I’m into retro games too. It’s really fun. The last two months I have acquired: Dungeonquest WHQ 95 Space Crusade Space hulk 89 (all expansions) Space Hulk V4. Already owned Heroquest AHQ I just really enjoy watching your retro series. Need more Space Crusade plays. AHQ would be great too!
Great collection. I have more retro games coming to the channel, and I've been promising to do a terminator playthrough of Space Crusade for a while. There's plenty of Advanced HeroQuest coming too!
Interesting to have so many options in a game like that. While I like customization options I do think most games should start with a restricted preset training mission type of thing. Allowes you to just get started without having to worry about configuring a team.
I see your point, maybe they could have provided a recommended loadout for the first mission, but I loved having those options when I was a kid. It was something so different, and it was so fun to choose weapons and then look for equipment that worked well with them. At the start of the game you only get one order and four items, and you earn access to more cards through your successes, so the game has a real sense of progression and a clear reward structure. Space Crusade still holds up today as an exceptionally well put-together game.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoringHow old were you when playing Space Crusade? My son only turned 5, but the German version says that noone is dying because the weapons only teleport them to a different dimension :D I guess 5 is too young … but I would so love to play it with him :D
This is before the Imp. Fists became Fortification and siege experts. Then again this is from before the Imp. Fists were really much of a thing at all.
Yeah. I don’t actually know when they shifted to being the siege experts. For me growing up they were always the heavies because of their portrayal in Space Crusade.
Oh. I don't know. Apparently they were the focus of the Ian Watson Space Marine novel in 1993 and I think second edition came out that same year(?), and of course, Space Crusade came out well before then in 1990. I wonder how easy it would be to track down their first mention.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Them being Fists is mostly just so that they can have a recruitment scene on Necromunda that drives the rivalry between the main three throughout the novel. It features lots of crazy stuff like eating titan pilots brains to acquire the skills to pilot them and scrimshawing on finger bones of dead marines as a pastime. Typical Ian Watson crazytown stuff.
Would be cool to see a "Does Space Crusade Need House Rules?" video - would love to know your thoughts on its balance. Recently put the game together for myself and found it definitely feels like it needs a few - a few I've ended up using: - In hand to hand combat, the unit with higher armour rolls one extra white die. - When placing blips on boards which marines are docked to or start in, roll 4red + 2white dice, and add that to 4 - this is how many blips you can place on that board. Then roll one red for chaos marines - if 1-3, you can place them. Do the same for androids. Do the same but with a white die for the dreadnought. (Optional rule: allow the choice to re-roll all of these dice). - Blips can only be initially placed in clusters of 3 or less (helps force the alien to spread them out). Beyond that I'm starting to think any further balance needs to be done with event cards - might be fun for example to allow the alien to always start with one genestealer card up his sleeve.
I think as long as you are using the full number of players and running a campaign with points, as intended, the game is pretty self-balancing. I don't see a need to limit how many blips the alien player is placing anywhere, because if they overcrowd on one board, they are susceptible to heavy weapon fire, while leaving the marines unhindered on the other boards. They aren't going to end up scoring enough points to progress. I wouldn't adjust the close combat, because you end up with situations like Eldar rolling four white dice against orks, or the dread rolling two red and three white dice against marines. Genestealers that pop up in ambushes and attack straight away are already scary enough. You would also significantly overpower the Blood Angel commander, who can bump his armour class to three and arm himself with close combat upgrades. There are enough equipment upgrades to give the marines more killing power in hand-to-hand, especially if they can get off diagonal attacks that reduce the opponent's number of dice by one. Finally, I don't think there is any need to give the alien player event cards in hand. They get those anyway as they play through the campaign, eventually starting missions with up to three cards in hand to play instead of drawing randomly from the deck. It's also important to remember that marines aren't on the same side. They are all playing for themselves. They can even shoot each other if they are feeling feisty.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I suppose the main thing I found myself trying to balance, that I couldn't find an alternative for, is the alien zerging the marine player with melee attacks from orks and gretchin on the first boards. I found if the alien drops even just 8 orks on the first board, and puts them behind corners or doorways that are just beyond the reach of the marines on their first turn, you can often zerg in and kill half their team with them powerless to stop it, given the orks have a 50/50 chance to win hand to hand combat. It seems like the optimal way for the alien to play, but it's not much fun for the marines! I noticed in your own playthroughs you often place the blips without knowing what they are, which would help mitigate that - the rule book doesn't seem to be too clear on whether or not you're supposed to know what you're placing.
