Halo Ground Command - The Battle for Reach Battle Report

[@neue01]

Holy smokes... attacks are WAAAAAYYYYY to deadly.

[@killingsmalls6356]

Hey I really enjoyed this. I was really rooting for the covenant because I thought the spartan was unstoppable with his 5/6 reaction fire and legend saves. Looking at the cards the UNSC looks way better but I guess its balanced out by the Covenant having less BR points. Also, You keep saying that the grunt squads have react 9/11 but they have an elite minor attached which brings it down to 7/9 because he is a leader upgrade (not an attachment).

[@killingsmalls6356]

7/10*

[@imperatorvegetarius]

But stats wise, any elite that is a Majordomo or above should have the same saving roll as a Spartan, and even perhaps a Soak value for Ultras and Zealots to represent just how good their energy shielding is. An Ultra is also as good as a Spartan, in terms of training and martial prowess. The only reason they are worse than Spartans is purely gameplay related. An AI will never be able to out-perform a player unless you make it cheat. If every Elite was controlled by a (competent) player in any of Halo's campaigns, you would basically never complete the game. It's kinda sad that this 'gamification' has translated to the written lore and to other games such as this, there really is no reason why and Elite should represent any less of a threat than a Spartan II, and yet they are constantly used as throw-away enemies in Halo's other media and even in recent games. I'm looking at you, Halo 5.

[@JTMC93]

thelvadamee14 IIRC in the stand alone profiles, outside the unit upgrades, that have been shown/hinted they actually are strong. Though they are usually close combat only units. And the Zealots are the only ones even mentioned as being near a Spartan that are being used in this game IIRC and their save is more to do with their suicidal abandon according to the lore. I.E. they don't have a Pin Point Shield nor are they really dodging as the others would do to the mindset they have.

[@S22SgtMax]

@@imperatorvegetarius a spartan II can pick up an elite and throw it meters away with ease, not to mention a spartan II are so much quicker then an elite. Mabe on par with a spartan 4 but not a 2 or barely a 3

[@patrick4357543]

Thank you very much! due to school, no time to play, paint, or anything. Cheers mate and keep them coming!

[@nyxtimene9917]

OMG OMG HELL YES. BEEN WAITING FOREVER FOR SOMEONE TO DO THIS.

[@bitzbox]

Stop Watching-Me haha we hope you will enjoy it.

[@Frodo58]

So excited to see you guys put out bat reps for this game. I've waited ages for them!

[@LibertyLion1776]

Really nice setup guys.

[@tommoolenaar3901]

Thanks for delivering, guys!

[@paintballpilot4139]

Loved the video, I have been waiting for a ground command battle report forever!

[@RAYWILLIAMJ0HNSON19]

O wow this is great more of this plz this is great.

[@ColasTeam]

Quite an enjoyable format, other videos edit out too much or don't explain what's going on at all so it's hard to follow the game, this was very well done. Also, i'm not sure if it's intentional, and i'm not completely familiar with the rules, but the Warhog seems a bit OP doesn't it?

[@JTMC93]

ColasTeam In my experience they are a bit of a glass cannon. Though I have only played larger games where there tend to be more anti-armor bouncing around.

[@burger7088]

I’d love to play this game but I can only find people selling it for 400$ on Ebay

[@DarthP00P00]

There is a large 3D printing community on Facebook keeping the game alive.

[@blaiser8827]

WERE CAN YOU GET THIS IN THE U.S IN STORES

[@Rhazagal]

Will you be making more videos once the December releases roll out? Loved this battle report and the game looked so interesting I just had to get the box during Black Friday!

[@bitzbox]

Rhazagal its likely we'll do the odd game here and there but it will be in the new year. We plan on getting the new releases of course

[@deece1482]

Massive shame the game is gone now.

[@baldrickthedungspreader3107]

I bought some second hand minis for it recently, what happened to it ?

[@DarthP00P00]

@@baldrickthedungspreader3107 the developers went under.

[@baldrickthedungspreader3107]

@@DarthP00P00 a shame

[@Shadowhunt005]

Will you be making more of these videos?

[@nyxtimene9917]

Infantry get shredded by armor. Something tells me these games will be very bloody and traumatizing for all involved.

[@pacificstatesofamerica]

Did you paint them?

[@CarlosContreras-gk9gp]

AMAZING

[@clivehitchcock529]

Guys thanks for this, it really shows us how to learn to play. Question at 4.00. Why was 3 dice rolled for the heroic save attempt?

[@JTMC93]

Clive Hitchcock the dice allocation overflowed onto him giving him a total of 12 damage. 12 divided by 4 is 3. He had to save for each group of 4 damage. Hopefully that makes sense.

[@thing2582]

im so confused on melee in this game

[@dillonhansen3839]

Is there any other halo minature games? I feel like the halo series has such good potetnial for miniwargames

[@bitzbox]

There was also Halo Fleet Battles. It's mostly community based now

[@thedrumstick394]

so I'm still struggling with the firepower rating do the unsc units also get a extra +1 to their rating if they fire within short range or just a covenant thing like I said still struggling with the firepower hope someone can explain

[@bitzbox]

The Drumstick it varies from unit to unit and should be on their stat card

[@thedrumstick394]

Bitzbox so unless it says on the card gains extra +1 like the rockets at long range it's the usual rating of 4

[@ethanevenson3855]

