Thursday 15 September 2011

Ark of Dust Part One PDF available for download

Space Hulk - Ark of Dust Part 1

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Monday 12 September 2011

Space Hulk Mission - Suicide Run


Hello my good friends. As you may have noticed, the Grey Knight and Khorne Daemon rules have gone live. I present to you the mission that the first round of playtesting was performed in. It's a favourite of ours here at Space Hulk Missions. You may recognise the map layout. This is, essentially, Suicide Mission +. For those of you wanting to try out the new Grey Knights and Daemons rules, this is the first mission for doing so. It is not part of the Blood in the Stars campaign (those missions are a lot more original and, sadly for you, a lot harder.) Give it a try. There are several ways to play this mission, the first of which is detailed below. For an even harder game, try playing Blood Angels vs. Daemons, using the Librarian, Sergeant with power sword and storm bolter, Terminator with heavy flamer and power fist and 2 Terminators with storm bolters and power fists, making the rooms destroyable either through the use of the cleansing heavy flamer or the Librarian making use of the Psychic Conduit rule (normal terminators can not be used as conduits.) For a much easier game, use this squad against genestealers without the Warp Rift rules in play.


Grey Knights vs. Daemons
FORCES & DEPLOYMENT
Grey Knights: The Grey Knight player has one squad. It consists of a Justicar armed with a storm bolter and nemesis daemon hammer, one Grey Knight armed with a storm bolter and nemesis force falchions, one Grey Knight armed with a storm bolter and nemesis force halberd, one grey knight armed with a storm bolter and nemesis force sword and one grey knight armed with a psilencer and a nemesis force sword. The Grey Knight player deploys the squad on the starting squares shown on the map.

Khorne Daemons: The Khorne Daemon player begins the mission with two blips, and receives two reinforcement blips per turn. Blips may enter play at any entry area.

SPECIAL RULES
Psychic Conduits: In this mission, the Grey Knight mission is to disperse the building warp energy in the two rooms marked X. Any Grey Knight model must end his movement inside one of the two rooms and use any and all of his remaining AP and 2 psi-points to do so. Once a Grey Knight model has done this, he may not use CP to make any more actions for this turn. He is too exhausted by the ordeal to follow any orders.

VICTORY 
Grey Knights: The Grey Knight player wins by dispersing the building warp energy in the two rooms marked X. When this goal is achieved, the game ends and the Grey Knights win immediately.

Khorne Daemons: The Khorne Daemon player wins if any one of the following events occur; a) The last remaining Grey Knight is killed. b) The psi-point tracker is covered in such a way that 2 psi-points can not be gathered to disperse the warp energy in the rooms. c) The Warp Rift tracker reaches 10.

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Saturday 10 September 2011

Grey Knight vs. Khorne Daemons rules pdf

Download the rules pack here

Khorne Rules Pack

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Friday 9 September 2011

Grey Knight Squad

For those who are interested, here is the Grey Knight squad build for the Grey Knights vs. Daemons campaign.

Justicar Fabio - Nemesis Daemon Hammer
Knight Lorenzo - Nemesis Falchions
Knight Marius - Nemesis Halberd
Knight Demio - Nemesis Sword
Knight Janus - Psilencer and Nemesis Sword

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KHORNE!!!

Click on Grey Knight vs. Bloodletter Playtest rules above and you will find new rules for using Khorne Daemons against your Grey Knights. They are in playtesting but are working pretty well. Normal terminators struggle against them, but you will be seeing some missions posted for this combo soon.

The Warp Rift idea was a brainwave I had while playing Arkham Horror the other day and adds a sense of urgency to the Grey Knights activities on board the hulk. Rules pack for the campaign coming later today.

A note on Daemonic Ward Saves : Some people have commented that daemons in 40k get a ward save. I have many and varied reasons for not giving daemons ward saves in space hulk. Here they are.

