Sometimes, Games Workshop really delivers. After an extended hiatus, the free Apocrypha Necromunda supplements returned with a bang this week, delivering a much-needed overhaul to the slightly dusty-looking Venators — the Underhive’s chief cause of, and solution to, choice paralysis. Due to this being a full-blown gang overhaul, we’ve written a separate article instead of just updating our Apocrypha roundup. Enjoy!
Venators are often one of the first gangs that new Necromunda players are drawn to, and with good reason: in a game system that emphasises diverse gangs of individuals so much, no gang does diverse and individual quite as well as the Venators, hardy bands of bounty hunters who club together for big scores.
That was the theory at least, but it’s more than half a decade (!) since the Venators arrived in the Book of Peril, and that list has been looking increasingly dated. As other gangs became more sophisticated, Venators gangs — though they had their place — were increasingly clunky and limited. Arguably, Goliaths or Outcasts offered a better framework for the smörgåsbord gang approach.
So we’re delighted that the latest Apocrypha Necromunda supplement, Bonedry and Broke — available here via WarComm — has given Venators a full refresh, one that includes Ratling rules, new ways to play Squats, and, even more disturbingly, Ogryns with guns. Here’s what you need to know.
Table of Contents
Why Play a Venator Gang?
Bounty hunting is one of the most evocative and iconic pursuits going on Necromunda. One thing’s for sure about the Underhive: there will always be somebody who wants somebody else dead — and is willing to pay to get it done. Many bounty hunters work alone, but there are also those who form into bands for mutual protection, or to bring down big targets.
In practical terms, the Venator list is based around having multiple different statlines for each tier of fighter to represent different type of human (or abhuman), and having a breadth of equipment access that would make your average Ordo Xenos inquisitor jealous.
This opens up the possibility of a true sandbox gang in gaming terms, and also creates a host of modelling opportunities for collectors and kitbashers who want a little bit of everything.
It’s an ideal toolkit for narrative gangs. Want to represent the Ogryn/Squat alliances of the Trocken Mining Clan; the Greenskinned denizens of The Skull; or just, you know, play as Ratlings? This list has you covered. Pretty much the only type of fighter you can’t represent are ultra-mobile prospects such as Orlock Wreckers or Van Saar Neoteks: the pollution-addled sky’s the limit.
What Makes Venators Unique?
Variable Profiles
In broad terms, Venators have the fewest categories of fighter, packing only leaders, champions and standard gangs. But each of those categories contains multitudes.
In Book of Peril, each rank of Venator came in four different statline flavours. Roughly, these were Escher-esque, the infamous M3″ ‘Squat’ profile, Goliath-esque, and Van Saar-esque.
In this refresh, those choices have been greatly expanded: as well as four humanish ‘House’ profiles per fighter, there are now separate profiles for four varieties of abhuman represented at each rank: Ogryns, Squats, Ratlings and Beastmen. In total, that gives you 24 different profiles with which to represent the three different classes of fighter.
Gang Legacies
All Venator fighters (except Ratlings and Beastmen, who get new rules instead) come with a ‘Gang Legacy’, representing their former associations. For the ‘House’ profile, this means each fighter can pick one of the six House gangs (Cawdor, Delaque, Escher, Goliath, Orlock and Van Saar) and access the equipment list of that gang’s leader as if it were their own. A similar system existed for the BoP Venators, but it cost an exorbitant 30 creds per fighter who used it: now everyone gets it, and it’s FREE. Huge.
Do note: Gang Legacies are equipment lists only — they don’t give access to House special rules like Goliath Gene-smithing or Orlock Legendary Names, and they don’t grant access to those gangs’ specific skillsets.
The abhuman profiles come with their own ‘Gang Legacy’ options: Ogryns and Squats can access the Slave Ogryn and (juicy) Ironhead Squat Prospectors equipment lists respectively, while Ratlings and Beastmen instead pick up some pretty snazzy special rules. We’ll get into those later on.
Retail Therapy
Another standout feature of Venators is their equipment access: all their fighters can directly buy items directly from the Trading Post at foundation as though it were their equipment list, offering admirable immediate access to fun stuff. Leaders can access up to Rarity (11), while Champions get up to (10) and Hunters get (8). There’s no built-in access to Illegal equipment.
