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Spartan just posted up some pics on Facebook of the busts painted up next to some custom Halo dice.

Those look great Cannor, thanks for that, I've updated the first post.

I really like the busts, but the Elite is just jaw dropping (or splitting?). However, I believe that there is nothing distinctly Halo, let alone UNSC about the Vice Admiral though. He's still a fantastic bust mind you, just not iconic of the universe.

Ohh the things I would do for an ODST like this though... the money I would throw at it...

Yeah, the Admiral could fit just as well in BSG, Star Trek or B5 to be fair. Painting a UNSC symbol on his chest or shoulder would help a lot, though.

Couldn't find an ODST, but a quick Ebsy search turned up this chap if you fancied panting a large-scale Spartan II:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HALO-SPARTAN-MARK-VI-BLUE-BUST-BANK-9-BRAND-NEW-DIAMOND-SELECT-MONEY-BOX-/110968726763?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item19d64064eb



Would certainly make a nice shelf piece, repainted or otherwise!



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Those dice look pretty nifty too.

 ONI-S3 wrote:

Hotrod wrote:Ooooooohhhhh I am so tempted to throw down the money to pre-order it right now! I still have some 40k/30k models to paint, but this is Halo. What to do, what to do...

Go on, you know you want to. The bigger this gets, the more models and support they give it. "The seeds of [its future], are sown in [your buying habits]." - The Arbiter

My inner (outer?) poor student says that the smart thing to do is save my money, but my inner nerd just went super happy at your amazing Arbiter quote. Gah, you've got me, "all hail the [posting] hero". - Locke

Hotrod wrote:

 ONI-S3 wrote:

Hotrod wrote:Ooooooohhhhh I am so tempted to throw down the money to pre-order it right now! I still have some 40k/30k models to paint, but this is Halo. What to do, what to do...

Go on, you know you want to. The bigger this gets, the more models and support they give it. "The seeds of [its future], are sown in [your buying habits]." - The Arbiter

My inner (outer?) poor student says that the smart thing to do is save my money, but my inner nerd just went super happy at your amazing Arbiter quote. Gah, you've got me, "all hail the [posting] hero". - Locke

"Listen up, marine! [Hotrod] is going to hop in [his internet browser], roll over [to the Spartan Games website] and blow up any alien sonofabitch that gets between him and [preordering Halo Fleet Battles]! Hang on tight!" Sgt Johnson


Hmmm, Spartan could have a whole marketing strategy based on paraphrasing quotes here!

Hotrod wrote:
My inner (outer?) poor student says that the smart thing to do is save my money, but my inner nerd just went super happy at your amazing Arbiter quote. Gah, you've got me, "all hail the [posting] hero". - Locke

Haha, success! ""A [post financial recession economy] against a single [student's budget]. Given those odds, I'm content with three ... make that four [sets of Halo:Fleet Battles]." - Cortana

Paradigm wrote:
"Listen up, marine! [Hotrod] is going to hop in [his internet browser], roll over [to the Spartan Games website] and blow up any alien sonofabitch that gets between him and [preordering Halo Fleet Battles]! Hang on tight!" Sgt Johnson


Hmmm, Spartan could have a whole marketing strategy based on paraphrasing quotes here!

"More or less. Technically, this [marketing strategy] has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand [Halo nerds]. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of [unbelievers/non-fans], or at least any [non-fans] with sufficient biomass to sustain the [Nerdom]. But you already knew that... I mean, how couldn't you?" - 343 Guilty Spark


Hey guys,

Halo: Fleet Battles is available for pre-order! order today and get a free bust of your choice! If it doesn't show up as available for pre-order, consider using an Australian proxy server, seeing as we're from the future

http://shop.spartangames.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HFBB01

Strangely enough the busts put me off.

I am considering this game though.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/blog-posts/canon-fodder-taking-orders

Halowaypoint has put up a blog article with previously unseen pictures. Models look gorgeous on the table, and it looks like X-Wing has had some heavy influence on the bases and dice.

Awesome, plastic orbital defence station mini!

Pics:







Really like the varied basing! Some new models there as well. Looks like a middle-plus size Covie ship as a UNSC orbital station.


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Some more pics from Beasts of War:







Video coming soon, apparently.


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Oddly, Wayland are now saying 96 days until release. It was 39 the other day, I'm sure. Has anywhere else listed a release date?

Edit: Firestorm games are listing 1st June, which is closer to Wayland's original date.

On a related note, early pictures of the ground combat game are starting to filter through and it looks to be in 15mm.

Now that looks really cool.

I hope the video explains a bit more.

More from BoW:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/liveblogentry/halo-fleet-battles-rage-at-salute-2015-courtesy-of-spartan-games/#respond

Looks awesome.

