Necromunda is under new management. Over the course of the Aranthian Succession we have seen an assassination attempt on Lord Helmawr, a religious cult spread across the planet and Necromunda engulfed in combat for a new taker of the throne. In Spire of Primus, the final part of the Aranthian Succession we finally get the payoff from the series and an insight into the Aranthian himself

In this full review we’ll be taking a look at the book, and delving into what is happening on Necromunda right now, as well as having a look forward to what this means for the future of Necromunda. Spire of Primus is something that you are going to want to read spoiler free, but to talk about some of the plot points I’ll have spoiler sections you can click on if you want to look behind the curtain a little – though I would recommend reading the book first so you can experience the plot twists yourself!

We’re also going to take a look at a couple of the kits that are coming out alongside the book Ozostium Aranthius himself and the freshly deployed Palanite Justicars. We’ve build and painted these up so you can see what they look like in the flesh.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us Spire of Primus and the kits a little early to check out on the site. 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 put together a couple of videos, one on the new models and another on the book itself, which you can see just below or over on YouTube.

So without further ado, let’s jump into the final installment of the Aranthian Succession!

Spire of Primus Review

Can you believe it’s been just over 2 years since Ruins of Jardlan was released? The Aranthian Succession series was being released in quick succession, but since then we’ve taken a side tour into Hive Secundus and explored some of the more varied gangs of Necromunda. But with Spire of Primus we are right back in the thick of things and learn what has happened since the events of the first 3 books.

Back in Ruins of Jardlan we saw the awakening of one of the Aranthians, an unknown entity that has existed entombed on Necromunda for centuries. Back then I wasn’t exactly sure what he was, but in Spire of Primus we learn quite a lot more – but with enough left secret to keep us guessing and creating theories. So what do we know about Ozostium Aranthius?

This guy is ancient, he’s been entombed for thousands of years, and he’s perhaps even older than the Imperium itself. Interestingly, it looks like he’s using technology to preserve his life. A couple of times its mentioned that he smells of death, and that underneath his gleaming golden armour there’s scraps of rotting meat – as if he was once merely mortal, but some advanced xenos tech is keeping him alive. We also learn that he has immense psychic power. The cult that spread across the planet was actually drawn to him by his psychic will, and he seems to have an immense influence on people and the ability to bend them to his whims.

If you’ve ever seen JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, I get a real “Pillar Men” vibe from the Aranthians, tall, unnatural and wielding powers far in advance of mortals.

We also learn that he is currently amending history, replacing all references to The Master of Mankind in all official documentation on Necromunda and changing them to references to himself and the other Aranthians.

Unsurprisingly, the Imperium is not too happy about this and is debating destroying the planet on charges of Heresy. An Imperial Fist strike force is moments away from intervening in the Aranthian’s actions until a surprise character pleads for the chance to turn things around in 100 days.

Like with the previous books we get an action packed narrative that picks up the story threads from the series so far, and takes us into the very spire itself with lots of twists and turns and a conclusion to the Aranthian Succession storyline. There’s lots of surprises here, and I think most Necromunda fans will enjoy the narrative on offer, even if the ending goes a little way to returning things a little more to how they were before the series.

I really enjoyed the lore and highly recommend giving it a read if you;re into Necromunda.

Like with the previous books, Spire of Primus also has a full campaign system that follows a similar model to the other books. This can either use new gangs, or continue with the gangs created for the rest of the campaign, and essentially has the players fall into two camps – those who are still loyal to House Helmawr and those who are loyal to House Aranthian.

On paper House Aranthain seems to be winner – while the Imperial House grants access to Spyre Hunters that can be added to your gang, the Aranthians grant you access to their exclusive armory – this basically allows Aranthian aligned gangs access to a better selction of weapons to arm your gang with. However you have to be damn sure you do what Ozostium commands. At the start of each battle, Aranthian aligned gangs roll on a table to see what order The Aranthian has given them – this might be something as simple as ending the game in enemy territory, taking out an enemy champion or even getting though the battle without bottling – Complete this order and you will get some pretty decent rewards on top of the standard mission rewards. However, there is a catch – fail in Ozostium’s commands and he will simply kill a random gang member! There is always a price to pay!

