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DrRansom wrote:
Halo vs. Dropfleet is a really hard question.

I am leaning, perhaps not as reluctantly as I should, towards both.

The true wargamer solution

Since Dropfleet might not hit until next year anyway, there may be enough of a gap to enjoy both regardless. I think Halo might have some broad / crossover appeal (a bit like X-wing), whereas Dropfleet is very much in the wargaming niche (and doing that very well from the WIPs shown so far).

Dropfleet is a ways away, the PHR and Shaltari ships don't even really exist on paper yet, but this should keep us occupied until then

Although, I already have Star Wars Armada for that... hmmm...

I have that too, but the difference for me will be how many ships you can run in Halo (or Dropfleet). Armada is very much like X-wing in that regard: 3 - 6 ships max for most folks (although you'll always have a few running a "swarm" of 8 or the like).

So, I'm hoping this feels more like a large scale engagement than Armada does. It's a great game, but has a very different feel to something like BFG, which is where these slot in I think.

As a "PS4 Guy" the "Halo Factor" isn't as big a deal for me.

I like the look of the ships, but I'm thinking I'd enjoy having more factions available...maybe?

Decisions, decisions!

I actually hate Halo (well hate might be a bit strong, but I think its supremely overrated), and im not at all a fan of Spartan, but this game does look pretty cool

Duskland wrote:I spoke with Spartan Neil and Ken (a representative of 343i) at the Spartan games booth. I was told that the second wave of ships (plastic) is scheduled for a holiday release (with the usual caveats about plastic manufacturing and schedules). It will include the Human heavy-heavy cruisers, MAC platforms and new frigates and the covenant bio-science ships, small escorts and fleet carrier (in resin). There was also mention of a much larger Terran carrier which will come out next spring.

Thank you hugely for posting that here, I have had people asking about the materials for future expansions, that really is wonderful of you!

infinite_array wrote:More images from the D6G twitter account for the ground game:

Thank you kindly and a very good spot, I'll update the main post momentarily

Tyran wrote:

 ONI-S3 wrote:
Haha, good point, one I know well. I thought I was bypassing the confusion of saying Thel 'Vadamee by saying the Arbiter. Figured a lot of people in the thread/lurking might not be so into Halo as to remember his name. Apologies for my lack of specificity

He is probably not even going to be referenced as the Arbiter in the game, as his period as the Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice is probably far more important for this game.

Quite right, but maybe they'll have 2 versions, he was pretty instrumental for some major battles as a Covenant Commander, but as you say, if it has to be one it would definitely be after the breaking of the Covenant. Glad to see you're into the law so much

legoburner wrote:Here's a very high res pic of the ground game models I took. These are resin but are being produced in plastic.

Also a photo of the xmas wave of plastic ships

Legoburner you are a god! My future eyesight thanks you; I've been squinting at tiny resolution for so long, I don't know what to do with these ones. A HUGE thank you

Aus Askar wrote:Wow is that Scythe to scale? It's enormous.

It's huge, I'll have to replay Reach to see haha.

DrRansom wrote:Halo vs. Dropfleet is a really hard question.

I am leaning, perhaps not as reluctantly as I should, towards both.

I approve of this message. I'm seeing a lot of people espousing how good DF is, maybe I should give it a shot... *ponder*

Alpharius wrote:As a "PS4 Guy" the "Halo Factor" isn't as big a deal for me.

I like the look of the ships, but I'm thinking I'd enjoy having more factions available...maybe?

Decisions, decisions!

There is definitely room for future factions. There are Insurrectionists for the humans, Heretics for the Covenant (not to mention if the want to make the Brute/Elite divide bigger), the Flood for everything, the Forerunners particularly now that we have had a game featuring them and likely the Precursors in future games. Plus there's some unrest at the moment between ONI and the UNSC, so there is even a minuscule chance of ONI led fleets 'putting down' certain treasonous individuals in a civil war-esque turn of events (this last one highly unlikely in my opinion, but possible)

chaos0xomega wrote:I actually hate Halo (well hate might be a bit strong, but I think its supremely overrated), and im not at all a fan of Spartan, but this game does look pretty cool

For me it was always that sense of grandeur imparted by the knowledge that Humanity was losing so decisively, but that heroic sacrifices were being made time and time again, often when no one would even hear of their efforts. Have always been less interested in Spartans, and more in marines and ODSTs, just regular people trying to make a difference. It's pretty cool that even though you don't like the fiction upon which it is based, that you still like the aesthetics and look of the game

 ONI-S3 wrote:

legoburner wrote:Here's a very high res pic of the ground game models I took. These are resin but are being produced in plastic.

