Stats:
No. of players: 1-6
Amount of time to play: 30 min
Age requirements: 13+
Set-up time: 5-10 min

Space Hulk Death Angel Rules Description:

Space Hulk: Death Angel is a co-operative card game where you take on the role of a space marine. Can you and your teammates survive the swarms of alien genestealers or will you be defeated in battle?

Space Hulk: Death Angel is fun, tense and very enjoyable. Whether you are playing solo or with a group of friends this game is full of suspense and enjoyment. Your goal is to clear out a Space Hulk (giant spaceship) of the genestealers (aliens) that have invaded it. You get a team of 2 space marines and are charged with keeping them alive as you move through the ship.

The game has a setup to randomize the different locations you’ll go to within the spacecraft. Each location has different terrain features. Pretty much the aliens will come out of the terrain, but it might also offer a bonus to you.

Each round you will choose an action for your team of marines to take. The 3 actions are Support, Attack or Move & Activate. Taking a Support action lets you add a support token to any marine which let’s them reroll any attack or defense roll. The Attack action allows you to kill genestealers. And the Move and Activate allows you to move your marines, change the direction they are facing and use the special ability of the terrain card you are now facing.

Any action card also has a special ability that can be used with at least one of the team members. Attack special abilities might let you shoot more than one genestealer. While support actions might help one of your marines defend better. The last thing to mention about the Actions cards is that you can never play the same card twice. That means if you Attack this round you have to either Support or Move & Activate next round.

When you attack you must roll a 6-sided die. The sides are numbered 0-5 and the numbers 1-3 have a skull next to the number. If you attack and roll a skull you kill one genestealer. When genestealers you are facing attack you, you get a defend roll. If you roll greater than the number of genestealers in the attacking swarm you defend. Roll less than or equal to the number in the swarm and your marine is killed. These attack and defend rolls may be rerolled by discarding a support token from the appropriate marine. If you are not facing your attackers you cannot reroll the defense die.

After you have picked an action and resolved them, the genestealers attack. If you survive their onslaught then you draw a card from the Event deck. Event cards have many effects from adding more genestealers to turning your marine’s facing. They will also always spawn new genestealers and move genestealers. So even once things seem under control there are more invaders on the way.

After spawning a set number of genestealers (which is cased on the number of players) you move to a new location. This is called a Travel action. The Travel action will change the terrain and reset the number of genestealers that need to spawn in order to move again. It will not remove the current genestealers from the board as they follow you.

The final location will include a win condition. Meet it and you win or once all space marines are dead you lose.

A Quick Review of Space Hulk Death Angel:

I have played Space Hulk: Death Angel game a few times with friends and have played several solo games and enjoyed them all. The game looks great and the components are very nice. Space Hulk: Death Angel scales very well and although a tad easier solo it is challenging nonetheless. There is some strategy and planning involved in selecting an Action card since you cannot play the same one two rounds in a row. And it can still feel a bit chaotic and suspenseful as the aliens spawn and move quickly.

There is a decent amount of luck in this game as rolling well can keep your marines alive longer or kill off more genestealers. At the same time good strategy should help keep you in the game.

A couple things about Space Hulk: Death Angel that are not so great, are the rules and that eliminated players must wait around to play again. The rules are not horrible but are a bit hard to follow and you will probably miss a couple things the first few plays. The only other issue I can see is that with repeated plays the lack variety may hurt replayability.

I still consider the game a lot of fun and recommend it to anyone who’d like a fairly quick co-op game to help fill out their collection.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6