Today’s game is Space Crusade (1990) from Milton Bradley. Following up their successful collaboration with Games Workshop the year before on HeroQuest, Milton Bradley brought the 40K setting to the mass market in an easy-to-play boardgame. #CuratedQuarantine

Like Heroquest, one player controls the adversaries in a GM role. Rather than controlling individual characters, however, the remaining three players each control a squad of five Space Marines from the Blood Angels, Imperial Fists, and Ultramarines chapters. #CuratedQuarantine

They compete to get the most victory points. Both conceptually and in some of the rules (most notably, the “blip” counters that keep enemies disguised until they are spotted), Space Crusade actually has more in common with Space Hulk than HeroQuest. #CuratedQuarantine

Whereas Space Hulk is straight up Genestealers vs. Space Marines, Space Crusade introduces more of the 40K setting by including Genestealers, Chaos Marines, Orks, Gretchin, and even proto-Necrons. #CuratedQuarantine

The latter are called androids and are supposedly the creation of Chaos Squat engineers, but you can see how their design presages the Necrons that appeared eight years later. #CuratedQuarantine

Space Crusade is a straightforward game but makes for a fun shoot ‘em up. It was produced in the UK and sold only in Europe, which was a bummer for American 40K fans. Took me some doing to track down a copy. #CuratedQuarantine

Amusingly, the last time I used the boards was not to play Space Crusade at all, but to run a 40K RPG at a mini-con here in Seattle. This was like 2001 or so, and I kitbashed some rules using WFRP 1E and Necromunda to run a game I called The Dirty Half-Dozen. #CuratedQuarantine

One player was a commissar and the rest convicts on a suicide mission. At the start of the game, I asked the players to tell me what crimes had landed them in this situation. #CuratedQuarantine

Without missing a beat, the guy playing the Ratling sniper said, “I’m a cannibal!” That set the tone and we had a great time. #CuratedQuarantine