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Tips & Strategies (13)
Tips & Strategies (13)
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If you like playing this game solo but it feels a little light – don’t be shy about using the rules for more players – by using more Space Marines and a different Vault Door you open up a very different game. It will become more complex but not that much longer as the higher spawn numbers will keep things moving nicely.
It also brings into play location cards 1A-1C that are not used at all in regular solo play.
In my experience you should avoid being attacked as much as possible. Even a single Genestealer basically has 1/3 chance to take out your marine – not a probability to be taken lightly.
Abilities like the Blue squad’s Intimidation and the Grey squad’s Power Field and Stealth Tactics are extremely helpful in reducing the amount of aliens you are faced with. Use these wisely to minimize number of attacks you can be exposed to.
Doors are also not to be underestimated. Especially if you are playing the Red team – one action (to activate the door) allows you to effectively take care of two Genestealers.
1. Positioning is EVERYTHING. Your melee marines aren’t much of an use if they can’t attack anyone. If you are playing with the RED combat team brother Leon, you may want to put him in the middle of the formation. With a range of 3, he can provide fire support for the whole formation.
2. Disperse your combat team members evenly. That way you might be able to attack both sides of the formation with a single attack card. That proves useful when the genestealers start flanking.
3. Support is important. It saves lives. Give support tokens to the marines next to corridors, dark corners etc. They’ll be attacked the most, so having support tokens to re-roll the bad rolls prevents disasters.
4. GET TO THE DOOR-AH! As in, put support tokens on it as much as you can. When traveling to the next location with a horde of Genestealers behind you, it could be a life saving thing when 3-4 of them are locked behind the door.
5. Know when to attack in full force. It could prove fatal if you attack with your whole formation as you can’t do anything to thin out the ever growing horde of genestealers next turn. Have a plan for each of your marines and you’ll do fine.
6. Use the special abilities to their full extent. Having Brother Zael or Brother Claudio kill a newly spawned group of genestealers before they can even attack can be a game winner.
Take care and you will survive.
The first two expansions are worth picking up for $5 a piece. The Marine expansion gives you two new sets of Marines to choose from and the Mission expansion adds a new type of Genestealer that is stronger than the vanilla ‘stealers, but not as beefy as the Broodlord as well as new locations and terrain cards that can be used as substitutes for the original locations.
Neither of these expansions fixes the hinky aspects of the game, but they do offer more options which add a nice dose of replayability.
NOTE: I have yet to play with the Deathwing Space Marine expansion or the Tyranid Enemy Pack expansion. As soon as I can get a game in with those, I’ll edit this tip.
Survival in this game is difficult but losing the special abilities of your squad leaders can make it impossible.
Not all space marines are created equal, your squad leaders usually have better offensive or defensive capabilities. So when you have to choose between two vulnerable marines to place a support token on it’s best to take into account what special abilities you’ll lose if one of them dies, such as Leon’s ability to make 3 attack actions, losing a skill like that can greatly reduce your likelyhood of survival. Read over your cards and determen which marines are of the most combat value and keep them stocked with at least one support token if at all possible. Those defensive rerolls are paramount to survival.
1. Doors are key pieces of terrain to help you survive and win the game. Make it a priority of getting support tokens on it with move and activate. Alternate your teams attacking and moving. Once you travel, you can clean house on a lot of genestealers. I love how this terrain when used effectively simulates the tactics of how doorways create great kill zones and choke points. I can imagine those marines forming up on the other side of the door as they leave and just unloading on the genestealers following from behind.
2. Keep support tokens on marines that have special attack abilities: Brother Leon, Brother Zael, Brother Claudio, and Lexicanum C..blah. These guys can really do some damage to the enemy. Keep them alive!
3. Do your best to keep marines facing in alternate directions and have each marine’s back covered by at least two other separate squad members. This maximizes both your offensive and defensive capabilities.
4. Put Brother Leon somewhere near the middle where he can effectively cover almost the whole side of one formation. His range of 3 plus 3 attacks rocks! Point him at a red terrain type (highest probability of genestealer spawn). He doesn’t have to be directly in front, just in range of it.
5. If you’re forced to pick a marine to die based on event card (or doing an activate), pick a marine with no special abilities and/or pick a marine that will not wipe out a combat team! You need those marines with special abilities, and you need each combat team’s abilities. When whole team is wiped out, you can’t use their cards.
6. Put the range 0 marines on high probable spawn terrain. These guys are useless without a genestealer in front of them (except Bro. Claudio).
7. Take out those spore chimneys and promethium tanks ASAP. That means…less spawn in your location.
1. Void locks are always starting locations. It has your spawn numbers, the type of locations to use, and the starting terrain card setup.
2. Look at the bottom right of the event card for the type of genestealers to move and move the whole swarm. Match it to genestealer icon on lower left of genestealer card. Brood Lords have two icons and only need one match.
3. Keep the starting location’s major and minor spawn numbers(the triangles with numbers) uncovered throughout the game.
4. Traveling happens at the end of any phase when at least ONE blip pile is emptied.
5. Actions cannot be played twice in a row.
6. Support tokens cannot be used when genestealers attack from behind.
7. Genestealers are drawn from blip piles that are on the same side as the terrain to receive spawn.
It gives you another couple set of marines to choose from, and you don’t need the round discs to choose your marines anymore. You can now use cards to randomly select characters. The expansion has quite the unique characters, and they are both fun and challenging to play with.
I’ve played around with the idea of altering a few of the rules to make the Space Marines last longer. The trick of adjusting the game system is that a little change can have an unexpected result.
I tried DasHangman’s suggestion to make saving rolls equal to or exceed the number of Genestealers present. This seems to help keep the Genestealers from being so unstoppable.
Another way is to allow a Supply Token to be used even if the Genestealer is behind the Space Marine. This reduces the impact of the Genestealer moving behind the Marines but at least the Marines still can’t attack Genestealers behind them.
The last thing I’d mention about House Rules is to be careful not to add too many rules as it changes the balance of the game. The Genestealers are supposed to be an almost unstoppable force. The good guys often lose. Also, too many rules are easy to be forgotten or misplayed or may not take all of the game’s contingencies into account.
Either way, have fun with your game, your way!
This game can be super brutal, so to ease it up a little bit, my friend and I have started using this house rule.
When a marine is in combat, he normally dies if his dice roll is equal to or less than the number of Genestealers attacking him. We play it so that the marine survives on a roll equal to the number of Genestealers attacking him.
If playing solo you can place a team’s counter on the action that you selected for this turn to remember that will not be available o next turn.
The game rule prohibits you from telling other players what action you’re about to play. This is quite illogical, since the marines are standing right next to eachother. Although you don’t have to say you’re playing the attack card, you could say that it’s highly possible that you’ll attack.
Not a gameplay tip, but a good pratical tip for this game. The cards are a little on the thin side. I recommend you buy sleeves for them, because as in any card game they’ll get handled a lot by shuffling.