Mission 13 Available

[Agatheron]

Genestealers have to open doors or rip them to shreds... sometimes it is to their advantage to close them.

At any rate, I see this set as guidelines to get one started. After all, it's a set of guides to get people to think past the base 12 missions, and try to come up with ones that work... I tried out the 3E tileset application... what a treat... I think when combined with the PDF that GW provided, we can have a number of great third-party missions being generated.

I'm working on a few narrative ideas myself...

[CRasterImage]

I plan to find a way to rip the contents out of that PDF and make a Word .doc file out of it. Also an Open Office .odt file too.

[WildAnimal]

Ladies and Gentlemen!


They gave us a great new Space Hulk set, they rest is up to the community.

The 13 Mission was something someone did write up in a hour at GW office.

So please people, invent stuff your own, im thinking on doing somekind of competition on the best mission designed. Putting the 15 best missions in the contest into a "Mission Compendium". Anyway design your own stuff!

[wilsongrahams]

An alternative I am working on, requires you to randomly deploy the map by rolling a dice on a table for each piece, eg, entry point, room, junction, corridor, and any piece that can't be placed has a marine area secure instead. This is fine for creating a map before playing. One thing I'd love is to be able to deploy the map as I play though - up to line of sight as each marine turns a corner, but how would I sort the blips? Any thoughts? Or just roll for enemies randomly like in Warhammer Quest?

[WildAnimal]

the hidden map thing will be very hard to do, not impossible ofcourse, but it could take away the "blip-blip-Blip-Blip-BLIP-BLIP-BLIIIIIPP!!" Feeling that the genestealers are closing in, closer and closer, and clusters of blips waiting for an ambush.

But it sound really fantastic if exploritory map could be possible. You thinking on maybe trying to make it Solo play?

[wilsongrahams]

Yeah that's one option, though also in the Warhammer Quest style - having more than one player on the marine side and the stealers drones - if you have them deployed every other peice then there will be a lot more of them anyway.
It's still all on scraps of paper as are my ideas for using captains and chaplains. I'm also considering linking several maps together and playing them simultaneously with extra squads able to help the others etc for a real 'hulk' feel. This will require my spare tiles and permission to take over the floors of the house for a few hours... maybe i should start with buying flowers.

[wilsongrahams]

It may not relate to the map used, but maybe blips could deploy at random locations in the room and move 18cm per turn towards a current entry area on the map? Or have all open ends as entry areas until a marine gets closer in which case a new piece is placed and the entry areas moved to the ends of them? In fact I like this idea...

[AndrewGPaul]

An alternative I am working on, requires you to randomly deploy the map by rolling a dice on a table for each piece, eg, entry point, room, junction, corridor, and any piece that can't be placed has a marine area secure instead. This is fine for creating a map before playing. One thing I'd love is to be able to deploy the map as I play though - up to line of sight as each marine turns a corner, but how would I sort the blips? Any thoughts? Or just roll for enemies randomly like in Warhammer Quest?

The Citadel Journal, issue 1 had rules for this. You need a board marked out in 30mm squares (a silver marker on black card works best). Board sections are only placed when a Marine gains LOS. The 'stealer player can see the whole map (by looking at the briefing), and moves his blips on the empty board as if they were on the map. If the blips turn out to be incorrectly placed, they are lost - obviously it was only a rat in a pipe.

There were additional rules covering firing. Basically, a Marine could fire at a blip if it was in his range and fire arc. The 'stealer player rolls the dice in secret, and only tells the Marine "hit" or "miss" (a hit kills the entire blip). Obviously, if there's a wall between the Marine and the blip, it's an automatic miss. You should still roll the dice, though). If there's a door in the way, it's a "miss", but the door is destroyed (the 'stealer player should remember this when it later becomes revealed). if it's a hit, place the board section on the map. This may mean it's 'floating' on its own.

Flamers could also fire into the darkness. There were rules for 'splashback' if there turned out to be a wall or door between the Marine and his target. I'd suggest simply placing the flame marker as far forward as it can go. It may turn out that the Marine inadvertently flames his own section. Again, place the section where the flame marker ends up.

If you want to make it really tricky, remove any board sections to which no Marines have LOS at the end of each 'stealer turn. Either simply remove the 'stealers, or convert them back into blips.

The above rules are designed to work with pregenerated maps. For randomly generated maps, I'd suggest making any unconnected ends (except the Marine entry area) 'stealer entry zones. These will 'retreat' as more areas of the map are revealed.

[wilsongrahams]

Thanks for that - i didn't get any of the journals til issue 27 or something so missed that.

So the marine player doesn't know the map the stealer player could design it first too.

The random map thing will take some work else you may end up with no more options - and will be best with just a simple exterminate mission.

As for firing into the dark, I'd limit this personally as marine's would only shoot where they could see - in range of their suit lamps in case they hit a gas pipe and blew themselves up - it also makes play much easier. You could even limit all firing to twelve squares - assuming this is visibility range as per the overwatch rules. The faulty scanner in the pc game and the hidden map from this are my source of ideas - walking down a corridor to find it only ended in entry areas was scary as you'd have to fight your way back out again! Maybe having the objective room as the LAST room placed - ie number ten, would also mean you have to fight on til you have randomly rolled ten rooms.

[AndrewGPaul]

If you can find a copy of the Advanced Heroquest rulebook, you could perhaps use those rules for random map generation.

Alternatively, there's the geotile rules from Deathwing.

[goroul]

I plan to find a way to rip the contents out of that PDF and make a Word .doc file out of it. Also an Open Office .odt file too.

I've given this an attempt already, take a look at the link on page one, fingers crossed it actually works!

Goroul

[torn]

The PDF is nice for hand drawing but they had kind of built up mission 13 as a 'map generator' which meant everyone was expecting some kind of easy to print drop and drag board section thing. Im a little bit dissapointed and the random dice rolling is just pointless.

Advanced heroquest map generation might not work for space hulk as the corridors and rooms werent joined, they were adjacent. And it did take ages especially in a fast paced game. then again i suppose it only takes a little work to change the system for space hulk.

[Rhamag]

Based on the number of tiles in the box, I've come up with the following simple rules for random map generation. They're nowhere near perfect, but easy to remember.

Roll D6:

1,2 - Corridor. Roll D6 again for length. Any 6, you choose.
3,4,5 - Junction. Roll again for number of exits. (dead-end=1, corner=2, t-junction=3, crossroads=4) 5 or 6, you choose.
6 - Room. Roll again for number of exits, 5 or 6 = special room.

Things like Marine-controlled areas, ladders, disposal chutes etc. are up to you. If you get too many dead-ends, take -em off and re-roll those sections.

Have fun, post any comments so we can try to get a working set of rules between us.

[AndrewGPaul]

The PDF is nice for hand drawing but they had kind of built up mission 13 as a 'map generator' which meant everyone was expecting some kind of easy to print drop and drag board section thing.

Did they? IIRC, all they said was that it would be a mission generator. Anything else is, again, fanboy hype.

Rhamag, you need something in there to say when a corridor ends - perhapd roll a D6 for length, on a 6 place nothing.

[Rhamag]

Rhamag, you need something in there to say when a corridor ends - perhapd roll a D6 for length, on a 6 place nothing.

I was thinking just to roll again at the end of corridors, it miht be another corridor, room or a junction/corner. The dead-ends and end-points help to tie up the loose ends.

Like I said, it's not perfect but I've had some nice looking maps from it, and it's easy to remember. Thanks for the input though. Nice to know someone reads my posts.