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Just bring back Bommerz Over Da Sulphur River!

 Bulldogging wrote:
I'd really like a silver tower for 40k.

Right!? That'd be a license to print money, imo...

Maybe it's just me, but I think that the Space Marines in the Labyrinth of the Necrons game might be using the molds from the Space Marine Heroes collection out of Japan.

I believe you are correct.

 RiTides wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:
I'd really like a silver tower for 40k.

Right!? That'd be a license to print money, imo...

Would that not just be a reprinting of Space Crusade?

No, Space Crusade wasn't really a dungeon crawl. Each player had an entire squad of space marines to command and it played a little bit more like Space Hulk than it did something like Hero Quest or Silver Tower (although it was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side, being a kids game).

I too would love a 40k Warhammer Quest like game (I'd prefer a bit more campaign/character advancement stuff in it than Silver Tower had, but that sort of thing), perhaps centred around an Inquisitor and his retinue (or a Rogue Trader and crew going on space adventures).

When Deathwatch: Overkill came out, I thought it was going to be the 40K version of Silver Tower. In fact, I think it could still be done - primarily changing the enemies (Chaos, Necrons, Dark Eldar, etc.). Could even do non-marine heroes too (An Admech Dominus + Skitarri guards, A sister of Battle, Slybo and/or the Last Chancers, even Xeno "allies" - an Eldar Aspect Warrior, an Ork Nob, maybe a reprogrammed Necron Immortal...)

 Zethnar wrote:
No, Space Crusade wasn't really a dungeon crawl. Each player had an entire squad of space marines to command and it played a little bit more like Space Hulk than it did something like Hero Quest or Silver Tower (although it was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side, being a kids game).

I too would love a 40k Warhammer Quest like game (I'd prefer a bit more campaign/character advancement stuff in it than Silver Tower had, but that sort of thing), perhaps centred around an Inquisitor and his retinue (or a Rogue Trader and crew going on space adventures).

Space Crusade was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side? Well, we must played different games then. This game was pure hell for the SM side would better describe the situation on the board. Here are some points off the top of my head:

1. There was a time limit for the SM represented by a random events card deck. A lot of these events were very detrimental for the Astartes (Booby trap, Genestealer Ambush, etc.).

2. Clever positioning of the blips made sure that the Invaders could attack first. This is very bad for the SM grunts (see 2 & 3).

3. Armour did NOT protect in close combat. I know it sounds weird but this was a fact. The combatant who scored higher won the fight and the loser lost an amount of wounds which was equal to the difference of the respective rolls (e.g: Attacker rolls 4, Defender rolls 1; Defender loses 3 wounds).

4. A squad consisted of four SM grunts (each with 1 wound) & a Sergeant (six wounds). Needless to say, the grunts always died in droves. Why? Well, see point 3. Orks & Gretchin would just assault them in close combat and hope for the best because their ranged attack sucked vs. power armour.

5. There were also reinforcements blips in some missions. This meant even more adversaries to kill. Did the SM get any boni against these odds? Nope! What a slaughter.

6. The Chaos Dreadnought. Jesus Christ, this thing was just brutal. Just imagine Ed-209 (robot from Robocop) on dope. Apart from twin-linked bolters it also had two heavy weapons. You cannot imagine the carnage this thing was capable of. Just deploy it right from the start against the SM player who was less suited to combat it effectively and your chances are very high to wipe out all the grunts in a single turn.

Ed-209 in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9l9wxGFl4k


Did I enjoy this game? It was great and the video game had an awesome soundtrack.

Soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt8gwTho6Ag


The only gripe were the low chances for success, if you were not from the Blood Angels chapter. Their Sergeant had the only tools for reliable survival in each mission (Force Field: Armour 3; Bionic Arm: reroll one dice in close combat). ALWAYS equip him with power sword & power glove and he would wreck face. Also pick a melta bomb to destroy the Dreadnought in close combat.
The Sgt. of the Imperial Fists on the other hand would always die because he lacked any sort of defensive gear. And the Sgt. was crucial to the game. This guy always had to survive each mission in order to get promoted. Promotions meant that the squad would get more equipment cards and more order cards in the future.
Meanwhile equipping a Sgt. with the heavy bolter at the start of a mission was akin to a death sentence. He just couldn´t defend himself in melee properly from all those close combat attacks hurled his way.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
When Deathwatch: Overkill came out, I thought it was going to be the 40K version of Silver Tower. In fact, I think it could still be done - primarily changing the enemies (Chaos, Necrons, Dark Eldar, etc.). Could even do non-marine heroes too (An Admech Dominus + Skitarri guards, A sister of Battle, Slybo and/or the Last Chancers, even Xeno "allies" - an Eldar Aspect Warrior, an Ork Nob, maybe a reprogrammed Necron Immortal...)

