The Ballad of the Meaty Lads

[Tom]

I've enjoyed the playtest games of the tweaked Necromunda system so much that I'm keeping a narrative gang log.

The Starting Lads:


Forge Tyrant - Big McLargehuge


Big's Sump Kroc - Jolene


Stimmer - Meaty Chunks


Bruiser (Specialist) - Boom Boy


Bruiser - Beefy Geoff


Bully - Riblet

[Tom]

Game 1:

The Lads strike out into the Hive, eager to gain territory and make their mark. They swiftly clash with a rival gang of Goliaths out to achieve the exact same aim when hunting for loot in an abandoned dome. Somewhat outnumbered (and grumbling about the boss spending all the creds on himself) they fight a vicious fight, driving their rivals from the area but failing to secure any of the much needed loot to stamp their mark and grow their territory.

Meaty Chunks receives a spinal injury, cancelling out his vat grown dermal hardening and bringing him back down to the toughness of his more normal gang mates (though still significantly tougher than the standard underhiver). With luck his hyper healing genetic modifications may yet repair the damage in time.

Picking over the battlefield after the action, the Lads find they may have missed the loot, but they do find an unconscious rival ganger, truss him up and bring him home, hoping to sell him to the guilders and pull some profit from this fight.

[Tom]

Game 2:

With the rival ganger safely secured in a vault, Big puts the Lads on guard duty waiting for his Guilder contact to make the sale. Concentration however isn't the Lads' strongest point and when the captive's gang mates launch a rescue attempt the guards are all over the place, Big the worst offender of them all.

After the injuries inflicted on them last time, the rival Goliaths have decided to even the odds with the services of the legendary bounty hunter Gor Half-horn. The abhuman ambushes Jolene and takes her out of action with his over-sized chainsword. Big is so rattled by this he manages to miss the point blank melta shot on Gor, opening himself up to falling to the same fate. However his armour miraculously save him from the bounty hunter's assault and he makes short work of the goat man with his power-axe in retaliation.

All this however has been no more than a distraction from the rescue itself, which seems on the point of succeeding as the captive is set free, when the Lads' reinforcements arrive and pin the rescue party down under a barrage of frag grenades. At the last minute their nerve fails them and the captive gives up the flight while his would be rescuers flee into the darkness.

The sale is made and Big drags the critically injured Jolene to a doctor as quick as he can. The doc however bristles at being treated as a vet and demands an exorbitant fee to save the beast's life, which even the proceeds from the sold off captive fail to cover. Jolene breathes her last while the doctor refuses to budge and Big is giving in to despair when the doctor's assistant offers him a tip on someone who could help 'on the downlow'. Down in a hidden basement Jolene's body is subjected to the attentions of blasphemous machinery that jolts her back into life, seemingly weakened in body but increased in viciousness by the experience. There's no time for celebration however as the Enforcers smash the door in and raid the illegal resurrection operation. Big and Jolene escape in the confusion, but he saw the doctor's assistant being locked in magnacles by the Enforcers and knows he'll have been ratted out immediately.

The Meaty Lads have found themselves on the wrong side of the law and are now outlaws. As Big pat's Jolene's scaly head he smiles at her, 'You're worth it my girl' he says, 'I'm not losing you.'

A fresh young Bully from the forge is inspired by the tales of the zombie croc and decides to seek out and join the Lads, and Big secures the services of an incredibly unsavoury outlaw medic to avoid future critical injury based crises.

[Dave]

Nice write up. I think the scenarios have been a success and more importantly lots of fun.

I don’t think you rolled for Meaty Chunks’ Hyper Healing after the Rescue scenario?

[Tom]

I did at home and failed. The extra viciousness for the croc is that she reached 6xp and rolled WS up.

[Tom]

Nugget and Dr. Doug

[Tom]

Game 3:

Attempting to lay claim to some territory beyond the home forge, The Lads end up in yet another scrap with their rival Goliaths who were out on the same mission. Things start messily with Beefy Geoff wrestling an oddly familiar looking opponent in a pool of slime for a few rounds, but he emerges triumphant as the reinforcements from both sides smash into each other on the line of battle. It's an ugly scrap and after a few losses both sides start to decide the fight isn't worth it and start slinking off the table while their leaders aren't watching. Beefy Geoff guns down an enemy champion after a sacrificial hyper chemmed up Riblet softens him up with a suicidal charge, and when Big brings his melta to bear on the enemy leader things rapidly start to wind up. When Big and Jolene are left alone on the battlefield with a single remaining enemy, the rival champion's nerve abandons him in the face of the undead beast leaving him open to being taken down and The Lads with last man, and zombie krok, standing.

Following the battle some associates of the Resurrectionists who saved Jolene make contact and Big formalises an alliance providing both protection muscle and practical advertising for their services in the form of Jolene, in return for free usage of their 'facilities' to patch up any of The Lads who suffer any unfortunate accidents. Between this and the services of Dr. Doug, The Lads are set to be harder stamp out for good than a rad-roach.

Another fresh vat born recruit makes their way from the forge to offer his services to The Lads, but is slightly miffed to be handed no more than a stubgun and good luck slap on the back as Big is holding the purse strings tight hoping to recruit some (comically) bigger guns further down the road.

[MoodyGit (Gary)]

Ah, the 'two twin brothers trying to persuade each other their friends are the best by mud wrestling' opening scene.
There's a movie idea there alright.

[Tom]

Chitlins - "I joined the Meaty Lads and all I got was this crappy pistol."

[Tom]

Game 4:

The lower ranking members of the Lads are trying to stake a claim to some local turf when they stumble into a small posse of Escher gangers on the same mission. As they square up to each other an unlucky Enforcer Rookie is caught in the middle of the ensuing rumble.

The Lads regret writing the Rookie off as a minor threat as the plucky young recruit weathers all shots thrown at him from both sides and magnacles an incredulous Nugget much to his embarrassment. The Escher fair less well however succumbing to ranged fire and one getting punched out by new recruit Chitlins with his bare hands. In return the Escher weapons, while accurate, seem unable to do more than slow down the Lads and can't land any wounding blows.

The remaining two Escher scarper with some loot at which point the Rookie beats a strategic retreat. Checking the battlefield in the aftermath the Lads are surprised to find two dead Escher bodies, a blow this upstart gang is unlikely to recover from allowing the Lads to lay uncontested claim the local Toll Crossing which will provide a nice small revenue stream going forward.

With the new loot from expanding their turf the Lads manage to recruit Frazzles, a disgraced natborn Goliath noble son and distant relative of Big, who was looking for just this kind of outlaw reprobate gang to pal up with. Both he and his Storm Welder seem a little unstable but Big is happy to have him along as long as he promises to aim well away from his gang mates.

Chitlins manages to secure a Spud Jacker, eschewing the axes of his fellow Bullies as after punching that poor Escher to death he has gained a taste for more blunt force trauma in his beatings (and because I don't want three models armed identically!), while Nugget secures some hard stims to try to avoid future close combat shame after his little spell in the cuffs.