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 Arbitrator wrote:

I agree on all counts. The new models themselves are fantastic, very characterful, well proportioned in what they're aiming for with the gangly, uncanny, creepy look, but that's really undermined by them making for such poor Delaque models.

Yeah, the old Delaque were so well proportionned and creepy. Look at these marvels !



Seriously, they were the most ridiculous miniatures from Old Necromunda. I don't miss them at all. The new Delaques, they're clearly hiding something - not the old metal bald guys wearing trenchcoats and big glasses trying to be cool.

Are they a big change ? Hell yes. To me, it was a good change.

Honestly, I never saw the old metal Delaques as truly part of the House Delaque that was always described as shady spies working in the shadows. I consider them as the ones who are really not Delaques at all (more like imposters or wannabe trying to impress the locals). The new ones ? Now this is what I can call "Delaque".

Good for you.

The old Delaque's were gangers. Gangsters. There's even a classic piece of artwork with one basically using an Auto-gun "Tommy Gun", evocative of 1920's gangsters. The new ones are scarcely human.

Sarouan wrote:
Yeah, the old Delaque were so well proportionned and creepy. Look at these marvels !

He didn't say the old Delaques were well-proportioned and creepy. Lern 2 context.

I have no particular affection for the old sculpts and like most of the new sculpts on their own, but the more extremely divergent design directions for each gang makes it difficult to envision them all living in the same setting.

Goliath and Delaque are barely human, and the tech level of the Van Saar is way beyond what anyone would expect for the Underhive (as said, it wouldn't look out of place in the armies of several advanced Xenos factions). Orlock jump packs I can just about live with as they're clearly unreliable, and Escher zombie ladies, well, at least that lore can be ignored - it doesn't have to be visible on the models, which can just be poison-loving melee specialists (I like the notion that the resurrection aspect is just propaganda).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
Delaque aren't as bad as Van Saar but I thought the old metals perfectly nailed that kind of leather coated gangster who quickly draws a weapon to gun you down in the street aesthetic, whilst the new models just look like... cultists, who I'd imagine around a circle chanting in Latin until the protagonist shows up to gun the mooks down, their very static poses don't help.

The new Delaque miniatures are exquisite, in my mind. Gloomy. Evocative. Creepy. Very 'Dark City', as many of us said when they were first revealed. Sadly however, they just don't look anything like Delaques.

I own pretty much every Necromunda product released (except the Dark Uprising stuff, and the newer add-on boxes), including multiples of all the new gangs. Except Delaque. I don't own a single one of those. They're just... not Delaques. Nothing has been a greater disappointment with Newcromunda than what they did to the Delaque aesthetic.

As I said - simply fantastic miniatures, and I've seen people combine them with the GSC stuff to great effect - but they just don't fit at all with the original visual style (unlike Van Saar, who you can kinda get away with).

Thissity this.

I currently play Delaque, because I like a sneaky gang, and the models are gorgeous. That they’re also easy to paint to a reasonable standard is also part of my decision.

But they’re such a massive departure from the originals - certainly the most significant departure of the original six gangs (the next being Van Saar, who I argue are superior in every way to the originals)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
Delaque aren't as bad as Van Saar but I thought the old metals perfectly nailed that kind of leather coated gangster who quickly draws a weapon to gun you down in the street aesthetic, whilst the new models just look like... cultists, who I'd imagine around a circle chanting in Latin until the protagonist shows up to gun the mooks down, their very static poses don't help.

The new Delaque miniatures are exquisite, in my mind. Gloomy. Evocative. Creepy. Very 'Dark City', as many of us said when they were first revealed. Sadly however, they just don't look anything like Delaques.

I own pretty much every Necromunda product released (except the Dark Uprising stuff, and the newer add-on boxes), including multiples of all the new gangs. Except Delaque. I don't own a single one of those. They're just... not Delaques. Nothing has been a greater disappointment with Newcromunda than what they did to the Delaque aesthetic.

