If you’ve been wondering if you should add the new vehicle to your gang, these Necromunda Cargo-8 Ridgehauler Ash Wastes rules will help you decide!
This is honestly pretty cool and who doesn’t want to reenact some Mad Max-style combat, this is going to go a long way! Plus, with everything being added to the game, the expansion is looking really cool.
Warhammer Community unveiled the new rules, but we’ll also take a look at what else is still on the horizon for the expansion. Let’s look at the reveal of the vehicle itself, then jump into the rules!
Necromunda: Ash Wastes Cargo-8 Ridgehauler Revealed!
And now the big reveal, behold the Necromunda: Ash Wastes Cargo-8 Ridgehauler!
So why head outside at all? Simple – there’s plunder to be had. The surface of Necromunda is criss-crossed with trade routes between all the various hives, spaceports, bastions, and trade centres. Goods from the hive manufactories are ferried across the poisoned wastes on great land trains. There’s money to be made from protecting the Guild of Coin’s Cargo-8 Ridgehaulers, which are juicy targets both for the nomadic denizens of the Ash Wastes and for gangs of underhive bandits.
This could make for some super fun raids and we can only imagine how important the cargo inside is to take this risk! Plus, the kit just looks really fun!
Yes, that is a Munitorum Armoured Container in the back. And yes, there are rules for upgrades, armaments, and various common cargos. In fact, this is just the cab – Ridgehaulers are highly customisable, and can be fitted out with up to four trailers bristling with heavy weaponry, extra armour, and other defensive boondoggles to your gang’s own specifications (and the depth of its pockets). You can build your own custom train!
It would be awesome to see one of these with four trailers and a whole gang trying to take it out and plunder everything!
Crucially, Ridgehaulers are owned and operated by the Guild of Coin – those are their hoodlums manning the gun turrets, who must be hired as specialist drivers and crew. However, any gang can hire them – except Ash Waste Nomads, who prefer to rob them than ride them. And as the campaign proceeds, you can trick your Ridgehauler further with things like nitro burners, all-wheel steering, crash cages, and lots and lots of guns.
That’s cool every gang can take them, the only downside is GW mentioned the coming months when talking about the kit. so this might still be quite a way off from hitting shelves…
GW Reveals New Necromunda Cargo-8 Ashe Wastes Rules
Any gang can purchase a Cargo-8 Ridgehauler, and hitch it with up to four trailers. Pick some cargo, hire a crew from the Guild of Coin, and you’re good to go. You can use more than ridealong dune buggies to defend your train – the Ridgehauler is endlessly customisable, with a daunting array of weapons and wargear in the upcoming Book of the Outlands.
It’s somewhat expensive but also pretty tough, and you know they have to keep the goods flowing and this seems like the best option.
A fully loaded Cargo-8 Ridgehauler has five cargo bays, weighing in at 26 Hull Points and bristling with weapon hardpoints. Throw in some smoke launchers, tyre claws, or booby-trapped fuel tanks, and this is a rolling wastelands fortress – any gang of would-be hijackers better hope they remembered to bring along a lascannon…
If you’re going up against this, you better have some powerful weapons, plus, there are plenty of upgrades you can bring, just leave yourself some extra credits so you can keep this safe!
Book of the Outlands
There will be a new book coming along with the Ash Wastes and a ton of lore plus tons of new rules for campaigns out in the dusty wastes. Plus, a bunch of new minis are still waiting to be put out.
New Divergent Ironhead Squats Prospectors Coming to Necromunda!
Yes, you wait 30 years for the return of the Squats, and then they all come back at once! These are the Ironhead Squat Prospectors – tough and resourceful miners out in the ash wastes who are more than capable of defending themselves from anyone that tries to take the treasures they dig up.
It looks like Squats are taking over all the aspects of the 40k universe, and these are divergent cousins of the Leagues of Votann kin!
The gang comes loaded with cool kit from boltguns to heavy stubbers, and they’re not afraid to use mining equipment like stone burners and power hammers in a fight either.
They say they will be slow but super tough, good at shooting, and have great tech!
These really harken back to the days of old, which is just awesome for anyone who really has that hard-hitting Squat nostalgia.
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When the Imperium went through its rebuilding was Necromunda, Squats settled there, and guess what? They are still there kicking butt and searching for treasure. They are actually quite distant cousins, supposedly from the Leagues of Votann. So we’re not sure how they will work together, or if they are just totally something their own.
They mention they are super far apart, so we doubt they can be used in Warhammer 40k with rules. But then, they say they have some shared heritage, so who knows?
Necromunda Squats: Battlesuit Vartijan Exo-Driller Armor
These suits of rugged exo-armour were originally designed to protect Squat miners in the most hostile environments – and the ash wastes definitely qualify. They’ve been upgraded over the centuries with heavier weapons and better defenses, and Prospector gangs now bring them along to fight off Ash Waste Nomads or other hostiles trying to claim the prime dig sites out in the Necromundan badlands.
