Chronique:Canon Fodder - Stand Your Ground
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BY GRIMBROTHER ONE - 4/15/2016
ISSUE 71
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Greetings lore-lovers, and thanks for stopping by. Last week, we took a look at some of the cool colonial tech that players find scattered across the surface of Meridian, plus we divulged some new info on a couple of cool space ships, and more. If you missed it, you can go back and check it out right here. This time around, we’re excited to help officially unveil the latest project from our friends and partners at Spartan Games in collaboration with 343 Industries, Halo: Ground Command. Spartan Games will be showing off the title in more glory this weekend at the Salute show in the UK, and we’re here to get you primed and ready. Rounding out our coverage today will be a special highlight of a particularly awesome community creation from the talented folks responsible for the Sins of the Prophets project. We’ve got a lot on the table (literally), so let’s get to it.
Ground Pound
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“Colonel, this is Noble One. There are no rebels. The Covenant are on Reach.”
- Spartan Carter-A259 Winter Contingency
Two simple words changed the lives of millions on the human colony of Reach. On July 24, 2552 the Spartans of Noble Team discover Covenant strike teams have infiltrated the planet’s defenses and disabled a key slipspace communication hub at the remote Visegrád Relay. Winter Contingency, the codename for a Covenant invasion, is declared. UNSC plans for the defense of Reach are thrown into disarray by the surprise attack, and an information lockdown is enacted to avoid mass panic. From their deeply buried bunkers and command centers, Reach High Command analyze reports, weigh the possibilities, and begin to deploy the might of the UNSC to defeat this Covenant spearhead. With the intrusion seemingly confined to a sparsely populated section of the planet it seems the alien army can be contained and eliminated with a decisive ground campaign.
They are wrong, and the planet will burn. But not before armies clash in a storm of blood and plasma, with heroism and valor never in short supply.
Halo: Ground Command gives you the tools to play out epic battles on Reach between stalwart soldiers of the UNSC and the merciless legions of the alien Covenant. Cities will fall, heroes will rise, and destiny forged in battles that are yours to plan, direct, and implement on the tabletop. From massive tank engagements at Szurdok Ridge to small groups of Spartans deployed in defense of New Alexandria, you are in control, making life-and-death decisions as a UNSC commander charged with the safety of this critical planet. Or take the role of an alien invader, leading the Covenant invasion force as a field marshal ordered to exterminate humanity, at any cost. The Covenant are on Reach. Your troops await their orders.
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This weekend, the fabulous folks at Spartan Games are boots-on-the-ground at the Salute show, publically debuting the next chapter in the Halo tabletop legacy, Halo: Ground Command. After a pretty incredible fan reception to Halo: Fleet Battles, it’s no stretch to say that we are all pretty excited to see its land-focused counterpart come to fruition. For us at 343 Industries, it’s been an absolute blast to work alongside partners who are not only passionate about their craft, but about the Halo universe itself; more often than not, it’s us having to rein them in on the project, as Spartan Games’ excitement for putting famous battles of Halo onto fans’ tables indeed has no end. To explore that excitement a bit further, we talked with Spartan Games’ Neil Fawcett to give our loyal Fodder folk an inside scoop.
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GRIM: So, let’s start off by talking about scale. We’ve seen Halo products come in all sorts of different sizes over the years; what made you decide on the final scale for Halo: Ground Command?
NEIL: When we first looked at creating a ground warfare game for the Halo universe a number of miniature scales were discussed. After some fascinating, and not too heated conversations between Spartan Games and 343 Industries, it became clear that we all wanted the same thing: a mass-battle game that would allow infantry, armored and aerial units to come together in the same gaming space. Our guiding theme is “Ever thought how cool it would be to have an entire army of Scorpion tanks or massive aerial duels with Banshee flyers?... You have?... Well you’ve come to the right place!
GRIM: I mean, you had me at “Banshees.” Also, especially for folks who might be new to tabletop gaming, can you explain what it means to say that the game is at “1:100 scale?”
NEIL: Sure! Halo: Ground Command is designed to be an inclusive game that brings together video gamers and wargamers alike. 1:100th scale is the best way to do that, giving you the best of both worlds: excellent detail levels and affordable collectability.
To give you an idea of size: at 1:100th scale a UNSC Pelican Dropship comes in at just over 12 inches and is playable and affordable, but at 28mm scale this model would be around 24 inches and much too costly for the average gamer! It is also the case that a Covenant Scarab would be so large at 28mm as to make it almost un-gamable. That's no problem if you want to simply stand it on a (reinforced) shelf... but we want to make models you can show off AND game with too! We, however, want to game with our Scarabs…
GRIM: Can’t really argue with that logic. Speaking of games, we see some pretty large battles in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach, but the focus in the video games typically, and understandably, is a more personal – dare we say ‘visceral’ – experience revolving around a single Spartan or small group of soldiers. Was it difficult to adapt the look and feel of the video games when you decided to develop army-versus-army conflicts in Halo: Ground Command?
NEIL: We wanted to create a game that acted as a counterpoint and complement to the first person video game that people around the world are very familiar with and enjoy. Whereas the video games are laser-focused on individual Spartan heroes, our inspiration comes from the novels – in particular, Halo: The Fall of Reach – that look at the wider course of the Human-Covenant War and the actions of generals and field marshals at the army level. The stories are just as compelling on a larger stage, and in our opinion Halo: Ground Command helps showcase just how exceptional the Spartan super-soldiers really are, while simultaneously letting you appreciate the true power of the Covenant war machine!
