Setting Up The Campaign

RAW ✔️ Source: Necromunda: Ash Wastes Rulebook

Setting up an Ash Wastes Campaign is a task that falls to the Arbitrator. To set up the campaign, the Arbitrator must make sure that all the players have founded their gang and been given their starting Road Sections. This is best done in a single evening or session where everyone playing in the campaign meets and goes through all the steps of setting up the campaign together and generally gets excited about the fun ahead.

Outlaws And Ash Waste Nomads (Raiders)

Outlaw gangs and Ash Waste Nomads have a special role to play within an Ash Wastes Campaign. While Outlaw gangs, such as Corpse Grinder Cults and Genestealer Cults, can be given Trade Routes and roads like other gangs - it can be imagined they are taking these places over for their own dark purposes - they can also be Raiders. The Arbitrator can decide if these gangs will be Raiders or not at the start of the campaign. Ash Wastes Nomads do not control Trade Routes - rather they are always Raiders.

Raiders gain credits as normal for controlling Road Sections, extracting them through larceny and destruction rather than tolls. However, instead of gaining the benefits of controlling Trade Routes they disrupt them, gaining special bonuses.

Set Start And End Dates

The Ash Wastes Campaign is divided into six campaign cycles, separated by a single cycle of downtime after the first three cycles, meaning the campaign will last a total of seven cycles. For ease, we have set each cycle as a week, as this is usually how often gaming groups or groups of friends get together to play, however, if the players choose then a cycle can represent a longer or shorter period of real time. The first step in setting up the campaign is for the Arbitrator to determine the start date, the end date and when the downtime cycle will fall. They then share this information with the players.

Starting Roads And Trade Routes

During the Ash Wastes Campaign, each gang begins play with two randomly-determined Road Sections. Each Road Section links two or more places to one another and can be used to claim a Trade Route between these places.

Depending on the number of players in the campaign the Arbitrator might not wish to include all the roads - after all, if the players don't need to fight each other to complete their goals then it will be a dull campaign indeed! Note though that no unclaimed Road Sections are added after the Season of Flame phase has ended (see page 121).

Use the following guidelines when setting up the campaign:

• Build a Road deck including at least four Road Sections for each player. More Road Sections can be included but this number helps keep the campaign focused. If only using some of the Road Sections, the Arbitrator should use the map on page 116 to select Road Sections that are connected.
• The Arbitrator randomly draws two Road cards (or generates them on the table on page 117) for each player, in either a random order or an order chosen by the Arbitrator. Roll a D66 to determine the Road Section the player's gang starts with. Once a road has been claimed by a gang, it is removed from the deck.
• Any remaining Road Sections are left in the deck and are considered to be unclaimed. For more details on claiming roads and creating Trade Routes, see Issuing and Accepting Challenges on page 119.

note

Territories In An Ash Wastes Campaign

In an Ash Wastes Campaign, players fight over a special kind of Territory called Road Sections. When playing an Ash Wastes Campaign, the two terms can be used interchangeably.

note

Maps And Environments

On the next page is a map showing the area of Necromunda that the Ash Wastes Campaign is fought over. There are official routes that are comparatively safe with at least nominal oversight by Lord Helmawr, these go through the comparatively 'safe Near Wastes and Deep Wastes. In addition, some especially brave or foolhardy traders choose to travel through the deepest and wildest parts of the wastes. While such an endeavour is perilous and fraught with danger, the rewards can be massive as you can cross distances much quicker and with no official oversight. We represent these routes in the campaign with Unsanctioned Road Sections, most of which are located in the Wild Wastes, dramatically increasing the lethality of battles fought to control them.

Arbitrators may wish to make their own map for the campaign, the advantages to having a map is the Arbitrator can use it to show the opening and demise of different Trade Routes, sending copies to the players each cycle so they can see if new gang territories have appeared, old ones have vanished or new Trade Routes have opened up. These maps can be as simple or as complex as the Arbitrator wishes, and could simply be some names on a piece of paper connected by lines, right up to detailed grid or hex maps showing all manner of information from wasteland perils to the location of the great hives.

Another use for maps is for helping the players and the Arbitrator choose opponents for battles and the environments they might fight in. As players can see which gangs are connected to their Trade Routes and the kind of terrain they might have to battle it out in, this can inform the terrain used for the players' battlefields as well as if a gang might need to travel through hostile territory to reach their intended target.

Road Rules

RAW ✔️ Source: Necromunda: Ash Wastes Rulebook

Each Road Section represents a different part of the wastes, and when gangs are fighting over the Road Section they are fighting in that part of the wastes. In a battle where the Road Section has been selected as the reward, battlefield effects should be generated from the corresponding Environment tables (see Battles in the Ash Wastes on page 124) - this is either Near Wastes, Deep Wastes or Wild Wastes.

