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If MM made a similar offer I'd go there in a heartbeat. But as it is I can't not spend $15 more for 2 more larger ships and 5 more support ships.

I am wondering if I should buy this or the AoS game first. Is there a chance of either one disappearing?

Dullspork wrote:
I wouldn't have minded the box size if it was at all useful, but it's really more of a sleeve for the two smaller boxes inside. Great for display on the shelf of your local game store, useless once you open it up.

I'm pretty happy with the game overall, though. We're planning to get our first games in tonight.

It really is, I'm actually just going to leave the box at my local library along with a flyer advertising for a gaming group. let us know what you think of our first game, be glad to hear it

warboss wrote:I was looking at some unboxing last night. How thick are the base fire arc marker sheets? Are they really thick like x-wing base insets? Or just normal laminated cardstock?

Also, how is damage tracked for fighter squadrons? Do they have wounds/hitpoints, damage states (fine, damaged, destroyed), or just one failed roll and dead?

I'm not too familiar with xwing's base inserts, but the markers are some pretty solid 1mm thick card. Additionally, once the card is slotted into the clear plastic peg base, the edges will be protected by a plastic lip.

As for fighter squadrons (referred to in game as wings), they have a damage track like any ship (capital to corvette) but they only have 1 damage track, meaning any wound and it dies. All wings must have a minimum of 2 flight slots, with all fighters and bombers being worth 1 flight slot (with the exception of the UNSC Sabre); the UNSC can have wings of fighters of up to 4 flight slots and bombers of up to 5 slots, while the Covenant can have fighter squadrons of up to 5 slots and bombers of up to 4. There can be no mixing and matching of bombers and fighters, but I believe Sabres and Broadswords can mix so long as they don't exceed the 4 flight slot rules.
The game explicitly outlines combat of fighters vs fighters, and fighters attacking an element and the element fighting back with point defence systems, but I'm not too sure how it would work with an element nominating them for a firing solution, normally firing solutions don't carry on from 1 element to another element in a battlegroup, so that would imply that a MAC fired at a Wing could only take out the particular fighter it targeted... but the wing might be similar to Paris Frigates, with each individual ship comprising 1 element. Anyway, their movement is amazing, 16 inchs, and fighters can be respawned by units with the Carrier Action special rule (Epoch, ORS and CCS vessels) each turn from the 'scrapyard' they go to once being killed.

Hulksmash wrote:Honestly the Warstore deal might get me....Lord knows I've moved enough random stuff in my garage at this point that I'm sitting on a healthy hobby budget so I won't even feel like I might have better places for it

Do it, give in to it! The game is spectacular


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Stormwall wrote:I am wondering if I should buy this or the AoS game first. Is there a chance of either one disappearing?

I would like to point out that you asked whether you should get Halo or AoS, in a Halo thread. Part of you must know what kind of answers you are going to get, and that tells me that, subconsciously, you know this is the right choice. I'm biased, so vote you should get this one first, obviously. That being said, however, this is the core set, it's likely to be around for ages. Additionally, we have already seen images showing future expansion units, so they are in this for the long haul; so you could justifiably get AoS first if you really, really, really had to. But I'd really recommend getting this first, you won't regret it (can't promise the same for AoS based off of the reviews!

Spartan games made a CSO supercarrier, in universe 30km, as a convention showpiece.

Picture here: https://www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingnews/photos/a.10153083039032945.1073741879.107517222944/10153083114002945/?type=1&theater

DrRansom wrote:
Spartan games made a CSO supercarrier, in universe 30km, as a convention showpiece.

Picture here: https://www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingnews/photos/a.10153083039032945.1073741879.107517222944/10153083114002945/?type=1&theater

I want that!!!

EDIT: Now they need to make the Mantle's Approach, it is more than 300 km tall in universe, so it should be more than 15 meters tall.

Did anyone see any ODST amongst the ground combat models?

DrRansom wrote:Spartan games made a CSO supercarrier, in universe 30km, as a convention showpiece.

