Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It appears that the Genestealers are more often than not on the winning side.
Reasons?
Speed, better cc abilities, surprise attacks, and outnumbering.

Some of them yes, but some of the later missions look like an absolute nightmare. Some of the balance has shifted, such as the Flamer in the first mission not getting a reload. You used to be able to fire it at least 11 times without having to worry about auto-failing the mission.

This time, not so much. You can only fire it 5 times.

I read the battle report in WD.
Andy won but had almost too much luck in the endgame.

Still makes me laugh that the elite terminators need 6's to hit at close range in the Hulk but 3+ in a big battlefield...
Mick

The problem with Space Hulk (and it has ALWAYS been the problem) is that the Angels are much better when they don't move, but only 1 mission doesn't have them needing to run all over the place.

I think they need to give the Terminators an armor save. Not the standard 2+, but maybe a 4+. They have always died too easily in Hulk.

The game was always about the suspense, and a sense of hopelessness when facing down the aliens.

I found the comment about "elite" Terminators playing differently in Space Hulk then in the WH40K! To me, Space Hulk was always the "Hollywood" of WH40K (in that respect) where essentially, the Marines had met their match in the form of an Alien terror from beyond the void!

Having to rolls 5 and 6s to hit, respresents the speed that genestealers are moving, and their ability to simply dodge oncoming fire!!

Plus, it also takes the 4+ to wound into effect too.

Mattlov wrote:The problem with Space Hulk (and it has ALWAYS been the problem) is that the Angels are much better when they don't move, but only 1 mission doesn't have them needing to run all over the place.

When you say it's "the problem" - it's essentially the heart of the gameplay balance for the marine player. You need to move (and therefore make yourself more vulnerable) in order to accomplish your mission.

whenever i've played the marines do quite well, as long as the player controlling them, focus's on their objective

I find it's about 50/50, unlik the original XP

I found the new ruleset to be very marine friendly. Especially, the sustained fire on overwatch and the rule where you just unjam the weapon for a cp and you are still are on overwatch.

Get a stealer in a 4 square long corridor and he should be toast before he even gets near you to CC. HAve a room with two marines on overwatch, and forget it. Genstealer barely has a chance.

With the standard missions you have to keep moving the guys heading for the objective and have certain units creating overwtach kill zones.

Mattlov wrote:
I think they need to give the Terminators an armor save. Not the standard 2+, but maybe a 4+. They have always died too easily in Hulk.

Now i dont play spulk but im assuming it uses the same armour save method as 40k, on a 2+ you succeed and under that you fail it.

so a 2+ is better than a 4+

I didnt get it either watch this BR for a better understanding of Spulk.

http://www.youtube.com/user/miniwargaming#play/all/uploads-all/1/DlCgTUKgFeo

I always thought it would better with some sort of IG boarding parties, the marines just die too easily to make sense in the 40k universe.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I always thought it would better with some sort of IG boarding parties, the marines just die too easily to make sense in the 40k universe.

true...

But the game is still fun

Played my first one today... I won with one marine left... forgot his name, but it is the one with the xenos head in his hands... (powerfist and storm bolter)

corpsesarefun wrote:Now i dont play spulk but im assuming it uses the same armour save method as 40k, on a 2+ you succeed and under that you fail it.

You assume wrong. There is no such thing as an armour save in Space Hulk.

However I endorse the word "spulk" to be the Official Diminuitive Version of Space Hulk

No love for Spacek?

I got to play a few games, and from what I saw the marines have a pretty big advantage in many of the missions. This is due to only 1 thing, OVERWATCH.

Basicly, overwatch, the stationary subsequent shot bonus, and a few command points = no chance to stealers advancing. Stealers basicly just sit there waiting to die. And thanks to such tight bottlenecks, the stealers more or less take turns getting shot. The math somewhat equates to a dead stealer by the time he takes 3 squares of movement, yet the chance that the marine will jam is only 1/6 per shot, and with at least 1 command point, a single overwatch termie is nearly guarenteed to be able to kill 3 stealers IN THE STEALERS TURN with just ONE command point!

