Saturday, August 22, 2009

Hands On- Space Hulk.



Like lots of folks today, I got my mitts on the new Space Hulk game as it full contents were out for view at the Chicago Battle Bunker.

On the Termies- Some the nicest Space Marine models I've seen for period, In fact when I got home I immediately went and grabbed my Black Reach terminator and my Standard Terminator Sgt (and with FW shoulders pads to boot)and these models are nicet than both!! There is no doubt these will be showing up in BA armies everywhere. These are full sized, two piece models like the ones done for Assault on Black Reach...but the models are even more detailed. If this is the future of GW plastics we are all happy campers. These models are just awesome. Ron over at From the Warp has more.



On the Stealers- Awesome dynamic poses..many can work with exisiting Tyranid armies, The Broodlord is stellar, just as good as the Marines in their own way.

On the Accessories- Lots of cool bits the Dead Commander on the throne a few other things I wasnt quite sure what they are but lots of little widgets.

On the Board and punch out tokens- Very heavy cardstock, super high quality, nothing you are going to easily damage. absolutely top shelf.



On the paperwork- everything is glossly 4 color..with well illustated diagrams. GW is setting the bar for itself extremely high with this package. I hate to sound like drooling fan boy, but this box is one of the sweetest products I've seen from GW period. Let the Design studios run more projects guys please.



On my conversation with GW staff- regarding the controversial Limited Edition status.
My own take after seeing box my conversation and listening to complaints about non supporting the game past this release is this. There is no doubt all these models are going to cannibalize sales of standard boxes and some models for both Nids and Blood Angels. (especially with new codex's for both coming in 2010) I am sure creative converters will figure out a way to change chapter iconography( which wont be easy since they are loaded down). A non limited edition would simply be too much, $100 for the models alone is a steal forget about the rest of the stuff. Currently the original Space Hulk sells for $400 on ebay. Think of this as a collectors item. I seriously doubt you will ever have a problem getting rid of it at more than you paid for it and you can thank it being a limited edition for that. In case you are wondering its flying out the door. Prediction...completely sold out by October 1st. (if not sooner)

(excuse the mediocre photos, I was at the bunker today for another tourney and I snapped these quickly between rounds, I did get to spend about 10 mins going over the box and handling the models)

5 comments:

eriochrome said...

I say in my discussion that they almost look to good. The sergeant could be a captain so your other termis are going to look like junior varsity.

Squirrel_Fish said...

Those all look top-notch. Thanks for the review.

Conspyre said...

I had an opportunity to play a couple of rounds of the game last night... It's just as cool as you remember it, and the higher quality pieces just sell the experience even more. The tiny details on the Terminators are brilliant, really tying them into the Blood Angels history (One of the sergeants has FANGS!). The closest game I've played to the quality of the parts in Space Hulk is Rackham's Hybrid board game, which used their existing minis line with similarly gorgeous cardstock, but without the lovely embossed effects.

As for the price/limited edition concerns, frankly it puzzles me. Not because of some "but we can't make it hard to get" altruistic bullshit, but because of economy of scale. Die cutting is one of the most expensive parts of board game development, and we all know about the startup costs of plastics molding. Making a game with brand new die-cut card components, with embossing, no less, plus new plastics is a HUGE startup expense. If it's only going to be a single print run, you can bet it's a MASSIVE print run. Also, GW has not been terribly truthful about "limited" products actually being all that limited (see the backpacks and 40K ammo crate edition). I'll believe it when I actually see it sell out and not come back again.

JPL said...

good point Bill..the LE thing could be a marketing ploy to push it out the door quicker..so say its LE but make 100K copies..instead of the 10K they've said..it wouldn't surprise me
also damn straight that unit cost per box on this is way up there,,so they surely ran and many as they needed to meet there cost points works..It seems cheaper than it should be for what you get...so that spells lots of units..I'm sure how it being a "design studio" project effects any of it

Does GWOP have a copy??, I want to stop in to check it out

John said...

They really do look great, although I'm not sure about the red plastic. The major stumbling block for me are the bases; i think its a bad move (although understandable from a business-sense) to design them so that they can't be used in 40K games without tinkering with them. Knowing GW, i'm expecting to see the same mins in slottabases in a couple of months, once the initial splurge in interest in the game has gone

 

blogger templates | Make Money Online