Psychic Leaders
One of the few direct changes to Venators since BoP arrived came in the Book of the Outcast, which allowed Venator Hunt Leaders to gain the Sanctioned Psyker or Non-sanctioned Psyker rule and pick up a Wyrd Power for 35 credits (nb there is no non-narrative reason you would ever choose Non-sanctioned over Sanctioned). The passage in Outcasts refers to Venators as being from the Book of Peril, making it a little unclear whether it’s meant to apply here. Our view is that it absolutely should transfer and be permitted.
As a result of this access to sanctioning — and some nice Willpower stat options — Venator leaders are arguably the most competent generic psykers in the game.
Claiming Bounties
As befits their status as bounty-hunters, Venators get some nice economic bonuses for taking down enemy fighters. When Venator gangs sell captive fighters to the guilders, they get their full value instead of half. Additionally, when an opponent deletes a fighter following a game against Venators, the Venator gang gets to claim half that fighter’s value as credits — a nice little earner.
What Are the Downsides to a Venator Gang?
No Tactics Cards
Venators don’t have their own tactics — so when making any comparison with the conventional gangs (eg Venator Ogryns vs Slave Ogryns, or Venator Squats vs Ironheads), you need to price in that you’re probably losing access to some nice exclusive cards, and will need to rely on (plentiful) generic options.
No Prospects and Juves
Venators are (alongside Slave Ogryns) the only gang in the game with Juves. There’s nothing wring with this necessarily (as we shall say, it certainly doesn’t mean they lack cheap fighters), but some players will miss the flexibility you get in choosing advancements with such fighters.
A lack of Juves does leaves Venators in an odd place regarding territory rules that generate these fighters for free. We’d suggest arbitrators find a way to set an appropriately higher standard for generating Hunters.
Complexity
This is something of a double-edged sword. Some players may find Venators simple because they’re so permissive in terms of what you can represent on the board, and what equipment you can access. For others, this might be a one-way road to choice paralysis.
The Gang
Venators follow the standard rules for gang composition (ie they must have at least as many Hunters as Leader + Champions).
They can take a specialist fighter at foundation, bringing them in line with most other gangs. Plus, the harsher threshold for hiring a second hanger-on/brute has been lifted.
Venators can’t recruit generic Bounty Hunter hired guns, lowering their access to Wyrd Powers — the rationale being that, well, they’re already generic bounty hunters. They can still hire Dramatis Personae bounty hunters and any shade of Hive Scum. This doesn’t entirely make sense, but whatever.
Leaders, champs and specialists of all varieties have no weapon restrictions, while Hunters can only use Basic weapons, Pistols and Close Combat weapons. There are no Wargear restrictions across the list.
We’ve broken down our statline analysis by, uh, species, but remember that these can be mixed and matched at will: Ratlings will happily fight side-by-side with Ogryns. Or, you know, maybe a little behind them…
The ‘House’ Profiles
The four human-style ‘House’ profiles for each fighter are moderately less clear-cut than last time, so we’d recommend some careful reading (especially around minor differences in headstats, such as leader willpower if you intend to go psyker mode).
House Hunt Leaders (120 credits) can choose:
- An all-rounder profile with M5″, 3W, BS/WS 3+, I4+, two attacks and solid headstats. This is basically the Orlock Road Captain profile, albeit for 15 credits more and without the included Legendary Name.
- An odd profile with M4″, S4, I3+ and two wounds. This is the only house leader profile that isn’t S3/T3. It’s hard to say what this is supposed to represent — better reaction time, bigger biceps but slower and defaultly squishy?
- A shooter profile with M4″, WS4+, BS2+, I4+, two wounds and one attack. This is roughly similar to a Van Saar Prime, which costs ten creds more, albeit without the armoured bodyglove.
- A super-speedy profile with M6″, WS3+, BS4+, I2+, two wounds, three attacks and notably average headstats. This feels somewhere between a Death Maiden and a Nomad Chieftain, and will hit hard in melee.
Overall, we’re not overawed by these for the price, but there’s some good variety and these fighters’ remarkable equipment access needs to be factored in.
