Space Hulk Ascension releases on Steam today

[tgb]

Supposedly each campaign has over 30 missions, so I would expect quite a bit of branching.  At least it adds to the replayability.

[JasonPratt]

Oh, I don't mind branching, I'm just being picky about the "canon" mission order.

Going back to the Nazarene's victory for a moment, two things occur to me:

1.) the chances of basic melee survival are demonstrably MUCH better in this game than in either 90 or 13 Space Hulk. I wanted to give one of my flamers some extra experience, so let his two flankers stop overwatching in order to let some nearby stealers come down the all and into the room. This was almost a disaster, as the spawn points were one square closer than I had reckoned, and so three stealers parked themselves inside his flamer range (can't start the flamer immediately in front anymore, and the spread pattern will never be more than 1 square wide at the initial impact point). We survived, because after all that little squad did still have two shooters nearby, but while I was trying and failing to light them up I noticed that because one stealer had set up directly in front of the flamer, that marine could only hit with his power glove (the flamer being illegal to shoot so close).

In previous games a power glove has a base 33% chance to hit. In this game it's more like 75%. That makes one of my previous marines slapping three in a row less impressively lucky.  :P (I still had one of my flankers shoot first, since I didn't want to risk dying from a miss after the counterattack.)

(Digression: Like the 2013 game, this shows the odds of a successful kill, though I don't recall the preceding game doing that for melee. For multiple-shot modes, like burst or suppression, the game helpfully shows the adjusted odds of a kill rather than making you calc it out yourself; so it's relatively easy to compare a burst shot which uses more ammo and an aimed shot which uses more action points and see which would be more likely to score under the circumstances. Unlike the 13 game, this version also shows the modifiers going into the calculations before the attack.)

Not sure how I feel about that. On one hand it nerfs the stealers terribly, because if they get close to a marine the marine should be likely to die -- that's literally the whole point of the game, managing ranged distance. On the other hand, having the SMs die more often would be corrosive to the point of having them grow more experienced. (Though why inexperienced marines are in termie armor or why they would be sent into a hulk out of the gate, makes no sense in-game.)

2.) ... .... ..........I should probably not make lists of points before 9 in the morning.  :-[ ::)


Oh, now I remember.

2.) In the 13 game (but not the 90s), Space Marines did get one final shot at close range, under some circumstances. I haven't seen that yet. But if my impression is right and that rule has been removed, the reason is probably because the chances of even a basic melee fight (with the power glove) are so much vastly better: actually better than one round of basic shooting! (But with the difference that the stealer can't shoot back. Usually. I don't think any of these tyrannids can shoot, but some have ranged melee so to speak.)

[tgb]

I'm enjoying this a lot so far.  At first I thought the tutorial was broken, until I figured out that it was me not understanding which Marine I was supposed to be controlling at the time.

I also find it to be a bit more forgiving.

[PanzersEast]

Played through the tutorial last night and have to say it is very atmospheric.  I enjoyed playing it and it has the right feel to it.... and you will learn quickly why Space Marines show NO MERCY to HERETICS!


PE

[JasonPratt]

Imperial Fists campaign now available (plus numerous tweaks, bugfixes). $8, pretty reasonable for what it is, i.e. another full SH campaign in a decent (if supermurky) adaptation of the boardgame to PC. Still no way around the lack of an undo-move plus a slightly wonky control scheme, though.

I would hope if they aren't going to continue supporting the 'actual' boardgame port from last year, that they would release an editor for that game so customers can create and re-create campaigns with original boardgame rules. They eventually got the bugs ironed out, and SH2013 works as a legitimate pureblood adaptation of the board game. There's room for both, even though I can understand putting dev resources toward servicing the newer product.

[Cyrano]

I prefer the older version as a straight-up adaptation of the BG which is all I ever really wanted anyway.  The notion that they'll turn back and support it in any significant way strikes me as unlikely.  I also find it amusing, that, at least on Steam, I can have a copy of the game for $7.50, but must pay $30 for the TWO PACK.

Careless, gents, careless...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[JasonPratt]

Oh I doubt they'll ever go back and support it again with new content. Thus I wish they'd release a mission/campaign editor.

[bbmike]

Just went on sale for $17.99! What to do...

[JasonPratt]

The Salamanders campaign released this past week (thus the sale), for less than $8.