New Details On Necromunda Underhive Pop Up At Essen
October 26, 2017 by brennon
Some new details popped up from the folks at Games Workshop as Necromunda: Underhive had a proper showing at the show. Firstly, we got to take a look at the actual contents of the main boxed game.
The set comes with all of the miniatures you need to customise your gangs for both House Escher and House Goliath. You will also get some neat terrain pieces, the map tiles as you see there, and all of the McGuffins that you need in order to play the game right out of the box.
The miniatures are certainly something of a marmite issue at the moment but the nostalgic pull of Necromunda cannot be ignored. It looks like this game is going to be a big hit when it eventually launches.
Gang Wars
As well as the news about the main boxed game there was also an announcement about the first supplement which is known as Gang Wars, allowing you to take your campaigns to the next level.
Gang Wars will be available from day one of release meaning that you can either play the fast-paced version of the game that comes in the main box or takes things on to the next step with upgradable gangers and rules for playing out games much more akin to the original edition of the game.
The game is certainly going to be an interesting new entry point into the world of Warhammer 40,000 and a welcome return for all manner of old-school fans.
Are you excited?
"Gang Wars will be available from day one of release meaning that you can either play the fast-paced version of the game that comes in the main box or takes things on to the next step with upgradable gangers..."
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millions of wallets suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced…
So the box set is necromunda lite…..and then to play the necromunda we want we have to buy the supplement? The original box came with both the rules and the campaign book….hope I am mistaken because it sounds like a cash grab if thats the case. 🙁
I guess that all depends on how much the box actually costs
I’d see it as being identical to the Blood Bowl re-release the rules in the box enable you to play the game as it is in the box set. The Season 1 (& Season2) books add aditional ways of playing(campaigns etc) and additional teams.
Season 1 and bloodbowl released side by side, in a way it makes sense not to have the additional gangs in the starter box as new players would find them a distraction. Is it a cash grab??? Well some people bitched about the complete hardback being in the 40k starter so I don’t think they can win here, someone will always be unhappy (it is the nature of gamers)
The difference is Necromunda was always a 3d game. That was its primary selling point. With Blood Bowl, you could still get the full single game experience with just the box. Necromunda, you can’t. And £75 for a game that’s missing its best feature is a big ask. I can understand keeping the terrain out of the box: lower price and a lot of people will already have terrain they can use, but forcing an expansion straight out of the gate? No thanks.
I do wonder what the expansion will contain though. 3D rules, obviously. Plus campaign rules. What else? 64 pages is a lot to fill.
Day one DLC for Board Games! What a time to be alive! 😀
Games Workshop debasing themselves with predatory pricing and release tactics? What has the world come to?
Or by leaving the book out of the box they can sell the box at a lower price point which makes it more accessible for new players. Depends how you look at it really.
the board looks good.
It’s also an added bonus that they replicas of the forge world zone mortalis tiles. So you could use them in 40k games too.
I might have to get both boxed set and Gang War book.
A bit like Shadespire, I have no interest in the box contents, but possible later gangs/teams/forces – hoping that the Gang War book is the equivalent of the Core Rulebook of Yore and roll yer own models.
I like the Goliaths as well as the Eschers, even though I’m not totally sold on the models and designs presented here (*huge* fan of the Necromunda setting and style, so it’s not the general design). Still, Van Saar, Delaque and Cawdor are more my houses. So I’m quite disappointed they won’t include all ‘regular’ houses in the core rules volume.
Also, I’m a bit sceptical about this new gear. Seem to have a tendancy towards the stuff on top of other things and over the top attitude of the recent GW directions.
Guss we’ll see about all that…
Minis look nice, particularly the goliaths. Great re-imaging. My views on release day expansion remains the same – just like dlc on video games it’s crappy.
Want to try the new system first, see if it plays well. As a box I prefer the old escher minis so not feeling an rush to grab this, plus other stuff has my attention. If it plays well and gets a better release support than bloodbowl may be on board.
Its only crappy if the box would be the same price with the book, which it wouldn’t. The box is a complete game in itself so if you don’t want the campaign setting and additional rules, you don’t have to pay for them.
Also, day-1 DLC is only crappy because its not a tangible product. Saying they should have the book in the box is like saying they should have all the gang minis in the box or all the codexes in the 40k starter set.
There is no reason it couldn’t, if warlord can manage full hardback in 1st wave GW could put a slim rules supplement in. But if you need to pretend to justify it to yourself then go ahead. If it was a box or book option I’d have different feelings.
