Deathwing (board game)

In 1989, Games Workshop released the two-player board game Space Hulk, in which one player takes the role of Space Marine Terminators, superhuman elite soldiers who have been sent to investigate a wrecked spaceship drifting in interstellar space; the other player takes the role of Tyranid Genestealers, an aggressive alien species that have made their home aboard the wreck. The game proved popular, and a series of extra scenarios and rules appeared in the magazines White Dwarf and Citadel Journal. The earliest articles from White Dwarf were collected and published in 1990 as two separate expansion packs — Deathwing and Genestealer — and most of the later articles were published in 1991 as a book, Space Hulk Campaigns.

Deathwing, released as a boxed set, introduced the Deathwing Company (First Company) of the Dark Angels Space Marines Chapter, including the Captain and the Librarian.[1] The expansion included:

• New rules and additional Terminator weapons, greatly expanding the tactical possibilities for the Terminator player.
• New rules allowing the Space Marine player to play the game solo.
• Additional board sections that could be added to the original Space Hulk board.
• Several new missions.

In the April 1991 edition of Dragon (Issue #168), Ken Rolston complimented the original Space Hulk game for its "fast pace of play and lots of action and mayhem." About the new expansion, Rolston commented that "The Deathwing set contains some useful supplemental material and more scenarios."[2]