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Only 1 mask kinda oof, but overall as expected, nice firepower also.

Maybe Escher get grav-bikes because Van Saar are getting some kind of Tachikoma-inspired spider-bikes?

I would say the hyperbole is really ramping up though.

"...at staggering speeds, granting them a Movement of 9″". I thought Escher started out at M7. So the grav-bike can move along at the speed of a sprinting person. Staggering indeed!

grahamdbailey wrote:
I'd half-expected for Escher mounts to be beasts rather than vehicles, and I'd not even considered that they would be these magnificent beauties!

I was expecting a mix of beasts and bikes kinda like a certain dinosaur film

But I'll happily take jetbikes! Only thing that seems a little odd to me they are rather on the chunky instead of lithe side, but I accept that they are likely using lower level technology so something sleek like an Eldar bike is perhaps infringing on what other factions would bring to the table (like Van Saar).

TBH I was expecting bikes, but not jetbikes.

The blade on the front is optimistic. As if one of those things wouldn't disintegrate on impact if it ever tried to hit something.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cawdor can have a Cartie and like it, pram wheels and all.

Are you kidding? The Cawdor car is going to be people powered. Literally.

Oh yeah, now we're talking! Those Escher jetbikes look great! Gotta have!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
TBH I was expecting bikes, but not jetbikes.

The blade on the front is optimistic. As if one of those things wouldn't disintegrate on impact if it ever tried to hit something.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cawdor can have a Cartie and like it, pram wheels and all.

Are you kidding? The Cawdor car is going to be people powered. Literally.

I’d love it if Cawdor got bicycles. Just ordinary bicycles.

Bicycle infantry has a long and noble history Maybe not so useful in an ash desert

 Flinty wrote:
Bicycle infantry has a long and noble history Maybe not so useful in an ash desert

Yes, but their special rule is that a ganger on a bicycle moves slower than one on foot, but they can carry extra weapons in the basket on the front.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Gangs are essentially PMC in 40K.

Add in Necromunda being a major arms manufacturer world, and it does make sense. You cream off a tiny percentage of your output for home use, and you end up with comparatively well armed soldiers, even those that act as Cats Paws.

And there’s precisely two thirds of fifty percent of absolutely bugger all preventing a given group placing a moratorium on stuff they don’t think fits.

Maybe it wouldn't be so blatant if we weren't also somehow supposed to believe that all the other gangs, with their plasma rifles, grav-guns, anti-grav, speeders, jetbikes, power armour, exo-suits, robots and God knows what else are supposed to be an even match for the Cawdor, with their sharpened sticks and clubs.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Gangs are essentially PMC in 40K.

Add in Necromunda being a major arms manufacturer world, and it does make sense. You cream off a tiny percentage of your output for home use, and you end up with comparatively well armed soldiers, even those that act as Cats Paws.

And there’s precisely two thirds of fifty percent of absolutely bugger all preventing a given group placing a moratorium on stuff they don’t think fits.

Thing is, a lot of the stuff that the Necromunda houses are using isn't being manufactured for the Imperium at all. You can't "cream off a percentage" of something that isn't being produced. The implication here is the houses have their own secret factories producing kit that is arguably technologically superior to that of the Imperiums actual military forces.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 oni wrote:
This make me think of Earthworm Jim.
And the last Goliath "bike" is a ripoff from Halo
So I guess that's the design teams MO. Copy it from video games.
Necromunda seems to be getting a bit silly.

Necromunda has been getting a bit silly ever since someone decided that random gangers in the underhive should have more advanced and rarer tech than the vast majority of the Imperium's actual armies. Now it's just plain ludicrous.

I don't see how that's an issue. They're some of the wealthiest houses on Necromunda and aren't as bound by the limitations imposed by the rest of the Imperium. The Imperiums armie aren't meant to be equipped with the best - The logistics, bureaucracy, rules, Mechanicus's dogma etc that affect those aren't much of a factor for the Necromunda houses.

Counterpoint - with some of the kit that the Houses have access to, it would be like if the Hells Angels and the South Side Crips were running around fighting gang wars with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers. It doesn't make very much sense. Its one thing to not be bound by limitations and dogma, its another thing to actually be capable of producing kit of a higher level of technology than the society you belong to at large.

Just to add to this. People overestimate the rarity of Grav-technology in the Imperium. Plenty of Black Library books mention civilian vehicles that are anti-grav.
Add to that cherubs, servo-skulls, Grav-pulpits and even grav-chutes, which are used by guard regiments.

