Many stories tell the tale of the various Tribes of the Wastelands, Nomadic hunters who stalk the ash wastes, manipulate the weather and slink back into the sand unseen. For many on Necromunda these are just tall tales, things that you tell the Juves to spook them on a late watch. But for those who have encountered the Ash Waste Nomads, they will tell you that if you don’t keep your wits while out on the dudes then you may not even see your demise. They will tell you that the Ash Wastes belong to the Nomads, and even stepping foot in them can often be at your own peril.

In Tribes of the Wastelands, the latest supplement for Necromunda, players get access to the a full and expanded Ash Waste Nomads gang list, along with new and comprehensive lore and a collection of additional gaming material to add some more flavour to your campaigns. In this full review we’ll be checking out the book, seeing what is new for the gang and even taking a look at some of the kits that are released alongside the book, the Sha’dar Hunters and the Ash Waste Upgrade kit.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us an early review copy. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Necromunda goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the new Ash Waste Nomads kits which you can see below or over on YouTube

So without further ado let’s dive into Tribes of the Wastelands, and see if we can glean any secrets about the elusive Ash Waste Nomads…

Tribes of the Wastelands Review

It’s been an exciting few years for the latest edition of Necromunda. We’ve had lots of awesome boxes willed with terrain and gangs, we’ve seen compressive rules material released, source books taking us to other locations and environments on Necromunda and all of the 6 core gangs expanded out with full House of books.

With the core books completed, the question was always going to be what gets covered next, and it seems that Games Workshop is working their way through the gangs introduced in the Book of the Outlands with the Squats revisited in Hall of the Ancients, and how it’s time for the Ash Waste Nomads to have their turn.

The Ash Waste nomads were my favourite part of the Ash Wastes release range, from the mysterious nomads themselves, draped in gear to protect them from the harsh climate of Necromunda while also masking what they might look like underneath, to the weird insect like creatures they ride to battle, the Ash Waste nomads gave us a very different looking gang with echos of Tattooine and Dune.

Up until now, my only problem with them was the fairly limited range leading to them feeling a little more restricted than the other more fleshed out gangs, but with Tribes of the Wastelands the Nomads get a lot of love

The Lore

One of the best parts about the Necromunda supplements is the deep lore we get about the various gangs of the planet, and for Tribes of the Wastelands we get a slightly different approach, but one that works so well for the subjects. It starts by telling us that over the life of human colonization of Necromunda that various authors have written about the mysterious Nomads. From “On the Subject of the Nomade” a more fanciful account based on rumours and stories which may not be the most reliable, to “Apocrypha Necromunus” penned by a Mechanicum Adapt logging the history and lore of the planet entirely from first hand interactions, to more recent books like “Tales from around the Gunk Tank” made up of the accounts and watering hole stories of the common ganger.

What’s ace about this book is that what follows for the entirety of the lore section we get extracts from each of these three very different books as a way of giving the reader the whole range of theories, suspicions and maybe even the odd truth about who and what exactly the Nomads are, their goals and their beliefs.

I really like this approach as it means that we get to see some very different takes. From the rumours and hearsay that they might be insectoids or xenos that dabble with heretical energies, to theories that they are actually blanks who steal the soul of gangers in an attempt to live forever, to possibly the most sinister – they are just humans who have been shaped by an eternity in the Ash Wastes.

Each of the three sections is written in it’s own style, and I’d love to see more stuff like this that details the lore of Necromunda from an in-universe point of view, with all the unreliable facts and agendas that it includes.

We do of course get the usual stuff like time lines, maps and histories, but I thoroughly enjoyed the “extracts” from the 3 book to get some flavour about the Nomads, and feel this is a much more interesting way of doing it rather than just spelling out exactly what they are.

Tribes of the Wastelands – Ash Waste Nomads Gang List

As expected, a big chunk of the book is dedicated to the new Gang list, which is considerably expanded from the one back in Book of the Outlands. We’ll be taking a look at everything here, including the changes from the previous list – in this section we’ll also take a look at some of the new kits that help you with some of these loadouts!

Kha’tragi Cheiftain

The gang leader keeps his profile and weapon options from the previous list, only now with the Ash Waste Nomads upgrade kit it’s a lot easier to outfit him with whichever weapon you want to give him

The kit contains two duplicate sprues with a whole host of weapon options that flesh out the choices from the equipment list, finally giving Ash Waste players to mix up the gear a little from the ones in the core box.

