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.

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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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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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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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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