Terrain kits play a crucial role in shaping the spatial experience and narrative atmosphere of Warhammer 40,000 and its sister games. The setting’s distinctive aesthetics, intimidating gothic megastructures fused with brutal, inhumane technological functionality, is widely recognized as one of its defining features (Wenskus 2021). This architectural style is translated to the tabletop through a wide array of terrain kits, varying in scale, completeness, and degree of ruin.
This paper focuses on a specific subset of these kits: the Thatos Pattern Hab Modules, introduced in 2022 as part of Necromunda: Ash Wastes. These modules, including their extended and more recent armoured variants, present a notable departure from the game’s traditional underhive terrain. Unlike the ornate and claustrophobic structures of the Hive City, the Thatos Pattern offers a more modest, secular, and civilian-oriented architecture. It is a modular, prefabricated system designed for survival in extreme environments, connected to the broader Imperial aesthetic only through subtle elements such as gothic-arched doorways
This paper examines the Thatos Pattern hab modules through the lenses of game studies, architectural critique, and spatial humanities to investigate how terrain design reflects and reimagines real-world discourses around modular living, survivalism, and class stratification. The analysis centers on three key sources: (1) official hab units and terrain kits; (2) player-constructed container towns and third-party prefabricated buildings; and (3) the gameplay mechanics tied to open, hostile environments and nomadic movement in Ash Wastes campaigns. Drawing on architectural theory and urban humanities, especially studies of prefabrication and container housing (Russell 2008; Blackmore 2018) and their speculative imaginaries (Zberea 2016; Hoffman 2022), the paper argues that these kits function not only as tactical assets but as speculative design artefacts. They materialize sociotechnical imaginaries of modularity, disposability, and infrastructural minimalism within a dystopian context.
Author bio
Tonguc Sezen is a Senior Lecturer in Games at the University for the Creative Arts.
