All’s Swell in the Underhell!

Welcome to The Underhells of Hive Secundus!

We hope you enjoy your stay..

Once known as the Second City of Necromunda, Hive Secundus was a monument to architectural grandeur and arboreal splendour, an enlightened centre of learning and progress. Its inhabitants even had lives that could be described as comfortable in comparison to the toil of its sister cities. This same population of scholars became the source of the Hive’s eventual downfall, however. Hermiatus, a radical xenobiologist, attempted to reverse-engineer a vaccine to be deployed across the Hive and eventually, the wider Imperium: an antigene that would inure the body against corruption by the genestealer menace. Ironically, he would become the first in Hive Secundus to fall victim to the same infection he was trying to eradicate. The same genestealers who he had been extracting biosamples from escaped their confines and would go on to spread the infection far and wide throughout Hive Secundus. Hermiatus would flee Necromunda, and it is believed he is still being hunted by the Inquisition to this day.

The scale of the genestealer tide proved too massive to be curtailed by conventional means. With genestealers able to consume, evolve, and adapt faster than human losses could be replenished, untold scores of people lost their lives in a futile effort to contain the infection’s spread. With losses mounting and the risk of the genestealers escaping into the rest of the planet growing with each passing day, a terrible decision was made. Orbital defence platforms turned their sights on Hive Secundus – along with their weapons. A rain of graviton missiles and nuclear ordnance struck Secundus, tearing the once-glorious city apart in an instant. The damage and destruction caused by the deployment of these weapons caused much of the sealed genetic material stored in the scholarly labs and vaults of Secundus – Hermiatus’ among them – to be broken loose and mutated rapidly by the vast amounts of radiological material suffocating Secundus in the aftermath of the bombardment. The genestealers, ravenous as they are, consumed these warped and corrupted bio-entities and mutated themselves. Twisted, tainted and terrifying, the remaining humans who managed to survive the ruin of the hive bestowed upon them a new name: Malstrain. 

But deep within those ruined corridors and destroyed edifices, buried under layers of devastation, the whispers of treasure can be heard. Though cordoned off by the Dust Wall, the lure of the data crystal stacks that remain in the hive’s innermost sanctums prove an enticing prospect to the many gangs of Necromunda. Worth any price to secure, the gangs will bribe their way past the guards and secure the services of the ferrymen to gain access to the broken corpse of Hive Secundus. Obtaining a hoard of them would pay dividends, enabling a struggling gang to escape the violent cycles of underhive life and settle into a lush existence amongst the fabled spires. But within the Hive lies danger even beyond what a gang might be used to in the underhive. Opposing gangs, oppressive darkness, fallout winds and the threat of fraying sanity can unravel all but the most hardy of raiding parties. Even deeper still lies the greatest threat: the broodmind. But if a gang can weather the challenges and abscond with the data crystals and archaeotech within Hive Secundus, a life of luxury awaits them – but not before they delve the stygian bleakness of the Underhells… 

Entering the Underhells! 

We are embarking on an Underhells Campaign – the Committee will all be running Malstrain gangs, the club members will be the Archeo-Hunters. As such the Archeo-hunters can be either lawful or unlawful but all the Malstrain gangs will be unlawful. 

The Underhells Campaign is divided up into five phases: 

1. Incursion Phase     4 Weeks (starting 6/2/25) 

2. Downtime       1 Week 

3. Delving Phase      4 Weeks (starting 13/3/25) 

4. Downtime       1 Week 

5. Survival Phase     4 Weeks (starting 17/4/25) 

There are 3 sets of rules that will be applicable to the missions in the campaign namely, Madness, Desolation and Darkness – all covered in the next article 

Same Gun – Different Bullet 

An Underhells campaign is different from a normal Necromunda campaign in a number of ways. You are traveling through the broken lands on the way to Hive Secoundus. Each main phase of the campaign you will have a new randomly generated territory (more on that later) and the pre and post battle phases are changed in a number of ways:  

• No Territory is nominated as the Stake for battles. 

• The Assign/Reassign Territory step of the post-battle sequence is skipped. 

• Captives may not be sold to the Guilders outside of downtime when they are automatically returned. 

• The Visit the Trading Post sub-step of the Update Roster step of the post-battle sequence is affected by the Desolation level (more on that in the next article). 

• You cannot add new gangers or buy equipment from your House equipment list apart from in the downtime phases. You CAN recruit hangers on though.  

• The scenarios are fought to gain exploration points – these are traded in during downtime for credits or additional benefits in the next phase.  

Issuing and Accepting Challenges 

Like in 2024 we are going to sign up a number of players for Necromunda each week. In Week 1 of the campaign we will just do random draws for who plays who. From the following week we will start with the lowest rated gang who can challenge any of the other gangs – you can decline if you have already played this cycle but are expected to honour the challenges otherwise!  

Gang Composition 

• Gangs have 1,000 credits available for their initial gang. 

• We are going to play WITHOUT Abyssal Ferrymen and skip the Ash Wastes missions from the campaign because there are a number of new players who are likely not to have vehicle models and so we will focus on underhive battles. 

• Malstrain Gangs CANNOT recruit their normal house brutes – they can recruit Malstrain Genestealers instead they can also recruit Malstrain Brood Scum who have access to their own equipment from their house list.  

