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Hiya,

Just a few questions if someone can answer: Do all space marine chapters check out space hulks or are there select chapters or even orderswhich do, i've only heard of BAs? Do they only send in termies or do squads of marines also go in? Do imperial guard check out space hulks? does anyone know of any interesting fluff out there about space hulks?

Cheers for anyones help

Borneo

The fluff is absurd. Apparently Space Marine chapters throw away Terminators pursuing inane and questionable objectives inside of random floating space monstrosities they could more easily tow into a sun or otherwise destroy or simply ignore.

The other questions? Space Hulks can be investigated by just about anyone. Deathwing Terminators were featured in the Space Hulk video game at some point. In the 1st Edition rules (the last rule set to be actually supported past a one off boxed set release) had rules for all kinds of units, including power armored Marines and Genestealer hybrids, etc.

yeah i thought the same, but i was thinking for say weak numbered chapters with little resouces like the Raptors, sending in marines to check out a space hulk, maybe to take the fuel, or weapons or whatever, would they do that? or is it to just eradicate xenos? cheers for your reply

Space Hulks often contain important technological relics at best, at worst they can contain Ork Waaaghs or Genestealers(sometimes both)

They are potential threats that might have some hidden goodies. As such its not an option to ignore them.


The Ad Mech is going to be interested in Space Hulks for the technology. Space Marines, and anyone else, have much to gain by getting there first and snatching the goodies. Which they then give back to the Ad Mech for favors.

Not to mention if it's a famous space hulk that was formerly owned by a space marine chapter, it may still have holy relics/important secrets/various technological things neccessary.

Well considering that space hulks are largely made up of lost ships getting mashed together in the warp or some similar situation its normally possible to identify hulk 'components' from records of missing ships etc and once identified look up the missing ships manifest giving clues as to what maybe aboard it. As to who/what gets the lucky task of going on board... thats entirely whomever is in commands choice...

I think the extreme casualty rate in the new Space Hulk game fluff is ridiculous, but it might make sense if there's an actual artifact from Sanguinius on board the Blood Angels cruiser that's mashed into the hulk. That's pretty much the only circumstances I can think of where a chapter would roll up to a hulk and willingly risk (and lose) so many marines.

In general, space hulks are usually investigated by whoever finds them, but that doesn't mean a full-scale marine deployment happens for every one. For the Imperial Navy or local defense ships, making sure the hulk is clear of xenos is crucial, especially if it's headed toward an Imperial system. If 'stealers or orks were found aboard, and there seemed to be nothing worth saving on the hulk, cyclonic torpedoes or other planet-killing weapons would be deployed.

For other groups, such as the Ad Mech, or Rogue Traders, or seedier elements of the Imperium, or even Marines, hulks are worth investigating to check for ancient artifacts or lost technology. For instance, if I recall correctly, one of the Emperor class ships in service in the Gothic Sector was recovered from a hulk.

Sometimes Space Marines will recover relics, weapons, or armor from ships that have become part of a hulk, which is critically important when it comes to lost technology such as terminator suits or dreadnoughts or the like.

Even regular humans not associated with any authority will investigate hulks for the possible riches they might contain. Treasure hunters or salvage crews are a primary vector for spreading genestealer infestations to Imperial planets. These treasure hunters can end up unwittingly transporting genestealer stowaways, or even becoming hosts for the brood.

Hopefully all that expands on the possible options a little more.

TDA isn't lost technology. They can make new suits, its just harder then repairing an old one. TDA and PA are not STC technology.

It's important to remember that Space Hulk is just designed to be played as fun and internally balanced in a self contained format. It isn't really supposed to depict a "typical" action. Committing a Terminator company to the clearance of a Space Hulk would require an objective of great importance.

I think, over the years, the declining attention given to Space Hulk is because even GW realizes it's a little silly and incongruous with the setting. It would be kinda neat to see expansions given to it, but "mini games" aren't GW's bread and butter. They just don't sell enough models. Space Hulk's problem is that you buy Space Hulk, and you're done. There's no "hobby" to it. The box has all the models you'll ever need to play. Unless GW wanted to try and mass produce and mass market Space Hulk (which means making it a lot cheaper) like it tried with Space Crusade, it's never going to see much support. Heck, 3rd Edition didn't even give you usable models for 40K (unless you were willing to base and convert on your own). 2nd Edition had 40K usable Genestealers and the brand new (at the time) multi-part plastic Terminators.

I have the Space Hulk Campaigns book around somewhere and my buddy is finishing up (extremely slowly) painting his copy of the 3rd Edition game. I guess we'll play it at some point.

