Neither Halo Infinite nor the now-concluded TV series turned out to be the resounding success Microsoft probably wanted for the beloved game franchise. In fact, we know a few Halo fanboy friends who found both very sore disappointments. Maybe, you can keep the fire of Master Chief alive with the Mantic Halo Flashpoint tactical miniatures game.
An officially-licensed title, the tabletop game pits two players against each other, each one commanding a small troop of Spartan super soldiers shooting at each other using their favorite Halo blasters. They didn’t create an entirely new system for playing it, by the way, instead reusing Mantic’s own ruleset for the 3rd edition of their Deadzone game, albeit repurposed to be more in line with the Halo universe.
The Mantic Halo Flashpoint is a two-player tactical miniatures game, with each player serving as command for a fireteam of four Spartans. As is common in the category, you get miniature figures that you can paint and decorate to your own liking. You play on a 3D map made up of an eight by eight grid of large squares, which take up around four square feet of total surface space on your gaming table. It comes with various structures that can be placed on the map to create a 3D terrain, making the game feel like a richer, more dynamic space.
It uses Deadzone’s cube-to-cube movement, so it feels as intuitive as standard board game movements while retaining the dynamism of tabletop miniatures, with very minimal counting needed. Of course, it also gets the disadvantages, such as the need to place each terrain component in a single square and a more complicated diagonal movement. The result is a game that flows swiftly, creating skirmishes that feels very up-tempo and fast-paced. You use dice rolls for the combat, with players able to use a shield system as a first layer of protection against attacks.
The Mantic Halo Flashpoint comes with four game modes, namely Slayer, Oddball, King of the Hill, Stockpile, and Capture the Flag, so you can change up the gameplay once you get bored of playing a game mode after a while. Throughout a game, you can pick up new guns, grenades, thrusters, and all sorts of other items, which, we’re guessing, will cause you to open up the rules manual a lot, especially when you’re first getting your heads around the game. It looks worth the effort, though, especially if you’re a longtime Halo fan looking to get your fix, since all the weapons and gear you can pick up are straight out of the Halo games.
The game, by the way, is set in the year 2560 after the Covenant War pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. It’s meant to play out as a friendly exercise between the fireteams in a War Games simulation, so there’s not much of an overarching story here like you might get with some other games. That means, it’s strictly about the team versus team skirmish, with not much of the background lore from Halo really being all that important.
The Mantic Halo Flashpoint is available now.
- Immerse Yourself in the Halo Universe: Experience thrilling tabletop battles with the Spartan...