1) I have tested it in Space Hulk, and it was cack. It made the game unbalanced.
2) Do Terminators get their ward save? No. Why should daemons be any different.
3) Personally, I think that since these rules are tested to work with Grey Knights, in a background fluff sense, the bolts fired from their storm bolters would probably be sanctified and pass right through the daemony outer shell.
4) In a regular game of 40k, a grey knight shooting hits on a 3 and wounds a bloodletter on a 4 with 2 shots. The daemon then has a 5+ save. This equates roughly to a grey knight having the following chance of killing a bloodletter for each shot.  2/9. A little less than 1/4 shots. Considering he gets two chances at this a turn, those are pretty good ratios.
Now take Space Hulk. A Terminator on his first shot will kill on a 6. He rolls 2 dice (just like in 40k.) He'll maybe get 3 chances at gunning a Bloodletter down on overwatch, but for the 2nd and 3rd shots he will kill on a 5. His chance at not killing any given bloodletter with one of those 3 shots is 10/27, meaning that he has a 17/27 chance of blowing a Bloodletters brain out. Of course, I'm not taking jamming in to consideration here, but you see my point. The math may be wrong, it's been 12 years since I left high-school, but this is logical probability. In conclusion?

No ward saves.

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Friday 10 June 2011

Penance

Hey guys. Been a short while since my last update but coming soon are missions 1-3 of the Penance campaign as well as some more Short Missions for you guys to chew on. Hoping to finish play-testing by Wednesday.

For those of you that don't know the details of this campaign, it's set on board a massive, stolen cargo-ship whose crew have been massacred. The last communication contained a video of a hulking Chaos Marine in Terminator Armour tearing the crew apart. The markings on his suit show him to be a captain of The Fallen. The Dark Angels chase down the ship and manage to get one small squad of Deathwing on board, hoping they can bring the beast to justice and penance.

The first six missions are part of a trilogy of campaigns. I hope you enjoy them as much as I've enjoyed writing them.

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Saturday 16 April 2011

Quick Mission - Swift Destruction

Hey guys. Here is the second of the quick missions. This is an adapted version of my popular and difficult Surgical Destruction mission. You'll notice that you have an extra 2 Marines and that there are no beta strain Genestealers this time around. I've also reduced the number of doors in locations where they slow the 'Stealers down early on and changed the shape of the entry points for no other reason than I wanted to streamline the board somewhat. I hope you enjoy the adapted version and it presents you with a fun 40 minutes-1 hour.


DEPLOYMENT & FORCES
Space Marines:
The Space Marine player has one squad. It consists of one Sergeant armed with a power sword and storm bolter, three Space Marines armed with a storm bolter and power fist and one Space Marine armed with an assault cannon and power fist. The Space Marine player deploys on the squad on the starting squares shown on the map.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player begins the mission with two blips, and receives two reinforcement blips per turn. Blips may enter play at any entry area.

SPECIAL RULES
Bombs: In order to achieve their mission goals, the Space Marines must place and arm bombs in the rooms marked A, B and C. In order to place and arm a bomb, a Space Marine must be standing in the room and expend a full four action and/or command points.

VICTORY
Space Marines:
In order to win the mission, the Space Marine player must place bombs in all 3 rooms and have at least two Space Marines leave the board via the marked exit point. If all 3 bombs are placed and armed but no Marines escape the board, the mission can be considered a draw.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player garners an outright win if he can kill all of the Space Marines before they have placed and armed all three bombs. If the Genestealer player can prevent the Space Marine player from getting two Space Marines off the board after he has armed all three bombs, he may still attain a drawn result.

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Friday 15 April 2011

Quick Mission - Locked In

Hey there guys. This isn't anything like either of the missions I was intending to post tonight but it's the best I can offer at short notice. The laptop I use for all my mission editing has gone to crap and so I've mocked up this little number to tide you over until I can get it fixed and get to the tilesystem maps for my other two missions.

The last survivor of a survey team has locked himself in to a room on the hulk. He is out of ammo and carrying vital data about the Genestealers on board the hulk. It has been deemed vitally important that he be, rescued no matter the cost.

FORCES & DEPLOYMENT
Space Marines: The Space Marine player has two squads. Squad One consists of a sergeant armed with a storm bolter and power sword, one Space Marine armed with a heavy flamer and a power fist, and two Space Marines armed with storm bolter and power fist. This squad is deployed on the four marked squares at the Space Marine exit area. Squad two consists of one Space Marine armed with a storm bolter and power fist. He is deployed in room A.

Genestealers: The Genestealer player begins the game with no blips, and receives two reinforcement blips per turn. Blips may enter play at any entry area.

SPECIAL RULES
Locked In: The Space Marine inside room A is locked in. He has done this himself by jamming the lock  and reinforcing the door. His storm bolter is out of ammo so he will not come out until another Space Marine spends 1AP opening the door and throwing him some ammo for his storm bolter, then he may leave the room and move and fire as normal. The Genestealers can not open the door by any means.

