Warhammer 40K Space Marine The Board Game

Warhammer 40k is a huge game, with expansive lore for all factions and countless miniatures for you to field on the tabletop. With the release of 10th Edition a few months ago, Games Workshop now offers a fantastic entry point to this wonderful game in the shape of the Space Marine Board Game. Perhaps you have read about Warhammer before and don’t really know where to start with your tabletop journey, well, this could be the answer you’re looking for.

The Rich Legacy of Warhammer 40K

Warhammer recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. As you can imagine, it has produced so many miniatures, game systems, rules and lore over that time and you could spend days, if not weeks, researching your favourite characters and armies. There is a whole library of stories which can really help you to understand more about each faction. But for those of you that want the basic story, here’s 2 minutes of Warhammer 40K lore.

Various things happened in the distant past which led to the Emperor of mankind ruling over everyone. He was a bit of a nutjob and pretty radical in his views. He created 20 super soldiers using his own DNA to make sure they were the biggest, strongest and best versions of all humanity. These 20 sons were known as the Primarchs and they were to lead his armies. As with most things Warhammer, Chaos interfered and dispersed these prodigal sons all across the galaxy. While attempting to bring them all back together, some revolted against their gene-father and this is where the Horus Heresy began, back in the year 30,000. The Horus Heresy has since become so popular that it is now its own game system and has its own deep lore to explore. Some of the Primarch’s turned to the allure of Chaos and the Horus Heresy was a civil war between all the Emperor's sons.

The now God-Emperor managed to subdue the attacking forces and the will of Chaos and restored some sort of order to humanity and the galaxy, thanks to his super soldiers, the Space Marines. The loyalist Primarchs have been slowly returning to lead their forces against the armies of Chaos once more. Following the Horus Heresy, the Primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, wrote the Codex Astartes, which basically says that there will be no more than 1,000 Space Marines in each chapter, in an attempt to stop another uprising like they saw in the Horus Heresy.

Of course, the Space Marines are not the only ones in his galaxy. There are countless other races striving for power in a back and forth tussle for what looks as though it’s going to be the rest of forever. As you can see, Space Marines are what most of the early history of Warhammer is based on and they are some of the most popular characters in the game. They also have the largest range of miniatures and books for you to collect and read up on, which helps I guess. They are the poster boys of Warhammer 40K and the ones you are most likely to see front and centre of most advertising. You could say they are the good guys of Warhammer 40K, but are there really any good guys in Warhammer, just increasingly worse guys I think!

Overview of The Space Marine Board Game

The Space Marine Board Game is the perfect way to get started with Warhammer 40K. You get a box which contains a book filled with history and instructions, a Space Marine model of Lieutenant Titus to build and paint, 22 Tyranid models to build and paint (they are angry space bugs that like eating Space Marines if you’ve not encountered Tyranids before) and a game board to play on. The game itself is a slimmed down version of what you play during a game of Warhammer 40k. The idea of the game is for the Space Marine player to keep Titus alive and defeat the horde of Tyranids and the opposite for the Tyranids player, kill Lieutenant Titus and eat him. That’s basically what Warhammer 40K is, who can kill the others quickest!

The board game itself has several training missions for you to play to get to grips with the rules and mission objectives. When you are comfortable with these then you can move onto the two missions. In each of the missions, it is the job of the player using Lieutenant Titus to defend against the Tyranid swarms and defeat them all while trying to stay alive. The missions are quite simple and work like a mini version of an epic Warhammer 40K battle, with attempts to claim objectives and destroy the enemy models (not literally or you may have very few friends left by the end)!

Both Titus and the Tyranids both have their own datasheets with all their own rules and stats which you can use for the game. This is perfect for newer players as it all comes in the box ready to play, you don’t need any prior knowledge of the game or additional supplements. All you need is a whole lot of luck to keep Titus alive!

What is the Community Saying?

The Space Marine Board Game has received generally positive reviews so far since its release. People enjoy the simplicity and it has been hailed as a great teaching aid for newer players. The fact that you receive lots of models and accessories is a popular part of the box and people have been very receptive of the brand new Lieutenant Titus model, which Games Workshop have confirmed will be released as a standalone model sometime in the future.

There have been some pretty consistent gripes however, including the one sided nature of the game, where people struggled to keep Titus alive for more than 2 turns. It seemed like a lot of people were modifying the rules a little bit to make it more balanced and playable fairly. Another issue that many people had is one that Games Workshop have been guilty of since their games began, and that is overcomplicated and unclear rules writing. Some people say that the way some rules are written could be really confusing for new players, although veteran Warhammer 40K players should be able to interpret them as best they can.

Unfortunately, Space Marine The Board Game is exclusively available to Target stores in the USA, although Games Workshop have said that it will be available to the rest of the world at some point in the future, they just haven’t said when that will be. They also confirmed that Lieutenant Titus will be available as an individual model in the future so all you Space Marine fans can add this iconic hero to your collections, but again, no word on when this will be. Keep an eye on our blog for any news and updates if you are excited to get your hands on the game as we are!