Space Hulk

In Warhammer 40,000, Space Hulk is both a fluff term and a game produced by GW.

Fluff

A Spacey Hulk is a hulk of giant space debris, most often Imperial ships that were either destroyed or lost in the warp that stuck together and drift in space and the warp for their entire lives. Space Hulks are regarded as both dangerous and important for these reasons: lost Imperial technology, information, and relics may be aboard the Hulk, and the bad is that it may be infested by Tyranid Genestealers, a Chaos warband, or Orks that may threaten the system they are in.

For this reason, if a Space Marine Terminator squad is available, they will venture into the Hulk to both purge it of threats and recover anything of value. If they aren't available, the Space Hulk will usually be destroyed by any available battle ships in the area to prevent anything from getting out of it.

Why they send terminators is beyond our understanding, because termies:

1. didn't pack enough firepower, armed mostly with stormbolters;
2. are huge enough to block entire corridors, so they cannot focus their firepower;
3. get slaughtered by Genestealers the second they come in CQC range;
4. are absurdly expensive and often irreplaceable;

Seriously, a squad of stormtroopers or even guard veterans with flamers and meltaguns would be much, MUCH more effective. See this thread for more arguments on both sides.

The debate's carried over into canon too: in the book 'Death of Integrity', it was mentioned multiple times that Terminator armour had to be used due to the ridiculous amounts of radiation in some parts of the Hulk, enough radiation that would cook Power Armoured Marines in their suits. Once they had accurate seismic scans of the hulk they were able to deploy Devastators and Assault Marines in areas where the radiation was lower, and even space-suited Scouts on the surface to help the Techmarines do shit. Nice to know the guys at Black Library are still awesome.

The game

How we played Space Hulk during the GDW boycott

Possibly /tg/s favorite board game, rivaled by a select few such as HeroQuest and Settlers of Catan.

Features two small factions from the 40K universe: Genestealers, a subspecies of Tyranid who tend to infest Space Hulks so they can OM NOM NOM. The other faction is compossed of a Space Marine Terminator squad, who enter these hulks to recover long lost technology and pretty much kill everything they see. The game is fucking hardcore for both sides - Genestealers, because they have no ranged weapons and die from so much as a mean look, and Terminators, because they have little mobility, few numbers, and, for all but a select few Terminators, are very vulnerable in close-range combat. (The deficiencies in hand-to-hand can be made up by equipping Terminators with Lightning Claws or the Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, both added in the Deathwing Expansion.)

Took them long enough to get this done.

A vidya version of it for PC, Mac, and iOS is coming out August 15 2013 and produced by an indie studio called Full Control. The single-player campaign features Terminators from the Blood Angels (fortunately, we evaded the Ultramarines and Matt Ward) on the Space Hulk Wrath Of Baal fighting against Genestealers, although there will also be a multiplayer mode that plays more like the board game, along with a cooperative mode allowing multiple players to join forces to fight off CPU-controlled Genestealers. (Technically, it's a remake of the 1993 game, but most fa/tg/guys don't have computers that run Amiga.) It's pretty skub-tastic, and Space Hulk veterans refuse to touch it. We'll let you judge the ups and downs for yourself in this page.

Rerelease

Around 2014, GW rereleased Space Hulk. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's a limited release. And expensive.....like 40k starter set expensive. You do get some neat models that look like they can be used in regular 40k. Also, there are four new missions, and new board pieces such as boarding torpedoes.

See also

• Alien Assault - A Swedish indie video game that's based around the gameplay of Space Hulk. With enough mods that's listed in the article, you can actually turn the game into Space Hulk, complete with marine chapters, graphics, sounds, and maps.