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Cannor wrote:

 Duskland wrote:
@Cannor- Nope, you don't need the core upgrade boxes either. The direct from Spartan Commander upgrade set has two full sets of the new formations from the core upgrade boxes.

You're right! I forgot that they have the overlays, too. So all you need for at least one of everything right now is the starter set and one or both of the Commander Upgrade sets.

So the fleet signal youtube channel is your's? If so, you can tell Spartan that I bought their game in large part because of it. Thanks for posting the unboxings and fleet breakdowns. On a similar note, what happened to our OP? Oni was posting videos and such and then just completely disappeared much like an agent of his namesake.

Looks like Spartan and Miniature Market must be unhappy with each other. Halo products are 40%, so the starter set is only $84 buyin right now and the core upgrades are only a shade over $30 each.

HAHA!
YES!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just bought the starter plus both cores and both large upgrade boxes. Do I still need to buy the commander pack (either the one on sale at MM or the other one thats direct only)?

I don't know. The only thing you're missing is the "fleet" box for each faction and I'm not sure if they have additional formations. You might be good until they release the next wave of ships (the destroyer and the supercarrier for the UNSC and the support ships and CAS for the covies). I picked up a big ship box to give me some extra fighter escort as that is (at least right now) the playstyle I'd like to go for.

warboss wrote:

Cannor wrote:

 Duskland wrote:
@Cannor- Nope, you don't need the core upgrade boxes either. The direct from Spartan Commander upgrade set has two full sets of the new formations from the core upgrade boxes.

You're right! I forgot that they have the overlays, too. So all you need for at least one of everything right now is the starter set and one or both of the Commander Upgrade sets.

So the fleet signal youtube channel is your's? If so, you can tell Spartan that I bought their game in large part because of it. Thanks for posting the unboxings and fleet breakdowns. On a similar note, what happened to our OP? Oni was posting videos and such and then just completely disappeared much like an agent of his namesake.

Yep, guilty as charged! Thanks for watching the videos.

ONI does indeed seem to have become as elusive as his shadowy namesake.

chaos0xomega wrote:HAHA!
YES!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just bought the starter plus both cores and both large upgrade boxes. Do I still need to buy the commander pack (either the one on sale at MM or the other one thats direct only)?

You'll already have everything from the commander packs in your starter. They're just for people who want to avoid the starter for whatever reason. The non-starter commanders and heroic characters will be in the fleet boxes and the Spartan store-exclusive commander sets.

MM sale pushed me into starting this one!

Triple9 wrote:
Looks like Spartan and Miniature Market must be unhappy with each other. Halo products are 40%, so the starter set is only $84 buyin right now and the core upgrades are only a shade over $30 each.

That's insane!! Just snagged a core and large upgrade box for each (the starters are out of stock) but word must have gotten out - there were 17 UNSC Core Upgrade boxes when I started checking out, and there are 10 now... (and 15 of the Large).

Thanks for the heads up! Manchu, we need to play someday

 RiTides wrote:
Thanks for the heads up! Manchu, we need to play someday

Yeah man, we should definitely work it out!

Yeah, sucks for Spartan that they lost a major distribution hub, but good for Spartan that they their playerbase just blew up lol

Does that mean they've lost the a major retailer? Or does MM just regularly purge their stock?

Ive not seen MM purge stock via "clearance" sale of anything they didnt intend to keep carrying before. They do other sales regularly, but they are never marked as 'clearance'.

Do you mean did or didn't intend to keep? I don't really follow their sales too closely. When I ordered my booster box, I saw my only previous order was back in 2013.

Maybe MM was miffed about how the Warstore GenCon special was handled? I actually canceled my MM preorder to get that... although in hindsight, that was a financially poor decision - I could have had 3 boxes for quite a bit less than the price of 2 (counting the taxes at GenCon) at this sale! Granted, the starter boxes sold out super fast here, but still.

I'm just glad I could snag the boosters - I have way too much of the standard ships now (2 starters and 1 of each booster!) so will be waiting until the next wave to get anything else.

Manchu - Are you at all in range of Huzzah Hobbies on a weekend? I forget how far south you are. Also are there any hobby shops on the southern edge of D.C. - that's about the same distance as Huzzah for me (on a weekend that is) but probably closer to you.

My gaming time is somewhat nonexistent for a few months here while finishing KS fulfillment and with family, but would love to get a game in Dec or Jan (so plenty of time to work it out, will do so via PM). If you were in range of Huzzah, I bet Wehrkind would make it out, too.

 warboss wrote:
Do you mean did or didn't intend to keep? I don't really follow their sales too closely. When I ordered my booster box, I saw my only previous order was back in 2013.

