SPACE HULK
A review by Commissar Calgar Introduction – OR – ‘Where the f**k is your Guard Codex review?” Hello everyone,
A while back I promised everyone a review of the Guard Codex. As you can probably tell, this has not happened yet. Why? Well I made this promise
before the Guard Codex came out, and when the Codex finally did come out, it killed my interest in the Guard (I have 6 Valkyries sitting in shrink-wrapped boxes – that’s how little interest I had in Guard after the new Codex came out) and it nearly destroyed my interest in
40K completely (
GW managed to ruin one of my fav two armies – Chaos – and then didn’t ruin Guard… they just didn’t do anything interesting with them).
But then came Planetstrike, something that I find far more interesting. Expansions, unlike Codex re-releases, take nothing away from us players. Your Deathwing army doesn’t become illegal because
GW releases an expansion like Planetstrike. Your Ork army doesn’t suddenly find half its useful units nerfed or removed from the Codex because
GW puts out a plastic Bastion kit. Your Lost & The Damned army… no… wait… scratch that last one.
The point is, expansions brought my interest in the hobby back. A month after Planetstrike…
GW forgot about Planetstrike. Ah well. But they did bring out something called Planetary Empires, and as someone who loves the concept of campaigns, that revitalized my interest even more. I haven’t got Planetary Empires yet simply because of the space constraints in my new apartment (I have a room for
40K stuff and it’s… uhh…
full), but will get to it one day.
In Feb this year, our good friends over at Taco Bell brought us the rumour of a possible re-release of Space Hulk. It was early days to be sure, but as
GW’s misguided and inept ‘Mystery Box’ saga came to fruition it became clearer and clearer that we were about to get a new Space Hulk box.
I love Space Hulk. In fact I love a lot of old
GW games. My first game was Tyranid Attack (or Advanced Space Crusade if you’re
really old –
Hi Fraz!). I own both previous editions of Space Hulk (my copy of 2nd Ed is in French… for some reason) and a few friends and I are currently playing an ongoing Warhammer Quest campaign – we’ve played about 8 big games so far and we’re loving it. So the idea of a new Space Hulk really got my interest, more than any army-nerfing flavour-killing Codex ever could.
So with my interest raised to points it had not been in some time, I decided that it would be more useful to review something I care about, rather than something I find distasteful. And with little (!) preamble out of the way, onto the review…
The Box – OR – ‘Someone want to help me lift this?’ I mentioned in the original Hulk thread here at Dakka that I pre-ordered Space Hulk within 10 seconds of seeing the box art (let alone the models). Why 10 seconds? It took a few seconds for my sense to return and for me to manually close my jaw.
Now that I have the box, it’s everything it should be. It’s big, it’s got a great piece of artwork on the front, it’s covered on all sides by lots of info and little painting ideas and things like that (flashbacks to the Tyranid Attack box!). It’s also heavy. Really heavy. The box came in another box that had ‘4kg’ listed, and I believe.
There’s so much crammed into this box that I’m not going to list it all, and everything comes shrink-wrapped in thick plastic. The dice have their own bag, and even the Sand Timer has a bubble wrap sleeve. Everything arrived in perfect condition.
The box ‘feels’ good – that’s about the best way I can describe it.
The Models – OR – ‘Really? They can do that with 3-piece plastic moulding these days?’ As usual the first thing you do after opening the box is scramble to pick up the models and have a look. There are three and a bit sprues, but most of you know that already. Most of the Terminators are 3 pieces – an arm, their head/front torso, and everything else. Details are as sharp as ever, the poses are dynamic, and generally speaking these are without a shadow of a doubt the most revolutionary plastic models
GW has done for a game release since the plastic heroes in Warhammer Quest over a decade ago.
When Quest first came about the Barbarian, Wizard, Dwarf and the Elf were all miles ahead of the other
GW plastics. This was the age of one-pose single-piece models, so in that box you got 6 Orcs all in the same pose, 12 Skaven all in the same pose, 3 terrible Minotaurs all in the same terrible pose, etc.. But these four heroes were a step forward. They weren’t just the plastic Wood Elf Elf, or the plastic Dwarf from the Dwarf regiment box, or the cheap Talisman plastic Wizard – these were richly detailed (for the time) dynamically posed and were really heroes. They went a long way to making playing those characters feel a lot better.
These new Terminators take that to a whole new level. The Librarian and Sergeant Gideon (with his Thunder Hammer) are especially good, and there’s little to find fault with. And they’re all different which, as I said about the Quest plastics, is critical to giving us identifiable heroes. Every Marine in this game has a name, a back-story, a personality – and these models, as they’re all unique, help with that.
