Greetings one and all,
Today we’re going back to that hellhole of a planet, Necromunda. The New Core Rulebook came out recently and I, of course, had to rush out to get it. So what's different? What do I think of it and is it worth buying?
The best way I can describe the new core rulebook is that it’s a refinement of the previous couple of years of development. It includes a lot of the previous rules with a few little changes one thing it is not is a complete rule set, you still need to have your gang rule book to play Necromunda and having the other books doesn't hurt, especially as they have a lot of scenarios for your gangs to play.
So what's in the book? Well firstly the rules for Underhive and Ashwastes have been combined, so you’ll have access to all the rules you need in one book (which considering how spread out some of the rules are is a nice quality of life change).
Talking about spread out this book has a complete version of the trading post/black market at the time of publishing. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, it’s going to make my bag so much lighter instead of lugging the old main rulebook, the book of Peril, the book of the Outlands and the book of Judgement I can just bring one book, my back thanks you.
There are all the rules you’ll need to run either a skirmish match or a campaign with an entire selection of different campaigns that can be run. My personal favourite is the Ironman Campaign where you start with 3000 credits, which will be all the credits you’re going to get for this campaign. The gangs then try and wear each other down until there’s only one gang left sanding.
Skills have seen a change with the brawn skills particularly seeing a much-needed revamp, with Hurl and Headbutt both seeing a rework. Headbutt is actually worth taking now which is really nice. It’s not just the Brawn skills that have seen an update.
Both Overseer (which was a little overpowered in my opinion) and Medicae have been changed slightly for the better. Lastly, the skill section has been listed in alphabetical order! Yes, it’s a silly thing to get worked up at but come on shooting shouldn’t have been listed before savant.
Experience has also seen a welcome update, one thing I noticed was that gaining experience wasn’t fast and it was rare to see a ganger with more than 1 advancement. With the new updates, it is much faster to gain experience with gangers gaining XP for causing serious wounds and providing assistance to another ganger making a successful recovery test. Overall these changes should see gangers with multiple advancements become more common.
As a slight aside but one I wanted to point out, the artwork in this book is incredible this picture literally took my friend's breath away, so if you’re like me and use the artwork in the book for inspiration you're going to get your monies worth out of this book.
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Honestly, I’m in two minds of the core rulebook, as someone who owns every Necromunda book Gamesworkshop has released so far I’m slightly irked that large chunks of them are somewhat useless. But, I can’t deny that if you wanted to get into the game then this book is perfect everything you need (bar the gang lists) is here the layout has improved so everything is clear and easy to find there’s even an index! Which is a marked improvement over other rulebooks that GW has released.
So is this worth £42.50? Yeah, newcomer or veteran this book is something that at least one person in a group should own.