The View from the Turret

Space Hulk Now Available!

Posted on 17Aug09 Updated on 29Sep09

Well it turns out the Games Workshop ‘Mystery Box’ and ‘Space Hulk 2009′ rumors were one in the same. This is great news for Space Hulk fans. Unfortunately it is only a limited release so we will probably not see much support for it.

The game is shipping with a 23-page Rulebook, a 47-page Mission book and 35 plastic Citadel miniatures, including: 11 Space Marine Terminators, one Space Marine Terminator Librarian, 22 Genestealers, and one Broodlord. Also included of course are the cardboard corridor sections and misc counters.

The rules are very similar to the original release. The sand timer is also back. The librarian (psi) rules are similar to the original Deathwing expansion and there is a new Guard option (basically a close combat version of Overwatch). Only time and play will tell how well the new rules work.

The miniatures are all new and very well done; The Space Marines are the Blood Angels and the Genestealers miniatures are crawling all over bits of ship. But GW chose to use the same sized corridor sections, with 1″ squares, as the original game. For those with the original game this is good news because it looks like you will be able to combine the new game with your old game and expansions. The major disappointment is that Terminators are now on 40mm bases not 1″ bases like the old ones and thus do not fit on corridors with 1″ squares. They have skirted this issue in the new Space Hulk by simply not basing the Terminators in the game, but it would have been preferable to have 40mm corridor squares.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for many is the the simple fact that there is no plastic terrain at all. Many of us were hoping for plastic corridor sections to play Space Hulk type games in 40K. The new Space Hulk is no replacement for the Anphelion Base.

If you have never played Space Hulk before this is your chance to get a very nice version of the game. If you are a veteran you will have to decide if you want to spend the money for basically the same game again or not. If you are a hardcore Blood Angels player there is also some additional appeal with the new Terminator models.

More details from GW. Also see Space Hulk: Setup and First Moves. GW also has a 360 degree gallery for the SH figures. GW posted the SH Reference Sheet.

White Dwarf #356 has 20 pages of Space Hulk material including a report on the Cleanse and Burn mission. There is also mention of the Mission 13 PDF for do-it-yourself missions.

BOLS has a Space Hulk review. The D6 Generation also has a great review.

GW now has a one-page Space Hulk Q&A available.

Space Hulk is back…but not for long.

[Updated: 29SEP09]