The leader and all of the Champion get access to two new Exotic Beasts – the Ashwing Helamite and the Unbound Helamite

The Ashwing Helamite is a flying variant of the Helamite that can range up to 9 inches away from its owner – what’s really cool is that for a basic action you can actually set a Lure which allows the Helamite to then treat as if it was it’s owner. The owner can happily move away and the Ashwing will fight on. Other gangers can even pick up the lure and move it around – making this an excellent little beastie.

The Unbound Helamite on the other hand is basically just a Dustback Helamite without a rider, and while it can fight it has another really cool usage – if the owner is riding a Dustback and gets knocked Prone and Pinned they can make an initiative test to jump onto the back of their spare mount instead. I love this concept! Mechanically you simply place the spare Helamite prone to represent the fact that the owner has ditched their old mount for the new one.

Naku’tarri Watcher

Next up we have the Watchers, these are the champions and heavy weapon specialists of the gang, and just like the leader there are no changes here from the stock list in Book of the Outlands. This isnt really a bad thing, and again, like with the leader we now have all the weapon options available in plastic including the awesome looking Heavy Blaster!

Wy’tari Stomcaller

Next up we have the Stormcaller, who again has no changes from the previously printed version. This is a really fun champion who can use a double action to increase or reduce visibility in 6″ increments or if visibility isnt in play they can use it to set a 24″ max visibility. Really cool concept that feels very Ash Waste Nomads. I like that he isnt a psyker, which suggests that some of the theories in the book about them actually having quite advanced technology may actually be correct.

Tarh’noki Dust Rider

The Iconic Dust Riders come next, and again like all the other profiles in the book these are unchanged rom the previous incarnation. This is essentially your “vehicle” option for the Nomads, with the Helamites acting as a sort of “bike” for the Nomads, giving them speed and the ability to keep up in rolling road missions. The are a prospect too, so take advantage of the usual rules such as promotion and fast learner. They do have access to some of the special weapons included on the new upgrade set, though I didn’t have a spare set of Dust Riders to hand to see if they fit the bodies well. At the very least it gives you the spare weapons to try out some conversions if you do want a Venom Caster one for example!

They are able to take Unbound Helamites, which is handy to stop them getting knocked off them!

Tarn’runi Warrior

The basic warriors return with the same profile, and again with all of the weapon options now available on the upgrade sprue its a lot easier to build a diverse gang that can cover a lot of roles. The new weapons look really nice on the miniatures too, and helps to make each nomad look a bit more distinct.

It’s worth noting that the kit also has alternate Sky Mantles and heads too, which really help change up the silhouettes.

Sha’dar Hunter

We do get a brand new specialist in Tribes of the Wastelands with the Sha’dar Hunters – these are a really interesting unit that I think will prove to be really useful in closing the distance in an Ash Wastes game. Rather than deploying them normally, you can instead have them start off the board, and then at the start of any End phase after the first have them pop up anywhere on the board outside of 9 of the enemy. It’s worth noting that this can’t be used in Underhive games, as it represents them hiding in the dunes and leaping out to ambush foolish travellers.

They get a fun assortment of close combat weapons and can be accompanied by Spinewyrms (4 of which are included in the new kit)

Spinewyrms have an innate -1 to hit with Small Target making them tricky to hit, and can also pass through impassible terrain as long as they don’t end their movement within it – this makes them amazing at sniping a heavily damaged ganger that has slipped away behind sealed doors for example.

The kit itself is really nice and builds up 10 models in total, with each of the weapon options in the book being possible across the 3 main poses – whats nice is that there’s also a few rocky outcrops that are used to raise the models in order to brake up the profiles a little more to help those 3 poses look a little different.

Thankfully all the options are included within the kit, so there’s no need to pick up the upgrade set for these, that’s only needed for your basic warriors and bug riders

Run’taani Dust Runner

Finally in the basic gang list we have the Juve of the Nomads, the Dust Runner. Again we see no changes here, and like with the other picks they have their options expanded a little now that all the weapons are available in plastic! Like with the basic Warriors there’s no option here for any Exotic Beasts.

Tribes of the Wastelands – Hangers On & Hired Guns

We get a couple of returning and new options for Ash Waste Nomads – it’s worth pointing out here that unless specifically mentioned there are the only hangers on and hired guns that the Nomads can take, as most individuals wont have anything to do with them!

