N18 List of Underhive fighters with rules but no mini

[MusingWarboss]

I think it would be fine using the universal vehicles and custom vehicles rules for all gangs to convert and scrtach build.

You mean AW generally? I think what a lot of people expected was something akin to Speed Freaks, where we’d get a big box set with a couple of new generic vehicles in (cars, trucks etc), then a 2-3 more released over the rest of that year and upgrade kits to give them Gang specific drivers and crew.

It’s notable that the first 3 gang releases are all bike variants, quad - motor - jet. Then they just ran out of ideas clearly, Cawdor was weird, VS just lazy by the looks of it and they didn’t bother with Delaque at all.

Unless it’s been given the Mandela effect, I’m pretty sure the early adverts said we would get high octane vehicular combat in the ash wastes. Then we got a big flea in the box set.

Both the cargo eight and the crawler are just incredibly big expensive and slow. Heck the crawler even tells you it’s slow by its name.

The vehicle workshop or wasteland workshop section is interesting but it doesn’t seem incredibly fleshed out and it basically just goes along lines of “buy the Genestealer cult stuff”. Sure you can make a few different vehicles using the generic kind of large, small, medium or walker profiles but even then it doesn’t seem like they’ve particularly thought it out that well.

 

[Lunarcruiser]

Which is silly.

GW being silly?

So basically they gave them no vehicles at all and retconned the existing figures.

A shame true

With Delaque not getting anything bar some drivers, VS getting a reshuffle of existing stuff, Cawdor get some awful robot legs…

Delaque. Maybe those sneaky weirdos are disguised as ordinary Rockgrinder crews...
VS. agree.
Cawdor. At least the robot legs are not ridiculously fiddly and fragile. Bomb on a stick is proper midden picker Cawdor though.

What was the point of the Ash Wastes? 50% of the gangs got stuff they had already had or could use in the Hive and the others got some form of bike. It wasn’t until enforcers that we got any form of actual car.

You mean the IronCralwer isn't a souped up Escalade?...
The ridge runner is sort of a car.
The Ash wastes setting allows GW to tell world wide narrative stories like the Succession arc. Not sure they need to keep doing that though. 40k already does that. The things I like a about necromunda are the small tales of your little gang not yet another big army story.
Also Mad max and similar things.

You could just’ve gone “gosh this huge dome in the Underhive has a very vicious sandy wind” and it wouldn’t make much difference.

They did Book of Peril for that and that book is awesome. Before the game morphs into baby 40k they could do worse to do a similar book. They could even keep it Ash wastes just do a similar tact to the Book of Peril. You could have motorbike chases in middle of Helmite stampedes, more lethal weird Flora and fauna, randomly bonkers equipment etc.

I suppose it provides a setting which does not require a tonne of scenery to really come alive unlike a rusty jam packed Underhive board which can be intimidating to new hobbyists.
But then they added a whole new system of vehicles rules to learn.... That will attack new players. Sure...


The Ash wastes Weather and Battlefield conditions, rules are pretty good though.

 

[Lunarcruiser]

I think it would be fine using the universal vehicles and custom vehicles rules for all gangs to convert and scrtach build.

Yep. I have kitbashed a Van Saar skimmer from Dark Eldar Venom with neoteks grav boards and stuff, a Cawdor scrap sentinel walking pulpit, two Esher pod racers using those cutters as outrigger engines and tonnes of bikes.
Loads of options to build what ever you want.

 

[Lunarcruiser]

You mean AW generally? I think what a lot of people expected was something akin to Speed Freaks, etc

I think the points you made in the post have merit from your viewpoint as a gamer but GW does have corporate types in it (maybe too many but that's a different discussion)

From a corporate perspective all thier Specialist games from the past have thier own niches. Battlefleet Gothic was giant tiny spaceships, Epic and warmaster supersized battles (with tiny figures) of thier primary two games, Gorkamorka and was vehicle roller derby and games like Necromunda and Mordhiem were low level skirmish games of thier main lines (all in very general terms and of course they made other smaller games as well).
Mixing and matching between the various niches could add flavour to the main game, like adding some vehicles to necromunda, but overwhelming the original with other bits just makes a homogeneous blob of a game. Necromunda just will not be necromunda if by adding loads of vehicles and larger gangs. It turns into a Sci-Fi army wargame and they already have 40K for that.
If GW just started pumping out flashy vehicles for Necromunda and nothing for the original version of the game it would basically morph Into something like Gorkamorka. GW regularly keeps the Copyright for the names of all thier Specialist Games, either actively like the BFG computer game or passively like keeping the Gorkamorka names as a Original Name (just keeping it on the Copyright books as GW invented it), so they always if they wished release a new version of the game, such as the new necromunda.
If GW decides to renew Gorkamorka for example in the future and there is already a fully supported game that does the same thing why would people buy it?

