HaloClix: Attacking

Most people have heard of the Halo series. The Halo 3 Xbox game will be released Sept 25th of 2007. But this article is about the Halo board game. We have all seen the first person shooter in action, either on an Xbox or PC. Well Wizkids has created a turn based strategy (TBS) board game. The basic idea is the same as the video game. Kill all the opponents and be the last one standing. However how you choose to do this is completely in your hands.

The board game offers three different character races. The Flood, Covenant, and humans or UNSCDF. Each race and unit offers a special and unique way to play the game. The basic rules of the game entail moving, attacking and getting 5 kill points. There are more rules both advanced and special ability related. But the very basic starter rules have you set a spawn point and have a team of 400 points or less. On your turn you have three actions to give to three of your units.

You can move, attack, move and attack or move and cover. Move and attack are exactly what they mean. However, the move and attack and move and cover actions add something new to the heroclix series. You can move and attack in the same turn, but if you move more than 4 squares you have to subtract 3 from your attack rate. Attack and cover allows you to attack and then move one space in any direction.

The game mat you play on is like a giant piece of graph paper. The grid is a ten by ten grid. When you are going to attack an opponent you can attack either with a gun, grenade or melee attack. Your range of shooting is unlimited as long as the enemy is in line of sight. When shooting you can shoot either in a straight line or diagonally. With a melee attack you can only attack a enemy unit adjacent to you. Grenades are a slight bit tricky to execute and explain, so please bear with this explanation.

A grenade can be thrown up to five spaces away. The square the grenade is thrown has a base defense of 12 points with an additional point for each square between the attacker and defender. If the grenade does hit it will do 4 damage or 4 clix on the enemy unit. So for example you throw a grenade diagonally two squares away. The enemy unit gets a defense of 12+2=14. Your attacking unit has attack points of 7 and you roll 9 with two dice. Your attack of 16 is greater than the defense of 14 and the enemy has to click their dial 4 times.