Introduction

Another release aimed to tidy up existing rules while adding new stuff, Tribes of the Wastelands is essentially a ‘House of’ tome for the Nomads. It brings together their originally released material and Forgeworld releases, one ‘Apocrypha  Necromunda’ article of additional rules, the Warrior Spirits, and one Dramatis Personae, Asun’Ghar, the Lady of Ash, previously introduced in a campaign book. Most importantly, it adds some new Gang Fighters and Exotic Beasts, while expanding and clarifying the weapons and wargear available to the whole gang. It also has a couple of new Scenarios, rules for using Nomads in Dominion campaigns, alternative Hired Guns for Nomads, and new Gang Tactics. All in all, quite a lot of new material for Necromunda enthusiasts. A lot of that is very similar to what was already available to Nomad players, but the additions do matter, and the way it is collated makes it much easier to parse and bring to the game table. Let’s dive on in. This article will focus on the new stuff, headline changes to prior rules, and our impressions of the revitalised Ash Wastes Nomads as a gang. We will be releasing a full Gang Guide shortly (it has often been requested in the past), as soon as we have had a chance to get some more games in with the updated rules. 

Summary: Changes from the Book of the Outlands

This book does supersede the Ash Wastes Nomad gangs described in the Book of the Outlands. Beyond the obviously new and expanded options, and those which are reprinted/adapted from other sources, there are few actual changes to the core models’ rules: Ash Cloaks, which are pretty much universal for Nomads, now let the model ignore battlefield surface conditions, and give a 4+ (previously 5+) save against environmental effects, further increasing Nomad gangs’ hefty advantages in Ash Wastes battle conditions. But we didn’t see any changes to fighter profiles, equipment lists were expanded, not contracted, where they changed at all, and weapon/equipment effects and costs seem unchanged, as has usually been the case for Necromunda supplements. Players who keep using the Outlands Book will be missing out on lots of new toys, the only thing which players lose by moving to this current book is access to the regular underhive Trading Post, which is replaced by a Nomad-exclusive version – that does have some major implications for building gangs through a campaign. We suppose some existing gangs which include models converted with alternative weapons may become ‘illegal’ for play. 

Background Review

Great stuff as always; this book makes excellent use of in-world-perspective, it really commits to the bit. The background section is presented as extracts/summaries from three in-universe texts written by Necromundans about the Ash Waste Nomads. There are plenty of caveats throughout that information is unreliable or outright false, which preserves an air of mystery and the ability for players to imagine their own truth. Several sections give directly contrary explanations or hypotheses about the unknowns of Nomad society, which is a lot of fun to read. As always the bits of black humour and grimdark scene-setting are classic. 

New Rules: Gang Composition and Dominion Campaigns

Firstly, because of their unique separation from hive dwellers, Nomad gangs are always Outlaws, only explicitly-stated Hired Guns or Hangers-On can be recruited, and they use their own special Trading Post – see the relevant sections below. 

While the thematic focus of Ash Waste Nomads remains the actual Ash Wastes campaign – a lot of their Skills and special rules key off the battlefield surface and Visibility conditions which are common to those campaign scenarios – the writers seem to have noticed that players want to use their models fairly freely in all sorts of campaigns. So they have a page outlining special exceptions for using them in Dominion campaigns, and a call-out explaining that these rules can be built on (by Arbitrators) to include them in any other campaign, while in some they may just fit naturally without any special exceptions. 

In Dominion campaigns, Nomads have one unique Territory, a Nomads Outpost. This is pretty great, earning them 2d6x10 credits when collecting income, and can never be lost. In the Occupation phase, Nomads challenge for unclaimed Territories as normal, but if they win, they don’t claim the Territory, they Raid it. The Territory is converted to the Old Ruins type, staying unclaimed, and the Nomads immediately gain 4d6x10 credits as a one-time reward. In the Takeover phase, a Nomad player challenging another for their Territory would do the same thing. Change to Old Ruins, get the cash, it becomes unclaimed. If another player challenges the Nomad player during the Takeover phase, they are assumed to be assaulting the Nomads Outpost. This means a ‘Tunnel Warfare’ board set-up (i.e. intended to be one storey of the Zone Mortalis terrain) where the Nomads player not only has Home Turf Advantage, which is just a buff to Rally and Bottle checks, but can entirely set up the terrain. If the attacker/challenger wins, they gain 5 Reputation. 

As Arbitrators, we have some criticism of this system. The mechanic of raiding, rather than claiming, Territories, is a decently evocative starting point, as is giving a Nomad player a unique, strong starting Territory to smooth out the fact their other income will be largely reliant on winning games. But this system can easily fall apart in practice. First, it exacerbates the issues with the core campaign rules’ challenge system. It is always better to challenge than to be challenged. Even worse is the potential for catastrophic campaign derailment. Nomad players will probably be OK-ish in many Dominion campaigns if they keep losing, or win occasionally (basic income from their Outpost is decent) provided they don’t take heavy casualties or bad Lasting Injuries, of the sort that can death spiral any gang. But what happens when the Nomads player is winning all their games? The board of available Territories will start to look very same-y indeed. That outcome is highly probable, player skill allowing, if the Nomads win the first couple of games. Most gangs, winning their first game of a campaign and claiming their first non-Settlement Territory, would gather 2D6x10 credits at best (before Scenario rewards and special skills/hangers-on). A Nomad player will gather 6D6x10 for every game they win. That’s potentially a huge upward spiral.

