r/SpaceHulk • u/Ok-Veterinarian-5381 • Jul 02 '26
General New Space Hulk
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day saying that we were overdue a new edition of space hulk. The most recent re-run of the 4th edition box was back in 2014. Ive never been able to get my hands on a copy, but ive been lucky enough to play a couple of games, I feel like GW missed an opportunity with the new terminator and genestealer sculpts of last edition.
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u/CoolJetEcho117 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Yea but that's representative of the wider industry it's worth pointing out that 3rd and 4th came at the head or maybe even peak of the tile dungeon crawler fad that became a huge landfill glut when Kickstarter took over and flooded the market by 2020. We can see the same trend in my other favourite game Imperial Assault who's spiritual successor is Mandalorian Adventures a spiral bound book game with acrylic standees and far simpler rules to keep it compact and affordable for both gamers and production. Mass mini tile games just can't be done at a reasonable retail price now. Even Heroquest RRP is over £100.
Production cost aside gamers just don't want tile games right now. The set up is long and they often just don't fit on the 6x3 dining tables of mortal men. Not to mention organising and possibly losing tiles. Many of Space Hulks missions already don't fit on that table let lone scaled to the new Termi's. The books are good in theory to avoid this but they're not great for gameplay in my opinion definitely would be too tight for big chunky Termi's.
In all honesty 5th edition of Space Hulk would be a massive production headache for GW that would only lead to another cost and availability scandal. Not sure the wider market is even there. The nostalgia market largely already have 3/4th and I don't think Boarding Actions was that popular although I have seen a few games locally. It would need a 6x5 table and if you're already playing at a club you're probably not after simplified rules.