Space Hulk: Tactics

Very good remake of the original board game. Enjoying it so far.

I played for almost 2 hours and this is what I learned

Space Hulks die in one hit from a Genestealer. Guess all that armor is just for show.

Space Hulks can't hit enemies right in front of them. Guess they trained at the Imperial Stormtrooper Academy.

Space Hulks can't fire from behind other Space Hulks. Guess kneeling wasn't in their armor design.

Good fun!

Fun game, I like it and its not too expensive either.

I am not sure why this one doesn't say it is supported for Deck. The opening screen splashes look weird. After that, the game runs really well. I've been capping it at 30 fps to keep some more battery life, but it runs almost flawlessly at 60 if that's what you're into. I've played about 80% of the game so far on Deck and that's my preference at this time. For me, the game is better with controller input and isn't that great with KBM, which is unfortunate and surely would be the obviously better choice.

It's not the same as the board game, for those interested. It uses a 'card' system that you can trade one (of three cards each turn) into more action points across the squad. The cards themselves have interesting effects which change the game fairly significantly. These include adding +1 to a shoot roll or guaranteeing a melee kill, for example. There are many others and they open up as you get new squad members like the Librarian. There are no command points like the board game and, as far as I can tell, the original missions of the board game are not here. I'd argue there's more going on here that's both fun and challenging than some of the board game missions and I've definitely got my money's worth so far. For those looking for a 'traditional' Space Hulk experience, you'll need to find a copy of Space Hulk (2013) game which is no longer available on Steam.

The campaign is fun from both the perspectives of the Marines or the Genestealers, although I have not finished either yet. I recommend playing both sides for a few missions each to get a better understanding of the game before focusing on one campaign. I'd say the Space Marine campaign has some pretty significant difficulty spikes which really challenged me. You almost have to play flawlessly in some missions to succeed. This is why I recommend playing as the 'stealers for a bit to learn how they operate. It also took me several hours to realise you can save mid-game. Do this every couple of turns so you can scum a (little) bit. It's super frustrating to have to go back to the start of a 20 minute mission because you turned the wrong way by accident or forgot to put a Marine on Overwatch even though they had the AP available! As far as I can tell, you can't save scum to change the outcomes of dice rolls - they seem to be decided - which is great.

Overall, it's good fun and good value. I look forward to playing more and finishing it.

Genetically modified super soldier sergeant with power sword, still gets one hitted by a human sized space monster. Idk but I thinked space marines with terminator armour was more than that.

Still cant play it without mods to stop it from crashing, please fix.

a very fun but brutally unforgiving in the early game.

Heavy Flamer does a lot to trivialize the difficulty but that point it is earned.

and those filthy Xenos scum deserve it anyways

I implore you reading these reviews to give this game a go. On a serious note buy this game!

At the time of writing this review I have almost 80 hours on the PlayStation 4 version of this game.
Reason I bought it on Steam too is so I can let others use my PS5. Also really wanted to see how much better I can play with keyboard and mouse.

And I'm willingly putting time into this game again. I played this game a lot 4 years ago.
I genuinely love this game. The atmosphere, the Terminators, the disgusting Genestealers, the maps.
This is a gold mine for a strategy game.

I don't care if it repeats certain missions in the story mode, it all helped me be a better player.
During the pandemic I was introduced to this at a time when I also needed to play something offline since I could not play multiplayer games as I often did. Several of the missions are challenging and force you to find different strategies to fight Tyranid Genestealers, complete different objectives, and make use of different weapons, abilities, and Terminator units at your disposal.

The Blood Angels campaign is long, brutal, enjoyable for its battles and its story, and very memorable despite having short cutscenes and lots of dialog to keep track of and this is due to how the story works around the missions and different segments of the Space Hulk that you traverse.

If you wanted to play as the Genestealers, their campaign is very impressive for how short it is. You'd think playing Monsters would be pretty straight forward with not much story but that's not the case here.
The Genestealers of this Space Hulk have a history and they've brought swift doom upon many who dared explore this derelict structure twice the size of Russia.

The Space Marines are more defensive with their tactics though they do live up to their history as specialized shock troops even with being huge slow tanks. It boils down to your strategies to pull them off expertly.

The Genestealers are as the Tyranids always were. A tide meant to overwhelm.
Your strategies here consist of starting with a few Genestealers to build up a numerous horde to pressure the Space Marines into losing their advantages and options.

This game captures the table top board game pretty well.

I would love this game to be resurrected with either a new video game that will hopefully catch more people's attention or even the table top itself since that hasn't seen much action in the past decade either.