As I said - simply fantastic miniatures, and I've seen people combine them with the GSC stuff to great effect - but they just don't fit at all with the original visual style (unlike Van Saar, who you can kinda get away with).

The Delaque were the ones I was looking forward to the most, as I liked the goggles + trench-coat look they had in the old version, it was something that fit in well with the ones who were meant to be a shady untrustworthy group that relied on information and being sneaky. The new ones are great models still, but they're just not Delaque. It's like it doesn't quite understand what they were originally, it has the same basic concept of goggles + trench-coat, but it does so in a way that completely takes away that previous feel and what it suggested about them overall. - it replaced the gritty, slightly industrial/utilitarian, retro 80s sci-fi gunslinger look with one that instead gives an impression of high-tech suaveand vanity. As a higher-up or a leader for them the style could have worked great, but for the basic members it's a design that doesn't feel like an update of the original look at all but rather a complete change that only has a vague similarity, in the sense that it's still some sort of 'goggles' and some sort of 'coat', and that's it.

The models look great as a one-off as they have a very unnatural creepy feel to them, but it just doesn't fit what I liked about Delaque.

meant to be a shady untrustworthy group that relied on information and being sneaky.

Part of the problem is, of course, that this doesn't work. No one goes to the people who look like shady, untrustworthy sneaky sorts. Their information obviously won't be reliable and you very obviously can't trust them.

The old Delaque looked like a gang with a unified visual scheme (and a dislike of hair). The new models look like people who are going to backstab you at the first chance, and might as well be wearing signs that read 'Baddies.' First rule of being spies and saboteurs is not to look like one.

Also they look like cultists, which in warhammer means kill on sight.

Voss wrote:

meant to be a shady untrustworthy group that relied on information and being sneaky.

Part of the problem is, of course, that this doesn't work. No one goes to the people who look like shady, untrustworthy sneaky sorts. Their information obviously won't be reliable and you very obviously can't trust them.

Well, they wouldn't stay in business if all of their informations are wrong. And no one trusts the Delaque anyway, it was the same in old Necromunda. If you deal with them you're either desperate, pay really well, have something up your sleeves, some security or something for exchange they want.

And although they look strange, sinister and shady, they als look like they have something more useful they could tell you than a market woman or a drunken scummer.

Voss wrote:
Also they look like cultists, which in warhammer means kill on sight.

Well, as the other gangs are primitive, instable metahumanoids, sadistic tribe-women with a genetic defect, Hereteks or little more than Scavvies... I guess only the Orlocks are relatively save to be not purged under normal circumstances.

Voss wrote:

meant to be a shady untrustworthy group that relied on information and being sneaky.

Part of the problem is, of course, that this doesn't work. No one goes to the people who look like shady, untrustworthy sneaky sorts. Their information obviously won't be reliable and you very obviously can't trust them.

The old Delaque looked like a gang with a unified visual scheme (and a dislike of hair). The new models look like people who are going to backstab you at the first chance, and might as well be wearing signs that read 'Baddies.' First rule of being spies and saboteurs is not to look like one.

lol, this is pretty child-brain logic (forgivable, since many of us were children when we got into Necromunda)

The first rule of being spies and saboteurs is not to visually identify yourself as belonging to a faction known for being spies and saboteurs. It doesn't matter if you look creepy (new Delaque) or you look stupid (old Delaque), the important part is that you shouldn't all be dressed in the same outfit. And yet they are, because:

1) it's a tabletop game and visually-distinct/visually-unified factions is something players expect
2) the Delaque in your game are not spying; they're fighting

Yeah, that's exactly the point. Old Necromunda involved _gangs_, which want to be visually identifiable (but still just people).
New Necromunda is weird mono-task factions- the chem faction, the genetic engineering faction, the mining faction, the garbage faction, the tech faction and, inexplicably, the only spies faction.

