Necromunda
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Necromunda is a tabletop skirmish war game produced by Games Workshop. In Necromunda, players control rival gangs battling each other in the Underhive, a place of anarchy and violence in the depths below Hive City. Necromunda is the world that the games occurs on and is the same world from the Warhammer 40,000 universe and likewise the play centers on 28mm scale models (approximately 1:65). The board is set up like a heavily polluted cityscape and the players control gangs of usually no more than a dozen models. You also have the ability to hire other individuals such as bounty hunters or special characters such as Kal Jerico, if you have the cash to do it. Unlike Warhammer 40,000, Necromunda focuses on how your gang develops and grows in campaign style play. Rules-wise, the game draws heavily from second-edition Warhammer 40,000, and the ruleset is commonly considered to be better-suited for the type of skirmish games Necromunda encourages.
Necromunda stands out from other games by Games Workshop by the way the table is laid out. In most Games Workshop games the table is mostly flat, with the only terrain features being a few hills, trees, and maybe a bridge or a building. However in Necromunda you can play in large buildings which may have many floors, as well as have bridges and walkways connecting the buildings together. There are other terrains such as chemical wastelands, barrels, watch towers, abandoned factories, and other dystopian environments that add a large amount of variety in playing areas. The setting is in a hive city which is generally layers upon layers of buildings that makes out a city, and a hive may be miles high.
Games Workshop's Specialist Games division occasionally publishes new rules on their website. They also recently published the full rules for the game for download (as a PDF file), referred to as the Necromunda Living Rulebook. As is implicit in the name, this document is often updated and rewritten, based largely on the work of avid volunteers and playtesters in the official Specialist Games forums.
Contents |
[edit] Houses of the Hive City
Cawdor
House Cawdor is the stronghold of the cult of Redemption. For this reason all of the gangers wear masks in public to hide their faces from the 'infidels' of the other houses.
Escher
Strikingly different from the other houses, the Escher population is almost entirely made up of women. The few men that are there are shriveled and imbecilic and play no part in the normal affairs of the Escher. Men are held in contempt by the Escher, especially those of House Goliath who are seen as simple, brutish and unsophisticated.
Goliath
Size is everything in House Goliath. Their territory is situated in some of the harshest areas of the Hive City. Their gangers favour mohawks, piercings, thick chains and spiked metal bracers.
Van Saar
The Van Saar are known for the extremely high quality of its technical produce. Nobles in the Spire will pay handsomely for Van Saar goods, making them the wealthiest of the houses. The Van Saar are marked out by their tight fitting body-gloves which help to sustain the wearer in the harsh hive environment. Older gangers are often seen sporting a neatly trimmed beard. The Imperial Guard often recruit regiments from the Van Saar.
Orlock
Also known as the House Iron, these hivers mine ferrous slag pits deep in the hive. Orlock gangers often wear sleeveless jackets and headbands.
Delaque
Other hivers are justifiably suspicious of House Delaque, who specialise in spying and assassination. The gangers ofter wear large trench coats, with large internal pockets for concealing weapons and other large items. Most are bald and extremely pale. Many wear visors, goggles or have light filters implanted into their eyes, a sensitivity to light being a common Delaque weakness. Delaque territory is even more dimly lit than the rest of the hive, fitting for a people who are shrouded in mystery.
[edit] Other Groups
The Cult of Redemption
Fanantical and zealous, the Redemptionists have an extreme hatred of mutants and deviants from the Imperial creed. The most dedicated take up arms and hunt the deviants. They often wear red robes decorated with flame motifs and have a fondness of incendiary weaponry. House Cawdor lends much support to the cult of Redemption and have gone so far as to adopt it as their official Religion.
Ratskins
The Ratskin tribes have lived within the underhive for millennia and treat it as a god, generous in its bounty and merciless in its vengeance. They have little to do with the hivers and are rarely encountered, preferring to steer clear of the heathen who desecrate the sacred hive by poisoning its sacred places.
Spyre Hunters
Young nobles from the Spire come down to hunt underhive gangers and thereby prove their worth in a world of ruthless politics, plotting and assassination.
Pit Slaves
Slaves of the Guilders with appendages replaced by industrial tools such as giant saws and drills. When a group of slaves escapes, they already have weapons to help them survive.
Scavvies
Humans with mutations too obvious to live in normal settlements. The very dregs of society scrape out an existence robbing guilder caravans, raiding isolated settlements and just generally scavenging whatever they can to survive. Their bands often include a stable sub-species of mutant, the giant reptilian Scalies.
[edit] Origins as "Confrontation"
What would become Necromunda was first published by Games Workshop under the name Confrontation as a series of articles in White Dwarf magazine the official GW publication. Confrontation was closer to a role-playing game than the current Necromunda and used a more complex system for resolving combat, particularly firing - portions of which were similar in style to LaserBurn, a minatures game which had influenced WH40K.
There is a Wiki project created to amass official and unofficial information for Necromunda: Confrontation at a Rpg.net Wiki Project here.
[edit] References
Necromunda Rulebook Rick Preistly 1995 Necromunda Sourcebook Rick Priestly 1995
[edit] External links
[edit] Official Sites
- Specialist Games - Necromunda - Official Necromunda Website.
- Specialist Games - Forums - Official Specialist Games Forums.
[edit] General Sites
- iNecro - Large collection of fan rules from multiple sources, official rules, and many links to other Necromunda websites.
- Necromundicon - The most impressive terrain for Necromunda you will ever see.
- Project: Necromunda - Has extensive directories that cover tactics, fluff, battle reports, Necromunda RPG, finding opponents, forums, gang sheets, and links to non-English Necromunda websites; has Wiki projects for Necromunda names and gang rosters, and is also home of the Necromunda WebRing.
- Robert's Gameland - A site devoted to wargaming including a large section for Necromunda.
- Stephane.info - Articles and galleries.
[edit] Community Sites
- Eastern Fringe - Unofficial Necromunda and Warhammer 40K forums (recommended by the Official Specialist Games Forums).
- Necrocards - The concept behind the Necromunda Card Game is to supplement the rules and gameplay of Necromunda by adding a card game element. These cards can be played during the standard Necromunda turn sequence, and have an immediate effect on the game.
- Necromunda Yahoo Group - Necromunda discussions, polls, images and file upload facilities.