Even more frustrating is the amount of questions this system leaves unanswered. No Scenario is given for assaulting the Nomads Outpost. We suppose players can use whatever random 2D6 table or system their group favours, but some Scenarios just don’t work when one player has the right to set up the board. In general, we are very against that system of terrain set-up, because it places conflicting pressure on players. The Nomad player has to find the golden line between fully abusing their right to place cover, which could almost guarantee victory, with creating a thematic terrain setup and giving their opponent a fighting chance. It’s a cop-out of design, in our opinion. The sum of the problem is there just doesn’t seem to be any incentive for other players to want to challenge the Nomads, at any point in a campaign.

In short, there are now official rules which give a method to play Nomads in Dominion campaigns while reflecting their differences to House gangs. But we don’t think that method should be used without some house-ruling or careful monitoring by Arbitrators. 

Nomads Fighters

Every fighter from the original Book of the Outlands: the Nomad Chieftain (Leader), Watcher (shooting Champion), Stormcaller (melee and special ability always-Mounted Champion), Warrior (Ganger), Dust Runner (Juve), Dust Rider (Prospect) are unchanged from their previous rules, in terms of profiles. We do notice the removal of Respirators from kit lists, since they are included in the ubiquitous Ash Cloaks. Those got better, their save against environmental effects is boosted to a 4+ (previously 5+) and they let the wearer choose to ignore any battlefield surface effects. If you look at the punishing conditions in Ash Wastes battles, that can be a huge boon. There is also some change to the language of their weapons/wargear restrictions, because Nomads now do not use the normal Trading Post. Instead, they are directed to the Nomads Trading Post (NTP). See the section below, but this introduces some important new equipment, while cutting them off from a lot of conventional weaponry and niche wargear.

That brings us to the big change for Nomads in vehicle/mount-friendly campaigns: Chieftains, Watchers, Warriors, Dust Runners and the new Hunters, everyone that isn’t already locked onto their Helamite mount, can now buy one for 60 credits from the Nomads Trading Post. The increased price over a normal (50 credit) ‘waster’s dirtbike’ mount gets them a single extra attack with Helamite Claws (S3, -1AP) and the very situational Mighty Leap skill, with the real benefits being the 8” movement and wider Mounted rules. Like other gangs’ equivalents, our opinion is that is a very hefty price relative to the fighters themselves, but it’s the cost of admission for a lot of Ash Wastes play. It does highlight just how cheap and high-value Dust Riders are – a Warrior (Ganger) on a Helamite is 120 credits to a Dust Rider’s 80, and gives up an Attack, Hot-Headed, and the incredibly important ability to pick Advances, with Fast Learner, for . . . marginally better mental stats. From a purely game-oriented point of view, there’s little point taking any Mounted Gang Fighters besides Prospects. 

• Primaris Kevin:  I would argue that Sha’dar Hunters would definitely benefit from a Helamite. Being able to pop up out of nowhere and exploit not being pinned on a 3+ is pretty solid. 

New Exotic Beasts

There are two entries which are available to Chieftains and Watchers/Stormcallers: Ashwing Helamites and Unbound Helamites. The latter are available to Dust Runner Prospects as well. The first thing which piques our interest is both cost a mere 30 credits per model (0-2 each per owner, strictly speaking a Leader/Champion could have 4 pets following them around). This is well below par; basic stuff like Orlock mastiffs, infamously, cost 100 credits, and even Giant Rats, which fair enough are refundable if they die, cost 50 (Wasteland Giant Rats cost 30, so maybe prices are just determined using the ‘dartboard method’). This is cool because the rules designers seem to have twigged the hard limit on the value of unarmoured models with basic melee weapons, poor to mediocre stats which will never be meaningfully upgraded, which don’t provide their own Activation. At 30 credits, suddenly pets look much more efficient, just for a fair chance to charge lesser enemies or play movement-blocking games.

Unbound Helamites are fast enough to  keep up with Mounts (including Mighty Leap) and have a mechanic to simulate a dismounted rider ‘transferring’ to them: if a Mounted owner fails their Initiative check and becomes Pinned, the player, if they can pass another Initiative test, can Pin the Unbound Helamite instead. This is cool and elegant, but RAW, it kicks in after the hit for being knocked down has been resolved. So in some situations, especially if they were Pinned after double-moving, Mounted Nomads may be in no condition to appreciate it. We should also note there’s no actual requirement for a fighter to be Mounted to have these as pets, they could be taken to accompany a guy on foot, although you’d probably go for an Ashwing. 

