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Warhammer Space Hulk: Tactics - Cyanide's turn-based take on the board game

Sentinel

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Game seems to be DoA.

Mixed ratings on Steam (60%); broken AI, bad campaign with level recycling, no customisation worth mentioning, the card system is nice in theory but unbalanced in practice, crashes for some users, no players online.

Too bad, it's one of the more appealing settings within the 40k universe and all we get is mediocre shit.
Sounds like your typical Cyanide game.
 

Beowulf

Arcane
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Mar 2, 2015
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1,963
All right.

I can only play on my laptop lately, so I decided to give it a try.

I had a rather negative attitude, because I hate card game elements and changing the rules of such a classic.
But as it turns out, it's incorporated rather nicely and fits into the game. Cards and their "abilities" also serve to differentiate the chapters (there are 4 of them, at the release).
AI in random missions is rather inactive, but works all right in story missions. I had to restart some of them, as I got defeated a couple of times.

Visually it looks great, there is even the aforementioned FPS mode - you can play small missions entirely using that mode, and it won't be an inconvenience.
It's actually quite amusing surprise. I use it from time to time, to break the routine of the more boring missions.
It was made on Unreal engine, and the character models look suspiciously similar to that game about Emperor protecting your legs. Did they acquire the assets?
Audio is ok, with rather good balance between the unobtrusive music, and other sounds.
I really like the animations. Bodies fly everywhere with inertia, different melee attacks have also their own animations.

I have only played 2 maps in MP, but the map selection is vast and some of those maps have few hundreds games played on them, so you should be able to sort the most balanced in a short time.
There is a big variance in the map design, less so with the environments (there are 3 right now - Imperial, Orkish and Eldar).
Story missions in SP are also well done and have some voiced narration.
About the story- it's the usual tropes - nothing to write home about. It's just there.

Where they dropped the ball is the AI passiveness.
You can easily lock it in place with rightly placed Termies with Overwatch.
On one hand that's clever, as it won't just throw JeanStealers at you willy nilly; but on the other hand it provides a boring gameplay and is outright stupid decision in certain circumstances.
Every player would throw everything at you, if you were 2 turns from winning the game, hoping that RNG would work in their favor and your weapons would jam, or Assault Cannon malfunctioned.
As it stands now, the AI gathers the forces for a big push that never comes.
Fortunately it happens mostly in the repetitive random (called "Horde" in game) missions.
This is also another negative point. It looks like the missions are tied to the environment and (campaign) chapter you are currently in.
So in theory there 12 random missions to choose from, but if you are, for example, on an orkish ship, you can do 4 boring defend the objective missions in a row, with exactly the same layout, and exactly the same, doing fuck-all AI.

Also, the game crashes quite often.

But yeah, beside that it's fun. MP is supposed to be the focus of the game, and I have yet to see how's the balance.
People on the forums cry, that Genestealers are OP, but at the very same time, I just played my first 2 games as loyal sons of the Emperor (as any true Codexer would),
and I managed to win both of them, not having played the Nids before, and thus not knowing how they really work, and what their cards can do.
Granted, I won the second one by the skin of my teeth, evacuating the bare minimum at the very last turn.
I think that with this cards, the Spehs Muurhins have better chance of winning than in any of the boardgame editions.

Anyway - it's tactical, you have to think and plan ahead, it's tense when playing against fellow humans. A little bit expensive, but I don't regret not waiting on an inevitable sale.
 
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Infinitron

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/10/17/space-hulk-tactics-review/

Wot I Think - Space Hulk: Tactics

70


In the last five years alone, there have been four video game adaptations of the Warhammer 40,000 spin-off, Space Hulk. Plenty of chances to get it right, you’d think, though the first three attempts suggest otherwise. And here comes Space Hulk: Tactics, once again throwing gruesome Genestealers against stompy Terminators in derelict spaceship corridors. It’s not quite a combo-breaker, but it gets very close.

I caught the 40K bug hard with the launch of 8th Edition, filling my flat with paints and models and increasingly elaborate polystyrene battlefields. I’ve also gained a new appreciation for the tabletop spin-offs and video game adaptations that strip away a lot of the obstacles inherent in setting up a regular battle – the time, the exorbitant costs, the hassle of clearing away all the crap on my dining table.

Tactics1-1212x682.jpg


Space Hulk: Tactics should be right up my street, then. Like its progenitor, it’s a straightforward, asymmetric, turn-based brawl with one player methodically advancing through tight corridors and small rooms, trying to complete missions, while the other relentlessly assaults them with hidden squads of terrifying alien monsters. It’s not so much a battle as it is a nightmarish journey through dead ships, all horror and tension.