The factor which makes Deathwatch enjoyable is that SM can fight two times in one turn, have two wounds and can even heal themselves by forfeiting an opprtunity for atttack. This makes them durable as they are portrayed in the fluff. Other imperial models would also need these rules for survival but that would infringe upon superhuman SM territory. So, human imperials would just suck. You would need the likes of Assassins or special characters (e.g.: Sly Marbo) for these Deathwatch missions.
Though other enemies would be a nice change to the gameplay but I don´t think the game system can support a lot of different cannon fodder units like gretchin, chaos cultist, etc. They would all end up with more or less the same statline. And Chaos Marines? They should only be armed with bolters and not with any sort of heavy weapon otherwise it would be too tough for the SM.

You must have been a better Alien player than I was. I found that inflicting damage on Marines was too difficult, and that having three Marine players co-ordinating their actions was too difficult for me to deal with. I couldn’t get enough attacks on Marines to hurt them. Except for one game where I simply put most of the blips in a single board section.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
You must have been a better Alien player than I was. I found that inflicting damage on Marines was too difficult, and that having three Marine players co-ordinating their actions was too difficult for me to deal with. I couldn’t get enough attacks on Marines to hurt them. Except for one game where I simply put most of the blips in a single board section.

The road to success as an Alien player was to concentrate your attacks on one SM chapter at a time. It´s like in 40K. Just unload all your guns on one unit and destroy it. Then pick another enemy unit. Rinse & repeat.

A lot of Alien players just used their Orks & Gretchins in a wrong way. NEVER shoot SM grunts because the odds are not in your favour. You basically have to roll a 10+ on two D6 (Ranged Firepower: Two white attack dice) to kill an Astartes. Just circumvent their power armour by attacking them in cc (see my previous post).

If you were up against three SM chapters, attack the Imperial Fists first and just put one blip or even none for the other players to kill. The placement of your blips is also crucial. Never put them in the first room. Put them in the second room or let them wait in a hallway but out of LOS. Remember, you want to strike first. Imperial Fists with suspensored heavy weapons are very dangerous to all of your minions. Also pay attention to the orders that were picked by the SM players. These could screw you over.

The main advantage of the Fists were their Suspensors attached to their heavy weapons (Movement: 6). Kill these yellow grunts in the first or the second turn with the Chaos Dreadnought and swarm the Sgt. with the rest of your blips. This is not only a valid tactic from a gameplay perspective but also terrifies the other two players on a psychologically level as they can only watch helplessly in horror as their fellow brothers are annihilated in a quick and brutal fashion. When the Fists are finished choose the next squad for eradication...

The Chaos Dreadnought is only susceptible to heavy weapons and a Sgt. with power glove & power sword. It´s armour value of 4 is just so intimidating. How will it survive? Just kill the grunts with heavy weapons first, and attack the Sergeants without proper melee gear in cc.
But how do you deal with this nasty Blood Angel Leader? He is such a monster in melee. Well, just use a Blood Bowl tactic here. The answer is stalling. First, the BA Sgt. can only kill one invader at a time. With all of his grunts dead this is very bad news for him. Just choke the hallway or room in which he is standing with Gretchins & Orks and shoot him. Your chances of hurting him are very slim but this not your goal. You are just creating a quagmire in which he cannot escape. And now let the turns pass away. While you do this, you are becoming stronger because you are drawing a random event card per turn. And now even Gretchins and Orks can become dangerous with cards like Gretchin Bomber or Ork Mek (both two red ranged attack dice). If the random event deck is empty and the Sgt. doesn´t make it to his boarding ship, he is considered dead.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Zethnar wrote:
No, Space Crusade wasn't really a dungeon crawl. Each player had an entire squad of space marines to command and it played a little bit more like Space Hulk than it did something like Hero Quest or Silver Tower (although it was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side, being a kids game).

I too would love a 40k Warhammer Quest like game (I'd prefer a bit more campaign/character advancement stuff in it than Silver Tower had, but that sort of thing), perhaps centred around an Inquisitor and his retinue (or a Rogue Trader and crew going on space adventures).

Space Crusade was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side? Well, we must played different games then.

To tell the truth I played it as a kid against other kids. I don't remember it being overly frustrating as a space marine, but I remember losing all the time as the alien player. I also remember everyone wanting to play as the Imperial Fists because they had the suspensors which let you move further with your heavy weapons. I guess it may be a very different game playing it as an adult.