Ashwing Helamites are similarly fast and fly freely over terrain, only having to remain within 9” of their owner, and their single Attack is at least Toxin, so might accomplish something. Their gimmick is the owner can, as a Basic Action, deploy a Lure. Any Ashwings they own then treat the Lure as their owner – essentially it gets its own Activation, which is used to Activate the 1-2 Ashwings tied to it. That is again rather neatly written, and quite powerful. Clearly the Ashwings can’t move far around the table, but if you can see a position which covers a vital objective, or where short-ranged enemies need to move through anyway, that 9” radius can be enough – the Lure can also be moved by other models like a Loot Casket, which is fairly permissive. The big thing is another Activation, and to be honest, in some senses we can see late-Campaign gangs buying every Hierarchy model one Ashwing just to spam these out at the start of a game to get a leg-up on Activation economy. 

So new pets, definitely a thumbs up from us. They are priced to move and offer some cool abilities which may actually get used – not always the case with Exotic Beasts in Necromunda.

New Fighters: Sha’Dar Hunters

These are a very interesting addition to Nomads’ gang composition, first of all because they are Specialists – so mostly Ganger-equivalent stats (notably 1 Wound) and count as Gang Fighters, with all the goodness of pickable Advances. But, in a similarity with Dust Riders, they have 2 Attacks base. They also have an excellent special rule, Wasteland Ambushers, which lets them deploy over 9” from enemy models in any End Phase after the first. For 65 credits, that’s a very attractive deal. The caveat is their equipment list weapons are melee-only. They can 

choose weapons from the Nomad Trading Post, but only close combat weapons and pistols. This is a super cool niche which gets neglected by a lot of Necromunda gangs, which tend to have expensive Leaders/Champions carry their melee game. Even with WS4+, having 2A opens up more risky plays, and being able to pick Advances could let these develop into efficient threats, while their special deployment makes them something you could build a substantial portion of your roster from. 

Sha’dar Hunters’ Skill options are something of a weak point. Cunning is their only Primary tree, with Combat and Wasteland as Secondary. The best skills in Cunning are generally agreed to be Overwatch (which is for shooters) and Infiltrate (which their innate ability is very similar to). While Evade might actually be useful for a melee ambusher on an open Ash Wastes board, there’s just not much left there, so we expect most Advances taken will be stat increases. 

They also get an exclusive pet option, the Arthromite Spirewyrms (0-2 per fighter). These have a similar design philosophy to the other new beasts – they’re only a single WS4+ attack, at S3 with Rending, on an unarmoured 1W body, so they won’t get much done, but they are still relatively cheap at 45 credits. They do get -1 to be hit with shooting, and can freely move ‘under’, i.e. through, impassable terrain, to represent them burrowing. Not terrible, but something most players would buy after fully equipping weapons. 

Speaking of those weapons, we might expect Sha’dar Hunters to be defined by their exclusive melee weapons – that’s not entirely true. They have 7 options, but most are not terribly exciting:

• A Chitin Dagger (15 credits) is (understandably) very similar to a Fighting Knife, gaining Rending but losing the -1AP. Not a good trade. Bone Talons (20) keep that -1AP, but lose Backstab. Better, but not a good weapon for the price. An Insective Knife (20) is exactly like a Fighting Knife, with Chem Delivery. Funny, but as you’ll see in the Chem section, not practically useful. A Chitin Gauntlet (25) strikes at S+1, AP-1, with only 1D, but Pulverise. A better weapon but again, nothing special for cost. All four of these leave us cold. Players should feel free to use them, but all seem outclassed by the standard Nomads’ Stalking Knife or Long Blade, both of which are available to Hunters via the Nomad Trading Post. 
• The Trident (30) is slightly more interesting because it’s 2” Versatile, with S+1, AP-1 and Shock; the downsides are it is Unwieldy, and has an accuracy penalty in base-to-base Engagement. Versatile seems a very strong option, especially since it gives a likely successful charge if an ambushing Hunter deploys over just over 9” away from enemies and the player wins Priority (they move 6+D3”, plus 2” Versatile range). 
• The other Versatile option is the Venom Whip (30), which in our opinion is the real winner for Hunters. This is a Toxin weapon, which as a rule of thumb is similar to Strength 4, and Damage equal to the target’s remaining Wounds. Now Versatile is an extremely useful rule, but if a Hunter wants to give that up, a Venom Stave (35) gains AP-1 and Pulverise, which is also very good on Toxin weapons. It’s a question of whether you value stacking the Injury Dice roll or make it easier/safer to reach contact in the first place. An interesting bit of design. 
• In either case, Hunters can take Venom Sacs, which is kind of like a Chem-Synth. On Activation, a Standing fighter can take an Initiative test (so usually 3+) to reduce enemy Toughness by 1 against their Toxin weapons, essentially a +1 to Wound roll effect. Those are 15 credits and Venom Sacs are 35, which is significantly overpriced and guarantees they won’t be taken until late in a campaign. Clearly an Initiative test is different – it could easily be made a 2+ reliability with a cheap Advance – but why put in a cool upgrade capability and then overprice it so badly? 

So, we think Sha’dar Hunters will be a common and very fun inclusion in Nomad gangs, with their deployment especially really giving fits to opponents. They can definitely get better through a campaign by buying equipment outside their rather tame equipment list. Not only could a savvy player give them cheap pistols as a general good practice, they can also buy Web Pistols – horrifying. They’d also benefit from stronger melee weapons like Chain Lances. That’s before we get to the Electrostatic Pulse Emitter (see the trading post section). 

