Space Crusade


Milton Bradley/Hasbro (in association with Games Workshop), 1990, 2-4 players, ages 10 and up. More mindless fun in the same vein as Heroquest. In Space Crusade, one player takes on the role of the Alien forces and the other players command small squads of space marines. Their goal is to invade a space hulk (an alien space ship), kill everything that moves and accomplish some mission (either destroy something in particular, or retrieve something). Each mission gets progressively more difficult as you go through the mission book. Depending on how they do in each mission, each marine commander can move up in rank. This allows them to equip themselves a little better between missions. Same deal for the alien player. At first it seems like the Space Marines have the upper hand on the alien player, but once the "ref" figures out that his minions make better use of their numbers when fighting in close (rather than ranged) combat, the missions turn into a real challenge.

It's a rollicking good time and definitely on the lighter end of the gaming spectrum. Sometimes there's just something very satisfying about playing with all those "toys". There are two expansions that I am aware of- "Mission: Dreadnought" which adds several more dreadnoughts to the mix (and, I'm told, makes it completely impossible for the Marines to win). The other expansion is called "Eldar Attack" about which I know nothing. I'm not sure that this game was ever available in the United States. When browsing copies on eBay, the sellers are almost always from the UK. The main game generally sells for around $30-$50 with the expansions going for about double that (each). There is also a game from GW called "Advanced Space Crusade" about which I know not much, other than that it doesn't have nearly the assortment of cool figures that non-Advanced Space Crusade has. So, to heck with it.


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