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Necromunda tournament - 6/16/2018 Portland, OR; Sumptown S.E.R.I.E.S.


Weav

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Hey Weav and SERIES-ians, 

Unfortunately, I cannot arrange for child care (well, I might but it would cost me well over $100) so I'll be unable to make it to the opening event. 

Weav - I know you guys laid down cash for those cool objective markers. If you're down, I'll buy a set to support the club and help you mitigate your costs. LMK. 

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8 hours ago, AscentStudios said:

Hey Weav and SERIES-ians, 

Unfortunately, I cannot arrange for child care (well, I might but it would cost me well over $100) so I'll be unable to make it to the opening event. 

Weav - I know you guys laid down cash for those cool objective markers. If you're down, I'll buy a set to support the club and help you mitigate your costs. LMK. 

Thanks Alex, I'll let you know after the event. That's very generous of you. 

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Hey everybody.

I'm playing Eschers, so that means I can use any of the stuff on the Escher list in Gang War 3, right? There's some ambiguity about whether Eschers should start with the list in GW 3 or the (much smaller) list in the Necromunda main book.

I'm planning to use a plasma gun, which is in the GW 3 list, but not in the main book. I feel like every gang should have access to the GW 3 lists because the Van Saars only have a list in that book, and it's an extremely generous list. If the other gangs are limited to their lists in the pre-GW 3 books, then the Van Saars have an unfair advantage when it comes to choices of gear.

The Orlocks in particular have only two (!) close combat options in their GW 2 list, and that makes them nigh-unplayable.

Thanks again for setting up this cool event. I'll see everybody tomorrow!

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Josiah said:

Hey everybody.

I'm playing Eschers, so that means I can use any of the stuff on the Escher list in Gang War 3, right? There's some ambiguity about whether Eschers should start with the list in GW 3 or the (much smaller) list in the Necromunda main book.

I'm planning to use a plasma gun, which is in the GW 3 list, but not in the main book. I feel like every gang should have access to the GW 3 lists because the Van Saars only have a list in that book, and it's an extremely generous list. If the other gangs are limited to their lists in the pre-GW 3 books, then the Van Saars have an unfair advantage when it comes to choices of gear.

The Orlocks in particular have only two (!) close combat options in their GW 2 list, and that makes them nigh-unplayable.

Thanks again for setting up this cool event. I'll see everybody tomorrow!

 

 

 

@Josiah, thanks for attending tomorrow! I'm tagging our rules judge @ninefinger to answer your question. See you tomorrow.

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4 hours ago, Josiah said:

Hey everybody.

I'm playing Eschers, so that means I can use any of the stuff on the Escher list in Gang War 3, right? There's some ambiguity about whether Eschers should start with the list in GW 3 or the (much smaller) list in the Necromunda main book.

I'm planning to use a plasma gun, which is in the GW 3 list, but not in the main book. I feel like every gang should have access to the GW 3 lists because the Van Saars only have a list in that book, and it's an extremely generous list. If the other gangs are limited to their lists in the pre-GW 3 books, then the Van Saars have an unfair advantage when it comes to choices of gear.

The Orlocks in particular have only two (!) close combat options in their GW 2 list, and that makes them nigh-unplayable.

Thanks again for setting up this cool event. I'll see everybody tomorrow!

 

 

 

Yep.  GW3 has the offical lists for all of the current house gangs.  No problems with using anything available on those lists.

 

@paxmiles, We'll probably only be using the big room, either of the other two should be free.

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Thanks all for playing today, I had a great time.

Per the request for feedback on the tournament format, etc.:

TL, DR: I think longer rounds and scenarios better suited to one-off lists (resurrection) might make for more decisive rounds.  Cutting the number of secondary/tertiary credits sources or reducing their value would also further put greater emphasis on the scenario W/L/D results.  

 

Game 1 vs Jeff's Gang in one of the traditional main rule book scenarios went more or less pretty back and forth, but time ran short before we could determine a clear winner despite shooting each other up a good bit. I felt we had plenty of terrain; lots of jockeying for a good ranged shot and really enjoyed the random card draw throughout the game each turn which added some evolving elements to the game.

Game 2 vs Nate's Gang playing another traditional main rule book scenario with fixed tactics cards this time. Lopsided luck early to mid game made for an uphill fight for Nate and the terrain played to my list's strengths (long range firefights).

