Space Hulk Ascension releases on Steam today

[BanzaiCat]

After watching a couple of the animations and seeing the aliens perform a kill by squishing the Marines' heads, it begs the question of not just this game, but the entire WHK40 universe - why the hell are these leaders armored to the gills but have their squishy, cartilage-infused heads bare and open to aliens cracking open like ripe eggs?

[Jarhead0331]

After watching a couple of the animations and seeing the aliens perform a kill by squishing the Marines' heads, it begs the question of not just this game, but the entire WHK40 universe - why the hell are these leaders armored to the gills but have their squishy, cartilage-infused heads bare and open to aliens cracking open like ripe eggs?

Bragging rights.

[Tpek]

After watching a couple of the animations and seeing the aliens perform a kill by squishing the Marines' heads, it begs the question of not just this game, but the entire WHK40 universe - why the hell are these leaders armored to the gills but have their squishy, cartilage-infused heads bare and open to aliens cracking open like ripe eggs?

Why develop tanks, spaceships and energy based weaponry... and then go around tugging in a crud metal armor to hit your foes over the head with axe? :P

[PanzersEast]

After watching a couple of the animations and seeing the aliens perform a kill by squishing the Marines' heads, it begs the question of not just this game, but the entire WHK40 universe - why the hell are these leaders armored to the gills but have their squishy, cartilage-infused heads bare and open to aliens cracking open like ripe eggs?

[JasonPratt]

^^ The eldar snipers are proud to help you with that.  >:D

In the novels at least, only the utterly uber Marines (primarch level) go around without helmets, and I'm pretty sure they actually still have them. Everyone else does have helmets to use in battle, and they only take them off (when armored up) for peaceful actions.

In figurine games, the point is to help distinguish leader-characters visually. This is often carried over to other games where it would make no sense, Dawn of War and Space Hulk being the obvious malefactors. (Especially the latter since the WHOLE FREAKING POINT of termie armor is that it is specially resistant to the inhuman atmosphere of hulks. Though to be fair terminator armor really shouldn't be used in a hulk anyway, since it doesn't slow down stealer attacks one iota, and the potentially increased firepower can only be deployed in ways so limited they might as well be using regular SM armor. This is certainly a holdover from the primitive game concept of "ALIENS VS SPACE MARINES BUT WE'LL CALL THE MARINES TERMINATORS BECAUSE JAMES CAMERON IS AWESOME!!1")

Notably, the original 90s SH FPS (and its sequel) showed the sergeants and librarians etc. in proper helmet armor.

[JasonPratt]

More first impressions.

1.) Unlike previous iterations, while you do have to send in a minimum number for the mission, you can keep other SMs in reserve and send them in later as you wish. Like if SMs die.

2.) The game still features the buggy audio popping which plagued the preceding game like subtle taunting by Slaasnesh Noise Marines. (That isn't a disguised fluffy compliment....)

3.) It is now possible to block (at least some) GS entry points by plonking a termie in front of it. He can even turn his back to it. This seems... dubious.

4.) At least it's possible to select properly enclosed helmets for your SMs, though there only seems to be two models for each Legion type (or only two for the Ultramarines anyway, who are the Legion for the tutorial campaign). Personally I would like to see a distinction where the player can choose different helmet types for missions but many more different personal head types for distinction between missions.

[JasonPratt]

I definitely don't understand the action point system yet -- may need to read the manual. Had a stealer run up to me while on overwatch, so I took an automatic shot of course and (as it happens) missed. When it comes my turn, I only have 3 AP instead of 4 -- but if I click overwatch again I gain 2 AP for 5 instead of 4... though what that means in terms of what happens next I don't know (yet) since obviously I chose to shoot the stealer again. After doing that, using an AP, I now have all 4 of my AP instead of 3-1=2 AP.

That... is some serious what the hellery.

Relatedly, I move a termie who has 4 ap up 2 squares, and turn left once which should deduct 3 ap total (the game itself agrees). But when I'm done I still have 3 ap and can go into overwatch (with 1 ap left over).

[BanzaiCat]

Yeah yeah yeah...it LOOKS cool. But it looks weird, too.