• At the start of each battle, before the first roll for Priority, Malstrain Allegiance gangs may apply either a +1 or -1 modifier to all rolls to generate Roaming Horrors for the duration of the battle. 

Yaktribe 

The campaign will be run and managed on Yaktribe – please create an account and we will add all the gangs to our campaign – this will be open in December and announced on the Discord. We will also have a bespoke section of the Discord set up for the campaign which will include a “dice tower” for all the rolls that need to be made online and recorded. If you need any help with Yaktribe please contact one of the Arbiters, Neil or Simon. 

Banned Equipment 

Having run a campaign before we will be banning some equipment to make the campaign more fun! Banned Equipment list: 

• Ablative Overlays 

• Falsehood 

• Refraction Cloak 

• Threadneedle Worms 

• Uphive Raiments 

Missions 

As we will be dropping the Ash Wastes missions we will be using some of the Underhells missions and tweaking some existing missions for use in the campaign – Each set of missions will be released in advance of the next stage in the campaign.  

Alliances 

• Your gangs will be delving into the heart of the Underhells and will NOT be able to form additional alliances with other factions. We are going to play WITHOUT Abyssal Ferrymen and skip the Ash Wastes missions from the campaign because there are a number of new players who are likely not to have vehicle models and so we will focus on underhive battles. 

Bespoke House Rules 

• Don’t DIE ON ME! – after the FIRST battle that a gang takes part in, they can take one of their fighters to the Docs (assuming they have leaders/champions able to do so) for FREE in an attempt to stop a death spiral – make sure you SAVE some of your credits for the NEXT TIME! 

• We put the “fun” in funeral! – There will be times when a gang is STRUGGLING. To make sure this stays fun (and fair!) your friendly arbiter will OCCASIONALLY provide loot crates to help out those gangs who need it. This is at the arbiter’s discretion. Gangs that get too big for their boots may also find scenarios that give them a… challenge!  

• There’s no I in team! – there are LIMITED resources in the Underhells, normally you cannot transfer weapons from one fighter to another in Necromunda – this is not the case in the Underhells – you need every advantage you can to survive. Weapons can be transferred between members of the gang and their stash. This should be used for PERMANENT moves of items from one gang member to another NOT for when well-equipped fighters are in recovery. Doing so will result in CONSEQUENCES! You have been warned.  

• All that Glitters in not Gold! – reading through the Underhells campaign, cash is going to be scarce. We are not trying to play on Dark Souls mode. To that end, instead of rolling for random income, the winner of a scenario will gain 50 credits, any losers gain 25 credits. In the case of a draw you will both receive 35 credits. 

• You Move, You DIE! – ANY movement, including turning their facing, standing from prone, falling or being knocked back will negate ALL of the benefits from Cameleoline Cloaks. And should the target become revealed for ANY reason the cloak will cause a flash of light as it tries to adjust to the changes in environment – giving fighters targeting the bearer +1 to hit at range. 

• There ain’t no fix for that – you can only use the fixer skill once after each battle. Any additional instances of this skill are wasted.  

• He’s DEAD Jim! – when taking a fighter out of action only ONE roll is made on the lasting injury table (unless you roll a 54 for multiple injuries). 

• It’s mine, ALL MINE! – Ash Wastes Nomads, Enforcers and Badzone Enforcers can hold territory just like all the other gangs. 

• It’s just stealing with more steps! – Badzone Enforcers can take up to two Enforcer ‘Sanctioner’ Pattern Automata  

• Freedom is overrated – gang members who are captured can be bought back through negotiation with the other gang – otherwise they are returned at the next downtime with the gang who captured the fighter getting half of their value rounding up to the nearest 5 credits. 

• I cast a spell on you! – no weapons or ammo with the “curse” ability can be purchased from either the house lists or the trading post. 

• You ain’t that SPECIAL – only one specialist can be included in a gang at creation. This includes the new Van Saar specialists. 

• What’s wrong with my EYE? – whilst playing Van Saar, you can ONLY use Archeo-Cyberteknika to repair an injury – the Underhells are short on resources and you aren’t doing surgery unless it’s NECESSARY! These can only be bought in downtime – any models getting upgraded during downtime will miss any downtime missions but return in time for the next phase. 

• What’s in a name? – As an Orlock gang you can only have ONE of any legendary name. If you are rolling for it and roll a duplicate then please reroll it.  

• Men of Iron – For Goliath gangs using Gene-Smithing the Natborn ability, Iron Flesh, can ONLY be used on champions and leaders.  

• I only have eyes for you – the Wastelands skill, Eyes of the Wasteland, has two parts to the skill. They DO NOT stack for the pitch black mission rules. 

• It’s all spirits in the optics – Ash Wastes Nomads can use their Warrior Spirits in all of the Underhells missions despite them not being based in the Ash Wastes 

• All I want is a heart Dorothy! – Toxin and Gas weapons will NOT work on the Iron Automata, Enforcer Automata or either versions of the Ambot (this rule also applies to any other Automata).  

• All’s fair in Love and Death – Any gang who successfully takes a Spyrer out of action gains an additional 50 credits in the post battle sequence as they rummage around their suit and pick their pockets. 

Next Release

In the next release about the campaign we will look at the following:  

• Madness, Desolation and Darkness  

• Our Experience Gains 

• House Shooting Rules 

• The Trading Post  

• Tactics Cards 

• Winning the Campaign