Black Library is non-canon and full of stuff that literally breaks the norms of the setting, so thats not a good argument. The "true canon", per GW itself, is whats published in publications by the design studio, and last I recall it said that the construction of jetbikes like that used by Samael of the Dark Angels and the Adeptus Custodes are basically a secret lost to time that the Imperium is incapable of replicating today. And yet, the roller-derby girls are blitzing around on them like its not big deal.

 Flinty wrote:
Bicycle infantry has a long and noble history Maybe not so useful in an ash desert

lol, Cawdor will get Penny Farthings with square wheels.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Gangs are essentially PMC in 40K.
Add in Necromunda being a major arms manufacturer world, and it does make sense. You cream off a tiny percentage of your output for home use, and you end up with comparatively well armed soldiers, even those that act as Cats Paws.
And there’s precisely two thirds of fifty percent of absolutely bugger all preventing a given group placing a moratorium on stuff they don’t think fits.

Maybe it wouldn't be so blatant if we weren't also somehow supposed to believe that all the other gangs, with their plasma rifles, grav-guns, anti-grav, speeders, jetbikes, power armour, exo-suits, robots and God knows what else are supposed to be an even match for the Cawdor, with their sharpened sticks and clubs.

Faith in the Emperor has a value all its own.

That bit of old lore about the Imperium not knowing how to make jetbikes never made sense to me. They can’t make a jetbikes, but they can make landspeeders?!

I think those bikes look great. I wish there were some way to use them in regular 40k

Serious Rey on chunky swoop vibe there.

I was pretty sure that Van Saar were going to get the jet bikes, but now I'm a bit stumped. They already have grav-cutters, which are jet bike like. They have a brute that is effectively a dreadnought. I joked about two person cutters with heavy weapons, but that's a joke--I hope. Data spider (hacker) and tachikoma could be cool if they thought about it. Hmm...

I wonder if Van Saar will more focus on armament. I mean, a Directed EMP is ideal in the wastes. Shoot your foe, shutdown their electronics. Take out the crew, replace the solenoid, and take the whole rig.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Gangs are essentially PMC in 40K.

Add in Necromunda being a major arms manufacturer world, and it does make sense. You cream off a tiny percentage of your output for home use, and you end up with comparatively well armed soldiers, even those that act as Cats Paws.

And there’s precisely two thirds of fifty percent of absolutely bugger all preventing a given group placing a moratorium on stuff they don’t think fits.

Thing is, a lot of the stuff that the Necromunda houses are using isn't being manufactured for the Imperium at all. You can't "cream off a percentage" of something that isn't being produced. The implication here is the houses have their own secret factories producing kit that is arguably technologically superior to that of the Imperiums actual military forces.

The components are being produced though, which then get crammed into whatever casing the gangs fancy. Are there any weapons/equipment that are entirely different, and that don't follow a well worn archetype that the low level of granularity in 40k as a whole hasn't specifically explored in the past (e.g. van saar laser shotguns)?

chaos0xomega wrote:

Counterpoint - with some of the kit that the Houses have access to, it would be like if the Hells Angels and the South Side Crips were running around fighting gang wars with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers. It doesn't make very much sense. Its one thing to not be bound by limitations and dogma, its another thing to actually be capable of producing kit of a higher level of technology than the society you belong to at large.

Except Necromunda gangs aren't US street gangs they are PMCs. They are proxies of the noble houses who are their patrons. So rather than Crips, Bloods and Hell Angels replace your statements with IRA, PLO, Hezbollah, ISIS, HAMAS, the Contras, Shining Path, ad nasseum. Also Necromunda produces a lot of kit for the Imperium so if a few (thousand) units find their way into the hands of "gangs" it's still a rounding error especially as some houses like Van Saar are the manufacturers of said weaponry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I wonder if Van Saar will more focus on armament. I mean, a Directed EMP is ideal in the wastes. Shoot your foe, shutdown their electronics. Take out the crew, replace the solenoid, and take the whole rig.

I'm really trying to figure out what they could cram on a single half-sized sprue. Two grave cutters and a techno-champion or one ambot means they could actually do a ridable think tank.

They don't need to be big. Here are a couple of half-assed versions I did far too long ago to be used as counts-as sentinels

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
That bit of old lore about the Imperium not knowing how to make jetbikes never made sense to me. They can’t make a jetbikes, but they can make landspeeders?!

Don't forget the Imperium doesn't treat technology like we do, nor even in a sane manner.