By leaving it for hobbyists to develop thier own vehicles, and drip feeding the odd one now and then, it basically encourages the customer to invest thier time into the adjunct vehicle side themselves while the company still has the focus on the core game forms.

Just look at how active the Battlefleet Gothic community has been on thier own after support was pulled in 2013. If GW ever decides to renew that game there is already a strong community out there, many new players, who will show interest at a new release.

Just a viewpoint from a corporate perspective.
Personally I am a little peeved at the lack of Delaque support in particular. Many of the other gangs can be supplemented and have things converted readily enough to still look like it belongs to, say Orlocks, but I find it difficult to pull of a suitably Delaque look (for the new version not classic).

 

[MusingWarboss]

GW being silly?

Yes. As you can tell I never paid attention to VS as I don’t really care for them. I was very surprised to find they did that.

It’s awful, so their only official vehicle is now constrained by brute rules but the hoverboards can be taken in the extra 400c? Eh? That really disincentives non-AW games if you can take the brute there but have to lose creds to take hoverboards.

Cawdor. At least the robot legs are not ridiculously fiddly and fragile. Bomb on a stick is proper midden picker Cawdor though.

Bomb on stick, very in line with their new fluff. Robot legs… not so much. It just feels weirdly too implausible given the rest of their gear that they could maintain those things even if they did find some in the trash. Plus there’s 4 in a box. One I might be able to hand wave away (as a brute ironically) but a whole squad?? Nah.

Given the size of the recent giant rats, they should’ve been riding them!!

The Ash wastes setting allows GW to tell world wide narrative stories like the Succession arc.

Aren’t we supposed to be telling the stories? I’m not interested in GW setting up “world changing” storylines and events.
They’ve given us an environment to play in, let us do that without fear of rugs being pulled the next book along.

Basically the same issue 40k has. The whole “must move the storyline along” thing. No GW. No. Leave it as it is.

Sorry, it’s my pet peeve.

They did Book of Peril for that and that book is awesome.

I have it, it’s a nice book along with the recent Apocrypha book - particularly if you’re the Arbitrator.
I don’t think it’s totally necessary for just players unless they intend to get together for an arbitrator-less session with mates and just want some fancy extra rules.

Loads of options to build what ever you want.

Conversions are cool and all but… we could do that anyway! Didn’t need GWs official permission to invent stuff.

It’s a shame they offered very little in official support though, with the biggest option being, buy GSC vehicles. Lazy. Very lazy effort.

Or you could buy a large generic vehicle piece by piece, or a version of it with extra resin making it even more expensive and none of it screams high-octane vehicular combat. In fact it screams slow moving heists. Very Wild West.

We were raiding land trains in the late 90s using converted toy trucks!

Still think Gorkamorka rules are more fun - plus they integrate fighters on foot too! Probably the best vehicle rules of that era.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Mixing and matching between the various niches could add flavour to the main game, like adding some vehicles to necromunda, but overwhelming the original with other bits just makes a homogeneous blob of a game. Necromunda just will not be necromunda if by adding loads of vehicles and larger gangs. It turns into a Sci-Fi army wargame and they already have 40K for that.

I think you’ll find my position has always been that Ash Wastes should’ve been a separate game set in the Necromunda world but not part of the Necromunda game.

What they did wasn’t to add flavour to the main game (whatever version it is now) but teased a Gorkamorka style vehicle game but delivered Necromunda with less scenery and next to no vehicles.

It was all across social media that people were gearing up for a vehicle heavy realise, people were on here too - even going so far as to build models before even a singe rule was seen (never as good move with modern GW). All these people were promptly dejected when it was released and they realised that they were sold a lie and had to buy yet another book to even get the rules to actually assemble a custom vehicle - all of which were then saddled with some extra rules that made them crappier than just getting a GSC one.

A lot have also thought since 2017 that GW have turned Necromunda into 40k lite by the over proliferation of weapons and tech and the lack of any real low level gangs.

GoMo sold so badly that I doubt they will do another - Speed Freaks was a surprise but another in a long like of “basic rules to sell some new kits quickly”. AW could’ve been the new more versatile GoMo!! But no.

Is interesting that the follow up to Ash Wastes is to go straight back to square one and back into a hive setting again, even down to the box set having a flat playing surface with just doors - like 2017s Underhive box. The Sump Sea got hand waved away in a pdf.