_That_ is 'child brain logic.' Any real complexity is going to involve the factions fighting over all those things (except maybe the garbage), not slotting themselves into tidy niches.

Voss wrote:
Yeah, that's exactly the point. Old Necromunda involved _gangs_, which want to be visually identifiable (but still just people).
New Necromunda is weird mono-task factions- the chem faction, the genetic engineering faction, the mining faction, the garbage faction, the tech faction and, inexplicably, the only spies faction.

How is the new versions depiction of the various Houses different from the original? I was under the impression the previous version still had the different houses with very similar theming.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, that's exactly the point. Old Necromunda involved _gangs_, which want to be visually identifiable (but still just people).
New Necromunda is weird mono-task factions- the chem faction, the genetic engineering faction, the mining faction, the garbage faction, the tech faction and, inexplicably, the only spies faction.

How is the new versions depiction of the various Houses different from the original? I was under the impression the previous version still had the different houses with very similar theming.

\shrug.
The house names were the same, but the gangs were about territory, scrap and archeotech in the Underhive, away from the idea that Houses have a monopoly on specific business domains for the entire planet. The goliaths were just big brutes with a muscle theme, they weren't genetically modified flesh-slabs that rival space marines. The Van Saars were tech focused, but didn't have an STC in their basement, etc. The themes, IIRC, were more about their favored skill tables than being fundamental traits of their faction identity.

There were two descriptive paragraphs per gang in the old Necromunda rulebook.

So people don't miss old details; they miss the old absence of details.

Ditto the Delaque models. The old ones weren't designed by a disciplined genius who *decided* to keep the goggles and trenchcoats straight 1940's. Rather, nobody could sculpt and cast models that weren't that simple when they came out.

I mean, that's why people liked Boba Fett for decades. He was a cool mysterious guy in the background, who didn't do anything and wasn't anything. Now he's... a bunch of other stuff.

But with the resources at their disposal, and the simmering demand they know they can fill, 2017-2020 Games Workshop isn't capable of producing something that leaves so much to the imagination. They just aren't that company, and never will be.

You just can't accept that people like the old style, can you?

People like Delaque's that look like Delaques. They kept Cawdor, Goliath, Escher, and Orlocks looking basically the same as they were (more detailed, obviously, but that's the difference in sculpting techniques from 20 years of development). Van Saars are a departure (mostly in the hair department - no more grand beards/moustaches), but Delaques are fundamentally changed.

And you're going to sit there and tell us we're wrong for not liking it.

 Altruizine wrote:
There were two descriptive paragraphs per gang in the old Necromunda rulebook.

So people don't miss old details; they miss the old absence of details.

Ditto the Delaque models. The old ones weren't designed by a disciplined genius who *decided* to keep the goggles and trenchcoats straight 1940's. Rather, nobody could sculpt and cast models that weren't that simple when they came out.

I mean, that's why people liked Boba Fett for decades. He was a cool mysterious guy in the background, who didn't do anything and wasn't anything. Now he's... a bunch of other stuff.

But with the resources at their disposal, and the simmering demand they know they can fill, 2017-2020 Games Workshop isn't capable of producing something that leaves so much to the imagination. They just aren't that company, and never will be.

It's not about the new version having more details or the original being simpler. It gives off a completely different vibe, changing them in a way that the updates of the other Houses didn't do. The others kept the original feel for the most part, but with Delaque they only vaguely resemble the original theming in a superficial way.

Fix the inhuman seeming proportions and change the closed robe-like coat to more of a typical trenchcoat and that would already go a long way to make them feel more like Delaque. All the extra detail with them isn't the problem at all.

Weren’t they trying to capture a Dark City feel with the latest delaque?

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
There were two descriptive paragraphs per gang in the old Necromunda rulebook.

So people don't miss old details; they miss the old absence of details.

Ditto the Delaque models. The old ones weren't designed by a disciplined genius who *decided* to keep the goggles and trenchcoats straight 1940's. Rather, nobody could sculpt and cast models that weren't that simple when they came out.