By far my biggest regret with this game is that I have never had a chance to play multiplayer with anyone.
It was my hope that buying this on PC I might be able to find a method to connect with people and play.

The online multiplayer servers are down for the majority. I don't know why they pulled the plug early.
However no multiplayer does not mean you shouldn't play it.

As I said, I love this game a lot.

If I could advise any devs making a successor to this specific Space Hulk I would tell them that I'd love another set of campaigns like what we got here. You don't need to make a movie though I do love awesome cut scenes. But most importantly MULTIPLAYER!

Expand on multiplayer as best you can. The 1v1 ones that I've seen videos of in this game were awesome to see but it was disappointing to learn that there was no 2v2 mode which would have made this game amazing to play with more people.

I'd rate this game a 9 out of 10.
Genuinely encourage anyone to play it and put hours into Space Hulk.
And if GW does make another game I will gladly support it.

First off, my play time is a bit exaggerated as I've left the game paused for extended periods. It's probably closer to 7-8 hours.

TL;DR: It's a solid tactical game with turn based play, and the negative reviews don't give it the credit it deserves, many seemingly complaining about issues the reviewer easily could have remedied, or about issues that so far have been nonexistent in my play through. Playing on standard difficulty. No graphical issues or game crashes. No prior experience with the board game.


Now, more detail. I've looked at this game a myriad of times, hesitant to purchase it due to the mixed reviews and the fact I've never played the board game. I remember playing one of the 90s Space Hulk games on my uncle's PC around 10 or so, and absolutely getting my ass handed to me before quitting. I've been wanting a rematch. I enjoy 40k, and I enjoy tactical games, but it took me until I saw the game on sale for 85% off to decide it was worth the risk. I'm happy to say it was, and I would happily buy this game at full price.

The negative reviews are blown out of proportion, and a majority of people leaving those reviews seem to have issue with problems they're causing themselves, and it's a damn shame the game has to suffer for it. To call out a few examples:
Existing Negative Review: 'Playing on veteran and the game is too hard, too unfair. It feels impossible.' Solution? Reduce the difficulty.
Existing Negative Review: 'The animations are too slow, and it hinders the game.' Solution? Open the settings menu and navigate to the animations option, where the speeds can be changed.
Existing Negative Review: 'There are no defensive missions, there aren't enough turns, and no good firing lines.' I'm honestly not sure how far this person played, as the missions have never felt rushed to me, regardless of turn amounts. The average seems to be about 12 turns, but some have more, and a rare few have less. I take about 2 minutes per turn to strategize and move. I can however confirm that there ARE defensive missions. So far I've played a few missions where the goal is to survive for so many turns, which requires defensive play against waves of enemies. I've also encountered a mission where an objective (specifically a console) needed to be defended for so many turns. I can also confirm that I have had absolutely no problem finding good firing lines in damn near every mission. I typically place my units on overwatch with vision down a 6-12 tile corridor.

Is the game slow? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Is it meant to be? Again, yes. But it is also very rewarding. You have to think about every single move you make, where you're placing which units at the start, which corridor you'll have a line of sight down, how much AP each unit has left and whether it's enough for a defensive or offensive action, how much AP the Genestealer units have and either keeping enough distance not to get picked or putting a unit on overwatch to keep yourself alive... There are lots of little things to keep track of, but I have never once felt the game was unfair, and the gameplay feels tactical and smooth once you get the hang of it. It definitely won't be for everyone, but if you're on the fence, I recommend picking it up, especially if it's on sale.

A good digital adaptation of the board game. A plus is that you can play as the tyranids and slaughter those pesky space marines.

I forgot how much I dislike this game.
As I love terminators and facing overwhelming odds I thought I'd naturally love this, boy was I in for a shocker.

First off everything is timed, max duration of a mission is 20 turns and ALL of the mission types require the player to be aggresive and usually spread out out, out of all the objective types (about 14 or 16) not even a single one is a defend mission, like I even tried to make my own mission but no, you're locked to the same nonsense mechanics.
So no defense/horde missions/maps, no nice firing line moments cause ain't nobody got time for that with the timers.

Secondly while I understand the dice system is supposed to be "fair" in that it can lean any direction in theory, but it seems heavily weighed in favor of the AI.
A few noteable examples of my revisit today:
Overwatch an assault on a long hallway with several blips coming in, first nid comes into view, bolter jammed, 2nd shot, bolter jammed, 3rd shot missed, 4th shot missed and now he's out of range...
So maybe you have more luck in the other hallway where you got your sergeant who has +1 melee and I gave him the storm shield and hammer for an extra die AND I put the apothecary behind him AND I put him in guard mode (reroll 1 enemy die if you'd be killed), guess what?
Kills 2 of the most basic enemies, then gets murdered by the third, fails the die roll to be revived by the apothecary, apothecary instantly gets killed by the same enemy in the same turn.