@@danielwalley6554 The alien player has to place blips after the first marine has moved into the board, so try positioning that one marine with eyes on as many angles as possible to limit blip placement. After the blips are placed, you still have the rest of your squad to activate, so you know where the blips are and can position accordingly. If they are within charge range, back up. Or drop a blind grenade (if you have one) so they can't attack, then play an order next turn that gives you an advantage. If they are right on a corner, drop a missile on the space directly in front of them. Arm your bolter marines with bolt pistols so they have the edge in combat. A gretchin is going to struggle against a marine rolling three white dice. I find Gretchin are better used to run interference, anyway. Use them to shoot at range (sometimes they get lucky) while making screen walls to protect more powerful units and to block up corridors to slow down the marines long enough for reinforcements to come into play. Committing too many bodies to close combat can be bad as with bad rolls you may find that the alien units are dying on the alien player's turn. That frees up the marines to spend their own turns advancing on the objective and cleaning up stragglers rather than wading through lots of bodies. There are more options in a four-player game. The alien player can't commit too many forces to any one board sector as they are fighting a battle on three fronts. If they go too heavy-handed in one section, the other marines will run away with the game. And you can always let another squad take the hit - let them be the first team onto that board sector, and then approach from the other side. Once the blips are out, the marines have full knowledge of the playing field and the alien player loses the element of surprise. The alien player is allowed to know what blips they are placing. I place them blind in my playthroughs because I am playing solo and it prevents me from knowing what enemies are approaching. Ultimately, the rules say the game is for 2 to 4 players, but really it's designed around having all the squads in play. With two marine squads everything still works pretty well but if you want to play it as a two-player game the ideal solution is to use the Eldar Attack expansion, which is specifically weighted for just two players. If you want to play with less players using marines, you could consider giving each squad one additional order card for each missing player (so one squad would get three order cards, two squads would get two each). Alternatively, run your game with the terminator rules from White Dwarf. That's always fun.
@@danielwalley6554 Let me know how you get on and if you come up with any other mods or ideas that work out for you. The core game definitely plays better with the full player count - a fact I guess they admitted themselves when they made a specifically two-player expansion.
Bolt Pistols: in Hand to Hand combat (when attacking AND when defending) you can use one extra white dice. Close Assault Blades: only when attacking in diagonal (and therefore never when defending) can you deny one dice to your targeted enemy in Hand to Hand combat.
Sometimes we chose to play as different chapters; switching around the squad pieces, Crimson Fists (blue) Lamenters (yellow) Howling Griffons (red) for example or attempting to randomize equipment cards to reflect a new chapter's tactics kept the game interesting, getting more than two targeters or an extra melta bomb was always okay but gaining more commander cards and then attributing them to other members of the squad made it feel like these marines were veterans or minor heroes.
[Mentioned this on a different video] Due to the pieces breaking and having to mix and match pieces from all three chapters, I eventually came up with my own chapter! The UltraBloodyFists! Solo commander but with the same number of hit points as an entire squad; I mean they are meant to be Beasty-Units... not to be taken out by a single Android in one round!!! >XP
i find that as the alien player its easy to overwhelm the marines with gretchin in close combat. The rules for that are very swingy and give a gretchin a 9 in 36 chance of killing any space marine in CC save for non heavy bolter commanders and bolt pistol upgraded bolter marines. For a 2 point enemy that moves 8 (!) squares a turn and has 16 copies just in the base blip set alone thats enormous. So i find i always have to hold back or have to use house rules. Any of you guys have house rules for Space crusade , esp for this kind of problem?
Do you think, that Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City are good modern takes on Space Crusade and Heroquest? For me they do the same things as the old games, but better. Nostalgia aside, do you have an itch that the old games scratched but they decendants fail to?
