Jstove is back with the latest on what you need to know about all the new Necromunda toys on the way, in a 100% serious and not at all satirical article.
Jstove here, and today I’m talking about the most important model releases that have been leaking in and what I think of them. First, let’s start with the unimportant stuff you’ve already seen… Everything that’s not Necromunda. There’s some Custodians, they are like Grey Knights, but with more floofy bits and also they are gold. There’s Alpharius, he’s Alpharius. There’s Rogal Dorn. There’s still no Sanguinius because screw the Blood Angels, and there’s also the triumphant return of a bunch of retro favorites- The termite tunnel vehicle from the Ninja Turtles Foot Clan, and the suicide two-seater land speeder!
But for gentlemen of taste and superior breeding, the kind of noble game master that prefers skirmish games, there’s a lot of news for Necromunda to discuss! Yes, quite. Indubitably.
First, let’s get all the obvious stuff out of the way. There were a lot of pictures, but except for old Squattie that we’ve already seen spoiled, I don’t want to repost anything except the ACTUAL MODELS. Unless it’s the crazy new ideas for Necromunda that we’ve never seen before in any edition of the game, in that case, I’ll post the concept art.
Upgrade parts that seamlessly integrate with plastic gangers, new weapon options:
Looking at these upgrades we can see chainswords, melta guns, plasma guns, flamers, hand flamers, heavy stubbers, and in the back I think there’s even a needle sniper rifle, without the boltgun duct taped to it. Personally, I’m excited to have these new upgrade options for a couple reasons.
A) It completes the model range and gives us the ‘old skool’ options for players that preferred original Necromunda.
B) It adds options for kits that were questionable. This is a way bigger problem for the Goliaths in my opinion since I believe that a lot of their unique house weapons strictly aren’t good. To use the Eschers as an example here, I’m not sure that the chemthrower is a superior alternative to the cheaper, simpler, flamer. It’s definitely the fluffier, more Escher-y option, but I’m a fan of having all the classic weapons available.
Who’s that Pokemon?
Each of the noble houses seems to be getting their own Pokemon to add to the roster.
I have pretty mixed feelings about these.
First, everyone who played Mordheim knows that pets could be game breaking. Witch hunters had attack dogs, Skaven had giant rats, and Orks and Goblins had Squigs. All of these pets were what you could collectively call “dog missiles” or “rat missiles.” They were cheap animals that didn’t gain experience, were fast, and you could just charge them in at your opponent to lock up his models without any fear of losing anything valuable. Giant rats and attack dogs were 15 points a model!
So I think attack pets coming to the gangs is a mixed bag. More importantly, I have really evil thoughts about the bomb rat. Dog missiles were already basically suicide bombs. The bomb rat looks like it’s an ACTUAL SUICIDE BOMB.
Does anyone else think of Ork fleets in Battlefleet Gothic full of brute ramships? Because that’s how brutal I imagine this to be.
The Escher kitty looks like it could be useful since he’s probably fast and really sharp and pointy. I like the Goliath crocodile, but I’m afraid he’ll be like everything else in House Goliath- Hits hard as hell, but too expensive to actually ever use.
Hopefully, when the time comes, my baseless speculation will be disproven.
Brutes!
This is an addition to the tactical toolbox I’m actually really happy about because I think it’s easier to balance than dog missiles.
Brutes have a long history in GW skirmish games. The original Brute was the Scaly in the Scavvy gang from Necromunda Outlanders, and he later evolved into the ogre mercenary hired sword, the rat ogre, and the troll in Mordheim.
Brutes all follow a familiar theme- They’re huge as hell with beefcake stat lines that are nearly impossible to kill and will flatten anything they hit, but they have a gigantic sticker price and huge upkeep bills. Brutes were generally only good in the early days of a campaign when your opponent didn’t have enough firepower to actually deal with them, but once models smarten up and are able to go toe-to-toe with them, brutes become a liability. I never saw a troll or a rat ogre as a member of any successful warband in all the time I spent playing Mordheim, the brute is always a time-sensitive, niche investment, and that’s exactly how they should be. Nobody should auto-win a campaign just by hiring the fattest model on their roster.
More 40k lore in the form of weird guilds
The 40k universe has always been a place where day-to-day life is dark, depressing, and weird, and we see it in the art and read it in the books, (how many times in the last 30 years have you read about being a forgotten speck in a sea of billions of souls on forgotten planets?) but we almost never actually see weird 40k creeps in model form. It looks like Necromunda is going to turn the corner on that by giving us weird merchant guilds responsible for commerce in the Hive, and these creeps are going to be laced up with all the strange augmetic enhancements and gothic skull crap that we love.
Is that a Techpriest with a backpack super soaker and a pirate hat? I freakin love it.
The Boba Fett Crew
We’ve already seen our boy Grendel Grendlsen, the squat bounty hunter, but did you see all the other homies that Darth Vader hired to track down Han Solo? There’s a few, but so far only the beastman guy and the goliath guy have actual model shots.
AMAZON GOTHIQUE!
This is probably my favorite model in the new wave, the triumphant re-imagining of a truly old-school Rogue Trader model, based on John Blanche’s painting Amazon Gothique.
However, I would like to know where Eschers are getting all these animal skulls and peacock feathers in a poisonous industrial subterranean wasteland where no natural life could survive.
New Settings!
A lot of these settings already exist in the lore and would be fun to see.
- Outlands is home to redemptionists and scavvies, as well as all the other reprobates and outlaws who were chased out of the underhive for being too lawless in a lawless dystopia.
- The ash wastes were explored briefly as a setting back when Necromunda magazine and Citadel Journal existed. They were Mad Max nomads complete with dune buggies and goggles.
- Hive Mortis is a necropolis dead hive mentioned in the new game’s rulebook that was almost completely decimated by plague, with corpses stacked floor to ceiling. I imagine we’ll hear more about the corpse guild, shown above, in this setting.
- Hive Secundus is infested with Genestealer Cults.
Check out all the JStove originals!
About the Author: Jack Stover