Anyone notice the base on the asteroid? Can someone get the box contents or a game play run through?

WOW
I love them.

The 49 miniatures seem to include the 3on1 smaller ships but im fine with that.

I love how the Assault Carriers dwarf everything.

I expect that they will also make the Infinity so the UNSC has something of similar size.

We're still a little hazy on box content, but we do know that alongside the rulebook, campaign book and dice , there are 49 ship models and punch-out tokens and terrain.

Gameplay-wise (and this is purely educated guesswork on my part), I'm expecting a success-based system, where the number of relevant symbols you roll determines whether or not something works. Eg, an attack could require you to roll two 'swords' symbols. Shields could then cancel a hit for each 'shield' you roll. This kind of success-vs-success has become rather popular recently, featuring in the likes of Infinity and Deadzone over the last few years, and would suit these custom dice.

The video mentioned there are some similarities with Firestorm Armada, but with the emphasis on fast play and minimal maths/tables, hence the dice.

GenRifDrake wrote:
Well the picture of UNSC Battlegroup: Leviathan shown with the Spartan Newsletter months back was 15 strong in size. Which contained a Heavy Carrier, 2 Heavy Cruisers and 12 Heavy Frigate escorts. Could very well be that there has been more ships we've not seen yet obviously, is anyone here a Lore Nut for Halo? What was there present at the battle of Reach? x)

The UNSC had 152 ships. The Covenant had 315 ships attacking Reach, but they had several more attacking the whole solar system (750 in total IIRC).

Edit: And the Covenant preview battlegroup had only 8 ships in it... 1 Heavy Cruiser, 1 Battlecruiser and 6 Heavy Corvettes. Guessing it'll have multiple Battlegroups present and perhaps some ships not seen by us all yet..?

I guess that the battlegroups serve to show what a balanced battle would be (same number off battlegroups per side) as Covenant ships are far superior (until post-war UNSC stuff is introduced).


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 Hoyt wrote:

Covenant was around 300-350 ships in total I think, at least 1 or 2 supercarriers, multiple battlecruisers with standard cruisers, destroyers and heavy corvettes making up the rest of the numbers

I really doubt we will see a Covenant Supercarrier, that thing is massive (using the 1:20000 scale, it would be 144.8 cm long (4.75 ft)).

And still it pales in comparison with the Mantle's Approach (Didact's ship in Halo 4). Which using the same scale would be 18.57 meters tall (60.93 ft).

Had a chat on Faceboo with a fellow who is at Salute . The Image below shows all the models that you get in the Core set. Basically its 1 Battleship and 4 Cruisers per side with the Covenant getting a dozen of their Corvettes, and the UNSC gets 24 of their escort frigates. Not sure how much value for money this one offers me, as I was mainly interested in the ships.

>Seems fair and fine for a starter set.

 Tyran wrote:

I really doubt we will see a Covenant Supercarrier, that thing is massive (using the 1:20000 scale, it would be 144.8 cm long (4.75 ft)).

And still it pales in comparison with the Mantle's Approach (Didact's ship in Halo 4). Which using the same scale would be 18.57 meters tall (60.93 ft).

Tell you what, though; a custom mat with either of those printed as a 'backdrop' would be pretty damn epic!
Pending what Halo 5 turns up, I'd love to see some Promethean or Forerunner ships.

@David: good to know! Sounds alright to me, I wasn't expecting more than one Capital Ship per side, really. This seems to give you plenty to get going, and assuming it all stays in plastic rather than resin or metal, expansion sets when the arrive shouldn't break the bank.