I feel like I'm in charge of the most incompetent discarded terminators with fake terminator crux on their armour, that armor being a facade, just paper and they're equipped with weapons meant to be melted for resources, not terminator grade relics.

As there is no progression really (in skirmish everything is unlocked, and in campaign things don't feel all that great) so there is no redemption arc either like you'd have in xcom 2 where yes the hit chances are hard at first and the enemy bonuses hard to negate, but as you'd get more gear and skills you'd start to see more reliable performance.
It was also acceptable because you had hitpoints and armour, if you ran out of luck and missed your overwatch hits it wasn't the end of the world, you'd have a chance to retaliate most likely or retreat and regroup, here 20% of the time you get some nice moments and 80% of the time you are slaughtered.

I never played the board game so maybe I'm just missing the post, perhaps spacehulk is only meant for a small niche of ultra hardcore masochists, but as it stands I can't recommend the game for most people.
Considering all 3 spacehulk tactical games (so not the shooters) have a daily average of 1-7 players, while dawn of war 1 and 2 still have 300-1000 average daily I think I'm not alone in how I feel about this game.

First and foremost, it's a "port" of the Space Hulk 3rd/4th edition board game, so it relies on D6 dice rolls that are happening in the background. Since it's relatively faithful to the board game, it's extremely difficult, especially at the start. The mission balance varies wildly until your first power spike with the assault cannon heavy unlock, then again when you get the flamer unlock and again when the Librarian joins your squad. That said, I'm loving it so far as a fan of the 3rd/4th Edition Space Hulk board games, so I came in with the correct expectations.

If you're new to the Space Hulk board games, then I can't recommend this game. It will quickly frustrate newcomers and the uninitiated with how easily Terminators die (basically 1HP) and how difficult it is to land range and melee hits on basic Genestealers. Fans of XCOM might find this game approachable, but again, the dice rolls can and will screw you. Basically, it's not a very good bespoke video game, but it's an excellent adaptation of the board game. My only real complaint about this game is that dice rolls are predetermined. I believe this was intended to counter save scumming, but save scummers will find workarounds (e.g. spend the bad dice roll on something else, or do a different action that doesnt roll a dice).

Also it works on the Steam Deck, just the intro logo roll is a bit screwed up, but the game plays perfectly fine and is adapted for controller button layout.

Played on Veteran difficulty and I'm very confused how you are expected to win a lot of the missions? Especially ones that say you must kill all the enemies even though enemies will respawn every turn and every blip equals multiple enemies. Its literally impossible when your own space marines cannot shoot past other space marines. Majority of the game is your own space marines body blocking each other. Shooting accuracy is garbage too. Every 1st shot is always a miss and I had a couple missions where a 50% chance to hit was always a miss too. Feels very much like calling tails on a coin with heads on both sides lol

No issues whatsoever playing this. Great game. Win10 Pro, latest updates on both GPU and OS as of the time of this writing.

I'm a warhammer nut, so take my review for what it's worth, but it's a very well done tactics game.

Pity is has so many negative reviews, as this is an excellent version of the board game. I would think you'd want to be sure you know what the board game is like to not be let down by the style of gameplay here. Thankfully there's no crashes for me so far (which a lot of the reviews mentioned), and I'm a few missions in. The issue with the game itself is only that it is the Space Hulk board game, and that claustrophobic style of play where your marines are stuck in narrow corridors is part of the game, including the one enemy type. The atmosphere and voice over work is great and really sets the tone.

WARNING: as of late October 2024 (for Halloween sale), be aware that for a year or two already, this game crashes after loading screens due to having an outdated security layer access coding. This is a problem with the Unreal 4 engine on which this game was built; some devs have gotten around to patching their games with updated SSL coding but this developer hasn't for this game. The only way around it, aside from running it under older operating systems (assuming Steam even lets you do that anymore), is to add a command line to the start file which disables or redirects the SSL on your operating system's hard drive!! (Or can go into your system and turn your SSL into swiss cheese manually at a more permanent level!)

The game's bugs never quite got stomped by the devs anyway before abandoning it, but I wouldn't recommend dicing your operating system's security level to play any game (or do much of anything else other than hardcore security testing on a secure sandbox system.) Alas, until when-if-ever the devs bother to fix it on their end, by getting Unreal 4, you'll have to play 2-player Space Hulk with player-designed maps and campaigns the old fashioned way.... Vassal! (Or Tabletop Simulator. These are both technically illegal options for modules. I mean, you could also/instead buy a physical set but who are you going to play with?)

