I had this girlfriend when I was in high school and she had just broken off a relationship with another guy who was kind of a stalker type. Not only a stalker type, but a death metal stalker type. So he’d growl at me in the hallways when I’d walk by him. Or maybe he was serenading me with a Cannibal Corpse song, I can’t be sure. But one day, I was talking to this girl in the hallway and he came up and started a bunch of nonsense. So I realized that I could do the most damage to him by just kissing her full on the mouth right there in front of him. He went berserk, tore my Dead Kennedys shirt, and I threw my arms up in the air knowing full well that I wouldn’t get in trouble but he would. I went further though; I had him arrested for assault, and I wound up getting a check in the mail from him to cover medical expenses.

So what the hell does this have to do with SPACE HULK, the recently reprinted Games Workshop board game that has already sold out of its limited production run? On a personal level? Quite a bit. See, I cashed that check and spent the dough on my first copy of SPACE HULK and dinner with my girlfriend instead of medical expenses because there weren’t any. The relationship with the girl ended long ago, but my love affair with SPACE HULK continues to this day. In some sense, I’ve always considered the game to be a trophy of my one brush with outrageous high school drama. And yes, the game was absolutely worth getting punched in the face over and over again by a psychopathic death metal teenager.

And it still is.

This 3rd edition, printed some 20 years after the initial release, is actually well worth the $100 price tag that admittedly sent me into a little sticker shock when it was announced for preorder barely a month ago. It may seem like a steep price, but what your Ben Franklin buys you is not only one of the best two-player, tactical combat games ever created but also one of the absolute best productions I’ve ever seen of any game, ever.

Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures have always been known for the finely detailed sculpts. The 12 Space Marine Terminators and 22 Tyranid Genestealers are no exception— in fact, I’d go so far as to call them the best plastic miniatures I’ve ever seen. With their tattered capes, skull medallions, terrifying talons, and a wide variety of poses and props these figures make anything Fantasy Flight has ever put out look like bubblegum machine figures at best. Scared of miniatures? Fear not—the modeling required is zero. These figures snap together without glue, and they look great even unpainted. You don’t even have to glue the figures onto bases as was necessary in past editions. It takes some time to cut them out of the hard plastic sprues, but that’s a great opportunity to really appreciate the detail and character that these figures have in abundance. (Get a small X-Acto knife or suffer from sore/cut fingers, and be careful when cutting them out to avoid lopping off a Marine’s body part.)

What’s more, the cardboard corridor tiles in the game are of an almost unbelievably high quality—thick, glossy, and with raised detailing to give a look of dimensionality. Overall, the visual and physical impact of the game is one that only a company with the manufacturing resources and expertise could muster and it really puts everything else on the market to shame. Fantasy Flight might weigh in with more cards and chits, but the sheer physicality of the SPACE HULK product is the new high water mark. The artwork and graphic design is also at the absolute peak of what the hobby can offer with some really outstanding, almost baroque artwork that captures the gothic atmosphere of the WARHAMMER 40K universe and the excellent rulebooks provide plenty of background “fluff” and story to give what you’re looking at a solid context. Once you see SPACE HULK laid out and in play, it’ll break your heart that Games Workshop is not doing other board games anymore.

SPACE HULK absolutely backs up its deluxe aesthetic treatment with some of the best design work ever to grace a board game. Richard Halliwell’s original design is 100% intact with a few revisions and add-ons that are mostly seamless. The goal was clearly to present a classic game in a definitive package and to that end the game is a complete grand slam. The design’s lasting endurance and influence over the years makes calling recent Eurogames like CAYLUS, PUERTO RICO, and POWER GRID “classics” seem laughable. Current Ameritrash favorites like DOOM and DESCENT have tried to modernize or expand on the ideas in the game, but have fallen short. SPACE HULK is simply stated, one of the best designs I have ever played and its striking combination of asymmetrical tactical depth, conceptual theme, and minimal yet descriptive mechanics is exactly the stuff for which the true greats of the hobby are made.

The game is set, obviously, in Games Workshop’s 40K universe and I think it’s a great way to get into that game world if you’re not interested in mortgaging your house for a new Eldar army. The titular Space Hulks are derelict space vessels with possible (read: definite) alien contamination and the Imperium dispatches specially trained squads of Space Marine Terminators to flush out the ravenous, multi-armed Genestealers that have made such vessels into hives. It’s a game of tight spaces, corridor battles, and carefully considered movement- because each one could be your last. The game is scenario based, and the 13 included setups provide plenty of variety in terms of objectives, special rules, and corridor layouts to offer tons of gameplay out of the box. Of course, the game is completely modular so it is entirely possible for players to design their own scenarios and there are ample components provided.