Necromunda house rules and handy Campaign tips

I’m loving the Campaign’s in Necromunda, so much so I have 4 going all at once. My most-frequently played one we’ve comfortably played around 20+ games, and still haven’t played all the scenarios yet (The rescue + the Hit).

I’ve found loads of stuff to try in Necromunda that seem to even out the playing field a bit and help speed things along.

Randomising selections without cards. 

This crops up quite a bit. Couple of options here. 

For a mixed Tactics deck cards when you have separate Gang + Generic ones. House rule is to pick one from each pile in an opposite fashion (i.e. Goliath, normal, Goliath).

For when you don't have Gang Cards it depends on your setup.

If the gang is boxed, and in snug compartments or laid out. 
Do a d3 to pick a row.
If the row is longer than 12 models, just roll another d6- 
On a 1-3 = select from left side in, on a 4-6, select right side in, 
Then randomise again.

If the gang is in Yaktribe or on a page and is under 12 strong, roll for direction selecting on the list (i.e. 1-3 from the top down or 4-6 bottom up) and then roll to select.

You can roll a specific D-number in Rollz as well #d18 works great for picking a core mission to play.

Or if you have a horde like me? Scatter selection circle!

Some in-game rules we’ve found weren’t clear.

1. Charging up ladders seems fine, charging after climbing? Couldn’t definitively find something which determined whether this was ok as it indicates your standard move is halved. House-rule we couldn’t decide so we d6’d and we cannot charge after climbing.
2. Being shot or shooting while climbing. If you’re shot while climbing, you would (per the rule book) instantly be pinned and fall. We didn’t really like that as it didn’t benefit big climbing terrain. So we said simply you fall if you fail an initiative check.
3. We said the same for shooting WHEN climbing you can shoot if you want, but make an initiative check to be able to do so, you fail you fail (not fall)
4. For men on fire, we decided that running into someone while on fire didn’t mean they catch fire.We did however rule that automata (from the Vault) can catch on fire 
5. Balancing along something very thin (like the Underhive door tops for example, means ou can do it, but you have to pass an initiative test every time a part of your movement traverses a terrain of that size.

For campaign rules we added a couple of tweaks too.

For the most part, the D12 table which indicates what scenario is being played has been supplanted with the below.

1. Is it your turn to pick a battle? Yes
2. Have you got anyone to rescue? No
3. Have you got any scenarios you haven’t played yet? No
4. If yes, pick one you haven’t played yet, if no, randomly pick from the 18+ available. Picked
5. Randomly decide if it will be Mortalis/Sector mechanicus terrain (ignore ‘Escape the pit’ and other height based scenarios) Randomly choose Caravan heist
6. Are you in the conquest part of the campaign? If yes, whoever is challenging is attacking. If no, randomise attackers/defenders. I’m challenging for your territory so I’m attacking.

One thing to challenge everyone’s perceptions on is the Underdog. In Necromunda this is classically whoever loses their first champion or ganger early, out of the gates getting crap luck.  If you’re joining a campaign late, you appear to be even worse off. Everyone’s got kit, terrain, and likely loads of XP,

Underdog support

Generally I agree, losing a ganger early is hard. You’re one down and likely because you lost the first game, have a few in recovery too. We’ve added a couple of gangs into the game at a late stage and there are things that help.

• The house favours rolls do help, and we’ve removed the cap of +3. This should level the playing field far quicker, as very rapidly the gangs can equalise each other.
• Tactics cards do even things out too, whereby most missions allow 1 per 100 which gives the underdog a lot of sneaky tricks.
• For pairing off, we ensure that new gangs only have a stand-off against each other once. This means that they don’t get smashed by a full 3k gang, and they get an easier start to the campaign.
• When we’re in the Takeover phase, we start doling out challenges each in rolling order by lowest rating first, that means the lowbies can be more tactical about who they want to try and kill (i.e. target someone mid-table rather than at the top)
• Because they come into the campaign much later, all the territories have been doled out, and they can prioritise the ones they want
• Rep for underdogs is generally far quicker to earn than those on the top.
• Money for an underdog gang isn’t as bad as it could be, with their settlement always providing a benefit.

In our campaign, we wanted an early apotheosis territory.

Our Campaign is the Champ Alleys, so we’ve therefore called the special territory ‘The Champ alley’

We were keen for the top territory to have good and bad points, so that the top gang didn’t get better. Here is the territory card.

‘The Champ Alleys is a Bazaar at the heart of hive Primus, located just beneath the easternmost mid-hive plate. This rich market-slum has all the trappings of the underhive, promised riches from the ash-wastes, uphive slummers looking for a narco-fix, and the various gang-house representatives, all looking for a piece of the action.

The owner of the Champ alleys receives a flat 60 Creds when receiving boons in the end phase.

In addition, during each gangs end-phase, the owner of the Champ-Alleys must make a roll on the below table, to determine what riches the Bazaar bestows.

1. 'Too big for their boots’ The owning gang loses d6 Rep
2. ‘Enter the palace of narco-delights’ Randomly put a single ganger from the gangs crew into recovery, give him a Slugg-stimm Stash as a reward.
3. ‘The alleys are quiet’ Earn D6x10 Creds instead of your flat 60 mentioned above
4. ‘Business is good’ Earn D3x10 (+ 60) Credits
5. ‘Business is booming Boss!’ Earn D3x10 (+60 Creds) and add a single free random uphive raiment to a champions gear.
6. ‘This is a rare find…’-  Add a single Tau pulse rifle to the gangs stash, the weapon profile is as follows:

Weapon	S     L	S     L	Str	D	Ap	Am	Traits
Pulse Rifle	16  48	-     1	5	2	-1	3+	Knockback, Impale, Alien Tech, Scarce, Limited
Alien tech – ‘What the hell was that?! Did you see what it did to Gummo?’   Gangers making nerve tests for fighters injured by this weapon do so with a +2 to their cool check

Also, although I constantly go on about Yaktribe, there's more! Custom rules! Wanted to add some more details and rules for some weapons and ammo we wanted to include. See below!

Hopefully this has provided some more padding for the rich campaigns that Underhive already presents, any suggestions drop them in here!