If there's Mechanicus about they'll try and get a boarding mission launched if possible, otherwise I'd assume that any sane Planetary Governor (...which isn't always the case) would send out the System Defence Forces to quaranteen the area and check if there's a chance of anything hostile getting out. If there's no reason to board it, or the Hulk's moving towards a habitated planet then I'd assume the SDF would try and destroy it, otherwise they'd just wait till it gets out of system. They'd quarnatine it as soon as they could to prevent people going aboard, which could result them being corrupted by whatevers on the ship (chaos, genestealers), taking tech that could otherwise serve the Imperium, or messing with the time it reenters the warp at.

Marines would board it if anyone should they see a reason too. If that's not the case then most humans would want to leave these death traps alone (not to say that they all are...but it seems to be a common case). But they do offer many chances of knowledge, ie even a ship's docking mechanisms or mechanical report logs if salvaged could aid the Imperium (in a Ciaphas Cain novel her remarks on these being much more compact than the current ones in use). ....But they do offer a cheap method of allowing huge numbers of people travel through the warp, thus why races that do care where they'll show up when they reappear again often inhabit them (ie Orks, wars war wherever it is to them, Genestealers, wherever they can create a cult is a boost to the Hive Fleets....). It doesn't seem as though a lost ship of Men of Iron has shown up in a system lately, so I guess the worst is yet to come though. =D

Hey, if you were a member of the "Scythes of the Emperor" chapter you would forget terminators and fire a boarding torpedo full of Scouts in the sphincter of a Tyranid Bio-ship. So when it comes to the absurb, they definitely get the Gold medal, boarding a Hulk of questionable valuable, chock to the Bulkheads with Genestealers comes a very close second.

Grey Templar wrote:TDA isn't lost technology. They can make new suits, its just harder then repairing an old one. TDA and PA are not STC technology.

Really? I was under the impression that very few chapters could repeatedly pump out TDA, and the only real one that has that capability to do so and continue churning them out is the Dark Angels.

I know some chapters venerate just about 1 to 10 TDA as if they were the holiest things they could ever come across, but than those might be the spin-off variants rather than an original.

Well its not as much just because as it is who is there and the Tactical Value , in the Book Cadian Blood the Cadian 88th goes into a Downed Chaos ship in the foundations of a huge ass church ( a little differnt i know ) but there was a space marine chapter ( Raven Guard 3rd Company ) that was there fighting the Death Guard XIV Legion . It dosn't matter , its just who stumbles upon it , in the DoW II the Cadian General and his group teleport onto a Space hulk temming with Orks and Tyranids-- just circumstances

Space Hulk is thematic for what it is, but pretty incongruous with the setting as a whole. In all reality, like in any of the books that feature it, a Space Hulk boarding action, when resistance is known/expected, would pretty much be represented by a special cramped Cityfight table, or with the new Zone Mortalis stuff from Forgeworld.

So a supported assault with anything from infantry, bikes, and dreadnought-equivalents depending on the race, rather than suicide missions by high-value troops inside corridors 6 feet wide.

I do like Space Hulk as a game, because it is a tremendous feeling when you succeed as the Marine player. It's not easy and it's a slog, but there are those moments when your Storm Shield guy blocks a corridor and kills 16 genestealers just by blocking the dooring way and constantly swinging his Storm Hammer.

Space Hulk is basically there to make Tyranid players feel good about themselves.

me and some mates are setting up a space hulk campaign sort of thing. Each player has a different faction, with one player as tyrannids. There are also 2 greenskin players, 2 scavenger gang players, a dark eldar player and i drew space marines. I was thinking would space marines even bother with this and just blow it up, but then i thought maybe they are really depleted and in desperate need of stuff, so send in a few marines. So i decided on Raptors but still unsure. I've also been asked to do the 3d terrain but my idea for it might be a bit expensive.

TDA and PA are not STC technology.

Since when?

I'm pretty sure all human technology is derived from STCs. Hence the importance of STCs.

Did it state in one of the HH Dark Angel books that they had powered armour before the Imperium discovered Calliban... because they had an STC?

STC translates loosely into low gothic as: Modeled by Jes Goodwin

STC is also a very, very broad term that often gets bandied around without any real understanding of what it would actually mean.

I mean, a Land Raider doesn't actually have a Machine Spirit, lol. Machine Spirit is just Imperium for "Advanced Computer (that we don't really understand too well)". Reciting litanies is just superstition. Occasionally, in bad fluff, it's actually been described as a real thing that has an actual effect though, so I can see how it is sometimes confusing.

All this chatting about hulks is making me want to replay the hulk missions in DoW. So awesome stomping about in there in terminator armour (Also the Blood Ravens seem to be a bit more resilient. ,aybe the hulk is aenemic)

Veteran Sergeant wrote:STC is also a very, very broad term that often gets bandied around without any real understanding of what it would actually mean.