It's an interesting question, but I don't think Blackstone or Cursed City are close to providing what HeroQuest and Space Crusade do. As much as I love new games, I am a retro gamer, so this answer is probably not going to be shocking... HeroQuest is still one of the best and most accessible introductions to dungeoncrawling, and it has a beautiful aesthetic that is well removed from the cartoony style many games adopt. It also has a style of play you don't often see in games; with an "evil" player who has a secret map of the world, and who is responsible for bringing that world to life. Some games do the secret map thing, but most focus more on making the games more competitive, making the "evil" player an equal opponent, and employing things like a strict time limit to keep heroes moving so the game is more of a race than an exploration. Alternatively, games go for the full co-op option versus AI. Space Crusade is a brilliant game, even now. One of the only games that pulls off the competitive co-operative play style successfully. The idea of having a team of five characters with unique weapons, special items, and commands isn't something you really see. Normally each player in this sort of game controls one character rather than a squad. It uses a points system so it isn't all about winning or losing individual battles, it has team progression, and the narrative campaign feels complete and rewarding. And if you look at something like Space Hulk, I think there are few games that come anywhere close to doing what that game does. Nostalgia will always play a part with this sort of game, but for me, that nostalgia is earned for games like HeroQuest. For example, I used to have Dark World with Village of Fear and Dragon's Gate expansions, and that game has absolutely not stood the test of time, with most modern games making it look very poor in comparison.
I'm a man of my word. There will be more playthroughs, but they're a bit more difficult to fit into real life. I have some terminators to send in to show these regular marines how it's really done!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring superb, looking forward to it. PS: after your passionate review of WHQ: CC, have you ever thought about revisiting/re-delving into WHQ95?
@@user-yl7lz1hm6r There's a written review for Quest 95 on my blog from a fair few years back, but I think I'm leaving it there. At least for the time being. I love Quest 95, but I love it more as a memory than as a game I want to play now.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring understandable, going back to utter random mechanics might be a shock to the system 😅. There’s a point... I’m a mid thirties guy, who was big into tabletop gaming in the mid 90s, only just returning/revisiting the old skool classics dangerously for nostalgia’s sake. I‘ve heard from many an aficionado that gaming has moved on for the better since the ‘crude’ days of space hulk, whq, space crusade, HQ etc etc.. What are the big systems/games these days that hark back to the old times but have been positively moved forward leaps and bounds from a gaming perspective in your opinion?
A few years back I introduced Warhammer Quest 95 to different people who had never played it back in the day, and not a single person enjoyed it. Even I didn't really enjoy it. Anyway... that's a big question and I'll focus only on the dungeoncrawling genre... The first point I would make is that I think that for every advance in board games there's been a half step back. We are currently in a hobby where there's a glut of overproduced, miniatures-heavy Kickstarter games to the degree where I find it quite tiresome. Lots of things look the same, and it always feels more about appearance and the physical presence of what's in the box, and the chase to the next stretch goal which is another lump of plastic that may or may not even have rules or a way to make it part of a cohesive product. The second point is, you may be asking the wrong person. Although I love a good new games as much as the next person, I am a big retro gamer with a pretty big collection of games from the 80s and 90s. For me, Space Crusade, HeroQuest, and Space Hulk still stand up today as brilliant games. Space Crusade is just a solid, focused, perfectly executed game, with accessible rules, a strong theme, cool miniatures, and neat ideas like swap-in weapons and team customisation. Possibly also one of few games where the competitive co-operative play style feels like it actually works. HeroQuest still does things that few other games do, and I still maintain it's one of the best ways to introduce dungeon crawling to children, while being a brilliant adventure game to play with adults who want to laugh and have fun without worrying about a lot of rules and strategy. Space Hulk is just a timeless classic. Claustrophobic, thematic, nerve-wracking, fast paced fun with beautiful presentation. Richard Halliwell passed away just recently, but even if you ignore all his other contributions to gaming, Space Hulk would be enough to ensure his place in the hall of fame. DungeonQuest is almost perfect in the execution of a hard as nails death gauntlet. It's so good that when Fantasy Flight Games tried to update the rules they had to walk them back because they made the game worse. I could go on like this all day, but you've probably stopped reading, so to more accurately answer your question. I think Dungeon Saga picks up the ball for HeroQuest and runs with it, adding modular boards, more skills and items, and a more competitive experience; however, the D&D board games are probably some of the best modern introductions to dungeon crawling for kids. Silver Tower felt just enough like Warhammer Quest to earn the name, but was really something special. Shadows Over Hammerhal was like Quest and Advanced HeroQuest combined to make what should have been my favourite of the modern Quest games. Darklight Memento Mori and Shadows of Brimstone are possibly the closest in style to a Quest 95+, and I am interested to pick up Brimstone now that the second edition is out. I guess any game that allows for solo play has to tip its hat to DungeonQuest and Advanced HeroQuest, some of the earliest examples of solo play games, and any overland adventure has to at least wave to Talisman as it passes by. The Mage Knight board game can probably be seen as a successor in theme and level of rules intricacies to Magic Realm. Okay, I'll stop now...
