Space Crusade
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SPACE CRUSADE takes you into WARP SPACE to fight the force of Chaos! Deep in a parallel universe where nightmares are real. - Space Crusade advertisement
Space Crusade AKA StarQuest, AKA HeroQuest in space, is a board game created by GW in conjunction with Milton Bradley, as an attempt to make WH40K seem attractive and marketable to non-neckbeard audiences. Unfortunately, because someone completely forgot to ship the game to the USA, the only people it managed to capture the attention of was a bunch prepubescent british kids and a legion of eurofags who didn't even have access to regular 40k minis during the early 90s. Despite originally being marketed as a 40k version of HeroQuest, Space Crusade is more of a fast-playing competitive douchebaggery killfest than a cooperative dungeon crawler, which means it's probably one of the best and most entertaining things GW created.
The Game
Space Crusade feels more or less like a cousin of Space Hulk. It actually borrows the exact same setting, only this time someone actually put some thinking on the proper way to assault and take a xeno-infested derelict spaceship made entirely of narrow corridors. Instead of controlling a squad of slow-moving terminators with jammable guns, marine players will actually take charge of a regular squad of tactical marines armed to the teeth with enough heavy weapons to blow the whole ship, and a commander who can punch most things to death in close-combat.
There's a total of 3 Space Marines chapters to pick from: Imperial Fists, Blood Angels and Ultramarines, each one with their own particular sets of equipment and tactical choices. The alien player controls an allied legion of xeno forces composed of Orkz, Gretchin, Chaos Space Marines (including what would eventually become the Necrons), Genestealers AND A FREAKING CHAOS DREADNOUGHT. The goal of the game varies on the mission objectives, but it generally involves the Space Marine players reach for a target and escape with the max number of soldiers alive, while the lone alien player tries to wipe 'em all out. However, as each marine player is also attempting to seize the victory for his own chapter, this means there is nothing stopping you from going full heretical and shoot your own team mates in the back to prevent them from reaching an objective.
Expansion Packs
Space Crusade apparently sold more than they were expecting, which led to the release of a few quick cash-ins totally worth it expansion packs:
- Eldar Attack - adds the Eldar as a playable race + missions
- Mission Dreadnought - adds one giant-sized Chaos Dreadnought which is even harder to kill and emplaced guns that make your marines easy targets.
- Tyranid Attack - adds 'nids
Availability
As the game was exclusively sold in Europe, you're out of luck if you live somewhere else. Because Space Crusade was created in conjunction with now-defunct Milton Bradley, half of the rights now belong to a certain detested company, so a re-edition is very unlikely. However, you can easily recreate it with regular 40k minis and a few printable boards.
External Links
- Space Crusade at BoardGameGeek
- Abridged Rules
- Everything you need to make your own version of Space Crusade
- More info
- Computer version
- An old Space Crusade ad. "Plaghsma gun!" "Dreggnort!"