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Shadespire or Necromunda?
I’m thinking Shadespire would probably hit the table more often but, holy shit, Necromunda looks amazing. I guess my big question about Necromunda is how essential are the 3D rules to the game? Can I play the campaign in 2D or will I need to devote my life to building and painting scenery to get the most out of the system? Also, if not playing the campaign, is it worth getting Necromunda if I already have Earth Reborn?
Sell me on one of these! Or both...
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I personally prefer Shadespire by a hair, but these two alongside Gorechosen are the best things GW's done in years.
My biggest problem with Necromunda is you can't really play a satisfying campaign yet. We don't have rules for anyone but Goliath and Escher.
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- Michael Barnes
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It should be noted too that if you just want a kick ass guys on a grid style game, Necromunda plays out of the box just fine without the need to ever buy anything else. Build the gangers to match the character cards and you’ve got unlimited play of five scenarios and whatever else you come up with. You don’t need anything else.
I like Necromunda a hair better than Shadespire. But they are different types of game. Shadespire is a competitive arena battle with deck construction and an extremely tight structure. It’s about placement, combos, seizing objectives, that kind of thing. Necromunda is wilder, more narrative, and closer to a miniatures game with unique weapon profiles, wargear, traits and that kind of stuff.
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- GorillaGrody
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1) I have enjoyed my plays of Shadespire, though I wasn't surprised to learn that the
2) I was very pleased to see that GW streamlined the Shadespire rules for rolling off in the latest FAQ. Rolling off was a pretty tedious part of the game, as ties and re-rolll-offs were so common.
3) This transparency-of-balance problem seems to exist with the Necromunda board game, at first glance. Eschers are designed to work the edge of a 4 x 4 board, getting a few good shots in before the Goliaths march in and clean their clocks. In a 2x3 ish board game setting, the Eschers barely get a shot in. There must be a way to play them properly on the tiles, but I haven't figured out how yet. This is compounded by the fact that there's no more overwatch in the game, and that alternating activations make pinning much less effective. Good shooting is just not that valuable in the board game.
4) I'm thinking about instituting some House Rules before our first match-up. Something like: "The Eschers grew up in Zone Mortalis, and always know the best place to fight. After set-up, the Escher player may rearrange the terrain (but not the loot crates) in anyway they see fit. They know all the door codes at the start of the game. In addition, they're slippery. An Escher player can always spend a tactic card to retreat without penalty to shooting, etc." Something like that.
5) But I love making house rules, so there's that.
Don't know which I prefer yet.
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- GorillaGrody
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And I'm encouraged to hear that the Sepulchral Guard won. I'll have to try out that deck and see if I start getting results.
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It had never occurred to me to run a deck without the Objective 1-5 cards, but it worked.
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Also, I can't seem to find this anywhere: Does Necromunda have any scenarios for 3 or 4 players?
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- Michael Barnes
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A smaller, fairly open map will favor Goliath every time. Once they get into charging range, they are brutally efficient at wiping out Escher. Escher has a chance with their shooting game, it's not totally a walkover, but some whiffs and bad injury rolls put them at a pretty serious disadvantage. So you don't want to try to stand up to Goliath, thinking that the poisons and the whips and so forth are going to carry the day. You want to stay at range as much as possible, combine and concentrate firing lanes, that kind of thing. Play 'em like Tau.
But there are also enough tiles in the box to make larger maps. If you play the first two scenarios, you are going to see the Goliath gut punch both times, most likely. The first one is on the map printed in the box. The second is 2x2 tiles and it is sort of difficult I've found for Escher to win without at least two solid rounds of good shooting and leveraging cover, ducts and cardplay. When the board gets bigger, things even out a little more.
There aren't set 3 and 4 player scenarios at this time ,so that may be another check on the Shadespire side for you.
But you know, I was playing Shadespire last night and it's...actually kind of more complicated than Necromunda! I think for a "pull out for friends" game, Necromunda is the winner. You can play a simple game, hand out 4 or 5 of the premade gang cards and explain everything pretty quickly. A new player will be looking at just 2-3 cards. With Shadespire, it's got the CCG thing going on, so card knowledge is a big thing. For example, there's a card where you can cancel a player claiming an objective if you name it before they do...but you have to know that objective card. And there is deck construction involved- you can have a "guest" deck ready to go, sure, but the sense of ownership that comes from construction is lost.
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You don't need a player aid for Shadespire, check out the length of the Necromunda player aid. Characters have like 8 stats. You're crazy Barnes.
Shadespire is definitely satisfying if two newbies grab the pre-built decks and play with no card knowledge.
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- Michael Barnes
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I think what puts Necromunda over the top for me is that since Shadespire is so objective-driven rather than narrative-driven, you do things to score points rather than just to be awesome and see what happens. Shadespire is a more serious game, there's more strategy involved (and _good_ strategy at that) but it isn't really one that's full of eye-rolling, groaning, cheering and bellowing oaths. There isn't much character in the fighters, whereas the gangers can develop a full sense of character over the course of a 5 round game.
But yeah, I think two players out of the box with the stock decks is a good game in Shadespire, sure. One thing I'm going to ding the expansion warbands on is that it's stupid that they do not include a default precon. I just netdecked them for the Orruks and Guard and adjusted them to my taste.
You know what REALLY bugs me about Shadespire? They kept the skeletons, these hot ass new sculpts, in the OLD scale. So they look TINY compared to even a Reaver. That really bothers me, and it's the main reason I didn't move forward with an AOS Undead army- the skeletons just look too small, especially up against a Stormcast.
But hey, both of these are AWESOME games. GOTY this year is almost definitely one of these. Or both. Or a trifecta with 8th edition.
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I think what puts Necromunda over the top for me is that since Shadespire is so objective-driven rather than narrative-driven, you do things to score points rather than just to be awesome and see what happens
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- san il defanso
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