House Hunt Champions (90 credits) can choose:
- An all-rounder profile with M5″, WS/BS3+, two wounds, two attacks and average headstats. Meh, generic.
- An odd profile with M5″, WS4+, BS3+, S4, one wound, I5+ and two attacks, with good headstats. Like with the leaders, this is the only profile that isn’t S3/T3. We… don’t really get what the concept is here. You have a super-squishy fighter that is a barely-above-average melee combatant but has S4. Grenadier? Just hope they don’t shoot you first.
- A somewhat Van Saar-esque profile, with M4″, WS4+, BS2+, two wounds/attacks and I5+, but with mixed headstats including notably poor Intelligence. Still, BS2+ for 90 credits is pretty nice (Augmeks are 110).
- A speedy profile much like that of the leaders: M6″, WS3+, BS3+, but with Initiative notably two notches worse at 4+, just two attacks and poor headstats.
It’s a slightly odd mix, with the shooter probably the strongest on paper. We’d love to hear ideas about what to do with the second one.
Finally, House Hunters (50 creds) can choose:
- The “vanilla” Necromunda statline (M5″, WS/BS4+, S/T 3, W1, I4+, 1A), albeit with slightly better cool (6+ versus the baseline of 7+). Fine.
- Another one of those odd M4″/S4 profiles (see champions and leaders above), only now with WS4+ and BS5+, and solid headstats. This finally makes a bit more sense, creating a slower but harder-hitting melee fighter.
- Another shooter, with Van Saar-esque BS3+ but absolutely not Van Saar-esque Intelligence 9+. BS3+ is effective, there’s not much more to say.
- Another speedster, with M6″ and I3+ (so initiative that is better than the champion of this rough type, but worse than the leader) and headstats that are also much better than the champion (6/6/6/7 on the Hunter vs 7/7/8/8 on the equivalent champ). Bizarre.
Again, it’s a bit of a mix but these are a better all-round set than the champions.
Overall, perplexing but interesting. We think people who wanted to put some Goliaths into their mix are most likely to be disappointed given the lack of any S4/T4 profiles here.
The Ogryns
Alright, let’s address the strapped elephant in the room: Venator Ogryns can take guns. One of the biggest idiosyncrasies of Slave Ogryn gangs is their restriction to a small pool of melee weapons, forcing them to use grenades in order to pose any kind of ranged threat.
Ventator Ogryns have no such restrictions: if you want them to carry an Autogun, or worse, you can. Unsurprisingly however, they’re (initially) pretty poor shots. This pushes them towards template weapons, albeit then you have to weigh up whether it’s better just to steamroll someone with melee. Adding to that temptation, you can take any Close Combat weapon from the Trading Post, rather than being restricted to the slightly lacklustre Slave Ogryn list.
Although ‘Gunliath’ is similar and pretty well-established, we don’t have a clear idea of how a gun-toting Ogryn gang is going to feel on the board. Will players go for big boys with big toys, or will a better way involve taking cheap, accurate weapons like Lasguns and enjoying favourable trades with weaker opponents as you march up? Either way, we imagine we’ll be finding out quite soon.
In mixed Venator lists, we expect most people will want to take at least one Ogryn, just for the fear factor.
For those who want to play a ‘pure’ Ogryns-with-jobs gang using these rules, there are positives and negatives: the big plus is you can gain Ferocity as a Primary, granting that sweet, sweet pinning mitigation and compounded tankiness. The downside is you lose pinning-proof Lobos, and access to Muscle skills (most notably Naaargah!).
The Ogryn Hunt Leader has the exact same statline as a Slave Ogryn Overboss (S/T5, W3, A3 yummy yummy), albeit for ten creds more at 155. But did we mention they can take guns, and a whole heap of other tasty stuff?
The Ogryn Hunt Champion has… the exact same statline as a Slave Ogryn Underboss, but for fifteen credits more at 125. You may be sensing a pattern here.
Finally, the Ogryn Hunter has the same profile as a Slave Ogryn, but for 15 credits more at 105.
The net effect is you are paying more for fighters who can do way more. The minor trouble with that is that you have to pay more credits to do that stuff, making an expensive gang even more costly to run. But hey, they could take Savant.