As with the previous books, Spire of Primus a full list of narrative scenarios – these can be played as part of the campaign, but they also have suggested forces for it you want to recreate the events of the narrative. If you’ve been collecting Necromunda for the last couple of years and have been picking up all the various named characters then this is a really fun way of playing through the events of the story and getting to the epic conclusion. Just like the last few books there’s a nice mix of different mission types and some really fun variety to be had.

We do also get some gaming content, with a big shout out going to The Aranthian himself. If you’re in an Aranthain aligned force you can petition him to join you, and he is an absolute beast, sporting some really cool rules such as being an unsanctioned Psyker who can never suffer from perils, and he has the ability to teleport around the battlefield too – unsurprisingly he’s ace in combat too. It’s probably worth the chance of him killing one of your own gangers in his displeasure just for the chance to use the awesome new model!

He is a very cool kit that towers over most human sized characters. Clocking in at £25 and surprisingly in plastic I do wonder if this is maybe the start of the Forge World team moving further away from resin and heading to plastic for everything. Traditionally we’d see characters like this as resin kits, but we’ve had a surprising amount of niche kits released in plastic as part of this release, and I do wonder if this is part of a more long term shift in model material.

A cool thing about this kit is the fact that you can build him in this gold armour, or choose to display his true form, a horrific rotting corpse. There’s probably some parallels to The Emperor here, a gold clad god like being who is a little darker when you look beneath the surface..

For those more Loyal to the Imperial House there’s also rules here for Justicar aligned gangs. These gain the use of Palanite Justicar delegations who can accompany your gangers into the Underhive. These are really cool and have a range of different weapon options. There’s some ace mechanics here such as if the Executioner performs a coup de gras then the balliffs immediately get to make a shooting attack, which feels really thematic as they cover the executioner as he chops the head off someone found guilty. As with aligning with the Aranthian, there’s some fun downsides for siding with the Justicars – if you lose a battle then your leader has to pass an intelligence test – if failed then the Justicars will drag off a random ganger and they will miss the next game as they sit in an interrogation cell to determine why exactly they failed…

This is another brilliant kit, and there’s surprisingly a lot of customisation for a fixed alliance force – a lot of the figures have multiple different weapons they can take, and there’s a couple of optional poses and accessories too – again, this is the kind of kit that would have been resin in the past, so it’s really good to see as a plastic kit!

To round out the book we get a couple of new profiles plus some returning hanger ons that cover the models in the new hanger on plastic box (We didn’t get a review copy, but we’ll be taking a look at this set as soon as it is released!)

One of the new profiles that we do get in the book however is a new Champion for the Spyre Hunters. The Sthenian is basically a champion using the same type of suit as Lady Haera. While I don’t think there will be an official model, the idea here is to use Haera as a basis of conversion. Sthenians can be given 2 weapons out of Bolt Pistols, Plasma Pistols, Power Hammers and Power Swords, in addition to having 2 claws – this gives them a different flavour to your other Spyerers and opens the door to a lot of cool conversion options. It’s interesting that like with some other Specialist games books, we’re starting to see things that have no planned model but instead you’re encourage to make something cool out of the existing range.

Summary

So what do I think of Spire of Primus?

I’ve been a big fan of the Aranthian Succession, and Spire of Primus is a great final chapter! I was a little surprised to see this come 2 years after the previous book, but I’m really happy we’ve seen a conclusion to the story line that sets things up for the future of Necromunda. Necromunda is now at a point where all of the main gangs are complete, along with a lot of the new forces introduced over the last few years. It’s going to be interesting to see just where Games Workshop takes us next and just how the revelations from this book will play out in the story line.

Narrative is what Necromunda does best, and the best campaign books merge an engaging story with fun game mechanics to keep players on their toes throughout an entire campaign. With Spire of Primus we can finally play through the entire story and see if we are able to change the outcome of the narrative in our own games.

Spire of Primus and the new Necromunda kits are up for pre order today and are released Saturday 20th November

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.