Campaing mechanics intro

The campaign system we’re using is essentially that described in Necromunda, but we’re making a few tweaks as we go along…

Most importantly, territory isn’t tied to a ‘gang’, but to a faction. A faction can have multiple gangs, but only the last one to fight in a battle can work the territory, trade etc. This represents the faction sending out a patrol in an effort to enforce its control over an area. The income collected represents the faction’s control as much as any monetary benefit.

Furthermore, we’re keeping the gangs pretty fluid and not always tying specific characters to specific gangs. In order to keep things manageable we use each fighter’s starting value to determine whether we have a roughly even match up. Any skills and gear accumulated in the campaign are ignored in this value, as gaining them requires the fighters be put at risk actually fighting. So a typical fight might feature roughly 1,000 credits worth fighters, measured by their starting values, even if the actual gang ratings are much higher.

Only gang leaders, heavies and other models we consider especially characterful can earn experience points, though anyone can be bought special gear. Having said this, we've adopted a similar mechanic to Mordheim's 'Lads Got Talent' roll, so on a 2D6 roll of double 6 a single fighter of the owner's choice becomes a 'hero' and can start earning experience, gaining skills etc.

We’ve decided to ignore a few of Necromunda’s campaign rules, in particular awarding experience for wounds scored (we always forget to record it in the excitement of the battle!). We also ignore the rules for profit margin, which sort of balances off the above.

In terms of building gangs, we’re counting factions as different Necromunda gangs. For example, the Imperial Guard garrison members are counted as Orlock gangers for the purposes of gear and skills lists, while the Eldar Pirates that will be making an appearance soon will be counted as Eschers. If we think a gang should have gear that would normally be rare, we’ve ignored that and given it to them anyway, so the Guard troopers all started out with (and paid for from their starting value) flak armour even though they would normally have to earn this, and the Eldar Pirates will start out with mesh armour.

No doubt we’ll tweak things more as the campaign progresses, and if we do we’ll be sure to note it here.