Archive for 2015
Modeling: making a custom made Spartan with M247 GPMG Turret
Many of you will be able to get your Spartans from Ebay and
Halo Actionclix (or Heroclix) booster packs, but one of the most important
weapons of the game is very difficult to obtain: the M247 GPMG Turret.
In an ideal world you would be able to get some extra
miniatures of Jorge (from the halo reach set) and painted to fit into your Spartan
squat. Whoever, the halo reach set is one of the most difficult of find (if
ever) on Ebay and can be very expensive.
Looking for options I check into the amazing Infinity
miniatures range and find the special deterrence group azra'il. This is a model
that has a similar weapon to Jorge and an armor that can be similar to an MJOLNIR
Powered Assault Armor.
So I got one (from Dark sphere, London ), and using an extra Spartan model I
have I got a new replacing head for my new miniature. With some green stuff I
sculpted a nect (and check that the head fit) and then painted it black and
then blue (later I will do the same for my red team).
This is how I manage to get a new and impressive Spartan
with heavy turret weapon ready to join blue team.
Halo mega blocks in your table-top games?
This is an interesting Idea, I know that maybe many of you
would feel that a toy that is basically a Lego version of halo belongs to young
people, but in the recent years I manage to get some of these products and I
was impress with the quality of them. So why we cannot use them to play war-games?
Let me explain (and tell my story): a year a go I find one
the set of the covenant anti air turret on ebay. I buy it to see the quality
and to use it as terrain for halo. I was surprise with the quality of the
models, and despite of the limitations the halo mega blocks manage to convey
the vehicles and terrains of the halo universe, not mention that the characters
are in a similar scale to the halo Heroclix line.
If you want to have access to a vast number of terrain,
vehicles and miniatures (or mini-figurines as they call them) the halo Mega
blocks is for you. A plus is that if you have a kid and you want to share your
passion with him for halo and wargaming this is a good point to start, both can
play the game with miniatures that will not break and will resist the abuse.
Using infinity models in your halo games
For those who are looking to build your own halo miniatures
to play your battles, there is a possible option: Infinity. This game from a Spanish
manufacturer has one of the best sci-fi miniatures in the market, and with some
minor changes you can convert those miniatures into halo characters.
Size comparison of the models, infinity model in the middle.
I planning to use some of those to represent the insurrectionist
(and of course create some stats cards for them), and also to use some models
to represent special Spartan characters for the game.
I'm bringing your attention to these models (and being hones,
is a fun game), because some of you may find more entertaining to build your own
miniatures instead of looking in ebay for models, and here is an
interesting option for your games.
Tag :
Modeling,
Modeling: Building your Army with Anvil miniatures
Ok, you have downloaded the
rulebook and print your Halo Tactics cards, now you need your miniatures to
start playing. The ideal situation will be that you get some of the Halo Actionclix
(or later Heroclix version) to play with these rules (there is a post in this
blog about how to change the bases of these minis).
But some times is not easy
to find the minis that you want, so today I want to discuss some options that
you can use to play Halo tactics.
Models from Anvil industry
Recently I was on Salute
2015 and I was able to see the beutiful miniatures that Anvil Industry is
producing for his game Afterlife and for his bits store of Exolords. Here you
have the perfect minis to build Marines (similar to those that apeared in Halo
4) and ODST, with several options of weapons.
Unity Council Marine Corps
As you can see the Unity
Council Marine Corps are perfect for UNSC marines. For £19.50 you get 10
marines, including a sergeant, a medic and a Coms specialist. These is a good
option to make great marines.
Link: http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Unity-Council-Marine-Corps
Republic grenadiers
Again the Republic grenadiers
from Anvil are perfect for ODST. For £19.50 you get 10 grenadiers, including a sergeant
and a medic.
Link: http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Republic/Republic-Grenadiers
Black ops Exolords
For Spartans you could use
the range of the Exolords to mold your own version of the Halo spartans. I
think Halo Actionclix spartans still easy to get on Ebay but here is an
interesting option for you modeling skills.
Link: http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Black-Ops
Mini gun
I was lucky to get the model
of Jorge with his beatiful M247H Heavy Machine Gun
(basicly a torret), whorever
I want to have a red and blue spartan with a M247H Heavy Machine Gun weapon
(that is the reason of the Card on the profiles, so I need to made my own
version. For those that want a marine with a M247H Heavy Machine Gun
I think that the Mini gun
from Anvil Industry can be a good option, with a good price (£2) you can get a
spartan and replace the weapon with this parts.
Link: http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/The-Armoury/Heavy-Weapons/Minigun
The Prototype
I loved halo legends, specially
the bad ass armor featured in the segment "the prototype", that armor
with the technical name HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark I Prototype Armor Defense System
was incredible. I want to make the HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark I part of my army. I
find that Unity Council Ajax Exo-Mechs from Anvil are almost perfect for this,
and in a future I will made the stats for those.
Link: http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Ajax-Exo-Mechs
Tag :
Modeling,
New updated covenant Cards and Rules!
News from the front lines!
After being working on this, I updated all covenant stats
cards for the covenant troops, that you can now download from the tap above. For
the moment the Covenant heroes will no receive an update because I need to test
them more.
Also the main rulebook was updated, with some minor fix on
the missions and some basic rules.
The changes were:
Covenant cards:
- Reduce cost of all troops.
- Elite ranges now has shields.
- Hunters cost now 100 points, you can deploy 2 in a 200 pts squat as intended.
- Black ops Grunt now has a better attack value.
- Improve the attack value of Black ops Grunt, Jackals and
drones.
- Hunter stats changed for balance.
Main Rulebook changes:
- Minor fixes on the knock back rule to clarify the blast
weapon.
- Minor fix on the Hard point and Slayer missions.
On the Works:
The next thing for me is continue working on balancing the
units, but now I want to make Ordnance cards, that will allow the player to get
special gear and reinforcements during the battle, I will explain this in the
future.
New Halo Tokens!
Finally, after some time I
was able to produce the tokens and templates for Halo Tactics. In the PDF file
that you will find in the top of the blog you can find the tokens for weapons and
grenades, and also the blast templates.
Weapon tokens: the weapon
Tokens can be use to mark when a character dies and his weapon is left in the
battlefield, also when a character pick up a weapon in the battlefield the
token can be put next to the character to help the players to remember the fact
that the character is using a weapon different from the one portrait in the miniature.
Grenade tokens: perfect to
put in the character card and keep track of the grenades that the character
has. Also when a character dies his grenades can be put in the battlefield to
be pick up for another character.
Blast templates: here (in the
page 2) you can find the blast template that can be use to understand who is
impact by a game effect. Also is the Large blast and the Large blast with a
plasma art instead of a fire explosion.
Bubble shield: some
characters may start the game with a bubble shield projector, in that case here
is the template to put in the battlefield to mark the place where the shield is
deployed.
For printing those tokens you
can use an A4 size paper of a Letter size paper (there is a PDF version of the
templates for each size) but the ideal size would be the A4.
Tag :
accesories,
news,
Dev Diaries: Knock Back Rules explained
In the new version of the
rulebook (work in progress) I will define better the rules of some weapons,
including how to use the Knock back ability of a weapon.
here is the updated rule
that will affect weapons such frag grenades, missile lauchers and Fuel rod
guns.
knock back
(X): Targets
hit by this weapon are knock back a number of inches equal to X. Knock back
represents a character being thrown backward by the force of an attack.
Move the character in a straight
line away from the attacking character, called the knock back path. If multiple
characters take damage from a game effect that causes knock back, resolve the
knock back starting with the character farthest from the attacker.
A character’s knock back path ignore
difficult or hindering terrain, but can’t continue if cross an object that blocks movement, other
character (friend or foe), elevated terrain of a higher elevation or the edge
of the map. If it would do so, the character’s knock back path ends right
before its path would cross into any of these obstacles, and the character takes
1 damage.
A character’s knock back path can
push him outside a ledge, in that case the character will also take falling
damage as normal.
Some blast weapons or attacks have
the Knock back rule, in that case the main target of the attack (the character
in the center of the blast) is move following the rules of knock back, and
other characters under the blast template move away from the centre of the
template. As always the characters takes damage of the blast, plus 1 damage if
the knock back path is blocked.
Tag :
Dev Diaries,
editorial,
What is next?
Some time past since my last post. I was working on some
other projects and I leave Halo tactics on a side temporally. Now I’m planning to
continue working on the project.
What is next:
I want to make new cards and tokens, but first I need to
test more the game. Some people send me message (thought this blog and the
facebook page) and looks like the community is growing, that is good. Now what
I need is to play to see if the profiles are balance or need tweaking.
Once I feel that those profiles are working I plan to bring
new toys into each army: my first task will be bring the Scorpion and the wrath
(with variants). Those could be really fun to have in the game, fighting the
covenant scarab.
Please, if you like this rules, try them and send me your
feedback, could be great to know what is working and what is not.