Space Hulk Has Emerged From Warp! (Is this gonna be another bug hunt, sir?)

[JasonPratt]

The basic concept is crapsack: everything is corrupted, even the nominal good guys (Eldar, Empire, Tau), and it's just a matter of time before the universe falls apart in some horrible way.

That's an acquired taste, and normally I don't have it (I'm a Christian universalist after all, which means I believe that no matter how bad things and people get everything will work out all right for everyone in the end because fair-togetherness between persons is the ground of all reality); but I do appreciate Ragnarokish last stands for some reason, and WH40K is a very colorful and inventive variation of that.

[Gusington]

I'm easing myself into the stories. I liked Baneblade, liked the Space Wolves omnibus, and today started Priests of Mars. This one may be a little heavy in the lore. 30 pages in I'm enjoying it.

[Toonces]

Bonestorm video courtesy of 1UP.

completely fit into WH40K, too.  8)

Yeah- that's exactly what DoW2 reminded me of.

"Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!"

DoW2 sort of reminds me of watching a bunch of little kids all playing war.  Everyone is shooting their gun at each other on full automatic, but nobody ever dies.  LOL.

[Gusington]

^That's GI Joe.

[BanzaiCat]

This should have been GI Joe. It might have messed me up more than I am, were it like this, though:

[JasonPratt]

Everyone is shooting their gun at each other on full automatic, but nobody ever dies.  LOL.

Well, except for that bolded part anyway.  ;) (Gruesome deaths are par for the course in WH/40K. Okay maybe not in Blood Bowl, exactly.)

THAT G. I. JOE PARODY WAS TERRIFYINGLY HILARIOUS!!


Meanwhile, back on Space Hulk news: a new 247 Meg patch tonight I see.

Tonight's random SH thought while driving home from dinner: I'd like to see a mod (or DLC) featuring the Tau trying to recover/neutralize a Hulk. They should be able to turn without action points (like the stealers) and have a base 5 action rate (in theory base 6 like the stealers but that might make things too easy), but maybe fewer command points. No close combat capabilities to speak of, but if attacked in close quarters they automatically turn to meet it. They have to roll a 6 to not die regardless of what the stealers roll, but can only succeed in counterpunching the stealers if none of the three stealer dice are 4 or greater. No melee attack for the Tau at all. (Or they can bring in Kroot who fight like the stealers perhaps.) Better guns than the Marines, which don't jam and don't blow up (presumably because Marine guns are old), but don't shoot much better otherwise. (Eldar would shoot much better but that's a different mod, and I can't figure out how to balance them.)

[LongBlade]

I ran into a solid bug on Mission VI. My Librarian's Psy leaks. I cast a couple of powers and then it drops to four the next turn and zero the following turn.

[JasonPratt]

I thought I saw a bug like that earlier, too, but after realizing my Librarian adds psy powers to help him make melee hits, I wondered if that was what I was seeing. Since then I haven't seen anything suspicious (but that doesn't mean there wasn't a bug because the first time I noticed was around the same mission with much the same WTH where did my psy power go??)


I came here to announce however that there is most certainly a huge bug in the next to last mission, where the... um... huge bug appears for the first time. And the huge bug explicitly has to do with the huge bug being broken: shots that should kill him on rolling a 5+ simply miss with no further explanation, and the game registered my lightning claw marine as killing him even though the stealer killed him instead.

The bloodbug (or whatever he is) gets some huge melee bonuses and can't be hit with fire or psy power damage, so shooting him is the only feasible way to kill him -- but the game won't let me kill him by shooting him!

Meh. Those two missions aren't real anyway. ;) But it doesn't bode well for future campaign expansions if that stealer type is made available.

[Jarhead0331]

Hey guys.  The grogheads review of space hulk is up on the main page in case you missed it.  Let us know what you think in the feedback thread!

[Nefaro]

Hey guys.  The grogheads review of space hulk is up on the main page in case you missed it.  Let us know what you think in the feedback thread!

I liked the review, Jarhead.  There lots of info in it.