VICTORY
Space Marines: The Space Marine player wins if he succeeds in getting the Space Marine trapped in room A off the board via the Space Marine entry area. When this happens the game ends and the Space Marines win immediately.


Genestealers: The Genestealer player wins if he kills all the Space Marines in Squad One before they convince the Marine in room A to open the door and come out, or by killing the Marine in room A after he has been convinced to open the door.

I will get the other missions to you as soon as possible. Consider this one a cheeky bonus for your benefit as an apology for the wait.

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Two new Space Hulk missions tonight

Okay, so two missions going up tonight.

First up is Mission V from the Ark of Dust campaign, titled "Hopeless" and details the first part of the rescue mission launched by a lightning claw armed Wolf Guard to rescue any survivors of the ill-fated Space Wolf squad trapped in Mission IV and detonate the explosives placed by them, by hand if necessary.

The other mission is the first of the Quick Missions, designed to play in around the same time as Suicide Mission while presenting marine and genestealer players with new tactical problems. All these missions are one offs (so not part of a campaign) and use only the contents of the Space Hulk 3ed box. They all use less than 20 tiles (so small maps) and, like Suicide Mission, are fairly unforgiving (though not as challenging as some of my campaign missions.)

Look for both to go up around Midnight EST/5am GMT.

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Monday 21 March 2011

Space Hulk Ark of Dust - Mission IV - Bastion (modified)

Adapted again to fix the broken bulkhead rules.


Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:

The Space Marine player has one squad consisting of five terminators. The Space Wolf squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Power Axe and Storm Shield, a marine with an Assault Cannon, two armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists and one armed with a Chainfist and Storm Bolter. The Space Marine player must split his squad in to two teams. One team of two marines must be placed in Room A and one team of three marines must be placed in Room B.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player begins the mission with one blip. The rest of the blips must be divided in to reinforcement groups. 7 single blip counters and 7 stacks of two blip counters must be laid out at random. The Genestealer may play one of these 14 reinforcement groups per turn (so either one or two blips.) Once he runs out of blips, recycle the stacks into an even number of single blip and stacks of two Genestealer blips and continue doing this until the game is over

Special Rules:
Sealing Bulkheads: There is a sealable bulkhead at every Genestealer entry point. In order to seal a bulkhead, a Terminator must stand next to the entry point and spend  1AP or CP. This can not be a combined action. Once the bulkhead is sealed, the marine player removes the purple Genestealer entry point marker. The Genestealer player may no longer bring Genestealers on here.

Victory
Space Marines:

In order to win the mission, the Space Marine must seal all of the bulkheads at every Genestealer entry point and have at least one surviving marine at the end of the game.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player wins if he kills all of the Space Marines before he can seal all of the bulkheads.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Ark of Dust Background - Squad Azaroth

Sergeant Azaroth heard only dimly the bark of Squad Lupus' Storm Bolters. His squad was tasked with following in the wake of Lupus to attempt to establish a line of retreat for the squad. It hadn't worked out so well. His squad had been divided when a large wave of xenos had swept through their location. He was alone and sealed behind a bulkhead awaiting rescue.

He wondered what had happened to his squad. Xavier's fate was certain. He had seen him carried off by several of the beasts and lose his power fist arm in the process. He was a good soldier and a close brother. It pained Azaroth to think of him as gone. Jagg had sprinted off ahead, impetuous youth that he was, after realising there was no way backwards anymore with Azaroth's blessing. If there was a chance he could assist Lupus in their goal, good luck to him. Circe and Orris were further back. Their chances for survival were best and he was sure they would be able to link up with the other squads, themselves following in Squad Azaroth's wake.

The sound of gunfire was gone. Only the clacking of claws on metal gantries remained. Azaroth sighed. No chance for rescue before they got to him now.

Something clawed at the door. Azaroth pointed his Storm Bolter at it and loosed off a shot. It punched a hole in the metal and exploded in the air out of his sight. One of the xenos squealed. Azaroth smiled and more scratches followed. He calmly loaded in a fresh clip and carefully aiming, unloaded it in to the door. As the door gave way, he had a satisfying glimpse of a pile of purple and blue multi-limbed corpses laying in an untidy pile before the frame was filled with the Genestealer's much more mobile kin. Another second passed and Azaroth would never see anything again.

