This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:
By Grimbrother One
ISSUE 34
Welcome back, fiction fans! Last week, we celebrated science and marveled at the human achievement of sending a 21st century spacecraft to Pluto. This week, with the release of the highly anticipated Halo: Fleet Battles, The Fall of Reach tabletop game, we celebrate the opportunity for fans to be able to command 26th century spacecraft in the throes of the human-Covenant War. In order to bring you the latest and the lore-iest news from the front lines of Fleet Battles, I caught up with a couple of the folks instrumental in bringing the epic ship-to-ship engagements of the halo universe from the depths of space to your awaiting tabletop. Let’s start with Creative Director for the UK-based Spartan Games, Neil Fawcett…
FLEET FIRST INTO HALO
As to challenges, well we’ve got a fantastically well-established product and canon to live up to, with millions of fans, so we really had to lift our game to make sure we got it right. But the assistance we got, especially from folk like Kenneth [Peters] and Rick [Achberger], just made it come together. We couldn’t have done it without the entire team at 343 Industries supporting us every step along the way.
GRIM: Throughout your testing of the game internally, are there any particular strategies or play styles that have become specifically popular?
NF: UNSC players just can’t hang about. They need to Hard Burn their engines and get in close, pound the Covenant ships with MACs and get as many Vulnerable Tokens on the enemy as possible. Picking on the CCS Battlecruiser is a good thing, its lack of a Cloak makes it a prime target for Archer Missiles at long range. But don’t get too close!
As for the Covenant player: protect the CCS as it is a perfect partner for the SDV Heavy Corvettes, and when you get your ORS Heavy Cruiser in close just enjoy the mayhem! Don’t obsess with the larger vessels, if you see a large battle group of frigates, make sure you deal with them…together they can sting.
And for both players, don’t forget about your boarding actions, they’re the truly cinematic moments of the game. Just the mental image of a Spartan rampaging through a Covenant vessel after a boarding action makes me want to roll some dice.
GRIM: Time for truth… who is the best Halo: Fleet Battles player at Spartan Games?
NF: Ah, that has to be one of the core writers, Derek Sinclair….although I reckon he cheats. J Funnily enough Ricky Brewer, one of our marketing guys, hasn’t lost a game yet. Bit of a dark horse that one.
GRIM: Now that fans are finally getting the game into their hands, what are you most excited about as you turn your attention towards the community?
NF: I just want to see how folk paint their models, read their battle reports, look at their home grown scenarios and read the talk on the forums. As the game grows we will be hosting a number of cool events, and as we run them we’ll get a chance to talk to players about the game and future developments. It is very satisfying to watch a gamer play Halo: Fleet Battles, pull off some super cool battle sequence and watch the expression on their faces as they roll the dice and crush their opponent!
GRIM: Any tasty hints about what the future might hold for Halo: Fleet Battles?
NF: That question made me smile, but then again I know what is coming! We’ve made the Covenant Assault Carrier, just had Sparth sign off on our UNSC Valiant-class Super Heavy Cruiser, started the detailing work on the UNSC Trafalgar supercarrier, and the list goes on. We’re just scratching the surface of ship engagements, we’ve got decades of excitement to turn into game material. I mean, just wait till we make Infinity available, or the Phoenix-class…
We’ve got ideas for models and books up and down the Halo timeline. Plenty to keep us busy for a long time to come!
Franchise Player
One of the individuals Neil recognized in the chat above is Kenneth Peters, an exceptional brain-cog in the mind-machine that is the 343 Franchise Team. Ken was instrumental in helping Spartan Games truly understand and wrap their heads and designs around the core Halo fiction, specifically from a 26th century perspective. With that in mind, we thought it would be cool to give you a peek into his perspective on the project as well…
GRIM: So tell us a bit more about the fictional setting for this opening salvo of Halo: Fleet Battles…
Kenneth Peters: The campaign scenarios included in Halo: Fleet Battles cover a roughly two-month period before the main Covenant fleet arrives to assault Reach. These events are mostly from Rho [‘Barutamee]’s perspective and provide some context and insight into Covenant activities during the events of Halo: Reach. However, this is not a day-by-day breakdown of the Covenant irruption in the Epsilon Eridani system, as the goal was to select interesting events where the scenario wouldn’t lead to lopsided games.
GRIM: Will there be any new fiction or events introduced into or expanded upon in the canon? How does it fit in with what fans already know through previously released media?
KEN: On the fiction side, we shine a light into how Rho ‘Barutamee’s Fleet of Valiant Prudence located Reach and their motivations for operating independently of the larger Covenant forces. This material was primarily sourced from Halo: Reach documentation written by Frank O’Connor, Robt McLees, and Marcus Lehto. And yes, there’s still plenty of information we didn’t have time or space for (or simply decided against including). All fiction and canon elements are sourced from our side [343 Industries].
Gameplay wise we left ship stats up to Spartan Games, with reviews and playtesting at the studio to ensure that everything stayed within the bounds of the franchise with regard to look and feel. This was the only truly contentious aspect of the development, as we treated Halo: Fleet Battles exactly like a mainline Halo video game with regard to quality and consistency. This meant that even the name of the game, logo design, and art selected for the terrain cutouts required extensive review loops and consultation with stakeholders on the game teams. Sometimes we had to force key changes in the game based on these playtests and reviews – as was the case with the original rules for shields (which had bleedthrough damage). However, we were in direct contact with Neil and the team at Spartan Games, which meant that rule changes and art notes could be quickly iterated on and discussed.
GRIM: Might there be new areas of the Halo universe explored through this medium in the future?
KEN: There already is, from the visualization of ship designs, revealing backgrounds of key historical characters, to the deeper exploration of esoterica such as UNSC Navy fleet organization in the tailing end of the Human-Covenant War. We’re very happy with how the collaboration with Spartan Games worked out and will have more to reveal in upcoming Halo: Fleet Battles expansions. Stay tuned!
GRIM: Stay tuned indeed… Thanks so much for joining us!
ART OF THE HUNT
As a special treat for our readers, Spartan Games’ Neil Fawcett thought it would be cool to share a piece of concept art produced by his team. Based on an original Bungie concept, this particular piece depicts the Sangheili hunting grounds found within one of the Covenant’s agricultural support ships. It’s a beautiful look at one of the inner aspects of life within the Covenant empire. Hope you enjoy it! (Click to make big)
Until next week… Live well, play Halo, and don’t forget to enact the Cole Protocol if your ship is all but lost.
Another great article of Cannon Fodder!
Halo’s space combat is my cup ‘O tea, so this naturally has mass appeal to me!
A bit on the expensive side, though. Another time…….