Now THAT is how HALO should be played

Looks like we’ll have an all-new way to play HALO battles- right on our tabletops:

Spartan Games has entered into a License Agreement with Microsoft Corporation to design and produce tabletop miniatures games for “Halo®”, the global entertainment phenomenon. The first products will be on sale around the world through Spartan Games’ sales and distribution channels in 2015.

Being the severe HALO addict that I am, I’m kind of in two minds about this.

***WARNING: Extreme HALO nerdistry follows***

On the one hand, based on the promo materials, this actually looks pretty cool:

What, no CSO-class supercarrier?

And no Halcyon-class cruisers?

On the other hand, the big problem here is that, canonically, right up until the end of the Human-Covenant War in 2552, humanity didn’t just get beaten by the Covenant in space- they got slaughtered.

The reason for this is simple. The Covenant, having benefitted from centuries of using technology reverse-engineered from Forerunner constructs under the instructions of the Prophets, had shielded warships with pinpoint-accurate slipspace drive technology and extremely powerful warship armaments. 

By comparison, even with their MAC cannons, Archer missile pods, and Shiva-class nuclear missile batteries, the UNSC Navy was constantly throwing little better than spitwads. Every time the Navy engaged a Covenant fleet in the original HALO storylines, they’d end up losing anywhere between 40% and 90% of their fleets.

While on the ground the Covenant would often suffer horrendous losses- especially after the deployment of the original class of SPARTAN-II supercommandos– in the sky and in space, Covenant dominance was near-total.

So you’ll excuse me if I am deeply sceptical of this game’s ability to deliver a canonically complete and faithful game experience.

***END OF NERDSPLOSION***

Of course, that’s just me being an anal-retentive HALO nerd. It could be that this game turns out to be genuinely great fun, if you can manage to lobotomise yourself forget about the canon while playing it. In which case, by all means, buy a copy.