In Search of the Devastator | Exploring the Space Crusade Mekaniak and Wandering Around Memory Lane
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- Always Board Never Boring loves Space Crusade, and he doesn't need much of an excuse to talk about it. This video is the perfect example of that. He's delving into one of the most inconsequential, small details in the game for no other reason than he wants to look at some old miniatures and White Dwarf magazines, and talk about cool Games Workshop stuff from the past. The result is one of his weirdest, and probably most useless, videos ever, but he had a lot of fun making it anyway.
#SpaceCrusade #Devastator #Mekaniak
Always Board Never Boring produces fresh content on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you would like to support the channel, here are some options...
If you're in the UK, you can shop at Element Games with my affiliate link, and using code KEV392 at checkout will get you double Element Crystals on your order:
elementgames.c...
If you found the video useful, please consider making a small donation to the channel, using the following link or the clickable PayPal icon in the banner on the channel homepage:
www.paypal.com...
Don't forget to sub and like, and please check out all this other cool stuff too:
www.alwaysboar...
/ alwaysboardneverboring
/ alwaysboardneverboring
www.boardgameg...
Music by James Lloyd. Check out his stuff at:
jnlloyd.bandca...
I have just discovered your Space Crusade series. I love it!
The real devastator is the fact that we will never know the answer...
Maybe the real devastator was the friends we made along the way?
Lol'd too hard 🤣
I just noticed Ork Mekaniak is also an equipment card in the Ork Mob rules in White Dwarf 134. . It allows an Ork boy to fire his Kustom Experimental shooter as a plasma gun. . I think Plasma guns were the first special weapons available for the Orks back I'm the RT02 days. . There seems to be a lot of them. .
I actually found the video fascinating. I'm glad you made it.
I'm pleased to hear some people found it interesting. I hoped they would, but once I had put the video together I thought, "Nobody's going to care about this nonsense except me!"
No, that was totally worth the effort. Pretty interesting detective work there and the bit about GW honoring the deal on the metal Dwarf army is great too. I hope you still have those trusty Dwarfs?
Sadly, that dwarf army went the way of everything else I owned back in the day. It was all sold when I went to university. I now spend my days trying to buy it all back!
I'm getting this game soon... taking a crash course to learn about it after all these years. looks like you have many videos on it! thanks for sharing your knowledge
Thanks for watching. I’ve been covering the game for a while and have just started a restoration and painting series. Should have more playthroughs going up eventually too.
I love those dwarf minis. I used to look at the catalog pictures all the time.
I wasted good chunks of my life just looking at the miniatures in catalogues. The dwarfs really did look fantastic, but then, most of the stuff back then looked fantastic.
I did the same deep dive after your first play through, got to the end but missed all the middle - particularly liked the metal mini insight and the Chaos Commander weapon swap. Never noticed the image on the side of the box was like the token (dislike those sculpts). Love your vids man
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words. I'm glad I'm not the only person who looks into these things!
I saw one of metal prototype dreadnought sell on eBay probably 12 or so years ago I bid as much as I could but suffice to say it went for amounts way beyond what I could afford to pay. I wish I'd been a little more flush with cash back then. The final Plastic model was certainly more versatile with the weapon swaps etc, but the metal one and other prototypes are stunning models and there are definitely a couple out there in the wild that I'd love to own. And those prototype Chaos marines with the full spread of heavy weapons.... glorious... :D
in Germany, probably to take out the lethality of the weapons, they made the Plasma Gun a Black Hole Blaster that puts enemies into another dimension. The card says it has the effect of that weapon. Well, could be just a guess by the translator, but for 30 years it was that for us. Great video by the way. The other ones too. Thank you for that
It's so funny what they did with the German version. Thanks for watching!
As you mentioned, heavy weapon space marines are now called Devestator squads. I've always assumed that at the time Space Crusade came out "Devestator" was used to to refer to the heavy weapons. So firing "as though he has a Devestator" means he can fire as if he has any of the heavy weapons, chosen by the chaos player.
