JStove is back with another Necromunda article. This time he’s giving us the rundown on Forge World’s weapon kits and which three are the best in his opinion. Come check it out.
Jstove here, and today we’re going to the gun show in Necromunda.
By the time you read this, we’ll be salivating over new Forge World weapon kits and plastic Van Saars, who are loaded down with tons of big fat guns and the skills to use them. The Van Saars are coming and you can bet your 1,000 credits that the gang is going to have Shooting skills as primary across the board, so any gun they pick up is going to be a killer.
The Shopping List
Pretty much every gun in the arsenal of the Imperium of Man will fall off a truck and find its way to the trading post one way or another. If you can’t buy it in your starting roster at gang generation, don’t worry, because it will be at the gun counter at the local Wal-Mart soon enough. As I write this article, Forge World has just put the first weapon upgrade kits for the Eschers on pre-order, and that kit contains melta, plasma, heavy stubbers, chainswords, and all kinds of goodies that the girls can’t start with.
However, the trick with getting access to every gun in the 41st millennium is, just because you CAN have it, doesn’t mean you SHOULD want it.
So for this article, I’m sharing my strategic assessment of some of the Imperium’s most popular party poppers. In this article, I’m going to use the cost for them that are listed in the trading post, or if it isn’t listed in the trading post, then the cost in the ONLINE PDF GANGS OF LEGEND ROSTER. These are the prices that are currently available and are the prices I assume are going to be the final prices when we finally get all the equipment costs collated in one place. (I personally write them all into my copy of GW2 by hand as they are released.)
PLASMA GUN
100 credits in Gangs of Legend
The plasma gun is one of the all-time favorite problem solvers in 40k going a decade back through many editions of the game. It’s been an obvious choice for a long time, but in Necromunda, it’s basically a more expensive bolter, which isn’t bad, because the bolter is very good. The plasma gun is a very interesting choice with a lot to talk about, because there are things about it that are good, and things about it that are mediocre.
COST: A hundred credit plasma gun is a pretty great deal, but in Gangs of Legend, boltguns cost 55 credits. So a plasma gun is actually worth almost 2 whole boltguns on your gang rating and in your wallet. Personally, I don’t think anyone gun is better than 2 bolters. I’ll explain why.
MAXIMAL POWER: You will never in a million years fire a plasma gun on Maximal. It’s S8 and does 3 damage. Is it going to kill whatever it hits? Absolutely yes. But it’s only 1 shot. When you fire your plasma gun on low power, it’s S5 and D2, with a rapid-fire die. That means that you have your choice of taking 1 shot that wounds every target on a 2 and gets 3 Damage, or taking one shot that can multiply into 3 shots that will wound every target on a 3, and potentially multiply into 6 Damage, or be spread out to nearby enemies to put them in the dirt. You can see without doing a lot of the math that you have way better odds of hurting more people, or one guy a lot, by using the low power mode all the time.
HOW IT BEATS A BOLTER: Compared side by side with a boltgun, you can see why a plasma gun is twice as much. It has a better accuracy bonus at 12” than a bolter does by one point, one more point of Strength, and it has a marginally better ammo roll but is scarce. (Scarce weapons are out of ammo for the whole match if they run out.)
Do I think it’s worth it?
On paper, the plasma gun is the deadliest rapid fire weapon in the game. It’s high strength that will always get a good wound roll, it does lots of damage, and will probably kill anything it points at. While it’s certainly a killer, I don’t think it’s better than just buying 2 boltguns and spreading them out across your gang. You can equip 1 model with a plasma gun and he’ll kill everything he shoots, or you can equip 2 guys with bolters, and they’ll get twice the rapid fire dice at the same price, the same wound roll on T3 targets, the same armor penetration, and you’ll have spread out the price of the models and the gang rating. A plasma gun is not a weapon I would probably buy in a starting gang, but I would pick it up down the road for a model with the skills to get the greatest benefit out of it later in the campaign. Starting out though, it’s not better than 2 bolters… But then again, in Necromunda, you’re not gonna find a lot of weapons that are better than 2 bolters.
MELTAGUN
135 credits in Gangs of Legend
The meltagun is a very interesting weapon in Necromunda because it has the distinction of being the only weapon in the game that can automatically remove a model from the table with no roll necessary. The melta special rule in Necromunda is, “no injury roll at short range for this weapon if you tag a model at short range, it’s automatic out of action.” Now keep in mind that for this to work, you must be within 6 inches, and you must knock off every wound. However, with +1 to hit, S8, 3 Damage, and -4 AP, there isn’t an out-of-the-box model in the game right now that this gun doesn’t vaporize on a 2+ to wound. You could also argue that with stats like that, you don’t need to be inside 6 inches to make it work. Anybody that catches a shot from a meltagun even out at 12” is going to feel pretty awful.
The meltagun in Necromunda is more or less a more expensive, more painful combat shotgun. Inside of 12 inches, the combat shotgun is a monster that’s going to hurt people very bad. The meltagun is the same thing, but flashier, and with a more or less mathematically guaranteed chance to make a poor bastard spend the rest of his life drinking his dinner through a straw, if he lives.