Picture here: https://www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingnews/photos/a.10153083039032945.1073741879.107517222944/10153083114002945/?type=1&theater

Thank you kindly for linking that, was just about to put that up

Tyran wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
Spartan games made a CSO supercarrier, in universe 30km, as a convention showpiece.

Picture here: https://www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingnews/photos/a.10153083039032945.1073741879.107517222944/10153083114002945/?type=1&theater

I want that!!!

EDIT: Now they need to make the Mantle's Approach, it is more than 300 km tall in universe, so it should be more than 15 meters tall.

Haha, don't think they'll be making that any time soon, but what a sight to behold

Maniac_nmt wrote:Did anyone see any ODST amongst the ground combat models?

Unfortunately not yet, I myself am dying to see them, however, there is hope that on the 30th Spartan will preview more ground combat stuff at Gencon, so fingers crossed!



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Via Tabletop Gaming News:









It has actual stats, and an initial Damage track of 50!

It kinda makes sense that they made it. After all, the flagship of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence and Buratamee's ship was the Long Night of Solace, a CSO class supercarrier.

That carrier is stupendous.

Cant view links or images at work sadly. But im 10/10 all for this, it could be the push I needed to abandon 40K for a while all while getting back into painting and war gaming

Kavik_Whitescar wrote:
Cant view links or images at work sadly. But im 10/10 all for this, it could be the push I needed to abandon 40K for a while all while getting back into painting and war gaming

Essentially it is an Assault Carrier, but 5 times larger. The model is like 1.5 meters / 5 feet long.

Tyran wrote:It kinda makes sense that they made it. After all, the flagship of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence and Buratamee's ship was the Long Night of Solace, a CSO class supercarrier.

It would indeed make sense, I wonder if it will ever visit Australia...

Kavik_Whitescar wrote:Cant view links or images at work sadly. But im 10/10 all for this, it could be the push I needed to abandon 40K for a while all while getting back into painting and war gaming

Welcome aboard! Fleet Battles, plus Ground Combat plus the skirmish game are going to be huge! I was always more interested in the Human-Covenant War, with all three game systems we can recreate al the best parts of the games and the fiction! I can't wait to lead the ground defence of a UNSC city, maybe even create a section of New Alexandria or Arcadia City. Imma get a rag, have some drool to wipe up

gotta say im intrigued by the game, I'll give it a chance, but the taste in my mouth for spartan products is still pretty bad.

 ONI-S3 wrote:

warboss wrote:I was looking at some unboxing last night. How thick are the base fire arc marker sheets? Are they really thick like x-wing base insets? Or just normal laminated cardstock?

Also, how is damage tracked for fighter squadrons? Do they have wounds/hitpoints, damage states (fine, damaged, destroyed), or just one failed roll and dead?

I'm not too familiar with xwing's base inserts, but the markers are some pretty solid 1mm thick card. Additionally, once the card is slotted into the clear plastic peg base, the edges will be protected by a plastic lip.

As for fighter squadrons (referred to in game as wings), they have a damage track like any ship (capital to corvette) but they only have 1 damage track, meaning any wound and it dies. All wings must have a minimum of 2 flight slots, with all fighters and bombers being worth 1 flight slot (with the exception of the UNSC Sabre); the UNSC can have wings of fighters of up to 4 flight slots and bombers of up to 5 slots, while the Covenant can have fighter squadrons of up to 5 slots and bombers of up to 4. There can be no mixing and matching of bombers and fighters, but I believe Sabres and Broadswords can mix so long as they don't exceed the 4 flight slot rules.
The game explicitly outlines combat of fighters vs fighters, and fighters attacking an element and the element fighting back with point defence systems, but I'm not too sure how it would work with an element nominating them for a firing solution, normally firing solutions don't carry on from 1 element to another element in a battlegroup, so that would imply that a MAC fired at a Wing could only take out the particular fighter it targeted... but the wing might be similar to Paris Frigates, with each individual ship comprising 1 element. Anyway, their movement is amazing, 16 inchs, and fighters can be respawned by units with the Carrier Action special rule (Epoch, ORS and CCS vessels) each turn from the 'scrapyard' they go to once being killed.

