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 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Any word on if the box-miniature releases, or the game itself, is a limited run sort of thing?

To gauge whether it's a "must buy now," or "should still be here in 6-12 months" sort of thing.

Very hard to tell, nothing is called out as LE, and if your paying for a licence you'd want at least a couple of years just so that if something went wrong in production you'd still have a decent sales window

but if Galeforce 9 treats this like a boardgame (as opposed to a minis line) we may be looking at a single print run which will be allowed to sell out before they decide whether to reprint it. Hopefully sales numbers are good enough that there will be at least one reprint if not more,

but I know that some of their licenced D&D stuff spent so much time unavailable after the initial release I gave up on ever getting hold of them

so if you really want it sooner rather than later may be the best choice

Considering that non-US distros didn't get their full orders, signs point to buy it if you can find it.

 judgedoug wrote:
I am considering shortening the tails by 25% on the eventual box of Xenos I'll buy. edit: maybe more than 25%. I'm looking at my NECA 1/4 alien warrior based on the "hero" suits in the film and it has a much shorter tail

Seems like a fair bit of effort given that the re-used Prodos designs aren't based on the Aliens suits in the first place. Very much their own take on the creatures, with more of an AvP: Requiem bent than anything else.

Some UK stores are listing dates when new stock will be available. Whether those dates are accurate, who knows, but it suggests an intention that there will be more available.

There’s probably no correlation between demand for the board game and demand for the miniatures.

Board gamers have been complaining loudly about having to assemble miniatures at all. Those guys are not going to be buying up all the minis.

 Samsonov wrote:
Managed to get a copy of the main game. Quick review of the models: The Aliens are excellent. They have a good variety of poses, admittedly less than the prodos resin ones, but enough of them. The detail is good. They are easy to assemble. They allow plenty of combinations since the arms and tails can be used on any of them. As for the marines, I would be tempted to say that they are the least detailed 28mm plastic models I have bought in the last decade (granted, this is the first board game I have bought), but at the same time they are really not all that bad. The detail is present and they take paint relatively well (you can easily get 'tabletop standard' with these). Whilst the level of detail is not ideal, they convincing come across as the characters in the film.

It's good that you added the clarification about board games, because I think it's a good distinction to make. The marines aren't up to the detail level of something like say a new GW or FFG/Legion release. But, I would say by comparison with other board games they are pretty good and better than a lot of other comparable board game releases.

My standalone marines and aliums turned up at the weekend. I've built the marines, they're nicely detailed but yes, the realistic proportions at this scale have resulted in quite shallow detail, will need careful painting to get good results.

Just stumbled on these. Very cool. Might have to buy.

Never would have thought GF9 would sell ALIENS figures as cheap as the classic Chub Pearson sculpted Denizen not-colonial-marines.

http://www.denizenminiatures.co.uk/
Actually much better figs than the catalog scan would indicate.

Wow, that is fantastic.

Excellent work!
None of us can blame "the figures" again.

I'm a bit late to the party on this, does anyone know the best place to pick any of this stock up in the UK, main game or the individual boxes of models?

As far as I know Element Games, The Outpost and Marionville Models sell the range.

Slipstream wrote:
As far as I know Element Games, The Outpost and Marionville Models sell the range.

I noticed Gale Force 9 sell through Amazon too so picked up the Heroes of Hadleys Hope set, 20quid delivered sounded good to me. I would have got the core set had they had any in stock.

Well, if that is what they look like with a legend like dwartist doing the painting they aren't worth my time. Dwartist's paint job looks good of course, but they won't look good with someone like me slapping paint on them.

I think only Gale Force 9 sell the models on their own, except the assets and hazards box which other retailers seem to have as well. They send from the UK (you just need to click on the flag where it says 'select price region')

So, ordered yesterday day using standard shipping, they arrived today. And must say, I'm seriously impressed with the models, and I'm more of a painter/collector than a boardgamer. Detail is crisp, the Carter Burke model looks like Paul Reiser. The marines have helmets, and equipment covering eyes/mouths so you can't see their facial features as much.
I'm certain an average painter will get these looking nice, I'm nothing special and will post my efforts when done.

 Huron black heart wrote:

Slipstream wrote:
As far as I know Element Games, The Outpost and Marionville Models sell the range.

I noticed Gale Force 9 sell through Amazon too so picked up the Heroes of Hadleys Hope set, 20quid delivered sounded good to me. I would have got the core set had they had any in stock.

Good spot. Didn’t know they were on amazon. Now to order the aliens or heroes?

Well, my pre-order (made through the store) finally arrived in my neck of Woods. Will be picking it up later today.
Then I'll see what they are like myself. (ordered the whole game - four boxes).

Still mourning the missing Ferro and Spunkmeyer figures though - the collection remains incomplete. My FOMO sense is tingling.

Anyone have thoughts on gameplay?

People have been asking about avaliability of the game. Got an email from Gale Force 9 saying "We have limited stock available so don't miss out and buy yours now!" and things are selling out on the Gale Force 9 website: https://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?categoryid=13823&Country=GB

No idea if this means the end of the line or temporarily going out of stock. I have the main game and the expansions but would like about 5 boxes of aliens if these things are going to disappear forever...

