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board game report: Space Hulk Death Angel
Jul. 29th, 2024 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yhleeGame report: the out-of-print Space Hulk Death Angel is a smallish Warhammer 40,000 card game in which you (1-6 players) control a squad of Space Marines doing, essentially, the equivalent of a card-based dungeon dive/roguelike.
So, annoyingly (because I love this!), this is not just out of print, it's out of print because Fantasy Flight Games, which did a GREAT job on the design…lost the license (of course; it's sort of a known thing with them), and so we're just never going to see this again. :sob:
This game was one of the ones rec'd to me on r/soloboardgames when I said that I wanted some smallish solo games to investigate that were AGGRO AGGRO DAKKA DAKKA to play while my husband was on a work trip. I was entranced by A Gentle Rain, which is amazing, something I replay a few times a day at this point to relax, but I wanted an AGGRO AGGRO DAKKA DAKKA solo game. I also expressed that this was probably a unicorn but I was hoping for something that had some of the vibes of the videogame my husband and I have been playing co-op, him on his Windows PC and me on my Steam Deck, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor: Martyr.
I was pointed at some intriguing things to investigate, but someone said to me (paraphrase), This is EXACTLY Space Hulk Death Angel, but it was released in 2010 and is deeply out of print. I hunted down a used copy anyway. I normally buy games through the local game store to support them, but even Van (the owner) admits that 2010 is sort of a hard ask. XD
I did not end up playing it while my husband was out of town, ironically, because I got hung up at setup having difficulty (a) identifying which cards were which (the card backs are kind of murky art-wise) and (b) the rules book has all the rules BUT it's not super well-written. Joe and I were both skeptics going in, and converts coming out. This is a very well-designed game for what it does, which was a pleasant surprise!
You control a squad of Space Marines. The object of the game is to fight your way through four levels of monster things (sorry, I can't remember what they're called) and reach the bottom to win. For two-player, the squad turned out to be two colors of two fire teams (I guess?) of two Space Marines each, for four total. I had two red dudes and two black dudes; Joe went purple and yellow. One of each pair in a color is "better" mechanically so there is a fair bit of attempted strategizing over saving the "better" dude while using the other as a meat shield. Each color also has a theme - purple is sort of command/logistics, red is DAKKA DAKKA, I thought black was going to suck because the icon is a library book but no they are PSYKERS??
All the Space Marines are laid out in a vertical column. Monsters will spawn semi-randomly to the right or the left of some of these positions. Each Space Marine has a facing (right or left) and a range. A Space Marine can only attack a monster in the direction he's facing (left / left, right / right). Range: if red dude has a range of three and is facing left, he can attack a monster to the left of himself (range 0), one position up or down (range 1), two up or down (range 2), three up or down (range 3).
Each color also has a hand of three action cards: Attack, Move, and Support. The action you choose is carried out by ALL Space Marines of that color who are still, y'know, alive. You cannot repeat a card you played last turn, but otherwise the order is up to you. The specifics will differ from color to color, and some of the actions/effects trigger off specific Space Marines (they have names!) or conditions.
Attack is what you think it is. Interestingly, this uses a special d6 that goes from 0 to 5, and three of the faces have skulls on them. Skulls are good for Space Marines. If a Space Marine rolls a skull on an attack, the target monster dies. That's it! Monsters can stack to the left or right, so when THEY attack, the more there are, harder it is to survive an attack, and if they roll a hit, your Space Marine dies and everyone else in the column moves up one.
Move lets you "move" one position up or down in the column, which means you TRADE PLACES. It also lets you change facing if you want to.
Support generates a support token. You may place this on ANY Space Marine in the column. Support tokens can be spent on certain cards for special effects. You may also discard a support token to reroll a die (e.g. if you're attacking or being attacked).
Each turn:
- decide action cards (one for each color).
- carry out action cards in initiative order (each card has a number, you go from lowest to highest), resolving any attacks.
- monsters attack back.
- you draw an event.
- you spawn more monsters from the left and right monster decks according to a card draw that tells you where to put them until you've cleared the level and/or won (if you've cleared level 4, the lowest).
Note that events can do wacky things to MOVE monsters or REVERSE the facing of your Space Marines, etc.
There's a rule in here how players can't coordinate their actions but we ignored that. I know why that rule is there in co-op games, but Joe becomes SO STRESSED by not being able to control-freak his way to optimal strategy that I house-rule that we ignore that type of rule here or in e.g. Gloomhaven.
