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New Necromunda Edition 2026!

During Eddie and Adam’s Big Summer Preview 2026 Q&A, recorded at Warhammer HQ in Nottingham, UK, Eddie Eccles and Adam Troke went through a big stack of community questions about upcoming Warhammer releases.

The full Q&A covered a lot of different games, but here I only kept the Necromunda part.

For anyone following the new edition, there were a few important answers in there. Some of them are the kind of answers people were probably hoping for, especially around existing gangs, vehicles, campaign rules, and whether Necromunda is being simplified too much.

The short version is: no, Necromunda does not seem to be turning into Kill Team. Existing gangs are not going away, vehicles are still around, the new Escher and Goliath kits are additions rather than replacements, and the gang books are meant to be the base for the whole edition.

List of Things to Take From This Necromunda 2026 Q&A

Before getting into the full transcript, here are the main points of the Q&A:

• The new starter box includes new Escher and Goliath kits.
• Those kits are not replacing the current gangs.
• Current gangs are not going away.
• The new kits can be added to existing gangs.
• The new edition will be supported by Gangs of the Underhive and Gangs of the Outlands.
• Gang vehicles are not being retired.
• Corpse Grinder Cults, Enforcers, Chaos Helots, and Genestealer Cult gangs are not being retired.
• The deeper campaign rules are not being removed.
• The gang books are meant to last for the whole edition.
• Badlands Enforcers are disappearing for a while, but should come back in the future.
• The rules are being streamlined, but Adam is clear that the game should still keep its depth and crunch.

There is still plenty we do not know, but this should at least calm down some of the panic around the new edition.

Big Takeaways

The biggest reassurance from this Q&A is that the new Necromunda edition is not being turned into a simpler skirmish game in the style of Kill Team (very reassuring!). Adam Troke specifically says that the game remains deep and crunchy, but that some rules have been adjusted to reduce unnecessary mental load and make games flow more smoothly. This should help us introduce new players to the game.

The new Escher and Goliath kits are also additions to the current range rather than replacements. Existing players should be able to add these new kits to their current gangs, while new players can use them as a starting point. Basically, they are just aesthetic variants from what I can understand.

The gang books also sound like a major foundation for the edition. Rather than being an upgrade of the current N17/N23 editions. Those new rules are described as the bedrock for the entire lifespan of the new edition. One thing we can already see, though, is that the books still seem to suffer from the usual Necromunda problem: the rules are repeated in different books. Having Hive Scum, Rogue Docs, Ammo-jacks, Dome Runners, Sloppers, Hive Watchers, Giant Rats, Millisaurs, Ripperjacks, and the Luther Pattern Excavation Automata appear in both books already gives that feeling. It does not necessarily mean the rules will be bad, but it does mean the books are still being made bigger in the most Games Workshop way possible: by repeating the same rules across different books.

Full Transcript of the Necromunda Section of the Q&A

Adam: Are the Necromunda gangs in the new box the same as the existing gangs, or are they variations?

Eddie: So, the new Necromunda core set has an Escher gang and a Goliath gang. They are brand new kits, so they are effectively an expansion of the current gangs. You can add them onto the current gangs. The current gangs do not go away, but they give you a whole new range of characters and units you can add in.

Adam: Yes, a perfect supplement to existing gangs if you are already a Necromunda collector, or a great way to start.

Eddie: Super pumped for Necromunda. Which gangs can we expect to see rules for in the new edition, specifically in the Gangs of the Underhive and Gangs of the Outlands books?

Adam: I am glad you asked. I prepared an answer, and it involves folding out a sheet. Brace yourselves, I am going to say these quickly.

Gangs of the Underhive includes:

• Delaque
• Escher
• Goliath
• Orlock
• Van Saar
• Cawdor
• Palanite Enforcers
• Venator gangs
• Corpse Grinder Cults
• Palanite Justicar delegations
• Hive Scum
• Luther Pattern Excavation Automata
• Jotunn Servitor Ogryn
• Rogue Doc
• Ammo-jack
• Dome Runner
• Slopper
• Hive Watcher
• Giant Rat
• Millisaur
• Ripperjack

Gangs of the Outlands includes:

• Outcasts
• Ogryns
• Genestealer Cults
• Chaos Helots
• Malstrain
• Spyrer Hunters
• Ironhead Squats
• Ash Waste Nomads
• Hive Scum
• Kal Jericho and Scabbs
• Ozostium Aranthus
• Caratyd Servitor
• Lady Haera
• Hermiatus
• Luther Pattern Excavation Automata
• Jotunn Servitor Ogryn
• Rogue Doc
• Ammo-jack
• Dome Runner
• Slopper
• Hive Watcher
• Giant Rat
• Millisaur
• Ripperjack
• Guild Ridgehauler

And the gangs have their respective vehicles that you would expect to see. That was a lot of stuff.

