Halo: Flashpoint, the new Halo tabletop wargame from UK publisher Mantic Games, is only one month out from release. Team wargamer is still putting the game through its paces prior to writing our review, but we’re already impressed by five things it does better than Warhammer 40k.
Where Warhammer 40k is a game of massive armies and hours-long battles, Halo: Flashpoint is a tight skirmish game inspired by Halo multiplayer. Instead of dozens of Space Marines, you’ll play with just four Spartans (or Banished, if you pick up their team) per side, on a game board that will fit onto the average kitchen table.
Obviously, there are some things this game isn’t going to deliver that Warhammer 40k does. You won’t be able to field a massive UNSC or Covenant army on the table the way you can with a Warhammer 40k faction. But sometimes, small is beautiful.
Here are five things that Halo: Flashpoint does better than Warhammer 40k:
You can pick it up and play right out of the box
The Recon starter set for Halo: Flashpoint really does have everything you need to play a game. It comes with two teams of Spartans, cardboard terrain, game map, tokens, cards, rules, everything, for $75 / £60. The minis are great and don’t require any assembly, and there are reference cards for units and weapon pickups alike. Once the second wave launches with standalone teams, it will be even easier for newcomers to hop on board.
The rules for the battlefield are seriously smart
The battlefield is split up into a cube grid for measuring distances. That means no messing around with tape measures, and no agonising over models being one quarter inch out of range. But the game does use true line of sight, so if a model looks like it can see a target, it can. It’s altogether cleaner than the Warhammer 40k terrain rules, where different categories of terrain function differently depending on which models are positioned where.
The game modes feel genuinely distinctive.
Halo: Flashpoint recreates classic Halo game modes like Capture the Flag, Stockpile, and of course Slayer, and they all feature respawning troopers. The modes really alter how the game plays – once you’ve captured the Oddball in the mission of the same name you will sacrifice all your other troopers to keep your carrier safe, whereas Strongholds is a pitched battle for control of three fixed objective cubes along the centre line. Warhammer 40k missions are all just different flavors of a war of attrition.
Headshots feel cooler than crits
To shoot, fight, or try to survive an attack in Halo: Flashpoint, you roll a pool of D8s and try to beat your model’s relevant stat – the more successes you score, the better. Each time you roll an eight, that die is a ‘headshot’, and you’ll get to roll one more die. There’s no limit to how many times you can keep generating extra dice.
When you roll three dice and somehow score six successes, you can feel how lucky you are, like you’ve really landed a trickshot or dodged a grenade. It’s a more emotive moment than rolling a pool of dice and fishing for sixes.
Command Dice are smoother than Command Points
Halo: Flashpoint gives each player a set of Command Dice to roll at the start of each round. Each die result lets you do something special that turn, whether that’s add an extra die to a test, shoot for the second time in a turn, or use your team’s unique ability.
Command Points in Warhammer 40k are similar, and in many ways more flexible, but they’re also a system hat runs in parallel to the action on the tabletop, splitting your focus. Command Dice kick off each turn with a random selection of useful little buffs that give you extra tactical options, if you can capitalise on them.
If you want to know more about the rules in Halo: Flashpoint, they’re derived from the existing game Deadzone – our rules rundown will give you the essentials.