Days of Rust (Part 1)

Welcome back to the Underhive, where decay and rust chart the march of time and industrial entropy. To commemorate knowing each other for 30 years now*  my good friend Dr TSG came down to hang out for a day over Labor Day weekend. He brought with him the current Necromunda boxed set along with some Zone Mortalis Battlefield Network wall sections and tiles.

Zone Mortalis sections prepped for priming.

He is going for a rusty industrial decayed look with the painting on the tiles which complements the pieces from the Necromunda boxed game just perfectly. He also pointed out that the sections work perfectly with the Necromunda tiles, so instead of playing with blacked out areas, he intends to use the Zone Mortalis sections for his Necromunda games.

Zone Mortalis tile. 

The Doctor has been studying a variety of techniques and tips in preparation for this (and other) projects. He shared a lot of this knowledge with me and also pointed me in the direction to do some research of my own. For example I was unaware that there was actually a periodical devoted to the topic! And it is very good and we both highly recommend it. As he sends me updates and photos I shall continue to share them in this Days of Rust thread.

With time limited we decided to give the game a go. The Goliath and Esher gangers from the boxed game were not yet assembled so we decided to use older models. I used the original Goliath miniatures from the '90s and he played with some old Orlocks and Future Warriors miniatures to represent the Esher.

The gangs set up.

We played the Starter Scenario that uses the inside of the box top as the board. This was definitely different but a pretty straightforward way to learn these new rules. We found that,  unlike Kill Team, this book wasn't as easy to reference and seemed to be written more for people to read through casually.  Which makes figuring out (for example) all the rules for how being Pinned works a bit of a challenge.

End of Round one.

Once we figured it out by the end of Turn 1 we felt confident about how this game plays. I had taken a model Out of Action and we had pinning figured out. By the end of Turn Two we had very few gangers still standing and we were having fun when we had to pack it all in due to the store closing. (The store's Sunday hours changed from 6 to 5!). We didn't declare a winner, since it seemed to be fairly even-handed, and the whole session was really just a learning exercise.

What movie did I see this in? I'm sure it was a comedy...

One thing I liked about this (the new Kill Team sort of does this too) were the pre-generated stat cards. It is a great way to learn the game or to quickly assemble one for a spontaneous gaming session. I would like to see GW do more in this area. It is nice to see them, once again, embrace the "Games" in their name.

My gang.

It was good to see The Dr again and to catch up on stuff, and we had a good time exploring Necromunda.

*(1988; a few months later he, and a few other friends, would introduce me to Warhammer 40,000.)