My Missions Dreadnaught only came with one extra dreadnaught. I think there was quite a lot of inconsistancies back then.
nice vid, I like. The one weapon kind that regularly explodes across all 40k game variants is a plasma gun due to the extrem heat it produces. On the other hand, Orcs are very experimental, so to throw a d6 to decide which heavy weapon it is, is probably the most fun and accurate thing to do.
Someone in the comments told me in the French version it’s a plasma gun so all things point to that. However, I think the reason it blows up is because it’s an experimental ork weapon not because it’s like a plasma gun, as the actual plasma guns in the game don’t have any rules for blowing up. Thanks for watching!
Hi there thanks for all your content. Signed up recently because of your space crusade vids. I currently in the process of putting an all metal mini versuon together. For the plasma gun i found a metal space marine from 1992 the Legion of the Damned marine with flamer which is almost identical to the space crusade plasma gun so that was handy.
To give myself a challenge i decided to kitbash some of the ork poses and weapons from the cards. I ended up using a Tau pulse carbine from a Pathfiner scout as it looked like decent stand in for the devastator card gun. My lore with using that is that an ork scavenged this weird damaged gun he found, didnt know how to repair it properly but coveted it nontheless. When all else fails he decides to pull it out and a: see if it works and b: see if its powerful enough to kill this new marine threat he encountered on his cosy space hulk. Well as you can see he was right to be wary of his repairs as the bloody thing blows up lol. Im such a nerd but this has been a fun process.
What i really need help with from you and the community is finding a very visually similar metal stand in for the rocket launcher. I dont want to have to result to 3d printing but i feel out there there is a metal rogue trader mini holding maybe a gun with the same rear end at least so i can kitbash the front in metal.
Thanks again for space crusade vids and much love from Northern Ireland.
Thanks for checking out the videos. If you go onto eBay and search for "rogue trader ork heavy weapon" you should find an interesting assortment of options. They had some really crazy guns back then.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring oh I already have lol. Just went with tau cus it looked similar so made up the story round an ork who found an wierd alien weapon and called it Devastator. Just learned about the white dwarf ork boyz rules. This changes my ork loadout direction, thank goodness i hadn't got the glue or paints out yet. Now if i can just find an ebay copy of white dwarf 134 for under £20 o will be one happy space cadet
@Pro DELBOY Those ork rules are available online. Try Scribd. You can grab all the tyranid, terminator and scout rules too.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring cheers
I have always played SC with the notion of having the Chaos player only having access to missile launchers or heavy bolters. With respect to the physical Chaos Marines, (according to the fluff / lore timeline back when SC was released) the other heavy weapons, like the Assault Cannon, and Plasma Gun were developed / deployed AFTER the Horus Heresy, and thus Chaos didn't have the technology. The problem with that analogy though, is that the Dreadnought DOES have access to these weapon types.
Another point to note, is that earlier in the rulebook / comic story, the Sergeant calls on Kanner to "bring up the Plasma Gun". So if the Devestator is also the Plasma Gun, why would the sergeant refer to it as the "Plasma Gun", rather than just call it the "Devestator" from the get-go, like the surviving marine says upon the appearance of the Dreadnought?
In the computer game versions of Space Crusade, the Assault Cannon + Targeter is the deadliest combo available to any marine player. I cannot speak for the Amiga version of the game, but I can speak for the C64 and PC versions (as I've played both). A bug / feature exists whereby you can use the Assault Cannon to target an empty square, and as long as you roll higher than 0, you can re-select the marine carrying the weapon, then select an Alien enemy, and the dice score will be re-rolled by the game. Also, if the rolled score is insufficient, or the player (i.e: you) de-select the fire button, it will still be available, meaning the Assault Cannon has then gained unlimited shooting chances for the rest of the turn. However, if you roll two zeros on your first attempt, you won't be able to fire again for the rest of that turn, hence the importance of making sure you take a targeter with that weapon, to give you a chance of avoiding a "Double-Zero" roll when you least desire it.
Unlike (most) of the other weapons in the game (and this goes for both the board game and the computer ports), the Assault Cannon is a SUSTAINED FIRE weapon. So while you must target an alien minature before you roll the dice in the board game, any leftover points, may be used on other targets in the line-of-fire / line of sight, assuming you have sufficient points to left to kill them. The same cannot be said of either the Plasma Gun or Missile Launcher as they are both single -shot weapons.
