Who's That Trip-trapping Across My Bridge? Space Hulk: Ultramarines vs Death Guard

 

It's Ultramarines vs Death guard in the Jimulthuan Campaign again, but Stylus isn't quite ready to dip his toe into 11th edition yet so we're playing marine-vs-marine first edition Space Hulk!

Pootle here with the next instalment of the campaign. My Ultramarines on Bagot Prime have attacked the Death Guard. Stylus and I have decided to have a go at marine-vs-marine rules from Space Hulk published in WD121 and play the first mission from Space Hulk, switching out the Genestealers for Traitor Marines. 

Forces

This is a mirror match: both sides have a Sergeant, who has the huge advantage of adding one to his melee attack dice, giving him a very slight edge in combat (compared to the pure 50-50 chance that everyone else has in melee), three normal marines with Storm Bolters, and one marine armed with a Flamer - this only has six shots but is by far the most dangerous weapon available to each side: Storm Bolters roll two dice and kill the target on 6s, but the Flamer affects every target in a board section and kills on a 3+; in addition it blocks movement and line-of-sight and persists until the end of the next player's turn - this means it can be fired defensively to block the enemy's movement and shooting.

Their bases are far too big for the Space Hulk squares, and they tower over their metal loyalist opponents, but I wanted to use Termies rather than Plague Marines (which I'd considered)

The "new" (ahem, released in January 1990) rules for marine-on-marine action give every marine the ability to lauch Blind Grenades, which drop dense smoke into an adjacent board section, blocking LoS until the end of the opposing player's turn like Flame templates, but that's all (no damage, no movement restrictions).

Mission

We're playing the very first mission from Space Hulk: Suicide Mission. Stylus has played Space Hulk once many years ago so I suggested that it's probably easier for him to play the loyalist's role in the mission; his job is to move from his deployment area and deliver one flamer hit into the objective room.

Sounds easy but instead of a horde of weaponless Genestealers, his five opponents can shoot back (which Kraken assures me completely changes the game's tactics).

Turn 1 etc

Stylus's forces start by running forwards (shooting their way through doors...eventually) with the all-important Flamer marine in fourth position. He sets a rearguard to hold the passageway towards the Western reinforcement area (where I deployed a marine at the start of the game)

I start my other initial deployment with a regular marine on the lefthand Southern entry area, thinking that he's outside the 12" overwatch range so has nothing to worry about from being in sight of the enemy. Accordingly he races down the passageway but Stylus spends a couple of Command Points to fire at me, killing me with the second shot: first blood!

My third model to appear is my Flamer marine, who appears in the South West. He advances towards what might be a critical crossroads, but Stylus's Flamer deposits a defensive shot there to prevent me coming round the corner.

Meanwhile my Bolter marine in the West bides his time, lurking behind a closed door.

Stylus's troops start to dodge left down the side-corridor (after firing a Blind Grenade ahead of them to stop my Flamer from attacking them). Meanwhile his rearguard decide to shoot out the door that my Marine is hiding behind and sets overwatch.

I decide to attack Stylus's rearguard, risking the overwatch and manage to dodge fire before landing a lucky shot of my own, killing the traitor.

My Sergeant had appeared in the South and uses a surfeit of CPs to sprint down to lurk in the corridor leading to the Death Guard's objective, whilst the fifth member of my squad follows down the corridor, setting overwatch to defend his teammate.

Stylus advances one of his marines down the main corridor towards my Flamer, protecting his advance with more Blind grenades, but my Flamer marine stumbles through the smoke and emerges on the edge (dodging overwatch) to roast the enemy marine.

Things go from bad to worse for Stylus as he pushes a marine down the side corridor, but he falls to overwatch. It's now four Ultramarines against only two Death Guard!

Meanwhile I have a marine running up behind the traitors, so whatever they want to do, they need to do it fast!

Stylus grits his teeth and pushes his Flamer marine round the corner, exposing him to my overwatch. Fortunately the shells rattle off his diseased Terminator plate, and in return he first fires his Flamer at the farther Ultramarine who shot at him (melting his valourous heart) and then uses a couple of Command Points to fire again at the crossroads leading to the objective room; although my Sergeant is out of sight, he is standing on that tile and gets killed too! Suddenly it's 2v2 and it's all to play for!

My marine attacking the Death Guard rear keeps the pressure up and shoots down the penultimate traitor, so it's all about the Flamer.

Stylus has fired more Blind grenades ahead of him, but my Flamer once again moves carefully down the narrow, smoke-filled passageway and emerges to fire his flamer pointblank at the enemy. It's all over, I think! Unless I roll a 1 or a 2 of course...

You know what happened: I rolled a 1. Stylus then spends a couple of Command Points to fire his flamer back at me, but manages to roll a 2 himself (after the game I realised that this should have happened the other way around, but as we both fluffed it, that's fine).

I do have one last CP available. Not enough for another Flamer shot, but I can initiate Close Assualt. As noted above, this comes down to who rolls highest on one D6 each...luckily for me, the Ultramarines clinch it at the last moment.

Locker room

That was great fun! Not only that, but it was incredibly quick: we started our call at 8pm and I spent 20 minutes running through the rules with Stylus, and the game was done on the stroke of 9pm!

The beauty of Space Hulk is the simplicity of the dice rolls (and the very low model-count). If your opponent can't roll 6s on two dice then marines can walk through fire (though walking through Flamer fire is a lot harder), but with so few models any casualties are keenly felt.

Even with only his Flamer left, Stylus could easily have pulled off a win if his Flamer had brought down mine (either with a more effective defensive shot or in melee), so it did feel well balanced.

We'll definitely be back for more.