HULKEX Battle Report

Today was the day. Anticipation was high.


Weapons were oiled, armour was polished,


munchies and coffee were prepared.


One Brother was redirected to another combat theatre.


and Four thus entered to do the Emperor's work....

With one player dropping out, I was faced with a choice - 3 SM players or 4 with no GM/Stealer player?
I went with the latter, using the solo 'Stealer rules from 1st Edition, though it did mean I had to modify some of the surprises I had in store.

The board was based on one from BGG here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/48558/space-hulk-multiplayer-scenario
but slightly modified to use 2 full sets of 3rd edition tiles.  I had planned to not lay it out and build it two sections at a time (due to scanner malfunctions) to build tension but that wasn't feasible in the end.

Excited Blood Angels SGT gears up for the game!

There were 20 entry points in all - all numbers so a d20 could determine where they came in each turn.
This made it very hard to guard against all avenues of approach...


The players selected their squad composition and entry points, and in we went...
2 Squads of Blood Angels (Lad and Pete), one from Deathwing (me) and a squad of Wolf Guard (Ken).

The foe revealed himself quickly...

...though more commonly down my and Lad's end of the table it seemed.

Still, that allowed us to build our kills up....

For the Emperor!

Vents and grates allowed the enemy to approach with stealth and cunning...

 And sometimes in massed waves:

But the Emperor's finest were ready for them!

(flame token by Litko)

Meanwhile, the race to the cryochamber was on - the Honour of three Chapters was at stake!

 It was at this point I revealed a sticking point: while this was an Honour duel, it really wouldn't do to start shooting at Brother marines, no matter what colour their armour.  Any marine who fired at another would be declared a Heretic - and the new primary target for all players...

And so in the spirit of Blood Bowl, shoulder charges were the non-lethal option of choice!  For 1 Action Point, a marine can charge any marine in the front square - a d6 roll off, winner can shove the opposing model 1 space.  Many such brawls broke out!

 

Then it was discovered that the cryo room had 3 target areas, all needing to be destroyed.  Brother Pete managed one of them before a random event saw multiple cave-ins (all players could place one) with predictable results...

Then the Dark Angels showed up and it became a real 3-way standoff...with more pushing and shoving!

And in the end, the genebank was cleansed, one by each Chapter too! All Honour was satisfied and everyone was the winner....except the Xenos of course!

The random events worked really well, not too powerful but made life very interesting, and the marines certainly didn't have it their own way at all.  Many marines went down, including the Lad's assault cannon marine who had a spectacular malfunction with triple 1s...

A great game and well worth the additional prep time, which did take awhile, but the extras really made the difference.  And the Marine players really did cooperate well together.

Following HULKEX we had a BBQ lunch outside with some Man Cave Brewery beers, then an afternoon playing Zombies!!! (which I won) and Cave Troll (which Pete won) - great fun and good times!