Uhhh... my head hurts reading my own sentence. What I meant to say is that MM does do stock purges every so often in the form of various sales, however, whenever they put 'clearance' it always means they are purging all inventory to discontinue sales of those products. Does that make sense?

Yup, crystal clear and thanks. Hopefully that isn't the case as they're one of the top 3 online retailers in the US. But.. as evidenced by posts in the thread, it's good for various players to get into the game. It's definitely a better deal than I got for sure and I'm glad that it gives me a chance to finish out the two relatively small forces I intend to paint/build for the forseeable future. I'd love to get a CAS and Infinity (and the UNSC destroyers) but I'm hoping to hold off on future purchases until I actually see if there is any local interest.

Yeah, it will definitely complicate me getting future expansions for the game if they stop carrying the stuff if MM stops dealing with Spartan, but it happens. MM has already stopped carrying Games Workshop product, and a few years back they stopped stocking flames of war though recently they restarted that.

I suspect the issue was likely that Spartan products weren't selling all that well, but thats just my guess.

A tantrum and dropping a manufacturer may even get them better terms when the relent and start stocking them again (although it's a high risk strategy as the manufacturer might not play ball)

chaos0xomega wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Do you mean did or didn't intend to keep? I don't really follow their sales too closely. When I ordered my booster box, I saw my only previous order was back in 2013.

What I meant to say is that MM does do stock purges every so often in the form of various sales, however, whenever they put 'clearance' it always means they are purging all inventory to discontinue sales of those products. Does that make sense?

I doubt miniature market is doing a fire sale with spartan games product. They're retaining minimum levels of stock at their standard pricing. They wouldn't be doing that if they were purging the inventory completely.

MM still has Halo pre-orders up. They probably just need to make some room in their warehouse after ordering a ton of Halo product. Well, looks like mission accomplished! There is no indication that MM plans to stop stocking this game.

@RiTides: Richmond is theoretically two hours drive from DC.

Cannor wrote:

ONI does indeed seem to have become as elusive as his shadowy namesake.

Thanks for putting them up!


Out of curiosity, has anyone seen a specialist formation previewed by Spartan that involves an Epoch carrier beyond the double Epoch one in the rulebook?

Looks Cannor/Fleet Signals put up the spartan webstore exclusive commander pack unboxing.




I haven't actually played so I'm not sure how much the utility of characters (and spartans/zealots) compares to taking more ships. For instance, if you took Cortana and a spartan, you're not taking an epoch carrier's worth of ships. I do like Lord Hood's abilities more than the Stanforth card you get as well as Cortana's but I'm not a fan of boarding but rather fighters and gunnery.

The overlays don't seem to be getting a positive reception but I'm not familiar enough with them to comment myself.

http://community.spartangames.co.uk/index.php?/topic/16091-fleet-commander-upgrades-is-it-an-error-again/

Looks like MM was just making some room, since they're keeping some limited stock of the planetfall/Halo.

@RiTides & Manchu - Game Vault in Fredericksburg is quite nice and about midway between DC and Richmond.

Looks like some info came out a few days ago about the massive ships...

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/november-2015-release

Official box content render images spoilered below..



Pic of some resin prototypes from the Spartan forums:



It looks like the biggest ships will be unforunately "bundled" with other ships in plastic instead of sold separately which inflates their price. I don't know if Microsoft is mandating that or Spartan choosing to but I really wish Spartan would consider the price point of this stuff a bit more for gamers. With the starter being so expensive relative to other games' starters, it's a bit of a turn off to getting others into the game. The two folks local to me who considered it (being big halo fans) put it off specifically due to the entry price point. I had hoped it would come in a bit above the firestorm armada dreadnought price of mid 30's GBP but it looks like they'll be 55 GBP. I want a CAS but I don't really have a need for more of the others. For the UNSC, I'd rather wait for the Infinity instead of picking up a Punic and I don't need more of the smaller ships either.

Man those are massive!

Warboss, if one of your friends wants to get in on the game at a discount let me know - I got a little over-excited and over-bought and would sell at the same great discount MM was offering previously (I think it was 40% off?). Just PM me if so!

More than the ships I've actually been really impressed with the base overlays. That's something that was missing from oldschool space combat games and is a real lifesaver in seemingly all newer ones (Halo, X-wing, and even Dropfleet all have info on the bases).

 RiTides wrote:
Man those are massive!

Then I guess it's a "mission accomplished" on naming their size class in the game rules. They are quite big and in resin which is why I expected them to be pricey but I'd personally have preferred to buy just them instead of two squadrons effectively (since they're a squadron by themselves) as well as a full other squadron of ships I already have bundled with them.

Warboss, if one of your friends wants to get in on the game at a discount let me know - I got a little over-excited and over-bought and would sell at the same great discount MM was offering previously (I think it was 40% off?). Just PM me if so!

