Re: Space Crusade V’s SpaceHulk
Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Nov 16, 2009; 7:53pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Space-Crusade-V-s-SpaceHulk-tp3980383p4014266.html
Although the 2 games are very different, comparisons between Space Crusade and HeroQuest are bound the be made since Space Crusade and HeroQuest (along with their lesser known sibling Battlemaster) were produced in conjunction with MB Games as 'Introductory Games' (better known to players like us as 'Gateway-drugs').
Another major difference from HeroQuest is that Space Crusade (like most Sci-fi games) is more of a strategy game than a role-play game, with each player controlling a team of marines rather than a single character (Essentially each player has their own party of adventurers) It's also worth mention here that SpaceHulk is primarily a 2 player game while Space Crusade is designed for 3 players and a GM.
It's pretty easy to expand on and improve the SC missions by simply adding more interesting objectives, also using the much more versatile SpaceHulk tiles (any edition) gives you a bigger variety of layouts, which helps. A few examples of home-brew missions we've played in my group include: running around closing a bunch of hatches on a turn limit, recovering fuel containers and carrying them back to your airlock, escaping a ship as it self destructs and just once or twice an all-out player vs player deathmatch!
If you don't like the random mish-mash of enemies SC provides you can 'theme' your SC missions by only using particular types of blips, for instance use only Ork and Gretchin blips in a game to represent a craft occupied by an Orkiod army. Of course making your own set of blips catered toward your own model collection help here too – a gamer own owns a Necron or Tyranid army could make their own set of blips for a mission set in a Tomb Complex or a Hive-Nest respectively. You can expand on the theme further by making mission specific Event Cards to shuffle into the deck, like parasite attacks in a Tyranid Nest or de-pressurising sections for missions set on a derelict starship. Watching any Sci-fi show (yes - even Voyager) should give you plenty of ideas for scenarios.
^ The White Dice are marked with 4 '0's, a '1' and a '2' and the Red Dice are Marked with a '1', a '2', a '3' and 3 '0's. Effectively they give the same results as D6-4 and D6-3 respectively (ignoring negatives). These are inconsistently referred to in the rules at Light Weapons Dice (White) and Heavy Weapons Dice (Red).
Combat is fast and works as follows: Dice are rolled for the attacker's weapon and then compared to the target's fixed Armour value. If the total is higher than the target's armour value then a hit is scored, the target then looses 1 Wound for each point rolled over it's Armour value (Rolling equal to a target's Armour value hits but does not wound). All the basic enemy creatures in SC have 1 Wound so they die in one successful shot, but getting that shot often proves difficult.
As you might imagine, at times combat can feel rather ineffective with a high number of 0's being rolled each turn, of cries of “Are their ANY numbers on these dice?” can often be heard across a SC table, but the probability of hitting and killing an enemy is about the same as (if not slightly higher than) in a modern game of 40k.
The SC rules feel almost too simple in places, most Basic Weapons roll 2 White Dice and most Heavy Weapons roll 2 Red Dice with varied areas of effect.
Close Combat in SC is handled a little differently to shooting, with both sides rolling dice determined by their Close Combat value against each other with the highest score winning and then the loser deducting wounds in the same way as shooting.
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Space-Crusade-V-s-SpaceHulk-tp3980383p4014266.html
The difference between Space Crusade's blip system and your more traditional 'freeze frame' dungeon is that SC's blips are placed entirely randomly, where as in a 'freeze frame' type dungeon such as HeroQuest the encounters are at least pre-planned. Also having the blips on the board means players have a pretty accurate idea where a creature (but not what creature) will appear, where as in HQ and other such games the players have no idea what's in a room until they open the door. I think an important distinction between Sci-Fi and Fantasy games is to have rules which represent the technology and give the game a sci-fi feel - SC's blips (such as they are) do that job.
Although the 2 games are very different, comparisons between Space Crusade and HeroQuest are bound the be made since Space Crusade and HeroQuest (along with their lesser known sibling Battlemaster) were produced in conjunction with MB Games as 'Introductory Games' (better known to players like us as 'Gateway-drugs').
