Space Hulk - Tips & Strategies

Substitute a digital timer for the plastic hourglass that comes with the game. A simple battery-operated kitchen timer can be purchased inexpensively and will enhance gameplay in a few different ways.

A digital timer will allow resets at the push of a button instead of waiting for the sand to reload. It can provide exact time information for the Space Marine in a just a quick glance. It will make a sound when expired, accurately defining the end of a turn, when the sand timer is sometimes forgotten in the heat of battle. It also enables you to modify the time setting to change the difficulty level.

We all know that the Marine player has to play his turn fast. Most don’t realize that it’s advantageous for the Stealer to speed it up too!

By executing the Stealer turn as fast as possible, you give the Space Marines less time to survey his current situation. This forces his counter-strategy to be more reactive and less thought out.

This technique will take the already tense time pressure element and turn it up a notch!

An old ploy was for a gene stealer player to run long range target out in order to hopefully force a jam so that a nearby gene stealer could move with zero risk and attack the marine with the jammed weapon.

Unlike previous editions of Space Hulk, which forced the Space Marine on over watch to fire at all visible targets inside 12 squares, the 4th edition added a “may fire” to the rules which allows the marine player to be selective.

While playing the Space Marines, you will sometimes have a few extra seconds on your time clock before you end your turn. Utilize that time to review the board and think ahead a few moves rather than immediately passing play to the Genestealers. This may give you a chance to see weaknesses in the enemy strategy or possible scenario loopholes (ie. better path through the “Hulk”) that you may miss during active parts of the game.

I see alot of new players forget they can move diagonal around corners, so long as one side of the corner is unblocked. This can be particularly useful when playing as the marines, who don’t really have the AP to go into a square they don’t really need to. It’s absolutely necessary when playing Suicide Mission!

This game has some of the most beautiful game components ever made for board games. It would be a crime to take the highly detailed miniatures for this game and use them as your first foray into painting tiny things.

Instead, buy another game that looks good to you (or just cheap miniatures by themselves) and practice on those until you feel comfortable and confident enough to give the prettiest little pieces on the table the effort and skill they deserve.

….or, you know, just pay someone else to do it. 😉

There are a couple of really solid iOS apps that have a VERY similar feel to Space Hulk, Hunters and Hunters 2 (#2 obviously being the more polished version). It’s a top down, turn based campaign with a variety of team members and enemies. You can play a hammer wielding “Hunter” (not a marine *wink*) with heavy armor that only has three action points or a fast moving lightly armored shotgun specialist with five+ action points per round. All your Hunters gain XP and can level up and upgrade different specialist talent trees. It’s also tactical in that there’s fog of war with lines of sight and facing really does matter, especially in overwatch mode. I would certainly recommend Hunters 2 to anyone who wants to play Space Hulk with zero setup time, no assembly required!

http://rodeogames.co.uk/hunters-two/

Not a game play tip, but important nontheless. I struggled to find a decent storage solution without taking up too much shelf space and without damaging the fragile miniatures. For anyone not aware of it, Battlefoam sells custom foam cutouts for the minis. It is listed as “Space Corridor Game,” and you have to make sure you choose the one that fits in the original box (there is one that fits in a Pack bag, so be careful which one you choose). The foam is cut for each miniature and fits all the components back in, but the box top sticks up just a bit. This doesn’t bother me, but it may bother some. I definitely think it was a worthwhile investment to protect an expensive purchase.

I really love this game so I decided it needed a little more action. I have added Tyrinads, Hunter Slayers, Zoats, Squigs and other little nasties into the game. The marines are still the best fighters but this adds to the game in many ways. The alpha blips now can be more of a surprise to the marines.