"Some initial thoughts on Halo: Ground Command" Topic

Just before Christmas picked up a couple of starter sets of Spartan's Halo: Ground Command. Very professional looking boxed set with all the whistles and bells. Still yet to break into the rules in the sense of understanding them. A cursory examination of the figures revealed them to be really good looking, with some flash. My usual opponent who plays Dystopian Wars assured me that their miniatures are usually really good with no flash or mould lines. So I set out preparing them. The figures are nice, detailed, renditions of the protagonists as they appear in the Halo Reach game. The humans are realistically proportioned and the Spartans themselves are suitably bigger than the normal marines.

But the miniatures all seem to have a large number of mould connections and very chunky sprue. Removal is a bit of a pest due to the design the basing system – essentially a single plug on one foot. Even clipping out can result in dangerous amounts of bending at the knees or ankles while trying to clean up the base and the other foot. The detail is almost too fine and the UNSC marines riflemen have a blanked out area between the rifle and the body which appears too think to be flash. Making me wonder if the figures were designed with plastic production in mind. I've yet to assemble a Covenant Elite which are two part models, but the torso and legs do seem to match up well enough. Yet to start on the hunters or the vehicles.

Personally I'm still considering whether to base for the game or base singularly for use with my usual rules systems. But the mix of poses and weapons for the marines isn't that great if you want to build a force not for use with Ground Command.

I saw a demo of this game towards the end of last year and I really liked the miniatures, they looked very nice painted up. Not sure about the game, as I never played it but I do like the look. Not sure on the price though…

I picked up my box sets on the Black Friday sale. So the price was pretty good.

The miniatures are nice. But despite my own warnings I managed to trash two grunts tonight, one was a lost arm, entirely down to cack-handed clipper use (while watching Sherlock), but the other was a knee while trying to trim the base plug. A little bit of space between the base plug and the main part of the sprue would have made life alot easier…

Started work on the Hunters, they go together okay, but the back plates appear not to meet smoothly with the shoulders -and I have gaps. Could be I cocked up somewhere, but I don't think so. The gaps look like they will be ammeanble to some liquid green. Still really nice miniatures and the casts reasonably clean.

Also opened up the Warthog, the resin seems okay, but the metal roll cage and windscreen appears to have been slightly flattened. I'm going to have to carefully bend it into shape.

Minor annoyances, but they are seriously taking the shine off.

A pity about this, since I suspect people were hoping for a bit better quality and pose variety.

Don't get me wrong the quality of the miniatures is top draw, infact I'd go as far as to say they are probably too detailed for their size. They're just let down by some design and casting choices IMO – particularly with regard to the basing. And being anatomically correct means there vunerable at the knees and ankles.

Some photos
link
1. Spartan's with normal a marine and a grunt with core gun – the detail on the grunts cowl is spot on.
2. Hunters
3. Spartan Warthog body with the Micro Ops version, which is annoyingly way bigger. IIRC someone in previous thread asked for some comparison pics.
4. UNSC marines on sprue, weighing 9g and off sprue, weighing 5g.

Thanks for the pics. I'm going to get some.