I've not picked the game up yet.. kinda hoping that they will bring out some add-ons with more gameplay.  A random map generator, or even an editor, would go a long way to extending content.  Some continuity and inventory management would also be additions.  That would be dreamy.  :D 

Am I just wishing for a WH40K: Chaos Gate style game?  Probably.  But who here wouldn't like to see another iteration of the X-Com style 40K TBS?  ;D

Also.. one somewhat unrelated Spelling Fuhrer point to make:  Lightning, not "Lightening".  ;)

[JasonPratt]

^^ European spelling?


Since a link wasn't provided, here is the Groghead review: http://grogheads.com/?p=2181

And here is the feedback thread for the article: http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=7307.0

[bob48]

I'm stuck on the 'Defend' mission at present.

[JasonPratt]

^ ^ I'm not usually given to cursing, but that mission can kiss my ass.

It highlights a weakness of the game design which is that as a general rule the 'normal' specialized troops are less effective than the usual marines, with the exception of the chainsaw marine who doesn't show up much in this campaign and whose melee abilities are nerfed so that his only real advantage is being able to open broken doors, of which there aren't many to begin with especially on the few missions he appears ARRGGH!!

In the 90s SH-FPS, several missions allow the player to pick the squad layout, and I dang well avoided picking flamers unless there was something that had to be burned, and the rotary cannon marine because his few attack bonuses are heavily offset by his fiddlyness to operate and his limited usefulness (which is even more true in the recent version). I also routinely avoided picking melee-only marines because at the end of the day they could only control one square and had a tendency to not last as long as my regular shooty marines.

That's all still true now. Oh, the thunder hammer/shield sergeant is useful for providing command points, and he might last as long as a regular grunt I guess, but at best he controls one square at a choke point and always only has one attempt to win an engagement.

I understand that much of the point is to force the player to deal with handicaps, but disguising those handicaps as extra special abilities grates me. The librarian, by contrast, is the zenith example of what a special rare troop ought to mean, because he brings extra value to the fight, not a handicap that might be useful in special circumstances. Ditto the sergeant with a sword.


Anyway, the Defend mission. Everyone should be pulled back up north asap to concentrate firepower defensively along routes of advance, with the two melee marines marched up to cover the final hallway to the gas where other weapons won't work and they can be protected from side or back attacks. Thunder hammer sergeant should be the last defense in that case so you'll never lose your last ability to re-roll command points. Flamer cannot provide final defense (as I learned to my chagrin the first time I tried: that final hallway negates all range weapons until you're at its southernmost square at which point all the flamer does is kill what's right in front of it maybe and block for a stealer turn), and is only useful for about six turns plus however long it takes for them to get past his fist, so don't put him anywhere you want to hold a position for the whole mission, and make sure the stealers cannot reach him and attack in six moves. (Don't forget that like you they can advance diagonally one square and unlike you they have six moves per figure and don't take action points to turn.) The assault cannon guy will be useless long before the end of the mission even if he lives to the end of his ammo, so I learned to put him in the middle of the southernmost east/west corridor and flip him back and forth shooting until he died. If you try to use him to anchor anywhere important, he will certainly fail you eventually (when he runs out of ammo at the very latest), and then you'll be screwed trying to scramble to patch his hole.

So don't rely on the flamer or the assault cannon (except to provide temporary distractions while you maneuver other marines), and park the two melee-only troops the only place they'll be most effective, defending the final hallway up to the gas. That leaves you six competent marines to guard long approaches with; try to make those approaches as long as possible and save as many command points to unjam guns automatically as possible.

In regard to the flamer, I eventually had him go up north to temporarily guard one of the two northernmost east/west halls while a useful shooty marine got ready to take his place: no stealer can attack him in one turn. Once he was out of juice I marched him westward down the hall to fistguard long enough for the other marine to lock in position guarding the hall.

[BanzaiCat]

Since the conversation delved that way, if I wanted to read some Space Marine/40K stuff, what the heck would I start with? I mean the fiction, not the games, although I might be interested in the minis at some point.

[undercovergeek]

Since the conversation delved that way, if I wanted to read some Space Marine/40K stuff, what the heck would I start with? I mean the fiction, not the games, although I might be interested in the minis at some point.

if you were to visit the reading thread, someone kindly posted just this advice not so long ago - i think the consensus of opinion will be the Horus Heresy books