Like I said, in my games I always played the Mekaniac card as a missile launcher, but since sustained fire comes with the risk of overheating of said weapon, and "Ork Tech" is known for being dodgy at the best of times, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility that the Ork could be fielding an Assault-Cannon-like weapon, and an Autocannon is one such like-for-like weapon.
Either way, just roll two red dice as you would any other heavy weapon, targetting one single Space Marine. The Chaos Player already has enough advantages with regards area effect / heavy weapons in the Chaos Marine with the Missile Launcher, the Chaos Commander, the Dreadnought, and the Auto-Defence and Booby Trap event cards as it is!.
I like the chaos of your house rule as well but I would think the Devastator is the Plasma Gun.
In the story Kanner is definitely carrying the Plasma Gun and before the Sergeant dies he tells Kanner to bring the Devastator.
In the picture of the Ork Mekaniak he’s holding a large gun rather than a Missile Launcher or Assault Gun.
And if any weapon in the 40K universe is likely to blow up its operator its going to be a plasma weapon!
I think you’re right that Plasma Gun evolved from a Flamer. It certainly behaves that way in the Space Crusade rules and it makes sense that a weapon that spews out superheated plasma would be like a flamethrower.
Yeah, it seems pretty conclusive to me that it's a plasma gun. It was fun rummaging through all the little details about it.
Noticed this for the first time today when flicking through the cards. And was wondering… 😀
I always thought it was meant to be amusing. Basically, ‘Choose an Ork. The Ork blows up.’
Well it is supposed to be funny and it does blow up the ork, but you are supposed to get a powerful attack out of it too.
The event card does look like the orc is shooing fire ,as well
I used to play Space Crusade on the amiga, me me my mate loved it. The Ultramarines were my favourite, I was always lucky with them and Commander Coldstream with his white flat-top haircut haha.I wish I had had board game, hopefully you will be able too get the expansions.
The computer game was really good, but they had excellent source material to work with! I would love the expansions, but that's something I will have to approach down the line.
30 years waiting for this video
Funfact. In french version, ork mekaniak's card says that xenos player has to counsider the ork as if he wears a plasma gun. There is no mention to devastator. 😅😉
Yes I’ve been told this several times since making this video, which does make almost the whole thing pointless (assuming the translators were right and not making their own guess based on the evidence) but never mind I had fun making it and I think other people have enjoyed it.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring oh, and I thank you for having make this video. 😁👍
In some of the old codex’s for ultra marines the chapter iconography for what is now “fire support” is listed as “devastator” so I’m wondering if it’s just a change of wording for any heavy weapon that is considered for the role and as space crusade is a collaborative game between GW and MB an update to the name was never changed properly. Just a theory.
Space Crusade predates the ultramarines codexes. It is almost certainly supposed to be a plasma weapon, which is what it was in other languages.
A Devastator is simply a marine carrying a heavy weapon. Hence the Devastator Squads in 40k.
That was not the case when this game came out back in 1990. That’s covered in the video. Also the word is clearly used to refer to a weapon, not a person.
One of the things that digging back into Rogue Trader and the 93-130ish White Dwarf issues is that GW seldom seemed to be on the same page with game rules and lore from month to month. There are so many little changes and things that just seem to be forgotten. It really is like reading a series of gamers blogs or journals where their attention and interests wander from month to month.
I mentioned the Ultramarine lore changing pretty drastically within a year from being third founding post-heresy to being a founding chapter with a primarch.
It's quite funny to see how things changed. I guess to a certain degree it was just a bunch of gamers wandering through their own ideas until it all coalesced into what we have now.
Very interesting!
In the german version of the game (StarQuest) the Mekaniak Ork uses a Plasma Gun.
Apparently in the French version too. It's pretty clear it was meant to be the plasma gun.
My copy of the game had plastic miniatures that were a perfect match to the box. I was a little surprised at your set as mine didn't have the heavy bolter for the captain but did have the bolt pistol and power axe for the chaos captain. Also my orks are much uglier.