Reality is GW know people will buy it and are making a business decision on that basis. It is not one I approve of and therefore deem it to be crappy. It is a factor why I won’t be pre-ordering and may well not buy. If it works for them though them alls good, they make money other companies get mine.
There’s a reason Warlord stopped putting the big hardbacks in their sets. It was either that or increase the price of the sets. Following your theory, Warlord could also put a battle mat in their sets for the same price. After all if you’re making a boxed set, the contents cost the same whatever you put in there right?
No it was as hardback was a bonus for buying the first print run, but value on those boxes is already massive.
You are then talking about an entirely new product, not adding pages to an existing rulebook …. at least try conjure a sensible point.
Why don’t Warlord put full army lists for all the armies in their main rulebook? That is only adding a few pages to an existing book.
Because companies need to make money from their products, that is why.
@lunchbox you mean like they did in Antares? with updates as a free PDF? Or basic lists for all main factions in Bolt Action?
Cause putting things in the rules that are the next step, and making it easy to pick up a mini (no additional books) and go sells minis … which is selling products, and the reason GW started making rules … to sell more minis.
Now just imagine a where once you have had a few games there are rules in your box that show 3d terrain in action with rules, and picture of all those lovely kits … now that might you know sell a lot of terrain kits. Rather than the play the game, get a bit bored sit it on the shelf.
Also let address the key point, my issue isn’t them making money – if you think they aren’t making a tonne on a £75 box with 20 minis and components then you frankly have no idea. Or charge £90, cause anyone buying a skirmish game for £75 quid, probably will find £90 cause you are already dearer than your competitors.. The issue is selling part of an experience, seemingly with no other reason than making more money, if it is important enough that you need it out on release day, then it should be in the box.
There really isn’t point discussing further as some people you just cannot have a discussion with as they aren’t interesting in seeing the other point of view.
I’m not sure Antares is popular enough to warrant print run of loads of expansions
“There really isn’t point discussing further as some people you just cannot have a discussion with as they aren’t interesting in seeing the other point of view.”
True.
@dags I’m no expert but I think GW seem to have nailed the formula for selling miniatures, don’t you? They don’t need to make it easier because it’s already very easy to buy GW stuff if you’re in Europe or USA.
Whatever it is they’re doing it’s working and working well. And I can see Necromunda also being a big seller, even in its current format of box plus expansion.
Gee let me think. You’re calling a game a turd because GW have the temerity to charge for something you think should be available to you for free. If that’s not entitlement I really don’t know what is
What it they’re trying to put Necromunda into the same price bracket as BloodBowl rather than Dark Imperium? What if buying Necromunda and the additional expansion ends up costing the same as Dark Imperium? What if releasing them as two separate items gives people the flexibility to choose whether they want to pay for extra rules to play on scenery they might not own?
Mind. Blown.
What if you just sit down and accept; cash grab
They’re a business. They sell products. Everything they do and everything any other games manufacturer does ia technically a cash grab.
I think if they had put it all into one box and charged almost £100 for it, that would have been more of a cash grab
@hatamoto I would be interested to know what criteria you use to differentiate a “cash grab” from a company simply releasing a new product.
Yes they are a bussiness, now that we are agreeing on that you can still criticize how a bussiness behaves. In fact its a pretty nifty alternative to just blindly spending and defending everything it does.
I got nothing to criticise about how GW are behaving at the moment. This release is probably the best thing that happened in wargaming in the last 2 decades.
Unfortunately for GW, they’re damned whichever way they do things.
Put all of the SW:A terrain and all of the books in the box, charge £150 for it and its a “cash grab” because some people don’t want to have to buy the terrain to get the rules. Split them into individual products and its a “cash grab” because they’re charging for products that should have all been in the box.
Change the rules, adding a few extra details and its not the same as it used to be. Keep it the same as the old rules and people whine its not “modern” enough.
Unfortunately the world seems to have descended into a whining culture of people who want companies to provide them with an impossible product but don’t want to pay for it.
Id rather be in a culture of people who knows when to whine than in one that doesnt know they bought a turd before its in their lap
It’s not out yet, how on earth can you tell whether it’s a turd? Even if you don’t like the fact that they’re releasing the expanded rules separately, that doesn’t mean the game is going to be bad. It just means it’s packaged in a way that you don’t like. I’m personally ok with the price of both items (£75 and £17.50) and I am happy to pay for both items.
He knows its a turd because GW made it and GW also ruined his life. Apparently.