Many of the designs they use are not based on fundamental understanding of how something works and then using that understanding to make something superior for the war effort. It's based on a very specific set of designs that they are forbidden to change. You can forget how to make jetbikes and yet make landspeeders and hovercraft and such because you don't have the plans for a jetbike. There's no Standard Template for one, so you don't get one. Yes you have the technology to make them, but that would require tampering with already perfected designs and likely get you shot by the nearest Ad Mech.
The Imperium is full of tech that they either flat out don't understand how it works through to thinks that they understand but which are forbidden because it goes against the Standard Template. Technology in this setting, for the Imperium, is as much a religion as it is a necessity.


Also don't forget even if it were a sane world, the Imperium would hardly be the first army in the world to not use state of the art equipment. Remember the Imperial Guard are not the elite, they are the rank and file mass troops. What you produce for them has to be easy to make; mass market designs that are also easy to upkeep. It might be jetbikes are just not reliable; require more specialist upkeep, cost too much for general use. Especially when you have alternatives like rough riders and scout walkers which can do the similar job already. Add on top of that the fact that the Guard have to be mustered and formed on many worlds all over the Imperium. A tech that might rely on very specialised resources and such might be great, but it might not be the kind of design and setup that can be rolled out over the whole Imperium.


And yet for all that there likely ARE guard units that do make use of jetbikes. It's just not your standard issue equipment so we don't have models for them.

 Chairman Aeon wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Counterpoint - with some of the kit that the Houses have access to, it would be like if the Hells Angels and the South Side Crips were running around fighting gang wars with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers. It doesn't make very much sense. Its one thing to not be bound by limitations and dogma, its another thing to actually be capable of producing kit of a higher level of technology than the society you belong to at large.

Except Necromunda gangs aren't US street gangs they are PMCs. They are proxies of the noble houses who are their patrons. So rather than Crips, Bloods and Hell Angels replace your statements with IRA, PLO, Hezbollah, ISIS, HAMAS, the Contras, Shining Path, ad nasseum. Also Necromunda produces a lot of kit for the Imperium so if a few (thousand) units find their way into the hands of "gangs" it's still a rounding error especially as some houses like Van Saar are the manufacturers of said weaponry.

Well, yes. That is actually my main beef with Newcromunda, because the bolded part is exactly what Necromunda gangs were supposed to be.

And there is nothing at all preventing you from running your gang that way if you so wish.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And there is nothing at all preventing you from running your gang that way if you so wish.

I mean, other than the rules, and being an donkey-cave for not letting other people play with the new toys, of course.

I can play by myself, but that's usually not very fun for a two players game.

I dunno about localised use of jetbikes. The jetbike thing comes from Sammael's fluff which states (taken from the Dark Angel codex 2006 edition, but I think this is still continued in later versions):
"At the time of the Horus Heresy, many Space Marine Chapters fielded jetbikes. these sleek craft allowed a single rider to soar across the battlefield at great speed, held aloft by gravitic drives the like of which are long lost to the Techpriests of the 41st Millenium. since those days the art of building and maintaining these craft has been all but forgotten by Humanity and it is regarded with superstition and distrust as the province of xenos races such as the Eldar and the Tau. The last of the Imperium's venerable "mark 14s" are thought to have been lost many centuries ago, and with them a glorious tradition of jet-cycle riding units stretching back to the days of the Great Crusade..." blah blah blah

On the other hand, the Custodes have them and grav vehicles in general are still definately a thing in the Imperium. Its probably just that the old Sammael fluff needs to be put to rest and smaller grav vehicles are just fine.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And there is nothing at all preventing you from running your gang that way if you so wish.

I mean, other than the rules, and being an donkey-cave for not letting other people play with the new toys, of course.

I can play by myself, but that's usually not very fun for a two players game.

But that wasn’t my claim there, was it? You can run a relatively low tech Gang if that’s your preference. Indeed you’re likely to end up more numerous than someone sinking Creds into higher tech, more powerful weapons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And there is nothing at all preventing you from running your gang that way if you so wish.

I mean, other than the rules, and being an donkey-cave for not letting other people play with the new toys, of course.

I can play by myself, but that's usually not very fun for a two players game.

But that wasn’t my claim there, was it? You can run a relatively low tech Gang if that’s your preference. Indeed you’re likely to end up more numerous than someone sinking Creds into higher tech, more powerful weapons.

And the game makes sure to have a ganger cap on the scenarios, so... what does that earn me, exactly?

Potentially? Gangers with a wider selection of weapons. Such as a Basic Weapon, Pistols and CCW, making for a more flexible set of individuals.

 Chairman Aeon wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Counterpoint - with some of the kit that the Houses have access to, it would be like if the Hells Angels and the South Side Crips were running around fighting gang wars with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers. It doesn't make very much sense. Its one thing to not be bound by limitations and dogma, its another thing to actually be capable of producing kit of a higher level of technology than the society you belong to at large.

