Halo Flashpoint: Rise of the Banished is starting to make its way out to customers. Thank you to Mantic Games for sending a review copy over ahead of time.Â
Table of Contents
The Box
Everyone loves a big box, and this is certainly one. It has terrain, dice, a nice thick board, unit cards, weapon cards, counters, a very petite rule booklet and 13 miniatures, which is enough for three fire teams.
Who It’s For
A big part of designing a product is working out who it is for. Flashpoint has had very solid product design throughout, with an all in deluxe starter set in the Spartan edition, an economy starter set in the Recon edition, and a bunch of reasonably priced products to expand your game experience to move beyond a simulation of the multiplayer section of the computer game and into a wargame.
This is not a standalone starter set, and while it can be used without the wargames expansion, which adds points to the game, it is recommended to use it with it. You can use the Mantic Flashpoint app instead, and you could just pick four guys vs four guys as you do with the multiplayer simulation.
With the nicer board, extra dice and terrain I think it goes perfectly with the Recon edition for a player looking to expand and get nicer components and terrain. You can then have a dense board, enough dice for everybody and Brutes and Elites to fight your Spartans. If you got the Spartan edition like I did, then let’s face it, you’re going all in anyway.
All the components will be available separately in September, though are most economical to buy in the Banished box, making it an obvious choice.
Quality
The printed materials are full colour and decent quality, as you’d expect.
I think the terrain is slightly higher quality in terms of the finish than the Spartan edition terrain, and the cutting was flawless in my copy with no tears or difficulty in separating it from the sheets. It went together well, with clear instructions.
As there is slightly less terrain than in the Spartan edition, I was worried that there wasn’t enough for board coverage. I was wrong. You can have terrain in 28 out of 64 cubes on the board, a little less than half, and this is a pretty reasonable amount of cover for a game.
You can borrow some terrain pieces from your other set, or use the Banish themed scatter terrain set when that becomes available to have even more cover.
The Miniatures
There are 13 miniatures in the set, the four previously released Elites, eight Brutes and Atriox (the big Brute character who provides a nice foil for Master Chief in terms of abilities and points).
So how do the Brutes compare in size to the Spartans?
As you can see, Brother Scaleo of the Blood Angels is roughly the same height as a Spartan (if he didn’t have the additional height from his scenic base) and the Brutes tower over the Spartans and Elites. The Elites and Spartans are on roughly 30mm bases, the Brutes on 40mm and Atriox on just over 50mm.
The miniature quality has improved compared to the first run of Spartans (and come so far from the Mars Attacks range many many years ago) and the heftiness of the Brutes helps in making PVC miniatures more sturdy and less prone to bending.
The Berserkers, Captains and Snipers share a body (I imagine to cut down on costs, the same as metal miniatures used to use dollies a lot) the same as the Elites share two bodies. I would like some more variety, as it’s noticeable when you have all the figures together, but I think another Brute box would give an even better selection and ability to army build. However this is an easy complaint, and ‘I wanted more miniatures with more poses’ is such a common complaint about miniatures it may as well be background noise, as I’ve been hearing it and making it for over thirty years now.
Mould lines are minimal, and I was able to clean those that were with a sharp knife.
Ideally I would have liked the Elites to be different to those in the Spartan box (and this would also have made pure Elites much more viable by having eight models to choose from rather than four) but this is only really a gripe if you got the Spartan box, and if you really want to go all in on Elites.
The Gameplay
I played a test game with my wife, who tends to accuse me of cheating whenever I reached for the rulebook or a card. This really helps learn the rules as you then have to convince someone that you are playing fairly and your interpretation of the rules is correct when they refuse to believe you and refuse to read the rulebook. My wife did win, though I do put this down to me sinking a lot of points into Atriox and some poor rolls on command dice. And also me letting her reroll when she felt bad, a mechanic I call Spouse Points.
I really need to persuade my wife to go to tournaments. She could terrorise the bottom tables.
Brutes have a number of major differences to Spartans:
Imposing
Every Brute has it, and it gives you a +1 die modifier to Fight or Survive tests in combat, which means if when you get into combat you’re more likely to win and more likely to survive an enemy punch and then punch back.
Slower
Having Move 1-2 means if you are shooting at people you are not getting across the board quickly, and half the Brute models in the box have it. It meant playing I was actually hoping for Advance to come up on the command dice. While Berserkers and Captains are 1-3, Berserkers have one use grenades for shooting, so need to pick up a gun ASAP or (preferably) get into combat which they’re much better at. Captains are expensive, clocking in at 58 or 60 points, and while they’re really good, they’re about 50% pricier than the average Brute/Spartan.
Lots of Hit Points, Not Much Armour
Only the captains have Armour 2, even Atriox is only Armour 1 and the Snipers don’t even have Armour. This means that you get chewed up, and having 2 armour and 4 hit points is very much the same as having 1 armour and six hit points if you are being shot at with AP 1 or 0 weapons.
This explains why things like Berserkers are cheaper than Spartans, and you should still go for models equipped with Energy Shields where possible. Brutes have more HP than Spartans, but I don’t think they are that much more survivable.
Hit like a Truck
A fairly large chunk of the available Brute models come with a proper melee weapon that provides some armour penetration, Lethal, Knockback or Smash. A lot of Spartans are out there with just fists, and you’re a big beefy Space Gorilla in a perfect position to take their lunch money. Berserkers are the perfect example of this, and want to run across the board and start punching people in the face as soon as possible.
Building a Force
For a standard 200 point force I would look at the following:
- Jiralhanae Captain with Ravager – 58
- Jiralhanae Sniper with Shock Rifle – 35
- 2 x Jiralhanae Berserker with Spike Grenade – 68
- Jiralhanae Warrior with VK78 Commando – 33
- Special Order – Alliance – 3
This gives 5 models, 4 with energy shields and 3 with grenades. You have 3 move 1-3 models, so you aren’t slow and a sniper and warrior to sit on the backline and plink away while the captain and berserkers move forward. You don’t have a huge melee focus on any models, but the melee you have is no slouch. You also have five models in 200 points, so you won’t be getting out activated by Spartans.
The Sniper with Skewer is great and 3 armour penetration, optics and lethal 1 are really useful, but you are giving up the captain if you want to keep a five model team. I think this is a problem solved by either mixing in some Elites (who are in the 44-49 points bracket) or when Mantic release some more Brutes for a big more variety (let’s have one with a Gravity Hammer and one with a Brute Shot, which playing ODST were iconic Brute weapons).
Final Thoughts
Rise of the Banished makes the Banished a proper faction in Flashpoint, and gives you aliens to fight your Spartans against. It introduces ‘if you die, you’re dead’ in scenarios and moves towards playing as a wargame rather than simulation of Halo multiplayer (you’re fine to keep doing that though, adding Brutes into the mix).
It opens the door to more factions, and further expansions for the Banished by adding other Covenant races (Hunters, Grunts, etc) who all gathered under the Banished banner, as well as the possibility of the Elites as a faction, or other Covenant splinter groups.
Atriox makes it clear that Mantic want to do more named characters, though as with Master Chief in 200 point games they suck up a lot of points and mean you will be outnumbered unless your opponent is also taking a big character. However big point character models also mean there’s design space for big things like Hunters, and I’d be very surprised if we didn’t see those in the next year. I also think there’s space for more Brutes, and I was surprised there wasn’t just some jobber with a brute shot.
As a box it’s well designed and put together; I think it pairs with the Recon Edition like a fine wine, and it makes me eager to see what else Mantic have in store for Halo.
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