I mean, that's why people liked Boba Fett for decades. He was a cool mysterious guy in the background, who didn't do anything and wasn't anything. Now he's... a bunch of other stuff.

But with the resources at their disposal, and the simmering demand they know they can fill, 2017-2020 Games Workshop isn't capable of producing something that leaves so much to the imagination. They just aren't that company, and never will be.

It's not about the new version having more details or the original being simpler. It gives off a completely different vibe, changing them in a way that the updates of the other Houses didn't do. The others kept the original feel for the most part, but with Delaque they only vaguely resemble the original theming in a superficial way.

Fix the inhuman seeming proportions and change the closed robe-like coat to more of a typical trenchcoat and that would already go a long way to make them feel more like Delaque. All the extra detail with them isn't the problem at all.

I mean, the old Delaque were really boring models. Very plain looking bald dudes in badly sculpted generic trench coats. Theres nothing at all wrong with liking that, but is hard to imagine modern GW releasing something that plain and unimaginative.

And really, I personally feel like the new models fit the Delaque image much better than the old ones ever did. The new ones actually look sneaky, shadowy and deceptive. The old ones look like generic bad guys from a low budget Chuck Norris movie. I never felt like they fit their fluff.

(I an to clarify that I don't think theres anything wrong with liking these models or aesthetic. I also like them. I just think they are way to plain and generic to be a product of modern GW.)

I think that they really dropped the balll with the second wave. They should have concentrated on regular Juve and Heavies instead of giving us these flanderised unique units for each gangs (not to mention that the minis are inferior to the first wave. Very repetitive and static). Agree that the game no really longer feel like Necro. A shame since I really loved the first wave

 jake wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
There were two descriptive paragraphs per gang in the old Necromunda rulebook.

So people don't miss old details; they miss the old absence of details.

Ditto the Delaque models. The old ones weren't designed by a disciplined genius who *decided* to keep the goggles and trenchcoats straight 1940's. Rather, nobody could sculpt and cast models that weren't that simple when they came out.

I mean, that's why people liked Boba Fett for decades. He was a cool mysterious guy in the background, who didn't do anything and wasn't anything. Now he's... a bunch of other stuff.

But with the resources at their disposal, and the simmering demand they know they can fill, 2017-2020 Games Workshop isn't capable of producing something that leaves so much to the imagination. They just aren't that company, and never will be.

It's not about the new version having more details or the original being simpler. It gives off a completely different vibe, changing them in a way that the updates of the other Houses didn't do. The others kept the original feel for the most part, but with Delaque they only vaguely resemble the original theming in a superficial way.

Fix the inhuman seeming proportions and change the closed robe-like coat to more of a typical trenchcoat and that would already go a long way to make them feel more like Delaque. All the extra detail with them isn't the problem at all.

I mean, the old Delaque were really boring models. Very plain looking bald dudes in badly sculpted generic trench coats. Theres nothing at all wrong with liking that, but is hard to imagine modern GW releasing something that plain and unimaginative.

And really, I personally feel like the new models fit the Delaque image much better than the old ones ever did. The new ones actually look sneaky, shadowy and deceptive. The old ones look like generic bad guys from a low budget Chuck Norris movie. I never felt like they fit their fluff.

Waaaay worse than a Chuck Norris film. You wouldn't know the name of the lead actor in the Delaque film.

They wore a Halloween costume you could speedrun at a thrift store in four minutes.

Delaques are also a head taller than any other GW human.

Fun models, don't get me wrong. But they don't play well with others.

 streetsamurai wrote:
I think that they really dropped the balll with the second wave. They should have concentrated on regular Juve and Heavies instead of giving us these flanderised unique units for each gangs (not to mention that the minis are inferior to the first wave. Very repetitive and static). Agree that the game no really longer feel like Necro. A shame since I really loved the first wave

So much this...

