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

[LESS T_T]

Steam page, coming in October:

Space Hulk: Tactics is a faithful adaptation of the board game Space Hulk, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, bringing a unique twist to the cult classic formula. Engage in bloody battles through an immense Space Hulk - a twisted mass of asteroids, wrecked star ships, and debris – as either a squad of Terminator Space Marines or the deadly alien Genestealers. Which side will you choose?

Battle through two distinct, narrative-driven campaigns: lead a Blood Angels squad, which you will customise and upgrade as you progress, or take control of the Genestealers for the first time in a Space Hulk game!

Space Hulk: Tactics is based on the rules of the popular board game, given a fresh new spin in the form of the unique Card system. Cards provide more ways to customize your squad and allow you to turn the tide of battle with powerful abilities that trigger game-changing effects when used at the right moment.

Test your skills against other players in the expansive online competitive multiplayer. Command a swarm of Genestealers or a custom squad of different unit types from one of four Space Marine Chapters available – the Blood Angels, the Space Wolves, the Ultramarines, and the Dark Angels. The game includes a built-in intuitive map creation tool, to design your own original maps with custom objectives, and share them with other players!

• A faithful adaptation of the Warhammer 40,000 board game Space Hulk, with a fresh twist to the classic rules
  
• Engage in bloody tactical battles aboard a gigantic Space Hulk
  
• Play through two campaigns from the point of view of the Blood Angels, and for the first time in a Space Hulk game, the deadly Genestealers!
  
• Customize your units of Dark Angels, Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and even Genestealers with hundreds of cosmetic items, cards, and equipment.
  
• Challenge players online, playing either Genestealers or one of four Space Marines Chapters
  
• Create and share your own missions with an intuitive map creation tool

 

[groke]

...or take control of the Genestealers for the first time in a Space Hulk game!

 

[Life of the Party]

In today’s briefing, we’ll go over everything you need to know to play Space Hulk: Tactics, the new game from Cyanide Studios that faithfully adapts the cult classic Warhammer 40,000 board game while innovating on the formula with a new twist.

Whether you plan to destroy the alien menace as the mighty Space Marine Terminators or bring the Imperium to its knees as the Genestealers, you’ll be an expert by the end of this.

Space Hulk: Tactics is a turn-based tactics game that depicts small scale battles amid the claustrophobic environments of a Space Hulk – twisted amalgamations of starships, smashed together over eons, floating through the Warp and become a breeding ground for the hideous Genestealers. The Space Marine Terminators venture inside seeking glory, ancient relics, or wishing to protect whatever happens to be in the path of the Hulk.

Each turn sees you choosing how to spend action points to keep your units alive and destroy the enemy. Hitting is rarely guaranteed, but any successful strike is lethal. A single terminator can keep watch over a corridor and kill every Genestealer that comes at him without breaking a sweat – equally, if he is snuck up on from behind, he is almost certainly doomed.



This makes your decisions vital. Will you spend the points to guard a corridor, or get closer to your objective? Does your Sergeant need to protect himself from potential attacks, or can he take a few long-range shots in the hope of getting a larger advantage?

Do you have enough Genestealers to feed the Terminator guns until they jam and can be overwhelmed, or is there a smarter, flanking route that will bring you victory? If there is, do you have enough time remaining in the mission to take it?

Those decisions are rarely hindered by unknown information as both players can see every enemy and decision made, with one key exception – blips. Genestealer blips are how the aliens deploy new forces to the field throughout the fight and can contain 0-3 Genestealers.

They are deployed in specific zones and can have their contents revealed at any time by the Genestealer player – but will be forced to do so if they come within line of sight of the Terminators. Managing your blips through bluffing, or accounting for them on the Terminator side, is the heart of Space Hulk: Tactics.



Of course, every game is different. A huge variety of objectives and map types are available, including unique elements across Imperial, Eldar, and Ork ships. Locked doors, mysterious portals, deadly exploding barrels – you’ll need to play with and around all of them to master Space Hulk: Tactics.

With the in-game map editor you can even create your own missions and upload them to share with the community, making for near-infinite content variety.



The final twist is the cards system, which we have added to Space Hulk: Tactics as an extra feature on top of the original rules. These cards are determined by your faction, your units and their equipment, as well as which Chapter you are playing.

They can affect everything – giving you better chances to hit, guaranteed melee kills, extra action points, or even spawning deadly, more advanced Genestealers like the massive Broodlord or the insidious Reaperfex. Every card can also be converted into action points on the Terminator side, or more blips for Genestealers. This gives you many, many more tactical options in every fight. Cards are not a microtransaction system, and every one is unlocked in multiplayer from the start.

