Hulk-A-Mania

We played the new Space Hulk yesterday and we were all big fans of the original.

It was incredible. Moreover, it was beautiful. Where I play is a place that has a lot of non-gamers coming in and out. Friends, pizza people, friends of friends, etc., and we set up the board (mission 4) up in a place where anyone coming into the house would pass us up to see it. We had people oggling it, and not the miniatures which are phenomenal, but as per usual with GW, need to be painted (that's really a drawback in my opinion).

The game played smoothly. I found the time limit dynamic to be immaterial (on no turn did it ever actually matter), but I believe they resolved some of the issues of the original game and made it a heck of a lot better. I really like the on-guard dynamic, especially with the Storm Hammer sergeant who puts the fear of the Emperor into genestealers but who ends up not being able to move much. The game provides real tactical choices for game play and can be played in about an hour easilly.

I have, however, two major complaints. It seems to me that the doors are still a major problem in the game as it's far more easy to open them to break them (so why break them?). Genestealers end up spending far all their forward momentum closing doors behind them so as to keep up their shields. As a result, in both games, the marine players won (though in both games, they won with 3 out of 10 marines left!).

My second complaint has to do with the assault cannon which has all these strange rules associated with it once it has fired ten times. You'll probably never fire it more than three. We fired it twice in our game to take the objective. It is highly possible that this was mission contingent, but I just can't imagine a space hulk game going for ten turns, much less more. Part of the game's fun is that it doesn't take very long to play. Having said that, I'm sure I will run into a giant space hulk battlefield at some Con where the game takes forty turns, and the assault cannon's maximum of 20 shots will come into play, but for my money, games of that size are better played using the 40k rules (or even Apocalypse--yes, I did say that).

Regardless, though, I think the game is a great occassional alternative to 40k. It is beautifully constructed, and with more than 10 missions, has great replayablility. I'm sure that some people will flinch at the $100 price tag, but it's well worth it (though don't count on using the genestealers in a regular game, they're poses would prove innefficient for purposes of cover and line of sight).