@lunchbox I don’t think they’re damned at all. Yeah there’s a lot of blowhards who are moaning about it because it’s not what they were expected or because they think everything should be exactly how they want it or because they just hate GW, but GW’s profits would suggest they’re anything but damned. And if some of the stuff I have heard from their AGM is true they’re on the right course to maintain those profits.
I didnt say the game system itself was a turd, nowhere did i say that. Im sure its great, its just that if its packaged in a turd Im not going to spend whatever amount asked just because its GW. This particular high horse essay writing GW defence speech culture of BoW is apparently still alive and kicking, ready to swoop down on any bullying of poor GW. Gotta love the drama part also where ones life is ruined because of having a less positive opinion on a GW bussiness decision.
Beasts of War are a news site, it’s their job to announce new products and not judge them before they’re out. They’re not defending GW, they’re telling us about an upcoming product in a positive way. They’re no more or less positive than they are about any other company.
And it seems to me that you think it’s a turd because you would rather they packaged lower quality components (i.e. soft cover booklets and leaflets) in the box rather than sell a higher quality product as a separate item. That doesn’t make it a turd, it just makes it something you don’t like. Personal I would much rather pay for quality – which is exactly what GW deliver.
I was of course not talking about BoW the bussiness or the people behind it, was i being that unclear? And of course i once again made the mistake of posting more than once in a news thread. Need to work on that.
Yes @hatamoto you were being that unclear. But your mistake wasn’t posting more than once on a news thread, it was the sense of entitlement that was probably your mistake. The game isn’t giving some stuff away for free so it’s a turd.
It has nothing to do with me feeling entitled, what filter are you running peoples words through? It needs an update immediatly
Gee let me think. You’re calling a game a turd because GW have the temerity to charge for something you think should be available to you for free. If that’s not entitlement I really don’t know what is
Please stop projecting your own feelings of entitlement on me.
No one is projecting anything. I don’t feel entitled to anything, I’m more than happy to pay for the game AND the expansion book
Got some more great news for you though @hatamoto. The Gang Warfare book only contains rules for House Escher and Goliath. Other gangs will be covered by future supplements
No youre right, but there are other ways in which its possible to come across as entitled. I suspect writing an essay about it is the only way to get through how.
I have some great news for you too. The gang warfare book will only contain rules for gangers and two types of weapons. Juves and heavies will be covered by future supplements.
As far as I know Gang warfare has full lists for goliath and Escher gangs, rules for juves and specialists, rules for fighting on 3d terrain and the full fleshed out progression system. And a campaign. Future supplements will contain other gangs and troop types and hopefully campaigns, much like the AoS books do. I think it’s all pretty exciting
I don’t understand how you can equate video game DLC being available at launch, with a gaming supplement for a board game.
Perhaps if the board game had the supplementary rules in the box, but you couldn’t read them unless you paid for a code book, it might be the same, or if weapons were in grey bags and contained random options, and you had to buy them like loot boxes, then yeah….but equating the two practices seems a very odd criticism.
Because it’s GW?
Yep, if this was Hawk or Corvus Belli, people wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
Same as how the mechanics aren’t “modern” enough and the minis are too large and the boards aren’t tall enough and the boxed set isn’t full enough and costs too much and f**k GW for ruining my life!
Me and thee seem to be agreeing quite a lot for a change. Does this mean Ragnarok is coming?
I think the complaint is that they’ve taken content that was originally included in the base set for Necromunda and put it into a supplement book, knowing full well they can charge a premium for the book and that a majority of the customers they are targeting are going to want to buy it. I think adding the fact that they are only including rules for two of the gangs in the supplement, meaning that future supplement purchases are going to be necessary if you want to use other gangs, highlights the scumminess of this move. This is especially true given the likeliness that each of the gang lists will comprise of only a couple of pages of rules.
The DLC comparison comes from the fact that a lot of the less scrupulous video game companies have been known to hold back content that should have been included in the base game in order to charge an extra $10 – $20 for it. The ‘From Ashes’ DLC from Mass Effect 3 springs to mind.
Of course if you were desperate to convince yourself that you hadn’t wasted thousands of dollars on plastic mans then you could simply shout “They’re just haters” or “Because it’s GW” and plug your ears against any opinions that might open your eyes to the idea that GW may just be pricing their products in a predatory manner.
Oh dear @zethnar where to start.
