While the narrow corridors are death traps, you can turn the tables at the intersections by setting your Terminators on Overwatch. Congratulations, Space Marines, you’ve thrown away your only advantage over fast-charging, melee-killing Genestealers: massed firepower! Regaining that advantage is the story of Space Hulk.

Good thing they’re also incredibly slow, using two of their action points (of only four per turn) just to turn themselves 180 degrees. These beefy bastards are so wide, in fact, they can’t fire their guns past each other, so only the guys in front and back can engage. Trouble is, the Blood Angels are kind of dumb: they sent a squad of bulky Terminators into a spaceship full of corridors so narrow that only a single Terminator can get through at a time. The Blood Angels chapter of the Space Marines is sent to cleanse a Tyranid Genestealer-infested starship, the space hulk. The Duplicitous Demographers: Plaguebearer Pack an.Space Hulk is basically WH40K-meets-Aliens, but it fails to really make the most of that concept.But how about an entire brood of older models? Moreover, I think making any biomorphs look consistent between the older and newer models would be very tough to do. The odd older model genestealer can provide variety within a brood of gene stealers on the tabletop, but I don't think it looks as good as mixing in a Rogue Trader era plaguebearer with modern counterparts: older genestealers simply look out of place and. I might go as far as to say that the older genestealer's human-like hands are preferable given their dynamic look the newer one can appear like it is about to slip on a pair of mitten gloves before venturing out in to the dank, chilly service tunnels of the Space Hulk. The new model's rending claws are also better looking, but the more human, rear pair of hands are broadly similar.

The sculpts are also subtly different: the new version's exoskeleton appears stronger with fewer weak-spots compared to the older counterpart that (for example) has exposed flesh in the centre of the back. Ignoring the different plastic technologies, it is readily clear that the newer version is much more dynamic and can be posed in a varitey of ways. The old genestealer model is pictured here side by side with the newer version both unpainted. My wife and I played a few games of Space Hulk a couple of months ago (which I lost pitifully, for the record), at which point I dusted off the old genestealer models and re-evaluated them. Although my main W40k interest certainly lies in the various forces of chaos, I remember fondly the days of Space Hulk.

Space hulk genestealer