Joe and I were initially skeptical whether this would be any fun or have any tactical anything, especially the "a hit is an auto-kill." Actually, once we understood the rules, it was SUPER fun! There is a fair amount of "swing"/randomness due to the die rolls and the randomized card draws and semi-random setup, but you do have tactics around FACING and MOVEMENT and strategic use of your cards. In particular, you can't simply spam your one attack card since you can't use the same card twice in a row, so even at merely THREE CARDS you have to strategize how to manage your attacks, movement, and support. Knowing when to spend and save support tokens for whatever effect is also tactical without being brain-hurty. Honestly I haven't seen a small tactics-themed game that's this elegant and well-designed in a long time, and even Joe agrees!
ETA: Aha, I looked up the designer, Corey Konieczka, on Board Game Geek. "Notable games" he's designed include Starcraft: The Board Game (2007), Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (2008), World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game (2008), Gears of War: The Board Game (2011), Star Wars: Imperial Assault (2014), Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition (2017, with Christian T. Petersen and Dane Beltrami), The Mandalorian: Adventures (2024)...
The wild thing here is I have played ZERO of these games, although I certainly know of some by reputation and have seen some played. HOWEVER. At THIS level of tie-in/licensed IP work, you have got to have some kind of rock star track record/credentials in design. I think mayyyyyybe it's possible to fluke into ONE such gig but even my excerpts aren't a short list. So if I'd known that about the designer, it would have been less surprising that the design in Space Hulk Death Angel is so damn good! As opposed to just not being aware. I haven't typically pursued IP board games, which I kind of regret (I heard that the BSG board game was RIDICULOUSLY excellent), but a lot of this stuff was also during the time period where we didn't have a ton of money to spend on larger spendier board games anyway.
What's especially elegant is that this gestures at the idea of formation and/or tactical positioning in the most minimalist way possible. The column is one-dimensional. There are only two facings. And yet this means the game is comparatively small - the box is maybe the size of three poker card decks-ish - and comparatively lean, and the "hit = kill" mechanic makes it run very quickly. This took us about two hours because we were chatting with friends and sussing out the rules, and coordinating, but I think a solo run could legit go down to 15-20 minutes if you were efficient and not constantly looking things up. XD
Anyway! I hope to play this solo and see how it goes. (Basically you'd end up controlling more dudes.) There were apparently four expansions BUT they were POD and nosebleed levels of expensive. :sob:
So, annoyingly (because I love this!), this is not just out of print, it's out of print because Fantasy Flight Games, which did a GREAT job on the design…lost the license (of course; it's sort of a known thing with them), and so we're just never going to see this again. :sob:
This game was one of the ones rec'd to me on r/soloboardgames when I said that I wanted some smallish solo games to investigate that were AGGRO AGGRO DAKKA DAKKA to play while my husband was on a work trip. I was entranced by A Gentle Rain, which is amazing, something I replay a few times a day at this point to relax, but I wanted an AGGRO AGGRO DAKKA DAKKA solo game. I also expressed that this was probably a unicorn but I was hoping for something that had some of the vibes of the videogame my husband and I have been playing co-op, him on his Windows PC and me on my Steam Deck, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor: Martyr.
I was pointed at some intriguing things to investigate, but someone said to me (paraphrase), This is EXACTLY Space Hulk Death Angel, but it was released in 2010 and is deeply out of print. I hunted down a used copy anyway. I normally buy games through the local game store to support them, but even Van (the owner) admits that 2010 is sort of a hard ask. XD
I did not end up playing it while my husband was out of town, ironically, because I got hung up at setup having difficulty (a) identifying which cards were which (the card backs are kind of murky art-wise) and (b) the rules book has all the rules BUT it's not super well-written. Joe and I were both skeptics going in, and converts coming out. This is a very well-designed game for what it does, which was a pleasant surprise!
You control a squad of Space Marines. The object of the game is to fight your way through four levels of monster things (sorry, I can't remember what they're called) and reach the bottom to win. For two-player, the squad turned out to be two colors of two fire teams (I guess?) of two Space Marines each, for four total. I had two red dudes and two black dudes; Joe went purple and yellow. One of each pair in a color is "better" mechanically so there is a fair bit of attempted strategizing over saving the "better" dude while using the other as a meat shield. Each color also has a theme - purple is sort of command/logistics, red is DAKKA DAKKA, I thought black was going to suck because the icon is a library book but no they are PSYKERS??
