Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Space Hulk Mission 1: Beach Head

To get pumped up for play we listened to Bolt Thrower "Eternal War" first.




My son and I decided to play a cooperative solo style game. My wife offered to help us make decisions on where the genestealer reinforcements would enter. I the future I may try to incorporate some THW mechanics for moving the blips around.

Now onto the report:





Game wise we fumbled around a bit. My son and I deferring to each other led to some compound bad decisions which got Sgt. Lorenzo killed. We made up for it by bad genestealer decisions of charging down a corridor hoping for a bolter jam. In the end it was a draw. The Blood Angels still had 5 marines left. The genestealers were down to 4 but would have been mowed down had play continued.

As for the report, you can see I used Comic Life 3 again. I used the same "futuristic" template as the X-wing report, but I played around with editing the panels some and adding effect images for the first time. These are the lightning and muzzle flashes. I also helped myself out by pre-selecting the shots I wanted to use before sitting down to lay out the comic. I think that helps to plan the pages a bit more. Finally, i also learned how to add page numbers.

I still need to work on getting better shots. I was rushing a little so as not to break up game play too much and lose my son along the way.

The game was enjoyable but, as expected, some of the genestealer poses were problematic. They don't easily fit in a space so lining up and facing are difficult. I still haven't heard back from The Black Library so I'll have to figure out where to find more Space Hulk fluff. Perhaps there is more in the Mission Book. I only read the stuff before the first mission.

9 comments:

  1. Great battle report. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun. I will drink a toast to Sgt. Lorenzo. Fair warning: I am so stealing your comic book format.

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    1. Hi TB, thanks it was pretty fun and I kept my son interested almost to the end. Since I stole the format from someone else I would encourage you to steal it from me. I used to do them in GIMP but Comic Life 3 makes it a lot quicker. You just have to get used to how the program works.

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  2. That looks like a fun storytelling technique! I've never played 'Space Hulk' but have tried the similar 'Space crusade', playing each scenario in turn as a campaign. I think it would have gone well with the 'graphic space opera' reporting technique.

    I commanded the Imperial Fist (I think they were called; the yellow guys at any rate). The other contingent I think came from the Blood Angels, but as this was 20 years or so ago, I can't recall exactly.

    At any rate, our first mission was a disaster. Our squad never did connect up; and we emptied just two rooms of the hulk we were tasked with clearing before we were attacked by apparently endless numbers of orcs, cyborgs and other nasties. I lost my whole squad, and barely made it out of the place, myself, carrying several battle scars.

    After that, our missions went quite well, on the whole. Over the weeks and months (we played only occasionally), I received several promotions, got more guys and handy assets. We never finished the campaign, but in our last mission, were severely tested when the bulk of the defending Orci Horribili and Automata Terribilia tried to take out my squad, leaving the Blood Angels relatively unmolested. It did the enemy no good: the Imperial Fist triumphed triumphantly once again.

    A fun game.

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    1. Hi AP, great to hear from you. I played a little of the Space Crusade video game when I was searching for those old games awhile back. Essentially the same, just more variety of enemies. Sounds like your campaign was a good one.

      On a totally unrelated topic, I did that oil painting transformation of your picture and then got bogged down on framing (digitally). I of course got distracted by the next big thing. I'll try to sort it out and send it to you.

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  3. Ah, gun jams! The curse of the over-enthusiastic Space Marine :-) .

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    1. Hi Hugh. It was a funny thing. One Marine killed at least half a dozen genestealers on overwatch while others had jams and died horrible deaths. No telling really. I don't remember if it was in the original rules but now there is a sustained fire bonus. You get +1 for not moving and firing at the same target.

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  4. Great read and a typical Space Hulk game from my experieence - two squads become one !
    The biggest disasters I've been a part of have always been multiplayer co-operative ones. Your game soundedso much fun though and I'm tempted to get my own stuff out.

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    1. Hi Joe, it was fun. It looks like the Comic was well received and I think that Space Hulk lends itself to this style. I would definitely want to read about a space opera on your blog.

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