Warhammer 40k’s Space Marines have the potential to be every bit as silly as they are epic, a truth the fandom has exploited in everything from comics like Turn Signals on a Land Raider, to made up Space Marine chapters like the Angry Marines, to spoofs like Space King. Grant Howitt, the prolific indie RPG designer behind the incredible Honey Heist, Heart, and Eat the Reich, has had his turn with Falling Angels, a free fangame of slapstick battles featuring barely controlled Space Marines and oh-so-expendable human helpers.
Falling Angels is free to download from the Rowan Rook and Decard website, and fits onto nine short pages. To play, each player needs a Space Marine miniature (or equivalent dude in bulky armor) and a coterie of hangers on. The game is set on a ruined world after the fall of the great space empire, where the last immortal Space Marines now clash with one another in brutal games of martial prowess because, without any real purpose any more, they just want to feel something.
Your marine is supported by a group retinue of mortal lackeys. They’re a mixture of lesser warriors and menials with helpful abilities, like a Squire, who can ride shotgun on the back of the Marines’ power armor, or a Knight, who can suicidally draw the attention of the enemy Space Marine.
There’s some real black comedy here, because these luckless mortals are really here to die. Lackeys are so much weaker than marines that they’re prone to burst into showers of gore at the merest touch, while marines can keep fighting despite grievous injuries. But each time one of your retinue makes the ultimate sacrifice, your marine unlocks a new power, making them even more lethal.
The other kind of humor is slapstick. The Space Marines are massive walking tanks, able to Kool-Aid man their way through flimsy breakable terrain. They start the battle slow, with just 4″ movement, but as your retinue starts to die you may be able to increase your marine’s Momentum stat. This makes a marine faster, but once they’re really motoring they simply can’t stop, and they turn like a jeep. Running into a mortal at this speed is like hitting them with a car, while bouncing off an unbreakable obstacle will give the marine a serious headache.
I’m focusing on the humor here, and this is definitely a lightweight narrative game rather than a competitive one, but I can see some interesting tactical grit in it nevertheless. Marines have different arcs just like vehicles in older editions of 40k, and getting into their rear arc or onto the opposite flank from the one that they’re holding a shield will be important for survival and actually causing damage. While the rules assume two players going head to head, they seem simple enough that multiplayer battles will be possible.
I haven’t tried this yet, but if you do, let me know what you think in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