That's unusual. The miniatures around the box are the metal prototypes that were used in advertising and product photography. They never went into mass production and I wasn't aware of any comparable miniatures being produced in plastic, which would have required expensive production moulds. Is your copy secondhand and a relatively recent acquisition? I'm wondering if they might be 3D prints or something?
Nicely put together. A good watch
Thank you.
ive always wondered why the Plasma gun looked like an old 2nd ed flamer. having a flamer in a space hulk makes perfect sense to me
I wonder if they changed it because Space Hulk had already come out and had flamers that worked as a type of barricade and splash damage. The flamers in Space Crusade worked in such a different way, perhaps they decided it was wise to change it to a weapon that more closely resembled the weapon's effect.
I think they tried to avoid providing any additional components like templates or ammo counters. A flamer in space hulk has ammo counters for each shot that flip to be a template. You also don't have convenient sections for the hallways like you do the corridors in hulk.
There would also be the issue of catching other players in templates.
@@johnmiddleton4291 Yeah, I don't think they ever would have tried to make them work like Space Hulk. I feel like it might have been more the other way around. They designed this linear attack system for a weapon, then attributed it to a flamer, and then decided it didn't really model a flame attack or what people might expect from a flame attack, and thought it would more accurately represent a blast of plasma lancing through multiple targets.
since the German edition says plasma gun, I'm going with that in mine.
We could never agree on what the rule was, I think in the end we just blew up the Ork without firing - which is now obviously wrong but to a 10 year old at the time resolved the problem.
The Emperor approves of this ruling.
This reminds me of the Finnish edition of Space Crusade, where the Dreadnought is translated as Destructor. And no, not the Finnish word for "destructor" but the actual English Destructor.
This game has so many interesting little anomalies.
I've been wondering about this too. I'd like to know what people suggest might work as a stand-in for a "Devastator" (Plasma Gun) for the Orks, if I wanted to custom a Mekaniak for my copy of Space Crusade.
So, my belief is that the Mek was supposed to operate exactly like the marine plasma gun (straight line attack). My house rule is I roll a D3 to determine whether the Mek gets a plasma gun, assault cannon, or missile launcher. Another option would be to make the devastator work like one of the super heavies from Mission Dreadnought (lascannon, conversion beam, or fusion gun), but they would probably all be too powerful.
The video was worth it!
I'm glad you thought so!
I think the fact that plasma guns had a chance to kill the person using it, at least back in 3rd edition which I'm most familiar with, I don't know about other editions, adds some more evidence towards it being the plasma gun, since the mechaniac blows up. Doing a quick search.. chaos plasma guns blew up too in 2nd edition 40k? So I dunno, I like your random weapon rule, I think I would conclude plasma gun if I was playing the game.
Apparently in the French edition it was translated as plasma gun. From all the evidence that seems to be the best fit. Bear in mind though this game is from the Rogue Trader era so well before second edition 40k. Also, the mekaniak is using something that fires like a devastator but isn’t actually one. The fact it blow up is more because it’s an experimental creation.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring all good points, plus I'm not familiar with Ork weapons, like.. if they had any other weapons that had a chance to blow up, like maybe its just an ork thing for many weapons.
@@xyonblade Let’s strap this very explosive thing to this very noisy thing and this very stabby thing and see what happens…
Maybe the real devastator was inside us all along.
The real devastator was the aliens we devastated along the way.
In the german version (called starquest) the mekaniak card indeed says that the orc fires a "black hole blaster" wich was the german censored version of the plasma gun/flamer
So yeah.. devastator = plasma gun/flamer
Hope that helps aliviate the mystery.. you know.. after 2 years
Ha. Yeah - the general consensus from people who have posted here in the comments section based on other language editions is it's a plasma gun.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring in dutch it was even a different gun (sorry I'm too lazy to dig up my card from the box (Edit: ah yes the uitschakelaar thanks other comments)) and not a plasma gun (the plasma gun reference is common in other languages). We always treated this card as a joke about orks and only removed the ork which was fine solution to this problem. What actual weapon the card referenced has vexed me for decades however, as I assumed it referenced some ork lore weapon.