Everytime I've seen a person play blood angels for the first time they usually go bolter melee Specialty. The combination begs to be used. I do wish that there was more of a reason to use melee as a marine player since I usually see bolter brothers get ripped apart. Though I reckon special rules to give regular marines 2 hp instead of 1 might alleviate this issue.
I love going the melee route with the Blood Angels, and they faired a little better than the Ultramarines in my recent playthroughs! Melee is dangerous though, and you do lose a lot of your crowd control capabilities. You become a monster against orks and gretchin, and you give away a lot less points to the alien player, and really the game is all about points and how cheaply you sell your marines' lives.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Thankfully that payoff is worthwhile. I imagine that with Mission dreadnought the extra marines can make a sizable difference since you get more manpower for crowd control and combat.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Eldar Attack is main Christmas and Birthday present combined money ..and if you're lucky it might still have the Woolworths £4.99 sticker on the box
Once you see 'Commander Tony Montana' you can never un-see him.
Say hello to my little combi-weapon?
I’m into retro games too. It’s really fun. The last two months I have acquired:
Dungeonquest
WHQ 95
Space Crusade
Space hulk 89 (all expansions)
Space Hulk V4.
Already owned
Heroquest
AHQ
I just really enjoy watching your retro series. Need more Space Crusade plays. AHQ would be great too!
Great collection. I have more retro games coming to the channel, and I've been promising to do a terminator playthrough of Space Crusade for a while. There's plenty of Advanced HeroQuest coming too!
Interesting to have so many options in a game like that. While I like customization options I do think most games should start with a restricted preset training mission type of thing. Allowes you to just get started without having to worry about configuring a team.
I see your point, maybe they could have provided a recommended loadout for the first mission, but I loved having those options when I was a kid. It was something so different, and it was so fun to choose weapons and then look for equipment that worked well with them. At the start of the game you only get one order and four items, and you earn access to more cards through your successes, so the game has a real sense of progression and a clear reward structure. Space Crusade still holds up today as an exceptionally well put-together game.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoringHow old were you when playing Space Crusade? My son only turned 5, but the German version says that noone is dying because the weapons only teleport them to a different dimension :D I guess 5 is too young … but I would so love to play it with him :D
This is before the Imp. Fists became Fortification and siege experts. Then again this is from before the Imp. Fists were really much of a thing at all.
Yeah. I don’t actually know when they shifted to being the siege experts. For me growing up they were always the heavies because of their portrayal in Space Crusade.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I don't think they even existed prior to second edition. I wonder if these came first.
Oh. I don't know. Apparently they were the focus of the Ian Watson Space Marine novel in 1993 and I think second edition came out that same year(?), and of course, Space Crusade came out well before then in 1990. I wonder how easy it would be to track down their first mention.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Them being Fists is mostly just so that they can have a recruitment scene on Necromunda that drives the rivalry between the main three throughout the novel. It features lots of crazy stuff like eating titan pilots brains to acquire the skills to pilot them and scrimshawing on finger bones of dead marines as a pastime.
Typical Ian Watson crazytown stuff.
Would be cool to see a "Does Space Crusade Need House Rules?" video - would love to know your thoughts on its balance.
Recently put the game together for myself and found it definitely feels like it needs a few - a few I've ended up using:
- In hand to hand combat, the unit with higher armour rolls one extra white die.
- When placing blips on boards which marines are docked to or start in, roll 4red + 2white dice, and add that to 4 - this is how many blips you can place on that board. Then roll one red for chaos marines - if 1-3, you can place them. Do the same for androids. Do the same but with a white die for the dreadnought. (Optional rule: allow the choice to re-roll all of these dice).