Thanks for the heads up, guess I drop the money now!

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Anyone have thoughts on gameplay?

Acually, this is quite good. It has a feeling of more advanced Space Hulk, with a little hand management - there is a deck of cards with some equipment, hazard and events.

You always play full team, but each character has two versions - hero (controlled by player) and grunt (NPC let's say). Hero version is a little better. First is hero phase, then grunt, then aliens. I was a little surprised that you can equip heroes at the beginning but aliens spawn quickly and there is not much actions for marines.

There is a few neat mechanics:
Dynamic shooting. There is no just shoot action. You can do it as many times as you want - each character has its own dial and this is to hit stat. But with each shot you go one point lower. First shot - 7+ (on D10), next one - 6+, next 5+.... You missed? Your action stops. At the end on your phase you are resettin dial.
There are special weapons - you need to discard a card from your hand, or Pistol which is always hitting on 3+.

Second thing is endurance deck - you are drafting cards there for various reasons, sometimes discarding it. One thing - it my never be empty. Empty deck means you are all dead. As one action you might rest and add some discarded cards to endurance deck.

So in general - Space hulk with a little bit more action and hand management.

And it has some replayability - two kind of missions - from movie (save Newt) - which are alway the same you just an change heroes. Bug hunt - this is more generic shooting to the Aliens, which is always fun.

One thing - Core set is like helf of the game or less. Finishing it gets you through half of the movie. To get to the end is the next expansion (Powerloader!). And in core set you get only half of the marines, second half is in small expansion, which also provides some campaign options, not yet explored by me.

Surprisingly, it is quite fun game.

W1ntermute wrote:

Dynamic shooting. There is no just shoot action. You can do it as many times as you want - each character has its own dial and this is to hit stat. But with each shot you go one point lower. First shot - 7+ (on D10), next one - 6+, next 5+.... You missed? Your action stops. At the end on your phase you are resettin dial.
There are special weapons - you need to discard a card from your hand, or Pistol which is always hitting on 3+.

Just wanted to clarify, there is an "Attack" action (you can do two actions per turn), but certain weapons have Full Auto which means you can keep exhausting a card to keep firing as long as you keep hitting. You need to roll your aim dial number or lower (so a pistol always hits on a 3 or less), with a "1" (which is the USCM star) always being a hit. Some weapons like the Smart Gun allow you to roll two dice each time and choose the lowest, so it's insanely good. The Incinerator attacks a square and has a flat value to kill each alien model/swarm token in an area.

Second thing is endurance deck - you are drafting cards there for various reasons, sometimes discarding it. One thing - it my never be empty. Empty deck means you are all dead. As one action you might rest and add some discarded cards to endurance deck.

As per the Endurance deck, there's Endurance, Exhaust, and Discard. You draw from Endurance and place in Exhaust. If you ever run out of Endurance, you being discarding cards, which have a good chance of being removed from the campaign at end of mission. Several mechanics allow a Recycle (the Rest action, for one), which moves Exhaust to under the Endurance pile. If you cannot discard any Endurance or Exhausted cards, then it's game over.

Surprisingly, it is quite fun game.

Totally agree. It feels like the film and can be very tense!

Originally I was just going to pick up the characters/aliens and use the space hulk tiles and rules. But having watched a couple of play through’s and seen the card detail better I think that the game is worth picking up. Especially as I will be playing with mates outside of the hobby mostly. So having that better connection to the film will make it easier to get on board and enjoy.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Anyone have thoughts on gameplay?

Played the second scenario tonight (with judgedoug and the other regulars in our game group). The difficulty level is no joke and you can get very unlucky. It’s really rewarding when you’re making good decisions and your plan is working. We had fo play the first scenario twice but made it through the second on the first attempt but I’ll admit it was a combination between smart play and good luck.

 Manchu wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Anyone have thoughts on gameplay?

Played the second scenario tonight (with judgedoug and the other regulars in our game group). The difficulty level is no joke and you can get very unlucky. It’s really rewarding when you’re making good decisions and your plan is working. We had fo play the first scenario twice but made it through the second on the first attempt but I’ll admit it was a combination between smart play and good luck.

This is the Space Hulk part

An interesting feature I’ve noticed is that all of the figures I’ve built so far stand at approximately 45 degrees to the deck plating moulded into the base, which effectively gives them an automatic front vision arc; could be useful if you want to use them in a skirmish rule set (assuming it’s not just for the board game rules I haven’t read yet...)

APC, £40. From here: https://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13823
Not clear if it has internal details or what it is made of. More importantly, the range seems to be expanding.

Ooh wow good spot Samsonov.

Resin vehicle possibly? Says up to 120 days before receiving if pre-ordering now, so assume this one is in the pipe (five by five.. ahem.. )

Good to see GF9 are making good use of the Aliens license.

Looks a little bit like laser-cut MDF to me, but could well be wrong.