The Battlesuit Vartijan Exo-Driller is pretty cool and has a similar feel to the Squats themselves. We haven’t seen really any rules for them yet, but we expect this to hit quite hard and hopefully be very hard to kill!
The Vartijan Exo-Driller is a widely-used variant, named after the legendary Squat engineer Valya Vartijan, of the Svardhol mining clan – make sure you give thanks to her every time it stomps an enemy fighter into jam. Aside from its piston-powered pulverising fist and seismic crusher, the suit’s also armed with a Squat-made heavy flamer – which can be replaced with a heavy bolter for even more serious killing potential.
The good news is their rules will be in the Outlands book, so we don’t have too long to wait to see what they can do!
Necromunda: Ash Wastes Nomad Stormcaller Revealed!
In the ash-choked wilderness of Necromunda, visibility is everything. When your gang’s been hired to guard a Merchant Guild caravan, there are countless very real threats lurking just out of sight – so when a storm closes in and you hide your attackers from view, you’re going to need more than photogoggles and the headlights of your tricked-out dune buggy.
With a little less tech, hit and run tactics might be a hallmark of the nomads, and judging by the hints, evasive rules might help them to stand up and take over things like caravans in the wastes.
These shamanic warriors are practically born in the saddle of the terrifying Dustback Helamites they ride, leading war parties from the deep wastes to pillage great convoys of Cargo-8 Ridgehaulers and the hapless underhivers paid to protect them. Ash Waste Nomads work best with the element of surprise, and can learn the art of seeing through a dust storm* – so as the thickest clouds roll in, the Stormcallers begin the killing.
Furthermore, we know that this is a master Dusback Rider, so maybe there will be some speed bonus to show that skill off.
Are the Stormcallers psykers? Sorcerers? Really good at guessing the weather? No one can say for sure – and they’re not going to hang around outdoors long enough to find out.
Still, their meteorological mastery might have something to do with the stormcaller staves many of them wield. Like much else on Necromunda that’s been left in forgotten garbage dumps from an earlier age, these staves have all the hallmarks of archeotech. They also work quite nicely for whacking storm-dazed underhivers from the saddle of your Helamite as you bound past.
All-in-all it makes sense that these mysterious Stormcallers are good at what they do, after all a huge portion of their lore and lives are surely surviving in the wastes where others could not.
New Necromunda Ash Wastes Vespa ‘Minx’ Merdena Mini Revealed!
But now there’s a new head of hair in town, and this one has more volume than a Goliath karaoke night. Vespa ‘Minx’ Merdena is the (joint) youngest of Slate Merdena’s dozen children, a wild child with a taste for violence and an eye for style.
Alongside her driver, Big Pete Plainsman (who sports his own magnificent beard), Vespa is the latest of the Dramatis Personae to come to Necromunda – and the first on wheels. Riding a beefed-up Orlock Quad, the two operate out of Cinderak City as guns-for-hire, protecting the Mercator Gelt convoys that radiate out of this great urban hub.
Honestly, this is a pretty cool mini and she has a belt-fed rocket launcher, so… What more could you want! Plus, with them being guns for hire, they will be super fun to use in the Ash Wastes!
Vespa wields Mischief, a belt-fed rocket launcher which can Rapid Fire frag and krak rockets – suspiciously well-suited to putting a serious dent into the side of any Cargo-8 Ridgehauler she may come across in the wastes. And with a BS of 3+ and the Trick Shot skill, she’s going to be nailing targets much more often than not – unless she gets hair in her eyes.
With some good BS and rules, they might be picked up by a lot of people as you might need a lot of armor penetration in the new version of the game!
Delaque Spyker
These floating psykers can unleash a variety of unnatural powers, quite distinct from the subtle Psychoteric Whispers available to Psy-Gheists. Force enemies to flee in terror with a Psychic Scream, cripple their minds with a Psychic Assault or even use a Force Blast to send them flying like so many plastic carrier bags on the wind.
If nothing else, the mini is quite wild! Plus, who doesn’t want a gut floating around with an insanely giant head.
Although they’re recruited as Hangers-on, a Spyker is always ready for a fight – they’re treated like a regular Ganger when you select your crew. Of course, as non-sanctioned psykers, anyone who takes them Out of Action can collect quite a bounty on their oversized heads…
It’s nice just not Delaque gets to take them, but you better watch out for the bounty!
Are you excited about all the new Necromunda models like the Ash Wastes Cargo-8 Ridgehauler that are on the way?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Joined: 2019
Socials: @paschbass
Bio: Dark Eldar Dracon and Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the third edition in 1998. He also loves camping because you can only paint so much! He joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the main daily writer since 2020.
Maybe one day, he’ll finish converting all his Ad Mech models and turn into a true tech enjoyer, complete with sad and happy robot noises!