Some early reports on the rules-
"Dice.
There are 3 types of dice for halo (and Neil ordered arount 0.5 million...). Normal halo combat dice and covenant/unsc command dice.
Combat dice have a skull (bad. Instant miss) 2 stop symbols (miss), 2 sides with an explosion with a 1 on and 1 side (a palpable hit!) with an explosion with a 2 on a and circle around it (2 hits and a re roll on one of the stop symbol sides)
For example i roll 5 duce and get skull, miss, 1hit, 1hit, 2hit. Re roll the miss from the 2hit and get a 1hit for 1+1+2+1 hits. Other player does the same with their shield/armour/point defence dice to negate your hits. Compare remaining hits to defence of target for damage (like fs:p)
Damage to your ship negates a number of hits = damage. Pew pew!
However your dice are effected by long range/asteroids/cloacks or even positive modifiers. There is a chart you move up or down which varies the exact nature of the dice from really bad 'impossible shot' - no chance of hitting at all to slightly bad - 2hit dies not let you re roll a miss.
-----------------------
You buy elements of ships. This could be a medium. Medium+small or a base of smalls. Several elements, 3 - 4, make a squadron. For example 2 elements of small plus an element with a medium and small escort. These move and fire together.
The massive assault carriers are made up of 3 elements joined together. Each section has a stat block. These guys are gonna be hard!
-------------------------
Shooting! Each element has a number of attack dice. You can pool all these together or fire seperately. But the first attack must be at the closest enemy element in the squadron you are targeting. Mac cannons and plasma beams and missiles have various little rules for flavour.
You can also cause critical hits to knock out shields or engines etc.
--------------------
Fighters/bombers.
Token stacks for fighters/bombers/assault ships/spartans. These whizz about and do a lot of damage. Tokens vs token licks them in place in a dog fight. Bombers do NOT like interceptors. If you cause enough damage to destroy a token it is removed. If less than enough it is flipped over and "damaged" another pip of damage destroys it. Token stacks are 3-9ish.
--------------------
I didnt try a boarding assault but I was told they are super duper nasty. You do not want some spartans running amok on your assault carrier!
------------------
Command dice. This is where the character you have chosen as your admiral come in. You get 5 command dice and they have shield (def), lightning bolts (attack) and a spartan/elite head. Place these on your commander sheet. Each character has various abilities they can use to do special thing like Brace! or power up weapons. These abilities cost a number (1-3) of shields/bolts/heads. Each character seems different and costs different points. You may save 1 unused dice each turn and roll the other 4 again. Lets you try and save up for the right combo. A bit like saga battle boards for those who have played that.
-------------
Phases. Command phase dice etc. Wing phase. Ship phase. Assault phase.
--------------
Moving. All ships drift forwards 2" then you get normsl movement. Smalls can make a 45 degree turn before or after their normal move Mediums can make a turn before their normal move and larges after their normal move."

All sounds good! I was hoping there would be ample representation of fighters and boarding assaults, and it looks like I won't be disappointed. (Not that it'll stop me actually fighting out boardings in 28mm once those minis hit! )

Any word on how much more you'd need to add to the starter to get a 'normal' game size?

 Paradigm wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

I really doubt we will see a Covenant Supercarrier, that thing is massive (using the 1:20000 scale, it would be 144.8 cm long (4.75 ft)).

And still it pales in comparison with the Mantle's Approach (Didact's ship in Halo 4). Which using the same scale would be 18.57 meters tall (60.93 ft).

Tell you what, though; a custom mat with either of those printed as a 'backdrop' would be pretty damn epic!
Pending what Halo 5 turns up, I'd love to see some Promethean or Forerunner ships.

@David: good to know! Sounds alright to me, I wasn't expecting more than one Capital Ship per side, really. This seems to give you plenty to get going, and assuming it all stays in plastic rather than resin or metal, expansion sets when the arrive shouldn't break the bank.

I wouldn't like proper Forerunner warships, they are massive and far above anything the UNSC and the Covenant can even hope to accomplish. Although I could see Forerunner Sentinel craft in the game.

Now I would like to see the Flood, how it propagates and infects enemy ships and even upgrades them with their arcane knowledge.

I love the idea of picking commanders with unique ability's and the boarding rules. Did anyone else notice the pillar of Autumn in the pictures.

Yep, I caught that. Took me a while to notice, though, as it's pretty similar to the Marathon ships. Now, I want to see Infinity!

Does anyone know if there are pictures for the ground combat game.

Nothing on the BoW coverage so far,

and nothing via any of the facebook feeds I've seen which suggest either there was not much or they had a picture embargo on what was there

 ds9lord wrote:
Does anyone know if there are pictures for the ground combat game.

I didnt see the ground game being demoed there, just some models in a display case (I got in early though, they may have demoed the ground game later). Looks to be about 10-12mm, they had warthogs, a scorpion, and bases of grunts, elites, spartans and USNC marines (according to my GF, who is the halo nut, I just saw Buggy, buggy, buggy, tank, guys, guys, ugly guys, ugly guys)

EDIT: Watermarked album of my gf's pics

Charax wrote:

 ds9lord wrote:
Does anyone know if there are pictures for the ground combat game.

I didnt see the ground game being demoed there, just some models in a display case (I got in early though, they may have demoed the ground game later). Looks to be about 10-12mm, they had warthogs, a scorpion, and bases of grunts, elites, spartans and USNC marines (according to my GF, who is the halo nut, I just saw Buggy, buggy, buggy, tank, guys, guys, ugly guys, ugly guys)

EDIT: Watermarked album of my gf's pics

OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Well there went all my money. Crap.

In the words of a well-known racoon: 'Oh, yeah!'