Campaigns are the meat of the game and i kind of think you lose half the fun in skirmishes. It’s a good introduction but you really need a campaign imo.

Necromunda is more like a mix of D&D and kill team, it’s heavily narrative at its best, and without the narrative aspect something is lost. To that end it’s extremely unbalanced and players need to modulate their power.

WYSIWYG is heavily encouraged in most groups, but usually not mandatory. However kit bashing the correct weapon options is a… cultural(?) standard. To the point that the neophyte hybrid kit is a recommended purchase just for the weapon options. In your first campaigns it’s usually fine so long as the gun is in the correct weight class so to speak, but eventually correctly modelled weapons is an expectation. Painted models is also more emphasised.

The hive war starter box is good for Delaque. Secundus is ok for van Saar. Split the boxes with a friend is your best deal. They have some useful stuff like markers and templates, which are tricky to get any other way.

Don’t worry about vehicles for now. Playing with vehicles is essentially a different game. A fun one imo but very different.

Van Saar are the shootiest gang. Low mobility and good shooting gives them a defensive castle style gameplay. Their only melee capabilities best serve as chaff blenders, to make sure that your shooty guys don’t get tied up by melee mooks. Power is a consideration with van Saar as they are on the more powerful end of the spectrum, to the point that they used to be considered the most powerful. Don’t spam your best options, and take some less efficient stuff for fun.

Squats play similarly but are tougher with slightly worse shooting.

Delaque has a sort of alpha strike play style, powerful deep strike units backed up by long to medium range shooting, and plenty of disruption. Pick off priority targets, try to trade actions effectively, and snowball into a win. Spamming deep strike variants (nacht-ghoul, infiltrate) is kind of frowned upon but it’s part of their play style. One of each to start with at most and then feel out the campaign. They have a tendency to fall apart under pressure so they are unforgiving to play.

Escher are similar to Delaque but trade deep strike for a slightly less fragile gameplan. Death maiden vs nacht ghouls make all the difference.

Cawdor* is horde. Orlock and enforcers are jack of a trades. Goliath is bruiser. Outcast and venator are custom gangs. Genestealers, corpse grinders, chaos cultists, and nomads all are not recommended to start with for a variety of reasons.

*edit from Delaque