Game 3 vs Josiah's Gang, playing the Caravan Heist mission.  Of all the scenarios, this is the one I felt was the most lopsided, which is sometimes the case with attacker/defender roles. Josiah won the roll and chose attacker leaving my gang to escort/defend the caravan.  Because I won/lost based on his gangers swarming the caravan over a few turns, I made the decision early on to protect it at all costs, knowing I'd likely sacrifice fighters to keep his gang at bay if needed. In a campaign/turf-war setting where there are longer term consequences I feel like this scenario is a more balanced conflict. In a resurrection-format tournament where the net effect of losing a fighter long term is essentially an opponent receiving 10 more credits towards their score and in this case meant I likely could prevent several opposing fighters from scoring or threatening to score for another turn it felt a bit unbalanced.  Over a longer round time limit it might have been a better balance between attacker/defender, but I felt even if he'd recklessly thrown everything at the truck from the onset it was still a ridiculously difficult scenario for the attacker, and I was playing a relatively long range focused gang with only 2 dedicated melee fighters out of 8.  This was also the first scenario I played where I got to choose (2) tactics cards, which was ultimately a big factor in the game early on for both sides.

Game 4 vs Burk in another traditional main rule book scenario, on the 2D (Zone Mortallis?) board.  This board was arguably the hardest terrain for my list with significantly fewer long shots (I don't know if there were any shot lanes over 24" without obstruction) even before he played a tactics card which put me off balance to the point I never recovered and was outplayed throughout the game afterwards.  I felt this board/format was a nice counter-balance to my long-ranged build and would definitely recommend more of these for a larger scale tournament to encourage more balanced list builds or prevent a specific list type from having an advantage otherwise. Where the various 3D boards gave a multitude of firing lanes/options and let me take advantage of my equipment, the 2D board was a nice restricted environment.  

It might have been nice to have one or more additional features in a scenario like sentries or locked loot cases, but understandably that adds potential delays determining rules if not spelled out in a tournament packet or on the scenario itself. 

The scoring each round might benefit from some tweaking; of my credits throughout the tournament, only 140 came from game results (20+60+60+0) while half that (70) came from securing objective tokens and more still from killing/capturing opposing fighters throughout the tournament.  Moving kills/captures to 5 credits each along with the secondary objectives would help refocus the tournament standings more towards the round results.

 

As to Venators (a WD list of bounty hunters) in resurrection-tournament play I have mixed feelings having played them. In a campaign/turf-war they have a wonky income scheme that should help balance out the potential for their strengths early on as they can't control turf and instead are wholly dependent on their reputation (instead of turf) and captures/kills for credits throughout a campaign.  In a resurrection format, there is no such fears of longer term consequence. Being able to choose everything down to the statline (4 statlines per type to choose from) for each character as well as having access to the entire trading post with relatively loose restrictions on their options means they can be a very versatile or focused gang.  The only consistent weakness I see comparing Venators to other gangs is their relatively slow speed (3-5" across all statlines) and fairly expensive (45 points for a hunter that starts with tightey-whiteys and a smile, no juves equivalents).  I ran a minimum of mesh armor and a lasgun (45+15+15=75); not crushingly expensive, but not cheap for my least expensive fighters either. I'm not sure if tweaking the rarity access (one of the limiting factors, varies by role) would help or some other limitation would be appropriate if it was felt they needed to be adjusted.

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10 hours ago, Bosco said:

As to Venators (a WD list of bounty hunters) in resurrection-tournament play I have mixed feelings having played them. In a campaign/turf-war they have a wonky income scheme that should help balance out the potential for their strengths early on as they can't control turf and instead are wholly dependent on their reputation (instead of turf) and captures/kills for credits throughout a campaign.  In a resurrection format, there is no such fears of longer term consequence. Being able to choose everything down to the statline (4 statlines per type to choose from) for each character as well as having access to the entire trading post with relatively loose restrictions on their options means they can be a very versatile or focused gang.  The only consistent weakness I see comparing Venators to other gangs is their relatively slow speed (3-5" across all statlines) and fairly expensive (45 points for a hunter that starts with tightey-whiteys and a smile, no juves equivalents).  I ran a minimum of mesh armor and a lasgun (45+15+15=75); not crushingly expensive, but not cheap for my least expensive fighters either. I'm not sure if tweaking the rarity access (one of the limiting factors, varies by role) would help or some other limitation would be appropriate if it was felt they needed to be adjusted.

Thanks for the insights, Bosco. Congrats on the win!

When I saw the Venators at the top, I wasn't very surprised. While the gang isn't seriously imbalanced, just the fact they (and they alone) can access gear outside the House Lists - at least, if they don't buy a House Legacy - and the rarity of their gear access they have seems to be a serious advantage. 

My suggestion as an addition for the next event would be to add a modified trading post action - maybe granting a rarity bonus on the game results? (say, you can buy 1 item with a rarity 6+ the number of OOA/captured enemy gangers?). This would take some edge off the Venators while not overcomplicating things; it's just another option you can buy when you'd normally reinforce your gang. 

A general question for everyone else: how many of you bought stuff with your earned credits? If so, what did you buy?  I was concerned that basing victory on credits would mean folks never spent anything (I didn't plan to, beyond maybe a few pistols), but maybe it didn't play out that way so I'm curious. If this rule did discourage development/encourage hoarding, perhaps keeping W/L seperate from banked Credits, or making banked credits only part of determining the winner, might address this potential issue in future events. 

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