If a company knows they can charge for a premium product then they absolutely can, will and indeed should charge for that premium product – they’re a business not a charity. If charity is what you’re after, try Oxfam, they sometimes have old copies of Heroquest. You also seem to be forgetting that many, many people are prepared to pay for that premium product. Again, if you’re not there’s always companies like Mantic offering a somewhat less polished product at a reduced price. If the price isn’t right it won’t sell, want to hazard a guess as to how well Necromunda will sell?
I don’t really see how only including rules for two gangs really differs from only including one faction in a 40k Codex. One could argue that two gangs in a single book makes it twice as good as a Codex? Exactly how much of each book will be taken up with rules for each gang is pure speculation though, and your pessimistic assessment of it is likely fuelled by a rather obvious anti-GW bias.
I don’t really see how any DLC (including from the ashes) should be included in any game for free. I don’t really see DLC as being any different from buying expansions to games in the days before DLC was an option. The only real difference is DLC allows you to create smaller but more frequent add ons for games that in turn cost less. Again, I think this is a slightly entitled opinion to hold – this idea that you are entitled to receive something for free as part of(or included in the price of) another product. You absolutely aren’t. You’re entitled to buy (or not) any product based on the content of it as advertised. You are also free (or not) to buy any additional content that is made available in the future. Again if a product is not priced appropriately people simply won’t pay it and it won’t sell.
As for whether GW are pricing things in a predatory manner I could not disagree more. By not including scenery or the advanced rules they have created a product that will price lower and thus be more accessible to any new players who might want to get into the game. By then providing the advanced rules as a separate item (rather than included in the box) they provide established gamers, who perhaps have scenery from the original or just have a large collection of scenery from other games, with the opportunity to purchase a separate item on release day (so no waiting) in order to play a game that is more like the original. It’s a much more flexible system and far less predatory than charging people a higher amount for a set of rules they don’t need or charging a higher amount again for a game with advanced rules and then scenery that many gamers probably don’t need. I have loads of scenery at home so I am personally quite pleased that they are enabling me to buy the game without buying a load of scenery that I really don’t want or need. I am also quite pleased that the advanced rules allowing me to play a 3D game will be available on release date.
So I guess really you can dress this whole thing up whichever way you like. You spin it positively or negatively and that’s really what most of this is – spin. You either hate GW and are pulling it down or you like GW and you’re propping it up. However none of the criticisms of it thus far have been particularly strong. I think you might have a point if Gang Warfare wasn’t an optional extra and you had to buy the box and the book in order to actually play the game. But that’s not true is it? You can buy just the box and still play a game of Necromunda, it’s just not the game you remember from the 90’s.
Biggest issue for me is that I live in Australia, which means we pay up to double what people in the UK pay. So a core box and an expansion is going to prove very expensive unless both products are relativly cheap.
I do like the goliaths, the escher I am on the fence. Might just strip my old escher models as I do think they look nicer.
Mmmm, feels like DLC-ification to me. Don’t get me wrong, love the look of the models (though they do seem to be out of scale with regular 40K stuff). But the gameplay, given the use of the Necromunda brand, seems rather lackluster. If anything this feels like a botch Zone Mortalis stand-alone design getting squeezed together with the Necromunda setting.
Just like Bloodbowl you only get the bare minimum in the starter set, no rules for other teams, no league play, no models for the majority of the teams in the expansions………the original version’s rules had all that and 20+ team profiles.
Also find it rather odd that they cut up the rules, but don’t do a Shadow War tie-in for the actual, 3D rules. That way this product would actually be a gateway into the 40K universe / gaming experience, rather than another throwaway attempt at a boardgame that seems to be getting a rather lukewarm reception in the boardgaming community thus far. Also somewhat telling that GW isn’t falling over themselves shipping out review copies to boardgamers yet, unlike Shadespire……
Its not a board game.
Don’t kid yourself. That base box is 100% a boardgame.
I’ll admit that it looks like one because it has the grid marked out on the tiles. However there is also a range measurer marked in inches and models aligned across grid lines so I suspect it’s not a board game.
One of the key defining features of Necromunda was its characteristic 3D battlefield with its multilayered walk ways. Strange that they decided to go for a flat board.
Nope, not really, as the modular terrain they started releasing with shadow war screams necormunda, and given the vast choice in MDF walkways you can get these days is a million times better than the card and plastic annoyances of the past, if i had a pound for every time the sodding walkway collapsed with a fair chunk of lead on it i could have afforded to have spares for my destroyed in action mini’s 😉
As for the starter box being a flat board thats fine gets more people into playing it guess at a sub £100 price point, especially as i expect the campaign book will have 95% of the core rules in it, and wouldnt be surprised if a gang box/expansions contain the core rules as well
Nope it isn’t strange or nope it wasn’t a defining feature?
