Early in 2026, Games Workshop released a new edition of Necromunda. This took a lot of players by surprise because Necromunda isn't one of the games that gets frequent updates, compared to the company's bigger games, like Warhammer 40,000. Even more intriguing was the game's new subtitle. It wasn't just Necromunda any more, but Necromunda Skirmish, which implied the existence of something else, like maybe a Necromunda Mass Battles or whatever the opposite of a skirmish is. In August of 2026, the mystery was resolved when Games Workshop revealed Necromunda Roleplay, a pen-and-paper RPG set in the world of Necromunda and that would ship with brand new miniatures and terrain to help you bring the game to life. However, before the RPG actually shipped to stores, Games Workshop cancelled the game entirely. Speculation abounds, but I think somebody at Games Workshop had a sudden realisation that their business model was working, while the business model of the most popular RPG publisher has been dysfunctional since its inception, but I also think that the alternate reality where Necromunda Roleplay does exist contains some interesting lessons for tabletop players.
Here's the statement Games Workshop actually made on the Warhammer Community site:
There’s an exciting year ahead for fans of Necromunda, with a lineup more stuffed than the questionably-sourced contents of a back-alley Scabber’s overcoat. There will be new miniatures, new terrain, new vehicles and new expansions.
However, there won’t be a Roleplay expansion.
After careful consideration we’ve decided to focus our efforts on providing even more great minis for the core game.
In other words, the roleplaying game was dropped so that Games Workshop could focus on miniatures for Necromunda Skirmish, and that doesn't surprise me. Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons is constantly telling us that D&D is a failing brand, so why would any company want to follow in its footsteps? First, we were told that nobody but game masters bought D&D books, so the format of books changed so that player options appeared in pretty much everything. Then we were told that there was a critical shortage of game masters in the world. Then the solution was micro-transactions, a huge campaign for a virtual tabletop experience followed by an expensive shutdown. It goes on and on, and if you believe Wizards of the Coast, there's just no money in roleplaying books.
I don't personally believe WoTC isn't making money, any more than I believe movie studios and video game companies aren't making money. But these industries have decided that they aren't making as much money as they want to make, and there's no arguing with that. I do believe Games Workshop has the capacity to produce an RPG, and it would likely sell, but it's also demonstrably not what Games Workshop does. Games Workshop is a miniatures company.
Games Workshop makes miniatures, but they also make games. Maybe the official story is that those games support the miniatures, providing players with a good reason to buy the plastic soldiers, or maybe the story is that the miniatures are the same as the game for which they are produced. Either way, the exciting thing about the idea of Necromunda Roleplay was, I think, the possibility that one of the support mechanisms for a line of Necromunda miniatures was going to be a roleplaying game and not "just" a wargame or a board game.
The danger, maybe, is that a roleplaying game, with its inherently unlimited scope, might start to cause the miniature line to spiral out of control. You give roleplayers a handful of scabbers with guns, and that keeps them busy for a few evenings of play, but eventually they start asking for monsters. Not just 1 or 2 monsters, but 500 monsters. And then they want vehicles, and vehicles for outer space, and then monsters in space, and then playable monsters in playable vehicles in alternate realities. And it goes on and on like that forever.
You can see it happen even within the Warhammer roleplaying games that do exist, except not with miniatures. When Wrath and Glory came out, it was a mostly self-contained rulebook with character archetypes and a chapter of enemy archetypes. You could build any character you wanted, just as long as it was one of the archetypes in the book. And you could fight anything in the universe, just as long as it was one of the enemies in the book.
I personally loved those limitations. It felt refreshingly contained. I thought it was odd that there were no Aeldari or T'au Empire or Necrons but I also didn't care. And then Threat Assessment: Xenos came out and I forgot all about the safety of my single rulebook system and started adding a bunch of xenos to my games.
It's the way roleplaying games are, and ought to be, but there's a difference between endless expansion on paper and endless expansion of sculpted plastic miniatures.
I've been playing Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games with friends in a way that puts strong limits on the game world. It's debatable whether we're playing a narrative wargame or a roleplaying game. Here's how it goes.
As game master, I invent a problem that the players must solve, and then I build a battlefield on my wargaming table.
