Hello , folks..
So its been a few weeks since we heard the news that GW have created a new studio dedicated to the specialist games.. With Necromunda amongst some of the proposed titles
I am still hoping this is real and not like the inq28 game rumour that happened a while back..
As an aside..I remember reading a while back that the original Necromunda was just part of a series of games that where to explore the background of 40k .. others where to include black powder worlds and some such..
Instead of hoping that games workshop magically recreates what I would dearly love to see in the Necromunda . I thought I would write down some of my own thoughts on the subject matter ..
in the hopes of prompting a wider discussion about Necromunda.. prompted by a discussion with Weirdingway on the super creative Ammobunker inq28 forums.. after he released some brilliant concept sketches and test models of potential new gangs..
Weirdingways Gothic Spire laden nobility
reminds me of this wearable scenic model and Blanche Painting
Full disclosure
I have never actually played a campaign of Necromunda and in my mind Necromunda the game will always be inseparable from its earlier cousin Confrontation.. which I also have never actually played..
Tears of Envy Confrontation Blog post..
The Tears of Isstvan Confrontation blog post
Yaktribe ..The Necromunda forum
Palatine a Necromunda Community edition rules game we played using the aesthetic of Confrontation
Brats in Assleman's excellent Lead plague Blog
Ian Miller Scavvies In Axiom's Excellent Magpie and old Lead Blog
Ex Profundis piranesis-prisons
Although I haven't played those games as they were published i have always had a fascination with Necromunda.. ever since I gazed upon the background and rules published in WD
For me Necromunda is about humanity in the 40th millennium.. Some people might say civilian life.. but the essence of 40k is a never ending war in a distopian dying Epoc.. so the word civilian doesn't work for me.. feudal serf.. maybe .. indentured ganger most likely.. but not civilian.. that word conjures up thoughts of suburbia and travelling to work and back home to the 3 kids..
of course the vastness of 40k allows any and all interpretation.. and I have said before that freedom is the heart its appeal for many ..but when i think about it.. The background of 40k is one of ignorance and fear.. closed mindedness and barbarism.. and humanity should be represented as such..
Necromunda is the perfect place for such a setting..
Illustrations by John Blanche and Jes Goodwin
The Hives
There is a duality within the existing notion of Hives.. When reading the original Confrontation background it becomes clear that a Hive is similar to the notion of termite mound.. with an all enclosing shell structure surrounding it .. but the arguably most famous picture of a hive come from a Ralph Mohr illustration depicting an open built up city like structure..
As the years have passed the open structure seems to have gained dominance as to what a hive is .. but it can be many things in my mind.. a partially structured shell with buildings top it , no shell wall,
or just a smooth shell exterior.. As with all things time moves on and things change.. The current depiction of hives as Gothic cathedral tumbling arcologies are fitting for the entropic 40k aesthetic
Shell exterior Hive Confrontation Tony Ackland
Hive Primus Necromunda
Original Ralph Mohr Palatine Hive Necromunda commissioned by John Blanche
Open sky Gothic Hive
Hive interiors and exteriors became more Gothic with the release of the Inquisitor game and the third edition of 40k, subsequent 40k editions evolving our notion of hive cities and the vastness of that galaxy spanning empire
Gaming scenery
( all pictures used without permission .if anyone wants any pictures removed please dont hesitate to contact me )
I love seeing all the varied ways that folk have depicted Hives over the years since confrontation morphed into Necromunda..
Vertical gaming and the humble bulkhead ..
A long held dream of hobbyists like myself is to build a truly vertical Hive environment..
The original depictions of hive interiors saw cavernous dome roofs, huge canyon like drops spanned by spindly bridges.. air ducts pipe outflows and a millennia of Junk...
The original Boxed set of Necromunda came with a slightly underwhelming version of a hive interior ..
but it did provide a glimpse of the dangerous pitfalls of Vertical gaming for the very first time..
