Using Warhammer 40K "FireTeam" as proxies for Space Crusade

[Kurgan]

After a half off sale after Christmas, I got myself three copies of "Warhammer 40,000: Fire Team" which judging by reviews is kind of a mediocre game (but a praiseworthy attempt to simplify Killteam which itself was an attempt to simplify 40K itself for beginners). It advertised itself as not requiring glue for the figures (and had them a nice pretty blue instead of gray, plus some necrons in a dull gray and some "scarabs" which I had to look up what they were in the lore). The cards are kind of boring and there are too many tokens, plus there's a hex board you're supposed to put tiles on. It got mixed reviews, saying the game is weighted in favor of the Space Marines (of course, people often say things like that in these types of games). Anyway, I wanted to use the assets for my own purposes, practicing my painting and using them as proxies, drawing inspiration from the Space Crusade computer game as well as the German "StarQuest" localization.

In response to the question asked by Anderas here (includes pictures of the minis painted thus far):

He actually has a chainsword in his left hand and the plasma pistol in his right. The pieces are somewhat interchangeable (not nearly as easy as Space Crusade) so I can give him a helmet instead of "unmasked." There is a right hand that is an empty hand gesturing but also a bolter in the left hand. So I could make him dual wielding, and even make the Chainsword "stowed" (normally he has the helmet tied to his belt).

I know I can do whatever I want, but using the information provided in the White Dwarf magazine (issues 134, 145):

Commander (would presumably be given 6 squares of movement and 2 armor value, 6 life points):
Plasma Pistol (range of no more than 12 squares): 2 heavy (red) dice for firing. Total value of the dice is applied to all figures within the single line of sight.

(Everybody else, probably 6 squares of movement, 2 armor value and 1 life point each):
"Heavy" Bolt pistol. This weapon doesn't exist in Space Crusade. There's a "storm bolter," "bolt pistol," "bolter" and heavy bolter (the heavy bolter in the magazine is different from the commander weapon in the core set). So I could pick. In the "Space Marine Scout" section of 134 they give both the Scout commander and Scout marine "bolt pistol" which they limit to 12 squares within LOS, but the Commander version is 1 red + 1 white, while the regular soldier it's 2 white. No reason is given for the difference.

Chainsword: This one is easy, it's 1 red + 1 white in melee.

Taking away the Chainsword would mean melee of 2 light (white) dice.

So using a squad like this in place of one of the regular factions would be great for the Blood Angels. It would goof up the equipment a little. I figure a targeter would have to apply to either the Plasma or the Bolter. The Commander IS the heavy weapons guy, but in theory you could give the Plasma pistol to one other soldier. No missile launcher or assault cannon for the squad (as if you never picked them). Everyone would be stronger in Melee. "Suspensors" for Imperial Fists would be useless, unless you decided to say it made everyone faster (8 squares?) even though in the base game it only makes heavy weapons guys normal speed (instead of reducing their movement to 4).

I guess stronger melee in return for sacrificing their heavy weapon abilities.

I painted them as three squads: (GSG-Musketeer aka Imperial Fights in yellow; GSG-Tiger aka Blood Angels in red; and GSG-19 aka Ultramarines in blue). Each consists of 1 Commander and four marines (15 total good guys).

Their opponents are three squads of Necrons (Androids), which I spray painted in bright silver, metallic beige/gold, and white ("glow in the dark" just for fun, I don't plan to actually play in the dark). Each consists of 10 Necrons, half with long rifle type weapons (single barrel with big axes on the end plus two bayonets) and the other half with shorter double barrel ("shotgun") type weapons (that have only the two bayonet blades). I may adjust their stats from the type in Space Crusade. 30 Total Necrons. Plus each squad has 3 "scarab swarms" (each unit is seven little robot beetles I guess that can attack or self destruct). So a total of 9 Swarms.

White Dwarf 145 gives an example (from one mission only) where Androids have different stats ("experimental" androids):

*Movement 5 (normally 4)
Armor value 2 (unchanged)
*Firing 1 red + 2 white (normally 3 white)
Melee/Hand to Hand 2 red (unchanged)

They also say these are prone to malfunctions so if the "Android fault" card is drawn from the Alien Event Deck when any Androids are revealed on the board (not blips) roll 1 red die for each Android and for each 3 rolled, that Android is removed from the board (with no points awarded).

"On the board" I am interpreting to mean the entire four boards (everything, in other words), not just the particular board section where the Space Marines are at the moment for that turn.