While I didnt play all the missions yet, I think a turn deadline would provide the necessary pressure to get those marines moving, instead of just hunkering down in overwatch for hours. That, or if the stealers could come in from unexpected angles every once in a while, representing bursting through the floor or ceiling (there is even the 'stealer models doing this!).

DevianID wrote: a single overwatch termie is nearly guarenteed to be able to kill 3 stealers IN THE STEALERS TURN with just ONE command point!

How? Re-read the Overwatch rules again.

Overwatch lasts until the Terminator takes an action: pg. 13 "If a Space Marine is attacked in close assault or performs any action(other than clearing a jam) he immediately loses his overwatch status." Overwatch allows a shoot ACTION when a Genestealer enters a Terminator's LOS, hence the Terminator shoots once, thus fulfilling the requirements for Overwatch to end. An Overwatched Terminator will kill 1 Stealer at most.

Also, Overwatch is 2 CP, not one.

Platuan4th wrote:

DevianID wrote: a single overwatch termie is nearly guarenteed to be able to kill 3 stealers IN THE STEALERS TURN with just ONE command point!

How? Re-read the Overwatch rules again.

Overwatch lasts until the Terminator takes an action: pg. 13 "If a Space Marine is attacked in close assault or performs any action(other than clearing a jam) he immediately loses his overwatch status." Overwatch allows a shoot ACTION when a Genestealer enters a Terminator's LOS, hence the Terminator shoots once, thus fulfilling the requirements for Overwatch to end. An Overwatched Terminator will kill 1 Stealer at most.

Also, Overwatch is 2 CP, not one.

Uh... Huh? I see how you're reading that, but every fiber of my experience playing SH since it first came out says that's dead wrong... Aside from "gut feeling" and experience with the game, the text of the rules states, "When in overwatch, a Space Marine... can perform shoot actions". Moreover, the example in the rules clearly shows the marine takes more than one Overwatch shot without "resetting" his overwatch. Also read the rules for Sustained Fire on p19. They make no sense if OW is lost when you take a single shot.

Vale,

JohnS

Cygnnus is correct.

The example on the next page shows that you take a shot everytime the genestealer moves. It was the reason for overwatch.

In the 1st edition rules when you jammed you lost overwatch. I think this rule was also in the 2nd edition.

So you would need 3CP and the genestealer to move 3 spaces to start shooting again (move 1 shoot and jam, move 2 clear jam, move 3 place on overwatch, move 4 shoot again).

I think this changed has drastically given the space marine a better chance of winning.

Overwatch has always worked that way throughout all 3 editions. You don't lose it by shooting once...

Overwatch is crucial, but so is opening doors to get lines of sight and forcing the Nid player to involuntarily reveal. Since their action stops when they're revealed by the SM player, having long corridors of open lines of sight makes it much easier for the SM player to have chances to shoot.

This was particularly the case in the second mission. Because of the long, narrow hallways and lines of sight, two terminators on overwatch were easily able to shoot the stealers before they even got close in a very nasty crossfire.

DevianID wrote:I got to play a few games, and from what I saw the marines have a pretty big advantage in many of the missions. This is due to only 1 thing, OVERWATCH.

Basicly, overwatch, the stationary subsequent shot bonus, and a few command points = no chance to stealers advancing.

Not at all. in most cases where the marine player can line up nice, long line of fire and casually pick off genestealers, it means he's doing nothing to complete the mission goals. That's why one of the sound tactics of the genestealers is to amass units nears ambush points the Marine player will have to pass along the way. Genestealers are going to die, but if the Overwatch stormbolter jams and there are no points left to clear it...

So wait...marines can actually win in this edition??!

Haha. I guess marines would never win if overwatch shot once.

I've been playing the hell out of space hulk this week. Got it on tuesday of last week and have played 10+ games.