Ship bulkheads exposed
There has been some great attempts to recreate these humble 2dimensional card stock gaming pieces into a more satisfying and robust gaming tables..
Dsteingass and Fango ? of dakka dakka have both done a magnificent job of this..
Dsteingass
Fango
Alongside these facsimiles other artists have made their own interpretations of the underhive..
Inquisitor Hive city
After necromunda we also saw a rise in gothic vertical scenery inspired by the Inquisitor Game
Industrial Imperial wartrain
The Yggdrassiliume Neil101
( with the Ygg ( a small part of the Ark ) I tried to incorporate Gothic 40k elements spacehulks and the under hive. But the Ark was supposed to more than a Game board it was supposed to be an ideology,
well at least in my mind..
the idea that you can play with any of your models in a narrative setting that doesn't break the cannon story of 40k.. allowing dark eldar to side with eldar or snotling psyker demons.. anything could go in the warp riding ark so long as you could effectively and convincingly narrate it into the action..
Kari and Mikko of the former The spiky ratpack now Iron Sleet
also added a healthy does of entropy to the cannon with the
highly anticipated punk moth setting
Kari and Mikko of the former The spiky ratpack now Iron Sleet
also added a healthy does of entropy to the cannon with the
highly anticipated punk moth setting
Ferrograd by whiskey Priest
The Excellent leadpile Blog shocased a classic confrontation game recently
using various types of gothic and classic sci fi terrain
the results really capture the early industrial drawings of the confrontation game
The Excellent leadpile Blog shocased a classic confrontation game recently
using various types of gothic and classic sci fi terrain
the results really capture the early industrial drawings of the confrontation game
Mr Blanche's distopian 40k settings (like the spiky ratpacks) show us that the
Gothentropic look is achievable straight out of the box with current 40k terrain.
Gothentropic look is achievable straight out of the box with current 40k terrain.
the brooding Atmospheric Foundations of Ib-26
is the latest Creative to use his talents to transform how we look at the underhive
successfully capturing a dark twisted and crumbling techno Gothic edifices of the Dark millennium..
who wouldn't want to throw a raving redemptionist off that..!
these last six pictures lifted without permission from the brilliant Recalitrant Daze blog
( again if anyone wants picture removed just ask ;-) )
last but not least I would like to use the soaring architecture of the warhammer world display board hive structure to showcase the need to embrace vertical gaming again..
Obviously that would coast a fortune to create .. but how about we get some new gameboards that predominantly designed to be built vertically and not horizontally.. it would take up less table space and gaming at eye level forces you into the action than hovering above the board like a god..
PLEASE GW let us have Awesome stackable industrial Gothic vertical gaming tables ..with heavy pipelined cable drenched catwalks and hard wired servitorii.. oh and please dont forget about the potential of the ash wastes .. ;-)
I will just leave these here as potential inspiration...
Potential vertical terrain concepts..?
Spiders and mass transit systems
The world wide web.. the spider network of pneumatic ? transtubes that link a cluster of hives.. and the balefull spiders that lurk in empty transonic flow tunnels and the sump..
TheGothic
The Bizzare Baroque
Aspiring Spyral Spyrerer underhiver sumpbottom archeohunter
Brutal highrise
atrophied relics of the STC age
The citadel from Mad max uncannily look like the early Hives shells from Confrontation
see the above Tony Ackland Illustration
underground aqueducts black water from the spires filter clean over thousands of years
Cavernous Domes and Hive shell walls
Hive of the dead..
built upon billions of bones and souls - a recycling ouroboros of death..
at its foundations buried beneath a millennia of ghosts lay the original pre heresy expansionists ships from Terra. Its not called Necro- Munda for nothing.. lets up the death imagery for the necropolis
" machine men with machine minds and machine hearts "
lest we forget that the heart of Necromuda is vast factories/Manufactorums producing stuff for the Imperium. Lets get the Mechanicus fully tied into the tech/Vansaars clans/houses
the ashwastes and the world sump..
