I love playing games of Space Hulk, basically because it fits my gaming ethic; with the forces chosen for you, even the power gamers amongst us have to win games based on their tactical merits. Tonight I was playing my friend Dave Lamsdale, and for the second time we played the Suicide Mission (basically the only one I've got space for) as a match. For those of you not familiar with the concept of a match, we play two games, swapping sides after the first. If one of us wins both games, that player wins, the other loses. If we both win one game, it's a draw...
I went with the Space Marines first, playing defensively and trying not to repeat my mistake of sticking the guy with the flamer out front. It's one thing to be able to use this devastating weapon, but quite a bit different when the one guy you need to be alive to win the game gets ripped to pieces. Unfortunately, defensive or not, this is what eventually happened - and I didn't even get to fire the gun! I cleared the first room without too much difficulty but once you get to that bottleneck where you could go one of two ways to the escape pod you need to destroy, the Genestealers only needed to get past one Terminator to attack Brother Zael from behind and take the game that way. Interestingly, I had some really great luck with my command points - fives and sixes for most of the time, and I didn't even have to replace them - but for some reason my shooting rolls were against me.
Taking over with the Tryanids, all I could really do was make sure the entrance to the escape pod was covered - in Suicide Mission, guarantee all the Space Marine guys will start their games in pretty much the same way because there's nothing much else they can do, so there's nothing much to read in to what they're doing until the second or third turn anyway - and hope for the best. I had the psychological upper hand - Dave tends to panick and make ill-advised moves if the battle's not going his way - but the conflict inevitably came to a head at the bottleneck, at which point it became a war of attrition which the Space Marines can't hope to win. Can't fault them for trying though, and kudos to the Terminator Dave named Clint Eastwood, who managed to take out 6 Genestealers in one turn, one of them in close combat, when it wasn't even his turn! Once I'd taken out most of the Terminators, Dave decided to end it spectacularly by using his last flamer shot to flame himself. This means that it was a draw, though as Dave effectively conceded his run as the Space Marines, I decided to give myself the advantage (he had it last time for lasting longer.)
So why is that mission so hard for us to win? Actually I think we both made the same mistake, although I countered it during my run as the Tyranids - we both left one of the Terminators behind in the first room to act as a rear-guard. On paper, it seems like a sensible option, as it cuts off one of the 3 locations the Tyranids can attack from. In practice, however, it's not such a good idea, and it definitely cost Dave his game. As long as that Space Marine is there, there will be no Tyranids coming into those entry points, because even if he isn't close enough to use the lurker rule, they're going to have to get through 5 or 6 rounds of overwatch fire in order to get through. "But that's what you want!?" you say. Not really, I say. All it does is force the Tyranid player to put the blips in the other 2 locations at the top of the map, increasing the concentration of Genestealers in that area - increasing the chances of at least one of them breaking through the main body of the Space Marines and getting to the one with the flamer. Meanwhile your poor rearguard guy has effectively been taken out of the game - he can't do any good where he is, and by the time you move him up to help it will be much too late for poor old Brother Zael...
Having the entire game resting on the fate of 1 of the 5 Terminators on the field does seem a bit harsh - but that's the whole point. In - for want of a better word - reality, surely any of the team could use the Heavy Flamer? If Zael dies, couldn't someone else pick up his gun and use it? But at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Zael has a role to play in destroying the escape pod, and the rest of his merry men have the arguably more significant role of keeping him a live long enough for him to do it. Space Hulk is a Role Playing Game, and it's important to remember that when playing the Space Marines...
As you can see, despite it being a relatively small model there was a lot to do; that is to say there was a lot of colour on there. The skin was from a method published by the 'Eavy Metal team in White Dwarf 350 I think, which showed a 4-step layering process on how to paint Orc and Goblin (or their 40k friends) faces. It was just a case of adding the same kind of technique to the rest of the body and I had a well-shaded, if pastelly looking grot. The claws (and teeth, had it become an issue) were inspired by the same guide, though there were only 2 layers to this very small step. The squig was interesting, I painted that red following a guide to painting the Skulltaker that was published way back in White Dwarf 342. A lot of layering the same colour over and over again to make a solid colour, and the effect is surprisingly convincing if viewed from a distance. Close up though, it becomes more clear that I need practice, and possibly some better lightbulbs. The metal parts and the leather straps were inspired by the same article. The bag across the squig's mouth was painted in a dirty kind of yellow that I'm hoping to use across the whole army, and though you can't see it, I'm painting the clothes the same way. Everything else, well, all I could do really is look at the figure online and use it as a reference. I think I did quite well, I used the right techniques in the right places, it just needs some practice.