The Squats
You wait thirty years for a Squat list, and then four (if we’re including the Votann in 40k) come along roughly at once.
The Squat profile was the red-haired stepchild of the old Venator list. Although T4 and good headstats appealed, they were M3″. That — and we can’t emphasise this enough— sucked. It is borderline a practical impossibility to navigate certain Necromunda boards with M3″, especially given the height of standard vertical terrain is often around the six-inch mark.
The new Venator Squats have M4″, matching their Ironhead cousins, so now all is roughly well in the world. Players wanting to represent everyone’s favourite Space Dwarfs now have four credible options: the new Ironhead Squats (from Halls of the Ancients), the old (but still pretty new) Ironhead Squat Prospectors (from Book of the Outlands), a tuned Goliath list, or Venators.
A small idiosyncrasy, which it’s worth addressing immediately, is that the Gang Legacy for Squats gives them access to the equipment list of the Charter Master from Book of the Outlands, not HotA. As a result, they can’t (rules as written) access some of the new Ironhead toys, most notably the various exotic beasts introduced in HotA. This is obviously a cinch to house rule if needed.
Now, obviously a big part of the Venator appeal is stat mixing, but let’s briefly dwell on the possibilities for a Squat-focused or pure-Squat band: versus a HotA list, you lose some pretty tasty things (arguably the best brute and hanger-on in the game, nice pets, the Wisdom of the Ancients skillset, the basically all-upside Squat Ancestry system, exo-suits), but you gain even-broader weapon access, and the ability to take Ferocity and/or (gulp) Shooting as a primary skillset. There are definitely some (often pricey) possibilities there (AHEM Space Slayer builds with Frenzon Collars), just try not to get yourself banned from the gaming club.
Another small oddity is that access to the leader-level equipment lists means that (ganger-level) Squat Hunters can take Ironhead Hand Flamers, which are pretty decent.
In a mixed Venator grouping, Squats are likely to represent the firepower backbone of the gang. Their weapons are stellar, they’re tough to kill and their headstats are excellent.
The Squat Hunt Leader has the same profile as a Charter Master, but costs fifteen credits more at 130.
The Squat Hunt Champion has the same profile as a Drill-Master (nb a range-tilted WS4+/BS3+) for ten creds more at 95.
The Squat Hunter has the same profile as a Drill-Kyn, but for five creds more at 55.
Although these prices are all reasonable, there’s a more acute version of the Ogryn cost issue here: you’re paying more for the privilege of having more things to spend your money on, which is an expensive way to operate.
The Ratlings
With Ratlings having returned to take the Kill Team universe by storm, many players have been looking for a way to bring these voracious abhumans into the Underhive (until now, the best alternative option was probably to play them as Nomads, and just imagine they’d all done a lot of interval training).
That problem has now been solved: the Ratlings have arrived. Rather than an equipment-unlocking Gang Legacy, all these diminutive combatants get three special rules:
- Sniping, which lets them re-roll natural 1s when shooting with an aimed basic weapon.
- Sneaking, which grants them +1 to any bonus they are receiving from cover.
- Slopping, which lets each Ratling attempt to exit recovery during the pre-battle sequence (on a roll of 6).
It’s a saucy set. Ganger-level access to Long Rifles has remained a perk of the Nomads, so WYSIWYG diehards might have a job to do, but it looks like the idea is for baseline Ratlings to lean into Lasguns, Autoguns, or even Boltguns, and take long-distance shots.
Sneaking is a potentially excellent power, especially given most Ratling models will be inherently designed for advantage (ie able to almost always get a full cover bonus because of their small size and Necromunda’s naturalistic line of sight rules). Combine it with with a cameleoline cloak and you’d be -5 to hit if still, meaning virtually all fighters would need to make an Improbable Shot. Oof.
So what are the profiles like? Well, Ratlings are slow at M4″ (except the leaders, which are inexplicably M6″), are S2/T2, which is dreadful, have decent headstats (including excellent intelligence), and are more inclined towards shooting than melee.