I also set out a dozen or so miniatures on my desk. Those miniatures are the bridge crew of a voidship, or the staff of an Inquisitor, or whatever the adventure calls for, and from that collection my 2 players choose 3 or 4 miniatures (each) to control.
At the start of the game, the skirmish army that my players have created from the miniatures on offer goes down to the planet (or another space ship, or a different city, or whatever the tabletop I've set up represents.)
We play a very loose game of Warhammer 40,000. It would barely be recognisable to a competitive 40k player. Basically we're always in priority order, so each side (the game master or the players) take a turn that pretty much includes a move and then some action.
It's accepted that combat could break out at any moment, but it must be provoked. The way combat might be provoked depends on the situation. If the player characters aren't supposed to be there, then just being spotted might result in combat, or it might involve questioning or an attempted arrest. Maybe the players allow their army to be arrested, maybe that's a good way into the midst of the enemy force. Or maybe they resist. Or maybe they weren't spotted at all, and instead sneak around the place to do reconnaissance.
The situation of every game changes how the game is played, as does the mood of the gaming group. Sometimes you do just want to fight, so combat happens early. Other times you don't want to fight, and no combat happens.
Roleplay happens analytically. We don't embody our characters and speak in their voice, and instead we discuss what each character would do given a specific set of circumstances. Conversations between characters do happen, and I guess sometimes we technically are speaking in the voice of a character, but it's more like we're speaking up for our characters because we know they can't speak for themselves. Something a little like this:
Them: Greyfax is just gonna walk through those doors.
Me: OK, well Arbiter Siege is going to step in front of her.
Them: She'll show her Inquisitorial rosette and demand free passage.
Me: I roll 8 for Leadership, so Arbiter Siege is not impressed. I don't think he's ever seen an Inquisitorial rosette before, he might just think she's showing him jewelry.
Them: Greyfax explains what it means. No she doesn't, she has Judge Dyer talk to him.
And so on. But that's also how most of my dnd games sound, and for those we're all sat at a table looking at books and taking notes. The difference is mostly the props.
Once the immediate problem is solved, the game session ends. For the next week, I come up with the next logical scenario to play out in the story that's developing. Maybe the Inquisitor got through the doors without a fight, so now I have to figure out what's in the room? If I'm feeling feisty, or if I'm feeling my game group is, then maybe I'll just have a bunch of guards there who shoot first and asks questions later. Or maybe it's a maze of hallways and offices that affords a chance of sneaking around and investigating. Or maybe it's a proper dungeon, with threats hidden in each room. Whatever it is, it's for next week, and I plan it out and build up a battlefield before Thursday rolls around again.
One reason I was interested in an official Necromunda Roleplay was out of curiosity for how Games Workshop planned on limiting the scope of its first official RPG in over a decade. I was only assuming it would try to limit the game's scope, because why else would they sell the rulebook along with a game mat and terrain and miniatures? Those set pieces would be useless if the prompt was do whatever you like.
I pictured a game, incidentally, a lot like mine, only better. I imagined that each miniature in the box would have a character card, and you'd choose one, and then roll for stats. Or better yet, maybe you'd invent a backstory, and use it to influence your stat rolls.
After you built your character, the evening's adventure would begin. That's the part I was really curious about. Would the game split the narrative process from combat, the way dnd does, or would it embed the narrative into a skirmish game the way I did? Or does the game have some secret method that I hadn't even dreamt of yet?
Well, we'll never know and, to be honest, I'm actually glad. I didn't really want another roleplaying system in my life. Between The One Ring, Imperium Maledictum, and Stardrifter I have my fantasy, science fantasy, and science fiction well covered. I don't think a roleplay expansion for Necromunda would have come up with anything remarkably better than the systems I've settled into, and I enjoy being able to imagine that it would have been an amazing game full of unknowable mechanics that would have finally unified roleplay and wargaming.
The truth is, we each have our own grand unified theory of gaming. Ideally, you're playing yours every week, or maybe you're on your way to defining it for yourself, and then you'll play it every week. I'm still working on the proofs for mine, but it's coming along nicely, and it's keeping me busy and happy, and most importantly it's keeping me in the game.