Assassinorum: Execution Force is a fast-paced cooperative game for one to four players. The players control the Assassins and must infiltrate a Chaos controlled Sanctum to teleport to a room where a Chaos Sorceror named Drask is conducting a ritual to turn a planet into a warp rift. It’s your job to stop him! After the jump I’ll show you what you get in the box.
With the lid off, I love that new boxed game smell…
The box isn’t really packed to the rafters with plastic and cardboard, but what you do get is top quality. For instance the box isn’t as deep as the Dark Vengeance boxset. The bases are bagged up and includes 25mm, 32mm and a 50mm bases. You get 8 red dice, model sprues, cards, game tokens and board pieces.
15 push-fit Cultists, 3 push-fit Chaos Space Marine and a Chaos Terminator Sorceror.
The game pieces are citadel miniatures and are compatible with the game Warhammer 40,000. This is really good, because if you’re new to the hobby and own Dark Vengeance it’s a great way to expand both the Dark Angel and Chaos Forces. I’m pleased they didn’t do moulded bases like they did with Space Hulk.
The four Assassin models are on Character Clampack sized sprues.
The Assassin models are the real show stoppers, their plastic sculpts are very true to their original metal counter-parts. They are more dynamic sculpts with plenty of action packed poses. At the time of writing they are only available in this box set.
Bases, dice, event cards, a spare bag, rules and assembly instructions.
The rulebook is full colour and consist of 30 pages of clear and easy to follow rules. There is also a background section on the models to add character to your games. The assembly guides are really easy to follow. For painting guides and Warhammer 40,000 rules be sure to purchase White Dwarf Weekly issue 65 (back issues available from GW online store while stocks last, or ebook version from the apple iTunes store).
12 room cards will create varied game play overtime you play.
Four big floor plans make for a large play area.
All the card components are high quality and laminated. It’s a very thick card and feels very durable.
Conclusion:
When this game was announced I was very excited. I love Games Workshop Games. I grew up in the 1990’s where boxed games were regularly released and had a permanent presence in the hobby. Blood Bowl, Necromunda, GorkaMorka etc were hobby staples back then. It’s great to see Games Workshop making games again. 40k and fantasy are games, but they’re had too much attention and they’re bloated. The Hobbit hasn’t had the attention it’s deserved and boxed games like Space Hulk, Dreadfleet and Execution force get a single weeks exposure in White Dwarf and a recap in Warhammer Visions. The limited magazine exposure isn’t the worst of it. For some reason Games Workshop want to make these new games in limited quantities and use this fear tactic of it running out to scare people into buying it before it’s too late. I hate this pressurised sales tactic. Lower the price if you want to sell more. Don’t rule out a reprint. If you do reprint (like a the second run of Space Hulk) don’t say the original is limited quantity. What I’m getting at is these should be permanent features for Games Workshop. After all they are called Games Workshop, they should make and stock more than three games! I think they’d also benefit from making expansions for these games as well. How great would Dreadfleet have been if you could have expanded the fleets with more ships.
That being said, after a week of being released, this game it’s still in stock on the Games Workshop website. I bought mine from Dark Sphere games. I was in the area and it was 20% cheaper than RRP and they had loads in stock, I didn’t feel the pressure to buy before it ran out, so I lowered my defences and purchased it and I’m pleased I did. The models are fantastic and the game reminds me of a scaled down Warhammer Quest with a party of Assassins killing opponents trying to reach the final boss. The only downside to this game is there is no campaign play, experience and levelling up like Warhammer Quest. I also doubt there will be any expansions offering new layouts, events, enemies and challenges. Which is a shame.
It’s a good product, worth buying and I’m looking forward to painting the miniatures and playing a game or two.
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Looking forward to receiving my copy here. Those assassin models look superb.
I think the reason this game isn't sold out yet is that the miniatures contained in it are largely models that can be acquired from GW already – we're paying the premium for the assassins and the boardgame materials. And there was a heated discussion on multiple media that the pricing is not very fair for the contents. Let's see if it will run out of copies anytime soon.
I had a few games of this over the weekend and it is a lot of fun to play. I too agree that GW should really support these independent games a lot more with expansions etc. They used to do this with a lot of the other board games they did in the past ie. Blood Bowl, Talisman, Battlecars etc. I think for sales it would be a good thing and GW has always made good board games.
Is fun to play, and without the bloat that other 40k set games have is(even the old classics of necromunda and gorkamorka had a much larger investment in rules required to even get through the first turn…) great for getting people who play board games to taste the 40k universe, i.e. my partner now wants to try space hulk and blood bowl after having a fun weekend with execution force :D, and it makes me wonder if expansions could come in the form of genestealer cults, would be very easy to launch a "dark millennium" sized box with a stealer cult magos and some hybrids with a new couple of tiles and crad deck and there you have it instant expansion, even if they dont do that assuming genestealer cults happens i may just make some house rules for just that!.
Had a look at a copy in store the other day, can't speak for its re-playability but the contents are great given the proper kits you get and the quality of the board game and well worth the cash even before you take into account the discounted price from online retailers as far as I'm concerned.
I don't have a problem with the 'limited' one-off angle that GW take with these games. It's perfectly understandable given the limited life span that board games have.
In the case of AEF though I am disappointed with the end product when compared with Space Hulk and Dreadfleet. Never mind how good the games are (or aren't), just look at what you get. The box is half the depth of the aforementioned games, there are far less board and token components and less models (most not unique to the game and those that are I believe will be released later anyway). Also the Chaos Marine sprue is horribly dated and looks like something out of Space Crusade! All that would be fine though if it weren't sold at the same price point as SH and DF! It was also interesting to note that when pre-ordering SH and I think also DF there was a 3 copy limit but in the case of AEF you could order anything up to 10 copies. It really does seem like a game quickly thrown together. It's nice enough for what it is I suppose, it's just not worth the initial price or even the discounted price in my opinion.
I enjoyed playing the game in store, but the lack of replayability (it's one mission, with the same enemy movement and only the room locations can change), coupled with the high price (I understand the argument that the 4 assassins when sold separately will be close to this price, but I don't collect either of the armies so they will be used just for this game) just make it a no go for me.
If the game was around £50, then I would be more up for it, but when you compare the contents of the box to Space Hulk and even the Storm campaign boxes, you are getting very little for your money.