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Ark of Dust Update and other Space Hulk related news

Hey guys,

Coming at the start of April are missions V and VI of the Ark of Dust campaign. These missions will be as hard as they have ever been and will rock you like a hurricane. In particular, Mission VI is a doozy which includes a tiny squad, a terrifying map, plenty of Genestealer psychological game-playing and a Broodlord. I will be posting both on the same day and they are intended for back to back play.

Also, coming a week after that will be the first of my Space Hulk quick missions. Intended to be played in the vein of Suicide Mission and able to be used right outta the box, they're short, tough, well balanced but unforgiving missions which you can play inside a half hour.

I have the parts now to put together a Deathwing Terminator squad and so expect to see some pictures of these, my Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Ultramarines and Grey Knights soon, as well as my Fallen Terminator Lord. The first playtestable missions from the Deathwing Campaign will be coming soon after.

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Tuesday 8 March 2011

Grey Knights

The preorders for the new Grey Knights go up tomorrow (or so a little bird tells me.) As such I will be posting playtestable rules for Grey Knights in Space Hulk as imagined by wonderful me as soon as I see what wonderful gadgets we'll be getting in the new kits.

Keep your eyes open :D

Update : All kinds of good ideas coming in to my head. Was struggling with how hardcore Grey Knights would be considering they're almost all armed for both CC and shooting. The variety of weapons was easy to come up with rules for (the psilencer and halberds are a personal favourite) but our lovely 'stealers wouldn't stand a chance.

So I replaced them with Khornate daemons. Bloodletters would all have parry wouldn't they? Flesh-Hounds would be exceptional on the "charge" and a Juggernaught as a boss with parry, mighty blow and Broodlord-esque resiliency? Now we have a much more fitting challenge!
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Thursday 3 March 2011

Space Hulk for kids for Kenchan13

As requested, here are some Space Hulk rules for kids. It takes out the more complicated elements (like command points and marine turning rules) makes it easier for marines to kill things and makes the games shorter. These aren't playtested so give suicide mission a go and see what happens. I hope this is in some way easier to explain to your son.

Remove turning rules and command points. Marines can turn for free but can't change facing in Genestealer turn unless attacked.
Shooting hits on a even number and misses on an odd number.
Sergeant gets two dice and can add one to his roll. (no parry)
Overwatch - CP tracker is set to six every genestealer turn. This allows the marines to make six overwatch shots every turn. The marines no longer have to go on to overwatch to do this.
Heavy Flamer - Same as usual
Assault Cannon - Fires three shots and kills on any even roll
Librarian Powers - 1 a turn
Mind control - control a genestealer to move 6 squares OR attack an adjacent friend
EXPLOSION - make a genestealer explode! Every genestealer next to him is killed on an even roll

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Tuesday 1 March 2011

Developing ideas.

Early indications from my poll on here and on Warseer point towards either a Crimson Fists or Deathwing campaign. Best for me to keep you informed of the ideas I have for each so that you can decide for yourself which direction you would like the hulk to go in. I've tried to come up with something characterful which will develop with time until I make the campaigns.

Crimson Fists - I could debut the extensive hive world campaign system which I have built and playtested, where the Crimson Fists have to eradicate a large Genestealer cult in a very populous hive. This campaign lends itself well to the experience system I have constructed and offers a branching storyline and multiplayer play. It's actually more rpg influenced and combines Space Hulk with other systems, like Necromunda or Mordheim. Don't worry though, you won't need either game to play as my new (and original) experience system add-on will give you everything you need. The good thing about this campaign is it was created to allow a sense of competition among players. Our original campaign used my vanilla terminators against some Blood Angels and the point of the campaign was to be the most destructive chapter. If this one wins, I'll want to pick a second chapter for the Crimson Fists to be competing with to bring down the stealers and allow for some butting of thick space marine heads.

Dark Angels - The Dark Angels are never more characterful than when they are hunting one of The Fallen. This campaign won't be set on a Space Hulk but on a fully operational cruiser. The cruiser has only one "human" occupant, a fallen in the thrall of the Chaos God Slaanesh. The action will follow a five man team lead by an interrogator chaplain, gunning through a ship filled with daemonettes to capture the shameful excuse for a Dark Angel hiding at it's core.

Grey Knights - Obviously more daemonic goodness here. Replace Slaanesh with Nurgle, add zombies in to the mix, set it during the Eye of Terror campaign and pack in a lot more danger to match the Grey Knights rather amped up abilities and we have lift off. Two missions were already written for this campaign as well as rules for Grey Knights in Space Hulk. There's also an interesting end of campaign boss I have in mind.