Another major difference from HeroQuest is that Space Crusade (like most Sci-fi games) is more of a strategy game than a role-play game, with each player controlling a team of marines rather than a single character (Essentially each player has their own party of adventurers) It's also worth mention here that SpaceHulk is primarily a 2 player game while Space Crusade is designed for 3 players and a GM.
yea I think the Space Crusade system has potential for better and more in-depth quests (or should I be saying 'Missions' since it's a Sci-fi game). I was a little unfair in my last post when describing SC's missions, while most of them are based around the “Kill X number of creature Y” there are some missions in Space Crusade (and a few more in the Eldar Attack and Mission Dreadnought expansions) that have different kinds of objectives. Some missions require players to reach a particular room or pre-placed marker and the Eldar Attack expansion also contains a few blips marked 'Equipment' which need to be retrieved in some of the missions from that expansion.
It's pretty easy to expand on and improve the SC missions by simply adding more interesting objectives, also using the much more versatile SpaceHulk tiles (any edition) gives you a bigger variety of layouts, which helps. A few examples of home-brew missions we've played in my group include: running around closing a bunch of hatches on a turn limit, recovering fuel containers and carrying them back to your airlock, escaping a ship as it self destructs and just once or twice an all-out player vs player deathmatch!
SpaceHulk is (more or less) always a game of SpaceMarines vs Genestealers, in Space Crusade the player will find them self fighting an unlikey mixture of Chaos Spacemarines, Orks, Gretchin and Androids (Necrons) with the occasional Genestealer leaping out of a hole in the cleaning and ruining your carefully planned strategies. Even the players aren't restricted to just being SpaceMarines, the Eldar Attack expansion gave players the option to play as a team of Eldar Guardians and WD134 provided rules for taking a gang of Ork Looters.
If you don't like the random mish-mash of enemies SC provides you can 'theme' your SC missions by only using particular types of blips, for instance use only Ork and Gretchin blips in a game to represent a craft occupied by an Orkiod army. Of course making your own set of blips catered toward your own model collection help here too – a gamer own owns a Necron or Tyranid army could make their own set of blips for a mission set in a Tomb Complex or a Hive-Nest respectively. You can expand on the theme further by making mission specific Event Cards to shuffle into the deck, like parasite attacks in a Tyranid Nest or de-pressurising sections for missions set on a derelict starship. Watching any Sci-fi show (yes - even Voyager) should give you plenty of ideas for scenarios.
Like HeroQuest, Space Crusade uses a quick and simple dice mechanic for combat. Space Crusade uses 2 types of specialised D6s both marked with worryingly low numbers. (you may have noticed a few of these dice scattered round the table in my pictures of SC games)
^ The White Dice are marked with 4 '0's, a '1' and a '2' and the Red Dice are Marked with a '1', a '2', a '3' and 3 '0's. Effectively they give the same results as D6-4 and D6-3 respectively (ignoring negatives). These are inconsistently referred to in the rules at Light Weapons Dice (White) and Heavy Weapons Dice (Red).
Combat is fast and works as follows: Dice are rolled for the attacker's weapon and then compared to the target's fixed Armour value. If the total is higher than the target's armour value then a hit is scored, the target then looses 1 Wound for each point rolled over it's Armour value (Rolling equal to a target's Armour value hits but does not wound). All the basic enemy creatures in SC have 1 Wound so they die in one successful shot, but getting that shot often proves difficult.
As you might imagine, at times combat can feel rather ineffective with a high number of 0's being rolled each turn, of cries of “Are their ANY numbers on these dice?” can often be heard across a SC table, but the probability of hitting and killing an enemy is about the same as (if not slightly higher than) in a modern game of 40k.
The SC rules feel almost too simple in places, most Basic Weapons roll 2 White Dice and most Heavy Weapons roll 2 Red Dice with varied areas of effect.
Close Combat in SC is handled a little differently to shooting, with both sides rolling dice determined by their Close Combat value against each other with the highest score winning and then the loser deducting wounds in the same way as shooting.
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~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~
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