Ideas for gimmicks to spice up missions

[Kurgan]

For now I am thinking a whole pirate crew with jolly pirate nicknames

Is that a quote from The Crow? One of my all time favourite films, that and Gladiator.

Indeed it is, and one of mine too. I could see Maximus as a space marine commander... "Brothers, what we do now echoes in eternity!"

Yes, I am in fact entertained... that is why I am here!

Perhaps they've gone rogue themselves... (see "not all Orcs are evil" in 2021 HeroQuest).

The Bloodaxe tribe in 40k work with humans.

Even better if it's already in the lore... cool!

Those bigger ones are nobs (short for nobles which to orks means being big).

Some are also snobs... who fight with their noses in the air and pinky extended while holding their daggers.
But seriously, good stuff...

There's rules in a White Dwarf for using an ork squad in Space Crusade, er 135 or around that. It has nine standard boyz (two with plasma kannons that shoot with 2R+2W but can't move and shoot) and they're lead by a nob who has the same equipment choices as the marines except a plasma pistol instead of a heavy bolter (2R, range 12). Their cards are very similar to blood angels.

That's helpful. Do you know what issue it was? If they've already crafted some reasonably workable rules I'd love to try them out.

I had that! Played hours and hours on that game waaay back when. Did you see that there's a really good fan made cpu game that's exactly like the board game and its expansions. Made by Lurch something I think, Lurchbrick?

I'm familiar with the Vassal mods for HeroQuest and Battle Masters (and Isometric heroquest and that troll avenger thing I've seen on youtube), but I haven't seen any of the Space Crusade based games yet (and TableTop Simulator has given me nothing but grief past the point of being a useful option... but always on the lookout for alternative options). Link me?

[Kurgan]

So I'm thinking unless someone has already done it, we should crawl through the video game and grab those new levels. This review mentions Space Ogres and nasty space bacteria (affecting armor) that makes the new missions very hard especially if you haven't played earlier missions to rank up.

I guess it's easier this time than HeroQuest because all we need are the layouts of the maps and the mission objectives/story intro. I guess we'll miss out on any debris piles or other unique objects, but the main floor plan will be known right away in the first round.

I also see, helpfully, that there are all sorts of "chapters" of Space Marines out there in different colors. So you could have a group of guys in black, white, gray, or green (maybe even orange? not sure if that's meant to be yellow in some of these pics) if you really wanted to beef up the game or just sub them out for variety (eventually the poor alien player will have no chance). But I guess in the Dreadnought Mission each team gets a color coded turret gun (Tarantula) so you'd have that to work with I guess.

In the Atari ST version the Chaos Space Marines seem to have a green (with red trim) color scheme. The Orks wear red armor and the Gretchin's wear blue. The first Dreadnought is brilliantly painted up in blue with black, red, and yellow fire accents like a hot rod.

In the computer game you can also "close" doors... which means you can close the doors on your own guys (or on enemies) and instantly crush them to death if they happen to be standing in the doorway.

[Gold Bearer]

Do you know what issue it was? If they've already crafted some reasonably workable rules I'd love to try them out.

That issue used here for the Publishes Quest Releases forum is the one with the terminator squad rules, two issues before that one is orks and scouts.

I'm familiar with the Vassal mods for HeroQuest and Battle Masters (and Isometric heroquest and that troll avenger thing I've seen on youtube), but I haven't seen any of the Space Crusade based games yet (and TableTop Simulator has given me nothing but grief past the point of being a useful option... but always on the lookout for alternative options). Link me?

It's closer than you think. http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=795&sid=8240712ad439ead9eab52ddc0cabc883

I also see, helpfully, that there are all sorts of "chapters" of Space Marines out there in different colors. So you could have a group of guys in black, white, gray, or green (maybe even orange? not sure if that's meant to be yellow in some of these pics) if you really wanted to beef up the game or just sub them out for variety (eventually the poor alien player will have no chance). But I guess in the Dreadnought Mission each team gets a color coded turret gun (Tarantula) so you'd have that to work with I guess.

The main ones (the original legions that all the others come from) are the three in the game plus Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Salamanders, Iron Hands, Raven Guard and White Scars.

Then there's others like Grey Knights that don't come from the others even though they're newer than those ones (secret elite chapter using the emperor's geneseed), legion of the damned (messed up by the warp and just show up occasionally to fight before promtly pissing off again), the Deathwatch (made up of marines from any chapter like a fooball player playing for their country) and Black Templars (crusading chapter so that would be appropriate) who are just an Imperial Fist offshoot but they're really popular. Flesh Tearers are quite popular too, Blood Angels offshoot and just a more savage version, Blood Angels are like noble vampires and Flesh Tearers are more like feral vampires.

[Kurgan]

Lots of lore... I should get one of you guys on our twitch to talk about it! Actually that's what HeroQuestFans needs, is more interaction from viewers (nothing wrong with lurking, but that's how we grow!).