The Enforcers with shields were great, but since then everyone else has been increasingly bizarre. I would not rule out Ambulls in Trenchcoats for the Delaque release.

The great thing about Necromunda of course is that of all GW’s rule sets, it’s the most adaptable, and always has been.

If you like all your bells and whistles? You can have them, using all the books to create a single legendary campaign of options and complexity.

If you want a more streamlined experience, and to avoid certain Gangs having advantages (to date, only Goliath have a model for their House Brute, for example)? You can do that to.

Me? I think I’d want to keep stuff like House Boons and Noble Alliances out of it. Maybe permanently, maybe to be introduced once a couple of campaigns have been completed, and the Gangs have had a chance to make a name and a proper, in-universe rep.

Certainly if I was to start a new campaign right this very minute? Other than the basic gang lists, I wouldn’t be allowing the contents of the House Of series, simply because as it stands it’s incomplete. There may well be issues of balance across the books - I’m not familiar enough with the game mechanics to say. If there are, I’ll be in and tinkering like a boss, because that’s why I loved being a GM for Necromunda.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Goliath and Delaque are barely human, and the tech level of the Van Saar is way beyond what anyone would expect for the Underhive (as said, it wouldn't look out of place in the armies of several advanced Xenos factions).

Quoted for truth. I can ignore much of the new background, only buy the gang boxes, and only buy Orlock, Cawdor and Escher (and to be fair Corpse Grinders and Enforcers), and I have something which I can cognise as Necromunda and 40K. Everything else is just beyond what can reasonably fit the setting for me.

The Van Saar tech isn't more advanced than imperial tech really, or at least the stuff depicted in the game isn't. they just like to.put sleek casings on their toys. Its stated in the book that they sell the weapon cores to the other houses for them to fit into different designed furniture.

They have sleeker augmetics/bionics than the norm in the underhive, but again, not out of the ordinary for high grade kit elsewhere in the imperium. The big exosuits for arkeotechs and the heavy loader suit are entirely in line with the stuff that get welded to servitors and admech combat forms, just with sleek casings rather than steampunk styling.

Even Van Saar plasma weapons are just as unreliable as the bog standard military issue. The only place it would be safe for them to roll out truly high tech unseen before technology is in the immediate vicinity of the STC core. Anywhere else and it would be stolen and re-engineered/repurposed by rival gangs/houses.

So while I agree the STC bit of the new background is a bit dumb, in practical terms, Van Saar is basically the same as their previous incarnation. A house dedicated to a higher tech approach with the technical know how to back it up.

From the House of Iron "The Twelve Daughters of Slate Merdena"
"... Perhaps most mysterious of all though is the fate of Lilian Merdena who was kidnapped by House Delaque. Slate believed for a long time that Lilian was dead, until his spies told him about a bald assassin clad in a long flowing coat, her eyes replaced by augmetics, but her face unmistakably that of his missing daughter..."

So, from that we can tell that for all that they look a bit odd, House Delaque are still something you can join (and as the most baseline of Necromundan humans).

We can tell that the "big coat and bionic eyes" look is a Delaque _Assassin_ - the current gang may be a "House hit squad" rather than a traditional gang.

The models we've seen look very, very weird. And I like them But as others have said they're the biggest divergence from OldMunda.

It's possible that Joe Delaque who runs the local gambling den is still a normal looking guy with a shaved head and a pair of goggles.

If ever there was a house to have circles within circles, and different looking sects, it's going to be Delaque.

I will laugh like a drain if Delaque Box 2 goes in reverse of the current trend of having the deeply odd stuff in the second box, and makes the juve equivalent look like Old School Delaques. Guys who haven't earned their bionic eyes and several cycles on Rimmer's Patented Stretching Machine.

I expect the champions to be the mentioned polymorphine assassins, or something equally odd.

 Graphite wrote:
I will laugh like a drain if Delaque Box 2 goes in reverse of the current trend of having the deeply odd stuff in the second box, and makes the juve equivalent look like Old School Delaques. Guys who haven't earned their bionic eyes and several cycles on Rimmer's Patented Stretching Machine.