The x-wing inserts are a bit less than board game tile thick which is nice. It's good to hear that these are at least 1mm thick as from some of the unboxing videos they looked alot thinner. I'm hoping the fighter/bomber swarm tactic is viable without being overpowered. Games I've played in the past seem to either make them useless, too cumbersome, or too overpowered. If I got into the game, I'd likely be going fighter heavy and have a bunch of tiny fighter minis ready to go.

You mentioned about the frigates being each ship as an element. So are the bases with 3 small ships just one statline or is the statline for EACH ship on the base? I was under the impression from some of the overviews that the stats are for the base and not each ship on the base (hence the supported and unsupported bigger ships) including for the formations of smaller ships. Is that incorrect?

warboss - I don't have the game, but from everything that I've read, the statistics are per base type. This means:

- 3 Frigates in a V and inverted V have different stat lines
- A cruiser alone is different then a cruiser + frigate
- Two cruisers on a base are different than two single cruisers alone

I remember Spartan games saying that they would consider fighter models if the demand was high enough. I don't know how they can do it, while retaining the game scale.

DrRansom wrote:
warboss - I don't have the game, but from everything that I've read, the statistics are per base type. This means:

- 3 Frigates in a V and inverted V have different stat lines
- A cruiser alone is different then a cruiser + frigate
- Two cruisers on a base are different than two single cruisers alone

I remember Spartan games saying that they would consider fighter models if the demand was high enough. I don't know how they can do it, while retaining the game scale.

It'd probably be like the SRS tokens from FSA where there's a base of them that aren't quite in proper scale but close enough where it doesn't break immersion.

My apologies, I phrased the last part of my message poorly; your understanding that frigates on one base make up one element is correct. I was in a bit of a hurry earlier and that part slipped right by me. I was meaning to say that each firing solution must target a specific element, and any excess wounds would not be able to be transferred to another element within the battle group. In hindsight, this (while plausible) is unlikely, as the flight tokens are stacked and essentially operate as one element in all cases.

Out of curiosity, what are you planing on using as fighters?

DrRansom wrote:
warboss - I don't have the game, but from everything that I've read, the statistics are per base type. This means:

- 3 Frigates in a V and inverted V have different stat lines
- A cruiser alone is different then a cruiser + frigate
- Two cruisers on a base are different than two single cruisers alone

I remember Spartan games saying that they would consider fighter models if the demand was high enough. I don't know how they can do it, while retaining the game scale.

They would need to ignore the scale for fighters and bombers.

I hope they eventually make fighters, because the Longsword is just that iconic.

(P.S. Bungie should fire the artist responsible for the Broadsword, that is an awful design. Has none of the iconic shape of the Longsword or the faux aerodynamic shape of the Saber)

I'm interested in what you're planning for fighters as well.

DrRansom wrote:

I remember Spartan games saying that they would consider fighter models if the demand was high enough. I don't know how they can do it, while retaining the game scale.

I don't know if the ships are 100% exactly to scale with each other down to the precise mm in measurement but the important thing (at least for me) is that the relative scales are instantly visually recognizably correct. For me, the old b5 fleet action scale fighters that were 6 to a 1" hex base (each one roughly the size of a loyalist space marine helmet) would be fine and that's what I'm planning on using for UNSC if I get into the game. I largely sold off my b5 stuff but I kept a bunch of the fighters as I figured they'd come in handy someday. The volume of a single frigate is likely more than a full squadron/base of fighter minis and that relative difference is enough for me at least. I wouldn't support making any fighters that are even remotely close to the smallest ship though.


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 ONI-S3 wrote:
My apologies, I phrased the last part of my message poorly; your understanding that frigates on one base make up one element is correct. I was in a bit of a hurry earlier and that part slipped right by me. I was meaning to say that each firing solution must target a specific element, and any excess wounds would not be able to be transferred to another element within the battle group. In hindsight, this (while plausible) is unlikely, as the flight tokens are stacked and essentially operate as one element in all cases.