Wasteland Skills

Nomads’ unique skill tree only sees small tweaks to keep everything in line. Ghost of the Wastes changed, because it originally allowed the user to ignore battlefield surface conditions, and now all Nomads do that via their Ash Cloaks. It now makes the Sky Mantle-granted Hide in the Wastes Action Basic, rather than Double, and it still enables it in Underhive battles. Those changes honestly make it a fairly decent skill. Giving up a whole Activation to hide is extremely situational – you don’t win games by hiding your most powerful models out of the fight – but shooting and then hiding from return fire is quite powerful. Beast Handler changes in language because all Helamites now give an additional (S3, -1AP) attack – the skill just gives one more. The normal imbalance of skill trees is preserved here – Bring it Down is unchanged, and still unparalleled as the key skill for shooting-oriented models. 

The Nomad Trading Post and New Equipment

The NTP is mostly equipment from the existing equipment lists for Nomad fighters, which honestly overlap a lot and don’t have the variety of most hive gangs. The layout in the book was slightly confusing to us at first: there’s a spread of weapon profiles, which, as in the other recent books, have the cost and rarity level (Scavenging for Nomads) shown. But other wargear is not included in any sort of summary chart. All the items are spread out in longer descriptions – those are headlined with the credit cost and rarity, but it would have been preferable to see them all consolidated into a list as well. Note that the weapon list also includes a fair few where rarity is marked E for exclusive, and don’t have a credit cost given; those are just for reference, they can only be bought from the relevant equipment lists. One weapon, incidentally, the unremarkable Chitin Dagger, is E and has a credit cost given, but this problem solves itself since no one wants to buy one.

So for weapons, the NTP is mostly for tweaking your fighters’ loadouts. All of the Nomad fighters except Gangers and Juves can pick weapons from at least some sections (e.g. the new Sha’Dar Hunter specialists can pick close combat weapons and pistols from the NTP), but given the selection, that’s not too revolutionary. Scavenged weapons are largely NTP rather than on fighters’ individual lists, and you can get some combos that don’t initially seem possible, but these are all Nomad-themed bits of kit, you won’t find any multi-meltas or power fists, or the most esoteric normal TP stuff, like Mung Vases or Falsehoods.

The NTP does add in a couple mundane weapons. As well as the scavenged autogun and stub gun on most fighters’ lists (which are just the normal ones with slightly worse ammo conditions) they can, with an easy Scavenging roll, access normal autopistols, shotguns and lasguns/laspistols. 

• Primaris Kevin:  It’s frustrating how many good options are only available on the Nomad Trading Post. Is there a good reason why players shouldn’t be allowed to select Common stuff from the Trading Post at gang creation? 
• Fowler: I can see why this would be limited, but my inclination would be to give access to Common items at creation.

New Weapon Trait: Haywire

This is where we get the big addition to the Nomads’ arsenal: Haywire weapons. This new Trait just means the weapon wounds vehicles on a 4+. In some cases it is specifically on things with a Strength of ‘*’, which means they can’t wound (or even Pin) other fighters, and in some cases it is on otherwise normal weapons, where the trait doesn’t have any extra effect on non-vehicle targets. The trait appears on a few things: alternate ammunition for charge casters and scavenged shotguns, as wargear upgrades for blast rifles/carbines or heavy blasters, which just add the Haywire trait directly to the existing profile, and on new bombs and traps.

All in all, this means that Nomad gangs can be equipped en masse to threaten vehicles, no matter how Tough (i.e. Ridgehaulers), which is a major reversal from their previous rules, where lack of particularly high strength weaponry was a huge drawback. That limit still exists for them, and T5-6 fighters, as opposed to Vehicle, still look like difficult opponents for a Nomad gang to face. But an appropriately-geared Nomad gang can now take on vehicle-heavy Ash Wastes gangs. We have to play some games and do some maths to check how effective Haywire will be. While much cheaper and easier to access  than conventional anti-vehicle weapons are for other gangs, the trait doesn’t modify AP or Damage. So results against vehicles with lots of Hull Points and 3-4+ saves could still be underwhelming.

• Primaris Kevin: Damage doesn’t strip away hull points, it just increases the chances of getting a better result. The charge caster is the best anti-tank weapon the Nomads get, and against anything that’s T7 or better the electrostatic rockets are the better choice even with less AP.
• Fowler: Legitimate game changer in Ash Wastes games if you spec into it. It’s nice to see the Nomads get a trick that has the potential to wreck shop against beefier vehicles.

