Games Night: Ultra Marines!

Another blast from the past this time, as we revisited one of the first gw games I ever owned. So, what is it?

Ultra Marines was one of a series of introductory games - each in the series was a simplified version of one of the more mainstream games. It uses the 1st edition Space Hulk floor sections, and pits squads of Space Marine scouts against each other to collect as many alien artefacts as they can.

Once an artefact has been collected, it has to be carried back to that squad's Teleport Zone (the room they started in) where it can be teleported off board at the start of your turns (on a 4+ roll).

Players / Forces:

Deathbringa      Blood Angels    (Red)

Prospero          Ultramarines      (Blue)

Cortez              Space Wolves   (Yellow)

Creidhnan         Dark Angels      (Green)

We adapted the shooting rules a bit, rolling to hit, instead of using the game's method of dropping the dice into the box lid (which has a 3x3 hit / miss grid).

Not only are the squads allowed to shoot at each other, but each player also has Event Cards they can play at any point during their turn. These range from grenades to attack your opponents to actions that benefit your squad. The dirty tricks got off to an immediate start, with Deathbringa promptly blocking my forces in their starting room with 2 cave-in cards. Revenge on my part was swift however, as I promptly retaliated with a grenade (cards can be played anywhere on the board - regardless of where your own forces are).

Ouch! That'll sting in the morning...

After a pretty long game (due to repeated misuse of the reinforcements card, along with further dirty tricks - from all of us!) Cortez emerged as the victor, claiming joint highest artefacts and having the last scouts standing!

Caught between some rocks and a (very) hard place...

For a 20-year-old game, it provided some great entertainment, as well as a chance to use some of the really old scout models - I've been working on stripping the paint from them using the Dettol method. This process was not quite complete, so some more modern stand-ins had to be recruited to fill the gaps.

Well, thats it for this trip down memory lane, but if anyone else is familiar with this game, or any others from that time, tell us about them in the comments below! Happy gaming everyone...

Prospero

Heroquest and Prospero's Space Hulk painting mission

Another Heroquest session recently resulted in another hole fallen into by the barbarian, and more archery based trickery from the elf. Below are a few highlights...

Undead and Chaos seemed to be a theme in terms of opposition in this quest (note also the Elf's reaction to the appearence of the gargoyle... let the barbarian handle it!)

And now onto some painting. With a new edition of 40k likely very soon, I'm currently waiting to see what the new rules will mean for each of my armies, so instead of adding more stuff, I decided to tackle the pile of unpainted models - starting with the rest of the Space Hulk models.

 This is my first attempt at doing a lightning effect on a weapon, but I'm already thinking of other models I could add this to!

For the marine with the heavy flamer, I wanted to make it look like it was actually in the process of torching a corridor.

I drilled holes into the barrels and inserted a pair of brass rods. To make my 'flames', I added green turf that I normally use for basing, mixed with lots of PVA glue. Its still a bit fragile at the moment, but a drop of superglue on top will make it much more solid.

Of course, these are still very much works in progress. I'm also converting one marine so that it could be used in 40K as a Sanguinary Priest - will bring you all some pics of that soon.

Thats all for now - comments and feedback are welcome!

Prospero

Space Hulk

Well, another games night came and went - up this time... Space Hulk!

Mission: Cleanse and Burn Terminators: Prospero, Cortez Genestealers: Deathbringa

Objective: 2 Squads of Terminators have to fire their heavy weapons into target rooms. When this happens, they win. If the Genestealers get them though...

The marines advance, and an alien is sent off. Bad Genestealer! Go to your room!!!

The marines achieved their objective with minimal casualties, but we decided to finish the turn that they did this (they went first, and the game should end as soon as their mission is completed). This allowed the foul xenos some measure of revenge as they wiped out half the marines! If the good guys had been just a little slower it could have been a very different outcome...

Following the game, I decided to get on with painting some Genestealers, as I have loads - many of which are the older type and poorly painted from many years ago. (The painted ones used in the game belong to Deathbringa) The final picture is a work in progress shot of the first of the new batch (breed?). Quite pleased with how its going.

That'll be it for now,

Prospero out.