Out of curiosity, what are you planing on using as fighters?

No worries, I just wanted to clarify. I'm getting some info from various youtube unboxings but no actual step by step gameplay demos have been posted yet so it's a bit incomplete. I have both of the "earth" fighters to the right in the pic below. The snub nosed ones would be fighters (starfury) and the long nosed ones (thunderbolts) in the back would be my bombers. Those bases are IIRC 1" so in order to stay WYSIWIG with the tokens I'd likely try to find some plastic squares the same size as the tokens and I'd probably mount them 4 to a token/square on each corner.

Not my pic though so thanks to the guy on deviantart that took the closeup.

Hey guys, just to update on the Warstore GenCon special - my friend was able to pick up two for me


However, just FYI in-person it ends up being $140 (I think with Indy tax) and on the Warstore website, they've increased the price to $130 from where it was before for this special version:

http://www.thewarstore.com/product102784.html

On Miniature Market, it's still $112, which is what I believe the Warstore had it as before:

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/44651/s/spghfbb01/

So, you pay an extra $18 for the additional ships, meaning I think the deal ends up kind of a wash. I think it's likely you'd get it earlier from the Warstore, and I'll have mine from GenCon but I don't know that the deal is so good you should cancel your other preorder for it (which is what I had done). Just FYI!

Thanks for the links. Yeah, they just increased the price. Yesterday evening the warstore copy was $120 plus shipping and now it is $130 plus shipping. With the free shipping from MM and thewarstore charging $7, it was a $15 difference and now the difference is $25. While I'd like the extra earth carrier, it's not worth $25 to me. They just lost a sale at least from me as they were my top choice for a copy.

Yeah, when I first placed my MM order, they were actually the same price - actually $111.99 if I recall correctly lol (wish I'd saved a pic). I went with MM for the free shipping.

Now they're $120, so clearly not as good of a deal as MM on their normal box set. However, with the free ships for $130 I think it's a close call / about equal value to the MM deal.

Got mine coming from GenCon anyway but yeah just wanted to note it - either order from the Warstore this weekend to get the free ship, or wait and order from Miniature Market... but no reason to order from the Warstore for their normal deal after this weekend when it is $8 more plus shipping (so like $15 more) than Miniature Market.

I get the feeling that the price will come back down once the "free" models available during gencon offer expires. For $127, it would have been worth it as I'd likely be splitting it with a friend (gotta hook someone else to have an opponent!) but not for $137. I gotta say that it is disappointing that the warstore would pull a stunt like that for "free" models. That's gamestop-level misleading.

Yeah, I was going to go for it but now if I get it it'll be thru MM with it's free shipping and actual 20% off. Warstore jumping to $25 bucks more for $35 worth of models (when you might not use both sides) just isn't for me. It's still a good deal, just not a good enough deal to push me into it.

They could have upped their price because they were actually given a price to use for "The GenCon Special".

Something similar happened in the past with Infinity, where they were not given a price for something that they could take preorders on pre-GenCon until after GenCon. They honored the pre-GenCon price if you contacted them about it and you had ordered before GenCon.

You couldn't order it before midnight. They adjusted the price sometime today. I'm sure they had their reasons but they should have been upfront about it instead of upping the base price by $10 and adding "free" models. In the end, if it is worth it for folks to get those models, they'll get the deal. It's not illegal but it is disappointing when they do it "secretly", just like when companies up their prices before steam sales or gamestop reprices their physical games up the days before a big sale. The perception is all about the disclosure. It wouldn't be any issue if they just said this was a gencon special edition for $10 more that includes those extra models. Instead, it was billed as "free" models when they most certainly aren't.

Yeah, the Warstore unannounced price bump means I'll be getting my stuff from MM instead.

Out of curiosity, is there a chance that Spartan will publish the rules as a free pdf to try them out similar to FFG with x-wing? Is that the type of thing that Spartan does?

Think I'm gonna hold out for the ground combat based on the price adjustments. Anyone know if scale has been confirmed for the models seen on the first page? Looks like 15mm.

~iPaint