Posts made by Thesk 'Darram
posted in Sins of the Prophets read more

I'm doing a project of mine; in this short-ish story, I have a Sangheili shipmaster of a CCS (or maybe an ORS) who's loyal to the Arbiter. However, while on patrol in the JOZ, his ship gets ambushed by Sapien Sunrise extremists who are surprisingly well armed with decent ships. They don't want to destroy the cruiser, but instead hyjack it and use it to start glassing human colonies along the JOZ to worsen relationships between the 2 species. It's up to the Shipmaster and his crew to deny them this prize at any cost.

I've been wondering how I should go about getting these Extremists ONTO the ship. Here's my best thought:
They have 1 or 2 carriers full of bomber craft & several small escort and anti-fighter ships.
They also use a smashed up Light Covenant Corvette secretly rigged with EMP-type explosives as bait for the Cruiser, at the most hoping to have the CCS within range of explosives to knock out its shields.

After the trap is sprung, the Innies close in, a Carrier and small battle group coming at the ship from two sides of its rear and several more ships on a suicidal distraction at the prow.

Some heavier corvettes or whatever human ship is best as anti-fighter action wait to deliver huge damage to the Sangheili fighters and other escorts try and distract or take out defenses along the Hangers.

The Carriers are within range and they send out their bombers to attack the ventral launch bays, with transports right behind to dock commandos in EVA to the site.

Then the Innies ships bug out, hoping to draw the cruiser away from the planet and possible help while their teams act.

They plan to take hold up in the hanger areas while squads go for the Engineering section and the Bridge.

And that's where the Sangheili have to fight for control of their own ship.

posted in General Discussion read more

@insaene said in Welp... Remember me? :):

:) The forum died a little. A shame!

WE SHALL LIVE ON!

posted in Covenant read more

Well of course. I need to be accurate with my information.

posted in General Discussion read more

I'm honestly mixed. One thing I like about the 343 style are, to an extent, the lights. During Bungie's era, the Forerunners were dead. Majority of their tech wasn't having too much of an effect on the galaxy as a whole outside of the Covenant & UNSC adapting some of the tech for their own.

After Halo 4, with the awakening of the Prometheans & the Didact, it's like the Forerunners are still dead but their powers are reemerging. The previously lethargic tech is being revitalized, with more power visibly rushing through them.

Now that doesn't mean I think it's all great as the lights can be absolutely BLINDING. As for the physical assets themselves, I'm honestly not a fan. There's so much visual noise going on, wit takes away from any sense of majesty. The pillars of Requiem, that absolutely gorgeous scene in the second mission of H4 right before we grab a Warthog, is a fine balance between the classic style & a reawakening theme. The Guardians I hold as exactly NOT what to do.

posted in Covenant read more

One thing I loved about Ground Command is how it started to flesh out the Covenant as an army. They weren't some hoard that just swarmed over anything & everything. Even a dogmatic religious army would have some regimentation, especially an Interstellar one. All information collected from Halopedia:

Levy - Previously known as Files, Levies are made up of the cannon fodder of the Covenant, low-rank Grunt soldiers. In battle, vast numbers of ill-trained levies were used for front-line combat as well as various menial roles.

It's noted that they're made up of only 3 Grunts, but I wonder if that's merely to coincide with the convenience for the Table Top models as we have seen grunts in-game in groups of 4 without a Major leading them.

Lance - A grouping of low-ranking or low-caste warriors, led by an officer. These could be comparable to UNSC Fireteams even though some older material compares them to Squads.

In composition, they can be made up of presumably Elite Minors under a Major/Officer. Perhaps around 3-4 as we saw in Halo 3 & Reach? A lance could also be made up of several Grunt Levies, though the exact number isn't stated.
I remember in older material it said there'd be 3 files now known as Levies, with maybe 1 or 2 Elite Minors supporting the Major. However, I doubt that's the case given the next formation.

File - What used to be the smallest formation is now the largest, a File is described as an administrative grouping of low-tier warriors under the command of an officer.

Now this one is a bit more confusing as, though it's described as being closer to the size of a UNSC squad which is roughly 8-13 marines. The examples for a File given don't seem to be that much bigger than a Lance or a Levy.
Even though they're composition is described as being quite diverse, the only numbers we're given are 5 Grunts led by a Grunt Major or 5 Spec-ops Elites led by an Officer (So this'd include some specialist soldiers as well). Again, I have to wonder if this was merely for the sake of the Table Top. If so, I hoped we could've gotten more distinction between a Lance & a File.

  • On a side note: Most of these seem to only be in regards towards Grunt & Elite Infantry. Not much on our beloved Jackals save that they can be in a file (no numbers) under a Grunt Major... Wait, where's my Jackal Major?!

Other than that, we have Warhosts that serve as some non-permanent combined-arms force, and a Legion that is more permanent and we have no real numbers on either of them.

All in all, I do like what we'd gotten so far. With a bit of fine tuning and additions, I think there could be a lot more really cool army formations could be made for both the table top & in the larger lore as a whole.

posted in General Discussion read more

@sierra075 said in Halo Tabletop: What do we do now?:

we pray and wait its all we can do

Surely we can do SOMETHING. Couldn't the rules, stats, etc. be archived online? Or would that carry some legal issues even with Spartan Games closed down?

posted in General Discussion read more

I really don't want these two games to just fade into obscurity. I'm sure 343 will do something, but seeing as Devs usually like to stay tight lipped on these issues, I can't help but feel anxious.

So in the meantime, what do we fans do?