Ash Wastes Road Sections

Sanctioned Road Sections

D66	Road Section	Connects	Location	Income
11	Crater's Shadow	Ironcrag - Grave Run	Deep Wastes	2D6 credits
12	Grave Run	Crater's Shadow - Storm Road	Deep Wastes	D6 credits
13	Storm Road	Grave Run - Ash Storm Observatory	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
14	Iron Ridge	Ash Storm Observatory - Light's End	Near Wastes	D6 credits
15	Tubeway One	Radfalls - The Dive	Deep Wastes	2D6 credits
16	Near Reaches	Rust Deeps - Far Reaches	Deep Wastes	2D6 credits
21	Far Reaches	Near Reaches - Spine Ridge	Deep Wastes	3D6 credits
22	Deeps	Rust Deeps - Krok Pass	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
23	Krok Pass	Deeps - Crater's Edge	Deep Wastes	D6 credits
24	Low Road	Six Holes - Witherwell	Deep Wastes	D6 credits
25	High Road	Witherwell - Cogway	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
26	Cogway	High Road - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
31	Fiveways	Ash Storm Observatory - Clearway	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
32	Clearway	Fiveways - The Flats	Near Wastes	3D6 credits
33	The Flats	Clearway - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	3D6 credits
34	Ore Road	Spider Mines - Ore Pass	Deep Wastes	3D6 credits
35	Ore Pass	Ore Road - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
36	Outcasts Passage	Radfalls - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	3D6 credits
41	Blades Cut	Brokebone Fighting Pits - Klassmar's Choice	Deep Wastes	2D6 credits
42	Klassmar's Choice	Blades Cut - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	D6 credits
43	The Baked Expanse	Rust Deeps - The Hilt	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
44	The Hilt	The Baked Expanse - The Wyrd	Near Wastes	3D6 credits
45	The Wyrd	The Hilt - Bullet Gate	Near Wastes	2D6 credits
46	Bullet Gate	The Wyrd - Cinderak City	Near Wastes	2D6 credits

Unsanctioned Road Sections

D66	Road Section	Connects	Location	Income
51	The Radlight Expanse	Light's End - Spider Mines	Wild Wastes	3D6 credits
52	Freedom Passage	Spider Mines - Radfalls	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
53	Helot's Path	Radfalls - Brokebone Fighting Pits	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
54	Khimerix Caves	Brokebone Fighting Pits - Beast Run	Wild Wastes	3D6 credits
55	Beast Run	Khimerix Caves - Gark's End	Deep Wastes	2D6 credits
56	Gark's End	Beast Run - Rust Deeps	Near Wastes	D6 credits
61	Edge Road	Crater's Edge - Shimmer Falls	Deep Wastes	D6 credits
62	Shimmer Falls	Edge Road - Six Holes	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
63	Raider's Refuge	Six Holes - Night Passage	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
64	Night Passage	Raider's Refuge - Ironcrag	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
65	The Twin's Pass	Ironcrag - Cracked Canyon	Wild Wastes	2D6 credits
66	Cracked Canyon	The Twin's Pass - Witherwell	Wild Wastes	3D6 credits

Claiming A Trade Route

Each Road Section connects two places, either a location (in bold) or another Road Section. To create a Trade Route between two fixed locations, a gang must control an unbroken chain of Road Sections that link the listed two locations together. Multiple gangs can control the same Trade Route by taking different routes through the wastes, if this happens, any gang who controls the route gains the benefits. When a gang gains income from their roads at the start of a campaign cycle, if they control a trade route they will gain additional benefits as detailed below depending upon whether they are Raiders or not.

Trade Route

Trade Route	Start & End	Trading Bonus	Raiding Bonus
Shadows Ridge	Ironcrag - Ash Storm Observatory	3D6x10.	2D6x10.
Spire Straight	Ash Storm Observatory - Cinderak City	1 Bounty Hunter (every battle this cycle).	D6x10.
Beaten Path	Rust Deeps - Cinderak City	3D6x10.	3D6x10.
Crater Run	Crater's Edge - Rust Deeps	50% discount on Hangers-on (rounded up to nearest 5 credits).	3D6x10.
Angel's Return	Six Holes - Cinderak City	2D6x10.	1 Hive Scum (every battle this cycle).
Oilslick Run	Ironcrag - Cinderak City	5D6x10.	4D6x10.
Dawn Run	Light's End - Cinderak City	4D6x10.	5D6x10.
Crooked Road	Crater's Edge - Cinderak City	1 Ganger.	+1 Reputation.
Ore Road	Spider Mines - Cinderak City	-2 Rarity for all Trading Post items.	2D6x10.
Scrap Way	The Dive - Cinderak City	2D6x10.	3D6x10.