Necromunda Underhive Campaign - Part 1

I have started a Necromunda campaign with a friend, just the two of us running to to get used to playing.  So far I am loving the game and like the mix of 40k skirmish play and advancing your gang.  Problem is I find the game's alternating activation much harder to write a battle report for so haven't done any for any of games so far.

That said I wanted to write a little about how it is going so far and what's happened.

So for our campaign I'm using an Orlock gang and my friend is using a Van Saar gang.  I do have a second Escher gang and he has Goliaths as well but we haven't played with them yet.

Karloth's Hunters
My Orlock Gang

I started my gang fairly basically, I had a Leader with Combat Shotgun, Champion with Heavy Stubber, Champion with Autopistol and Servo Claw, 2 Gangers with Combat Shotgun, 2 Gangers with Autoguns and 1 Ganger with Autopistol and Combat Knife.  I thought it was a good starting point, plenty of close and medium range weapons to get in close with a little back up from heavy long range weapons.

Our first game was a practise game, we played Shoot Out but didn't have any EXP or long term injuries carry over, it was more so we could learn the game.

It was a fairly close game and ended up coming down to one model on each side.  I started the game losing a few people earlier than the Van Saar did but as I closed they started losing people as well.  In the end both of us bottled and we had one of my Gangers with a combat shotgun left against a Van Saar Champion that had run out of ammo with his plasma gun.  The problem was I was too far away to shoot him so had to head across the board.  If I made it into range I was going to win, but if I bottled out 1st I'd lose.  Running across the board my Ganger bottled out before he reached the hiding Champion.

A shot from our 1st Necromunda Game

It was a fun game with me advancing most of my crew up the board while the Van Saar sat back and shot me until I caught up.  There were some cool moments.  The Van Saar using a well placed smoke grenade to block my Ganger's line of sight while they used photo-goggles to look through the smoke and shoot me.  We also had a slaughter on the other side of the board when my Gangers with shotguns caught up with a block of Van Saar shooting me and at close range my shotguns quickly overpowered the lasguns and took down all of them quickly.

For our 2nd game we started a Campaign, injuries and EXP would now matter.  1st we both got a free Juve from our House as a favour, we were both in the same situation though where we didn't have any left over creds to arm the new Juve, so were both running them barehanded.

The board for our 2nd game

We rolled and got Shoot Out again so were playing the same mission.  This time had more terrain as well, my mate had brought a load of the old card Necromunda terrain and we mixed that in with a few of my ruins and the barricades from Underhive boxed set.  The board looked a lot better and had much more of a underhive vibe.

The Van Saar set themselves up mostly on the near side of the photo and the centre and I spread myself out in 3 groups, a group in the centre with my Leader, one on the far side of the picture with a Champion and an Autogun and Heavy Stubber up on the top of the tower on the nearside of the picture to hold them back on that flank and give me clear shot to the centre of the board.

Flanking Van Saar

It started off similar to our last game, the Van Saar held back and shot me and I moved forwards under covering fire from my Heavy Stubber.  Most of the Van Saar were on the centre tower (the green one) holding there while a couple went down past the ruins on the side of the board to try and flank me and get to the Heavy Stubber holding them back.

I tried to do a pincer attack on the centre tower with two of my groups heading for the walk-ways either side of it.  I worked quite well and I managed to get people up onto the tower and at that range I was much more powerful than they were.

My Leader managed to get onto the tower and using his scatter shot pinned plenty of the Van Saar.  I also managed to get my close combat champion up there and they were able to take out 3 of the Van Saar in combat.

We both lost out unarmed Juves but mine just suffered a long term injury while the Van Saar Juve was killed in his first battle.  One of my Gangers was taken down right at the start of the game and basically crawled from cover to cover up the board trying to make it to the Van Saar fire base when he recovered but after making it to the base of the tower he finally succumbed to his injuries and passed out.

Orlock Champion holding a flank single handed.
A pinned Ganger with him.

On the other side my Champion with Heavy Stubber managed to hold his flank solo, the Ganger that was there to help him was pinned then taken out by the fire from the Van Saar but the Champion kept the two flanking Gangers pinned or injured until the game ended.  He also managed to keep up fire onto the centre and took 3 enemy fighters out of action as well.  He was effective enough that the Van Saar in the centre actually moved round behind the tower to keep out of line of sight.

In the end though I failed a bottle test first despite having taken fewer casualties at that point.  I ended up losing men as they ran from the fight.  My Champion holding the flank was the last to run leaving just a downed fighter on the board.  I lost again but this time was closer than last time and came down to a failed Bottle roll earlier in the game really.

Early in the 2nd Game

In the after battle I made enough to buy a 2nd Juve and arm him, I left my free Juve unarmed because he was missing the next game from an injury anyway.  The Van Saar brought a Rad-Cannon for one of the Champions.  With the dead Van Saar Juve this meant the Orlocks now had a significant numbers advantage over them going  forwards. 

With the number of people missing a game from injury I will be outnumbering the Van Saar almost 2 to 1 next game but I am missing my leader while the Van Saar is basically just their leader and Champions not in Recovery.

Anyway, that's how Necromunda is going for me so far.  I'm looking forward to playing another game and the recent Orlock Weapons packs released have got me thinking about some other options to play with.  We are playing out 2 person campaign but hopefully starting another soon with a few more people that are thinking about playing as well.

My Current Orlock Gang Roster is Here
The Campaign page is here
Both these are links to out current Campaign and Gang so will be updated after other games in you are reading this between me writing it and playing another game.