Mission Three: Can't slow walk this one!

Game 3 of 97

Continuing on with our campaign to play all 97 Space Hulk missions published by Games Workshop, we got together this past Friday and played the third mission, Exterminate.  

The mission objective for the 5 man space marine squad is to lock down all entry points by getting withing 6 squares of all entrances.  The marines start one per room with each placement alternated between players.  The 5 man squad consists of the sergeant with thunder hammer and storm shield, marine with an assault cannon and 3 other marines with storm bolters and power fists. The Tyranids only get blips of 1 and 3 and draw 2 blips per turn.  Once these blips are gone, that's it...no more blips come into play.

Layout:

My Plan:

My original plan was to start out with my assault cannon in the far top (blue) room.  Then I changed my mind and placed him in the center (red) room closest to the bottom side entry points.  Turns out this was a mistake.

Results:

The assault cannon marine just marched down the aisle, chewing up any bugs that were silly enough to try and get at him and locked down the lower entrance areas fairly quickly.  And he was backed up by another marine who placed himself in a good position to cover the assault cannon marine's back.  Half way to mission success!

The upper right area was a totally different story.  Lacking the heavy firepower of the assault cannon combined with Ron's excellent placement of my sergeant and another marine caused me to have to slow walk my lead marine getting down the corridor.

My plan to get where I needed to be to lock the other entrances down.  Didn't work out for me.

I managed to bring my sergeant up from where Ron had placed him into the corridor behind the lead marine but, lacking any shooting capability, he wasn't of any use in offering ranged cover.  Plus my command points were terrible at this point, so it was 2 steps and overwatch, 2 steps and overwatch.  All the while, Ron was plopping 2 blip reinforcements down at the entrances.

By the time I reached the first intersection, the corridor I wanted to get to was flooded, forcing me to take a left at the first intersection.  I moved my sergeant up to try and serve as a block at least but he folded like a paper napkin under the bug assault.  

Alright Sarge, I'll go this way and you hold there.  Sarge?  Sarge?

  Because of where Ron had placed the other marine, he was slow in getting up into any meaningful supporting position and by the time he arrived, his buddies were bug food.

Well, sh*t, it was fun while it lasted.

So the game turned out to be a draw.  In the time allotted, it is very difficult to get from one side to the other, so using my assault cannon to secure the lower entrances was a mistake.  And slow walking towards securing the upper entrances put too many bugs on the board with no viable way to get clear lanes of fire to support each other and clear them out.

Game over in 10 turns.

Ron's Turn:

Ron did the exact opposite of what I did, placing his assault cannon marine in the uppermost room.  He then managed to secure the upper entrances with amazing speed.  The lower entrances were another story.  Playing the bugs this time, I was able to hold back the space marine he had assigned to try and secure the lower entrances.  With the amount of bugs on the board, he couldn't risk getting his marine to the spot he needed to and I wasn't going to start throwing bugs down the corridor at him only to be picked off.  So I played the waiting game while he tried to bring some reinforcements down.  After placing a normal marine to continue to secure the upper entrances, he began to run his assault cannon marine down to join the fight but, again, the distance to travel makes the chance of that happening almost nil.  I picked off the marine near the objective spot and jammed up his sergeant who was coming down the other corridor.  Ron walked another space marine down the corridor, slowly approaching the objective spot.  Out of blips, I kept my bugs out of sight and waited.  Stay cool fellas, stay cool. 

Ron's sergeant facing the onslaught of bugs.  Good thing he has adult diapers on!

The game came down to the last turn (15).  I had run my bugs at the sergeant to try and take him out but, unlike mine who apparently never held a thunder hammer before, he was on fire and he killed what I threw at him.  With one bug left and Ron's other marine in the victory position, I charged him, dodging his overwatch fire (twice!) and killed him in close combat for the draw!  What a nail biter!

Game over in 15 turns.

 Conclusion:

While this isn't the perfect mission to discuss the title of this post, slow walking is one of those things that will certainly doom the marine player.  Ron's deployment was way better than mine and taking it slow here actually worked for him (almost).  But other missions don't afford the space marine player that luxury (like Mission Two: Suicide Mission).  I remember when I first started playing Space Hulk, I played along the same lines as normal 40k; secure and hold.  Often, that doesn't work out so well in this game.  This mission did have a limited amount of bugs to bring on but most missions do not.  Space marines can't usually afford to take their time in this game; the sheer weight of bugs coming down upon you will be your downfall if you do.

3 down 94 to go!