Necromunday: Guild Alliances

Ahoy-hoy, Scummers! Last week we embarked upon a Grand Under-Funk Odyssey to finally figure out what makes each of the Alliances tick. Today, we’re sitting down with our beloved Book of Peril and going through all of the different Guild Alliances that players are able to hitch their wagon to, so let’s get started!

The Guilders are what you’d get if you crossed a corporation with a civic organization like a police force. They own their trade, and they have the right to permanently neutralize anyone who interferes with it. They’re a bit more regimented than their Outlaw Recidivist counterparts and occasionally less exciting, but don’t count them out! They’ll grant any player who’s willing to swear fealty some reliable benefits and the muscle needed to crush their opponents, as long as their actions coincide with the Guild’s own machinations.

The Merchant Guilds

Although all of the six Guild factions offer unique boons and demand their own specific forms of tribute, their bureaucratic nature lends to some shared similarities. Some of these rules are only strictly applied in a Law and Misrule campaign, and are assumed to be not in effect in other campaign systems where Arbitrators have allowed Alliances to be formed.

Campaign Play

• Straight and Narrow: Guilds prefer to present themselves as Law-Abiding organizations, and will refuse to enter into an Alliance with any Outlaw gangs. If a lawful gang is outlawed with a Guild ally, prepare for a nasty Alliance Test unless you’re packing a Fixer.
• Undivided Attention: Rackets in a Law and Misrule campaign that grant a Guild Bond cannot break an existing Alliance, nor can they form a second one simultaneously. Instead, the controlling player is granted a free Bounty Hunter and two Hive Scummers. (In our campaigns, we’ve chosen to offer these mercenaries free equipment, as well as have them stick around from game to game while the Racket is in play.)
• Loss of Confidence: Almost all of a Guild’s demands, from Guard Duty to the post-battle tithe, can be fully disregarded if a player chooses, provided that they’re willing to risk losing their ally with an Alliance Test.

In-game Retinues

• Guard Duty: Whenever a player would have the option to choose a Scenario, they instead roll a d6 and will have a mission selected on their behalf on a three or less. The restricted list is Looters, Smash and Grab, Caravan Heist, or Escort Mission, all as the defender. We’ve covered all of these scenarios previously, and they’re mostly an uphill battle on the defending side. The guild will send some backup, but you’re in for a challenging fight.
• Excessive Notoriety: The more well-known a gang is, the less likely the Guild is to offer their retinue as extra manpower. Gangs with high reputation might have their requests denied on an unlucky roll, or be locked out from retinue access entirely at loftier ranks! For Guard Duty missions, the Retinues will appear no matter what, but high reputation will instead possibly trigger an Alliance Test. Turns out, the Guilds don’t particularly enjoy babysitting!
• Out of One, Many: A single crew slot from your regular gang is all it takes to field an entire Guild’s representatives. If a Scenario calls for, say, Random d3 + 4, instead treat it as Random d3 + 3 + Retinue.
  • Note: This may be changing as more House books are released. The most recent incarnation of the Slave Guild in House of Chains removes the crew slot requirement entirely, stating that the Retinue may be fielded in addition to a gang’s full crew.
• A Band Apart: Guild Retinues share priority with their host gang and can take advantage of abilities and rules across the two groups, but count as a separate entity for the purpose of Group Activations and Bottle Tests. With only three or four fighters each, turning tail is a real possibility once they suffer even a single Serious Injury. Orders given through the Overseer ability on leaders can only be used within the Retinue.
• Bodyguard: Leaders of a Guild’s party are often the biggest and the baddest, and their underlings are hell-bent on keeping them up and running. Regular fighters from a Retinue within 2” of the Guild’s leader can take any ranged hit instead, preventing the leader from even having to deal with being Pinned. This ability is exactly as powerful as you would expect!

The Water Guild (Mercator Nautica)

Water, just like in real life, is absolutely essential for life on Necromunda. The Guilders of the Mercator Nautica control every drop of water inside a hive from the tip of the Spire to the depths of the Underhive. In some poorly-supplied badzone settlements, the Water Guild represents continued life, and a late caravan can spell doom for the poor souls who live there.

Benefits

An alliance with the Water Guild will immediately net the gang with a free Slopper Hanger-On. Sloppers are support characters that you never want to actually show up in a game. They allow a player to roll a dice for each fighter in recovery and on a six, that fighter has healed up quicker than expected and gets to come out of recovery without missing a game.

This is really a fringe benefit. Gangs who had a Slopper before the Alliance can boost his success rate to 5+, which does provide some added chance to Recovery. Recovery is pretty common in a Necromunda campaign, but a Slopper is only 20 credits to hire, so this bonus is ultimately rather weak. However, the real reason you want an alliance with the Water Guild is…

The Nautican Syphoning Delegation

This Guild entourage is made up of three fighters: The Master Nautican, a Syphonite, and a Subnautican. It’s clearly one of the beefier entourages, with plenty of potential to do damage in battle.

The Master Nautican is the delegation’s leader. Their stats aren’t much to write home about, but they can cause problems for multi-wound characters with their Needle Pistol and Stiletto knife. They are, however, reasonably survivable. They come with Mesh Armor and a Bio-Booster, and can increase their Toughness once per game with a Stimm-Slug Stash. They also have Step Aside, which makes them reasonably survivable in combat. The strength bonus of the Stimm-Slug Stash doesn’t really synergize with their Stiletto Knife, though. The real reason you like them is, of course, the fact that they have the Overseer skill and can use it to double-activate the delegation’s Subnautican, who is fundamentally an Ambot, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Syphonite comes equipped with a Needle Rifle, Mesh Armor, a Stiletto Knife, and a Cult Icon. Their stats are lackluster, and their weaponry doesn’t inspire fear. They do have the Dodge skill, though, and that’s what really makes their job obvious: stand in front of the good members of the delegation and absorb some shots! The Syphonite is easily the most expendable member of the delegation.

Finally, we get to the good part: The Subnautican. Imagine a Big Daddy from Bioshock with hulk hands, and you’re on the right track for this fighter. The Subnautican has a similar profile to an Ambot or a Slave Ogryn Underboss, and packs quite a punch in combat thanks to their mighty fists and the Berserker skill. The move with this fighter is to plant them in front of the Master Nautican and benefit from their leader’s Overseer skill. The Subnautican can ignore Blaze, thanks to their Hazard Suit, but they have no access to pinning mitigation, so Overseer is a very important factor in making them worthwhile.

In addition to the fighters of the Nautican Syphoning Delegation, they provide one further special rule: Water Harvest. You add +1 to see if a fighter is captured after a battle if the Master Nautican hasn’t gone out of action, and a further +1 for each Nautican that hasn’t gone out of action, for a maximum of +3, contingent on the presence of the Master Nautican. If a fighter is captured, they must be immediately sold to the Guilders without the chance for a Rescue Mission. The fighter’s controlling player may stop this by paying the fighter’s full value to the Water Guild (not the player allied with the Water Guild!), but otherwise that fighter is done-ion rings. We suppose that the Water Guild has figured out that human bodies are probably the biggest source of fresh water in the Underhive…

The Water Guild is also pretty reasonable with their Syphoning Delegation, having a threshold of 10 (on a d6 plus Reputation) before they pull support. All in all, we recommend that if a gang is using a Syphoning Delegation in their crew, they should increase their Crew Rating by 585 credits.

Drawbacks

The Water Guild demands a tithe in the form of Water Levies. If the allied gang gained any credits as a scenario reward, they must pay the Water Guild (Read: subtract from their reward) d3x10 credits or test the alliance. Water ain’t cheap in the Underhive, y’all.

The Promethium Guild (Mercator Pyros)

The Promethium Guild holds power over all combustible liquids on Necromunda. If it is a fuel source, then it has been delivered and installed by the Mercator Pyros. The Pyre Makers are extremely jealous of their dominion over power and frequently enter into conflict with the Electro Guild (who are not represented in-game). The Guilders of the Promethium Guild are almost religious in their worship of fire and flame, and even consider the eternal flame to be an aspect of the God-Emperor of Mankind.

Benefits

Right off the bat, the Promethium Guild adds value with their Helmawr’s Radiance ability: the Guild removes the Scarce trait from any Plasma or Blaze weapons, and if they don’t have Scarce, the weapons gain Plentiful. If your gang has multiple Plasma or Flamer weapons, the Promethium Guild is already doing work. Dan tends to run multiple Plasma weapons in his Orlocks, and he’ll tell you all about how annoying scarce can be! But that’s not all they do, let’s talk about the…

Pyromantic Conclave

The Pyromantic Conclave consists of four fighters: A Pyrocaen Lord, a Pyromagir, and two Cynders. They’re not the most impressive fighters out there, but this is the Guild entourage who probably has the most access to shenanigans. If you’re a fan of shenanigans, and you play Necromunda, so we know you are, strongly consider allying with the Promethium Guild!

So, first up we have the Guild Procurator, the Pyrocaen Lord. Don’t get too excited about their stats, but combined with their equipment, the Pyrocaen Lord will make a credible close combat threat. They’ve got a Laspistol (sigh) and a Shock Stave (nice), and come with the rare and finicky Refractor Field, giving them a 5+ save against anything! Rounded out with Overseer and Evade, the Pyrocaen Lord is an undeniably effective fighter.

Next we have the Pyromagir, who really embodies the spirit of the Promethium Guild more than anyone else in the entourage. They’re armed with a Flamer, Stub Gun, a Cult Icon, and a Refractor Field, making them an awfully dangerous close-range shooting threat. Consider using the Pyrocaen Lord’s Overseer skill on this character as double shooting flamers is good, clean, fun. Also, the Pyromagir comes with Nerves of Steel, which is an extremely nice bonus. The single wound makes Nerves of Steel somewhat less important, but it’s still very nice to have.

Last, we have the Promethium Guild bodyguards, the Cynders. There’s two of them, which is good, because otherwise, they’re completely forgettable. Spring Up is a cool skill to have if a Toughness 3 guy with no armor can survive getting hit by anything, but don’t count on it. Armed with a Laspistol and either an Axe or Maul, they won’t be making their impact felt with their weapons, but they can still make an impact with…

Photon Flash Grenades!!! The entire entourage comes with Photon Flashes! This is awesome! Against anyone but an Escher gang, Photons will cause a ridiculous amount of havoc. They actually remove ready markers from fighters, and if the fighter doesn’t have one, they don’t get on on the next turn! They’re extremely powerful, and their presence in the entourage makes the Promethium Guild the immediate front runner for effectiveness amongst the Guilds.

If you’re not already trembling with the anticipation of using the Promethium Guild in-game, let us push you over the edge: the Pyromantic Conclave has a special rule called Light in Dark Places which gives the controlling player the ability to choose to use the Pitch Black rules at the start of the battle, and can cancel its use at any End phase. See what we said about shenanigans?! Pitch Black is an extremely impactful stipulation and will change the way the game is played in a major way.

Finally, the Promethium Guild is generous with their Pyromantic Conclaves, requiring a Reputation + d6 roll of 11 or higher to convince them not to assist their allies in battle. How nice of them! And finally, we suggest that the Pyromantic Conclave add 635 credits to a gang’s crew rating, should they use them in battle.

Drawbacks

Similar to the Water Guild, the Promethium Guild requires a portion of a gang’s hard-earned credits to represent the Guild’s help in creating a Power Tap. The gang will have to forfeit d3x10 credits or test the alliance.

The Corpse Guild (Mercator Pallidus)

Most Necromundans get only one meal their entire lives: corpse starch. Corpse starch is reclaimed protein that has been reconstituted into something that doesn’t hint at its origins. Those origins, of course, are the bodies of fellow hivers. Without the Corpse Guild, disease would run rife through the hives, as millions die each day. Due to their grisly task, many in the Underhive view the Corpse Guild with extreme levels of suspicion and fear.

Benefits

A gang allied with the Corpse Guild won’t ever go hungry, for better or worse. The special rule Extra Corpse Starch Rations means that each roll on the Lasting Injury table for the gang allied with the Mercator Pallidus can be re-rolled, but the second roll stands, even if it is worse. Clearly this is useful in about 1/3rd of all Lasting Injury rolls, but a broken arm could quickly turn into a Critical Injury, and when the Corpse Guild is around, fighters tend not to come back from those. But that’s ok, because the Underhive is like a big party, and there ain’t no party like a…

Corpse Harvesting Party

A Corpse Harvesting Party consists of 4 partygoers: a Pale Consort, a Bone Scrivener, and two Corpse Grinders. While the Consort and the Scrivener are lightweights, the two Corpse Grinders are serious heavy hitters. This entourage is heavily focused on dealing damage in combat, and any gang lacking in such will appreciate their presence.

The host of the Corpse Harvesting party is the Pale Consort. Weakling-level stats and a laspistol and fighting knife won’t strike fear in the hearts of any, really, but at least they’re more survivable than most, coming equipped with a Medi Skull, Respirator and Mesh Armor. Like every other leader thus far, they get the Overseer skill, along with Fearsome, which is fine, whatever, and that’s where they shine. Double activating your big, beefy Chain Glaivers is what the Pale Consort came to town for.

Next we have the Bone Scrivener, who is, by a substantial margin, the most useless Guild Factotum we’ve seen so far. Crap stats, the requisite Cult Icon, and a Respirator are rounded out by the inclusion of a Gun Skull, which is where the fun begins. In the Gun Skull’s rules, the skull fires whenever its bearer fires, but in this case, the bearer doesn’t have a ranged weapon, and therefore cannot not make a Shoot (Basic) action. So, rules as written, the Bone Scrivener totes around a Gun Skull that they cannot use. Necromunda! It’s an easy fix for an Arbitrator, but we thought it was worth mentioning.

Now we get to the good stuff: the Corpse Grinders. Not to be confused with the Corpse Grinder Cult, these bloodthirsty butchers have yet to fall to the machinations of the Lord of Skin and Sinew. Either way, these fearsome fighters come with a Chain Glaive, Flak Armor, and the Crushing Blow skill, which might be overkill with a Chain Glaive. Have that Pale Consort use their Overseer skill to double activate these bad dudes twice, and they’ll rend their way into your heart in no time.

The Corpse Harvesting Party’s special rule is called This One’s Still Moving and it impacts all fighters who have suffered a critical injury during the battle. Roll a dice for each, and on a 6, their injury is changed to a Memorable Death, and the player controlling the Corpse Harvesting party gets all of their weapons and equipment. While this is an undeniably powerful rule, it could potentially end the life of one of your own fighters prematurely.

The Corpse Guild is stingy with their partygoers, and a Reputation + d6 roll of 9 will effectively poop on the Corpse Harvesting Party. We suggest that the controlling player add 775 credits to their crew rating when attending the Corpse Harvesting Party.

Drawbacks

Remember when we mentioned earlier that critically injured fighters don’t tend to make it when Corpse Guilders are near? Well, their unique drawback is called Meat for the Grinders and one randomly selected critically injured fighter after each game is claimed by the Corpse Guild to be rendered into food. The gang can hold on to their fighter, of course, but they’ll have to test the alliance.

The Slave Guild (Mercator Sanguis)

If you haven’t yet figured it out, life really sucks on Necromunda. Most of the population is born into bondage to one house or another, and the Slave Guild is responsible for tracking, buying and selling these unfortunate souls. Slavers also run the majority of fighting pits and gambling from their network of gladiatorial arenas. A Slave Guild entourage always carries plenty of chains and shackles to serve as a bleak reminder to Hivers of what will happen if they step out of line.

Benefits

The Slave Guild knows their way around a fight, and your gang can benefit from their vast knowledge. They offer Weapon Training, which allows one of your champs or your leader to gain one free extra skill from their primary skill lists for the duration of the next battle. Useful! Let’s not waste too much time though, so we’ll move along to the only guild entourage that has models by the time of writing this piece, the…

Slaver Entourage

The biggest and beefiest of the Guilder allies, the Slaver Entourage consists of 4 members: The Chain Lord, the Shakleman, and two Pit Fighters. They are, unsurprisingly, quite adept at causing all sorts of damage in combat, and the Shakleman can potentially cause plenty of problems with his Harpoon Launcher. This is the guilder entourage for carnage, accept no substitutes.

First up, the Chain Lord. Big Chungus here comes with a Chain Glaive or Chain Axe and Shock Whip, Light Carapace Armor (where?!), a Bio-Booster, and a Stimm-Slug Stash. He’s got a beefy profile, too, so trust that this guy’s a monster. He also comes with the Hurl and Overseer skills. Unlike a lot of Guild leaders, this one’s so good that using Overseer seems like a waste, though. Oh, well.