- Blips can only be initially placed in clusters of 3 or less (helps force the alien to spread them out).
Beyond that I'm starting to think any further balance needs to be done with event cards - might be fun for example to allow the alien to always start with one genestealer card up his sleeve.
I think as long as you are using the full number of players and running a campaign with points, as intended, the game is pretty self-balancing. I don't see a need to limit how many blips the alien player is placing anywhere, because if they overcrowd on one board, they are susceptible to heavy weapon fire, while leaving the marines unhindered on the other boards. They aren't going to end up scoring enough points to progress.
I wouldn't adjust the close combat, because you end up with situations like Eldar rolling four white dice against orks, or the dread rolling two red and three white dice against marines. Genestealers that pop up in ambushes and attack straight away are already scary enough. You would also significantly overpower the Blood Angel commander, who can bump his armour class to three and arm himself with close combat upgrades. There are enough equipment upgrades to give the marines more killing power in hand-to-hand, especially if they can get off diagonal attacks that reduce the opponent's number of dice by one.
Finally, I don't think there is any need to give the alien player event cards in hand. They get those anyway as they play through the campaign, eventually starting missions with up to three cards in hand to play instead of drawing randomly from the deck.
It's also important to remember that marines aren't on the same side. They are all playing for themselves. They can even shoot each other if they are feeling feisty.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I suppose the main thing I found myself trying to balance, that I couldn't find an alternative for, is the alien zerging the marine player with melee attacks from orks and gretchin on the first boards.
I found if the alien drops even just 8 orks on the first board, and puts them behind corners or doorways that are just beyond the reach of the marines on their first turn, you can often zerg in and kill half their team with them powerless to stop it, given the orks have a 50/50 chance to win hand to hand combat. It seems like the optimal way for the alien to play, but it's not much fun for the marines!
I noticed in your own playthroughs you often place the blips without knowing what they are, which would help mitigate that - the rule book doesn't seem to be too clear on whether or not you're supposed to know what you're placing.
@@danielwalley6554 The alien player has to place blips after the first marine has moved into the board, so try positioning that one marine with eyes on as many angles as possible to limit blip placement. After the blips are placed, you still have the rest of your squad to activate, so you know where the blips are and can position accordingly. If they are within charge range, back up. Or drop a blind grenade (if you have one) so they can't attack, then play an order next turn that gives you an advantage. If they are right on a corner, drop a missile on the space directly in front of them. Arm your bolter marines with bolt pistols so they have the edge in combat. A gretchin is going to struggle against a marine rolling three white dice.
I find Gretchin are better used to run interference, anyway. Use them to shoot at range (sometimes they get lucky) while making screen walls to protect more powerful units and to block up corridors to slow down the marines long enough for reinforcements to come into play. Committing too many bodies to close combat can be bad as with bad rolls you may find that the alien units are dying on the alien player's turn. That frees up the marines to spend their own turns advancing on the objective and cleaning up stragglers rather than wading through lots of bodies.
There are more options in a four-player game. The alien player can't commit too many forces to any one board sector as they are fighting a battle on three fronts. If they go too heavy-handed in one section, the other marines will run away with the game.
And you can always let another squad take the hit - let them be the first team onto that board sector, and then approach from the other side. Once the blips are out, the marines have full knowledge of the playing field and the alien player loses the element of surprise.
The alien player is allowed to know what blips they are placing. I place them blind in my playthroughs because I am playing solo and it prevents me from knowing what enemies are approaching.
Ultimately, the rules say the game is for 2 to 4 players, but really it's designed around having all the squads in play. With two marine squads everything still works pretty well but if you want to play it as a two-player game the ideal solution is to use the Eldar Attack expansion, which is specifically weighted for just two players. If you want to play with less players using marines, you could consider giving each squad one additional order card for each missing player (so one squad would get three order cards, two squads would get two each). Alternatively, run your game with the terminator rules from White Dwarf. That's always fun.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Fair points! Blind grenades do seem like they'd be an effective counterplay, I'll have to try that.
@@danielwalley6554 Let me know how you get on and if you come up with any other mods or ideas that work out for you. The core game definitely plays better with the full player count - a fact I guess they admitted themselves when they made a specifically two-player expansion.