I'm a WH40K fan...I just...well, whatever.

[JasonPratt]

It LOOKS great, though much murkier and unclear (and so more "Alienish") than the preceding game. (Update: oh, wait, you didn't mean the game, you meant the aesthetics of having exposed heads in termie armor.)

Okay, I think I've figured out an important mechanic: if I start a turn already in overwatch I get -1 to my action points while I remain in overwatch (so if I normally would have 4 I'd have 3); but if I leave overwatch, whether manually or by moving, the 2 ap I spent going into overwatch originally are refunded to me and so I get a temporary boost of 3+2=5 action points instead of 4.

I've tested this out and it seems to behave consistently.

On the other hand, a termie doesn't seem to need to be parked right on a spawn point to block it. He only needs to get within (as far as I can tell from testing) 3 squares directly of it. He can even turn his back to it and overwatch another area.

That seems broken.

[JasonPratt]

Also, those creepy ceiling fans like in Alien (the movie)?

Some of them (but apparently not all??) are "air ducts" and stealers can drop down out of them like spawn points if a termie is under them. The game kind of warned me of this but wasn't clear what it meant by "air ducts" since before now (in the tutorial) they had been perfectly safe artistic elements.

Update: no, wait, it isn't the ceiling fans, but small holes (at ground level) which the termies can't get into, which lead into hallways beyond. But the SMs can't shoot into the halls either -- but (again like the Alien movie) flamers can. In effect these are the classic spawn points which can't be blocked: I moved a SM right up to it as far as he could go but didn't get the block sign.

Not sure what will happen now. I've got another SM nearby on overwatch, just in case. (Update: eh, I didn't realize the door to my target had already opened somehow, and so my flamer wouldn't have to manually open it, so I had enough ap left for him to shoot and win the mission.)

[Nefaro]

Relatedly, I move a termie who has 4 ap up 2 squares, and turn left once which should deduct 3 ap total (the game itself agrees). But when I'm done I still have 3 ap and can go into overwatch (with 1 ap left over).

From the vids I watched, they can move diagonally now (for 1 AP?).  Also they may get a free facing change in their final location, after movement, to some extent.

Those could be possible reasons.



Guess I'll still be waiting for a new Chaos Gate awhile longer.  :-\

[JasonPratt]

They could move diagonally (if relevant flanking squares aren't blocked) last game for 1 ap, though often needing to complete a turn with another action point afterward. Still better than L-ing it at 3 ap. That may be relatively new for the boardgame, though.

No, I'm very sure I figured it out (and might have gotten it sooner had I read the manual instead of the tutorial -- I just like to see how well designed tutorials are. This one could use a little more work.) I'm getting 2 action points back whenever I leave overwatch, no matter how many turns later that happens. THAT is new.

A slight mystery from earlier was cleared up also, which I forgot to mention in my puzzlement over the action-point accounting: reloading does reduce heat, but not as much. So a full 'purge' costs 2 ap, one for each action, reduce heat and reload -- though that won't reduce an overheated weapon fully. I know there's an early ability called "heat management" which helps with that however.

[JasonPratt]

I'm not where I can screenie it right now, but the flamer action looks really nice -- it always has in preceding versions, too, of course, but the big improvement here (aside from volumetric smoke) are the possible flamer patterns, each of which comes with a nice ground-overlay (a little like for a boardgame!). I mean it behaves more like a boardgame overlay than the previous versions have done which simply marked which squares would be affected from the flame impact point.

The more I play the game the more impressed I am so far. I'm being picky, but the current state of the game is MUCH better than the original release of the preceding game.

[TacticalWargames]

Managed the Ultramarines first mission on normal difficulty. My fourth and last Marine had no chance in the end though.

Overwatch is you best friend.

Enjoying it so far..would have been cool if there was a selection of single missions aswell.

[JasonPratt]

That was a great thing about the original 90s Doomesque PC game (among many other great things): while it didn't have randomly generated maps (and no game has so far), it did ship with a good set of missions, only some of which were linked in a grand campaign. Some of the others could be played like a campaign (having been borrowed from some of the boardgame campaigns), but they didn't have to be (except the tutorial missions I guess).