Space Hulk: Tactics releases in autumn this year on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/7151/space-hulk-tactics-general-gameplay

In this briefing we will go over the more advanced strategies of Space Hulk: Tactics. Make sure you’ve learned the basics from our previous devblog so you understand how everything works before diving deep.

Where better place to start than the Librarian? Arguably the most powerful unit it’s possible to field, the Librarian comes with a storm bolter and force axe but is capable of so much more than his brethren thanks to his knowledge and manipulation of warp energies. More than simply deciding to shoot, advance on, or assault enemies, each turn he can pick between psychic powers to unleash on his foes.

These include a fierce storm that devastates an area and a one-tile blocker that is completely impenetrable. While the former is the more obviously powerful, the nature of combat in the tight, hellish corridors of a space hulk makes the latter a serious consideration. Wiping out a few genestealers is glorious, but completely delaying their numbers from one direction for a turn is invaluable, letting you split their numbers or complete an objective with time to spare.



Of course, the Genestealers have plenty of their own powerful tactics to bring to bear. Using cards to spawn special, more powerful Genestealers on blips is a new feature for Space Hulk: Tactics, letting you bring titanic Broodlords and the insidious Reaperfex into the fight, among others.

The Broodlord has two extremely powerful special abilities. It can use the ducts and back passages of the Space Hulk to move around the map instantly during its turn, proving a deadly surprise for Terminators with their backs to previously-empty corridors. The Broodlord also operates as a mobile spawn point for Genestealer blips, letting you deploy new units on the frontlines, so long as your Broodlord is safe.

The Reaperfex is more of a Genestealer assassin. It can pass through blocked tiles – be that allied units, enemies, or locked doors – and appear unscathed on the other side. It also takes less action points to move directly towards enemies. For backstabs and sneaky manoeuvres, it’s unparalleled, and terminators who suffer unlucky jams won’t survive for long once a Reaperfex is in play.



The binding factor here is the card system and using it correctly will let your genius shine. Extra action points on the Terminator side and more blips on the Genestealer side mean that converting a card every turn is almost a necessity. Actually using cards is limited by Terminator Command Points and Genestealer Menace Points, although zero-cost cards also exist.

The upshot of it all is endless options and decisions from the very first turn. Which cards do you want to convert now, even though you’ll lose access to them until you cycle through your entire deck? Do you want to save Command Points for a big turn of instant kills and better shots, or gain smaller advantages every turn? Genestealers can use cards to work through their deck and dig out their more powerful cards, but it isn’t cheap to deploy a Broodlord and poor positioning or planning will see it die just as easily as any other Genestealer.

How will you play your cards in Space Hulk: Tactics, coming this year to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam? We’ll be back with another devblog soon all about the lore surrounding the Forsaken Doom space hulk and the Blood Angels attempt to stop it.

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/7484/space-hulk-tactics-advanced-gameplay

 

[sser]

How deep are these games? The boards seem fairly simple so I'm wondering how they could string three of these titles and have something left over.

 

[Galdred]

How deep are these games? The boards seem fairly simple so I'm wondering how they could string three of these titles and have something left over.

The board game is rather puzzly, but with random elements as there are a lot of things that can go wrong at the wrong time (weapon jamming, not having enough command points to follow the plan), so you still need to adapt a lot.
Genestealers are much easier to play, as you mostly have to decide where to mass, and when/where to try to overun the Space Marines.
The board game itself is rather nice, but simple indeed.
As you are supposed to sacrifice marines left and right to complete the mission, it doesn't work too well with an overarching campaign where you get XP to grow your pokemons Space Marines.

The game was ranked high on BGG, until it got a lot of Games Workshop hate directed at it.
It is solid, but certainly not 30h solid.
IIRC, the boardgame is around 15*1h missions.

Full Control adaptation made everything clunkier (the UI, the slow animations) than in the BG, and the Alien AI didn't play too well, which was a big letdown compared to the board game .
The game is tight, but small in scope, so even if this one is smoother, I am not convinced a port of the board game would add that much to the table. It can definitely be a very solid PC board game, but don't expect Silent Storm with Space Marines, or Incubation: Space Marines.

 

[Abu Antar]

Expext previews soon.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Volrath]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Makabb]

 

[Infinitron]

Space Hulk: Tactics pre-order beta begins on Steam September 25 - watch the Genestealer trailer now!

Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide Studio are proud to announce the pre-order beta for Space Hulk: Tactics will begin on Steam tomorrow, Tuesday, September 25. A faithful adaptation of the classic Warhammer 40,000 board game of Man versus Alien in desperate battle, Space Hulk: Tactics brings new twists to the formula along with extensive customisation, two full campaigns, and much more.

