Some more details have emerged about the upcoming partnership between both 343 Industries, the folks behind the Halo video games, and Spartan Games with their new miniatures wargame featuring ships from the game and some that are not! It's all canon though!

They kick things off with the Covenant...

Covenant ORS Heavy Cruiser - The ORS Heavy cruiser isn’t exactly the type of thing that any UNSC captain wants to see appear on their viewscreen. Boasting a variety of stealth-related advancements as well as both plasma lance and cleansing beam capabilities, the ORS Heavy cruiser takes the already-impressive destructive capabilities of the CRS (Light cruiser), CCS (Battle cruiser), and RCS (Armored cruiser) class warships and ups the ante considerably.

UNSC Epoch-class Carrier - The Epoch-class is the heaviest of the UNSC carriers, trumping both the mid-range Orion-class carrier and the post-War Poseidon-class light carrier (seen in Halo 4) in tonnage. Capable of withstanding considerable punishment, the Epoch often finds itself serving as the lynchpin of any fleet action.

...and they look very nice indeed. One of the big things that was put forward by the Halo team is that this is meant for you to fight out battles both real and imagined from the Halo-verse. You can add ships into significant engagements that maybe weren't there the first time just to see how it all plays out. Think of it as wargames in the real sense.

The UNSC aren't to be left out of the equation either with their brutish looking ships that are designed as effectively massive guns. I love the look of them and it's very 'to the point' and blunt which makes for great ship design. They even come in battleship grey for that real hardcore feeling.

Paris-Class Frigate - From the 343 Industries’ perspective this was a simple design to approve, as it was based on the highpoly model from Halo: Reach. There were almost no changes needed beyond tiny details that had to be altered for the scale and casting in plastic.

Marathon-Class Cruiser - This required more work than might have been expected, though we obviously had a head-start in that we could make use of the amazingly detailed model created by Blur for the remastered Halo 2: Anniversary cinematics! The first choice by Spartan Games was to use the more recognizable Halcyon-class cruisers, but unfortunately that did not work for fictional reasons (as described in Halo: The Fall of Reach). However, that doesn’t mean we won’t see the Pillar of Autumn or other Halcyon vessels in the future!

The team have also talked about more work that has gone into the project over on the link above so I urge you to jump on over and read some more. I think this could be a really good co-operative endeavour and both sides seem adamant to make this a properly awesome wargame.

Are you liking the look and design?