Next, we have the Shakleman. He’s got the requisite Cult Icon, a Shock Stave, a Harpoon Launcher (!), and Flak Armor. So far, he’s the only ally to be equipped with a heavy weapon! This coolness is, unfortunately, a bit mitigated by the fact that he only has a 4+ Ballistic Skill, but he’s still a real ranged threat. On top of all that, he’s got the Disarm skill for a little bit of melee survivability. Not too shabby.

Finally, we come to everyone’s favorites: the Pit Fighters. Armed with a Chain Glaive, Flak Armor, and a Stimm-Slug Stash, and combine it with their melee-specialist profile, and you’ve got a recipe for havoc. They’ve also got the Rain of Blows skill, which is definitely a nice-to-have when you’re dealing with a 4+ WS.

The Slaver Entourage’s special rule is a bit of a two-way street. It’s called A Promising Fighter and in the post-battle sequence of a game where the Slaver Entourage took part, roll a dice for a randomly determined ganger or juve who took someone out of action in combat or performed a coup de grace. On a 6, the gang gets d3 x 10 credits as the Chain Lord has been impressed by their prowess. On a 1, the Chain Lord is so impressed that he claims the fighter for himself and that fighter is deleted from the roster and they take all of their equipment with them. So, be careful with those melee kills, Scummers!

The Slaver Guild is unconcerned what happens to their property, and will only refuse assistance on a Reputation + d6 roll of 11 or more. We suggest that a player using a Slaver Guild Entourage add 765 credits to their crew rating for the battle.

Drawbacks

The Slave Guild continues to impress with a rather anemic drawback: Slaves for the Pit. The controlling gang must simply give over their captured fighters to the Slave Guild immediately and can’t sell them off, unless they wish to test the alliance.

The Guild of Coin (Mercator Gelt)

The Guild of Coin functions as Necromunda’s Department of Transportation. They maintain, traverse, and police the roads and gates between levels of the hives and even the hives themselves. Most Necromundans never leave the level they are born on, and the Guild of Coin is there to make sure that if they do, they’re paying for it.

Benefits

When you ally with the Guild of Coin, every win becomes ever-so-slightly more lucrative! Victories in scenarios that grant a credit reward will add an additional d6x10 credits to a gang’s coffers (or an extra d6x5 credits if the mission was Shootout). Potentially gaining an extra 60 credits per game is nothing to sneeze at, though we’ve modified this ability to count as an extra d6x10 credits on any victory. This way, the Guild can better jive with the many Post-Book of Peril scenarios that offer zero credits normally and would prevent the bonus from triggering. After all, it’s not like gangs are getting an insane amount of power out of…

Toll Collectors

The Toll Collectors consist of a Master of Coin, a Skinflint, and two Grovellers. We’ll level with you, none of these guys are going to wind up being blood-soaked avatars of death when they show up to the battle. Think of them more as office drones who got handed a gun and sent outside.

With a Power Knife and a Laspistol, the Master of Coin fancies himself a close-range specialist. He’s better than average at fighting, but his lackluster gear makes him better suited as a Overseering support character to a pair of Shotgun-toting Grovellers. Like the Bone Scrivener, he’s also armed with a Gun Skull, but his Laspistol means that the Master of Coin is actually allowed to take advantage of it. Survivability is a favored gamble with a Displacer Field, which can be infuriating for opponents as you succeed in rolls, right up until the moment he teleports out of the line of fire and into a bottomless pit.

His second in command, the Skinflint, takes their role as a close-ranged dynamo slightly more seriously, namely through judicious application of their Plasma Pistol. This ends up being the fanciest weapon available to the Toll Collectors, so use it well. Grovellers can each choose either a Long Rifle or a Shotgun, depending on whether they’re better served in the overall crew as bodyguards to the Master of Coin or as more of a long-ranged firebase. Their Ballistic Skill of 4+ isn’t amazing, but aimed shots with Long Rifles will reliably put in work.

The Retinue’s special rule, Highways and Byways, is a bit of a mess. The phrasing is convoluted and describes a sequence of events that doesn’t line up with pre-battle sequence at all. We’ve eschewed it entirely for something a bit simpler and less restrictive that actually works:

“In the pre-battle sequence, if the Toll Collectors will be added to the controlling player’s crew, the player may choose to roll 2d6. On a roll of 6+, the controlling player selects either Ambush or The Trap as the battle’s scenario, and acts as the Attacker in it.”