Like all things gaming this set can be added to and I take your point that less scenery in the box means more minis and/or a lower price tag (or so you’d expect).
I just feel that as a ‘game in a box’ it isn’t very interesting. Looking at the picture of the contents It’s just some punky looking minis on a flat board with no indication of how you will be playing. Not very inspired or inspiring when held up against the original.
I’m not really sure how, from a picture, you would ever find out “how you were playing”. From the picture I can see that it’s a miniatures skirmish game with a model count of around 10 miniatures per side played on boards that seem to include corridors, rooms and doors. From that I assume that there will be line of sight rules preventing you from shooting through certain types of lines printed on the tiles. I can also see that it uses a mixture of custom dice and d6.
What else do you think would have been useful in the picture to help explain how the game is played? Normally that’s the purview of Videos
Think of Space Hulk, a maze of corridors to experience ship board fighting against a swarming enemy.
Blood Bowl, set in an arena, it plays like a team sports game.
Thinking back to Advanced Hero Quest, quite obviously a dungeon crawler.
The original Necromunda, two grants facing off in a built up industrial landscape of gantries and walkways.
All I see here is what looks like a board game board with two teams of minis on it. What’s the hook? What’s special about it?…
Grants = Gangs! Damn autocorrect
I guess what I’m saying is this feels like half a game. Buy the rule book and some scenery and you’ll have a full game. In which case this doesn’t really work as a ‘game in a box’.
I think what you’re trying to say is that from the photo you can’t really tell the premise of the game. And I would argue that from a photo of Space Hulk, without any prior knowledge, you can’t necessarily tell what the premise of the game is, only that there are two teams of different miniatures on a board. It’s easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, what the premise of Space Hulk is because we already know it so well. I could even say that because I know Necromunda well the premise is obvious. Would a new player who had never seen either be able to better tell what the premise of Space Hulk is just by a picture of the box contents? I’m not so sure. But the picture doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s all over Facebook, they have their blogs and community sites, YouTube. people will be able to see what the premise of the game is.
Not just that you can’t tell the premise of the game but that there is nothing that makes you think, “I gotta try that”.
To me this seems like a missed opportunity to release a must have box set.
There was nothing on the Space Hulk box that made me think I wanted to try it. I tried it because I was already into 40k and already knew what the factions were and what a Space Hulk was. There’s nothing obvious about the game just from pictures of the box contents.
The picture shows a skirmish game, played on a board with 40k style miniatures. That’s exactly what it is.
You seem really hung up on my comment about the contents picture.
I only referenced it to make the point that there doesn’t seem to be anything beyond the models to make this boxed game appealing. The rules are incomplete, as is the scenery.
This feels like a two player starter set being marketed as a game.
The rules aren’t incomplete. The rules allow you to play a game with everything that is in the box
@graystoak its not worth the effort
Everything that’s in the box = half a game
That’s totally untrue. You get a complete and self contained game in the box. No further purchases are necessary in order to enjoy the game as is. You don’t need Gang Warfare. You don’t need additional scenery.
But it’s interesting that you say that because I think it really shows what your real problem is. It’s not that the game doesn’t grab you, it’s that your upset they’re not giving the Gang Warfare book away in the box
Your problem seemed to be that the picture we have been provided didn’t “grab you”. But as the discussion around that statement has progressed you gone on to say that it’s an “incomplete game”, something that you cannot possibly tell from a picture. Which leads me to believe that actually your real issue with the game is that they’re not providing the enhanced rules for free. Because the game IS a complete game, the enhanced rules are entirely optional.
Damn nice to be able to spin how you like, or is that just more legitimate when you are doing it?
It’s no more or less spin when anyone does it. I just think by and large it’s preferable to be positive rather than negative
Positive is preferable yeah, I just dont shoe horn positive into something i deem negative. But if by the power of grayskull (?) positive spins are less subjective than negative ones (as seems to be suggested) then i could definatly see the point of always having that type of view.
And you seem to deem EVERYTHING GW do as negative – and boy don’t we know it
The key difference is that I do not see the price as implicitly negative or positive and I know that I am choosing to focus on the positive aspects of it rather than the negative. You actually believe that it is negative.
No i think they have done plenty things well lately but im not going to be blinded by it
Your comment history would seem to suggest otherwise.