While Space Hulk (2013) made Genestealers playable in its cursory multiplayer, the aliens have been largely overshadowed by the Terminators in previous games. It’s not surprising: Space Marines always get all the attention. They missed a trick, but not Space Hulk: Tactics. The Genestealers and Terminators both get their own campaigns, while various chapters and hives can be set against each other in multiplayer skirmishes. It’s the first Space Hulk since a 2005 mobile adaptation that I didn’t know existed until now to put them on an equal footing.

Tactics2-1212x682.jpg


Both campaigns can be played right from the get-go, but as a boring Space Marine player, I went with the Terminators first. They’ve been brought in to stop one of the titular Space Hulks from crashing into a Forge World with the help of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ordos Xenos alien hunters. There are a lot of talking heads, and a big chunk of it will be largely indecipherable unless you already have at least a passing familiarity with Game Workshop’s grimdark universe.

Plot missions and random encounters are loosely connected via a no-frills campaign map full of paths that end up being mostly linear. There’s just a hint of RPG-like exploration and party choices, but it’s all so underdeveloped that it barely even feels like a prototype. The squad moves one node at a time, and only rarely is there anything on them. Occasionally, a locked door will bar the way, but keys are always clearly marked and can be picked up without having to overcome any obstacles. The only thing a locked door achieves is making the uneventful campaigns even longer. There’s also something about a whole squad of incredibly powerful super-soldiers backtracking to find a piddling little key that doesn’t sit right with me, especially when they seem to be perfectly capable of unlocking doors mid-mission.

Tactics4-1212x682.jpg


Other nodes contain resources that can be spent on upgrading the squad, random battles and, at the end of each journey, a story mission. Those last two things are all you’re going to care about, and everything else really just gets in the way. The missions themselves already contain both resources and narrative moments, so there isn’t anything on the campaign map that couldn’t be thrown in the bin. Thank goodness, then, that there are plenty of fights that break up the monotony of traipsing through this tangled mass of ships. And they’re good! The missions stick closely to the tabletop game, though Cyanide has also developed a card system that slots neatly into each turn. I was a wee bit worried that it would weigh the game down, like the campaign map, but it’s turned out to be a more than welcome addition that significantly expands what you can do each turn, without being obtrusive.

It’s the will of RNG, not the Emperor, that determines how confrontations play out, and RNG is even more fickle. You might confidently order one of your Terminators to batter a Genestealer, only for the bullets to bounce off their carapace or miss entirely. If it’s a melee attack, the Genestealer might turn the tables on your hapless Space Marine, leaping onto their chest and ripping through their armour. Equally, it could all go very poorly for the Genestealer. They’re both immensely strong and deadly, but all it takes is one hit and one bad roll of the dice to put them in the ground. It’s the source of a lot of Space Hulk: Tactics’ tension, but it can also be a source of frustration. Command cards maintain the former and greatly reduce the latter.

Tactics5-1212x682.jpg


When an enemy is in your line of sight, you’ll see your chance to hit displayed as a percentage, and the base chance is usually pretty low. This is a game where you’ll be happy with 50/50 odds. You can leave it all up to fate, or you can play a card that increases your chance to hit. The cards are a limited resource, however, and can only be played once a turn, leading to some ruthless decisions about who to buff and who is potentially going to be turned into Genestealer chow. Alternatively, you could burn the card, gaining extra action points that could be spent on locking a door, activating a turret or moving out of the way. You can unravel a whole Genestealer assault with a couple of action points.

Even with the cards, there are plenty of ways for a simple walk down a corridor to go gloriously and disastrously wrong. All it takes is for one Terminator to go down, one door left unguarded, for the Genestealers to swarm. They’re a lot more cautious early on, to the point where they don’t act like Genestealers at all, but they grow more aggressive as the campaign progresses. With their larger pool of action points, they can close gaps in a flash, quickly putting an end to the Terminators’ ranged advantage.

Tactics6-1212x682.jpg


Scarcity makes every move precious. Unless you burn a card, the Terminators only have four action points each, and even turning around reduces their supply. Do you push forward, towards the objective? Wait out the Genestealers by hunkering down in a room and using overwatch? Depending on who is in your squad, your choices will vary. Throw in your flamer guy and you can bathe corridors in flames, while bringing a Psyker along with you will let you block areas off, reveal Genestealers and buff other Terminators.

There are a lot of adjectives that could be used to describe Terminators, but the one that developers really seem to fixate on is “slow”. The Terminators are tanks on legs, so they’re not exactly nippy. Much like the tabletop game, this is reflected by them having fewer action points than their alien counterparts. With the exception of Space Hulk: Deathwing, which was an FPS, the last few adaptations have also forced us to sit through long, drawn-out animations. Every movement is glacially slow and stilted, and there’s no way to skip it.

