Since its reveal in early January, Halo fans have been eager for more information about the game Halo: Flash point, a new miniatures game from Mantic Games. On Friday, at the annual AdeptiCon wargaming convention in Schaumburg, Illinois, the British team delivered the goods. Not only do we know what the final products will look like, both painted and unpainted, but we also know a lot about how it will all play out.
Halo: Flash point is a skirmish game, a miniature wargaming genre that is incredibly popular right now. Just like titles like Star Wars: Shatterpoint, Cyberpunk: Combat ZoneAnd Warhammer 40:000: kill team, Flash point will alone requires a handful of miniatures to play. But unlike those other games, you don’t need a ruler for it. That’s because it uses the new cube-based system at the heart of another Mantic title: a skirmish game called Dead zone.
In Dead zonewhich one has free quick start rules Mantic’s website uses cubes to measure both movement and shooting. Meanwhile, opacity is determined by the true line of sight – meaning you only have to get up at eye level with your thumbnail to properly see what it sees.
“The (square) arena board is divided into an eight-by-eight grid,” Dan Mapleston, Mantic’s strategic marketing manager, explained in an email. “But because the game is played at more than just floor level, we’re calling each room a cube (rather than a square), so you can also move up and down between levels, or shoot enemies below you.”
All units are given a range of movement measured in cubes, and players simply count the cubes they need to get where they want to go. Once in the final cube, players can customize the precise location of their mini as they see fit. You may want to tuck it behind a smaller piece of cover or stick its head out to maintain visual contact with the enemy. In that way, it works a lot like a modern real-time strategy video game, with the player directing the movement of a unit while individual AI-controlled soldiers within that unit adjust themselves into a final position.
“It’s a system that’s super intuitive once people understand it,” says Mapleston. It should also scale well even on the most extensive terrain, which could help Flash point feel as fast and fluid as the classic video game’s multiplayer modes.
Combat also sounds particularly deadly. The d8-based system uses an exploding dice mechanic, meaning that rolling an eight adds extra dice (and extra damage) to the roll. Mantic has therefore named it the ‘Headshots’ mechanic.
Two editions of the game will be released prior order today, but prices were not shared prior to publication. The Recon Edition contains eight pre-assembled miniatures in red and blue plastic plus some terrain. The Spartan editionmeanwhile offers 16 Spartans, four Banished Elite models in gray and various ‘component upgrades’. The game will formally launch this fall.