Everything is black and white? Im just a hater of the top dog :p
If you want to talk in terms of monochromatics, you’re definitely dark grey
That is a very odd conclusion to jump to, especially as I have already made my ‘problem’ with this game perfectly clear.
Dont worry thats a relatively sound conclusion all things considered. I myself has been told I have a sense of entitlement, plus i apparently feel my life is basically destroyed because of GW :p
Your problem seemed to be that the picture we have been provided didn’t “grab you”. But as the discussion around that statement has progressed you gone on to say that it’s an “incomplete game”, something that you cannot possibly tell from a picture. Which leads me to believe that actually your real issue with the game is that they’re not providing the enhanced rules for free. Because the game IS a complete game, the enhanced rules are entirely optional.
But not being the same as the original doesn’t make it an incomplete game. It makes it a different product but not an incomplete game.
What GW have done is create a game that is very accessible, can be played straight out of the box and weighs in at a reasonable price (£75). Then, for people who have been gaming for a long time they are providing an optional set of advanced rules (for an additional £75) allowing you to play on 3D scenery more akin to the original game. They’re not supplying scenery in their sets because those sets would likely be prohibitively expensive and make it less accessible. However you can build your scenery collection over time and move into the advanced game.
Their release is very flexible in terms of ways to play and, if you look at the cost of basic game plus advanced rules (which is what I guess would make it a “complete game”) that comes in at £92.50, a comparable price to Dark Imperium, you just have to order two items instead of one.
You make a fair point. I can only speak of my own feelings. To me it feels incomplete when held up to the original and I guess I’m disappointed as my anticipation was that I’d really want to get my hands on this product.
On the plus side, like you say, it is more flexible. If I want to play Necromunda I only need to buy the rule book and can use whatever models and scenery I want. Most likely I’ll end up playing this on Deadzone terrain using models I already own. Good for my wallet but probably not so good for GW sales and that is why I think this fails.
@graystoak I don’t know what your opinion on the miniatures is – personally I like them and I am really excited to get a hold of them. This would obviously affect whether you want to buy the box or not. In terms of price to buy the advanced game in its entirety you will have to spend about the same as you would on a copy of 40k Dark Imperium. And yes, you can play it on any scenery you have and if you choose not to buy GW scenery then you could argue that GW have lost out. However I think that their business team will already know that and will have balanced that out against unit sales of Necromunda. Will a copy of Necromunda without scenery generate more revenue than a more expensive (and thus less accessible) box containing scenery. Don’t forget Shadow Wars was £90, didn’t contain enough scenery for a game of Necromunda and used recycled miniatures (i.e. old kits rather than new). Necromunda would have to include more scenery than Shadow Wars and would also have new sculpts to factor in. By the time you are finished pricing all that up you could be looking at £150+, easily. Boxes in that price range wouldn’t sell. However a box at £75, a book at £17.50 and then scenery purchased in small amounts over time will probably sell quite well. Even though the total amount you spend in the long run is higher not having to blow £150 or more in a one-er is a sensible move for GW I think. They might get some additional scenery purchases over time but they will sell a higher number of units at the initial release (which is also important for determining future support for the game).
For what it’s worth I will be playing on a mixture of Deadzone and MDF scenery. Although I am also fortunate in that I can often split the costs of games and scenery with my brother and we have recently jointly bought some sector Mechanicus terrain so eventually we will be able to mix some of that in too.
Also if you have any old gangs, I believe there will be free gang rosters for the original metal gangs via the Necromunda website
It maybe true that as a group GW will get less sales from you using this particular method. It’s definitely true of me that I will buy the game and the book but, as I already have a large collection of scenery I will be unlikely to buy more. So you could argue that they will get less sales from me. However the game is set up to be a stand alone product and sell well in its own right rather than driving sales of other products (such as sector Mechanicus scenery). GW will be banking on the boxed game selling in large quantities and then a small percentage of those customers then buying more products afterwards. The reason for that is that the majority of people who will go on and buy further Necromunda products would most likely have bought the game regardless of what comes in the box. So that number of sales is kind of guaranteed regardless. But if you price the box higher the number of people who buy it but then buy nothing else decreases. GW will really want to increase the number of sales at release and they do that by making it affordable. There will no doubt be a lot of people who will buy for the nostalgia and not buy anything else for it; they would be less inclined to do that if the box cost £95 or £150. The increased volunteers of launch sales is worth more to GW than the potential increase in sales of supporting products like scenery.
