Why we chose to have dropships in this homebrew games of Space Hulk 1st edition.
Early on a decision was made to make the play styles of each player not only be represented with the player's models, character sheets but also all other aspects of this home brew campaign. Discussions were had about adding vehicles, breaking the existing rule sets and subsequent play testing. Surprisingly, what was found was that so long as there was a steady incremental increase in the opposition to the players, using only base rules for the genestealer players, the additions did not end up being one sided in favor of the space marine player. Quite the opposite was occurring...
The genestealer player, in the base rules of 1st edition space hulk and unless stated by the mission, have an infinite amount of enemies that can be tossed at the space marines players. Each turn, a number of blips are drawn, then revealed and discarded into a discard pile. When the blips are exhausted the discarded pile gets reshuffled and it starts over again unless stated otherwise. Each original mission would have a fixed number of blips that the genestealer player could place on a board via entry point each turn. All the original maps were designed around the concept of the space marine player controlling five to ten space marine terminators; essentially one or two squads. Now, in this home brew version of space hulk the players are starting with only one space marine a piece to be fielded at a time per player per mission. Each player has more space marines per their player character generation but that will be explained in a later post. So, at the moment there may only be three to five to sometimes based on schedules only one marine present; I had to scale the missions accordingly. At face value you could say: "Wait, three marine players vs. unlimited onslaught of genestealers? They won't win." Well, here is where we diverge from the original core rules set...
There are three dropship variants available for the players to use. Each can be modified using requistion points which I will explain in another post. Think "experience points" or a currency for the players to use.
1. The base "dropship" is unmodified, it can hold troops and support hardpoints for varied armaments. This is the most versatile multi-role vehicle. It can be used offensively in a pinch and supports the largest capacity to ferry troops to the battlefield.
2. "The little Bird". This is a smaller variant that supports less of a troop capacity and a smaller armament compliment but it is more maneuverable. This is reconnaissance vehicle used for light support roles.
3. "The gunship". This variant forgoes the ability to transport troops in favor of heavy weapons platforms mounted to it's air frame chassis. This is purely a support platform that can be utilized to provide air-support to troops on the "ground".
Now, before we all start sending me direct messages "...provide air-support to troops on the ground." THEY ARE IN A SPACE HULK! yeah, I get it but things aren't what they seem.
These were 3d printed, not for sale, over at MilltableStudios. The original files can be found at The Dragon's Rest website.
Below are two photos of the base variant dropship. Painted by MilltableStudios in no specific liverly for any chapter yet. This model is more than likely going to be painted in the colors of the Howling Griffon's chapter.
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