Key Items

The NTP does introduce a few new items which provide necessary capabilities to a raiding party:

• Treatment Pouch. This 50-credit item exactly mimics taking a Rogue Doc as a hanger-on. The carrier can always perform a Medical Escort action, ‘even if they would normally not be eligible’ but that action can’t result in the best result, Full Recovery. Definitely worth having, and one will probably be picked up by most gangs. We’re not sure exactly whether the line about eligibility makes this function for Gang Fighters, who normally can’t take post battle actions, or is just supposed to make it function even if the carrier is in Recovery/Convalescence. Our instinct would be for the more permissive interpretation.
• Electrostatic Generator. This new 25-cred weapon attachment is an upgrade for Blast Rifles, Blast Carbines and Heavy Blasters, adding the Haywire trait. That seems powerful and a good deal if opponents are fielding enough heavy vehicles, particularly on the Rapid Fire weapons. It’s a marginal gain, or even pointless, against T3-5 platforms, but if you’re shooting at T6+ wagons, suddenly the weight of dice becomes a real threat. 
  • Shotguns can also be given a Haywire ammo type, which is fine. We don’t know why, beside fluff reasons, it works differently to this, but it works out similarly to a Haywire Blast rifle in cost and effect – shorter range but with -1AP. 
  • Primaris Kevin:  It’s basically there for weight of fire against anything bigger than a light vehicle. This is a benefit which is heavily dependent on the kind of campaign you’re going to be running.
• Electrostatic Impulse Emitter. This is a once-per-battle item, triggered as a Basic Action and inflicting a hit with Haywire, AP-1, D2 on every vehicle within 12” of the bearer. They then immediately become Stationary and Stalled. Now we have to be careful about decrying this, a once-per-battle item shouldn’t be compared directly to weapons that can be fired every round, and it’s a meaty 70 credits. But our first instinct is that this is the most powerful single thing in the book. Because it’s Basic to trigger, even an ordinary Nomad could move 6” before use; a Helamite-mounted one could move 8”, or a Hunter could deploy 9” from enemies, move 6” then set it off, and this is before we get into Tactics cards or Overseer. This is an incredibly powerful, obstructive effect to apply to a vehicle-based enemy gang, and by a couple games into a campaign, a Nomad player could easily plan on doing this 2-3 times per game. A 12” radius circle is a significant area of the table. Clearly it will be less relevant against gangs which specialised more in mounted fighters, or only field one big vehicle, etc, but this seems very good and something Arbitrators may need to control. As thematic as it is for springing Nomad ambushes, we can see other players becoming a little annoyed as their opponents inform them they have 4 Sha’dar Hunters waiting in reserve, each one with an Emitter, so they effectively won’t get to use most of their vehicles normally in Rounds 2-5 of the game!

Some new items are less impressive – the Charge Caster gets a Haywire ammunition option for +30 credits, but that profile has lower AP, Damage than the Krak rockets and doesn’t do anything to non-vehicle targets. So unless you get a lot of mileage out of its 3” Blast (near impossible when it only affects vehicles) it’s just paying for a worse profile – potentially going from a 5+ to a 4+ to Wound roll isn’t worth losing the other stats, and against light or medium vehicles it’s just worse. Venom Sacs, disappointingly, are in the NTP section but we don’t think they are available to anyone but Sha’dar Hunters – they have a credit cost listed, but no Scavenging/Rarity stat, which could technically mean they’re Common or Exclusive. If they’re common, they might be worth doubling down on a model with the 160-credit Venom Caster. 

The non-weapon options in the NTP are honestly pretty sparse compared to the massive breadth of wider Necromunda. There are some old classics like Grapnel Launchers, Armoured Undersuits, Drop Rigs/Grav Chutes, Ammo Caches and Bio-Boosters. There are also some high-end options still available for late campaign play, like Servo-Harnesses, Carapace and Field armour (in fact Field Armour is on the kit lists for Chieftains and both Champions – we guess the Nomads do have their own archaeotech sources, after all). Bionics are there, so Nomads players still have a way to treat lasting injuries. 

What most jumps out at us in terms of absences from the NTP – no grenades! Going forward, no Nomad gangs will ever be able to chuck grenades of any type, which seems like a strange thing to have no access to. We suppose, thematically, they are the ultimate ammo-scarce weapon and less efficient on an open Ash Wastes table. 

New Chems

Nomads get their own selection of Chems, which follow the rules common to their underhive counterparts: the initial rarity check lets you buy repeatedly (but that can randomly be lost), credit cost is for a single use dose, they can be taken before or during a battle, and they all have a benefit and some side effects. Because of this, there’s a common theme – they just aren’t worth it from an optimisation point of view. Being one use items just kills their value relative to weapons, good equipment, more fighters, etc. On top of that, the downside effects are really punishing on most of them. 

However, actual game effectiveness aside, some of the chem ideas are at least really cool. We can see that for themed games, or players who want to spend credits but not have their Gang Rating pull further ahead of their friends’, or as campaign rewards given by an Arbitrator, these are mostly neat, and would lend themselves to cinematic roleplaying moments in games, even if they didn’t exactly increase the Nomads’ odds of victory:

• Milk of the Harpy initially seemed the strongest, granting +2” Movement and +1A for 45 creds a hit. The drawback is taking an automatic Flesh Wound if the fighter doesn’t end their Activation at least 5” from their start point. We initially thought that seemed really easy to avoid, most Nomads being M6”, but then we thought about what happens once the fighter is stuck into melee, or reaches a good firing position, and doesn’t want to move at least once for full distance in a straight line. Of course sometimes you can afford to take a Flesh Wound. Sometimes you can’t. We do like the image of a heavily wounded Nomad, juiced to the eyeballs, frantically sprinting through the later rounds of a long-running game, keeping away from any enemies, just to avoid going Out of Action. 
• Ash Orchid Venom limits Actions to once per Activation unless a Willpower test is passed (each Activation). On the flip side, they remove a Flesh Wound at the end of the Activation, regardless of whether they passed the test. It may be shaken off in the End Phase on a fairly realistic 10+ test of 2D6+Toughness. This is presumably intended to be a way of limiting your capability in return for regenerating Flesh Wounds, and it doesn’t really work. The situations where a fighter’s priority would be to spend an action taking the chem, rather than keep on fighting the enemy, are very few, and clearly starting a game with this chem active would be idiotic. 
• Tears of the Storm lets a model take a third Action per Activation – wow, that’s super strong! Oh no, wait, it also makes them Insane. For those unfamiliar with this condition, a third of the time it means the opposing player controls the model for the Activation. This would be a completely insane (pun intended) thing to do, let alone pay 45 credits a time for the privilege. The wording, by the way, is frustratingly vague, but we read it as the model is always Insane while under the effects of the chem – this is dumb and confusing because a core part of how Insanity works is that the model has a chance to shake off the condition at the end of the Activation. Tears of the Storm must be attempted to be shaken off in the End Phase (11+ against 2D6+Toughness), and if it is, the model can only take a single Action per Activation for the remainder of the battle. The rules specifically note that shaking off the effects do not mean the model stops being Insane. Wait, what? So can the model naturally recover from being Insane while they’re under the influence? Will they start getting chances to recover in subsequent Rounds, once they’ve shaken off the chems? In a bizarre case of rules-ception, the effects of this chem appear to be making Arbitrators go insane trying to figure out how it’s intended to work.
• Duststalker’s Mandible, for 25 credits, lets the user completely ignore the Visibility(X) rule. Even with the caveats of one-use, there seems like a real use case for a key shooting model, i.e. a Watcher with a charge caster or a heavy blaster. Hive tech like infra sights and photo goggles only extend visibility, they don’t cancel the restrictions entirely. The downside is the model auto-fails the test against Flash ammunition – well, that’s situational at worst, and if a model is hiding far off in the wasteland gloom, they can’t be shot by enemies with Flash weapons, at least until their own fire reveals them. Oh, no, wait, all the user’s attacks become Reckless. You didn’t think a chem was going to be worth using, did you? 

Weirdly, none of the above seem strictly negative, in the sense of effects you would only want to apply to your enemies. So the Insective Knife, the one weapon in the book with the Chem Delivery trait, seems even more pointless than most Chem Delivery weapons. 

New (Reprinted) Brute: Arthromite Duneskuttler

Now RAW we are not sure if Ash Wastes Nomads can take any other Brutes; this book explicitly calls out hangers-on, which are weirdly linked to Brutes in how their recruitment is limited by gang Reputation. But there’s nothing strictly against recruiting other wide-ability Brutes, and we can see some thematic possibilities in scavenged Ambots, or Slave Ogryns who have escaped and been adopted into a Nomad tribe. Anyway, the Dune Skuttler stacks up fairly well against the generic options, with an appropriately brutish S5/T5, 3W, 3+WS, and a beastly 4 Attacks, which hit at -1AP, 2Dam and Rending. It’s also quite nimble with 6” Movement , the Clamber skill, and 3+ Initiative. While it comes with Nerves of Steel, its Cool of 8+ makes that an unreliable benefit. Players may actually select a Cool Advance or two here. It’s also got Fearsome, although we doubt most opponents will be looking to charge such a monster, and is protected by Heavy Carapace armour. While the normal caveats about a melee-only, expensive model apply – keep it away from meltaguns – you only have to look at the overall pricetag, 210 credits, and compare it to the stats of a typical melee-oriented champion, to understand why these sort of Brutes are generally worthwhile. 

New (Reprinted) Hanger-On: Arthromite Herder

This hanger-on only exists to sustain and buff the Duneskuttler – it has a profile similar to a Nomad Warrior and a melee weapon, but it is a noncombatant hanger on, it will only appear on the table in some games with Home Turf advantage. It gives a player two options for their Duneskuttler in every post-battle sequence – they can cancel a Critical Injury result, or alternatively heal any Lasting Injuries, and send the brute into Recovery. Or, they can train it, causing it to gain D3 XP if the Herder can pass their (7+) Intelligence check. Honestly, for 40 credits this seems like a decent investment, if hardly urgent to buy. A single critical injury will usually cost more than that in doc fees, and the gradual XP gain can be taken as gravy.

Other Hangers-On

We have to mention here that Tribes explicitly states the only Hangers-On Nomad gangs can hire are those whose rules explicitly state they can be hired by Ash Wastes Nomads. So currently, as far as we are aware, that Herder is the only Hanger-On they can ever have. There are plenty of Hangers-On whose rules state ‘available to any gang’, or ‘any Outlaw gang’, but that doesn’t seem to fit the bill. It includes a wide range, from models which definitely seem out of place, like Dome Runners, and a few which seem like they should be Nomad-friendly, like Outland Beastmasters (one of their models does appear to be some sort of Nomad). This is one for Arbitrators in our opinion, none of the common-availability Hangers-On are inordinately powerful or efficient, so it seems odd not to let Nomads players convert and field their own equivalents. 

