Games Workshop had a joint effort with Milton Bradley to produce Heroquest in the late 80s. This was an adventure game in the vein of Dungeons And Dragons where the players battled against the dungeon master's horde of Orcs, Goblins, Firmir and Chaos Warriors. It was loosely set in the Warhammer universe. HeroQuest was created by Steven Baker, who worked for the UK division of Milton Bradley (MB). The game was released in Britain, Europe and Australia in 1989 and Canada and the US in the following year.
With the success of Heroquest Steven Bradley followed it up in 1990 with the game Space Crusade. Again it was loosely set in one of Games Workshop's game settings but instead of fantasy it was the universe of 40k. The TV advert is here.
The game used many of the concepts and game play mechanics of Space Hulk and Rogue Trader but had a much simpler level of play.
The games was played on 4 modular boards which represented a space hulk and 3 smaller entry points for the Space Marine player to enter and exit off the board.
It was played between 2-4 players with 1 or more player taking control of a Space Marine squad kitted out with a tonne of special weapons and a dungeon master style player taking control of the aliens. The alien side has Orks, Gretchin, Chaos Marines, Genestealers and a massive Chaos Space Marine Dreadnought. The alien models were fantastic and I still have some of them floating around my bits box. The Space Marine models represented Ultramarines, Imperial Fists and Blood Angels for each of the different teams.
Each game consists of the Space Marine players receiving their mission and entering the space hulk. They have to complete their mission before the other marine players, and return back to their docking claw. Points were scored for units killed and missions completed and they were deducted points for units lost.
There were two expansions Eldar Attack and Mission Dreadnought. I didn't have Eldar Attack but I was lucky enough to own Mission Dreadnought. The Space Marines had new heavy weapons and tarantula turrets, however the alien player got Androids and bigger and tougher Chaos Space Marine Dreadnoughts. The androids were fascinating as they looked very much like proto Necrons.
I wish Games Workshop would do more simpler and mainstream games like Space Crusade and Heroquest as these games got so many people into the hobby.I can see why the collaboration with another company may not happen but Games Workshop is a big enough enterprise that they would be able to finance something along these lines. Hopefully the release of Execution Force is a step in this direction.
Fingers crossed they just re-release Mordhiem!
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