But I was surprised to learn people didnt treat this as a joke and actually made the ork fire.
What I find interesting is they didn't use the Genestealer arms from Space Hulk and the box. The models had flatter profile arms, which never appeared anywhere else to my knowledge.
Yeah, I had always assumed they were the same until recently.
The one on the box is the the original purestrains done in metal. I'm sure the change is purely for manufacturing reasons.
Hmm, the Genestealer on the end of the box and the ones on the back are definitely Space Hulk ones. Going back through my catalogues looks like they were on the same sprue as the terminators so they must have resprued them and changed the arms odd. The one on the side is one of the glorious metal ones I'd love to own.
@@ftumptch86 Yeah, the Space Hulk and Genestealer expansion ones were on the same sprue as the terminators. They re-sprued them for the 2nd ed 40k tyranid army when they started selling them in a unit box. Those are the same ones that later came in the 2nd ed of Space Hulk in the 90s. I think those sprues date 1992.
I'm not sure if they are the same model as the original games. I think they are.
I gave away my copy of Space Crusade to my step sisters kid in about 2001, gutted. I'm glad you referenced Guru Larry, I enjoy his videos, too. You didn't slag off Peter Molyneux though, you must do that if you're to emulate the Guru himself.
I think I'll leave ripping into Peter to a true professional.
I'm sure it'll have been an editing issue, which is why it's spelt incorrectly in the story in the manual. They probably just used it as a placeholder term until they'd decided what weapons they were going to include, but forgot to change them before it was sent to print.
It's clearly an editing issue where they didn't change the name of the devastator in every instance. The interesting thing to me is why it was called a devastator in the first place. Everything from the painted prototypes, the art in the rules book and the design of the plasma gun suggests to me an 11th hour change from a flame-based weapon to the plasma gun.
Plus, you've got the way the weapon works in the rules. Nowhere else in the 40k universe do plasma guns have anything approximating a linear template effect. Unlike flamers...
I've got 4 copies of the german edition and there the ork mekkanik uses a blackhole blaster.
Ha. Yeah, the German edition is very odd with all the changes they made.
Interesting that in Finnish edition of the game this card states that the orc does his usual damage. And then blows up. I suppose translators have wondered this as well and made their own conclusion. "One of the heavy weapons" effect would have been more fun in my view. Which is what I think I will use.
That's interesting. Other translations have it working like a plasma gun, which I feel is the "right" answer, but I prefer to randomly generate a heavy weapon attack. It feels more orky.
I just checked my Dutch version, and now that the initial translation cringe has dissipated somewhat (it IS as bad as I remember), I can confirm the isolated use of the word 'uitschakelaar' in the exact two places 'devastator' was used...
However; I remember that we played that card as if the ork exploded without having a weapon effect. Our reasoning being that otherwise the card would have stated 'after that, the weapon explodes', while it now says 'BUT the weapon explodes' (capitals are mine).
It's definitely supposed to have a weapon affect, because the card is optional. The wording on the UK card is "Any one ork miniature MAY fire as though he has a devastator. The weapon, however, blows up." You basically have the choice to ignore the card, or get a single powerful ability that then removes the ork from play. General consensus from other editions is it's the plasma gun.
I love old board have mysteries.
My only problem with side crusade is that the game has holes in the rules in a few places which can slow the game down and the Ork Mekaniak is just another one of those problem rules.
Thankfully the game is still BASED warts and all
Space Crusade is the business. It still holds up well today.
I just assumed it was another name for the plasma gun. So that’s just my fix for it.
Well everything points to it being the plasma gun, including translations for other language editions.
Hello, I have the official answer to this question : in my french version of Space Crusade, the word on this card is "Plasma Gun" (Lance-grenades au Plasma, in french).
oups, sorry, it was already answered
Yea, it doesn't necessarily mean it's definitely supposed to be the plasma gun. The French translators may just have used a "best guess" and went with plasma because they didn't know what else to use. However, it seems likely due to the other references I talk about in the video that at some point they went from something called a Devastator to the plasma gun, but a few instances of the Devastator name remained.
Back in the day I wrote a letter to MB Games asking if the 'Devastator' was in fact a plasma gun and they wrote back confirming that it was.