Unfortunately, because of the cost of the gun and the finesse required, there’s really only one model in the game that can and should use the meltagun, and that model is an Escher champion with the Spring Up skill. With a 2+ initiative roll to parkour around terrain hazards and stand back up if she gets pinned, and a starting BS of 3+ the Escher champ is the girl for the job to put the gun where it needs to be and pull the trigger.
On anybody who isn’t an Escher champ? Good luck. Being within 12” of an enemy is a very scary place for any model in the game. 12” is +1 to hit rapid fire range on bolters, (+2 on plasma), it’s rapid fire range on combat shotguns, which are effectively bolters at short range, and is 4” outside the short range of the autogun. Basically, in order to get in range to use a meltagun, you have to get inside the range of all the best guns in the game and expect the worst.
However, you can say this about a lot of guns. The difference between every other gun and a meltagun is that bolters, shotguns, autoguns, and even combat shotties are much cheaper and more expendable than a pricy meltagun.
Do I think it’s worth it?
I think the meltagun is worth grabbing as a nuclear option. I would never start a gang with one even if I had the option, but I would consider it late in the campaign, especially on the Spring Up Escher champ I mentioned earlier. Why save the meltagun as a nuclear option? First of all, if you’re in the market for a meltagun, don’t tell anyone you’re in the market for a meltagun. Wait for your enemies to build their gangs in a specific style that they are deeply committed to. For example, if you are getting your head kicked in by melee Goliath, show up to the next game with a meltagun. Then, when that fat bastard runs into your gang and starts cracking heads, pull the meltagun out on him and evaporate him. Hold off on the meltagun until your opponents commit, then punish them with the meltagun’s guaranteed killing power. Don’t think of it as an offensive alpha strike weapon, think of it as a gun that projects a 12” bubble of destruction that will vaporize the first enemy model that crosses the line of death.
FLAMER AND HANDFLAMER
100c/50c in Gangs of Legend
Everything that is problematic about the meltagun’s short range is even worse for the flamer, except for 1 little tiny difference- Everyone’s life sucks when you hit them with a flamer, whether you kill them or not. Like the meltagun, you want a very swift and skillful model to use it. Again, the Spring Up Escher Champ is the ideal trigger woman. However, because a flamer uses a template, the ballistic skill is not required. This means that any recently promoted ganger or Juve that can bust their ass and move up the table can use a flamer to maximum effect, and the maximum effect is disgusting.
What the flamer lacks in raw killing power it makes up for by making your opponent unable to play the game. Make no mistake, despite being one of the tamest weapons in the Imperial arsenal, in Necromunda, flame weapons absolutely belong in the same league as melta and plasma.
Here’s why- Any model hit by a flamer and not taken Out of Action gets a Blaze token. That means it doesn’t even actually have to wound. You just need to get the flamer in position and spray some bastards, and they get a Blaze token.
What does a Blaze token do? It ruins your life.
When a fighter with a Blaze marker is activated, you roll a die. On a 6, the fire goes out. If there are friendly models within 1 inch, add +1 to the roll for each friendly, so they help him beat out the flames. If the roll is failed, the fighter takes an S3 hit, and if they’re standing, they run 2D6” in a random direction on a scatter die.
A fighter may not do any other action or even make reaction attacks in melee while he is blazing.
A fighter may take a double action to voluntarily become pinned and take a +4 to his roll to beat the flames out.
What’s the best part? Trying to push your models together to help each other beat out the flames is WORSE than letting them run around screaming or rolling on the floor because the models will bunch or for the next time you fire you the flamer!
This is especially awful if you catch a champion or leader with his homies that are staying close so he can group activate them, and also keep in mind, if you do take enemies out of action with a flamer while they are close to each other, the other dudes still have to Cool check or run when they see their homies get toasted.
Veterans of 2nd edition 40k and Necromunda Classic should take note that the hand flamer is FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL to the flamer. The mini-template that the 2nd ed hand flamer used to have no longer exists. Instead, the hand flamer is just an S3 flame template. Since the most important thing the flamer does is hand out Blaze markers without having to actually roll ballistic skill, the S3 of the hand flamer is not even a problem.
Do I think it’s worth it?
Like I said about the meltagun earlier, the problem with flame weapons is like all the problems with the meltagun, meaning that in order to use it you have to walk into short range of all the best weapons in the game. The difference between the meltagun and the flamer though is that with the meltagun, you get one more or less guaranteed knockout, and then if you don’t immediately back up your meltagunner, they get turned into confetti. With the flamer, you do better than just killing the other guy, you set him and all his friends on fire, and they can’t do anything next turn, potentially for the rest of the game. The meltagun ruins one model at short range. Flame weapons ruin everything for everyone for the whole match. Is it a risk worth taking? EVERY TIME. This is actually the thing I hate most about Escher gangs- They were perfect for flamers, but they ended up getting nightshade chemthrowers instead… Which are more expensive, and cause no chaos with Blaze tokens. Everything the chemthrower does, the flamer does cheaper, better, and with more screaming.
Even though the flamer is great, the handflamer is arguably better, since the Strength 3 is irrelevant for applying Blaze tokens, and 2 handflamers cost the same amount of credits as a single flamer. And before you look… I checked. The handflamer doesn’t have the pistol rule, so it’s not technically a pistol for the purpose of using it in melee combat or firing 2 of them at once.
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About the Author: Jack Stover
