The Space Marine Adventures series is one of Warhammer’s little gems. These are essentially dungeon-crawler-style board games aimed at introducing folk into the world of Warhammer in a family-friendly and fun way. So when the latest version of this game arrived in the STARBURST offices for review, courtesy of Games Workshop, we got quite excited.
Space Marine Adventures: Tyranid Attack sees a team of Space Marines board a space hulk, Warhammer 40,000’s version of a dungeon (it just happens to be a collection of abandoned spaceships.) The ancient ship is crammed full of murderous alien bug monsters called Tyranids, but luckily, the Space Marines are tough and carry powerful weapons. It’s co-operative, you pick one of six possible Space Marines to board the space hulk and then work together to achieve a set goal.
The mission and the monsters that try to stop a deck of cards control you; the game comes with sets of ‘sealed’ cards, so there are still some surprises as you progress from mission to mission. Cards also control who goes next and what things your Space Marine can do. Each player has their own set of dice, and the types of Space Marine are colour-coded; the chain sword-wielding Blood Angel marine is red, the grenade-throwing Space Wolf marine is grey and so on. Each has a useful, complementary power.
We get five models in the box (though they are a total of six characters; more on that later). Each model is push-fit and easy to assemble. They look great, and experienced gamers may want to pick up this set just for the models. We also get cardboard counters for all the alien monsters, allowing the game to have a horde of horrors while being reasonably priced. The board, counters, and so on are all of the high-quality items we’ve come to expect from the Warhammer brand.
Space Marine Adventures: Tyranid Attack also includes a rules card for Captain Titus, the main character from the Space Marine2 video games. This is especially nice if you happen to own Space Marine The Board Game, as that pseudo starter set came with a model for Captain Titus and a horde of Tyranid monsters to enhance your game.
Games Workshop doesn’t like to throw away ideas, nor does it like to forget names from older projects, so if the name sounds familiar, it’s because back in 1992, there was a game called Tyranid Attack, which was a ‘sort of’ reskin of previous games such as Space Hulk and Advanced Space Crusade. That game saw Space Marine scouts explore an organic ship, and though that’s a fun idea, we can see why they didn’t go with such a gory idea for a nominally family-friendly game. (The space hulk is depicted as bleak metal corridors instead.) Much like the 1992 game, this modern iteration of the game also includes rules for longer, more complicated ‘campaign’ play.
If you have fond memories of Space Hulk, Space Crusade and the like and want the modern equivalent, Space Marine Adventures: Tyranid Attack is the thing you’re looking for.