At first, especially if you've never played space hulk before, it seems next to impossible to win a game as marines. But you'll find that each mission as it goes from 1-12 is basically a tutorial on how to play better. My good friend (and excellent wargamer) and I just sat their and played the first 4 missions until we could figure out at least one method of winning. I'd start as marines, try some ideas, and lose the mission. Then he'd play marines, perfect the ideas I had or add new ones, and usually would win as space marines. Its an incredibly challenging game for both sides, and is VERY tightly balanced. I guess that's what happens when you made a game and playtested it for 20 years, then tweaked it just enough to iron out any kinks.

Mission 1 = tutorial on how to use the sergeant and guard to get through dangerous corners, and how to use the heavy flamer to effectively funnel genestealers

Mission 2 = tutorial for using the assault cannon to do double duty, and tutorial for the genestealer player to learn to lurk more and not just go headlong into death

Mission 3 = combining lessons from mission 1 and 2, and learning how to not get in each others way for overwatch.



If anyone is having a problem with mission 1 still and just wants to see the marines win once, so you know its possible scroll down and I'll write up a quick walk through.


SPOILER ALERT





















Start with the sergeant, then heavy flamer, then the three storm bolters. Shoot the door on your right whenever each guy gets line of sight to it, spend command points to move the whole train as far forward as possible. The last guy in the train is going to turn and fire at the door then go on overwatch, he'll just stay here for the rest of the game. The sergeant is going to round the corner at the fork, opening up a lane of fire for the heavy flamer who will fire one shot down the hallway to block it off. Do NOT round the corner with the sergeant if you don't have enough command points to go on guard. If you get a low command point total, keep the whole train back in the hallway and go on overwatch with the sergeant. If the sergeant survives the close combat when on guard (which he should) then he can round the next corner, clearing the hallway with shots as he goes. Depending on if genestealers are going to reach him in CC or not, he should finish with either overwatch or guard. The flamer can round the corner safely now, the two storm bolters not doing rearguard duties can both go on overwatch and cover the heavy flamer's six. If you get enough command points and don't roll poorly, on the next turn the sergeant can step past the side hallway to the objective, clearing it up to their and going on guard. As a genestealer player sometimes i try to slip some genestealers into the side hallway to slow down the marines. Turn the sergeant into that hallway and kill off the genestealers trying to hide in front of the objective and block the rest of the reinforcements with another heavy flamer shot. On the next turn get the sergeant back out of the hall and turn into it with the heavy flamer, and its game over. The genestealers can't really afford to lurk-stack in this mission because the path is so short and if the sergeant turns the corner of the fork and there aren't any genestealers within 6 squares, he can just go on overwatch and you won't ever get to attack.

The rest of the missions are so complicated and there are clearly a couple different ways to do each that a walkthrough would be ridiculously long. I just wanted to write this here so that if you felt like i did for the first 3 games that you could see that every mission is indeed very winnable for marines, but you are also almost guaranteed to lose every mission very badly the first time you play it.

Still makes me laugh that the elite terminators need 6's to hit at close range in the Hulk but 3+ in a big battlefield

They kill on a 6, right?

And in 40K, with a round of shooting, they hit one time in three, would one time in two, no save. One in six.

And they shoot twice.

But in Space Hulk, they can shoot up to 4 times. So they're actually more effective in Space Hulk.

Space hulk is actually pretty balanced. Like an earlier poster said, its about suspense and overwhelming the odds.

Genestealers are all about flooding the hallways and getting into CC. Marines are about moving tactically, but swiftly, and not making mistakes. What i've noticed in my limited playtime is its easier to make mistakes with the marines and get stomped, where as playing the stealers theres very little margin of error. Even if you clear the way they can still bring in tons of threats a turn that the SM player HAS to take out.

I honestly like playing SM's more in it. I like the fact theres a lot of thought involved and your going against the timer to get your mission done. Even if I lose, its still way more fun to me

Bah, to hell with it. I'm gonna order mine tomorrow from the Warstore. GW US still has some meaning neil can probably get his hands on it.