Focus Interactive's original Space Hulk ports the tabletop rules pretty well for a single-player experience; and their sequel Ascension tries very hard (even rather successfully) to implement helpful and atmospheric additions which only a computer could make available. I'd recommend Ascension for the best feasible (and legal) tabletop single-player SH experience right now.

Yeah, still saying this game is missing the one thing that you need to have a savage Space Hulk game is... the gaME

GAME CRASH ON START
NOT ACCEPTABLE

This game rocks, I wish it had more content and progression.

Despite the mixed reviews, I think this is a really good game. I like the story, I like the gameplay, and I like strategizing.
It is a little frustrating sometimes because some missions seem to have a 'set path' that is meant to be taken to ensure success on a mission, but I've enjoyed it a lot. I haven't touched multiplayer at all, so idk how it is.

When I first bought the game, I was very frustrated by the U.I. I didn't understand the gameplay mechanics, every match I played I got my ass handed to me. I watched a few videos about the game, along with a few about the board game. I came back the next day, and I've been crushing it. I feel like if you don't understand the actual board game mechanics then you'll be lost understanding how to approach the game. The gameplay is repetitive yes but it's based on a board game between 2 people, and it's only supposed to played a few times then put down for a while, this does not bother me. I like to plum the depths of derelict craft drifting in and out of the warp and that is tedious dangerous work. As the terminators you are pressured to move fast, if you don't the genestealers are going to overwhelm you. I like it now since I've taken the time to understand everything.

It's not bad, but it's not good either. It's just kind of lame. Not really any spice to it, it just feels like a bad tabletop simulator port with a handful of animations that only succeed at slowing you down.

There are better Warhammer 40K Games, better turn based strategy in WH 40K, and even better Space Hulk games out there. Don't waste time on this one.

This game is full of it. And it is probably the most attrocious example of a game of this type I've ever played.

Nothing makes sense. The UI and control scheme are designed to mislead you, with metrics being outright wrong at times. The game introduces mechanics and then never explains them. Worst of all: the game is rigged against you. And I hate all of this so much.

But that is not because the reasons you might think. It is because burried somewhere beneath all of the bull, there is an awesome game here. The atmosphere is fantastic, the visuals are incredible, the idea to grant me an FPS view is top notch for immersion. The sound design is good and the core gameplay loop is gratifying. The story is intriguing and the very fact that there are two campaigns (and a bunch of other factions for Multiplayer) shows that the team was aiming high.

So, pray tell me then: how am I not to hate this title, given the massive potential it showcases?

Actions have less accuracy than Overwatch. Everything costs too much AP, forcing me to recycle cards, which makes me wonder what the point of the card system even is then. Traps can one-shot my troops, but enemies pass through them without any issue. Sometimes you see an enemy and you can target it, other times: the game decides that you can't. You can spend all of your team's action points repeating a single action and you can fail. There is no "Undo" button for Single Player, which is a total must-have for a game with AP and tactics-based decision making.

I mean, having a Campaign in a strategy game should partially be about learning to play, right? That means allowing me to make mistakes without punsishing me alll the time.

I love dice games. I love dice in general. I like RNG mechanics. And I know for a fact that there is not a single dice set that works like rolls work in this game. Furthermore, when you've got the term "videogame", there's plenty of opportunity to tweak the system a bit as to make for a more fun time. And if you consider that cheating, fine: have that in the options.

I hate that I'm giving up on this game. I want to play so much more of it, but of a working versionn that makes sense. I know there's a lot of positive comments going around with people claiming that the Campaign is easy: I have no idea what these people are talking about. So if you don't have godlike patience and just a bit of common sense: stay away from this game.

And pray that we get a sequel, because, by the Emperror, when this works it's awesome. It just almost never works. And that is heresy.

kinda boring and repetitive for a 40k game...

It reminds me so much of the boardgame, it's so cool to be playing it again, brings me back 😁😁

Good Game. Cards are fun, so is squad customization. Other than that, UI is a bit more confusing. It's similar to the board game, in that the space marines are kind of screwed from the beginning. This game's RNG will drive you crazy. Save game is your friend. That said, if you like slow, tactical games instead of mindless shoot-em-ups, you might like this. The game itself is pretty good in terms of the campaign so far (I am playing the blood angels). It is worth its price and the mechanics and game-play are that of the actual board game, Is a decent game, but full potential was never reached by the developer which is common for this quick grab developer.