I feel like in the next 6 months to maybe a year and change, we’ll see something in the Halo universe that’s heroic scale(or 28-32mm). Halo miniatures of close to that size have sold well consistently. The Hero Clix had a decent run, right now the Metalfigs are still on, and even the Mega Construx stuff is reasonably close to heroic scale, or at least 1 inch base mini height. The biggest issue with Ground Command was the block infantry that the game just does absolutely nothing with. In Blucher, Rommel, or even Flames of war, the battles are absolutely enormous. At minimum, you have hundreds of troops fighting over an entire battlefield, spanning a few kilometres in most sub-20mm games. For small scale historicals, you also put like 5-10 soldiers on each block, so it really looks like block sections of men that you’re moving around. Battles in Halo really don’t work like that. Maybe something really huge like 6mm Rommel could be good for a planetary battle, but the infantry engagements in the games, even the RTS ones, involve a few sections of soldiers, and maybe a vehicle or two. I think the biggest battles in 3 and Reach involved only a few dozen enemies, and the player only engages about 10 at most at one time. Really, having each soldier on their own base at 28mm makes the most sense. The game also does nothing with the block infantry. The bases are small and fiddly, and only fit 3 Marines or Covenant infantry. It’s like they opted out of the awesome “holy shit, that one block has 10 guys on it” design of most small scale games, but also avoided letting players enjoy individual figures, and it actually makes the movement and tactics really weird. It’s not satisfying and doesn’t scream Halo to me. I really like the blocks for the hunters, the way vehicles look, and how Spartans are on their own bases, but the format of the figures is really a problem. A lot of teenagers buy a box of Space Marines that they never play, just because the models look interesting, and are big and detailed. This has been going on for decades, and I’ve seen so many Halo fans trying to convert Warhammer figures just as shelf ornaments. Smaller scales are not at all a death sentence for a game, there just has to be some kind of counter-balancing positive. The one good thing about 343i being kinda fast and loose with licensing Halo is that they’ll hand it to another TTWG developer before too long, I just hope it preserves more of the identity of the source, and sells better as a result.

[@Solitude_Guard_]

The issues ground command had could have been solved with time (warhammer also started out with blocks, but eventually moved onto round bases), it is just a shame they never ended up getting the time they needed to solve those problems as I think they had several things going for them.

[@ethanevenson3855]

@@Solitude_Guard_ That’s not true, 40k had Hex, circle, and square bases. Their minis were also 20mm-30mm heroic from the start, so there’s that ‘action figure’ appeal to the minis. It did take after WH fantasy with block movement being possible in earlier editions, but it doesn’t have the same issue as GC where you have tiny figures but not very many of them. Look at epic 40k, where a movement block has 5+ characters on it, or Kings of War, where there’s a bajillion guys on the base. GC was in this middle ground where the figures were small and not plentiful. The game also not being that available in North America was a huge issue. All of this could have been remedied in time, of course, but they really shot themselves in the foot a few times.

[@joshuadarrow]

@@ethanevenson3855 It didn't help that taking on new game systems, especially with big name IPs like Halo, was the LAST THING spartan games should have been doing at the time. I can only hope that if 343 and Microsoft make another attempt at partnering with a tabletop company, they pick one that can actually develop and produce models and rules on the level expected. Fantasy Flight, for instance.

[@ethanevenson3855]

@@joshuadarrow I think GF9 was the obvious pick, seeing as their roster of games at the time wasn’t large at all, and they actually know 15mm. Like if there were 5+ models per base and the battles were huge in scale like Flames of War, Ground Command would still be around.

[@ausaskar]

@@ethanevenson3855 GF9 (Battlefront) was smart enough to pick a videogame franchise they could tie into their historical lines (World of Tanks), while I'd love to see a "Flames of Halo" or "Fire Team Charlie" with their excellent plastics to match, I think they're already running at max capacity with their 3 existing games.

[@8752stephent]

Thanks loved the battle report. However, for those watching please note I'm pretty sure there were some fundamental errors made regarding rules.

[@bitzbox]

There may well be as this is the first game I've ever played of it and Wayne's 2nd or 3rd I believe. If you know of any rules errors please point them out for us. It's the only way we'll learn lol

[@8752stephent]

I won't cover mini stuff but there was a couple of fundamental things which occurred throughout the game: 1. Re-rolls. I think this was a holdover from Fleet Battles. Unlike that game you cannot re-roll a dice that has already been re-rolled. This means that if on your first roll you got 6 "circles" that is the maximum dice you can re-roll. If you re-roll these and they come up "circles" you can't re-roll the new "circles" even if you have the "2's" to do it. 2. Shooting and LOS If you shoot at a unit where you can see most of the unit but an element from the unit is out of sight you cannot apply damage to the element you can't see. 3. Cover The use of cover in the game was incorrect in a few places, for example: At one point you fired with 2 Warthogs at the Zealot and a couple of other bases he was attached to. One Warthog had a clear line of sight while the other was blocked by the Hill. You shot with both Warthogs applying a -1 Firepower to the roll. This is incorrect you should only have fired with the Warthog that had LOS and used no penalty on it's Firepower of 4. Most of the other things were either similar to the above or small things like having the Ghosts try react against the Warthogs when they weren't in arc so not really major issues. Hope this helps. Regards Ste T

[@JTMC93]

Still early on in the video but him saying that reacting costs an Activation is incorrect IIRC. That is a Gates of Antares/Bolt Action/Konflikt '47 thing.

[@nooneimportant3477]

Will you do a unboxing of the scorpion tank?

[@bitzbox]

Draigan Fairgrieve I'm hoping to unbox the scorpion and wraiths when we get them

[@nooneimportant3477]

Bitzbox ok thanks

[@Hectorlo]

What's the name of the song in the intro?

[@atlantabrave2557]

Hectorlo sacred icon suite 2

[@roaminglycan1491]

Us all you units and play to the last man please