More notably, they are cheap. A Ratling Hunt Leader is 95 credits, a Ratling Hunt Champion is just 50 credits, and a Ratling Hunter is, drumroll, only 20 credits (remember that they could start with a Boltgun). There’s potential for a shooty horde gang here, which is scary. A 30-cred Ratling Hunter with a Lasgun basically does an Escher Sister’s whole thing for about half the price, although it must be emphasised how much T2 sucks. If you can find ways to mitigate the lack of toughness through positioning, these will be excellent fighters for the cost.
We’re certain that Ratlings champs and gangers will make for popular cheap-and-cheerful choices across many mixed Venator gangs. How they’d fare as a pure gang is a bit harder to say — they’d probably do well in a lot of shooting matchups, particularly in Sector Mechanicus, but would probably get absolutely bodied by something like a Wrecker gang, or in any close-quarters mission.
The Beastmen
Like the Ratlings, Beastmen come with special rules instead of a Gang Legacy:
- Feral Warriors, which gives them an extra attack if they’re taken a flesh wound.
- Frenzon Conditioning, which makes them immune to the downside of taking Frenzon.
Feral Warriors is solid, especially given Beastmen’s high toughness makes them more likely to be hanging around with flesh wounds on.
Frenzon Conditioning is a tougher sell. All Venators have tools of the trade, so if you want to use Frenzon but maintain the option to go without sometimes, you’re probably better off getting a Frenzon Collar, which lasts forever and has an excellent group activation rule built-in, for just ten credits more.
The clearest situation in which this rule is helpful is if (in a campaign) you want to use Frenzon exactly once and never again, in which case you’ll save some creds. Or, we suppose, if you’re intent on trying to keep your wealth down. One pertinent question is over whether you need to check for Frenzon addiction after using a collar. If you do (the rules are ambiguous), then Frenzon Conditioning could be helpful for an approach where you’re frequently taking the collars off.
As fighters, Beastmen are slow, dumb and chuddish, with M4″, S4 and T4 across the type.
They are also spectacularly cheap. [Update: 16 January: In what must be the Necromunda’s fastest-ever errata, Games Workshop has updated the Apocrypha document, nerfing Beastman costs across the board. The costs of Leader/Champs/Gangers have gone from 95/50/20 to 150/100/60, which is vastly more appropriate for their statlines. We’ve updated this article to reflect that, and thank GW for quickly addressing their apparent error.]
A Beastman Hunt Leader has basically the same profile as a Goliath Forge Tyrant (the headstats are slightly different), but at 150 credits is seemingly paying a 15-credit Venator tax similar to what we saw on the other profiles. This is an excellent melee profile, albeit quite a pricey one.
The Beastman Hunt Champion has almost the exact same profile as a Goliath Forge Boss (the Beastman has a pip more Willpower, but one point less Cool) at a slightly cheaper 100 credits. It’s another solid, melee-oriented profile.
Last of all is the Beastman Hunter. Again, House Goliath provides the clearest point of comparison: bar some minor headstat variances, this Hunter has the same profile as a Bruiser — except the Beastman has champ-level WS3+, and costs 60 credits. Given its special rules, this is one of the game’s best melee combatant profiles at this price, even if a lack of initial pinning mitigation might give them some headaches.
Overall, they’re a strong set of fighters, with the Hunter probably the standout from a value-for-creds perspective.
Equipment and Gang Legacies
Venators have always been something of a Pandora’s Box gang, with a vast array of weapons and tools at their disposal. The tweaks to Gang Legacy rules are part of this update have turned the dial up to 11: an Escher-speed fighter with a Rad Cannon stood next to an Ogryn with a shotgun and a blunderpole-wielding Van Saar dropout is suddenly both possible and, crucially, affordable.
With this in mind, we’re not going to try to reflect the whole array of possibilities, but we’d note the following:
- Gang Legacy access and the guaranteed availability levels are available only at foundation. The former will typically be the harsher constraint here, so if you want otherwise-exclusive toys you’ll need to buy them when you first hire a fighter.
- Venators can only access the Trading Post in the regular way during a campaign, which means for non-Common items you’ll need to make a Seek Rare Items action. Given this isn’t always possible, and how restricted TP access is in some campaigns (looking at you, Underhells), this could seriously restrict your ability to upgrade fighters during a campaign, particularly during downtime — while everyone else can access their Gang Equipment lists, you’re stuck. It’s something of a rules hole.