Nice. Well there we go, I should have just asked you!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I wouldn't read too much into the reply I got from MB's customer service. I phrased the question to have a yes/no answer, and an affirmative response was probably just the easiest answer they could give. I always wished I'd simply asked what a devastator was supposed to be. I bet somebody, somewhere has a similar letter from MB Games confirming that a devastator was an assault cannon.
I've enjoyed many of your videos, by the way, so thanks for doing them. And +1 for the " I'm glad you referenced Guru Larry" comment as well.
Ha, I know what you mean. It's like trying to get an answer from GW for one of their specialist games. You generally get a vague shrug from someone who doesn't know any more than you do.
Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you've enjoyed some of the videos.
7:35 note the weapon attributes card, lower left at the board's edge; Wayne England's original Blood Angels Terminator illustrations for the Space Hulk box back used. I recently found an article in WD 134 that provides Terminator rules for Space Crusade - would you consider a playthrough with a squad?
I have the terminator rules, and I was considering doing a playthrough with them. There are ork rules too.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Yes to both. Would be great to see an Ork WAAAGH! tearing through the ship. What would you sub the Ork and Gretchin blips for? Marines and Guardsmen/Cultists?
@@fransaacs I don't need much of an excuse to get out my copy of Space Crusade! Might as well leave all the greenskins in. They love a good scrap.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Cool. Looking forward to it!
I guess it is 2 red dices. Then with plasma attribute.
Apparently other translations suggest it's a plasma gun too.
Thanks a lot for your videos, I really enjoy watching this old gem coming to life again :-).
Just had a look at my very politically correct German version of SC. Here, the card, the rules, and the story are consistent and use 'Black Hole Blaster' - aka Plasma Cannon.
Thanks for watching and sharing that information. I've been told the French version is also consistent with that, so it seems pretty conclusive that it's supposed to be a plasma weapon! Black Hole Blaster is a great name for a gun.
Thanks man
Thanks for watching.
My game which is Dutch says it’s a uitschakelaar. Which actually means the off-switcher . … so that even makes less sence haha
Ha. I don't know. I can imagine an ork calling his gun the off-switcher on account of how many space marines he has switched off with it.
strangely in the states i think i r ember the plasma gun being called a Devastator
Interesting. In 40K proper, the actual marines from a devastator squad are called devastator marines, so people do refer to marines with plasma cannons as devastators, but the gun itself was never named as such as far as I'm aware. And of course, Space Crusade was never released in the US.
Interestingly the card in the Danish Version specifically states Grenade/Missile Launcher :) If you need a pic let me know:
Edit WAIT NO!!!! It states it has a crusher!!!! Intriqueing
That’s interesting. The French version states plasma gun! I guess translators picked the one they thought was most likely. I wouldn’t have thought grenade launcher was the right choice because then the mechaniak is functionally the same as a gretchin bomber in terms of killing power.
Very interesting.
For the Amiga (or Atari St) I can confirm that mecamaniak use a missile launcher (only by memory).
But in the sequel name "mission beyond" there is a Fire launcher. The only one gun with a range. He can shoot a entire zone in front of the marine. I have kill some marine to understand the lesson....
Thanks. I was sure he did, but it's been a long time since I played that game. I watched a couple of playthroughs online to see if I could see a Mek at work, but they aren't a particularly common occurence.
Plasma gun in the French one.
That's interesting. So on the card and in the rules book it's consistently referred to as "plasma gun"?
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring yes
@@concombremosque Nice. Thanks for confirming that. It ties in with everything else and I would say that makes it conclusive.
I was worth the insight.
Thanks. I'm not sure how many people will find this video interesting, but I sure had a lot of fun rummaging around in the past putting it together.
Was a rough game at the time, but damn, does it age well. These days, It's great for a one off, or a little walk down memory lane.
Rough? Space Crusade was as slick as they came.
Gotta be honest, miss the old background music a bit...
I still use the old background music. This is my sci-fi background, the original is for fantasy stuff so will be used in my forthcoming Rangers of Shadow Deep playthrough, and then I have another piece for hobby stuff like painting guides.
in like 95