Except Necromunda gangs aren't US street gangs they are PMCs. They are proxies of the noble houses who are their patrons. So rather than Crips, Bloods and Hell Angels replace your statements with IRA, PLO, Hezbollah, ISIS, HAMAS, the Contras, Shining Path, ad nasseum. Also Necromunda produces a lot of kit for the Imperium so if a few (thousand) units find their way into the hands of "gangs" it's still a rounding error especially as some houses like Van Saar are the manufacturers of said weaponry.

I was unaware the Imperium was producing Jetbikes, Hoverboards and Infinity-esque TAGs.

 Chairman Aeon wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Counterpoint - with some of the kit that the Houses have access to, it would be like if the Hells Angels and the South Side Crips were running around fighting gang wars with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers. It doesn't make very much sense. Its one thing to not be bound by limitations and dogma, its another thing to actually be capable of producing kit of a higher level of technology than the society you belong to at large.

Except Necromunda gangs aren't US street gangs they are PMCs. They are proxies of the noble houses who are their patrons. So rather than Crips, Bloods and Hell Angels replace your statements with IRA, PLO, Hezbollah, ISIS, HAMAS, the Contras, Shining Path, ad nasseum. Also Necromunda produces a lot of kit for the Imperium so if a few (thousand) units find their way into the hands of "gangs" it's still a rounding error especially as some houses like Van Saar are the manufacturers of said weaponry.

I don't see any of those guys running around with railguns, antimatter grenades, and gigawatt lasers either. The point which was apparently lost on you is that this is equipment that exceeds the tech level and capability of the US military itself. ISIS, Hezbollah, etc. are all using *lesser* technology, not *superior* technology like the Necromunda gangs are (except Cawdor, I guess).

Cawdor Redemptionist are not poor btw, they received direct funding from thane of Cawdor, the weapons are manufactured and modified with unique bits. Likely Champs and Leader of a non-redemptionist Cawdor gang can also be very rich and bought stuff off the trading post if they wanted too.

All I can think of is Sammael taking some Ravenwing out into the Ash Wastes on a training trip during a re-supply layover, and having his company watch the smug look slide off his face as some teenage gang-bangers swoop by.

The ensuing sulk will challenge the record of the Lion himself.

Imperial planets have a huge variety of tech levels. The Guard codex represents a kind of lowest common denominator- the minimum standard expected by the Departmento Munitorum and a standard most planets can achieve. However, we know that guardsmen can be much better equipped, although the current rules do not reflect it. For example, there are grenadier formations equipped to the standard of stormtroopers by default. There are units with universal bionic augmentation. There are regiments that can equip sergeants and officers with stormbolters or combi-weapons (the latter is from second edition, when the Guard range aesthetically matched Necromundan regiments, so it is reasonable to assume Necromundan officers frequently carry combi-weapons).

Most of this is similar to everything used by Necromundan gangs, but represents the gear that can be supplied and sustained by the wider Imperium. Van Saar is something of an outlier, but then they are also specifically hoarding STC tech that could see the whole House destroyed by the Adeptus Mechanicus to obtain. Plus, most of their stuff is just top-quality Imperial tech, nothing that we don't see in some form elsewhere.

 Flinty wrote:
I dunno about localised use of jetbikes. The jetbike thing comes from Sammael's fluff which states (taken from the Dark Angel codex 2006 edition, but I think this is still continued in later versions):
"At the time of the Horus Heresy, many Space Marine Chapters fielded jetbikes. these sleek craft allowed a single rider to soar across the battlefield at great speed, held aloft by gravitic drives the like of which are long lost to the Techpriests of the 41st Millenium. since those days the art of building and maintaining these craft has been all but forgotten by Humanity and it is regarded with superstition and distrust as the province of xenos races such as the Eldar and the Tau. The last of the Imperium's venerable "mark 14s" are thought to have been lost many centuries ago, and with them a glorious tradition of jet-cycle riding units stretching back to the days of the Great Crusade..." blah blah blah

On the other hand, the Custodes have them and grav vehicles in general are still definately a thing in the Imperium. Its probably just that the old Sammael fluff needs to be put to rest and smaller grav vehicles are just fine.

None of that precludes jetbikes existing though, only military-issue jetbikes that are presumably more rugged, robust designs, and capable of lugging Astartes. The way it is worded, it is the gravitic drives specifically that were difficult to build, but these are probably of an extremely powerful, tough, yet compact design suitable for military use.

Custodes didn't leave Terra for ten thousand years, so their jetbikes would not have featured until recently.