Detachments and Teams are now live!

The Detachments digital expansion for Halo:Flashpoint is now live on the Index, and also available to purchase as a PDF from the Mantic webstore. Today I’d like to share a bit more background on how Detachments came about, and the thought process that went into bringing this expansion to life.

It  all started in one of our planning meetings. We were discussing all the cool new things we wanted to bring to Halo Flashpoint, and at some point, Ronnie posed the question: what if I want to play with ODST’s on their own as a faction? Nobody would want to do that, surely?

That question set things in motion, and one thing became apparent very quickly to myself and the Rules Committee – by focusing on a narrower selection of units, it would allow us to increase the power of those units, knowing that you cannot supplement them with Spartans or Sangheili Mercenaries. Essentially, this shift in the internal balance dynamics of the factions would open up some cool new design space for us to play in.

As development progressed, these forces started to take on their own identity. To really set them apart from standard UNSC or Banished lists, an extra layer was needed – and that’s where Fireteam Upgrades were born!

The beauty of these upgrades is that they are entirely new and allowed us to lean into the lore of the Detachments more – applying appropriate options that incentivised or reinforced a style of play.  Each Detachment has multiple ways to play and rewards you for building your Fireteam towards a unified goal – for example, taking Aerial Deployment for Jiralhanae and Drop Pods, combined with Enraged for Berserkers makes for a very brutal sledgehammer list! Likewise, you can lean into the suppression tactics of the ODST by adding Rapid Fire to 3 models in your ODST Corps list.

Detachments have been thoroughly playtested over the last year to ensure they balance up to what’s out now, and what’s yet to come in the future.  We have more in the pipeline for them and may even be adding new units to both Detachments soon.   Watch this space!

Organised Play: Teams!

Another exciting change to the Halo: Flashpoint Index is the addition of Teams.

You can now form a team with your friends for competitive play. When you compete in a tournament, the combined score of your top four team members will become your team ranking.

Team rankings will be tracked on a separate table, and there will be a reward each season for the top performing team – giving you yet another reason to get out there with your friends and compete!

In the Index, you can toggle between “Players” and “Teams” to see the separate Team Rankings:

When you set up your Team, you can customise it with a name, a description, and a badge. This will show on the Rankings table too – showing off your allegiance to the wider player base.

Each player can only be part of one team – and if you create a team, you are the captain of that team, which enables you to add and remove people from the team

Season 0 Spartan Head Winners!

You may remember that at the end of Season 0, we selected a lucky winner alongside Chris Fox to be immortalised in miniature form.

It’s taken a little while, but the oversized models are now nearly ready, and we’re looking forward to getting them out to Chris and Greg soon.

Until next time, I hope you enjoy the latest additions to Flashpoint and stay tuned for the next big thing…

Cleric