- This gang can take Boltguns on a lot of fighters who would be scary Boltgun users.
- Given fairly few Special Weapons are rare (8) or lower (although it’s the excellent Grenade Launcher and Long Rifle that fall within the threshold), we wouldn’t be surprised either to see specialists picking up Gang Legacies that given them access to fancier toys, or specialist builds that lean more into skill development (hello, hip-shooting Ogryn).
- As noted earlier, some of these fighters are more expensive than their regular-gang equivalents, so the dangers of going “toys over boys” is real…
- …Unless you bulk out your gang with 20-credit Ratlings, in which case you’ll have plenty of creds to spare.
One quick idea to note here is that — with the updated 2023 core rulebook allowing gangs to take hangers-on and brutes at foundation — you could take a Tech-merchant (from House of Artifice) at the get-go for 80 creds, which would decrease the Rarity of all Trading Post items by 2 (effectively giving your leader R13, champs R12 and gangers R10 access).
This opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, not least of which is taking Frenzon Collars on your T4, WS3+ Beastmen at foundation! Just don’t expect to get invited back to the gaming club.
Less evilly, it lets you grab some super-prestige gems for your leader, such as the Inferno Pistol, the Archeo Duelling Pistol or the Archaeotech Device. All gloriously overcosted, but your Inquisitor deserves the best, even if she is a bit overqualified for the Underhive.
Skills
Skills were one of the biggest limitations of the old Venators. The rules refresh loosens things up a bit.
Under the new system, the Venator gang picks any four of the core skillsets (the ones in the rulebook), and ranks them 1–4. Leaders treat 1 and 2 as primary skillsets alongside Leadership, with 3 and 4 as secondaries. Champs treat 1, 2 and 3 as primaries, with 4 and Leadership as secondaries, while specialists take 1 and 2 as primaries, and 3 and 4 as secondaries.
It’s a small change, but opens things up quite a lot if you’re willing to prioritise your champions. For example, a Ratling/Ogryn Venator gang with a Ratling leader could pick Shooting, Cunning, Ferocity and Combat, giving its Ratling snipers Shooting skills and Overwatch access, while offering some pinning resistance and tankiness to the Ogryn champions. With secondaries easier to access nowadays, Combat would also be pretty open to both.
Inevitably, it means that in mixed-type gangs you’ll end up with champions who have access to some skillsets that feel mildly inappropriate (not to disparage Ogryn infiltration abilities, of course). But you can always… pick different advancements.
We think this will make most people happy, although sandbox-maxers will be sad that it isn’t quite as open as for Outcasts gangs.
Conclusion
This is an awesome list refresh that breathes new life into a popular but neglected gang. We think Games Workshop have made some great decisions here in terms of creating a framework for fighter diversity without completely removing limitations. How Venators will fare is hard to say: On the one hand they can do almost anything; on the other many of the profiles on offer won’t do things especially well, or cheaply.
Our only hangup is an apparent lack of quality control: some of the ‘House’ profiles compare strangely between ranks, or are straight up odd in and of themselves (we’re looking at you, House Hunt Champion 2). We’re witholding full judgment on Ratlings until we’ve seen them in action.
Still, we think this is an excellent update that will make a lot of people excited to get modelling. Best of all, it’s free.
Example Gangs
We’ll write some example lists once we’ve had a chance to playtest these rules (by which point, perhaps, there’ll have been an update on the Beastman prices).
In the meantime, here are a bunch of ideas for gangs you could make using these rules:
- An Ordo Xenos Interrogator and their motley retinue, sent to scour the Underhive for forbidden tech
- A group of retired Bullgryns who’ve set up a radical collective in the Ash Wastes
- A hybrid human/Squat force of Necromundan ‘Spiders’ veterans
- The militarised Ratling operations of an esteemed Sump City chef
- The Fellowship of the Ring, but Necromunda.
- Orks
- A Squat inventor and her robotic inventions
- An ultra-orthodox band of god-fearing Beastmen
- SLAYERS
- Ninja Ogryns with throwing knives
We can’t wait to see what people come up with.
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