Necromunda – Outlanders Stock

I went over my Necromunda Underhive stock and did an update to the 2021 article, as I managed to complete large part of the collection, extending into the Outlanders supplement as well as beyond. From the core collection, I'm only missing a single Goliath ganger and I'd like to share the status quo of the extended Underhive collection.

Just to bring you up to date, a brief repetition from the last article: What is Necromunda about? It is a 28mm skirmish between the street gangs of the bigger Houses on the planet Necromunda, fighting over supply contracts, mines and facilities. And all that in the underground of a megacity (so very 2000 AD) in the Warhammer 40.000 universe. With the character / gang development it even included a narrative part, to tell the story of your own gang, with all the ups and downs that belong to it. And that narrative part is simply the cherry on top of that old school goodness.

In 1995 Necromunda was released with a main boxed set was 149 DM (about 104 EUR with inflation today), would provide you with proper card board terrain with bulkheads and the rules. A year later in 1996 a supplement for Necromunda was released, called Outlanders (Outlaws in Germany) and extended the "known" underhive world into the even less law abiding area of the outlands, with gangs that live outside of the Guild controlled areas. This would add more gang options for the players, new gear and some very special characters like more hired guns to the game. Mostly those gangs would be more difficult to play, as they had limited access to trade posts as well as territory and where partially hunted by the guilds or other authorities.

As these game partially work in very different ways compared to the "regular" House gangs, I can not apply the idea of one Gang Boss, around two Specialists, eight gangers and four kids to each of these. But let's see what this expansion provides to the game.

The Ratskin Renegades. I don't think we will see these updated in the current Necromunda. It might be seen as insensitive. The Ratskins (very close in name to redskins...) are designwise strongly inspired by mostly the indigenous peoples of Northern America, with some Maori parts as well. They are living in the outskirts, outside of the underhive and thus are counted as renegades / outlaws. As such they don't have access to some of the items, or at least not that easily. I want to keep they native American design as an influence to a certain degree, so the gang will most likely have a name like Blackfoot or Crow, but matching the grim dark, along with names for the individual gang members. The overall colours will be mute and brownish, with some highlights for charms and fetishes, and I would like to give war paints a try, I have seen interesting ideas in red and black. So this will be a challenge but an interesting one. As some Ratskins work as hired guns for other gangs, we will see one of them further below.

Ratskins don't have specialists, but Shamans and as such I the stock is complete and I have not yet decided, if the second chieftain sculpt will be used as a veteran of some kind or be sold off. With four braves and eight regular Ratskins, the gang is complete.

A hard contrast to the Ratskins are the Redemptionists. A fanatic cult, derived from the Ecclesiarchy. Due to their radical behaviour they have an outlaw status, as they act all crazy and motivated by their hatred beyond the limits of reason. I think a dark red, with checkers and flames will be an interesting paint scheme. And I obviously always have the option to use them (along with the Cawdors) as Frateris Militia in my Sisters of Battle project. Name wise I would pick up the Crusade idea introduced by the lore. Once in every while the Redemption sends a Crusade into the underhive or outlands to purge the unclean, witches and mutants, and to extend the bond to the sisters of battle and militant arm of the Ecclesiarchy, something along the lines of Crusade of the Burning Rose.

I have both Redemptor Priest sculpts, but I think that the one with sword and flamer would make a neat deacon and beyond that the stock is complete.

The absolute outcasts of the Outlands are the Scavvies. The heavily mutated, partially rotten and far from human are in my eyes more of a NPC crew, used by the game master in campaigns. But we will see, for certain games these will make for an interesting gang either way. I would have to gather some ideas for the lore and naming, come up with a character for the Scavvy boss and what is his motivation behind gathering the foul rag-tag crew under his banner. Maybe there is a feudt, revenge or something else to settle. Something's Coven could be an interesting name and I could imagine something with purple and otherwise strong colours, maybe the red-phase of the Warhammer Undead could work with these.

I went for the full maximum, yet have a second Scavvy Boss that I don't need. So I have decide which of the poses it will be. I managed to get my hands on a copy of Redward, the Scavvy Wizard, and hope to acquire the Scavvy King at some point as well.

A very special role play the Spyre Hunters in the Underhive. These characters, the younger sons and daughters of the noble houses of Necromunda, join in packs the Underhive and hunt people for sport. The interesting part of playing the Spyre Hunters is that they have a specific objective to reach over a series of games (certain number of kills, amount of xp or survive x games) until they disband and may rejoin the upper level of the hive cities. These could be quite cyberpunky, as they wouldn't hide themself but go full terror on their prey. Besides maybe the malcadon in a rather Predator-style paint job.