Nomad Special Rule: Warrior Spirits

This is the Nomads’ unique mechanic, equivalent of House Escher Chem-Alchemy or Orlock Legendary Names. It’s more random and dynamic than similar rules. Pre-battle, the Nomad player rolls one d6 for every Leader or Champion model in their Crew (so note that models in Reinforcements wouldn’t count). Each dice result is one Warrior Spirit, that can be invoked once during the battle. This is done on Activation of a Leader/Champion, that model then gains a benefit. Some Spirits last for the Activation only, and some for the remainder of the Round. This gives an effect something like Tactics Cards, although the Spirits’ effects are rather more even, with fewer pointless options, but no real game-breaking benefits. We like that it shifts the Nomad player’s decision-making mostly onto the tabletop, rather than being done during gang-building. On the flip side, because it is random, it’s not really something players can optimise. We did look askance at the effects all being temporary, but in a lot of Necromunda games, one Activation or Round is often the decisive point, so there’s not too great a gap between this and the permanent bonuses which some gangs can utilise. A bigger issue is that because Spirits can only be called upon when Activating, there will be times when an opponent rolls Priority and blasts a Nomad Leader/Champion before they can call on a useful Spirit, which won’t feel great.

The only choice in gang-building is which Nomad tribe your gang hails from, and this determines which d6 chart you roll on for your Warrior Spirits. There are four: the Oilrun Stalkers, Dustwall Crawlers, Grey Waste Walkers, and Leadsky Seekers. These are broad categories that are separated along the geographic regions/biomes of Necromunda. So Oilrun Stalkers are those tribes living on and along the great Sump Sea, while Dustwall Crawlers are the tribes cut off within the Secundan Exclusion Zone. Clearly there’s a strong thematic choice, as well as the gameplay implications of which Spirits the player has available.

Clearly, D6 options for 4 tribes means there are 24 Warrior Spirits (a Warcom preview article said 25, which we think was just a typo), and we’re not going to list them all in detail here (we will later in the Nomads’ Gang Guide). Instead, we will just give a snap assessment of each chart, with any notable prizes or stinkers:

• Oilrun Stalkers’ spirits have a couple options for ignoring terrain or flying over it during movement (Sump and Vapour spirits), which are actually legitimately good as ways to get a charge or shot against an opponent who thought their models were safe. Three options are buffs until the end of the round – the Mutation spirit which grants +1S/+1T might be our favourite, but those are all nice. The booby prize is the Radiation Spirit, which grants Rad-Phage to the model’s attacks for their activation.
  • Primaris Kevin:  As the resident Van Saar player, I’m going flat out say that Radiation Spirit is not a booby prize. What makes Rad-Phage suck is that it’s attached to overpriced weapons with low strength. This lets you attach Rad-Phage to anything, including melee attacks which could quickly stack against a tougher opponent.
• Dustwall Crawlers’ spirits seem to be very strong. They have a couple ways to dole out Toxin hits, there is one excellent offensive buff (Fire spirit) which gives +2A and +1WS and one excellent defensive buff (Darkness spirit) which means the model is only hit on a natural 6 until the end of the Round. Don’t worry though, there are still duds. The Insect spirit is almost entirely anti-vehicle, so we can see some fun discussions about whether Nomads players can re-roll that if it comes up during an Underhive battle. The Blood spirit is probably the worst here, it doles out a Toxin hit, but only when the subject fighter has to roll an Injury dice, which is a trigger condition you’d hope doesn’t happen.
• Grey Waste Walkers, or Tsun’ghar, are described as the most numerous tribe and sort of seem like the default Nomads archetype. We’re not sure if there’s a causal relationship, but their warrior spirits are terrible, and we assume the other tribes make fun of them for it. These are largely effects themed around utility or inflicting certain states, and those just don’t work that well in Necromunda. E.G. the Life spirit lets the model give up its Activation to remove any and all Flesh Wounds. That’s only a good idea if there aren’t any enemies in position to inflict more, which seems optimistic. The best one here is probably the Electro spirit – it gives your attacks the Shock trait. Wait, that sounds extremely minor? Well if you already have a Shock weapon, like a heavy blaster (we don’t see anything specifying close combat attacks) then all your attacks auto-wound. 
• Leadsky Seekers is altogether a better table, with one very nice teleport/redeploy option, the Storm spirit, and a lethal straightforward buff, the Blade spirit. That one gives all the model’s weapons AP-3 and +1 Damage for the activation. The dud is probably Chem spirit, which can make enemy fighters who are already extremely close to the model count as in Dangerous Terrain.

Nomad Hired Guns

Hired Guns aren’t really that great, in the eyes of players that build up their gangs for efficiency through a campaign. Paying the recruitment and equipment costs for a single use makes them a terrible idea in terms of building gang power, but the fact Hired Guns can take a player over their normal maximum Crew size for a game gives them a niche. Hired Guns are for when you need an advantage now and don’t care what it costs. That isn’t too common an occurrence, and we get the impression that these are more in the book to give Nomads players Scum/Bounty Hunter equivalents for the situations where you don’t pay for them. Some groups might allocate Hired Guns to make up the gap between Gang Rating in a battle. RAW Nomads never get Alliances or Territory Boons, but there might be some campaign conditions which grant Hired Guns, and these give Arbitrators a thematic way to do that.

