Halo: Flashpoint – The Banished Get New Rules For Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, & Elites
The regular infantry of the Banished are coming to the tabletop as part of the new Zeta Halo wave.
It’s already shaping up to be a big summer for Halo: Flashpoint players. With the reveal of the Zeta Halo wave, the enemies of the Spartans and UNSC are arriving in force. Today, the fine folk at Mantic have shared a Faction Focus on the deadly alien forces of the Banished.
Commonly known as Brutes due to their size and ferocity, the Jiralhanae are an aggressive species of pseudo-ursine mammalian bipeds who traditionally band together in packs, with alliances between packs forming larger clans. The constant conflict between these clans led to a nuclear war that devastated their homeworld Doisac, and many of their species’ younger generation gladly embraced the Covenant and its faith in the Great Journey.
However, the Jiralhanae were deployed as cannon fodder and disposable shock troops in the Covenant’s war against humanity, resulting in Atriox rebelling against the Covenant and founding a new faction of mercenaries, independents, and loyal followers: the Banished.
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Grunts and Jackals
They’re just little guys… the Grunts have long been favorite enemies for Halo players. They’re endearing somehow, even as they try to annihilate you with handfuls of plasma grenades. Now, this heartwarming moment is coming to your games of Flashpoint with a new Special Order.
Grunts are Support models for your force. This gives them a swathe of rules:
- Only half of your overall Fireteam (by number of models) can be made of units with the Support keyword.
- They are worth zero Victory Points for scoring.
- Less proficient with long-range weaponry, so firing anything with a range of 5 or more counts as a long action.
- Generally smaller minis, so you can include an extra Support unit when counting whether a cube is full.
Grunts are also the first beneficiaries of the existing Horde keyword. This has been in the ruleset for sometime but these are the first models to benefit from it.
Jackals, on the other hand, are not Support units. They’re also low-cost models so they’re a great complement to your Grunts on the tabletop. Alternately, they make solid low-cost options to add to your Banished Fireteams. It’s also been revealed that the Jackal’s energy shields come as translucent model components so your crackling energy shields will look great even unpainted. Super cool.
Brutes
A step up from the puny Grunts and Jackals, the Jiralhanae add some heavy hitting power to your Banished forces. Hulking, heavily armored warriors, all of the Jiralhanae have the Imposing keyword making them more resilient and able to hit harder during an assault.
They’re also receiving a +1 increase to their HP in the recent 1.5 balance update. Not Berserkers, though. Those boys were beefy enough. Their character, Warmaster Atriox is also getting a +1 increase to his armor making him just as tough as you’d expect.
Sangheili Elites
Mercenary elites, the Sangheili are fantastic jack-of-all-trades warriors for your army. The possess solid stats but are particularly great at ranged attacks and all possess 3 Energy Shield Tokens as standard equipment. They will be further bolstered later this summer with the arrival of the Enforcer. Armed with the standard Plasma Grenade of Sangheili, he’s further armed with a vicious Shock Rifle.
Banished Faction Bundle
If you’re new to Flashpoint or just looking to start a Banished army there is now a Faction Bundle available for pre-order . It includes the Banished Faction Box, the Banished Reinforcements box set, and the Halo Flashpoint 1.5 Rulebook and Cards pack. Releasing in September, it’s priced at $219.00 a savings of $20.00. Not a bad deal!
Urge to paint needlers growing…