Tactics7-1212x682.jpg


All the action-packed and nail-biting moments are separated by long stretches spent staring at these giant Space Marines lurching through corridors, even if you’re playing as the Genestealers. Just because Space Hulk: Tactics can simulate the speed of the Terminators, it doesn’t mean that it should. It’s a problem that just doesn’t exist in the tabletop game, but video games keep introducing it. Cyanide does have plans to speed up the pace, however. That’s great news, as the sluggishness undermines the otherwise exciting missions.

Playing as the Genestealers is a completely different experience. While the Space Marines are busy trying to complete their objectives, you’ve got to stealthily surround them, trying to keep out of their line of sight, right up until you’re ready to close the net. It’s empowering because you’re fighting on your home turf with plenty of reinforcements, and you always know exactly what the Terminators are doing. Get caught out in the open, though, and there’s a good chance your sneaky alien pals will be riddled with holes.

Tactics8-1212x682.jpg


Genestealers use cards differently, too, burning them to bring in new alien pals instead of getting more action points. Every turn, the Terminators risk losing one of their own, but the Genestealer swarm just keeps growing. It’s excess rather than scarcity, all directed towards the simple goal of slaughtering the fleshy humans hidden inside their tin cans.

When I’m controlling my alien swarm, I feel more like a GM than just Player 2. The Genestealers are almost part of the environment, slinking around the Space Hulk as red blips – evoking Alien’s scanner – until a surprised Terminator happens across one. I’m plotting, manipulating, using decoys and sacrificing my pawns to create a deadly trap for the humans. Not a very nice GM, then.

Tactics9-1212x682.jpg


Their campaign is even more straightforward than the Terminators’, amounting to a string of missions with very little faffing in between. I actually prefer it, despite it being less developed. It throws you straight into the good stuff instead of cramming in half-hearted nods to RPG-like exploration. Best of all: no backtracking!

Beyond the campaigns is a skirmish mode supported by a meaty mission editor that lets you make brand new maps from scratch – this also means that there are loads of missions already available, created by Cyanide and the community. To tackle these missions, you can put together custom squads from different Space Marine chapters and Genestealer hives, so if you fancy pitting some burly Space Wolves against Leviathan Broodlords and biomorphs, knock yourself out.

Tactics10-1212x682.jpg


It’s frustrating that for all the improvements, Space Hulk: Tactics still trips over the same things as Full Control’s Space Hulk and Space: Hulk Ascension. It’s too slow, and the interface is far too fiddly for a game that punishes even tiny mistakes. I’ve wasted more action points than I can count just because I clicked on a Terminator and rotated him by accident. The maps are also pretty hard to read, though they are considerably more legible than their predecessors. A scanner highlights things like doors and consoles, but wouldn’t it be nice if it was easy to parse without additional modes?

In his review of Space Hulk: Ascension, Adam called the sequel “two steps forward and one step back”, and history has unfortunately repeated itself. Tactics is absolutely the better Space Hulk game, but there are a lot of caveats getting in the way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the speed update, but in the meantime, there are too many great tactics games kicking about to waste time with these ponderous Space Marines.
 

Beowulf

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When creating custom maps, you can use all different kinds of special rules.
As it turns out, one of them disables the cards, so you can play a game using classic Space Hulk rules only.

This game does some things right, after all.
 

Beowulf

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Do the cards make it better or weaker than its TT counterpart?

I'd say that the cards do both.

They give both sides ways to mitigate the risks. They serve as a way to differentiate the Chapters and Broods. They also add a certain element of uncertainty, because you don't know what cards your opponent has (but after a few games you'll know what most of the do, so you'll know roughly what to expect). They can be used to gain temporary or permanent advantages for melee and shooting (although permanently melee buffing cards are very rare, and you still can make a dent in them using your own cards).

They may also serve as a focal point, around which you can try and design your whole strategy - and that is a negative point, as it takes the focus from good tactical play, and moves it towards some retarded deck building thing.
But I personally haven't succumbed to that, and I only rarely see players trying to do some kind of a "meta" build.
You can also play skirmish maps that disable the cards, so you play only with unchanged boardgame rules.
I also think, that cards give the SM side a little better chances to win, than in the board game, which is good.

After recent patch the game is more stable in MP.
What I don't like, is that you are not limited in your squad composition whatsoever. I.e. you can take 3 Assault Cannons , a Heavy Flamer, and Librarian in your 5 man squad.
And in the hands of a competent SM player that makes certain maps neigh unwinnable for Geanstealers.

I played a couple of games against the Nr 1 SM player at that given moment, and I got a very tight and cramped map 2 times in a row, and the only thing that would allow me to have a shot at closing to melee was, if I drew a certain card at the very beginning of the game (and I had only 1 of those cards). Other than that, the guy had the map "solved" in such a way, that I was completely blocked, and because it was a small map, I never had a chance to gather enough forces to make attacking through Overwatch a viable decision, given the probabilities of at least one GS surviving.
For our third match we got a more open map with long corridors, so the guy took 3 Assualt Cannons to lock them. Thankfully this time I managed to throw enough bodies at him at the right moment, that he run out of ammunition and didn't have enough AP to reload and secure all avenues of approach.
That guy was good, but also turned out to be a bro :obviously:

I also had my first rage-quitter today, that used the old Alt + F4 combo, when I got to his first terminator.

