Thursday, November 18, 2010

Space Hulk is mine at last….

So, I game I wanted to get for many years is called Space Hulk.  This was around since the 1990s or so and was from Games Workshop, makers of some of my past favorite board games, such as Talisman.  Anyway, this one was long out of print only to be reissued in 2009 by GW.  pic588817 Sadly it was well out of my price range, so I began trolling EBAY trying to pick it up on the cheap.  After about 6 months or so of bidding, losing and frustration, I managed to get a copy that was missing 2 pieces for about 30 Euro.  I thought that was fine as I would be able to replace the missing bits with some other GW models if I wanted to.

This is a game with a hefty number of bits.  Here is what it would look like fresh out of a new box.pic544408 However as mine was used, all the bits were punched out, the aliens assembled and a few of them even painted to a reasonable standard.

The premise of the game is essentially the same as the film “Aliens.”  Heavily armed and armoured Space Marines are off to defend the universe from evil aliens called Genestealers.   Each session of play is a “mission” defined by the rulebook which sets out objectives for the players controlling each of the sides.  The board is modular and is built as defined by each mission. 

The Marines are slow but very powerful, with big guns, cannons and flame throwers, and the aliens are fragile, but overpowering at hand to hand and very very fast.  Also, the Marines are limited to 5-10 models and the alien player has unlimited reinforcements.  The basic tactic is for the Marine player to try and keep a lot of space between him and the aliens to pick them off with guns, whereas the Genestealer player is trying to rush in and bite your face off.

I knew this was a game that was not really for Claudia, what with the guns and aliens and face biting.  Liam is destined to love this, but it is a little beyond him now.  The natural choice of opponent then would be Ryan.  Claudia and Doris were planning to go out to see a show last weekend, so I invited Ryan over for some gaming.  I set up the board for the first mission and placed the required gaming fuel (mmmm beer) on each side of the table.  Everything was ready for the exciting first great space battle.

DSC_0089More to follow in part 2.

2 comments:

Dave said...

That's some fancy looking beer.

Is this a 2 player game only?

Fraser Anderson said...

That is my usual beer Dave its called "The Black" its real good, kind of smoky.

Space Hulk is 2 players only. It could be three if the marines have two squads in the larger missions, but is should be two.