I also have 12 of the "Gale Force 9" (an expansion box for "Another Glorious Day in the Corps" Aliens board game which is pretty pricey/rare these days) Xenomorph Warriors. They are in basic black but I think I will paint them in irridescent paint (color shifting purple/green) and use them as proxies for Gene Stealers. Since there are so many of them I may print out some custom tiles for these and the other enemies (normally there are only 4 androids, and the three gene stealers are only spawned by Alien Event cards).

How to use the Scarab Swarms? Maybe as a card, or maybe as an ability to "launch" them by Necrons? I have a longer term plan to reprint all of the SC cards, with some extras, possible a "search" deck (the equivalent of a treasure deck for this game, combined with the use of furniture).

[Anderas]

I just googled the box. There seem to be 5 Necrons with single-barrel-weapon and 5 Necrons with double-barrel weapon.

Fluff-wise, Space Crusade Androids are a totally different thing from Necrons, partially because Necrons haven't been invented when Space Crusade came out.

I would go for the base game Android stat with 3 white dice at least for the single-barrel-weapon guys. Those are the only ones who use 3 whites in the game, so why take away their specialty (not sure it is soooo great as specialty )
The double-barrel-guys, I agree with you, it's a fine proposal to give them the white dwarf stats...

Don't give the Space Marines 8 movement. I guess that would break the last little bit of balancing that there is. The Evil guy needs some places to hide the more valuable figures when a board is revealed, with 8 Movement you would take that away.

I also spent some time googling the current Scarab Stats. First I got hooked on the Spiders instead the scarabs, now I got it right. In 40k they move 10 inch, I'd say they could be comparable with gretchins until here. They have Strength 3 and Toughness 3 + save 6+, stronger than gretchin, rather human, not even close to Space Marine. They are weaker than our Marines in CC, too. But... they have 4 Life points.

Ok... they have also 4 attacks each base, to-hit on a 4+ (so to "real" attacks), and a 6 automatically wounds whichever target, be it gretchin, Warboss, Commander, Dreadnought or Leman Russ Tank. Let's see how to implement that.
Then, last thing, they fly.

If you'd ask me to translate this to Space Crusade (you don't ask, yeah i know,)... let's go.

Scarabs, thoughts
They can't shoot.
Close Combat, 4 attacks with 4+ means 2 attacks in reality. 6+ autowound means, you roll 2R, every 3 wound's it's target but that's not Space crusade rules. Maybe we can make an exception?
Move, I'd say "gretchins", 8 squares
Life points - 4 life points like in the codex?
Armour - no armour to speak off, so let's say 0.
Fly - let's say they can move through occupied squares as if they were empty



Scarab Stats
Points 2 or 3
Move 8
Shoot, no shooting
CC - 2 red dice. Scarab-to-victim is: Every 3 makes one autowound. Victim-to-Scarab is done as if the Scarabs roll a maximum of 2.
--> That means, both could destroy each other in close combat.
Life points: 4
Armour: 0
Specials: Moves through occupied squares as if they were free.

Details on the Close Combat: The scarabs roll, the other one rolls. If the scarabs roll 0 or 1 or 2, that's the result for defense and 0 in attack. If the dice show more than 2, the result for defense is set to 2. In attack, only the 3's count. Every 3 autowounds a target, no matter the result rolled of the other side.


Plus one new Alien Event card if you use that many necrons:

Android Repair

Keep this card on your hand first. Play this card at the beginning of your turn when an Android has been killed. Place an Android back on the board, exactly where it was killed. It may immediately move and attack.

Change of topics!
If you want to reprint the cards anyway, I have some balancing proposals for you.
* The cards are currently antibalanced. If a single GSG enters the ship, the game lasts longer, so you draw more, which is enough to kill them. You draw less if 3 GSG enter the ship because the game is less long, which makes the game easier.

This should be the other way round.

Alien Event Cards
So let's have some proposals for self-balancing cards:

Genestealer

instead of placing 1 Genestealer, place 1 Genestealer next to each Commander.

Reinforcements

Take 1 reinforcement blips per Marine player, dreadnoughts excluded. Place these anyhwere you like, out of sight, in addition to the usual number. They can immediately be used.

(as opposed to using only 5, only in the R slots and moving them next turn)

Chaos Teleporter

Switch the position of two revealed Figures.
If more than one Marine player is here, additionally place 1 of your reinforcement blips per marine player in one of the two positions, even in plain sight. They can immediately be used.