I mean, a Land Raider doesn't actually have a Machine Spirit, lol. Machine Spirit is just Imperium for "Advanced Computer (that we don't really understand too well)". Reciting litanies is just superstition. Occasionally, in bad fluff, it's actually been described as a real thing that has an actual effect though, so I can see how it is sometimes confusing.

I'm not convinced it is an Advanced Computer, the Titan definitely has a spirit. The Imperium outlawed AI's, as there were lots of problems. I don't really see the machine spirit as an issue, because with the Warp and Psykers, Daemons et al I don't think it too far fetched that a machine could have a spirit. That said I do play Iron Hands so I'm biased.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:STC is also a very, very broad term that often gets bandied around without any real understanding of what it would actually mean.

I mean, a Land Raider doesn't actually have a Machine Spirit, lol. Machine Spirit is just Imperium for "Advanced Computer (that we don't really understand too well)". Reciting litanies is just superstition. Occasionally, in bad fluff, it's actually been described as a real thing that has an actual effect though, so I can see how it is sometimes confusing.

Yes because in a universe where the basic lasgun can get possessed by an evil daemon that wants you to literally feed it human blood through it's energy pack. Natural machine spirits don't exist.

Space hulk is, on its own merits, a fantastic game: there's a reason it won two Origins awards. (That's two more than GW have won for anything else.)

If I recall, Richard Halliwell had in fact written the game's basic system independently as an Aliens-esque board game, onto which a Warhammer 40,000 theme was later added, which would explain the disparities in gameplay between the two.

@English Assassin, that was a super post. I didn't know any of that and did a bit of background reading based on your info. I love finding posts like yours, it really fills in the blanks of my knowledge especially in the early years back in 93 when I got into the hobby.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:The fluff is absurd. Apparently Space Marine chapters throw away Terminators pursuing inane and questionable objectives inside of random floating space monstrosities they could more easily tow into a sun or otherwise destroy or simply ignore.

How does towing it into a sun or ignoring it help them reclaim ancient technology or holy relics?

Fluff makes sense to me.

AegisGrimm wrote:So a supported assault with anything from infantry, bikes, and dreadnought-equivalents depending on the race, rather than suicide missions by high-value troops inside corridors 6 feet wide.

Huh? How are you going to fit a dreadnought or bikes into the corridors of a starship?

mwnciboo wrote:@English Assassin, that was a super post.

Glad to be of help!

Huh? How are you going to fit a dreadnought or bikes into the corridors of a starship?

Because most of the insides of ships are portrayed in 40K as being huge vaulted galleries, especially Imperial/Chaos ships. Mammoth cargo bays, engineering decks, etc. Lots of the pictures from the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook show rooms that recede off into the distance.

At the worst, I would imagine high-value areas looking like the boards for FW "Zone Mortalis".

Dreadnoughts fit quite easily.

The original edition had wide corridor and hall sections, easily large enough to fit a dread - OK, it can't move beyond that bit, but it makes a good rear guard (or boss fight) if you have those pieces.

Space Crusade also had a chaos dread that the marines fought against. Supposedly onboard a spacecraft.

DeffDred wrote:

TDA and PA are not STC technology.

Since when?

I'm pretty sure all human technology is derived from STCs. Hence the importance of STCs.

Did it state in one of the HH Dark Angel books that they had powered armour before the Imperium discovered Calliban... because they had an STC?

STC translates loosely into low gothic as: Modeled by Jes Goodwin

The first mark of PA was an adaptation of an STC. All PA marks were improvements on the original design to the point where it is no longer related to the original.

The original PA was not sealed and was little more then a powered exosuit with ceramite plating.

Modern PA is a sophisticted suit, completely sealed and containing numerous medical, targeting, and communication systems. It bears almost no resemblence to the original material.

its kinda like how a MK5 tank is like an Abrams MBT. Both tanks, but light years apart.


TDA was a completely new thing. A hybridization of Dreadnought, Power Armor, and haz-mat suits.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Terminator_armour

And according to WD304 is still produced in limited numbers.

AegisGrimm wrote:

Huh? How are you going to fit a dreadnought or bikes into the corridors of a starship?

Because most of the insides of ships are portrayed in 40K as being huge vaulted galleries, especially Imperial/Chaos ships. Mammoth cargo bays, engineering decks, etc. Lots of the pictures from the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook show rooms that recede off into the distance.

At the worst, I would imagine high-value areas looking like the boards for FW "Zone Mortalis".

Granted, yes. But how do you propose to move between those large rooms? Most of a starship is going to be composed of small corridors and tiny rooms. Just because you can fit a Landraider in the cargo hold doesn't make it a good vehicle for boarding actions.