Bolt Pistols: in Hand to Hand combat (when attacking AND when defending) you can use one extra white dice. Close Assault Blades: only when attacking in diagonal (and therefore never when defending) can you deny one dice to your targeted enemy in Hand to Hand combat.
so with close assault blades, you want to be offensive to have upperhand.
That's correct.
Sometimes we chose to play as different chapters; switching around the squad pieces, Crimson Fists (blue) Lamenters (yellow) Howling Griffons (red) for example or attempting to randomize equipment cards to reflect a new chapter's tactics kept the game interesting, getting more than two targeters or an extra melta bomb was always okay but gaining more commander cards and then attributing them to other members of the squad made it feel like these marines were veterans or minor heroes.
Nice. Those are some cool ideas.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Shuffling the 24 equipment cards then dealing them three ways can really make or BRAKE a player's squad.
@@fransaacs I want to load up a commander with equipment and see how far he can get on his own.
[Mentioned this on a different video] Due to the pieces breaking and having to mix and match pieces from all three chapters, I eventually came up with my own chapter!
The UltraBloodyFists!
Solo commander but with the same number of hit points as an entire squad; I mean they are meant to be Beasty-Units... not to be taken out by a single Android in one round!!! >XP
New Subscriber - Reason? Awesome videos, easy to hear and good audio. Retro GW content = YES!
Thanks so much for the support and kind words.
i find that as the alien player its easy to overwhelm the marines with gretchin in close combat. The rules for that are very swingy and give a gretchin a 9 in 36 chance of killing any space marine in CC save for non heavy bolter commanders and bolt pistol upgraded bolter marines. For a 2 point enemy that moves 8 (!) squares a turn and has 16 copies just in the base blip set alone thats enormous. So i find i always have to hold back or have to use house rules. Any of you guys have house rules for Space crusade , esp for this kind of problem?
Great vid.
Thank you. Any excuse to talk about Space Crusade!
Do you think, that Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City are good modern takes on Space Crusade and Heroquest? For me they do the same things as the old games, but better. Nostalgia aside, do you have an itch that the old games scratched but they decendants fail to?
It's an interesting question, but I don't think Blackstone or Cursed City are close to providing what HeroQuest and Space Crusade do. As much as I love new games, I am a retro gamer, so this answer is probably not going to be shocking...
HeroQuest is still one of the best and most accessible introductions to dungeoncrawling, and it has a beautiful aesthetic that is well removed from the cartoony style many games adopt. It also has a style of play you don't often see in games; with an "evil" player who has a secret map of the world, and who is responsible for bringing that world to life. Some games do the secret map thing, but most focus more on making the games more competitive, making the "evil" player an equal opponent, and employing things like a strict time limit to keep heroes moving so the game is more of a race than an exploration. Alternatively, games go for the full co-op option versus AI.
Space Crusade is a brilliant game, even now. One of the only games that pulls off the competitive co-operative play style successfully. The idea of having a team of five characters with unique weapons, special items, and commands isn't something you really see. Normally each player in this sort of game controls one character rather than a squad. It uses a points system so it isn't all about winning or losing individual battles, it has team progression, and the narrative campaign feels complete and rewarding.
And if you look at something like Space Hulk, I think there are few games that come anywhere close to doing what that game does.
Nostalgia will always play a part with this sort of game, but for me, that nostalgia is earned for games like HeroQuest. For example, I used to have Dark World with Village of Fear and Dragon's Gate expansions, and that game has absolutely not stood the test of time, with most modern games making it look very poor in comparison.
Yessss - he did promise more space crusade and he delivered!
I'm a man of my word. There will be more playthroughs, but they're a bit more difficult to fit into real life. I have some terminators to send in to show these regular marines how it's really done!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring superb, looking forward to it. PS: after your passionate review of WHQ: CC, have you ever thought about revisiting/re-delving into WHQ95?
@@user-yl7lz1hm6r There's a written review for Quest 95 on my blog from a fair few years back, but I think I'm leaving it there. At least for the time being. I love Quest 95, but I love it more as a memory than as a game I want to play now.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring understandable, going back to utter random mechanics might be a shock to the system 😅.
