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Does anyone still play Advanced Space Crusade? I have fond memories of the game from the nineties. Found someone had posted the rules online and have been reading a bit. It's an interesting take on expanding Space Hulk -esque mechanics to cover a more skirmish-level game, and has datasheets for marines, guard, orks, chaos marines, tyranid warriors, genestealers, zoats and even squats.

Do you think reissuing the game might be feasible in the future? Miniatures-wise, every model in the game has a plastic kit equivalent these days (except for the squats). Space Hulk had a re-issue as well, so why not ASC? Admittedly some of the lore has been changed so not everything makes sense anymore (Are Tyranid mind slaves a thing? What about Chaos Androids LOL — didnt they become Necrons?), but I don't see why those aspects couldn't be altered to conform to contemporary fluff. I bet even I could "freshen" up the rulebook for current looks and lore, but aren't legally allowed to mess around with GW's IP and share it, right?

The rules could even be expanded to cover other types of "boarding scenarios". Imperial forces raiding a Necron tomb, for example.. just exhange Nids to Canopteks and Necron warriors, and the Hive ship systems to Necron tomb world support/control systems.

I digg the use of D12 in the core system and the fact it consolidates resolving combat to a single roll. Keeps the pace of the game going even with all the reactions and discreet steps of actions.

I could even see myself trying to shoehorn the ASC system into a bastardized version of Kill Team. Some tweaking would obviously be required in order to translate the square-based system into a freeform one, but I'd reckon it could be doable. 90-degree facings would probably be trickiest to deal with.

Any other fans of ASC still out there?

I only played Space Crusade (SC) back in the day. You can download the corresponding gaming materials such as blips, doors & floor sections and print them out.

Suffice to say, a few adjustments need to be made to the rules such as adding armour to close combat otherwise I wouldn't enjoy it. When a comparison is made between SC to the first Doom boardgame it becomes apparent that the former is sorely lacking in the rules department.

I've never played Space Crusade and I don't know if the rules are similar between the two. Could you parry close combat attacks in Space Crusade? Did you get a bonus for attacking a model from behind, or from attacking a prone model? Cuz all those things apply in ASC

Wow this is a coincidence, I literally just got hold of a copy of WD 131 (Nov 1990) which had the classic (very 80s/90s looking!) ASC cover.
Some really ace artwork



Very different game to classic Space Crusade and Space Hulk - from memory this had a lot more to it.
I remember going into a Games Workshop when this came out when I was a kid and thinking how gross the concept was (going through the ship to destroy organs etc.)
It always seemed to end with one dude (the miniature that basically looked like one of the Bros brothers, earring and shaved hair etc.) running through the ship on his own.
But some units (the marine Librarian) were really powerful and often were the last to survive.

In-between your post Tauist and reading the WD article I now really want to get hold of a copy of the game, then the old 1st edition metal scouts and beakie marines (plus original tyranid warriors!) to have a go at it.

I remember this, it was the game that introduced tyranid warriors (the upright dinosaur version), and space marine scouts. Splash damage from deathspitters, force fields from boneswords. Also the first time Genestealers were linked to the nids.

I recall the ambush mixes were brutal, 2 warriors could kill the scout squad before they got a shot off.

Sadly tyranid mind slaves are no longer a thing, I guess as the nid range expanded there was less need to "borrow" for variety.

A few years ago Jervis gave an interview where he said it was the least favourite of the games he'd written, mainly due to the D12 system. Personally I liked it, gave more granularity, and meant you had to worry about reloading. Looking back, I think quite a big of it ended up in Necromunda.

I can't see them redoing it, unless as a WHQ game with a similar thing. Lore-wise, entering a tyranid ship would be instantly fatal.

Has the thing of trying to board Nid ships ever been expanded upon since the older pieces of background?

I loved the sequence in Space Marine where they board the ship and are wondering what the hell is going on (where its just starting to wake up). Reminded me a bit of Star Trek: TNG where they first board the Borg ship and are basically ignored because they are not seen as a threat..

And of course you have it in Adv Space Crusade and then Tyranid Attack. I'm not sure I've seen anything in more recent background material (although I'll admit I am a bit out of the loop).

 Pacific wrote:
Wow this is a coincidence, I literally just got hold of a copy of WD 131 (Nov 1990) which had the classic (very 80s/90s looking!) ASC cover.
Some really ace artwork

Spoiler:

Very different game to classic Space Crusade and Space Hulk - from memory this had a lot more to it.
I remember going into a Games Workshop when this came out when I was a kid and thinking how gross the concept was (going through the ship to destroy organs etc.)
It always seemed to end with one dude (the miniature that basically looked like one of the Bros brothers, earring and shaved hair etc.) running through the ship on his own.
But some units (the marine Librarian) were really powerful and often were the last to survive.

In-between your post Tauist and reading the WD article I now really want to get hold of a copy of the game, then the old 1st edition metal scouts and beakie marines (plus original tyranid warriors!) to have a go at it.

I just missed a full copy of the game on ebay.. Sold for about 135$, which is surprisingly much on par with recent GW boxed game prices. Looking at the pieces that come with it, it'd look quite fugly by modern standards (its like comparing 1st ed Space Hulk board pieces and the 2014 reissue board pieces - worlds apart!), but might be a fun kit to get just for nostalghias' sake..

I'd love a remake with updated gfx and minis, like what they did to Space Hulk - one can dream..

Funny how Jervis said people hated the D12 aspect of it. I thought it was very cool myself, and would infact prefer it to hit/wound/save D6 given the choice.. rolling one die instead of three would speed up any game! Also, the concept of a dual profile of exposed/in cover model targets is interesting, and could be used to create a variety of target profiles that better reflect stuff like model size etc. It had a lot of neat mechanics ideas going for it.

You could see Blackstone Fortress as a kind of follow up - a small squad creeping around an alien vessel looking for important things to blow up, whilst weird stuff jumps out and tries to eat them.

ASC had much more detail and resource management for the alien player, but less progression for the good guys. I remember there was a "campaign board" where the alien would move his blips round to try and block off the scout squads over a series of combats.