[SH] Today's battle report

External Since: May 29, 2007 Posts: 45

Mission: Suicide (objective: reach the target room and destroy it with
a heavy flamer shot. 'Stealers win if the flamer dies/runs out of
juice first)

Map: Marines set up in a corridor just behind a room with doors
leading out ahead and to their right. Down a corridor from the right-
side entrance are two 'Stealer entry points. Ahead is a long corridor;
a junction leads left and around a corner in the direction of the
target room, while the main corridor continues on to two more 'Stealer
entry points. A corridor running left-right from the objective room
intersects the main corridor in the middle, and leads to the remaining
'Stealer entry points

Me:

Terminator Sergeant with storm bolter and power sword
Terminator with heavy flamer
3 Terminators with storm bolter and power fist

Opponent:

Blips without number

In all my time playing GW games, I've never before played Space Hulk,
but I was keen to give it a try. General impressions are that it's
very simple, even as a board game, and as gameplay mostly seems to
take place in corridors tactical options really only boil down to
deciding which order to put your Marines in at the beginning of the
game; pretty much everything else is shoot until you have two action
points left and then overwatch (if you're a Marine) or charging full
speed ahead (if you're a Genestealer)

My set-up put the flamer Marine at the head of the column, with the
Sergeant behind - if I'd asked what the mission was before deciding
how to set up, I probably wouldn't have put the Flamernator first,
since I rather worried about how to keep him alive during the game.

I used my first turn to advance into the closest room and spread out,
before sending one Terminator ahead to sit on overwatch in the main
corridor and the Flamernator to head out on his suicide mission. As
contact was made with hostiles emerging from the entry points to the
right of the map, the Sergeant opened the right-side door and waited,
two overwatching Marines behind him in case he fell.

As Genestealers started coming into sight, the three power fist
Marines all headed up the corridor while the Flamernator continued his
quest; the plan was for the remaining Terminators to fight their way
to the junction and from there clear the route to the objective room.
The Sergeant remained on overwatch in the doorway throughout the game,
and soon the blips in that part of the hulk vanished as he succeeded
in preventing an assault to the Termies' rear. Only one Genestealer
successfully ran the gauntlet to assault him, and was promptly
dispatched with a power sword.

The main thrust of the 'Stealer attack had yet to be blunted, however,
as blip after blip came into sight or was removed to reveal three
Genestealers each. The Flamernator immolated one such blip before it
was revealed (another 'Stealer was blocking LOS - that died in the
same blast), and gradually closed the distance on the objective,
eliminating the opposition in his path (at one stage, as one opponent
had to leave and hand over the game to someone else, he decided to run
the gauntlet of fire with a trio of 'Stealers. None of them survived
contact with the area on fire). One Terminator made it as far as the
junction before being caught in combat; he drew with the first
'Stealer to assault him and shot it to pieces the following turn;
however in the penultimate turn of the game he became my first and
only casualty (the 'Stealer that killed him went on to assault the
next in line - another draw, another 'Stealer used as target practice
in my final turn).

Blessed with a good number of command points, the Flamernator just
managed to outpace pursuing Genestealers - however the mission lived
up to its name, as with about four closing on him his fate was pretty
much sealed after he used his penultimate flamer shot to set fire to
the objective room. I have a feeling that his loyal comrades
consecrated his soul to the Emperor and then buggered off home...

Result: Blood Angels Victory

Overall verdict: Space Hulk is obviously a product of a different time
- with the board, the dice and a very simple ruleset that, from what
I'm told, is basically unchanged from previous incarnations, it
definitely has a nostalgic feel - they didn't quite go so far as to
put the Terminators on 25mm slottabases, though. In fact it reminded
me most of the old Jervis boardgame Doom of the Eldar (which postdates
the original Space Hulk) - although that's rightly criticised for
being too much a game of luck, it can still be fun to play. The
difference with Space Hulk is that it may be possible for the
Terminators to lose if they're played badly, unlike the Eldar in DotE.
Even so, it's a little too much a game of luck that's weighted
somewhat in the Marines' favour.

From a modern perspective it might have been nice to update the rules
for added detail - such things as cover objects within the Hulk, for
instance. It's welcome to get a sense of Terminators as they used to
be, though, unconquerable heroes who can achieve their mission against
overwhelming odds.

So, in summary, it's a cool game, and self-contained games are always
good. It's no Battle for Armageddon, and come to that for a beer-and-
pretzels timewaster the basic 40k or BFG boxed sets would probably
give you a more varied gaming experience for a similar or lower price.
I am tempted to pick it up, but fundamentally this is a game that was
designed to retail at a quarter of its modern asking price, and nice
figs or no (and I'm warming to the 'Stealers having seen them in the
plastic), for someone who doesn't play either Blood Angels or Tyranids
it would be hard to justify that kind of money on a game of this sort.
It will never happen, but if GW sold this in two versions - one with
and one without figs, the latter for say �10-15 and using counters of
some sort instead - the game would be well worth picking up.

Phil

External Since: Jan 23, 2006 Posts: 513

On 25 Aug, 20:47, "M Roberts" <unkn... DeleteThis @thisaddress.com> wrote:
> "Phil Bowles" <pbow... DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote in message
>
> news:95ed4ff9-d16e-4925-b497-6b8d39b26cec@l5g2000yqo.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Mission: Suicide (objective: reach the target room and destroy it with
> > a heavy flamer shot. 'Stealers win if the flamer dies/runs out of
> > juice first)
>
> Sounds like the original first mission.

Yes, they seem to have made an effort to stick to the originals where
possible - original missions, original fluff etc. The obvious
differences, other than the models, are rules for gear that didn't
exist in the first incarnation (lightning claws, Broodlord etc.).

> > Even so, it's a little too much a game of luck that's weighted
> > somewhat in the Marines' favour.
>
> I see no mention of a timer? The marine turn used to be timed, which
> ratchetted up the tension & probably evened things out a bit. It's sad if
> they've left that out.

Hmm, not sure. There's a scoreboard thing that's used to track assault
cannon ammo and command points - there's a third row as well but I
wasn't told what that was for.

> > From a modern perspective it might have been nice to update the rules
> > for added detail
>
> I disagree. The basic rules should be nice & simple. Advanced rules can be
> published later which can make the game more detailed for those that want
> it.

No reason not to do a Warhammer Quest-style thing, putting the
advanced rules in the same set.

> I personally think it's a good game, at about the right price point.

I'm likely to succumb to temptation, but considering that the
'terrain' is cardboard, the model count is rather small, and there are
no templates, few dice and a smaller, less involved rulebook, giving
the box the same �40 price tag as the 40k and WFB starter sets would
have been "about the right price point". They didn't have to make the
figs 40k compatible if they were worried too many people would, say,
buy the set at that price as a way of expanding existing armies, and
in any event the Termie figs aren't especially well-configured for 40k
- you can't get two game-playable squads out of them without
supplementing them from another Termie set. Oh look, more sales for
GW!

I won't
> be buying personally. I already have enough un-played & un-painted stuff
> lying around to last several lifetimes. Heck, I still have Ultra-Marines
> here, a sort of Space Hulk lite using marine scouts instead of termies &
> genestealers.

Thought that was Space Crusade...

Phil