Ultramarines - The Terminators are usually the attackers in Space Hulk storylines, venturing deep in to hulks to destroy the menace within. At one point in the Ultramarines history, these tables were turned. On Macragge, during the invasion of Hive Fleet Behemoth, the polar fortresses were assaulted by a vast number of Genestealers. I want to recreate the defence of the tight corridors of the fortress that represented the Ultramarine 1st company's last stand.

Imperial Fists - The only Special Character driven campaign I will do, this campaign will involve Darnath Lysander and a couple of squads of Imperial Fists in a more standard Space Hulk campaign (except, obviously, for his inclusion.) Expect heavily adapted versions of the mission book missions to make them more balanced and/or difficult.

Space Wolves - My follow up campaign to the Ark of Dust which follows the surviving Space Wolves from that campaign on to their next hulk. They will be even more experienced and grizzled but with new squad members in tow. Gribbly hilarity ensues.

Blood Angels - This will be a series of short, unlinked missions which I will likely do anyway. In the vein of Suicide Mission, this will be a sort of coffee break space hulk, using one squad and no more than 20 tiles and 7 doors.

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Saturday 26 February 2011

Ark of Dust for those who don't have a Space Wolf Terminator Squad

Just replace the rules sections from the original mission description with these if you're playing Space Hulk straight out of the box.

Mission I - Breakthrough

Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:
The space marine player has two squads, Both Blood Angels Squads. The first squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, a marine with an Assault Cannon and three armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists. The Blood Angels squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Power Sword and Storm Bolter, a marine armed with a power fist and heavy flamer, 2 armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists and one armed with a Storm Bolter and Chain Fist.

Special Rules:
Malfunctioning Doors: All doors in this area of the hulk are prone to malfunction. Upon attempting to open any door, either player must roll a D6. On a 4+ the door will open as normal. On a roll of 3 or less, the door jams and must be destroyed in order for the player to continue. The marine player may do this in the normal manner while a genestealer player must expend one action point to destroy a door once it has malfunctioned.
Heavy Flamer: By firing off three flame counters at once, the marine player can create a persistent fire effect that will cover one counter for the rest of the game.

Remove rules for Power Axe and Cyclone Missile Launcher

Mission II - Surgical Destruction

Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:

The Space Marine player has one squad consisting of three terminators. One Blood Angel sergeant armed with a power sword and storm bolter and two Blood Angel armed with a storm bolters and power fists. The Space Marine player deploys on the squad on the starting squares shown on the map.

*Mark your Beta Strain Genestealers out from your normal stealers with some kind of counter so you can keep track. Placing a purple arrow under their base might be an idea.

Mission III - Scramble

Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:

The Space Marine player has one squad consisting of five terminators. The squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, a marine with an Assault Cannon, two armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists and one armed with a Chainfist and Storm Bolter. The Space Marine player deploys on the squad on the starting squares shown on the map.

Mission IV - Bastion

Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:

The Space Marine player has one squad consisting of five terminators. The squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, a marine with an Assault Cannon, two armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists and one armed with a Chainfist and Storm Bolter. The Space Marine player must split his squad in to two teams. One team of two marines must be placed in Room A and one team of three marines must be placed in Room B.


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Monday 3 January 2011

The Ark of Dust - Mission III - Scramble

Deployment and Forces
Space Marines:
The Space Marine player has one squad consisting of five terminators. The Space Wolf squad consists of a sergeant armed with a Power Axe and Storm Shield, a marine with an Assault Cannon, two armed with Storm Bolters and Power Fists and one armed with a Chainfist and Storm Bolter. The Space Marine player deploys on the squad on the starting squares shown on the map.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player begins the mission with two blips, and receives one reinforcement blip per turn. Blips may enter play at any entry area.

Special Rules
Bombs: In order to achieve their mission goals, the Space Marines must place and arm bombs in the rooms marked A, B, C and D. In order to place and arm a bomb, a Space Marine must be standing in the room and expend a full four action and/or command points.

Victory
Space Marines:
In order to win the mission, the Space Marine player must place bombs in all 4 rooms and have at least one marine leave the board via the marked exit point. If all 4 bombs are placed and armed but no Marines escape the board, the mission can be considered a draw.
Genestealers:
The Genestealer player garners an outright win if he can kill all 5 Space Marines before they have placed and armed all three bombs. If the Genestealer player can prevent the Marine player from getting a Marine off the board after he has armed all 4 bombs, he may still attain a drawn result.