Halo for Gruntz15mm - Halo Ground Command

I was fortunate enough in the day to have purchased some of the Halo Ground Command miniatures from the now defunct Spartan Games. These are 15mm metal miniatures. But I wasn't a fan of the game system or the multi-bases for the soldiers. I only prefer multi-bases for 10mm and below.

Finding Gruntz 15mm recently has breathed new life into these miniatures. My test squad is finally finished and ready for the tabletop.

Painting was a very simple process.

• carefully cut off the plug that is attached to each miniatures foot that's used for the multi-base.
• Prime in black spray
• drybrush fatigues in light grey
• paint combat armour in a suitable green colour
• paint the skin
• drybrush the weapon with a gun metal metallic paint
• wash in Agrax Earthshade
• do the base...done!

Sarge!

This is the combat medic

Field comms

Fireteam Alpha

One team down. Just a few more to go.

Hotwheels Warthog for 15mm Warhammer 40K

"Are you serious?" I hear you ask. Yes, dear reader, I am serious. 

So, I wanted some fast-moving vehicles for my 15mm Imperial Guard units, and I decided to have a play around with the Hotwheels UNSC Warthog from Halo famer. Turns out that this is a pretty good match. Given that I am doing 40k in 15mm, why the hell not give the Guard some fast moving light recon vehicles. Haven't got a clue about the stat's for this thing in game as yet. But given its 15mm, the One Page Rules may come in handy for this.

In hindsight, I probably should have painted the Guard's first before affixing them to the Warthogs. But hey, what can I say, I'm stupid and will pay for it later when I try to paint them.

 So, there you go. Lots still to paint and base. But given I'm showing off what I haven't finished yet this year, here's another idea for you to play with for yourself.

UNSC Pelican for Epic, 10mm & 15mm scale wargaming

Keeping up my efforts to show off all the half painted and unfinished stuff I'm working on right now, I thought I would show off my small selection of UNSC Pelican dropships. In the photo above you can see the Dark Horse UNSC Pelican Dropship between two 3D printed original version Pelicans that I bought of Ebay or Etsy. The Dark Horse version is 6" in scale, and I bought it on Amazon. The 3D printed versions I purchased at the 20cm size, but also come in a smaller and larger size.

I'm happy with the print quality of these as they show up some nice detail whilst being robust enough not to break with general usage. I haven't finished painting the 3D models. But I will be using the Dark Horse version as a painting guide when I get some time to finish these off.

I have sci-fi mini's at Epic, 10mm and 15mm scale, as well as some 28-32mm scale for roleplaying games. So, these babies will be for use with the smaller scales, up to the 15mm scale. You can see how these fit below when compared to the Vanguard Miniatures 15mm space orcs. At the 15mm scale, these ships will be for the Imperial Guard, and I may consider getting a version for the Space Marines. The 20mm version would be too big for Epic scale however.

 Soooo what else is sitting unfinished on the table?

HALO Ground Command Covenant Phantom dropship

Speaking of Spartan Games going bust 😒

Poor lads at Spartan! They produced some wonderful games and I'm sad to see them go out of business.

I frantically bought a bunch of Halo Ground Command and Halo Fleet Battles items before my local store sold out. Needless to say, one's wallet is rather thin at the moment.

One of the things I did manage to lay my hands on was the Covenant Phantom dropship. This is the same size as the UNSC Pelican dropship (see post here). So it suits 10mm nicely but isn't sized to fit with the Halo Ground Command 15mm sized miniatures. So in fond farewell to Spartan Games, below are a few pictures of what you get (or would have gotten) in the box.

Flying stand, tokens and front side of the Phantom's data sheet

The model itself and the other side of the data sheet

Needless to say, I wouldn't doubt that 343 Industries will be looking to licence someone else to carry the game forwards and that would very likely mean that 343 has possession of the molds for these miniatures. So they may very well come back in to production some time in the near future.

Halo Ground Command UNSC Pelican Dropship

UNSC Pelican Dropship components

My pre-order for the Halo Ground Command UNSC Pelican Dropship arrived during the week from The Combat Company and I have only really just had the time to have a decent look at it. So here are some pictures showing the miniature and its scale compared to the 15mm UNSC troops.

The first images are of the data cards and order chips that come with the miniature.

Below you can see the large flight stand that comes with the miniature.

Below is the miniature itself on my cutting board. Next to the miniature are a set of 15mm UNSC troopers still on their spru (confession time - I haven't yet painted any of my Halo Ground Command units, much to my shame. Too many other things that need painting right now). The scale on my cutting board is inches, even though I'm a metric dude.

Pelican model (top) with wings detached

Pelican model (side)

Pelican model (underneath)

The model comes with the rear hatch sealed. So no internal details are visible.

Given that the Pelican is 1:300 scale, I've put together a comparison shot below comparing the Pelican, the UNSC 15mm troops and some 10mm Pendraken Miniatures SciFi soldiers. As you can see, the 10mm soldiers are more in scale with the Pelican.

10mm Pendraken SciFi soldiers next to 15mm UNSC troopers

Spartan Games wanted originally to produce the Pelican in scale with the rest of the game. But this would have produced a large and expensive miniature. So they settled for a near enough scale, being 1:300. That scale, as you can see, is pretty darn good for 10mm. I'm not complaining. A 15mm version with open rear hatch would have been excellent, but a 10mm version for me is sweet as well.

This time I'll use the flash!

Concluding thoughts: it's a nice model that scales well with 10mm sci-fi miniatures, such as those from Pendraken, but is too small to fit in scale with the 15mm Halo Ground Command miniatures. So it will make a nice backdrop but won't really suit anything other than a flyby on the Halo battlefield.

That said, I want to get some more for my 10mm sci-fi miniatures. So in time I may get some more!

Halo Ground Command UNSC Scorpion tank and Covenant Wraith tank

I ordered these through The Combat Company and they just arrived the other day.

Front of the box

Back of the box

So "what's in the box" I hear you say? Well, have a look!

The UNSC Scorpion box open.

The spiders don't come with the box!

The Covenant Wraith box.

Each box comes with the chassis of one tank and an option for two different turrets. My plan, when I get around to it (**expletives about my current work load deleted to maintain the 'G' rating**) is to use rare earth magnets in order to allow the one tank to use both turret options. When I get the chance to do this (**more expletives about my current work load deleted to maintain the 'G' rating**), I'll do a post on it here.

Anyway, there you go. THAT's what's in the box!