Necromunda – Zone Mortalis Gang Stronghold

The most recent addition to the Zone Mortalis, is the Necromunda Gang Stronghold. Quite the boxed set for the Underhive, giving your gang a spot to hide out, defend and retreat to.

But this is not just a repurposed set of sprues from the Zone Mortalis, but a whole new set of sprues and parts to add to your Zone Mortalis. And not just walls and platforms either at 70 EUR, but two towers (a lookout tower and a water tank) as well.

Games Workshop makes it quite easy to have a positive feedback on this, even before assembly with simply the haptic feedback of this massive box and high pile of sprues. I was a bit irriated at first, when I saw it is actually just two different sprues (one of which is included four times), but it is very versatile in content, more on that further below.

The assembly instruction included does not only cover the assembly incl. variants, but rules for the use of the Gang Stronghold and its contents with Necromunda.

We have seen dense layouted sprues before, but these are a new bar. We have sprue A with the main parts for the gunk tanks as well as some some individual and uniqe bits of this kit. And the other sprue, four times included, cover a lot of platforms, walls and pillars. Casting is well done, sharp details and low amount of mould lines. And again due to the non-organic shapes, very easy to remove.

We begin with the gunk tank. But again, as with most of the Zone Mortalis kits, don't glue it all together yet. Single groups yes, but keep it modular, until you have all the pieces in front of you, as you will want to toy around with them and will be amazed how the can be combined.

The diameter of the tank is similar to the medium sized tanks for example from the Sector Mechanicus. So in case you want to extend the tower, keep that in mind. The width of the square / foot print of the pillars is close to the size of the columns, so you can mix and / or place them with other parts of the Zone Mortalis. The lower exhaust of the tank can be joint with the thermic pipes.

As for the large look out tower, this one uses for different floors. Three of which are joint with four tiles, and have a either round or rectangle lid in the middle. The round recess is the diameter of the pipelines, so you could place these in there as well, for example to create a large oil derrick or simiar. The underside of the floor tiles have multiple sockets, so different structures can fit it - one more reason to assemble this without glue at first, to leave your freedom for future ideas.

There are strong substructures and pillars for these to build the final tower. Once again these can be build in levels, so you can swap them (for example with the gunk tank) and modify the final height by a bit, as you can see in the final picture. Amazing part of this kit.

The Stronghold provides new types of walls, rather gothic design with lancet arches. And the included bits give the opportunity to either keep them open, barricade them or even build them as doors.

With a second set of bits, walkways are added to the top, along with railings and further cover for the people on the walkways / behind the walls. You might want to not glue the walkways ontop of the walls, as they can be mixed and used in different compositions.

Part of the sprues is a number of ladders and stilts. You will notice, that these have a bit of play and don't finish on level. That is to make room for the surface of the Zone Mortalis tiles, that may cause to raise them by a millimetre or two.

A great piece of this kit are the double doors. They are movable and can be used individually as well, as they are two fields wide. Don't glue the topper on the doors just yet, as you might want to use them with other toppers or roofs.

There are corner pieces for the gothic walls, that can be combined in a few different ways, to either create a 90° curve inwards or outwards, as well as a straight connection piece.

On top of these special combining elements go the large base plates, that have the connection for the double wide walkways as well some parts from the Platform and Stairs kit. In addition these roof / platforms have triangular corner pieces with railings.

How the different floor designs connect, can be seen here.

And the set up possible with this set has quite the foot print and easily covers at least a single 12 by 12 inch tile, probably with a bit of a stretch even two.

Conclusion
Back in the day, when Necromunda was introduced (full scale in the mid 90s, not the early Confrontation rule set), most if not all of the Necromunda terrain was cardboard build around the bulkheads. So propably the closest to this would have been the Imperial Bastion or Command Tower. But this Stronghold is quite impressive and shows how far we've come in the meantime. Not only is it properly sized for its purpose, but gives quite a lot new bits and pieces to add to your Zone Mortalis.

I wouldn't lock the purpose only to the role of a Gang Stronghold. I can really see this, along with a few of the containers, partially converted into street shops, as a black market or the famous trading post. Maybe upgraded with some heavier / sturdier panels as a Enforcer or Arbites outpost.

It could have had more walkways, as these are not part of the platform and stairs set, but two long and interlock with the columns and corners, as such provide great value to connect two sides freely. Yet, the price is reasonable, as you get the tower, a special ressource and four columns/corners as well as four wall sections.

Owen Patton, the designer of this kit, covered a couple of combination ideas on twitter, as well as on Warhammer Community; Tipps from the Underhive Architect.

Warhammer 40,000 and Necromunda are a brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.