I expect the champions to be the mentioned polymorphine assassins, or something equally odd.

We already know what Delaque are getting in their book: Mecha-Laser-Trenchcoat fighters.

I now can't stop reading that to the theme tune from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Mecha-Laser-Trenchcoat-Fighters,
Mecha-Laser-Trenchcoat-Fighters,
Assassins with the bald heads,
Trenchcoat Power!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You just can't accept that people like the old style, can you?

Just like you can't accept people saying the new Delaque fit in the new narrative for Necromunda. Because, let's be clear :

People like Delaque's that look like Delaques. They kept Cawdor, Goliath, Escher, and Orlocks looking basically the same as they were (more detailed, obviously, but that's the difference in sculpting techniques from 20 years of development).

...this is not true. Goliaths are way bigger than before, to the point they're clearly not the same as mere humans - we're talking about Space Marine material for their physics, here -, Cawdor are garbage forraging people now rather than zealots with cultist clothes (so much for the ones calling new Delaques on that matter, really), Eschers have a much more voodo / indian inspiration and orlocks...yeah, I guess they're similar indeed (though I feel like they have a much more "tough biker" feeling now than before, when they were basically generic humans with headbands).

All new miniatures are different interpretations of the old gangs, that's a fact. And the background is much more detailed than Old Necromunda, that's also a fact. Visuals are clearly different, it's not just a question of being more detailed.

Van Saars are a departure (mostly in the hair department - no more grand beards/moustaches), but Delaques are fundamentally changed.

And thank god they have changed. Their former style was making them look like nerds wearing clothes too big for them. You see them as gangsters, I see them as cartoonish wannabes trying to look tough.

And you're going to sit there and tell us we're wrong for not liking it.

You just don't want to aknowledge the new background and visuals for Delaque, that's all.

Truth is, GW made Necromunda and has all rights to change what they want in it. Old Necromunda wasn't that much detailed in the end. Now they're giving more details...meaning it doesn't fit what some players had in mind for their gangs as they were filling the gaps with their own narrative.

It's the same when they were describing more in details the universe of Warhammer Fantasy (no it wasn't made magically from the very beginning), when it became more than just a vague fantasy setting when you could play armies of dungeon and dragon miniatures. People filled the gaps at that time too, and weren't always happy with the changes afterwards. Nowadays, last edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle background is accepted as the nostalgic standard. That wasn't the case with first editions, mind you.

I think that's the real reason you don't think they're Delaque for you. It just doesn't fit the narrative you thought it was at that time, and you're not happy GW changed that.

Thing is, GW says the new Delaques are Delaque. So they're Delaque in the background. You have the right not to accept that and say they're not Delaque for you, but that doesn't make it the truth in current edition of Necromunda. Reality is they're Delaque now, no matter how hard you try to deny that.


Besides, I welcome new Mecha-Laser Trenchcoat fighters over Trenchcoat Flashing Perverts like the old metal miniatures.

Van Saar now look much more like Jes’ original sketches for them. Look at those sketches then look at the ‘90s minis then look at the current ones—you’ll see the continuity. 3D sculptors have finally caught up to 25 year old drawings.

Now where are my Van Saar Forge World teasers?!? I don’t care if I can’t buy them until 2022, I just want to see them.

 Chairman Aeon wrote:
Van Saar now look much more like Jes’ original sketches for them.

You mean that ?



Guess it's not that



The inspiration is indeed obvious, but to go to that :



The difference is also quite clear to me.

Unless you're talking about different artwork ? Do you have a link so that I can see what you are refering to ?

Middle one is obviously a Mark Gibbons piece. Jes' Van Saar sketches in G&E look pretty much like the original VanSaar metals, both have flat top haircut with beard and ponytail.

Worth noting that the original look was pretty close to a 1:1 ripoff of Fremen stillsuits.