 Strg Alt wrote:


The factor which makes Deathwatch enjoyable is that SM can fight two times in one turn, have two wounds and can even heal themselves by forfeiting an opprtunity for atttack. This makes them durable as they are portrayed in the fluff. Other imperial models would also need these rules for survival but that would infringe upon superhuman SM territory. So, human imperials would just suck. You would need the likes of Assassins or special characters (e.g.: Sly Marbo) for these Deathwatch missions.
Though other enemies would be a nice change to the gameplay but I don´t think the game system can support a lot of different cannon fodder units like gretchin, chaos cultist, etc. They would all end up with more or less the same statline. And Chaos Marines? They should only be armed with bolters and not with any sort of heavy weapon otherwise it would be too tough for the SM.

They did a prequel mission for Overkill, with an Inquisitor and some Kappic eagles (stormtroopers) - rules are up on the Community site
Stormtroopers still get two turns, but only have one wound.

 Zethnar wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Zethnar wrote:
No, Space Crusade wasn't really a dungeon crawl. Each player had an entire squad of space marines to command and it played a little bit more like Space Hulk than it did something like Hero Quest or Silver Tower (although it was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side, being a kids game).

I too would love a 40k Warhammer Quest like game (I'd prefer a bit more campaign/character advancement stuff in it than Silver Tower had, but that sort of thing), perhaps centred around an Inquisitor and his retinue (or a Rogue Trader and crew going on space adventures).

Space Crusade was more forgiving of screw-ups on the SM side? Well, we must played different games then.

To tell the truth I played it as a kid against other kids. I don't remember it being overly frustrating as a space marine, but I remember losing all the time as the alien player. I also remember everyone wanting to play as the Imperial Fists because they had the suspensors which let you move further with your heavy weapons. I guess it may be a very different game playing it as an adult.

Back in the day I was also a teenager playing this boardgame but you also had to play the videogame to become really proficient at it. There the AI would teach you a harsh lesson each mission you tried to accomplish. Just a few or even one bad dice roll could screw you over. It´s the same with Blood Bowl. If you are only playing against humans, your skill level will not increase significantly due to time constraints which lead to just a few games in a month. On the other hand, you can play against the AI several times at home on an evening and you learn much more.

I presented Blood Bowl yesterday to a young couple in a sort of gaming club which can be frequented once per month without attached costs. Both played Humans. They have never played a GW boardgame before. On the 7th turn the girl scored a TD and her boyfriend conceded the game because in his opinion the game was too difficult to understand. He also claimed that he was not interested in sport games at all. Then why did he chose to play Blood Bowl, you might be asking? I responded that you just need more practice to become good at it and thought that his ego was bruised because he was dominated by his girlfriend in these seven turns.

Up to this point she had lost one player due to a foul and severely injured three players (well, to be precise one of them tripped while sprinting and suffered a serious concussion). I acted as a referee and repeated the three steps to a successful turn over and over. Blood Bowl is not rocket science after all:

Step 1: Move all your players that are NOT in an opponent´s tackle zone in favoured positions. This means screening a ball on the pitch from the oppostion, preparing two dice blocks by the use of assists, barring the way for the opposition or screening your future ball receiver with another player. In a nutshell: Activate players for actions for which you do not have to roll a dice. Blood Bowl is a game about positioning your players and less about senseless mayhem.

Step 2: Perform actions with a high success rate. This would mean two dice blocks or even three dice blocks. After that do rolls on 2+ or even rolls on 3+ but you should have a reroll on hand. Also one dice blocks with a Block skill fall in this category.

Step 3: Perform risky moves or do nothing. Fouls fall in this category and all other actions with a lower chance of success than the ones described above. This always depends on the actual situation on the field. You have to evaluate here risk with the potential reward.

Did the guy listen to me? Nope! The majority of his turns ended quickly because of a turnover and he got frustrated by it. His following turns started with enraged one dice Blitz attempts and he also did two very stupid things:
First, he fouled with a Blitzer without any assists. I advised against it and told him to use a Lineman or even do something different because the chances of penetrating the armour is just too slim. But he fouled anyway, did nothing, was sent off the pitch and his turn ended. This was his first action of his turn...
The second blunder was about ball control. With a lot of luck, he acquired the ball from the opposition, threw it and received it without any disposable rerolls. And now he stretched his luck too far. He was in a very comfortable position but chose to sprint. Well, the player in question tripped of course and suffered a serious concussion for his efforts.
His opponent picked up the ball, performed a hand-off and scored the TD.

She on the other hand heeded my advice and performed her turn in these three steps. She only had to end one of her seven turns prematurely because of an unsuccessful block attempt.

What do I want to say with this? You have to play a game several times to find out how it functions and to avoid making less optimal moves.