The Genestealers are equally as impressive, and although they are waving their arms about, gathering skulls and helmets because of their OCD and generally doing strange things with their arms, they are detailed very well and easily convey the sense of darting swift dangerous aliens. The Broodlord is ace as well – nice and huge. He will be joining my Tyranid army as a replacement for the current ‘KAAAAHHNNNNN’-screaming Broodlord.
Nifty details like the dead Terminator on the throne (referred simply to as ‘Dead Space Marine’ in the rulebook, which I find morbidly funny), the chalice (which needed to be two pieces for some reason) and the CAT, which is awesome as we now have a model for a CAT. He’ll be acting as my Forward Spotter in Planetstrike.
Not everything is 100% though. There are two sprues of the same Stealers in here, which means you’re getting some repetition. Now that’s not such a huge deal – they’re not the heroes of this game, they’re the cannon fodder – but there are a number of distinct models within the Genestealers – the one bursting through the floor plating is a good example – that having two of them is a bit strange. Luckily the ‘big’ detailed Genestealers (the ones hanging off door frames and whatnot) are on the same sprue as the Broodlord, and therefore separate.
The blue of the sprue also does a fair bit to hide the details on the Genestealers. Not a problem if you’re painting them, but as these models have been deliberately coloured to act as game pieces for a board-game (as opposed to miniatures for a tabletop wargame), I think they could have chosen a lighter shade of blue so that those not painting them could see a bit more of the detail.
Finally my real complaint about the models are the bases. I don’t mind that they’re not on round bases or anything like that, but the bases they are on seem very strange. They’re meant to represent the panels and tiles within a hulk – and for the ‘Stealers this works quite well – but for the Marines they’re on random polygonal shapes that exist only to stretch between their feet, with weird angles and random shapes. What’s more is that they don’t in any way help to indicate which way the Terminator is facing. The rules cover that – wherever your head is pointing that’s the way you’re facing – but they could have just as easily put them on square bases with a point on one side to show facing.
Overall, the miniatures are excellent. Truly excellent. They make recent plastic success stories (like the Black Reach Warboss) look outdated in comparison.
The Tiles – OR – ‘Yes, they really do fit with previous editions!’ To be perfectly honest, I never wanted plastic tiles – 3D or otherwise. Another thing to paint, another thing to store, another thing that would have limited use and, most importantly of all, be of no use with my other editions of Space Hulk. When it was confirmed and finally shown that the tiles would in fact be cardstock, I was overjoyed. I know that’s not an opinion shared by everyone, but for me it was fantastic, and the chief reason I bought the box.
The main sticking point was whether they fit with the old tiles. When
GW stores got their preview copies I ducked in bringing an old 1st Ed Space Hulk tile with me (1st and 2nd Ed tiles are functionally identical, the 2nd Ed ones just have better art). The result is that they fit, but there’s a striking difference between the new and old.
The new tiles are thick.
Really thick. Twice as thick as the old ones. That makes them strong, yes, but it means that you get a certain amount of ‘levelling’ when you combine the three tile sets.
As for the tiles themselves they are simply out of this world. The artwork is impressive, above and beyond the previous editions in almost every respect (more on that in a sec). A couple of them are Blood Angel specific, for those thinking about using these for Dark Heresy campaigns, special Necromunda scenarios or whatever, but that’s not a huge deal. The rooms have nifty features and themes to them – one is a small chapel, one is an AdMech room, one has Servitors in it (!), one is an observation deck with a window out to space in the centre. There are cryotanks, one invested by Tyranid growths, a room with tombs in it – lots of options and choice, and all in vibrant colour and excellent detail.
The other cool thing is that these tiles are a culmination of 20 years of game development, not just for Space Hulk but also for
40K as a whole.
40K has taken a long time to get to the GRIMDARK over-the-top silliness that we have today, and this tileset is quick to include things that are now established in the fluff. For example, some fuel tanks in one of the corridors are the same fuel tanks that are mounted on the back of a Baneblade, showing a level of standardisation in the Imperium. The Servitors look like Servitor models. The servo-arms coming out of the walls look like the ones on a Servo-Harness. The random bits of detail and so on make sense and fit in, giving a cohesive vision to the universe. It’s very nice.
The tiles also have embossed detail work. It’s not extensive, but does give a little bit of depth to everything. The main Blood Angel room even has each skull on the floor raised up, giving it a studded look. This is a detail that they didn’t need to include – flat tiles would have done – but did it anyway. Also probably explains why everything is so thick!
The doors, as well, deserve a special mention. They’re ultra thick, like everything else, but every single one of them is different. They all have unique art, sometimes they’re even different on both sides. Again, it’s something they didn’t need to do, yet did anyway, so that’s a great little touch.