Also a photo of the xmas wave of plastic ships

Legoburner you are a god! My future eyesight thanks you; I've been squinting at tiny resolution for so long, I don't know what to do with these ones. A HUGE thank you

Agreed, those two pics are amazing, although they almost locked up my PC just now . There they are in link form too:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/at2/2015/7/31/86ab88f64da3902c24410e5b5f8fa6aa_4786.jpg

http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/at2/2015/7/31/a3933719bea1e8c649337219a430f452_4786.jpg

Haha, sorry about that RiTides, I should have thought of that.

So I should totally get this before AoS, right?

Right?? (I'm as excited as Alpharius gets over a really good kickstarter.)

 ONI-S3 wrote:


For me it was always that sense of grandeur imparted by the knowledge that Humanity was losing so decisively, but that heroic sacrifices were being made time and time again, often when no one would even hear of their efforts. Have always been less interested in Spartans, and more in marines and ODSTs, just regular people trying to make a difference. It's pretty cool that even though you don't like the fiction upon which it is based, that you still like the aesthetics and look of the game

I've read a lot of Scifi over the years, so nothing about Halos story or setting was really all the new or unique to me, even at the time it was released. On top of that, I didn't really find the gameplay to be all that 'revolutionary' either, since I had grown up playing PC FPS shooters. Still, I found the first game enjoyably average, and the setting interesting enough to keep my attention, right up until the point that the Flood showed up. I have a strong dislike for zombies, even before they become as widespread and popular as they have today, so once the Flood showed up I was kinda turned off from the series. And yes, I did find the ODST to be pretty cool, if for no other reason than the fact that the commercials for the game implied that they were some sort of cross between the US Marine Corps and German Fallschirmjager.

 RiTides wrote:
I have that too, but the difference for me will be how many ships you can run in Halo (or Dropfleet). Armada is very much like X-wing in that regard: 3 - 6 ships max for most folks (although you'll always have a few running a "swarm" of 8 or the like).

So, I'm hoping this feels more like a large scale engagement than Armada does. It's a great game, but has a very different feel to something like BFG, which is where these slot in I think.

A couple guys from Spartan were on the latest Meeples and Miniatures podcast. You really want to give it a listen, as it's all about HFB.

They said that to test the limits of the game, they played with the contents of 8 starter sets multiple times, and the game still worked and played in a reasonable amount of time.

For those that are counting, that's 448 ships on the table - quite a bit more than Armada can handle!

I don't understand how there can be any question between this and Dropfleet. They are both space combat games with plastic spaceship minis. The only correct answer is "both".


AOS has some amazing plastic minis, but it doesn't have spaceships.

All three have space marines or marines in space as well!

 infinite_array wrote:
A couple guys from Spartan were on the latest Meeples and Miniatures podcast. You really want to give it a listen, as it's all about HFB.

They said that to test the limits of the game, they played with the contents of 8 starter sets multiple times, and the game still worked and played in a reasonable amount of time.

For those that are counting, that's 448 ships on the table - quite a bit more than Armada can handle!

That is sweet! Although I'll probably stick to a standard sized (2 starter set) game, it's nice to know it works well with more

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don't understand how there can be any question between this and Dropfleet. They are both space combat games with plastic spaceship minis. The only correct answer is "both".


AOS has some amazing plastic minis, but it doesn't have spaceships.

Well there is this little thing called a 'budget' - I know, I know...heresy!

