I've played 5 battles of it now over the last week, and I am really surprised by how much I like it. At first I thought it would be a tad simple, but after the 5 games I realize now that there is allot of little adjustments that can be made to make it a deeper experience (such as formations, the commander card thing, do I take 2 Sabre interceptors, or 4 Longsword interceptors!?, that sort of thing).
I have played all the games, and read some of the books, and I thought at first that the UNSC would either be easily defeated, or they would be over powered (to be playable). I personally have found them fun to play, Do I stay back and get my missile bonus ? or do I get in close and target one enemy ship at a time and hope of the best ? Choices have to be made (and I like that).
The Covenant seem to have less options, but I do LIKE the fact that once they choose an UNSC ship to die, it normally does, the Plasma bonus plus their commanders bonus's basically ensure that you can destroy what you want once a turn. Getting in close is fun too.
The UNSC commander can add allot to boarding actions, but you have to choose a ship to board wisely and hope you roll well as you cannot afford to get bogged down in boarding all game (you lose ships quickly).
The Covenant commander is all about getting in close and using his plasma to good affect. I played a game as the UNSC were I destroyed most of the Covenant fleet at long range, with only a damaged CCS Battlecruiser to face my 3 Heavy cruisers and 5 elements of Frigates. On the Covenant turn, the battlecruiser blew through a UNSC Cruiser with ease with his primary weapons on one roll, then quickly destroyed a frigate element with his secondaries… all in a couple of die rolls. It was quite the comeback. Then repaired his damage and weathered all my attacks. On his phase, the battlecruiser destroyed another Frigate element (3 frigates) with primaries and badly damaged a heavy cruiser at long range. He died shortly after, but when we counted before hand, the UNSC was up 8-0, when we counted at the end, it was 8-4. If only he had one or two corvettes to help out… The game was a nail biter all the way to the end.
I really like several things about this game aside from Halo..
1) The two factions play different.
2) The fighter phase is easy and quick to play through.
3) The boarding phase is longer, but just as easy and you cant help but play the boarding action out in your mind as you are doing it making it fun to talk about with friends.
4) The models are a great scale wise, not too small, not too big… perfect for me.
5) The game is also my cup of tea scale wise. The big ships play like big ships (that you care about), the small ships act like you would think they would. They don't have much effect on their own, but in coordination with bigger ships really, really help.
6) The "build rating" mechanic, allows me to tinker with a sort of army list mentality, wondering what will give me the best chance to win with the points I have to spend. Do I overload with Frigates ? or do I choose 2 Cruisers and some support frigates ? choices ! When they flesh it out more with extra ships and commander cards, it might really become a fun time just thinking about all the choices you can make.
7) The models are quick to put down and quick to take off. At first the element system bugged me, I thought it would take away from the feeling of ship to ship action, why should I not care about those little Frigates ? don't they get a saving throw ? Nope !!. After 5 games, my problem with it has vanished. A quick game to me is not 1 or 2 hours. Its start setting up at 5:30pm, go home at 10:30, and have played a fleet game all the way through that contained 100+ ship models, Fighters, bombers and boarding actions. A complete fleet experience. A game that will give both sides a chance to win if they use the strengths of their fleets to full advantage. Not many spaceships games I've played gave me all that.
I sounds like I am a Halo fan boy which is honestly not true, but I an a fan boy of space ship gaming. After I listened to Meeples pod cast and watched Beasts of War thingy I said I would try it, and happily after playing it a few times, I think I love it. Forget Halo, call it something else if you like, but if you like Fleet gaming, its a good one.
The Box size did not bother me, it was too big for the amount of stuff inside, but I think they wanted the non gamer Halo fans to think they were looking at an Xbox 360/One. They would simply relate to it instantly as an official Halo/Microsoft thing and buy it. Its totally OK with me, if 1 in a thousand end up liking miniature wargaming after, we all win ! Getting kids and young people into this hobby is hard enough, this truly might help. Although I don't think Spartan games have done a every good job of advertising it to anyone other than current wargamers. 100% of non wargamer kids I mentioned it too even knew it existed so far.
Anyway, good job Spartan Games !
explains step-by-step how he painted 