Of course, as this is me talking, I have to find something to be negative about, so let me say that the corridors (not the rooms) do leave something to be desired. They’re certainly better than the 1st Ed corridors, but they’re mostly monotone grey/green gratings and walls with some pipes, the odd broken tile or hatchway. High quality yes, but nothing special. The 2nd Ed tiles were bright and interesting. These are more realistic (and more GRIMDARK), but just aren’t as flashy.
The tiles are awesome. I could see myself eBay-ing a second set (sans models).
The Counters & Other Stuff – OR – ‘Anyone seen the Psy-Points counter?’ Like the tiles and doors, all the counters are really thick. This is actually good as it makes them stand out easily, even on the same coloured background, so you can see where they are and not lose track of them (especially important on the mission console thingy that tracks Ammo/Command Points/Psy-Points).
Blip counters look nice, and, like I said, are nice and thick and stand out, so the Marine player won’t lose track of them easily. The arrows for Genestealer entry are very cool. No need to look back at the mission book to check which corridors are entryways any more, because we have fancy arrow counters. It’s another one of those things that didn’t need to be done, but is a welcome addition.
Guard and Overwatch counters look nice enough, although I noticed that you don’t get enough Guard counters to put everyone on Guard. That’s a nitpick, and I can’t really see people putting their Assault Cannon on Guard (for example), but I thought I’d mention it. The other cards and counters are all nice – power field generators (double sided with ‘damaged’ and ‘operational’), the little force barrier for the Librarian, little Aquila counters for ‘Marine Controlled Areas”. Ammo tokens, nice flamer templates (a damn-sight better than the 1st Ed ones that had a picture of a Heavy Flamer on them) and heaps and heaps of ladder up/ladder down counters, which is nice.
The command console thing is also nice, again with raised and embossed details. It’s very big, and should be easy to use. The dice are bigger than regular
GW dice – probably scatter dice sized – and you get five of them with a nice bone-coloured style to them. The sand timer I honestly thought was going to be a cheap piece of plastic, half of which will break in transit. The reality is that it is quite solid. The downside is that not everyone has got 3 minutes of sand in there. I do, but I’ve heard people getting as low as 2:45. Not a world-ending problem by any means, but it would have been nice for a bit more consistency, and little less “Made in China”-ness about the timer. I haven’t tried out the plastic bases for the doors yet, so I can’t tell you how well they work. Given how thick the doors are, probably quite well.
So what don’t I like about ‘the rest’. Well, the Blips only go up to 3, and that’s sad. The expanded blip set from the 1st Ed expansions, and the standard set in 2nd Ed, went up to 6 Genestealers. Now I’m not hugely fussed about not having Blips for 4, 5 or 6 ‘Stealers, but I am annoyed at not having the 0 Blip. The 0 Blip added an fun extra dynamic to the game – a way to fake out your Marine opponent – and added a lot to the game
IMO. I wish this version had just come with the expanded counter set as standard. Also, oddly, there are nine 1 Blips, nine 3 Blips but only four 2 Blips. Not really sure why. Seems like an oddly arbitrary figure… *checks credits*… no, Robin ‘
Arbitrary’ Cruddace is mentioned, but I don’t think he wrote it, so no clue as to why we got this strange number.
Overall the counters are a nice improvement, and the thickness works to their advantage. It will be difficult to forget to move a blip because you lost its thinness on a tile section – they’re very thick and easy to spot.
[EDIT]: Oh, and they give you four ziplock bags in the box to put all the various counters in. Very nice!
The Rules – OR – ‘2nd Ed sucked!’ I was honestly surprised when I first picked up the rulebook. Clocking in at 24 pages, the thing is thin and flimsy. They feel like one of those multi-page full-colour hobby brochures they used to have piles of in
GW stores during the 90’s. I know it’s not a game with heaps of rules, but I wasn’t really all that impressed by the rulebook. The mission book is a bit better, as it has heaps of fluff so it’s more robust.
From a production standpoint however the books are great. Full colour, easy to understand diagrams, great new artwork, everything is explained – Gwar! will have nothing to do when it comes to this book – so I can’t complain there. There are some rules that I’m not too happy about. Limiting overwatch to 5+ (4+ for the Assault Cannon) is annoying and I don’t know why they did it. Allowing the Assault Cannon a reload but not the Heavy Flamer – I don’t know why they did that either. Marines are still utterly hosed in
HTH, which is ok, but I’m not sure if the buffs the Sergeants get are going to be enough to mitigate that fact somehow.
The Broodlord is very tough, and due to the way the rules mechanics work the Heavy Flamer can’t do anything to him, and that strikes me as very odd. Honestly the best ways to kill the Broodlord are in
HTH (perplexingly) or with the Assault Cannon. There is one arbitrary rule in there – the Libby can’t zap Broodlord. Ok, so that’s to stop your Libby head-shotting the Broodlord the moment he shows up, but still.