But that is exactly my point, Is this box set enticing enough to be picked up as a stand alone game?
In my opinion and I don’t think I’m alone here, it really isn’t. At least not compared with something like Space Hulk or the many non GW board/miniature games now available within that price range.
I still feel that this is a starter set posing as a stand-alone game. There is nothing wrong with that if the intention is to draw people into the Necromunda narrative. Apart from the fact that they may as well have done away with the board sections and fancy dice.
Honestly? Yes it is. Look across the comments on here and most of the commenters are excited about it. The same is true on other, less reputable wargaming websites. Although there’s a lot of discussion it’s between a small number of commentera. Whether it will sell as well as BloodBowl I don’t know but it will still sell. In terms of what it is it is a starter set AND a stand alone game – the two aren’t mutually exclusive
Go and read all the other GW articles and you will see exactly the same “air of disappointment”. It’s not disappointment it’s just par for the course with GW releases – everyone loves to hate on the top dog. This announcement hasn’t been met with any more or less cynicism or doubt than any other announcement and the majority of the complaints are nothing more than a wilful interpretation of a situation. As you have seen, you can view the release of a book and basic game on the same day as a cash grab or as a way to make the game flexible and accessible. I tend to find the people who predict the former do so quite regularly on GW announcements.
So yes, I am absolutely certain that this release will fly off the shelves because the people moaning about it are, for the most part, entirely predictable and not really that high number.
Comfort zone under attack
It’s an attack that can be easily weathered – especially when it’s the same people saying the same things. To be honest I would be more worried if you weren’t moaning about GW.
When all else fails, brush away any reason for criticism with “haters”, “have a go at the top dog” or “because its GW”. Youre right, same thing over and over.
Let’s be honest, it’s a GW product and GW products tend to fly off the shelf, relative to the market at least.
There will always be people that gripe about everything GW release and yet go out and buy it anyway. Equally there will always be those who attempt to defend the indefensible.
Personally I find this ‘game’ pretty uninspiring. The majority of people who buy it will be doing so solely for the minis and anyone who is actually intending only to play what’s in the box is destined for disappointment.
@hatamoto it is just hate. As I said, you can kind of spin this any way you want. You can either choose to see it as a flexible policy that allows people to buy the game at a lower price point and then add extras to it as per their own individual needs. Or you can choose to see it as predatory pricing with GW choosing to sell something you personally believe that they should give away for free. Personally I think anyone who believes the latter really doesn’t understand business. But hey that’s just me. However I do accept that the prices are what they are, the product WILL sell which is the only justification that is needed and amy criticism of those prices is nothing but someone’s personal opinion and that, by and large, the people who hold them tend to criticise the prices of almost every GW release. It doesn’t seem to phase them that their opinions of pricing don’t seem to be damaging GW in any way after they recorded record profits last year and are probably on track to achieve the similar profits this year. They’re selling what people want at a price they are prepared to pay. And let’s face it, you bitch and whine about the price of nearly every GW release and as far as I can see GW are still doing what they do, haven’t really altered their pricing policies much (other than perhaps the start collecting box discounts) and aren’t really looking much like they’re listening to you. So you’re essentially just farting into a hurricane. Your biggest criticism is you don’t like the price – that’s ok, I get that but do you have to tell us all every time GW release something?
@graystoak I doubt people who buy it to play straight out of the box will be disappointed. People buying it within that context probably haven’t played the original on 3d terrain so won’t have anything to compare against. People who DID play the original are most likely going to buy the additional book and play the advanced rules and so won’t notice a difference. And then of course there’s people like me who are lucky enough to have a zone Mortalis board (I’m not rich, I bought it second hand!) AND a decent collection of Mantic Battlezones scenery who will be able to play both the box version and advanced versions of the game on some very nice looking scenery. The only people who will be disappointed are people who buy the basic game expecting to be able to play the advanced 3D game without buying the book. But I would say it’s fairly well documented what you need to do in order to play that version of the game
But only “because its GW”
Lovin’ this! Looking forward to it big time! Always wanted an Escher Gang, just wasn’t willing to pay eBay prices for one. Plus this’ll give me the dimensions for the Zone Mortalis boards so I can build my own. Win, win, win!
This has got me so excited to revisit my old love Necromunda! Finally, something new that isn’t just re-hash or re-brand. This truly looks like a labour of love.
