Necromunda Rematch: Goliaths Settle the Score Against the Squats
Last night brought us a proper Necromunda revenge match. Fresh off the recently finished campaign, the Goliaths came in hungry to settle the score from the previous game, while the Squats arrived full of confidence. This time both crews were clearly better prepared: the table, the approach, and the gang composition all mattered from the very first activation.
Right from the start, the Goliaths pulled the Squats into their kind of game. Smoke grenades landed in both corridors, cutting off lines of sight and shutting down the dwarven shooting for a crucial opening window. That gave the Goliaths exactly what they wanted: time to close the distance and force quick hand-to-hand eliminations.
On paper, it was a very good plan — and for the first turn or two it worked exactly as intended. But Necromunda being Necromunda, the battlefield had other ideas. On the right flank, the smoke stubbornly stayed in place and kept blocking fire. On the left, though, it dropped much faster, and that immediately opened a lane for the Squat Brute.
He took the chance in the most Squat way possible: by unleashing what looked, to everyone watching, like at least seventeen heavy bolter rounds into the first exposed Goliath. We are not saying that was the exact number, but from the side of the table it definitely felt that way.
Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Goliaths burst out of the fading smoke and into the Squat positions. Their first shots missed the Squat champion, who answered by knocking the attacker to the ground. After a brief exchange of fire, the Claim Jumper got a little too confident and decided it was time to test his power fist directly on a Goliath’s face.
Unfortunately for him, he somehow failed to land a single hit in close combat.
Which would have been merely embarrassing — except the Goliath then returned the favour and also failed to connect. So for one glorious moment they were basically just standing there, staring deeply into each other’s eyes in the middle of a gang war.
That awkward duel did not last long, because the rest of the Goliaths moved in to help, and the Claim Jumper was taken out on the spot. From there, the usually composed Squat plan started to unravel fast. A brutal early bottle failure — courtesy of a six at exactly the wrong moment — tilted the game hard, and two more Squats decided that discretion was the better part of survival and simply ran for it.
At that point, only the boss and the Brute were left on the battlefield.
The Goliaths, sensing blood, went for the finish. The Squat leader managed one last dramatic moment by firing a meltagun and reducing a Goliath to what can only be described as a small pile of dust. But even that was not enough to turn things around, and he soon decided to retreat as well.
The Goliaths, meanwhile, stayed rock solid. With their leader’s high Cool keeping the gang steady, they had no intention of giving up the field.
And then came the best part of the endgame: what looked like it would be a quick cleanup turned into a stubborn little legend for the Squat Brute. For several more rounds he held on, passing enough Cool checks and resisting a concentrated beating from multiple Goliaths. Battered, knocked down, wounded, and eventually out of ammo, he still made the Goliaths work for every inch.
Only at the very end did he finally decide to evacuate.
Which meant that this time, the victory belonged deservedly to the Goliaths.
What we really liked in this report is how Necromunda the whole thing feels. A smart opening plan, smoke doing exactly what it should until it suddenly doesn’t, an absurd heavy bolter volley, a comedy melee between a power fist and a Goliath face that somehow achieved nothing, and then a bottle roll that changed the entire flow of the game. Perfect.
There was also some post-game honesty from the Squat side that made us laugh — the rough plan was apparently something along the lines of learning how to surrender a game less obviously so the opponent would not notice too early. That, plus charging in with the Claim Jumper “just to see if he fights well in melee”, is exactly the kind of logic we respect around here.
Most importantly: by all accounts, it was simply a really fun game.
And the story is not over, because next up there is another revenge attempt on the horizon — this time against the campaign organizer, who already has two wins in that matchup. So naturally, we are already waiting for the next chapter.
Also, a side effect of all this is that Necromunda appetite in the group is clearly growing. We are very much here for that.