Anyway, the game is fun and tense in MP, I recommend it if it's on sale.
 
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Beowulf

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So, I wrote that cards help differentiate the Chapters, and that the MP is quite balanced, right?
Scratch that. Ultramarines are fucking Sonics, just take a look at that:

49BCB5B02F58425A6EF4861BBD64C248FF8CFC53

42D96B686935924E4B40CDDF3C6F2B6968BF4224


Normal Genestealers have 6 Action Points (AP's). Regular Space Marines have 4 AP's.
You can buff the number of Space Marine AP's by using points from a general pool (Squad Points - SP's).
And you can further buff that number by playing cards, that transfer AP's from one character to another.
But in best circumstances you can get sth like 12 AP's (in theory more, but I was able only to get 11 myself, and haven't seen anyone with more so far), and that means that one character will be useless this turn, and no other marine will be able to use SP's (because you are using them all).

There is a separate pool of Command Points, which you pay to use cards (that give you various bonuses).

Now, look at those screenshots - the guy above has 18 AP's, and even his other guy has 8.
That is possible with a certain combo of cards, that generate CP's on kill and you can recycle cards that you used; and in turn use cards that buff your AP's, then you get more cards granting CP's for each kill,
more cards that give you AP's and so on.
So yeah, Terminators are more nimble than genestealers.

But so far it's the only blatant example of such a loophole.

That's Cyanide for you. They rushed the game to release, and it shows. Not only certain maps are unbalanced, some cards are unbalanced (and this can be a very difficult task to do it right), but the AI passiveness was the first thing that you notice when playing the game. I can't believe that those issues weren't brought up during the beta.

Nevertheless, the game was patched and is much more stable in MP. And the MP itself is still fun and tense experience.
 

Beowulf

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Looks like the game is dead.

Except for a handful of people nobody plays it, and it looks like the developers are not working on fixing remaining issues anymore.
If you don't have steam friends playing it, there's only a very small chance that you'll get a match.
The SP is still decent, though, but the game is too expensive for just that.
 

Stone Dog

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It's pretty meh. None of the modern-ish games ever came close to the old indie version (the one that got cease-and-desist'd and changed the name to Alien Assault).
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's pretty meh. None of the modern-ish games ever came close to the old indie version (the one that got cease-and-desist'd and changed the name to Alien Assault).
One thing the freeware version had was competent AI.
The AI in the other space hulk game (from Full control) was really weak, whcih removed most of the tension from the game (in Space Hulk, it is usually much harder to play the marines because the optimal Genestealer strategy is relatively easy to figure out in most missions).
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I plaid the first 2 campaign missions as genestealers, and the terminator AI is really horrible:
First mission, the flamer guy camps an empty room, and uses all of his ammunitions to prevent genestealers reaching that room (even though there were none in that direction after the first he cooked).
Then the terminators camp a few corridors for quite a long time, until they decide to move to their objective once I have deployed 10 or so genestealers. I easily get a rear attack against their sergent, then everything snowvballs, and 2 more are killed, while flamer guys decides to reunite with the other now that he is out of fuel.

2nd mission is even worse. The AI rushes terminators this time, without putting any on overwatch. First turn, the sergent goes down from a rear attack. Second turn, the Assault cannon and plasma (who was critical for the mission) get killed because they were rushed without saving points for OW...
At least, this mission was short!

I am pretty confident my 6 year old daughter would do a much better job...
 

Beowulf

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The AI for terminators can be summed up by one of the patch notes - they made one of the terminators invulnerable to flames, as he was constantly walking into the fire killing himself in the process (in on of the last missions).
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I plaid the first 2 campaign missions as genestealers,
Excuse me sir, but the Ordo Xenos would like to know your location.

I have no regrets! If these morons were really mankind's finest, the Imperium is a lost cause!
Reported for double heresy.
Now that you mention it, I understand the Horus Heresy better! The CSM just found out how bad the Codex Astartes was, and took the decision to walk away from it.
 

baud

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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
I plaid the first 2 campaign missions as genestealers,
Excuse me sir, but the Ordo Xenos would like to know your location.

I have no regrets! If these morons were really mankind's finest, the Imperium is a lost cause!
Reported for double heresy.
Now that you mention it, I understand the Horus Heresy better! The CSM just found out how bad the Codex Astartes was, and took the decision to walk away from it.

wasn't the codex Astartes written after the Heresy though? Maybe the Thousands Sons peered into the future and got a look
 

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