I went for all the sculpts there were for this (excluding the patriarch / matriarch later released by Fanatic), It is unlikely to have all eight in a single gang beside certain scenarios, so this was to have an option and variants along campaigns.

The Pit Slaves were initially just individual hired guns / mercenaries, but got rules in Citadel Journal 61 as a playable gang. I could and probably should add the two servitors I can to this lot, and will see if any of my overstock will make for an additional sculpt of a regular pit fighter (Goliaths are a good starting point, as is one of the bounty hunters). One of the things, that I'd like to try out is convert one of the ogryns from the 40k range into a massive pit fighter. There are no rules for that besides maybe using the template of Bull Gorg.

As for a theme, I don't have an idea on that specifically. Maybe something like Part-acus. We'll see. But colourwise pale skin tones, partially rusty metal and red as a contrast sounds like a good idea.

The Adeptus Arbites Patrol Team, the law enforcement of the Underhive and especially important with the extension of the Outlands. A standard patrol. I actually have enough models to field two of these. Classic Judge Dredd themed paint job, not much to argue here.

These are interesting. Of course in the Underhive is a variation of named characters, that I call in this setting Dramatis Personae. A few of these are from the regular Necromunda rulesets (Outlanders supplement not Citadel Journal), like Mad Donna Ulanti, Brakar (The Avenger) or the Arch Zealot (where I added the "regular" miniature to the Redemptionist warband above, but Klovis, the Redeemer in here). Klovis got rules in a Citadel Journal and I am missing Deacon Malakev. Kal Jerico and Scabbs were added via Citadel Journal as well. The Caller is not pure to the time frame of this collection, as the miniature was released post 2000 and added via the Necromunda Magazine. But I got my hands on in for a reasonable price a long, long time ago and I don't want to part with it.

I could have added the Plague Zombies to the Scavvies overview as well, but as Karloth Valois is known as the Zombie Master it made sense to list them here. I'll add even further Zombies, where I have various fitting ideas to convert them, but more on that later. And not a named character, more of a Hired Gun is the Beastmaster, along with different critters from the sourcebook. I have even more fitting critters, that didn't receive official miniatures but are listed as units in the book (like spiders, slugs etc.). This will be a great addition for Solo-Plays, special hunting scenarios or co-op gaming. There are alternative sculpts of the beastmaster, but this one was my favourite and I'm good with one of them.

Mercenaries are a big topic with Necromunda, you have access to various Hired Guns, Bountyhunters, Wyrds etc. And I am complete with the four official scum sculpts, the three bounty hunters and all of the three wyrds. Most of them are even already painted. I just have to retake some of the pictures.

Most interesting is the second picture. Via Citadel Journal and other fan / house rules, you have access to a lot of options and I want to make the Underhive even more colourful. A regular entry is the Ratskin scout, where I used a sculpt from the regular range. But I'll add some non-ratskin gear to him, to show his connection to the world outside his tribe. When Games Workshop introduced Gor Half-Horn for the 2017 NEC, I immediately thought of the old RT Imperial Beastmen and got myself one as a retro fit. The Underhive is loud, so I added the Goff Rockers as well, playing in one of the bars, and the Chaos Champion with Jezzail made in my eyes a perfect bounty hunter from the Outlands / Ash Wastes. The Genestealer Magus is part of the Big Book Bestiary, and depending on the colours would make a great Mr. Johnson. The Ripper Swarms individually based are great critters for the beastmaster to command and the Squats could be part of a Guild or just some well armed traders.

In this section I have a massive surplus, due to my collection of Inq28 models. I want to narrow that collection down, as I went a bit overboard. I prepared for six (each of the three ordos, Ordo Malleus, Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos, with a radical and puritan each) Inquisitor retinues, along with various Rogue Trader, Xenos Warbands etc. and that's just too much and I think a lot of the necromunda stock shown above and in the earlier article, is enough to cover narrative gaming with broad options.

What am I looking for? I have a last gap in my Necromunda collection.

• House Goliath - 1 ganger (Goliath with Lasgun and Autopistol, Goliath with Autogun and Axe)

What's next? Choosing a gang to begin with, to not only be able to play Necromunda, but maybe Stargrave, Kill Team and some other Sci-Fi rules, as I'm hooked by the aesthetics, not necessarily by the rules.