Horus heresy: betrayal at calth

[Evilgoat]

Has anyone bought or had a chance to play this one yet? I've read a few reviews and the gameplay looks simple enough. I see alot of people are trying to offload the card stock only, on ebay...im hoping that's because of multiple purchases for the heresy models... and not because the gameplay is bad. .. im looking for something fresh but simple and im thinking this may end up in my christmas stocking.. so if anyone has anything they can tell me about this game it would be appreciated.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

I have a feeling people are just buying it for the Space Marines and trying to get some money back by selling the board pieces - the same thing happened with Space Hulk 3rd

[Evilgoat]

finally get back to this thread.
 Great news, I have acquired Betrayal at calth, and have played all scenarios in the game, some a few times. I am happy to report this game is everything that I was looking for in a game; Fast, easy rule set with plenty of strategy. Being a huge fan of space crusade, I see a lot of similarities but also some differences that are improvements on how space crusade plays. this is a brief overview of the game play without going into too much detail.

1. The game board is made up of hexes that fit 3 space marines (this is called a unit, and moves and attacks as such, they can split up and join into other units, but are stronger the more in a unit.

2. beginning of each round of play the players roll dice to see who goes first (the initiative) then each 'unit' on the game board receives 2 activation points, then the players take turns using 1 activation point until all units run out of activation points. Then the next round begins.and so on. this is fast gameplay and changes rapidly, (think fast chess)

3. activation points can be spent doing the following;  
Advance       = move 1 hex
Run               = move 2 hexes
Assault         = melee adjacent hex,or move 1 hex then melee
Shoot            = ranged attack on targets in line of sight.
Consolidate = split a unit up or add miniature to another unit.

4. a unit attacks by combining each miniatures weaponry into one dice roll damage pool. The target unit then defends the attack by picking a target miniature within the target unit, if the first target miniature dies and there is still points in the damage pool, the target player must then pick another target miniature within that unit to take the damage and so on.

5. a standard space marine miniature has 4 attributes;
armour 2 = dice rolled diminish damage pool points
stamina 2= points that are needed to kill the miniature after the armour roll has been taken off damage pool
assault 2  = dice rolled to determine damage in melee attacks
bulk 1      = hexes on the board have a bulk capacity of 3, this means 3 marine minatures is the max in a unit, eg terminators have a bulk of 2 so a unit could be made up of 1 terminator and 1 marine.

6. Melee, hand-to-hand, close combat or "assault" as BAC calls it plays out a bit better then space crusade as  you must overcome the targets armour roll and their stamina to kill them. After attacking if all miniatures aren't killed in the target unit they can attack you back for free. Assault is always risky but i think this is fairer way of resolving close combat. for eg, 1 x space marine armed with a bolter and no close combat weapon can never kill a terminator in melee as the marines attack dice is 2 and the terminators stamina is 3 points. thats without including the terminators armour roll of 5 dice. so no more kamikaze gretchin hand-to-handing a commander, ala Space crusade.

7. the dice are very simple 6 sided and remind me a lot of heroquest dice;      2 hit sides, 1 critical hit side, 1 blank, 2 shields

8. a hit on the dice means 1 point added to the damage pool, a critical hit is a hit also but triggers 1 of your miniatures weapon critical effect in the unit (this is awesome, each weapon has a critical effect for eg. bolter effect takes 1 activation point off the target unit to show the effect of shelling them with mass reactive explosions, a plasm weapon effect adds more dice to the roll but may kill its user if you roll too many critical hits!!),the blank means nothing, the shields are what you want when rolling your armour defence roll.. 1 shield reduces damage pool by 1 point.

9. order/command cards are used in the game also, at the start of each round the players draw from their command card deck and can use, save these cards wherever they see fit.

all things considered, I have to say I love this game. A simple rule set and fast gameplay is very important to me as I have always been turned off 40k because of the time required to not only teach myself the complexities of gameplay let alone teach someone else the rules. I have seen some peoples expansion work and it looks like it will be very easy to implement other races, weapons and command cards to this game. Also talk along the grapevine that this game will have a follow up  in september 2016, same rules but different miniatures (mk 3 armour i hear). so keep your eyes peeled