Hello all, Spartan Derek here!
Considering the imminent release of Halo: Ground Command, our very exciting 1/100th scale massed battle game, we thought it would be a good idea to open up a dialogue on the game from a wargamers perspective and answer some of your questions.
We have worked really hard, and with the close co-operation of 343 Industries, to embrace the tactical first-person-shooter feel you get in the Halo video games as well as the strategic real-time-strategy feel of video games like Halo Wars and the upcoming Halo Wars 2. But how does that all translate in real terms to the wargaming table? In this and upcoming blogs, we will discuss how weve achieved this.
Firstly, lets think about the challenge of creating a wargame that exists in both FPS and RTS video game genres. One is singular, fast paced, bloody and the action never stops FPS. The other is more general, measured and requires intense forward planning to execute perfectly RTS. Both have the wonderful Halo Universe as a backdrop of course, but both provide entirely different experiences. Let me tell you that the task of melding the two together has been challenging, but also huge fun!
In order to allow us to distil all of this diverse game-play that exists in this Universe on the tabletop, we effectively divided Halo: Ground Command into two key gaming spaces: Pre-Game and In-Game. The former refers to the Strategic/RTS part of the game and latter to the Action/FPS part of the game. In this Blog we will focus on the Pre-Game aspect of the rules, saving In-Game for Blog 2.
Pre-Game allows players to flex their RTS muscles, building their Forces strategically to complete their chosen missions. In general play, all scenarios are encouraged to be rolled PRIOR to Forces being chosen, so players can go away and plot their enemys eventual demise. This gives the game a planned-outcome-feel since players have had time to reflect on the mission to hand and have brought the right tools for the job (hopefully!).
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