Arthomire Herder and Duneskuttler

The muscle and anvil of the gang, the Duneskuttler is toughness 5 with 3 wounds, heavy carapace armour and the “Hard to Kill” rule meaning that if it does get a lasting injury you get to roll twice and pick the result you want. On top of that the Herder also has the ability to heal injuries post battle on a 3+. It might be a lot of credits for the two of them, but it’s going to take a lot of firepower to take down the Duneskuttler

Nomad Outcasts

New to Tribes of the Wastelands is a new Hive Scum equivilent. You can hire up to 5 of these with a range of basic Nomad equipment, and like with Scum they will always be added to the crew. Cheap and cheerful and handy to have a couple of if you can afford them

Nomad Harriers

Next up are the Nomad Harriers – these are essentially Bounty Hunters for the Nomads, and even have the multiple different profiles you can pick from. While you can easily go to town and convert them, I really do hope they get an official model too. They are allowed to take 150 credits from the Chieftain equipment list, so it’s a nice way of slotting in some extra special weapons too.

House Agents

Finally we get some House Agent profiles that can be petitioned to join the gang – there’s 3 different profiles here too in order to represent some of the different individuals you might encounter acting as infamous heroes that come to the aid of a gang. They also get a bonus when summoning Spirits – which we’ll look at shortly…

The rules for The Lady of Ash (the existing House Agent model) are also reprinted here so that all of the Ash Waste Nomads rules material is in one place.

Tribes of the Wasteland – Additional Rules

As ever with Necromunda supplements, we get a lot of additional gaming content within the book too. As usual we get things such as the skill lists and gang tactics, but there is something really fun in the Warrior Spirits that the Ash Waste Nomads workship.

On gang creation you get to pick one of 4 different “clans” with each having their own collection of spirits that can help during the battle. Before the game you roll a D6 for each leader and champion, and the corresponding results give you a once per battle ability you can trigger for each spirit you roll up.

So for example the Oilrun Stalkers can be visited by the Carapace Spirit that can be used once per game to give a single fighter +1 to their armour, or perhaps the Mutation Spirit to increase the Strength and Toughness of a fighter by 1.

The Dustwall Crawlers worship more toxic spirits like the Blood Spirit who causes nearby models to be hit by toxin whenever an injury dice is rolled, or options such as the Toxin Spirit that can be used to hit every enemy fighter within 3″ with toxin.

The Grey Waste Walkers have some more technological based ones such as the Technoloy Spirit being able to cause enemy weapons to take Ammo tests, the Road Spirit increasing movement or the Electro Spirit giving their weapons the Shock Trait

Finally the Leadsky Seers can see the future and control the storms with the Storm Spirit allowing a model to vanish and appear anywhere on the battlefield equal to visibility, or the Chance Spirit allowing the fighter to chance any of their dice to a 1 or a 6 during their activation.

All of the different tribes have 6 different spirit skills to roll up, and there’s lots of fun utility on offer here.

Like with other books we also get a couple of Ash Waste Nomad themed scenarios, which while they can be played with any gang, are really designed to take advantage of the Nomads.

The Nomads also get their own trading post to represent the fact that while they would trade with their own kind, it’s very unlikely that they would trade with the other peoples of Necromunda. Due to this their trading most is a little more limited than the standard one, and only really stocks weapons available across the Nomad kits, with the addition of the shotgun. While this might be disappointing to people wanting to outfit their Nomads with more exotic weaponry, I do feel this makes sense for the Nomads, and limiting the gear to the contents of Tribes of the Wastelands stops any more lore breaking scenarios happening.

Outside of weapons however they do get a lot of armour, bionics and gear – they even get access to come Chems that have some ace effects – Milk of the Harpy for example increases your movement and attacks at the cost of having to always move at least 5 inches from their previous position or suffer a flesh wound. Even cooler is Duststalkers Mandible which lets you see through sandstorms and ignore the visibility rule, but they are always blinded by flesh and its very addictive.

Summary

So what do I think of Tribes of the Wastelands? This is another excellent Necromunda book filled with awesome lore and some nice flavourful additions to the Nomads. While from a gameplay point of view there’s really only a couple of additions to the Nomads list, it opens them up with more options and finally makes them feel like a full fledged gang that can put up a fight against the existing books.

With the Squats and Nomads now out (And Spyrers and Malstrain covered in the book before that) I feel we are once again in the position where we might get another brand new gang added! I’m really excited to see what the future holds for Necromunda and feel the game is getting stronger with every release.

Tribes of the Wastelands is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 29th March

Game Workshop provided Sprues and Brews with free copies for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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