Space Hulk SMASH!!!

As you can guess from my cheesy title, I recently played some Space Hulk. The Doctor and I played around with the 3rd edition a few years ago, but this past weekend (Labor Day Weekend) we had a chance to meet up with an old High School buddy, Bill, who was (and still is) a huge Space Hulk fan.

"You shall not passsAAARGH!!!"

"Jones?"

 We played quite a few games, most of which all had similar outcomes that as a collective revealed to me some truths that I was previously oblivious too:

• I really, really SUCK at Space Hulk! I always have, but I liked to blame the dice. I have won and lost a fair amount of games in my time to know when my tactics suck and when I have chosen poorly or when the dice gods are forsaking (or blessing) me. But Space Hulk is different. For one, it is a totally different way of playing a miniatures game, in the sense that it IS a board game 1st and a miniatures game 2nd. What I mean is, most miniatures games are essentially tactical re-enactments of a larger scale battle and even with objectives and goals you still feel like you are doing a small scale re-enactment of a larger event. Space Hulk is not this, despite the models and the ease of which it is to escape into it. Ignore the terminators, ignore the aliens, ignore the scary halls and painted grid-iron floors: you are actually playing Pac Man! And that is the trap I fall into every time I play this game. I just don't see a video game, I see terminators cleansing a Space Hulk. And it slaughters me every time!





"You want this....don't you?"

• Bill really rocks at Space Hulk. This was the 1st time that I have seen Bill in 21 years, and well, I think he spent a lot of time studying this game. At least in his head anyway. I think he runs through missions in his head on lonely nights while trying to sleep or something. Cause he gets it. In one of the games, you have to retrieve the Relic from a room with a dead marine in it. We ran through it the 1st time (or two, I can't recall) and just got slaughtered by the 'stealers. Bill figured out that the way to win was to go all Bloodbowl with it, and pass the Relic from one guy to the next. He was able to use this tactic to get the bloody thing from halfway across the board to the escape point in a single turn. Then there is that damned mission where you have to get at least one guy off the board at a designated point, and roll a D6. If you roll less than the amount of Terminators that escaped, you lose. Bill got all 10 guys off. Bill txted me tonight and told me not to feel bad, he did the same thing in the new video game against the A.I, on the same mission! Haha!

• You really can leave a man behind. In Space Hulk, sometimes wining requires sacrifice, especially when the objective is to leave with a minimal amount of your team. I always try to bring all the boys home, but at the end of the day, well, collateral is often warranted for the mission's success.

Bill wins a rescue mission

• That time limit rule is stressful! It was really annoying dealing with the time limit. It was a fun aspect of the 1st edition, but I hated it then because of the limits it put on strategy. I discovered that I don't hate it, but man can it be a pain in the ass! I will need to be kicked by my fellow players the next time I try to suggest such a notion in a 40K game...

• Broodlords rock! They truly do. We only got to use him briefly but man was it impressive. Bill brought the original rules and we got to compare them to the original Primarch: that guy was NASTY!

• The lightning claw guy sucks! He just does. My guess is, if you're that Terminator, you probably really pissed someone important off, because now you got the suicide role of the group...

• The gear in Space Hulk works very different than their 40k versions. Radically so. Terminator armor for example is like tissue paper in this game. Whereas the genestealer's claws, if they were this potent on the Warhammer 40,000 table top would be kings of the assault phase. Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers are awesome in Space Hulk....ok, they rock in 40K too, but they REALLY rock in Space Hulk! 





Of course these are not GW dice...

• Multiplayer rules are needed! Really GW, you couldn't include a small bit of space for some multiplayer rules in your award-winning rulebook? Well, we found some links that might help us all out. Check 'em out: warseer.com/Multi-Player-Space-Hulk & boardgamegeek.com/multiplayer.

•  Games Workshop dice really DO suck! The Doc's daughter threw down 6 dice, and the results were 1,2,3,4,5 and 6. I believe this is pretty much impossible to do with GW dice. The Doctor told me of a  study he ready on the probability issues of GW dice... (I can't find the link right now)...which proves the theory and hit home to me the notion that I should finally ditch the GW dice. Warfrog has only been telling me this since the 1st time we played together 13 years ago...

• Centurians are fugly. I know, they have nothing to do with Space Hulk. But when you look at just how awesome and inspiring the Space Hulk 3rd edition plastic Terminators are, you just have to -have to- stand in awe of the sheer affront to the imagination and design of the GW Space Marine concept that the Centurians are. The Doctor and I have also determined that the Blood Angel Terminators look sweet, but they need to become Dark Angels and with a little work should easily be converted. I look forward to see what he does with them.
  

 In conclusion, we had a fun-filled weekend and it was good to catch-up with everyone! It was nice to play Space Hulk, but in hind sight I should've suggested that he brought Relic, which is a far superior game I think. ;)