Shiny Prizes! Halo Events Get Hooked Up!

Greetings all! SeerK here once again to talk Adeptcon.  I wanted to welcome aboard our latest sponsor.  Its official yet unofficial.  I want to send a special thanks to Ken and Rick from Studio 343 for their generous support of the Halo events at Adepticon.  If you have not seen the pictures on Facebook, we received a big box of goodies from the studio. How can you get some of this exclusive stuff?  Well you can sign up for the Halo Ground Command and Halo Fleet Battles tournaments!  Players will also have a chance at a studio exclusive piece of Artwork of Cortana.  Participants in both tournaments have a chance to win this beautiful piece of art.  A drawing will be held Sunday after the Halo Ground Command Tournament and one of the players will go home with it!

The Road To Adepticon: Halo Joins the Fray!

Greetings all! SeerK here with another installment in our Road To Adepticon series! The crazy night of Registration is over and the Adepticon cart is open! The new system which started last year once again took the onslaught and Team WayGate was able to register without any mishaps. Spots are going fast for all the events. I know the Planetfall GT only had a couple left. So if you are thinking of attending or plan to sign up sooner rather than later to reserve your spot. We will be announcing sponsors over the next couple months. Spartan Games is on board bigger than ever and Evolution Games of Lansing Michigan returns as our other primary sponsor. More on them later though. This time we are talking Halo. Halo Fleet Battles and Halo Ground Command are making their debut at Adepticon this year with Tournaments for both games Happening. Lets chat about The Battle for Reach Halo Fleet Battles GT and the Battle for Reach Halo Ground Command GT!

The Post Gencon Round Up!

Greetings all. SeerK here once again. It has been a couple days since I got home from Gencon and either the Pathogen got to me or a Tohaa sniper with a viral weapon scored a critical hit. I have the con crud pretty bad. I guess I was due. I have done the past 5 conventions without any incident. Hot tea, NyQuil and lots of rest has been my day today. So since I am stuck at home I thought it would be a prime time to do my post Gencon update. I am also planning on going on the Hub Systems Podcast if I am feeling better as well as finally getting some recording in with Phil on Firebase Delta. Stupid real life. So what were the highlights for me at Gencon? The Corvus Belli Seminar and working with Spartan Neil and Spartan Derek at the Spartan Games booth of course. Lets take a look!

Halo Gets Big: New Carriers!

SeerK here with a quick update.  Halo sees its next release, this time we are getting the big boys.  The Assault carriers are now available for your fleet.  Phil over at Firebase Delta was nice enough to get some pictures up over at the Facebook page.  The new ships look great and seem to be resin, which is a departure from the current Halo products.




So enjoy the Pics!

Halo Fleet Battles: SeerK's First Look

Greeting all!  SeerK here once again.  In this installment I am going to be looking at Spartan Games latest endeavor, Halo Fleet Battles.  It came as a surprise to many Spartan Games fans that they had teamed up with Studio 343 and Microsoft in making a game based on Halo.  This is the first IP licensed to Spartan Games and it is a biggy.  If there is one thing Spartan knows how to do very well, it's how to make a damn fun space ship game.  The first game using the new Halo IP is Halo Fleet Battles.  We have UNSC and Covenant space fleets battling it out in the depths of space.  Lets take a look.


The game engine for Halo Fleet Battles is completely new, but it borrows some game mechanics from other Spartan games.  The most notable difference though, compared to their other games, is that the game does not really use D6's.  You have a pile of "Halo Dice" which have hits misses and failures denoted by symbols on a 6 sided die.  The Spartan hallmark, The exploding dice Mechanic, is present, but not in its traditional form.  It is also limited.  No single frigates taking out Battleships in this game.  Another notable difference is that the ships are based differently.  We have car overlays with the ships stats on the bases and in the case of smaller ships, multiple ships on one base.



The game is divided into five phases

1.  Order Dice Phase
2. Wing Phase
3.  Battle Group Phase
4.  Boarding resolution Phase
5.  End Phase

You have a commander that you buy as part of your fleet.  From my understanding there will be more characters you can purchase as time goes on.  The first Commander pack is up for sale on Spartans website and a couple of the FLGS's in the area have them on their shelves.  The Commander and special characters allow you to do special attacks and actions via the Order Dice.  You roll the 5 order dice to start the turn off.  You arrange the dice on the commanders card and depending on what symbols you roll, it opens up options for special orders and actions.  If you roll any command Icons you can add these to your initiative roll.  Once you determine who gets the first activation, you proceed from the Order Dice Phase to the Wing Phase.

Much Like Firestorm Armada, Halo has alternating activations.  Unlike Firestorm Armada though, Halo has an entire phase dedicated to wings.  Bombers, boarding craft and the like all move and perform their actions independently of their parent ships.  Wings start on the table.  They move and engage each other and bigger ships.  They are represented by card stock tokens rather that resin SRS tokens.  I am still learning the game personally and it is recommended you skip the wings phase and using wings when you are first starting out as it would seem a lot of the complex interactions take place in this phase.  Interceptors and such block bombers and boarding craft rather than destroy them.  It would seem you can lock them up indefinitely if you so choose.  The wings phase is also how you deliver your boarding troops.  This is important for the UNSC as this is how you can really hurt Covenant ships.  Despite the numeric advantage the UNSC has a tough time dealing with Covenant vessels.

The Battle Group Phase is next.  This is where you move your Battle Groups.  Ships and Squadrons of ships that share a base are referred to as Elements.  Several Elements make up a Battle Group.  Several Battle Groups make up your fleet.  Every Element has a build rating.  When you are building your force it will have a point cap and each Battle Group cannot exceed 6 Build points.  A big heavy cruiser may have a build rating of 5, while a frigate squadron may have a build rating of 1.  Elements in a battle group move as a squadron would in Firestorm Armada.  You move your vessels, fire your weapons and then your opponent goes.  You go back and fourth until all the battle groups have activated.  I will go more in depth into the Battle group Phase and game play in general in our next installment.

The boarding resolution phase is next.  You resolve all the boarding actions you started in the wings phase.  This allows you to send Spartans and Zealots to your opponents ships in an effort to cripple or destroy them.  This is a hazardous endeavor though and usually results in the loss of the boarding troops if the vessel is destroyed.  There is a slim chance of survival though.

In the end phase you resolve all the miscellaneous tokens and statuses that your elements have acquired over the course of the turn. It is pretty standard fair for most war gamers.  I am still learning the game.  I think there was a misconception made by many gamers, that is that Halo would be something that was similar in nature to X-Wing.

That is not the case.  It is a full blown miniature war game that has a lot of depth and nuance.  It draws from Spartans other creations, but stands by itself as a new game engine.  It borrows elements for Firestorm Armada, its damage system from Firestorm Planetfall and its feel from Halo itself.

So far I like it.  next time we will go more in depth into the system and how it works.  We will also be continuing our look at the Relthoza in Planetfall.  I will have some reports form the front next weekend.  The Michigan GT is a week away and I will be there Running two Firestorm Armada tournaments as well as Playing in an INfinity ITS tournament.







Until next time crush the Alliance and as always..

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!