Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Picked this up last night from the FLGS.

I'll be blunt, the rule book gave me a headache the first couple of hours. It is a great rule set on paper and I am very excited about getting the mini's built tonight so I can try it this weekend but it is written in a very non flowing way when compared to 40k, Bolt Action, X wing and the other little games I play.

Having said that, the positives blow that little criticism away. The minis are incredible, everything in the box is top notch.

I agree that the rulebook is a bit clunky and makes picking the game up take some effort. It's worth it though. What is good is after a couple games, it's really quite intuitive. They built enough variety into the different classes/sizes of ships to create a lot of different strategy/options without giving so much variety as to be overwhelming.

I too found the organization of the rulebook a bit odd with things partly explained in batches 20-50 pages apart. Luckily, the index is rather good so that helps.

The rule book is kind of a slog, but I agree that it's worth it.

I have found that the introductory scenarios seem overly tilted toward the UNSC. I think it's caused by the poor showing of the Covenant Battlecruisers. The heavy cruisers are far more effective for the points.

I played a couple of games with my friend last weekend. We did the first 3 scenarios and then a regular 700 point game. The first game was a tie with the covenant destroying 3 points worth of elements and 3 points worth of elements getting away. The second game the covenant won but with only one damaged ccs battle cruiser left on the board. The 3rd game the UNSC won only losing two elements of Paris class frigates while the covenant where slaughtered at long range. In our regular game The covenant had a battle group of a supported ccs and two corvettes.They had a second battle group which had a supported ors and a supported ccs.
The UNSC had a battle group with an epoch and a Paris class and two battle groups with a supported Marathon and 4 Paris class elements in each group. The UNCS won the battle destroying the ors and both ccs's. They lost both Marathons and 3 Paris class elements. The game was still close with the chance that the covenant could have won the game if they could have destroyed the epoch on the last round in the boarding action that was happening. I think that in order for the game to be really balanced it needs to be at a higher point limit so the covenant can get more ships and there needs to be a lot of terrain on the table to give the covenant a chance of getting into close range.

I don't have the game thereby have no opinion of it

Are these miniatures size wise compatible with firestorm? How do they compare to battlefleet gothic ships?

At $112 from the warstore its a bit pricey to buy sight unseen, and I'm not likely to find it locally look over. But it sure seems right up my alley, I'm a sucker for spaceship games.

The larger ships and escorts are comparable in size to the same BFG classes. The cruisers are a little smaller than BFG cruiser. There are some pictures comparing them to some chaos ships floating around on the net.

The Halo ships are easy to assemble, while staying true to the looks of the source material (Palladium, take note).

It's been a while since I handled a BFG battelship/barge but the halo ships feel significantly bigger. I'd say they're at least abaddon's flagship big or bigger (planetkiller?).

Not big enough.

What the Devil is that a picture of? I mean the game, not the actual ship...

It's a game run by Spartan either at Gencon or Salute. The big ship is the Covie supercarrier (30km long roughly).

Played a 500pt game last night. Got the rules working in my head now. It is one of those games that becomes a lot clearer once you get it onto the table.

Did a straight up 'wipe the other team out' battle and the covenant came out on top.

As always, Spartan games produce rulebooks that irritate me. I refused to pull through with Dystopian Legions and ended up selling everything, but I love fleet games and Halo especially so I slogged through this one. The game itself seems good, but I wish they'd make rulebooks that flow well.

I've played two of the intro scenarios, Covenant winning both. The games were enjoyed by both players and that to me is the important thing. I wish I had this prior to playing though, but I'm glad the chap made it:

http://community.spartangames.co.uk/index.php?/topic/15400-quick-reference-sheet-my-fourth-attempt/

I absolutely love Quick Reference Sheets.

Had to quickly paint up my Halo stuff for this weekend when some Dakkanauts are over to play games. I've painted all the models, but the UNSC aren't really finished (need to add at least a white stripe to each big ship).