There’s a point... I’m a mid thirties guy, who was big into tabletop gaming in the mid 90s, only just returning/revisiting the old skool classics dangerously for nostalgia’s sake. I‘ve heard from many an aficionado that gaming has moved on for the better since the ‘crude’ days of space hulk, whq, space crusade, HQ etc etc.. What are the big systems/games these days that hark back to the old times but have been positively moved forward leaps and bounds from a gaming perspective in your opinion?
A few years back I introduced Warhammer Quest 95 to different people who had never played it back in the day, and not a single person enjoyed it. Even I didn't really enjoy it.
Anyway... that's a big question and I'll focus only on the dungeoncrawling genre...
The first point I would make is that I think that for every advance in board games there's been a half step back. We are currently in a hobby where there's a glut of overproduced, miniatures-heavy Kickstarter games to the degree where I find it quite tiresome. Lots of things look the same, and it always feels more about appearance and the physical presence of what's in the box, and the chase to the next stretch goal which is another lump of plastic that may or may not even have rules or a way to make it part of a cohesive product.
The second point is, you may be asking the wrong person. Although I love a good new games as much as the next person, I am a big retro gamer with a pretty big collection of games from the 80s and 90s. For me, Space Crusade, HeroQuest, and Space Hulk still stand up today as brilliant games.
Space Crusade is just a solid, focused, perfectly executed game, with accessible rules, a strong theme, cool miniatures, and neat ideas like swap-in weapons and team customisation. Possibly also one of few games where the competitive co-operative play style feels like it actually works.
HeroQuest still does things that few other games do, and I still maintain it's one of the best ways to introduce dungeon crawling to children, while being a brilliant adventure game to play with adults who want to laugh and have fun without worrying about a lot of rules and strategy.
Space Hulk is just a timeless classic. Claustrophobic, thematic, nerve-wracking, fast paced fun with beautiful presentation. Richard Halliwell passed away just recently, but even if you ignore all his other contributions to gaming, Space Hulk would be enough to ensure his place in the hall of fame.
DungeonQuest is almost perfect in the execution of a hard as nails death gauntlet. It's so good that when Fantasy Flight Games tried to update the rules they had to walk them back because they made the game worse.
I could go on like this all day, but you've probably stopped reading, so to more accurately answer your question. I think Dungeon Saga picks up the ball for HeroQuest and runs with it, adding modular boards, more skills and items, and a more competitive experience; however, the D&D board games are probably some of the best modern introductions to dungeon crawling for kids. Silver Tower felt just enough like Warhammer Quest to earn the name, but was really something special. Shadows Over Hammerhal was like Quest and Advanced HeroQuest combined to make what should have been my favourite of the modern Quest games. Darklight Memento Mori and Shadows of Brimstone are possibly the closest in style to a Quest 95+, and I am interested to pick up Brimstone now that the second edition is out. I guess any game that allows for solo play has to tip its hat to DungeonQuest and Advanced HeroQuest, some of the earliest examples of solo play games, and any overland adventure has to at least wave to Talisman as it passes by. The Mage Knight board game can probably be seen as a successor in theme and level of rules intricacies to Magic Realm.
Okay, I'll stop now...
Everytime I've seen a person play blood angels for the first time they usually go bolter melee Specialty. The combination begs to be used.
I do wish that there was more of a reason to use melee as a marine player since I usually see bolter brothers get ripped apart. Though I reckon special rules to give regular marines 2 hp instead of 1 might alleviate this issue.
I love going the melee route with the Blood Angels, and they faired a little better than the Ultramarines in my recent playthroughs! Melee is dangerous though, and you do lose a lot of your crowd control capabilities. You become a monster against orks and gretchin, and you give away a lot less points to the alien player, and really the game is all about points and how cheaply you sell your marines' lives.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Thankfully that payoff is worthwhile. I imagine that with Mission dreadnought the extra marines can make a sizable difference since you get more manpower for crowd control and combat.
That's an interesting thought. Unfortunately I only have the base game at the moment. Would love to get the two expansions, especially Eldar Attack.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Eldar Attack is main Christmas and Birthday present combined money ..and if you're lucky it might still have the Woolworths £4.99 sticker on the box
3:57 which sleeves are you using? And what size are they, since I might not be able to get the exact same ones in Germany.
😂 Die Hüllen such ich auch grad👍🏼 Ich werd mal hier posten, wenn ich die passende Größe gefunden habe.
Yucatan 54x80mm from Sleeve Kings.