Introducing Halo Fleet Battles

What I will be talking about today is something that I have been looking forward to since Salute 2015, the release of Halo Fleet Battles, from Spartan Games and 343 Industries.

So you know i’m not going into too much detail in the rules, but I will explain the basics of the game.

What I will start with is some photos and descriptions of the contents of the boxset.

Lets start with the fun part, the ships.

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As you can see above you get plenty of ships in the box, although I actually have two boxset’s worth of Covenant ships.

The ships are easy to put together and come on the sprues in such a way that you barely need the instructions to put them together (although the Paris class Frigate comes in one piece).

The ships you get in the boxset are:

  • UNSC (32 models)
    • 1 Epoch-class Heavy Carrier
    • 4 Marathon-class Heavy Cruisers
    • 27 Paris-class Frigates
  • Covenant (17 models)
    • 1 ORS Class Heavy Cruiser
    • 2 CCS Class Battlecruisers
    • 14 SDV Heavy Corvettes

The boxset gives you more ships for the UNSC but that is mainly due to the fact that the Covenant ships have much longer range and much stronger weapons. The UNSC have the obvious numbers advantage plus they can move faster then the enemy ships.

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*An example of a game setup of Halo Fleet Battles*

Next lets talk about the rulebooks. The core rulebook as shown on the right is absolutely packed full of amazing lore information, pictures from Spartan Games own collection of Halo ships (Including the beautiful Assault Carrier that should be out by the end of the year), and of course all the rules you will need to play the game. The other book has game setups and special scenarios to play the epic space battles that lead up to and decide the fate of the UNSC fortress world of Reach.

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OK, so now lets talk about who will lead your fleet.

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*Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth*

 

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*Supreme Commander Rho ‘Barutamee*

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The photo above shows the Commander cards that have the special rules for the character who will lead your fleets. They explain their rank, command ship names, standard rules and special rules (which are used in the game to give advantages to your fleet) plus that commander’s UNIQUE ABILITY, a special rule that the commander can use mid-game. Next to these cards are the special ORDER DICE, these are used in game to play the standard/special rules and help in deciding who has initiative.

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These are the ship profile cards that come in the boxset and explain all details of the ships that you will need to play the game, ex, ships type, movement, damage track, weapon profiles and special rules. They also show the different formations you can have the ships in. You can either have a UNSC Epoch class Heavy Carrier alone, or you can have it supported by a Paris class Frigate, this give you the advantage of having more firepower and better defenses while having to pay slightly more in the army list. You also get the profiles for the squads of fighters that are launched from the larger ships,  bombers and even boarding craft, some of which can contain Spartans or even Elite Zealots.

Below is an example of the ship templates, that have an easy to use profile listed on it as well as showing the different arcs of fire that the ships can use. Some weapons can fire in Fore, Port or Starboard arc, and some weapons can fire multiple arcs.

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Lets talk about Tokens.

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The photo above shows examples of the tokens that you will use in the game. The top line are used for Covenant interceptors, boarding craft, bombers and the Zealots that can be sent to attack enemy ships. Then we have the UNSC variants, bomber, boarding craft, two types of interceptors (which have slightly different profiles) and the spartans which can cause some serious damage if allowed to get aboard an enemy ship.

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Next we have the playing dice that will be used in the game. In the boxset you get 20x special D6 and 2 x D6, (these are used to decide initiative and rolling for damage dealt against boarded ships).  The special dice are 6 sided but only have 4 types of symbols, these are (2) 2 successes, (1) 1 success, Miss and FAIL! These dice can actually have differing results when shooting against other ships as there is a special rule called ‘FIREPOWER RATING’ where certain weapons or space phenomenon can effect where on the rating chart you roll giving you better or worse chances of doing damage.

Next we have the terrain templates that come in the boxset.

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I think these are great! Great detail!! And some great rules. They can effect movement, shooting and even damage ships. Better be careful when moving near those planets, one misstep and all they’ll find of your ship is a massive crater.

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Final part of the boxset is the Reference Sheet, giving you all the details you’ll need for easy use while playing and blowing stuff up!!!

This is obviously just a small overview of the game but if you are interested in a more detailed look how about you pop down to the club for an intro game, I’ll be running them anytime someone wants a go.

Also if you are interested in the game you can find it in the link below or from several independent stockists.

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

Anyway, hope you enjoyed and look forward to your opinions and responses.

 

HHH

Club Night 24/07/15

Alright guys! So we had another amazing night of gaming last night with loads of different games going on at the same time. As usual many photos to follow. Please enjoy.

First off we were lucky enough to have an introduction to Dropzone Commander for anyone who fancied it. Thanks to @James_Alex_B from @HawkWargames for coming down and showing this off as well as being kind enough to donate a rulebook plus plenty of the terrain used in the game for anyone who wants to play in the future.

