Space Hulk (game)



Space Hulk was a board game by Games Workshop. The game was set in their Warhammer 40,000 universe and obviously draws at least some inspiration from the movie Aliens.

Tabletop games
The game was set on a board made up of various corridor and room tiles which could be arranged in different order and locked together like a jigsaw puzzle to represent the interior of derelict space ships. One player controlled Space Marine Terminators, and the other controlled Genestealers and genestealer hybrids. Two editions of the game were released.

In the basic versions of the game, playing the genestealers was often considered somewhat tedious since the strategy for playing them was simple and obvious. So simple in fact that Space Hulk was quite a playable solo game. Playing the marines on the other hand was engaging and tactically challenging - part of the challenge was the fact that the Space Marines player was constrained by a time limit for his turn. To overcome this shortfall, players were encouraged to play each game twice, swapping roles after the first play. The fairly fast play time (around half an hour per game), driven by the Space Marines time limitation, made this a reasonable solution. The expansion packs for the First edition added the the hybrids adding more depth to the genestealer game.

The game was notable for its hidden play mechanics, from which it derived much of its playability and tension. The actual number of genestealers in play was hidden from the Marines because they came into play as "blips" which could represent 1-3 creatures (or 0-6 in the second edition). Similarly, the Marine player had a number of extra "action points" available each turn which were only revealed to the genestealer player after they were used up. (In the second edition, the extra points were no longer hidden from the genestealer player.)

Space Hulk won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1989. Its first expansion, Deathwing, won Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1990.

First edition
The first edition had two expansion packs; Deathwing which focused on additional Space Marine weapons and solo play and Genestealer, which introduced Genestealer hybrids (who carried weapons and could use ranged combat unlike the "purestrain" genestealers who fought close combat only with their claws) and psychic combat. Further scenarios and rules were released in the White Dwarf and Citadel Journal magazines. A hardback book Space Hulk Campaigns was released in 1991, and was later reprinted as a paperback. It contained much of the magazine material, including rules for Traitor Terminators and Space Marines in Power Armour and some new board sections.

Second edition
The second edition had no expansion packs, although additional scenarios and board sections were released in White Dwarf magazine. While it featured better board artwork and Terminator models, it is generally considered the inferior version of the game, due to the over-simplification of the original rules.

A critical change was made to the Command Point system, which was that they were no longer allowed to be used in the enemy turn. This caused much of the strategic complexity to be wiped out and command points became merely a random action point bonus. The flamer rules were also changed, and although this made them less abstract, the difference between the standard weapons and the area effect flamer was reduced.

Space Crusade
The game Space Crusade by Milton Bradley was a game also set on a Warhammer 40,000 space hulk which did use several of the concepts from the Space Hulk game. One of the main differences was that Space Crusade permitted up to four players to compete simultaneously (three taking a Space Marine squad each, one controlling the hulk's inhabitants), whereas Space Hulk was primarily designed for two players only. Space Crusade featured Space Marines in Power Armour rather than terminator armour.

Ultra Marines
The game Ultra Marines was one of Games Workshop's simpler games which was also set on a Warhammer 40,000 space hulk. The same board pieces were used, but each player controlled a Scout squad that was raiding the Hulk for artifacts. Players drew random event cards and used an unusual game mechanic - the lid of the game box had a grid printed on the inside, with squares marked "HIT" or "MISS". Dice were rolled and were they came to rest determined the result. The appropriate squares indicated if an attack was successful or not, and for those that landed in a "HIT" the number shown was the degree of the wound. (The same mechanism was used in the simple Space Fleet game.) The game had enough models for 4 players, with no player limit if additional Scout models were added.

Computer games
Two computer games were made based on the board game, the first, Space Hulk, for the PC and Amiga; and the second, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels for the PC, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and 3DO consoles. Both of these were tactical action shooters based on the boardgame rather than reproductions of the boardgame.

Recently a cellphone / mobilephone version of the Space Hulk boardgame has been released. This game replicates the boardgame's play mechanics, and allows play as either Space Marines or Genestealers.

In Warhammer 40,000
The term "Space Hulk", from which the game gets its name, is used within the Warhammer 40,000 universe for any masses of derelict ships, asteroids, and other assorted space junk that eventually merges into one massive form, ranging from the size of a small moon to a large planet, inside the Warp. These hulks are usually infested with mutants (possible remnants of the past crew); Genestealers (as above, see also the entry on Tyranids); Orks, who like to mount guns on hulks and travel on them to invade new worlds, and sometimes worse.

Because a hulk may contain bits of lost information or technology, the Imperium often sends teams of Space Marines to search for and recover these valuable items. Aside from the dangers of possible inhabitants, the hulk may not stay in realspace for very long, eventually slipping back into the Warp.