Even with this change, the Toll Collectors don’t bring a ton of raw power to the table, but giving them slightly more agency to change the terms of the battle should help make their inclusion in a crew a more tactical choice. The Guild of Coin remains stalwart, regardless, and will refuse to join the fight on a Reputation + d6 roll of 10 or more. Our recommendation for this Retinue is 590 credits.

Drawbacks

In an unexpectedly magnanimous gesture from the Hive’s finest tax collectors, a paltry donation of d3x10 credits is required after any scenario that resulted in a credit reward. This can seem a bit silly when one of the boons granted by the Alliance is typically d6x10 bonus credits, but statistically a player will still come out positive.

The Iron Guild (Mercator Munda)

The House of Necromunda generally don’t get along, so they need a go-between when it comes to arms and raw materials trading. In steps the Iron Guild. Additionally, Iron Guilders often step into the wastes or into collapsed domes in search of raw materials that they can stake a claim on. They’ll then sell that claim to one of the more industrious Houses, like Goliath or Orlock. Their position as the middle-men of Necromunda is often dangerous, though, and Iron Guilders walk the Underhive heavily armed.

Benefits

While there’s plenty of things that metal can be worked into, the Iron Guild focuses on guns. Lots of guns, readily available, at rock-bottom prices straight from the source. While allied, the rarity of all ranged weapons at the Trading Post is reduced by 2, and can be purchased at a discount of d3x10 credits per item. This discount can be increased even further to a whopping d3x20 credits per ranged weapon, provided you’re willing to risk an Alliance Test.

(Note: It’s a bit unclear whether this discount is rolled for once when the Alliance is formed and then permanently locked, rolled in the post-battle phase for all items purchased in that game, or rolled for each weapon purchased individually. We opt for the last method, but we’ve seen it ruled differently so check with your Arbitrator!)

Cheaper firepower and less reliance on Rarity rolls are key methods for a gang to rapidly outgun their competition, making the Iron Guild an invaluable patron for an opportunistic Underhiver. It’s fortunate that their boon is so great on its own, because their Retinue is…

Just a Bunch of Dopes

That’s right, instead of having a unique set of fighters that can join your gang as allied representatives, the Iron Guild offers d3+2 Hive Scum for the battle. They are completely free, so it’s not the worst thing in the world, since each one comes equipped with up to 60 credits worth of gear of the player’s choice. Use them to fill in the gaps of your own gang’s firebase, send them off on a special flanking mission, or just run them straight forward as cannon fodder. They’re nothing fancy, but four to five extra bodies might just be enough to run your opponent out of bullets!

The Iron Guild would be terribly embarrassed if any of these yahoos managed to outshine your gang, so their threshold for support is 10 (on a d6 plus Reputation). Higher-ranked gangs probably don’t want to associate with this riff-raff, anyway! Our recommendation for Crew Rating with this pseudo-retinue is 90 credits per Scummer.

Drawbacks

Whenever a fighter permanently dies and is deleted from the gang roster, all of their equipment is given to the Iron Guild instead of returning to the gang’s stash. This can, like always, be politely refused with an Alliance Test, but with guns this cheap is it worth the risk?

Finding a Balance

You’ll notice that for each of these Retinues, we’ve offered a suggested crew rating hike to be applied in all battles that these representatives take part in. At the moment, these numbers are primarily a raw representation based on the costs of comparable fighters from elsewhere in the game and Trading Post prices.

It will allow an opposing player, who for whatever reason is not also using an allied Retinue, to take advantage of Underdog Bonuses to compensate for being vastly outnumbered. It does not, currently, take into account the real and/or intangible bonuses granted by an Alliance, that would still be active even when the Retinue stays home. It’s a work in progress, but here’s where we’re at so far:

We’ll be looking at these numbers more once we tackle Criminal Alliances next week soon, and hope to have something a bit more comprehensive for all of you fine people by the time we finish up this series. We’re taking into account all of the feedback we’ve received so far – if it’s worked for your group, we want to hear it!

That’s it for now, Scummers! We’re taking a break from Alliances next week, and instead we will be playing the new solo-play mission posted on Warhammer Community! We are absolutely starved for a game of any form right now, as we’re sure you can understand, so even a solo mission will substantially improve our collective mood. Stay safe, Scummers, and see you next week!