Battle Plan

If there are less than 3 Marine players, choose one. They will receive an additional order card.

Report In

All Commanders may not move nor attack this round, as they must report in.

Booby Trap

If there are two or more Marine Players, one Marine (no Commander) steps on a mine. Make a rocket launcher attack on his square.

Alien Task Force

Mix the unused Reinforcement tokens and then pick one per Marine Player at random to add to your Reinforcement Pool.

... you get the gist... everything where it is remotely useful, it becomes "per Marine Player". Sounds hard, but as there are a lot less cards being played per game with more Marine Players, so it is actually not that bad. At the same time, the few "good" cards should be active only if there are less than 3 Marines, some of them should be active only with a single Marine player.

For the Auto-defence cards and Lure of Chaos, don't know if one should roll per Marine Player?

[Kurgan]

I just googled the box. There seem to be 5 Necrons with single-barrel-weapon and 5 Necrons with double-barrel weapon.

That's the idea, but technically there are 20 necron guns on the double sprue (10 of each), so you can give them whatever combinations you like (and as long as you're not gluing them down, you can pop open the rib cages of the figures and insert the alternate arms holding the other gun to adjust them for the next battle... a little more time consuming than weapon swapping in Space Crusade, but it still works!).

Fluff-wise, Space Crusade Androids are a totally different thing from Necrons, partially because Necrons haven't been invented when Space Crusade came out.

It's all the same to me... they even refer to the Necrons as "androids" (and "aliens") in the Fireteam rulebook story bit.

I would go for the base game Android stat with 3 white dice at least for the single-barrel-weapon guys. Those are the only ones who use 3 whites in the game, so why take away their specialty (not sure it is soooo great as specialty )
The double-barrel-guys, I agree with you, it's a fine proposal to give them the white dwarf stats...

Don't give the Space Marines 8 movement. I guess that would break the last little bit of balancing that there is. The Evil guy needs some places to hide the more valuable figures when a board is revealed, with 8 Movement you would take that away.

Good points.

Scarabs, thoughts
They can't shoot.
Close Combat, 4 attacks with 4+ means 2 attacks in reality. 6+ autowound means, you roll 2R, every 3 wound's it's target but that's not Space crusade rules. Maybe we can make an exception?
Move, I'd say "gretchins", 8 squares
Life points - 4 life points like in the codex?
Armour - no armour to speak off, so let's say 0.
Fly - let's say they can move through occupied squares as if they were empty

Each life point taken away should weaken their ability to attack since I assume you're destroying individual robo-beetles.
I'm not sure about the autowound thing, after all the Space Marines (and Eldar) have only one life point each!

Plus one new Alien Event card if you use that many necrons:

Android Repair
Keep this card on your hand first. Play this card at the beginning of your turn when an Android has been killed. Place an Android back on the board, exactly where it was killed. It may immediately move and attack.

I like this idea.

If you want to reprint the cards anyway, I have some balancing proposals for you.
* The cards are currently antibalanced. If a single GSG enters the ship, the game lasts longer, so you draw more, which is enough to kill them. You draw less if 3 GSG enter the ship because the game is less long, which makes the game easier.

The challenge there seems to be for the "heroes" to divide up the points (gold) rather than worrying about getting wiped out in battle. Stinks for the alien player though!

This should be the other way round.

Alien Event Cards
So let's have some proposals for self-balancing cards:

Genestealer
instead of placing 1 Genestealer, place 1 Genestealer next to each Commander.

Nice, but there are only three figures (and three cards). It could work unless the deck wasn't well shuffled and they ended up close to each other and the monsters aren't killed fast enough to replenish them. Those are the breaks? Then again for my proxy stuff I have enough xenomorph soulsuckers to make that happen easily... nasty!

Reinforcements
Take 1 reinforcement blips per Marine player, dreadnoughts excluded. Place these anywhere you like, out of sight, in addition to the usual number. They can immediately be used.

(as opposed to using only 5, only in the R slots and moving them next turn)[/quote]

I thought they were revealed immediately, but I like this idea (and I appreciate the other suggestions too of course)! The scalable difficulty ideas are nice.

... you get the gist... everything where it is remotely useful, it becomes "per Marine Player". Sounds hard, but as there are a lot less cards being played per game with more Marine Players, so it is actually not that bad. At the same time, the few "good" cards should be active only if there are less than 3 Marines, some of them should be active only with a single Marine player.