On a side note, I’m a little tired of seeing the same old lazy arguments being toted around the various forums and news sites. This whole “DLC” bull some of you are talking about is exactly that. Nearly every game in the industry has it’s campaign system and rules for new settings in a separate publication. This is not a money grab, it’s because, believe it or not, campaigns and new settings are generally for advanced players. It’s the next step. You learn the core rules, you figure out how to play in the tunnels, then you stretch your legs in the open. It’s quite a narrative approach, also it allows people to play straight out of the box. When they eventually bring the Arbites, outlanders, and mutant gangs out, guess what, they will probably be in a separate book. I guess we forget as veterans that everything starts from somewhere, games like Necromunda are lucky because the release schedule can pretty much be mapped out by what has gone before. We know where they can go. (ie, outlanders, bounty hunters, ratskins, mutants, arbites, spires…etc) If they dropped it all on day one, there’d be no growth at all. It’d be a dead game on arrival. Also an entirely unrealistic expectation of any company.
Is it annoying that there are only 2 gangs to start with? For a veteran player, yeah. For a newbie? Not at all. In fact, if you check the Necromunda website and scroll all the way to the bottom, under “useful downloads”, you’ll see a place holder for “legacy gangs”. My guess is these will be updated on launch or soon after. As for price, I’ve heard it will be the same price as the Bloodbowl box. So, $150 (Aus).
Regardless, this release has got me excited for a game in a way I haven’t been in a long time. I can’t wait to play out and see which stories we can tell in the underhive!
So including the expanded rules in down-sized booklet form in the box would bump the price of the box by alot? Are we somehow imagining you will get a game with lots of replayability that will last for ages with the boxed content alone? My guess is it will be overpriced for a stand alone product, and so the entire point is to actually play with the expanded rules. So to seem less like a cash grab dlc they could include the expanded rules and slowly guide the player into that through the boxed rules. If not through mechanics then by expanded fluff inspiration.
My guess is it will be £65, like BloodBowl
I don’t understand why you think not including the expanded rules is a cash grab. If they included them it would most likely push the box price up to £95, like Dark Imperium.
If you have to overcharge for a rules booklet then yeah it probably would
“over charge” is somewhat subjective. I suspect we will see the book weigh in between £20 and £30, depending on how big the book is. Including that in the box would likely push the box price up by a similar amount
Yes they are a company and yes opinions are usually subjective .. also: Booklet!
It contains a booklet. With all the rules you need to play with what’s in the box. And for those who want a bit more, there’s an optional advanced rule book which we don’t have a great deal of detail about yet. It might be that you don’t actually need the core box to play with the advanced rules, you just need some dice, some templates and the gangs which may all be available separately
So, from leaked WD photos, the boxed game is £75, gangs are going to be £25, and rumour has the complex rules at £17.50.
A decent amount of plastic scenery and the additional rules would (imo) make the core game cost way too much. I think this is a good middle ground – especially when there will be a good few people with the shadow war terrain for 40k or shadow war!
@hatamoto I am hoping that the advanced rules will struggle to fit in a ‘booklet’. With the original Necromunda, gang progression as a really important part of the game for me so I want there to be a substantial set of rules to represent recruitment and advancement of the gang. For me, this linked campaign side of the game was way more important than the 3d terrain!
A 65-page “booklet”. Yeah, no need to charge for that, they cost nothing.
Rules look really solid to me from what they’ve shown so far. Loving the alternating activation and the action points.
Love that I can buy the box at a lower price point, learn the rules, paint some gangs and then add in more rules with a separate book at a later date.
It is strange to see a 2d Necromunda board.
Looks like this will be another bloodbowl with GW milking the nostalgia at a maximum setting. They will certainly be getting my money..
I don’t think that the models are any more polarising than any other GW miniatures. There’s always a crowd of haters following GW – par for the course when you’re the biggest fish.
Speaking as a long time fan of 40k (but who really doesn’t have the time to devote to full 40k) and as someone who loved the original, Necromunda is ticking a lot of boxes. I think the new miniatures are a fantastic modernisation of the original miniatures. They’ve kept the same themes and styles but brought the miniatures right up to date. By keeping the original gangs but bringing new sculpts they’re also providing a nice nostalgia hit.
It’s also a low model count skirmish game and that’s a really big deal for me. Less time and space required to play.
I wasn’t remotely interested in BloodBowl but this has really got my attention and will definitely be buying it.
Was thinking in buyind the box with a friend, now I think I will stick with only the gang separeately, because the spanish version is not the complete one, and I don’t want that.
What do you mean the Spanish version is not the complete one?
Catalan was not included.
First hired gun will be an Imperial Beastman.