Space Hulk Tactics is a turn based strategy game for 1-2 players. Set inside a massive derelict spaceship, players choose the side of either the Space Marines or Genestealers, and proceed across various modular maps towards objectives. In single-player there are two campaigns available (the same campaign, in fact, just played from either the side of the Space Marines or the Genestealers). Playing as Space Marines, the campaign consists of a series of missions which try to get at the root of the Genestealer swarms invading the ships and attacking the Marines. The missions can be anything from survival to planting bombs, opening void gates to capturing specific objectives. The Genestealer campaign is to try to prevent the Space Marines from succeeding at their missions through swarming attacks and tactical movement/blocking. For two players, there is an online skirmish mode. (Note: there is no local two-player variant given that some Genestealer movement is hidden.) I did not play the skirmish mode and so will be reviewing only the campaigns here.
The Tactics campaign follows a nice arc. Missions are linked with story bits that steadily escalate toward a big climax. Early missions are appropriately simple, teaching players the game's basics. Things are then added—better weapons, new types of Genestealers, different types of Space Marines, etc, all the while mission difficulty ramps up. On their turn, each Space Marine has four actions which must be used wisely and in conjunction with the other Space Marines' actions. Most Marines can move, shoot, open doors, interact with objects, perform a melee attack, go on guard and do overwatch (i.e. lie in wait for enemies to appear in line of sight and shoot). On top of this, players have cards at their disposal which can either be converted into bonus action points or played for a special ability (e.g temporary weapon upgrades, more cards, increased range, etc.). Using this combination of options, players maneuver their Marines through the corridors of the spaceships trying to stay alive and accomplish their objective. For Genestealers, the action and movement options are more limited but available in much greater quantity, allowing for controlled flooding and swarm attacks.
The burning question in the room might be: how does Tactics feel? Like a board game or video game? The answer: it's a nice balance of both. On one hand, it's a video game with proper animations, 3D graphics, voiceovers, and heroic music that when combined provide an experience that only imagination can at the table. On the other hand, it's a turn-based board game that uses (virtual) dice to resolve conflict and (virtual) cards to introduce special actions, just as people do sitting at the table. Another way of putting this is, Tactics feels natural on the screen just as much as the board game feels natural on the table. (What's nice with the video game, however, is the elimination of administration. The game keeps track of action points, card played, movement points, etc.).
If there are any drawbacks to Tactics, one would be speed of the game—and here I'm talking specifically about the game's performance on PS4. This is a minor complaint, so bear that in mind. Loading times are slow. You can launch the game, then have a bathroom break before the start menu pops up. In game there is an annoying 15 to 20 second pause between the completion of the Space Marines' actions and the start of the Genestealers'. You can almost see the gears in the game's head whirring as it calculates the options of the Genestealers before deploying them. Even on the PS4, one would expect this calculation time to be a second or two given how technologically simple the actions to be taken are. Make genestealer model appear at X and animate a movement to Y. That's it. Any action RPG these days is undoubtedly crunching much more data in milliseconds. But in Tactics, individual scenarios can last twenty rounds, meaning twenty times players sit twiddling their thumbs while the game's brain whirs and thinks.
Another minor complaint is there is no CTRL+Z—an undo action. To be fair, the following didn't happen often, but there were a few times that I chose an action, for example "shoot", but made a mistake, for example, shot a door instead of a Genestealer. I fully understand there is supposed to be a board game field to Tactics, i.e. once you take your finger off your chess piece it's your opponents turn. But having the ability to undo one move in circumstances where the selection of objects is not precise would help frustration levels. After all, if you were playing the board game at the table with a friend, you would never make such technology-based mistakes. But again, a minor complaint.
In the end, Space Hulk: Tactics is a tight, focused experience in the Warhammer universe, and while I've never played the board game Space Hulk which the video game is adapted from, I've played more than enough board games in general to say that the game is a balance of both worlds. Loading times can be painfully slow and there is no undo button, but the beating heart of Warhammer—armored Space Marines marching around inside smashed up spaceships with massive flamethrowers and machine guns is the name of the game. For turn-based strategy enthusiasts, this is a mid-weight game with a nice balance of all elements.
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