For the Auto-defence cards and Lure of Chaos, don't know if one should roll per Marine Player?

Would you suggest these cards replace the ones already existing? I'm just thinking the more cards added to the Alien Event Deck, the more time the marines have to hang around getting points (not that it's a big deal, how often do they lose because they ran out of cards too far from their docking claws?). Again thanks for sharing your thoughts and research!

[Anderas]

The times I played Space Crusade, the marines never ran out of time.
With three players, it was rarely more than 6-8 turns. With one player, it could take maybe 15 or 20 turns. But never did we even come close to use all 40 cards.

I tried giving the Blood Angel a team of Chainsaw types. I even used your profile, 1w1r chainsaw in close combat and 2w Bolt Pistol. That ended. Bloody. Well. Not well for the Marine Player.
I then said that they may support each other: If you have several marines adjacent to the same enemy, you gain 1 white extra per friend. Great rule, that worked well! Then I said the same thing about Choppa Orcs, and soon the game became a rugby field. Was a fun rule, but it needs refinment if it is given to both sides.

[Kurgan]

The times I played Space Crusade, the marines never ran out of time.
With three players, it was rarely more than 6-8 turns. With one player, it could take maybe 15 or 20 turns. But never did we even come close to use all 40 cards.

My understanding was that the 28 Alien Event cards and 22 additional cards added from Eldar attack don't stack. Instead if you are using exclusively Eldar, you use the smaller deck, and if you have a 5 warrior squad of Eldar plus the three Space Marine squads, you draw a card from EACH deck at the same time. Whenever the cards run out, the non-Chaos players have one round of turns to complete. My point is that with the extra cards I'm giving them more time. Not that this necessarily breaks the game, just saying. At higher ranks the Chaos player is supposed to draw a number of cards from the deck to hang onto but he can play these INSTEAD of drawing a card (the twitch chat is setup so that chatters can "buy" an alien event card as well, though I made the price a little high so it won't be happening all the time unless some lurkers plan ahead!).

I tried giving the Blood Angel a team of Chainsaw types. I even used your profile, 1w1r chainsaw in close combat and 2w Bolt Pistol. That ended. Bloody. Well. Not well for the Marine Player.
I then said that they may support each other: If you have several marines adjacent to the same enemy, you gain 1 white extra per friend. Great rule, that worked well! Then I said the same thing about Choppa Orcs, and soon the game became a rugby field. Was a fun rule, but it needs refinment if it is given to both sides.

As the formations bonus... reminds me of my scrolls of battle (still untested in actual gameplay) idea using the German colored dice for heroquest (surround an enemy, line up for a shield wall, or line up to shoot at range).

Speaking of dice I'm making some extra wooden dice as we speak. They're not super fancy but they'll be functional.

[Kurgan]

I tried giving the Blood Angel a team of Chainsaw types. I even used your profile, 1w1r chainsaw in close combat and 2w Bolt Pistol. That ended. Bloody. Well. Not well for the Marine Player.

By themselves vs the fully stocked chaos player? In your simulation, did you remember to give the Commander the plasma pistol? The judgement call of course here is that a "heavy bolt pistol" what is that? It might be 1 red, 1 white for firing as well. After a time there are only so many combinations so I was trying to take hints at least from White Dwarf so that it would feel like it fit better.

[Anderas]

Oh, I didn't simulate. I test played with a friend.

So I can't say if it was bad dice luck or the bitter reality.

[Kurgan]

In the grim dark future there are only bad die rolls...

[Anderas]

Now for the wooden dice you make...

I've made some blue ones with 0-0-0-1-1-2.

In terms of hit distribution and average, they sit nicely between red and white dice. Sometimes the jump from a white to a red is too big, that's one use case, but there are many more.
Basically I wanted to update the game without changing the armor of the Dreadnought, so instead of adding more on top, I added one step inbetween.

Back then, I was still in my Excel Phase, so I made a crazy big excel sheet depicting dice results for any combination of dice (up to 7) and a couple of special rules. Do you speak German? You're talking about "GSG" so I suppose yes...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[Kurgan]

I have studied German but mine is very poor due to lack of immersion (and not using it for many years) so I make use of free translation software, I admit.

I am mostly interested in variations of the game, similar to my interest with the variations of HeroQuest even if I don't speak for example Japanese (loved that project that lately HispaZargon has been working on refining).