I'll let them know. Fair warning, I've already been hawking my unneeded covie stuff (I initially planned to get/build both for unofficial demos) at an even bigger discount to convince them to no avail. I think they're both gun shy about future purchases as well unfortunately. Once I'm done painting my UNSC stuff (which I'm building in mirror image squadrons to make mini-demo fleets just in case), I'll have to decide whether to put my covie stuff up in the swap shop or paint it up. I'm not happy with my Tron/Zentraedi paint scheme (both the end effect as well as the effort it took to get it without an airbrush) which doesn't help.

More than the ships I've actually been really impressed with the base overlays. That's something that was missing from oldschool space combat games and is a real lifesaver in seemingly all newer ones (Halo, X-wing, and even Dropfleet all have info on the bases).

I definitely agree. Bigger bases with inserts would have helped back when I was playing Full Thrust, Star Trek Combat Sim, B5 Fleet Action, and (to a lesser extent) BFG.

So if you are just now getting into this, what is your best bet?

I want this to be a beer and pretzels game for company. I only care about the UNSC, so... the Covies would be for the other player.

What set should I get? And from where online?

If you're not a "completionist" player/collector that needs a copy/model of every option, I'd say start with the starter but ONLY get one of the starter. They're bundling new rules like variant ship formations and characters with smaller boxes as well as additional starter set ships with newer ones. For instance, if you get the "core" box for the UNSC, you get two of the three same ships as in the starter but additional ways of fielding them that are NOT in the starter (think special upgrades in X-wing boosters vs the same ships in that starter if you play that). If you do get a booster box like the core, only get one copy as you'll be getting more of the exact same ships you get in the starter which are also bundled with the upcoming massive ships.

Unless you've got a gameplay style firmly entrenched to start with that you're interested in (like me and fighter combat), play a game or two and see what direction you want to go. Gunships ala Marathon class cruisers? Waves of fighters/bombers supported by Epoch missiles? Or agile wolf packs of small ships? Or a mix? You get a taste of all three in the starter and can expand from there. The only thing missing from the starter is massive ships for an obvious reason.

The first massive ships are coming out next month and come bundled with more of the starter ships as well unfortunately (which is why I keep saying to not buy more than one of anything with Halo unless you absolutely positively want so many repeated ships). New small, med, and large ships will be coming out in the next few months so you may not want to have 10x marathon cruisers when "better" cruisers are on the horizon. Hope that helps.

 warboss wrote:
If you're not a "completionist" player/collector that needs a copy/model of every option, I'd say start with the starter but ONLY get one of the starter. They're bundling new rules like variant ship formations and characters with smaller boxes as well as additional starter set ships with newer ones. For instance, if you get the "core" box for the UNSC, you get two of the three same ships as in the starter but additional ways of fielding them that are NOT in the starter (think special upgrades in X-wing boosters vs the same ships in that starter if you play that). If you do get a booster box like the core, only get one copy as you'll be getting more of the exact same ships you get in the starter which are also bundled with the upcoming massive ships.

Unless you've got a gameplay style firmly entrenched to start with that you're interested in (like me and fighter combat), play a game or two and see what direction you want to go. Gunships ala Marathon class cruisers? Waves of fighters/bombers supported by Epoch missiles? Or agile wolf packs of small ships? Or a mix? You get a taste of all three in the starter and can expand from there. The only thing missing from the starter is massive ships for an obvious reason.

The first massive ships are coming out next month and come bundled with more of the starter ships as well unfortunately (which is why I keep saying to not buy more than one of anything with Halo unless you absolutely positively want so many repeated ships). New small, med, and large ships will be coming out in the next few months so you may not want to have 10x marathon cruisers when "better" cruisers are on the horizon. Hope that helps.

I love the Marathon, it is my favorite ship in Halo besides the Iroquois and the Pillar of Autumn (the Pillar being what made me love the Marathons so much, as the Marathon class replaced the Halcyon classes.) So some Marathons and the giant Infinity looking one that is coming out. Anyways, I hit up RiTides about this.

I love the Autumn class that is new to Halo too but, I am unsure if it is in this game yet?

Anyways. Yay!

Edit: ONI is vanishing because he's trying to find the Chief! It's the only explanation that can make sense!

The pillar of autumn is the one that had a super reinforced hull in the novels, right? If so, they plan on coming out rules for it later (both as a general class as well as the pillar of autumn itself). No idea on how different they'll be though. RiTides was looking to sell some models so definitely hit him up for UNSC. I've got some covies on the sale chopping block but no UNSC personally as I plan on playing them myself.

The Pillar of Autumn was a one-off modification of a Halcyon-class light cruiser.