And speaking of the Libby, he’s nice. The Psy-Points – to the collective sighs of those unhappy with the Genestealer expansion – are really simple to use. You’ve got useful powers (a blast that either acts as a good single shot or a backup Heavy Flamer, one that creates a barrier and one that gives you extra Command Points). You have a decent amount of points to spend, so they will go a long way, just not all the way. It’s also possible for the Libby to kill anything in
HTH, especially as he adds Psy-Points to his score
after all the dice are rolled and any re-rolls are made. Essentially, as long as he has Psy-Points to burn, he can choose whether he wins or loses combat.
I think that everything except the Chainfist has a good place – the Chainfist just auto-kills doors, which is ok I ‘spose, and will have contextual use in various missions. The Chainfist guy is a solution looking for a problem – he is only useful when faced with jammed doors, so they have to find reasons to include him so he can be useful (although I will note that Mission 8 has a stack of blocked doors yet you don’t get the Chainfist guy – weird eh?).
Overall though the rulebook and the rules are well presented and simple enough for anyone to learn. Good game to play with little brothers, sisters, kids, or even the grandkids (hi again Fraz!).
Then there’s the mission book, my biggest disappointment in this wonderful new box.
Great production values, colour artwork, looks amazing, has lots of fluff for all the Marines, general overviews of the Imperium, some great new artwork (the Terminator having his armour put on by a gaggle of Techpriests and Servitors is really nice), introduces you to the characters in this story, the back story for the missions – it’s great. I love books like this. But it has one major sticking point.
There are only 12 missions.
Now, 1st Ed had lots in its standard book. Deathwing and Genestealer added heaps more. The Space Hulk Campaigns book added four (or was it 3) whole new campaigns to that. Even 2nd Ed had three separate campaigns in it plus about 5 White Dwarf issues with new maps and new missions to play.
This has 12. And most of them are the standard missions. Suicide Mission and Exterminate – missions every Hulk veteran knows back to front - are the first two missions in the book. So few of them add new elements: Only one is multi-level. Only one uses the off-axis intersection. Given the scope of what you can do with the Space Hulk tiles, this is an extremely limited slice of what they could have done.
Now budgets are not endless, and printing more and more full colour pages and missions costs money, plus we can create our own missions – I get that – but it just seems like after the sheer awesomeness of these great new models, the fantastic cardstock terrain and the high production values and ‘sheen’ of the contents that this paltry offering with the missions is a real afterthought and leaves you going “
Oh… is that it?”. Especially when they’ve gone out of their way to include elements from the expansions (multi-levels, drop-chutes, the off-axis intersection), but have underutilised them horribly.
I’m sure they’ll be fun, and I’m sure anyone who has 1st Ed, 2nd Ed and all the extra missions (campaign book,
WD missions) can convert them across easily, but I just would have liked more, y’know?
Conclusion – OR – ‘No, seriously, where the f**k is your Guard review?” If you’ve noticed that I’m not as snarky or critical in this review compared to, say, my Codex Chaos review, it’s because I’m actually happy about something. I really like this release. It gave me everything I wanted from Space Hulk (except an expansive selection of missions), and gave us some of the best plastics
GW has ever made.
The mystery box thing that brought us to Space Hulk was a complete clusterfeth and, worse,
GW will see the success of Space Hulk as a success of their asinine mystery box idea, so we’re going to see more of that to be sure (oh goody,
GW being even
more secretive than they already are – what fun!).
I heartily recommend this box to anyone who is bored of the tired old routine of
GW Codices ruining your armies and shifting the power balances, and for people who want to get away from Kill Points and do something different. I recommend it to anyone who likes Necromunda, or is planning Dark Heresy campaigns, as the tiles look great and offer a lot of opportunities for fun game play and great storytelling. I recommend it to Blood Angel players, as it’s more compelling than your White Dwarf Codex (and probably has better written rules). I recommend it to Tyranid players as the Broodlord is totally awesome!
And I recommend you get it now, while the eBay market is flooded with them, as within 6 months they will dry up and those fools asking for $300 a set now will actually be able to demand that price.
This is a cool product.
Thank you,
Commissar Matthias Calgar, the Half Brother of Marneus Calgar
Daemons: 5000+ points
CSM/Black Legion: 5000+ points
Deathwatch/Knights: 5000 points
)
) and I can honestly say that I agree with everything H.B.M.C. has said. In a slightly more understated and less excitable way.
18.000 
3.500 
8.200 
3.300 
2.400 
3.100 
5.500 
2.500 
3.200 
3.000
Chaos Space Marines
