40K, Kill Team & Necromunda

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the rulesets, editions and aspirations to play everything and anything. I love the 2nd Edition (2e40k.com), and I'm driven to learn many of the newer games (to find people to play).

I've picked up rules for most editions of 40K, and with the boxsets (mostly getting them for the minis), I've got Kill Team rules and campaigns. Ontop of that, I have the rules from Necromunda: Ash Wastes and a couple of the books. Throw in Shadow War: Armageddon, and I'm feeling anxious just with that list.

I've decided however, to make a firm decision, as to what I'll focus on/make an effort to play:

I really disliked the 8th Edition of 40K. I feel that it took a pretty bloated rule set with 7th Edition, and replaced the bloat with an awful deck building system. Similarly, 9th and 10th don't interest me, and indeed, feel too plastic and shiny for my liking. I'm very much into Inq28, so this all leads nicely to just focusing on 2nd Edition for the majority of play. It's the basis of Gorkamorka and the early Necromunda, much of which I'm using as a source for 2nd Edition house rules anyway. It kind of wins by default.

Next we have Necromunda. I've not played it, but I'm sufficiently won over by it.  It's a new game to me, with new mechanics, but I feel it's distant enough with a very different feel, that I can 'manage' properly learning it. It's 'current' so there's a big enough community playing it that I can find a game or two.

Finally is a skirmish game. I've been wanting a quick and easy skirmish game, so Kill Team seemed to make sense. But it's a new game to me, and I only want to deal with one new game (Necromunda). Shadow War: Armageddon (SWA) was a predecessor to Kill Team, based on 2nd Edition and the original Necromunda so is an easy adoption for me.

This all raises an interesting question. What kind of games do I actually want to play? The reality, is that I don't have time for tradditional 40K games, so a skirmish game, or one that can be focused around 10-15 miniatures is ideal. I'm now in a mindset, that focusing on a skirmish ruleset like SWA or a reduced ruleset version of 2nd Edition makes better sense. In reality, I just want weird narrative stuff on the table, which normally requires lots of homebrew rules (part of the fun).

So, here's where I'm at:

• 2e40k Skirmish: playing smaller skirmish games of 2nd Edition, as my 'Inq28' gameplay. Much of my gameplay will be formed around long-play narrative stories, and using highly modified and kitbashed units.
• Necromunda: playing small games with a wider community, using more stock miniatures, but with scope to kitbash Outcasts and Ruinous units. I have a vague objective this year to get a game or two of Necromunda in, so will see how I fair there.

I find 'talking it out' helps to deal with the overwhelm that comes with having unachievable plans, and frankly the stack of rulebooks and limitless potential is just too much. Creating constraints like those above seems to help make things manageable.

To be continued...