 

[Neil McLellan]

What would have been cool is if they released an Ash Wastes build your own vehicle kit, with a few sprues with various vehicle parts in the box and some suggested builds but you can do whatever you want with it and of course you could mix in any 40k vehicle bits you have lying around.

 

[Lunarcruiser]

What would have been cool is if they released an Ash Wastes build your own vehicle kit, with a few sprues with various vehicle parts in the box and some suggested builds but you can do whatever you want with it and of course you could mix in any 40k vehicle bits you have lying around.

The Ridge runner and rockgrinder do not need to be modeled with the Genestealer cultist crew on top and the vehicles themselves do not have GSC icons or anything so can be used as base models with ease.
The Wolf quad can use a Delaque torso, and head, as a direct swap ( I assume by accident not design) and the Orlock range fits very easily with minor work. (the Neophyte, more normal ones, range fits in with the orlock look just fune anyway just with orlock heads not the bald tainted ones. I use them for hazard suited orlock bodies. and more shotguns). THe GSC bikes work well for Orlocks too

IMG_20210609_114440.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Goliaths are basically Orks right? do you even need to take the Ork Glyphs off? The Battle Wagon does not need any modification to work perfectly for a Heavy Custom vehicle or heavy rig of some sort. (Have not tried the Trukk) The thee open stanced Goliath Bodies from the main box also fit perfectly on the Ork Warbikes. They just need some minor arm readjustment for a hand on the handelbars.

IMG_20220817_180422.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Ork vehicles are basically scrap right? Cawdor are basically the scrap gang.

I have found that the Esher Look is harder to pull off with existing GW vehicles so i did this

IMG_20230108_211357.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Van Saar are trickier. They need a Tech look but it is distinctly different from Mechanicus, less ultra Steam Punk, and the other techy STC side of the range League of Votaan is a bit to blocky for the Van Saar look.
I used Dark Eldar as a base and did this

IMG_20220826_195305.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Oct 16, 2022

The Necromunda team have done a really good job at making the gangs very unique in looks. I don't think a generic vehicle kit would work. Basically it would be a hull that you just have some gang spercific plates and/or banners/antenna to stick on. The vehicle will still look the same just with a flag.

 

[Neil McLellan]

The Ridge runner and rockgrinder do not need to be modeled with the Genestealer cultist crew on top and the vehicles themselves do not have GSC icons or anything so can be used as base models with ease.
The Wolf quad can use a Delaque torso, and head, as a direct swap ( I assume by accident not design) and the Orlock range fits very easily with minor work. (the Neophyte, more normal ones, range fits in with the orlock look just fune anyway just with orlock heads not the bald tainted ones. I use them for hazard suited orlock bodies. and more shotguns). THe GSC bikes work well for Orlocks too

IMG_20210609_114440.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Goliaths are basically Orks right? do you even need to take the Ork Glyphs off? The Battle Wagon does not need any modification to work perfectly for a Heavy Custom vehicle or heavy rig of some sort. (Have not tried the Trukk) The thee open stanced Goliath Bodies from the main box also fit perfectly on the Ork Warbikes. They just need some minor arm readjustment for a hand on the handelbars.

IMG_20220817_180422.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Ork vehicles are basically scrap right? Cawdor are basically the scrap gang.

I have found that the Esher Look is harder to pull off with existing GW vehicles so i did this

IMG_20230108_211357.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Apr 2, 2023

Van Saar are trickier. They need a Tech look but it is distinctly different from Mechanicus, less ultra Steam Punk, and the other techy STC side of the range League of Votaan is a bit to blocky for the Van Saar look.
I used Dark Eldar as a base and did this

IMG_20220826_195305.jpg

• Lunarcruiser
• Oct 16, 2022

The Necromunda team have done a really good job at making the gangs very unique in looks. I don't think a generic vehicle kit would work. Basically it would be a hull that you just have some gang spercific plates and/or banners/antenna to stick on. The vehicle will still look the same just with a flag.

Like… i have a huge Imperial guard army with a huge collection of leftover bits and It has… zero tires, all tracks. A sprue of just tires and some other bits like maybe steering wheels, engines, and such would be just dandy.
Yeah I am very tempted to take some of my Gorkamorka stuff to use for Cawdor. Lots of tires to cannibalize there if I have thestomach for it.

 

[Neil McLellan]

Exciting day! I get to put a Yes in the ”Previewed” column for a Book Of Ruin Dramatis Personae from 2019!
They modified his look from Book Of Ruin but he is in the exact same pose!

 

[TopsyKretts]

Didn't notice it was Hermaphage Magos. That's not a special character?

 

[Lunarcruiser]

Didn't notice it was Hermaphage Magos. That's not a special character?

Looks like it will be a upgraded version like what is happening to Lady Heara.