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Before everything kicked off of the night we had a tense game of Guildball between @NationofLee Fisherman and Luke’s Morticians, as is usually the case Shark is able to make it to the goal and score without much hassle.

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For the first time we got some people playing Age of Sigmar at the club. It looks to me that the Tombkings force has their work cut out for them against those Sigmarites but they quickly get the upperhand when some fresh troops are resurrected to bring more pain.

 

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Now we come to a very interesting game of Malifaux, a three-way battle. Seems like some Arcanists and Neverborn are having a bit of a scrap, at which time the Guild makes an ambush to bring these criminals to justice. Unfortunately, the Guild underestimated how many enemies they would be facing a take a nasty beating. They were able to make several arrests before retreating. Better to survive and fight another day.

 

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Next we come to the intro table to the new game from @spartangames and 343 Industries Halo Fleet Battles. I was able to build and paint everything and read the rulebook in two days in preparation, and I was exhausted by the end of it but was happy to show it off to the club. Had some interest from a couple of players and hoping to show it off to others soon.

 

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It seems like the Dropzone bug really bit last night as we had a full game going on at the back of the room. Seems like some big ships and even a gigantic walking tank are about to make a mess of each other.

 

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Finally we had another epic battle from the world of Bolt Action. Something tells me that tank is going to make someone day really, really bad.

 

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Some amazing games last night and great to see so many people again.

 

Looking forward to next week!!!

Upcoming post for the weekend of 25th July 2015

Hey guys,

So it’s been an exciting week for me. Not only have I been off work all week but my preorder’s of Halo Fleet Battles arrived on Wednesday and I have been working hard the last day and a half building, painting the models and learning the rules ready for an intro night at the club.

In regards to this I will be posting three articles this weekend, one for the events of club night, including the intro games held for DropZone Commander, my intro games for Halo Fleet Battles and an article on the game in general including my impressions of the models and how the game plays.

Look forward to writing along with plenty of pictures.

See you all soon,

HHH

Club terrain repair and repaint

Hey guys, so I’ve spent my weekend sorting out and repainting some of the terrain we use at the club to give it a more eye catching look.

Below are some pictures of the finished pieces with some Marine models to represent the terrain. Hope you all like.

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I still have some pieces to finish and all should be done for use on Friday. If you guys have some small pieces of terrain that you may be willing to donate to the club or just want it painted in the same style just let me know as it gives me some more uses for my airbrush.

HHH

Harry’s First Post!!!

Hello everybody 🙂

My name is Harry and this is my first post as an administrator for the 2D6 Lodge website.

I was one of the first founders of the 2D6 club and am frequently found at the club on Friday nights. I have been part of the hobby world since I was 11 years old and played games such as Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Fantasy, Malifaux, Guildball, Deadzone, Dreadball and will soon be playing Halo: Fleet Battle coming from Spartan Games when it is released on Monday 20th July 2015.

Most of my future posts will include details of what happens at the club nights as well as photos from the night, projects that I am personally working on and upcoming games and releases.

Looking forward to seeing people at the club soon and posting online in the future.

HHH

2D6 Lodge Club Night: 17th July 2015

Well we had quite the night on Friday at 2D6 Lodge Club Night, with most of the large tables being used for some exciting action going on.

The first table was a mighty battle of Malifaux between the Outcast crew led by Victoria of Ashes against the Arcanists crew, led by Rasputina.
What seems like a obvious advantage for the Arcanists having an Ice Golem and another large monster on their side soon changes with the Outcasts speedy ladies who race up the field and make the first kill.

Towards the end the Arcanists gained the upper hand leaving the Outcasts with only four member remaining but that doesn’t stop the girls taking down the ice golem before calling the game.

Next we come across a small battle between military forces in an intro game of Bolt Action – the fastest growing game currently at our club!

Now we come across a titanic war between robotic forces in a game of Battletech. Andy’s Light Lance of Succession Wars BattleMechs struggled against the three bigger beige-coloured Outer Rim Mercenary BattleMechs. Particularly, the poor, over-armed Wolfhound struggled with its heat and was shredded by the much larger mercenary Exterminator after only a small amount of resistance.

We travel into the far flung future of the 41st millenium now and witness a grand war between the almighty but evil forces of Chaos vs. a mixed collection of Space Marines, Imperial Guardsmen and Necron forces.

The gigantic Imperial Knight quickly catches and utterly obliterates the Chaos Land Raider but the Marines inside have already been able to disembark just in time to launch their attack against the loyalist Marines.

With the Knight on the rampage in the Chaos lines it all looks lost but Chaos is eternal. GLORY TO CHAOS!!!

[Editor: Harry does have some Chaos biases that should be pointed out to readers here 😉 ]

Finally we head back thousands of years to WWII and a skirmish between the forces of Canada and India in a game of Bolt Action.

Well I’d call that an amazing night of gaming!!! Hoping for another great one next week when I will be running intro games of the new release from Spartan Games, Halo: Fleet Battle.