GRIM: So, just to be clear, it’s safe to say that Spartans are not the focus of the game?
NEIL: Spartans (and their Zealot counterparts in the Covenant) play a very important role in the new game, but so do Warthogs, Scorpion Tanks, ODST Drop Pods, Falcons, Siege Engines, Phantoms, Wraiths, Ghosts, Hunters and Scarabs! The scale of Halo: Ground Command allows us to do things that are not easy to do in the games; it is entirely possible (even encouraged) that you could have hundreds of vehicles and thousands of infantry battling it out with bombing runs, MAC gun strikes, Banshee swarms, and reinforcements being ferried in on Pelicans – which we’ve been told is a bit challenging to do in the video game realm!
GRIM: Were it so easy, indeed. Now, considering the scope of the encounters in your game, was Halo Wars or Halo: Reach the inspiration for the game mechanics?
NEIL: Yes. <laughs> When designing the gameplay for Halo: Ground Command, we spent literally hundreds of hours ‘researching’ (read: playing Halo in all its forms) and it became clear to us that we had a real opportunity to create a wargame that mirrors the intense action of a tactical FPS with the strategic nuances of a RTS. So in a way, it’s both.
To achieve this, we have created a system for Reaction that allows everyone to be involved in a game turn, right from the off, even if the opponent is activating! This hasn’t been done before in modern massed battle wargaming, and we are delighted to have the chance to give Halo players a chance to be the first to play with this FPS-inspired tabletop innovation. Along with the tactical considerations of Reaction, we have created a strategic method of Force Building that has lots of adaptability and uses easy building-block principles to give players control over their forces and combine units in ways that is new and extremely interesting – exactly as if you were playing Halo Wars.
GRIM: Sounds awesome, Neil. Thanks so much for the passion your team pours into the universe, and for taking the time to answer our questions – we know you are super busy preparing for the Salute 2016 wargames convention in London this weekend!
NEIL: Our pleasure. We can’t wait to show people the game and demo the new models, which will be in stores later this Summer!
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So now you have Spartan Games’ perspective, but I figured folks wouldn’t mind also hearing from the 343 side as well, and since I know you all are likely tired of hearing me talk all the time, I thought it would be fun to ask our very own Kenneth Peters what he thought about the game. Kenneth has been integral in the process of helping bring Halo: Ground Command to life, and being a huge tabletop gaming fan himself, the project is very near and dear to his lore-loving heart.
- "As a former Marine, one of the things I’m most excited about with Halo: Ground Battles is representing large-scale engagements between the UNSC and Covenant that we’ve only read about in the books or seen in the distance of the games. Keep in mind that the Army troopers you get in the 2-player starter box is only a single platoon, and yet it’s actually more UNSC combatants than you see close-up in any Halo game. Plus, you can easily scale that up 3-4 times to fight company-level engagements that make even Halo Wars matches look like a sandbox skirmish.
- "On the Covenant side you get a combat lance of enough Grunts, Elites, and Hunters to make even Noble Team carefully consider their tactical options. Scale the Covenant invasion force up and you can field a legion of the Covenant’s finest, ready to tear down everything humanity has spent centuries building. The epic scenario we saw in the famous Believe campaign diorama is now in reach (pun intended). Heck, you can play out scenarios that make even that look tame, and you won’t need to break the bank to do it!
- "Halo: Ground Command is a completely different way of looking at warfare in the 26th century, not in terms of it being a table-top game but in the fact that you can – for the first time – clearly visualize just how epic and lethal Halo warfare truly can be. Not everyone on the battlefield can be a super-soldier, but if you get enough assault rifles in one place the fate of worlds will turn. You’ll see."
- - Kenneth Peters, 343 Industries
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Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this inside look at Halo: Ground Command, both from a written perspective as well as throughout the snazzy model and render images you’ve seen scattered throughout the piece. Quick note on that, it’s important to keep in mind that while the models you see are certainly pretty darn close to complete, there are certainly scattered aspects of the design and production elements that are still a work in progress and are “pending licensor approval” as they like to say. Whoever “they” are. At any rate, we’re incredibly excited to bring this new strategic gaming experience to the tabletops of Halo fans everywhere later this year. Certainly keep an eye out on Halo Waypoint for more details as we get closer to release!
Recruitment Rendezvous
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As many of you are certainly aware, the Warzone Firefight beta went live this week in Halo 5: Guardians, and runs through April 19th. To learn more about the beta itself and the mode in general, checkout your friendly neighborhood Grim’s feature on the matter right here. It’s been a blast to hop on with friends in a concerted cooperative effort to eliminate enemies in efficient and exciting ways, and has been particularly fun to notice some familiar names from the community pop up in our fireteam in several matches. With that in mind, yours truly (GT: GrimBrother One) will be playing quite a bit of the mode this weekend, likely with a few other 343 Industries staff in tow (including the aforementioned Kenneth Peters) – keep a lookout for us and be prepared to show off your Spartan prowess on the field of battle!
Well, that will wrap things up for us this week. You'll notice that we’ll be mixing in preexisting Universe encyclopedia entries with newer ones into our featured entries each issue, giving fans a great way to catch up on ones you might have missed or enjoyed in the past. Thanks as always for joining us, and hope to see you on the beta battlefield!
Until next time… Live well, play Halo, and pray you don’t have to defend the Garage.
-Grim
Featured universe articles this week!
The Warthog is the UNSC's primary ground transportation vehicle and developed by AMG Transport Dynamics.
The Wraith is an armored mortar tank, created to besiege enemy positions with unrelenting firepower.