But there it is...

chaos0xomega wrote:

 ONI-S3 wrote:


For me it was always that sense of grandeur imparted by the knowledge that Humanity was losing so decisively, but that heroic sacrifices were being made time and time again, often when no one would even hear of their efforts. Have always been less interested in Spartans, and more in marines and ODSTs, just regular people trying to make a difference. It's pretty cool that even though you don't like the fiction upon which it is based, that you still like the aesthetics and look of the game

I've read a lot of Scifi over the years, so nothing about Halos story or setting was really all the new or unique to me, even at the time it was released. On top of that, I didn't really find the gameplay to be all that 'revolutionary' either, since I had grown up playing PC FPS shooters. Still, I found the first game enjoyably average, and the setting interesting enough to keep my attention, right up until the point that the Flood showed up. I have a strong dislike for zombies, even before they become as widespread and popular as they have today, so once the Flood showed up I was kinda turned off from the series. And yes, I did find the ODST to be pretty cool, if for no other reason than the fact that the commercials for the game implied that they were some sort of cross between the US Marine Corps and German Fallschirmjager.

What kind of person plays a shooter expecting a great story or revolutionary new gameplay!? If you hated it because identical grey corridors give you nightmares then thats fine. I'm not going to read pride and prejudice and complain about the lack of car chases, because my expectations are in line with reality.

Halo came out long before fps's became the repetitive dreck they are today.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Halo came out long before fps's became the repetitive dreck they are today.

I remember it from it's original incarnation. Tribes 1 was out and doing smashing and Halo was set to be the next generation of games like it. Something online, with servers you could hop in and out of, earn commondations for weapons and vehicles, be recruited to play, and more.

It never met those grandiose dreams, but it did do something that no other shooter had done before, co-op of the full game. Honestly, outside of the great visuals (for the time), I think it was co-op that sealed Halo as series for me.

It's lost it's way a bit under 343, but ODST, Halo 2, and Reach have all been fantastic additions to the series.

Found this one on HBO this morning, there seems to be a cluster of smaller ships of some kind in the bottom right.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
but it did do something that no other shooter had done before, co-op of the full game.

The computer version of Doom 2 had full campaign LAN co-op. I still own the original strat guide and there's an entire chapter dedicated to team co-op tactics for the campaign, including the best ways and formations to breach a room full of monsters.

 Alpharius wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don't understand how there can be any question between this and Dropfleet. They are both space combat games with plastic spaceship minis. The only correct answer is "both".


AOS has some amazing plastic minis, but it doesn't have spaceships.

Well there is this little thing called a 'budget' - I know, I know...heresy!

But there it is...

Which is why I'm probably not going to have either set of spaceships until next year.

DFC will have more scenery cause it plays in the orbit of planets, compared with the more open deep space from Halo.

I dunno about that. Besides the fact that space is just as empty in the orbit of a planet as it is in deep space (unless you're talking about insignificant space trash/satellites which aren't really scenery), what I've been hearing about some of the planned rules for the game would seem to imply a relatively open battlespace.

Hopefully someone will upload a demo video showing the step by step rules in action from gencon.

 warboss wrote:
Hopefully someone will upload a demo video showing the step by step rules in action from gencon.

Agreed. The BatRep video is kinda hard to follow. They don't really explain things too well as they're doing them, as if they assume we all have the games & know how it plays already.

Hey guys, I'll make one tonight if you're interested :-) my fleet isn't painted yet, but I can clarify the rules for those as I go. Might have to learn video editing and my only camera is a phone though... Is that something you'd be interested in watching?

Sure! Just make sure you've got enough light in the room and it's not too blair witch shaky cam. I'd appreciate it even if it was just a medium ship versus medium ship in the starter for a round or two to show off the various rules and weapons (and fighters and boarding).

A very small game step by step. That would be fantastic ONI. I look forward to anything someone can put up.

Do we have an expected release date for the land warfare game? I'm thinking that Space Games, despite my attempts to get into them, are not really my thing; a 15mm science fiction game with the strong visual designs from Halo would be pretty cool, though.

For what it's worth, in the next few days I'm due to be heading up to do some battle report vids on Beasts of War...