In today’s trailer we profile the Genestealers, the festering malice at the heart of the Space Hulk, ready to cut down any and all Space Marine Terminators that come aboard. Their strategies and playstyle are completely different, creating truly asymmetrical multiplayer. Using their numbers and agility to their advantage, the Genestealers are a more aggressive force, but one with less options on how to handle each situation.

In the Steam pre-order beta, players can look forward to playing the Genestealers and the Terminators, in skirmish and multiplayer across five maps. Also available is the full customisation system and the map editor, letting the creatives in the community get started early on new creations and master plans.

A preview of each faction’s campaign will also be playable, serving both as a tutorial and a taste of what awaits in the full game. Save games will be compatible with the release version, so players can immediately continue their mission on October 9. The pre-order bonuses will also be available in the beta, giving access to second founding chapters and other alternate versions of the base game’s Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and Ultramarines chapters.

The pre-order beta will run up until the launch of the game, with regular updates to address bugs and balance issues as reported by the community. On launch day, October 9, players will gain access to more official maps as well as the two complete, massive single-player campaigns. All Steam pre-orders have a 10% discount up until launch and will give instant access to the beta, as well as the pre-order cosmetics.

The Space Hulk: Tactics pre-order beta begins September 25 on Steam. The game releases on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on October 9.

 

[Makabb]

Terminators and genestealers both playable in multiplayer? interesting.

Anyone knows if the multiplayer has progression like Blood Bowl? Or is it just random matches?

 

[Galdred]

Terminators and genestealers both playable in multiplayer? interesting.

Anyone knows if the multiplayer has progression like Blood Bowl? Or is it just random matches?

I don't know, I always felt that in the TT, Genestealers were boring to play, with almost all decisions being taken before the game started(ie look at the map, determine where to mass your troops). The Marine player had more agency (he too would have to determine what point to rush, but at least, the Command Point roll forced him to compromise).
I wonder how the cards will change that.

 

[Ibbz]

Always wish they'd make a new Space Crusade, as opposed to Space Hulk, just for more variety in enemies.

 

[Jimmious]

Always wish they'd make a new Space Crusade, as opposed to Space Hulk, just for more variety in enemies.

This.

 

[LESS T_T]

(Is the narrator impersonating Michael Douse?)

LEARN ALL ABOUT THE SPACE HULK: TACTICS MISSION EDITOR AND SEE THE BEST CREATIONS FROM THE COMMUNITY!

Space Hulk: Tactics, the official board game adaptation from Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide Studio, embraces its heritage with the easy to use but incredibly powerful Mission Creator tool! Available now in beta for anyone who pre-orders on Steam, it can be used to create an infinite combination of layouts and tilesets, and the community has already gotten to grips with designing amazing things using it.

In our new trailer, learn the ins and outs of making your own missions quickly and easily. Changing layouts and looks, adding logic, and linking elements is just a single button press away, with testing done on the fly from within the editor itself. Custom Terminator squads and Genestealer swarms can be designated for each map, as well as unique rulesets, restrictions, and opportunities for either side. Plus, set an objective for the Terminators - one of twenty which range from annihilation to escape.

Once your masterpiece is complete it can be uploaded online and shared. We’ve created specific forums for players to talk about their creations, creating threads for everything from asking for advice to providing a space for narrative to link a selection of maps that they’ve made. Maps can be found easily in-game through various search and filter tools, including for map creators.

The Space Hulk: Tactics pre-order beta has begun, pre-order now on Steam to play. The game releases on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on October 9.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

So, is this worth it for the singleplayer content?
Can you disable the retarded killcam?

 

[APGunner]

So, is this worth it for the singleplayer content?

Singleplayer will be available in two days.

Can you disable the retarded killcam?

Yes

 

[Infinitron]

Released:

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Codex doesnt care

I am completely unfamiliar with Warhammer40K in general and SpaceHulk in particular. Still bought it, and planning to get all the tactical TB games releasing this autumn, which is an insane number. Played only the 'tutorial' which mainly seems to focus on the completely irrelevant first person mode (looks nice though) and the first -easy- mission of the Marines campaign. You can also play as the Genestealers, with different mechanics and thus tactics. If you do, prepare to wait a minute or so every turn since the Marines are extra special slow. There is a card system to help you turn the tides if needed.

I found it rather atmospheric, with good voice acting, a slow going tactical puzzle where you can make the right tactical choice but still get slaughtered by RNG, the end boss.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so it's a perfect transposition of space hulk.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Codex doesnt care

how many space hulk reimaginashuns have there been in recent time? 50? it sure feels like it

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

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.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Codex doesnt care

how many space hulk reimaginashuns have there been in recent time? 50? it sure feels like it

Yeah i was only stating the painfully obvious rather than anything else.