black Market each week.

MORE RACKETS THAN RACKETEERS

A gang may not draw income or boons from more than 3 rackets in each post-Battle sequence. If a gang has more than 3 rackets, it may choose which rackets to draw income/boons from and additional income/boons from linked rackets still apply.

ADDITIONAL POST-Battle ACTIONS

As with other post-battle actions, these must be completed by a Leader or a Champion.

CONVERT DEAD FIGHTER TO BRAINLEAF ZOMBIE

If a Fighter dies, the Leader or Champion may use a post-battle action to dump their buddy’s body in a Brainleaf Spore Patch. On a D6 roll of 3+, the Fighter becomes a Brainleaf Zombie and may be added to the gang roster. Kill the original Fighter and add a Brainleaf Zombie on YakTribe for 20 credits (to pay for a supply of brains ethically-sourced zombie food and a leash). The Zombie retains the armour it had as a Fighter. The gang may also choose to leave the Zombie with one of its weapons. This automatically becomes a Club.

Convert fighter to Servo-skull

If a Fighter dies, the Leader or Champion may use a post-battle action to visit the local bio-mechanicalist adept and attempt to convert them into a Servo-Skull. Delete the dead Fighter from the roster, pay 30 Credits, and roll a d6. On a roll of 1 or 2, the Fighter’s brain is too damaged and the operation fails. On a 3+ the operation is a success, roll a d3 to see what kind of skull the dead Fighter becomes:

•1 – 2 Sensor-Skull

•3 - 4 Medi-Skull

•5 – 6 Gun-Skull.

The skull must be assigned to a Leader or Champion.

GUILD ALLIANCES

Gangs may form Guild Alliances as per the rules in the Book of Peril.

To help provide balance between gangs with and without a Guild Alliance, we are using the crew rating hike suggested by Goonhammer.

Players using the House of… books may NOT form Strong Alliances. We will lift this rule once all the House of… books have been released.

House of Favours, Sub-Plots, and INTRIGUES

Players using the House of… books may not use the House Favours or Sub-Plots.

The Arbitrator may decide to grant players access to the generic House Favours table on P.148 of the Rulebook.

House Sub-Plots will not be used, instead we suggest you try out the Intrigues on Pages 63 – 71 of the Book of Justice.

RESURRECTION PACKAGES

Once in the course of the campaign, a player may ask the Arbitrator to use a Resurrection Package on a Fighter from their gang that has been killed. There are six packages available, each with different benefits, prices, and end games – and different narrative flavours. Players may either ask the arbitrator to decide or roll on the Resurrection Package table