Nomads Outcasts are basically Hive Scum with a more Nomadic weapons list – the same cost of 30 credits, with a budget of up to 60 credits on weapons and wargear. Fine, the weapons are all good, notably, as with Warriors, the ability to take Long Rifles.

Bounty Hunters are recast as Nomad Harriers, with the same 3 weirdly unsuitable profiles to choose from. One is a reasonable, flexible champion-level profile with melee and shooting chops. One is tough, but cripplingly slow, with worse BS. Both of those only have 1A. Then there is a melee-oriented profile with 2A, but only 1W. These don’t compare well with Nomads champions, but hey, it’s the same as everyone else. Harriers also get most of the Bounty Hunters’ suite of special rules – players can gain credits for enemy fighters deleted from the Gang Roster and the Harrier is sure to stick around for the next game if that doesn’t happen. They do not claim bounties for capturing enemy fighters like a normal Bounty Hunter; instead they can claim a reward (D6x10 credits on a 3+) for every enemy vehicle Wrecked during a game. That’s actually rather better, at least in Ash Wastes battles where it may come up.

House Agents have a similar mechanic to existing equivalents, where they can be enlisted for a very competitive price (given their leader-level statlines and Group Activation(1)), provided gang Reputation isn’t too high. Mechanically, those prices and Reputation thresholds are identical to the House Agents from existing gangs. The profiles themselves seem a little better – all three have slightly faster movement, and the odd stat boost here or there, over the ones in House of Iron, for example. Agents also roll two dice for Summoning Spirits (see the Warrior Spirits section), they really are fearsome models. As we’ve seen before, these really are expected to be Arbitrator-controlled. They’re so much better than other Hired Guns, until Gang Reputation hits about 10, that it’s silly. Oh, and the table in the book has an obvious and hilarious error, it gives the roll for their availability as D6, rather than D6+Rep. So RAW, all Nomads gangs can always hire an Agent for 40 credits, or 80 if they’re unlucky and roll a 6. 

Outcasts and House Agents are equipped with the standard Nomad Ash Cloaks and Sky Mantles, while Harriers are not – this is probably an oversight and we’d advise Arbitrators to give them the kit. 

Asun’ghar, the Lady of Ash

This cover-featured character is better and much more expensive than an ‘ordinary’ House Agent – 240 credits, or 120 if your Reputation isn’t too high. She’s a leader-level model who’s fast as anything, with Infiltrate and a ‘macro-Grapplehawk’, Terror’s Shadow, which also Infiltrates. Asun’ghar has a pretty good close combat weapon, the Spirit Stave, and isn’t anything above what a normal Nomad leader can achieve in terms of hitting power. She does impose Willpower tests on enemies to Charge or Fight against her, but the rule isn’t quite as good as the infamous Corpse Grinder masks – enemies who fail can still choose another action, and it doesn’t stop her being shot at. Terror’s Shadow is a big step above a normal Exotic Beast, hitting at S5, AP-2, Damage 2 with 3 WS3+ attacks and all the good special rules of a normal Grapplehawk. Not what you want to see Infiltrating up next to you.

New Scenarios

Outland Ambush is an excellent Rolling Roads mission where the attacker (intended to be the Nomad player where relevant) gets infinitely replaceable Gang Fighters. Duneskuttler Hunt is an Ash Wastes scenario, noted as being suitable for multi-player, although the basic form in the book is for two players. Six lairs are placed on the table, and players must investigate them until one, at random, is revealed to hold the Duneskuttler. This then appears on the table and acts at the start of every Round, attacking the closest fighter, until it is killed, and whichever gang took it Out of Action is the winner. We really like this one, it lends itself well to the chaos, and it could easily be adapted for almost any variety of beast.

• Fowler: Already scheming about remixes of Duneskuttler Hunt. It’s a great baseline for “fight the beastie” scenarios.

Conclusion

As with most Necromunda splatbooks, this is pretty great, high production value stuff. The rules aren’t all finely balanced but there is a lot of meat there. Most importantly, we think it does significantly expand the variety and interest available in running an Ash Wastes Nomads gang as a faction, putting them on a level playing field with other gangs. Will Nomads now work better in non-Ash Wastes campaigns? Lot of their special stuff still keys off visibility and battlefield conditions. Some of their best fighters are locked mounted, and RAW Necromunda has a hard line that such fighters can’t be used in Underhive battles. This is an area that individual groups may want to modify – not necessarily by allowing mounted fighters, but by assigning costs to Stormcallers and Dust Riders without mounts. 

• Primaris Kevin: If Van Saar can bring Neoteks everywhere I don’t see why Nomads should be prohibited from riding their bugs in the Underhive. 
• Fowler: In my current campaign I’m letting Nomad players take bugs inside. Nothing has broken horrifically yet!

In terms of campaign rules, as we’ve mentioned, the issue with the Dominion campaign changes this book gives for Nomads is they’re too favourable, Nomad gangs would likely be a terror if they start out with a few wins. But the new fighters, cheap pets, Warrior Spirits and new Nomad Trading Post equipment definitely boost the gang in power, no matter what campaign you’re playing in.

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