Halo Flashpoint Combat Evolved : For the Nostalgia Gods

Boards Getting Closer

The boards need a nudge to get them closer to looking like the game. More grass green, more coverage, and let’s tie the board edges together better.

Stippppppppppple …

Ok. Better! The grass green is a bit shockingly green, but gosh darn it if it doesn’t harken to the Halo game more.

Final things needed will be to blacken the edges and add an attachment point to hang these on the wall. Later. Let’s get into some terrain element planning now. It’s ideas time.

Terrain Element Inspiration

I think pictures are worth all the words I could speak about the game level “Halo”, so plucking images straight from a play through, here are the terrain features and elements that stand out to me.

Terrain Elements

1. Beacon (the focal feature)
2. Supporting Structure
3. Pipes
4. Antennas (two types)
5. Trees
6. Gumdrop Rocks

I think a couple additional things might be good to remember to add/capture …

A fallen tree is an excellent element, even if I’m pulling from a later level. (Cheat code enabled!)

Gotta have purple blood splatter. Yesssssss.

The bridge style from the internals of the beacon is very applicable to Deadzone style bridges that span structures. Let’s make some!

Thoughts On How To Go About This

One thing is very clear: the structures cannot be to actual in game scale. The focal point beacon would take up an entire board in itself. While that could be cool, I think we need to fudge this so that it looks and feels right but isn’t 1 to 1.

As I look and think about what could be used to make these elements it becomes clear we can apply another design constraint to ourself, which I think amps up the theme fit. Let’s make all this as we might of in the 90s/early-00s and let’s make it with an eye toward being beginner build friendly.

The Halo Flashpoint starter boxes are an amazing starting experience where you can simply unbox and play. Let’s keep an eye toward this terrain project being the first terrain set a new player might want to make if they are expanding outside the contents of the box.

Summary:

1. Scale adjusted structures to fit boards, 40mm tall Spartans, and not 1:1 with the video game
2. Design constrain: Make this terrain a “next steps” after unboxing and playing with Recon/Spartan edition starter boxes.
   1. No fancy bespoke terrain making tools required
   2. Materials all cheap and easily found: foam core boards, dollar store evergreen plastic trees, pva glue, sand, paint, brushes, cereal boxes, etc.

Next Steps:

Let’s go tackle a mock up of the beacon structure. We can use it to right size all other elements to. Time to build something rough, slapdash, and horribly wonderful. Here we go …

Stand in the place where you were …

We will put together two 2’x2′ Flashpoint/Deadzone boards in a manner I have used before. If you are in the USA, grab these boards from a local Home Despot, and you are already 1/3 of the way done.

Formular XPS Foam Sheet : About ~$10 each

I’m Going To Have To Put You On The Game Grid

Measure Twice. Score Once.

Using ruler, or t-square, mark out your boards into 3 inch cubes. Lightly score the board along the lines to bring out the game grid.

Here is where I’m going to make a first design choice. While modern miniature wargaming would use a lot of texture and grit to bring out realism, Halo Combat Evolved used pasted on 2D image maps grafted onto 3D low poly elements. To evoke that, we are going to keep it flat flat flat.

I think the mantra for this project might be: “Flat is Beautiful”

I will just use a 50/50 mix of mod podge and tan craft paint as my base. It will take at least two coats to get this down, because foam can be kind of thirsty.

Give ample time between coats to let fully dry. In the current heat wave here that’s about 2 hours. Your milage will vary.

I See A Tan Board and I Want to Paint It Flat

Next we are going to grab a cheap brush, some more craft paints, and we are going to attempt to get the board to evoke this …

Stipple Like It’s Going Outta Style

We will probably need at least 3 different paint colors: lighter tan, dark green, lighter green.

An alternative to this may be just glueing static grass down flat to the board. We may do a little of that too.

For now, let’s get our stipple on and see how it goes …

Done For Now

It’s a good start. While more tan/dirt is showing, than our example pictures from in game, the boards are give the right flat repeated texture look. I will probably add another round of grass green stippling, to help tie the board edges in more, and to get a little more coverage. We are going to move on, figuring more out, and circle back later on that.

Pro Tip: If going for this old school bit map texture look, let the pattern of the brush marks come through a bit more than normal. Often we try to hide and vary the pattern of dots put down. In this case let a bit of that show through, rotate your pattern, but keep it the recognizable dot pattern. It visually speaks of that repeated bit map pattern being paced down.

Up Next

Time to research the specific terrain elements we are after (trees, rocks, structures), make some more design decisions, and try a few mock ups on this board. Here we go …