Adam: Who the hell is that strapping young Goliath model we have seen in the images, not included in the starter box?

Eddie: We have had a few questions about this. There is an as-yet-unannounced and unreleased Goliath model in a few of the pictures up on the Warhammer Community site. More info coming soon. Maybe there is more. Maybe he is not alone. Who knows?

Eddie: Great. I have a few more quickfire Necromunda questions for you. Some of them you have already hinted at the answers for. Are Necromunda gang vehicles being retired?

Adam: No. The rules for those are in the gang books.

Eddie: Are the Corpse Grinder Cults, Enforcers, Chaos Helots, and Genestealer Cult gangs being retired?

Adam: No. I think I just mentioned them, and no, they are not.

Eddie: There are rumours circulating online that a lot of the deeper rules and campaign rules are being removed from this edition of Necromunda to make it more like a Kill Team game. Is this true?

Adam: No, not at all really, no. I think it’s just fair to say they’re not. There is a lot to say about Necromunda and the things that are changing.

We talked a bit about those gang books, for a start. The gang books are designed to exist for the entire lifespan of this edition of Necromunda. A few people have wondered, you know, whether these will be replaced. The answer is no. They will be the bedrock on which the Necromunda Journals that will follow add new lore, units, and whatever else.

The only gang which is essentially disappearing for a while is the Badlands Enforcers gang, and that will return in the future.

Eddie: Can you give examples of how the new Necromunda will be balanced and streamlined?

Adam: I have to be brief, but the new rules for Necromunda have essentially done a couple of things.

In terms of balance, obviously the team have looked to make sure that the gangs are fun to use against each other, and that all the units have a use and an option that makes sense.

In terms of streamlining, that is where it gets quite interesting. There are simple things, like the save characteristic of a model now appearing on its profile which means there is less brain strain when you are like looking at your gang and trying to work out what you need to roll.

There are some things, such as the way that range modifiers work with weapons. They do not impact your to-hit roll, so your to-hit roll is straight off your Ballistic Skill. That speeds up the process of making your to-hit rolls.

There has been some concern that this sort of thing will cause like a simplification of the game, and people have enjoyed this sort of crunch and depth of Necromunda. This is not the case, because the range modification of weapons, for example, plays out later in the sequence. It will affect cover saves.

Then there are things like if you’ve ever made an insanity test in Necromunda. If you fail, the person who made you take the test essentially has this weird situation where they have to make you do a thing with your model which has failed its insanity test. How mean do you be? It can cause like a stalling in the game and some unusual interactions.

It’s just resolved now there’s a nice table. You roll on the insanity table if you fail the test, and that is what your ganger does.

So the game is every bit as deep, and I think people like to use the word crunchy, as it has ever been. The team have poured a lot of passion and care into making it flow smoothly and seamlessly, to reduce the strain on your brain when you are playing so you can concentrate on the tactics and the fun.

Eddie: Sounds great.

So, what does it mean?

To me, the most important part is not really the new box. New plastic is always nice, and new Escher and Goliath models will obviously get people excited, but the bigger point is that the existing range is not being pushed out.

The current gangs are still usable as is. Same for the vehicles. The campaign side still matters.

That was probably the main worry around the new edition. A lot of people were concerned that “streamlined” could mean “less Necromunda”. From what Adam says here, that does not seem to be the intention. It sounds more like they are trying to remove some of the awkward bits that slow games down, without removing the messy, crunchy, campaign-driven side of the game.

I’m a bit worried about the range modifier now being merged with the cover, but I reckon it will impact the save instead now. So the math is, in my opinion, still there, but is just pushed further down the sequence.

The Necromunda section of the Q&A should reassure existing players that the new edition is not removing the depth, campaign focus, or wider gang support that makes the game what it is.

Of course, we’ll need the books in hand before knowing exactly how it all works. But at least from this Q&A, it does not sound like Necromunda is being flattened into a simpler skirmish game. And we’ll be able to use previous campaign books and just tweak them when necessary.