Thanks for sharing that link, but it seems I can't get any files from mediafire, are the files down? (hopefully not for good)

[Gold Bearer]

Thanks for sharing that link, but it seems I can't get any files from mediafire, are the files down? (hopefully not for good)

I should have it burried somewhere on my old laptop. I'll have to see if I can dig it out, that work is far too good for it to just be lost.

I could see Maximus as a space marine commander... "Brothers, what we do now echoes in eternity!"

Maximus would definitely be an Ultramarine.

Ultramarines: Romans
Space Wolves: Vikings
White Scars: Mongols
Salamanders: African tribesmen I suppose
Imperial Fists: Stoic knightly types
Blood Angels: Vampires
Iron Hands: Cyborgs
Dark Angels: Goths
Raven Guard: Emos

Fun fact, there's a room on the Space Crusade board that has the chapter symbol of each of the nine founding chapters.

I actually knew very little about the lore until fairly recently, I've picked it up along the way. You should try Sanctus Reach, that's an excellent turn based 40k game. Although I'm a little biased because I've just written a patch for it. I actually finished it today. Although I thought it was done last week until I found some issues, that game needed a lot of work.

[Kurgan]

I'm with you on crash courses in lore. I grew up with HeroQuest, but the rest of these games I've had to learn about, and thanks to the internet there's a lot of resources out there (to make up for the books and games being often rare and expensive to say the least, making it harder for newcomers otherwise).

Imagine if they remade this game, genericized under Hasbro? I feel like Space Crusade (and Advanced Space Crusade) is more obscure... while many more know about Space Hulk and obviously 40K. But it's certainly less well known than HeroScrape. I first heard of SC via a scan of that flyer, found on YeOldeInn and pretty much assumed "I'll never be getting this" because it was so little known in comparison.

I also thought it looked "too complex" compared to what I enjoy, but it turns out most of the bits in the box are just placeholder tiles for things like ranks and blips and a lot of stuff is automatic or handled by those counter levers and weapon indicators (no character sheets!). It also helped to finally see what this game actually was compared to the various other incarnations of "futuristic heroquest."

I laughed about the "grey knights" because even though I have no plans to, if I ever were to get additional 40K figures to add to the "army" of this game, they would be gray (unpainted). If I like it, I'll probably seek for a reasonably priced Dreadnought set, but right now that looks way out of possibility for what you get.

But gimmicks from the computer game would be great, especially if somebody else has already broken them down in a more accessible format in that homebrew game (if the files can be re-shared). Is the author still around? I sent him a quick PM on here just in case.

[Gold Bearer]

I laughed about the "grey knights" because even though I have no plans to, if I ever were to get additional 40K figures to add to the "army" of this game, they would be gray (unpainted).

Grey Knights are actually the only ones who don't paint their armour so it's lore accurate.

I'm with you on crash courses in lore. I grew up with HeroQuest, but the rest of these games I've had to learn about, and thanks to the internet there's a lot of resources out there (to make up for the books and games being often rare and expensive to say the least, making it harder for newcomers otherwise).

GW aren't the best at writing stories, plot and dialogue aren't really their thing. What they do well is the overarching story of the whole thing. I watched Angels Of Death a couple of days ago, it's better than I thought it was going to be but not as good as Astartes. Astartes is fan made and it's so good, you should definitly check that out.

[Kurgan]

Yep, so reviewing White Dwarf Magazine issue # 134 (from 1991) it portrays the Blood Axes Ork clan who have a history of working with humans and even against other Orks. Not a bard among them (though lots of pirate vibes and an actual pirate aka "Freebooter" character!), but still... they are intended to be used as a playable faction in Space Crusade, so I'm freely cribbing that in my version (already had a box of Orks lying around not being played with, so why not!) .

I also grabbed a box of sci-fi style dungeon decor I plan to use as homebrew furniture to incorporate searching rules for usable equipment to implement in future games.

[cornixt]

I laughed about the "grey knights" because even though I have no plans to, if I ever were to get additional 40K figures to add to the "army" of this game, they would be gray (unpainted).

Grey Knights are actually the only ones who don't paint their armour so it's lore accurate.

I'm sure it is one of those things where a GW employee turned up to a game with an unpainted army and made up a reason on the spot, so they put it into the actual game.

[Kurgan]

That would be awesome! Next we'll see the "Children of Space" who due to their vows of simplicity, appear to be plastic figures with paint just kind of thrown onto them in a haphazard and childish manner. Finally we'll see the "Simple Ones" who use holographic projections to hide their true appearance (due to extreme vows of humility) making themselves look like pieces of cardboard or random board game pawns.

For all I know these are already canon, considering the promotion of the shampoo and deodorant bottle hover tanks in official books.