In our final article on the setting of the new Hive Secundus box, we turn to the Van Saar Tek-hunters. An elite cadre of adventurers dispatched by the elders in an effort to find that shred of information that could save the House of Artifice. Here’s the Necromunda design team with more.
Rob: The Tek-hunters are younger members of the house who volunteer to enter Hive Secundus to find archaeotech and knowledge in an effort to repair the damaged Van Saar STC. The entire house is slowly dying from the radiation that its products give off, and they’re looking for anything that gives them a better chance of survival, even going so far as to enter a Genestealer-infested ruin. While they may survive it slightly better because of their natural tolerance to radiation, they also know that if they go down there, they’re probably not coming back – but it’s for the greater good of the clan house.
In the Hive Secundus box set campaign, they have options that you normally wouldn’t be able to take without visiting a Rogue Doc or the Trading Post – and none of those exist in the depths of Hive Secundus. So the Bioteknist lets you heal injured teammates during downtime, for instance. These actions only work in this campaign, but in others, the Tek-hunters have access to unique wargear which only they are trained to use – such as the Refraction Cloak on the Gunntek, which makes them much harder to spot, or the Servo-Medicae, which the Bioteknist uses to heal colleagues.
They’re Specialists – which allows you to choose how to spend XP – but you can take as many of them as you like on gang creation. You could take a Leader and have all the rest be Tek-hunters in a normal campaign; they’re not Champions, but they’re skilled enough to let you choose how to level them up.
Alex: Van Saar were chosen for the Hive Secundus box because they made the most sense for an incursion gang in the setting.
Rob: They have the strongest reason to enter Hive Secundus. They’re desperate to gather any information and technology they can find. They have the most to gain, so they’re willing to risk it all.
Alex: We wanted to create a completely new kit for the Van Saar to explore Hive Secundus, and the goal was to make them look like a bunch of heroes about to enter a dungeon. There are two builds for each one – there’s a standard ganger and a specialised Tek-hunter with top-tier gear. So you get a medic, a gunner, a sniper, and a comms guy – and they all look the part. When it came to weapons, we had pretty clear ideas even at the concept stage for how these would be evolved from regular equipment.
We’ve tried to expand the Van Saar design language vertically. It’s already very strong visually, so we aren’t creating new shapes, but refining and evolving their core equipment. The suits have stayed the same, but we wanted to make them cooler to express individuality.
Miguel: It was a natural progression for specialists. The sniper looks like an elite operator – really, they all do.
Alex: We did our best to keep the fittings the same for the new kit; we always try to make new kits compatible but not to their detriment, so there are compromises. If we think a particular pose is cool enough, we might not be able to make it fit with every existing arm or gun – but most of the range will fit just fine, including all the heads.
Miguel: It actually feels quite akin to Kill Team in a way – you have a customisable gang of elite infiltrators with specialised skills. It’s very cinematic, and the game feels like one of those films where a single squad of soldiers are cut off from the rest of the world and have to survive on their own.
Rob: Once the Hive Secundus box is released, we’ll follow it up with the Book of Desolation. But the releases don’t stop there – Hive Secundus is a new setting for Necromunda, and we have plenty of future plans to expand the existing gangs, add new ones, and even explore other areas of the planet…
Thanks again for taking the time, guys. Hive Secundus goes up for pre-order this Saturday.