All the Space Marines are laid out in a vertical column. Monsters will spawn semi-randomly to the right or the left of some of these positions. Each Space Marine has a facing (right or left) and a range. A Space Marine can only attack a monster in the direction he's facing (left / left, right / right). Range: if red dude has a range of three and is facing left, he can attack a monster to the left of himself (range 0), one position up or down (range 1), two up or down (range 2), three up or down (range 3).
Each color also has a hand of three action cards: Attack, Move, and Support. The action you choose is carried out by ALL Space Marines of that color who are still, y'know, alive. You cannot repeat a card you played last turn, but otherwise the order is up to you. The specifics will differ from color to color, and some of the actions/effects trigger off specific Space Marines (they have names!) or conditions.
Attack is what you think it is. Interestingly, this uses a special d6 that goes from 0 to 5, and three of the faces have skulls on them. Skulls are good for Space Marines. If a Space Marine rolls a skull on an attack, the target monster dies. That's it! Monsters can stack to the left or right, so when THEY attack, the more there are, harder it is to survive an attack, and if they roll a hit, your Space Marine dies and everyone else in the column moves up one.
Move lets you "move" one position up or down in the column, which means you TRADE PLACES. It also lets you change facing if you want to.
Support generates a support token. You may place this on ANY Space Marine in the column. Support tokens can be spent on certain cards for special effects. You may also discard a support token to reroll a die (e.g. if you're attacking or being attacked).
Each turn:
- decide action cards (one for each color).
- carry out action cards in initiative order (each card has a number, you go from lowest to highest), resolving any attacks.
- monsters attack back.
- you draw an event.
- you spawn more monsters from the left and right monster decks according to a card draw that tells you where to put them until you've cleared the level and/or won (if you've cleared level 4, the lowest).
Note that events can do wacky things to MOVE monsters or REVERSE the facing of your Space Marines, etc.
There's a rule in here how players can't coordinate their actions but we ignored that. I know why that rule is there in co-op games, but Joe becomes SO STRESSED by not being able to control-freak his way to optimal strategy that I house-rule that we ignore that type of rule here or in e.g. Gloomhaven.
Joe and I were initially skeptical whether this would be any fun or have any tactical anything, especially the "a hit is an auto-kill." Actually, once we understood the rules, it was SUPER fun! There is a fair amount of "swing"/randomness due to the die rolls and the randomized card draws and semi-random setup, but you do have tactics around FACING and MOVEMENT and strategic use of your cards. In particular, you can't simply spam your one attack card since you can't use the same card twice in a row, so even at merely THREE CARDS you have to strategize how to manage your attacks, movement, and support. Knowing when to spend and save support tokens for whatever effect is also tactical without being brain-hurty. Honestly I haven't seen a small tactics-themed game that's this elegant and well-designed in a long time, and even Joe agrees!
ETA: Aha, I looked up the designer, Corey Konieczka, on Board Game Geek. "Notable games" he's designed include Starcraft: The Board Game (2007), Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (2008), World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game (2008), Gears of War: The Board Game (2011), Star Wars: Imperial Assault (2014), Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition (2017, with Christian T. Petersen and Dane Beltrami), The Mandalorian: Adventures (2024)...
The wild thing here is I have played ZERO of these games, although I certainly know of some by reputation and have seen some played. HOWEVER. At THIS level of tie-in/licensed IP work, you have got to have some kind of rock star track record/credentials in design. I think mayyyyyybe it's possible to fluke into ONE such gig but even my excerpts aren't a short list. So if I'd known that about the designer, it would have been less surprising that the design in Space Hulk Death Angel is so damn good! As opposed to just not being aware. I haven't typically pursued IP board games, which I kind of regret (I heard that the BSG board game was RIDICULOUSLY excellent), but a lot of this stuff was also during the time period where we didn't have a ton of money to spend on larger spendier board games anyway.
What's especially elegant is that this gestures at the idea of formation and/or tactical positioning in the most minimalist way possible. The column is one-dimensional. There are only two facings. And yet this means the game is comparatively small - the box is maybe the size of three poker card decks-ish - and comparatively lean, and the "hit = kill" mechanic makes it run very quickly. This took us about two hours because we were chatting with friends and sussing out the rules, and coordinating, but I think a solo run could legit go down to 15-20 minutes if you were efficient and not constantly looking things up. XD
Anyway! I hope to play this solo and see how it goes. (Basically you'd end up controlling more dudes.) There were apparently four expansions BUT they were POD and nosebleed levels of expensive. :sob:
