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.
Modelling: Making new bases
From
the beginning I had in mind the Halo Actionclix miniatures to use in my Halo
Tactics games, wherever there is a problem with the Actionclix minis: the base.
Wizkids
miniatures (both Actionclix and Heroclix) use 40 mm bases for ALL their minis.
You can work with this in your games (in my first test games I play with the minis
like that without problem), but having different sizes for the bases will
improve the game in many ways, the first is that the miniatures will reflect
more their size and control area, helping to improve the tactical aspects of
the game.
Now
that I have my Halo Actionclix miniatures to use in my Halo Tactics games is
time for convert the minis to a proper base, for this I want to use a technique
that I saw in the Bell of the lost souls. Using cork I give texture to the
bases to make them interesting and looking like concrete (for a urban conflict
in my halo games).
Step
1) Materials and first steps
For
this I use 2 mm cork sheets
Step
2) Preparing the bases
After
cutting a square from the cork sheet I glue it to the base
Step
3) Given texture
Each
square was then cut and given a proper appearance, to look like broken
concrete.
Step
4) Painting
After
a layer of base black paint (in this case I use chaos black spray from
citadel), I paint each base with dark grey, follow of a dry brush of grey and
final lights with a little of white paint.
The
result!
As
you can see now the Spartan stand in a more acurate base for him, I did this
for all my miniatures following this idea:
20
mm bases: Marines, ODST, Spartan, Drones, Grounts, Jackals.
40
mm Bases: Elite, Brutes.
60
mm Bases: Hunters.
Tag :
Modeling,
Modelling: How to get your minis
Ok,
we have the rules and character cards, now we need the models to play Halo
Tactics. In this article I will discuss the options to make your own halo
miniatures so you can play your Halo games in your game group.
"Oficial" Halo Miniatures
The
first option is just to pick one of the two options for halo miniatures in the
market: Halo Heroclix (or ActionClix) or Halo Micro Ops.
Halo Heroclix: This are the main miniatures that I use with this
rules intended. The reason is that this miniatures are relative cheap and they
have a vast array of character options to play. With some minor modifications
you can create your own special characters and vehicles. .JPG)
Halo Micro Ops: McFarlane is one of the best in the toy industry and
his approach to the Halo Miniatures was amazing. Sadly halo Micro Ops had a
short run and you have only a few options to play. With some miniatures from
other 15 mm sci fy range you can expand this game. I'm planning to make a sed
of rules and cards with the 15 mm in mind.
Make your own
You
can build your own Halo Miniatures. This is the most gratification option in
the sense that you make this game your own and will bring you many hours of modelling.
You can find in the web many examples of people that make their own models and
vehicles.
Examples:
From Commander Vyper (http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=6732.210) he made his own models and game using models from different ranges and sculpting his own Covenant.
And from Todeswind (http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=35605) he made his own UNSC with warhammer parts and papercraft.
I hope this would inspire to make Halo Tactics your game and start making your own force.
Tag :
Modeling,
Updated rules: Hail to the hammer!
Some minor fixes to the Halo
rulebook and some gear:
Rulebook
- Knockback rules is more
clear now.
- Aim to the ground rule is
now in the book
- Gravity hammers now do
+1D3 damage (instead of 1D6) but now have Knock back (and the user is NOT affected
by this knock back).
- Minor fixes.
Character Cards
- Gravity hammers fixed.
- Elite rangers now have the
infiltration special rule and shields.
-Master chief weapons names
fixed.
All this rules and updates
are part of the rules and cards, you can download the new version on the
"Rules and cards" tap of the blog.