Hey children of the 80s! British games maker GW has been on a hot streak lately updating some of their classic games like Talisman and Battlefleet for mobile platforms, or even bringing back tabletop versions of games like Space Hulk.

Now they've done it again reaching back into the archives for the table top classic Skull Crushers!

This game which pit a group of hulking barbarians against a seemingly endless hoard of skeletons kept us entertained for many Saturday nights is coming back with new models and artwork.



A company press release that came with our preview copy says "Games Workshop is proud to reintroduce Skull Crushers to new generation! The game includes 6 highly detailed heroes and over 30 nasty skeletons for them to crunch! Who will make it to the centre of the crypt and claim the Skull Hammer?"



The rules are dead simple and we were up and running in 15 minutes. It's a pretty normal tile-exploration game. Your heroes start on one tile and each turn at least one tile is added to the board but you can add more by stepping off the edge of the tile you're on. Each tile reveals treasures, tunnels (they work like warp zones), altars (healing and other buffs) and of course more skeletons! The final tile on the deck (with a red back to mark it) has both the legendary Skull Hammer and the fearsome She-Liche you must battle to gain it.

The art work on each tile is fantastic, loaded with tons of in-jokes and sly references to GW games. Squint and you can see a gravestone labeled 'Andrew Chambers-Traitor', a reference to a GW designer who defected to their rivals. Another reads 'Squats-Never to Return' a reference to a beloved faction in GW's science fiction game.



Each hero has different advantages and disadvantages. The Elf Scout for example has the fastest move and can jump over skeletons with his Acrobatics skill. But with his low armor and attacks you might find him surrounded and overwhelmed with none of the heavy fighters in any position to aid him.

On the other extreme the Chaos Warrior has the armour and attacks to smash through dozens of skeletons, but his low move will make him struggle to get anywhere useful.

The Battle Wizard can help with buffs, but will fall quickly in a straight up fight.

In most of our games the Scout quickly opened up several tiles but soon fell to the masses of skeletons which the rest of the party struggled to reach him. The heroes did best when they stuck together and took their time, but in two games that didn't work either when we found them surrounded and overwhelmed because we had not covered enough ground and found enough altars to buff the party for the final encounter.

We found it a fun game with good replay value, especially when the optional 'Sudden Death' rules were used. In that set up a wraith starts following the the party after a few turns and if you're not moving fast enough he starts to pick them off from behind.



The only gripe we have is the models are unpainted while the box shows them fully painted. A bit of a disappointment, but I guess we need to pick up a few pots and give it a go eh?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I played this a lot with my pals at university in the early 80s. It was one of our favourite games along with Car Wars and B17: Queen of the Skies.

But is this a straight reprint or a new, updated edition? The cover art is the original. It won't be a straight reprint beause GW will have lost the cardboard pieces artwork like with Space Hulk. Obviously they can do new artwork for that, but what about the rules? I don't think it needs any changes.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I found a possible pic of the new skeletons. It's the usual GW 'leak' quality but it seems like they're going to be new sculpts, not just the VC skeletons repurposed.

EDIT - site is blocked, I'll upload them here.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Same site, a pic of the new heroes and wights, about the same quality though

 Fifty wrote:
This is actually just annoying. Why can't they re-do the more popular stuff like Advanced Heroquest or even Warhammer Quest? Why go back as far as this, to a time when they were still just doing DnD distribution? I was about to complain that this game has a lot less replay-ability, but then I realised maybe that is why they are re-releasing this instead.

At least the models should be decent. The Deathwatch and Space Hulk models were amazing, so worst case scenario, we should get something to use with Frostgrave.

 BrookM wrote:
Maybe they're still working on a potential Warhammer Quest remake and not releasing it until it is just right, just like with the Dark Eldar reboot a few years ago.