Necromunda

What is Necromunda

Necromunda is Games Workshop’s gang warfare game. It’s set on Necromunda, a hive world in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, down in the underhive: miles of ruined, polluted city under the spires, where gangs from the great Houses fight over territory, loot, and reputation.

You run a gang, not an army. Every fighter has a name, gear you paid for in credits, and a history. Fighters earn experience and skills, pick up injuries that don’t go away, and sometimes die. Most of the game is the campaign.

There are three versions to know about right now: the new edition, which came out in August 2026, the 2017 edition it replaced, and the Necromunda roleplaying game that Games Workshop announced in September 2026.

The new edition: Necromunda Skirmish (2026)

Warhammer Necromunda Skirmish was revealed at the Big Summer Preview on 26 June 2026, went up for pre-order on 1 August, and was released on 15 August.

The Core Set is $165 / £98 / €130. It has:

8 Escher Blades of the Matriarch and 8 Goliath Forge Smelters, all new plastic
5 pieces of Zone Mortalis: Factoria Pipes terrain
a 168-page hardcover Core Rulebook and a 32-page Starter Guide
a double-sided 36 × 24 in mat
dice, templates, a range ruler, tactics and campaign cards, and condition markers

The gang rules live in two books, Gangs of the Underhive (the six Houses, Palanite Enforcers, Venators, Corpse Grinder Cults, and Justicar Courts) and Gangs of the Outlands (Outcasts, Free Ogryns, Genestealer Cults, Chaos Helot Cults, Malstrain, Spyre Hunters, Ironhead Squats, and Ash Waste Nomads). Each House is also getting its own Underhive Journal, starting with Escher (The House of Blades) and Goliath (The House of Chains).

There’s a free download too: Necromunda’s Most Wanted, which has rules for 46 Dramatis Personae, 8 Alliances and Delegations, and 19 Hangers-on.

How it plays

Alternating activations. Players take turns activating one fighter at a time, and each fighter gets actions when it activates.
Gangers pick a specialism. There are eight, and each one comes with a free starting skill.
Everyone has a Save now. Every fighter has a Save stat, and cover modifies it.
Tighter combat. Close combat resolves in Initiative order, and a fighter makes only one attack outside its own activation.
Less rolling. Firepower dice are only rolled for high-firepower or unreliable guns. “Suppressed” replaces Pinned, and injuries are tracked with tokens.
Bigger crews. Brutes and Hangers-on are no longer capped, as long as they don’t outnumber your regular fighters.
Campaigns and territories. Gangs fight over territory for income, and scenarios can be generated from cards or tables.

What changed from the 2017 edition

The 2017 edition was the big return. Games Workshop announced it on 13 August 2017 and released it that November, the first new Necromunda box in over a decade. It started with House Escher against House Goliath, a board with bulkhead tiles, and gang tactics cards, then grew over the years into a whole shelf: the House of X books, the Book of Judgement, Peril, and Ruin, Ash Wastes with vehicles, the Aranthian Cycle, and Hive Secundus. It also had more starter boxes (Hive War, Ash Wastes, Hive Secundus, and Dark Uprising). The rulebook was revised in 2023.

That shelf is exactly what the new edition fixes. Games Workshop’s line: “With the new edition, the rules in older publications will be getting replaced. These two new books will let you use your existing gangs straight away.” The core rulebook went from 336 pages to 168.

If you already have gangs, your models are fine. Games Workshop says “all of the existing miniatures are fully compatible.” What you’ll need is the new rulebook and whichever of the two gang books covers your gang. The old books are superseded.

The original: Necromunda (1995)

The first Necromunda came out in 1995, designed by Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson, and Rick Priestley. It was one of Games Workshop’s Specialist Games, later looked after by its Fanatic division. The underhive, the Houses, and the whole idea of a gang that grows over a campaign all come from here, and a lot of people still run the old game.

The roleplaying game: Necromunda Roleplay

Games Workshop announced Warhammer Necromunda Roleplay at the Big Autumn Preview on 18 September 2026. It’s published by Games Workshop itself.

The players are Venators, the underhive’s bounty hunters, and the GM is called the Arbitrator. It uses d10 and d100 skill tests alongside Necromunda-style combat, played out with miniatures. The Core Set has:

18 plastic miniatures: 4 heroes (an Escher Assassin, an Orlock Gunslinger, a Squat Fixer, and a Goliath Champion), 5 Adversaries, and 8 Hive Scum
a 224-page rulebook
2 adventures, An Abominable Intelligence and The Pilgrimage of Bones
playmats, an Arbitrator’s screen, handouts, and character sheets

The first supplement is Journal Apocrypha: Denizens of the Hive, with 51 adversaries and allies. As of this writing there’s no release date or price. Games Workshop says it’s coming soon.

How to start

Get the Core Set. It has two gangs, the rulebook, terrain, and a mat. $165 on warhammer.com.
Grab the free downloads. The Warhammer Community Necromunda downloads page has Necromunda’s Most Wanted, plus FAQs and errata as they come out.
Build your gang in a free gang manager. Gyrinx and Munda Manager both support the new edition and track your campaign as well.
Add a gang book when you want a different gang. Gangs of the Underhive covers the Houses. Gangs of the Outlands covers everyone else.
Kitbash. Necromunda has always rewarded weird, scrappy conversions. Your gang should look like it lives down there.