The Third Campaign Round: Stak Stacks the Bodies Up

 'Allo there! New post, been a bit I know, but life has a way of getting in the way of....life. Anyway, yesterday was the third campaign round for Timey-Wimey in Vela Mine(y), the Necromunda campaign I am currently arbitrating. See here for an intro to the campaign itself. 

This week was a bit of a curve-ball. Work has been kicking my ass lately, and one of our dogs has been having some health issues (nothing deadly serious, but he is having some rather....explosive digestive problems) and so doing anything hobby related lately has been hard. I haven't gotten the paining time in that I would like, so I've fallen behind on getting more gangers and vehicles finished for the Tri-Sun Mining Corporation, as well as a few other projects I have going currently. Also, it was my birthday the other weekend, and this time of year always exacerbates my anxiety, usually coupling that with an overwhelming sense of existential dread as I realize I've misspent yet another precious year of life. Brains, funny thing yeah?

Well, c'est la vie. At least the campaign itself chugs along. I came in with no custom scenario, no new lore posted, and so I was feeling like I was kinda dropping the ball as arbitrator. And then, lo-and-behold, turns out our regular FLGS where we meet up for games was hosting a Relicblade event that day too, so what I had intended to be 3 1-v-1 games instead had to be quickly transformed into 2 multiplayer games. Also, Timey-Wimey is an ash wastes campaign primarily, but with the need to condense the games into much tighter spaces, I decided it wasn't going to be feasible to play an ash wastes scenario. So, thinking on the fly, we decided to go with the Gang Moot scenario instead. 

However, I was able to still include the "environmental" effect I had thought up earlier in the week. For those not familiar, in Necromunda, any campaign set in the ash wastes (that is, "outside", as opposed to "inside" games which happen inside hive cities or other interior spaces) can use environmental effects to replicate the deadly weather and landscape of the planet. Rules as written, these are usually randomly generated at the beginning of a game. They vary a lot, from the interesting and fun, to the annoying, to the decidedly game-breaking and un-fun. In order to avoid the last situation, which has happened numerous times in our group in previous campaigns, I, as arbitrator simply choose which weather and environmental effects are in play each campaign round, and that is uniform across all games played that round. 

For this round, I wanted to do something a little different. The major, central theme of this campaign is time, and time fuckery. Vela Mine does not exist within the normal time-space continuum, and time does not flow normally within the confines of the pit itself. I also was having trouble getting players to utilize the chrono-crystals which are a major feature of the campaign, (you can read about what I've done with chrono-crystals in the post I linked above), and so wanted something that would incentivize players to use them if they had them, and go get them out of loot caskets spread around the battle field if they didn't. So, the environmental effect I came up with had to do with time rather than weather or the landscape. As we were playing an "inside" game, without vehicles, I was a little apprehensive folks wouldn't want to play with an environmental effect, but then I just presented it as a fait accompli and folks seemed enthusiastic about it.

This round, time, or at least each gang's perception of it was slowing down. As such, all Simple actions became Basic; all Basic actions became Double; and if you wanted to do what was normally a Double action, you had to pass an initiative check first. However, should you have a character who successfully activated a chrono-crystal (which was a free intelligence check), then they, and any character, friend or foe, that activated within 4" of them, would not be affected by the time dilation, and could act normally, in addition to the other bonuses the crystals gave. 

 This was a bit of a mixed bag, but still resulted in some great games and shenanigans. I myself (playing the TSMC, so a GSC gang) was up against my wife, who is playing a chaos-corrupted Escher gang, and our friend who was running a Goliath gang. The other board was Outcasts vs GSC corrupted Orlocks vs Escher. 

Hing, neophyte specialist with a web gun, at the top of a platform!

My game got off to an incredibly bloody start, and not necessarily a good one for the TSMC, what with several of my gangers going down pretty quick. This included my specialist with a web gun, who not only got shot by a bolt round from the Goliath leader and got injured, but then fell several stories directly onto a hive scum I had hired who had jumped down to the lower platform just a few seconds before. Luckily neither went out of action, but the whole image of said hive scum jumping down, landing miraculously unhurt, and then 10 seconds later having an ally fall and crush them, well that sort of hilarity is what Necromunda is all about. 

Hing, after having gotten his ass shot off said platform and falling onto a hired hive scum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a lot other shenanigans across both games, but this post is getting long, and I want to talk about the real MVP of the round, Supervisor Stak.

Supervisor Stak in the middle, flanked by two of his hard-working direct reports.

 Stak is one of the Hybrid Acolytes I threw into this round's incarnation of TSMC (since its the NPC big-bad gang, I don't really advance it, just make a new, more powerful version each campaign round). As TSMC is a corporation, I like to make the ganger's titles reflect that, hence Stak is Supervisor Stak, though as you'll see, he's definitely getting promoted. 

One of the Seraphenii, a deadly gang of Escher who have forsaken their house and now worship the Dark Gods.

Stak was an absolute nightmare for the other players, especially the Goliath gang. He took 4 enemies straight out of action with his heavy stubber, good shooting, and the fact he had an activated chrono-crystal, allowing him to run and maneuver to get good angles, while staying relatively safe. Three of his prizes were Goliath's, including taking out his leader. He also reduced one of my wife's corrupted Escher to a fine pink mist too. 

Foreman Arkt, right as he realizes he has made some very poor choices on positioning

It was great fun running around with Stak just going full out, balls-to-the-wall, with his heavy stubber, even if the rest of the TSMC performed marginally at best, dismally at worst. It's the sort of thing I'm more willing to do as an arbitraor with an NPC gang than I would as a regular player with my personal gang that I'm more interested in. I think playing as the "bad guys" also means I don't care as much if a ganger dies, it's just more fun for the PC gangs. 

 

The mysterious Iron Automata that leads a mysterious group of off-worlders made another appearance.

An oddly xenos looking "Orlock" ganger surveying the aftermath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, we're at the mid-campaign break right now. I've got a lot of plans for the next half, and hopefully I can actually make some of them work and come to fruition. It's probably also time to start thinking about the next campaign...