You know, I haven’t even played Halo 3: ODST. If I weren’t listening to the Kilo-Five trilogy on audiobook, I wouldn’t know anything about these. They’re essentially Spartan-lites. The best you can do without genetic enhancement and childhood abuse. In Halo: Flashpoint, this is represented by them being generally as good at shooting as Spartans are, but not as fast or durable. They don’t have the same shielding technology or as much durability and armor.

It’s a reasonable abstraction. I question if they should so consistently hit on the same value as Spartans, but they’re notably elite and powerful troops in their own right. As a sub-faction, they’re cheaper than Spartans and thus tend to run larger lists of 5-7 models, opposed to 3-5 with Spartans. As a part of the UNSC faction, you can run them with Spartans to help fill out bodies on your list while making your Spartans as elite as possible. It’s a great balance and adds a lot of list building variety.

The other draw is that they’re, well, Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. They get to drop onto the board instead of just respawning. In a word: rad.

This is actually quite dramatic, as it allows you to compete over objectives despite being so fragile. It’s a great way of representing them on the board and makes for a very unique and fun gimmick.

As for how I painted these, I kept it very simple. I did a dry brush triad starting from black to dark-grey to mid-tone-grey to light grey, then I picked out details I cared about. In the games, they have faded grey-tan camo panels, so I did those first. I followed by hitting the guns with a faded ultramarine blue. After that came the color customization per unit, which I did not do lore-accurate. I instead chose panels in the right area of the armor that were easy to paint and kept the patterns simple for effect. Finally, I washed with a black wash mixed with speed paint medium, then repaneled the colors to make them a touch more vibrant.

Overall, the process was super fast. I kept the color schemes such that they match the respective cards, but I also labeled every model for clarity.

As for the bases, they come pre-sculpted. I threw some dirt paste on, painted the exposed paneling, and washed it all with a quick black tone and speed paint wash.

Oh, and you might see small touches of orange here and there, like around the right boot of this captain above. That’s ammo belts. The orange was meant to help draw the eye. In person, it works well. Not sure it quite comes through in these photos, but it was a pop of color the models needed to help the eye.

Super satisfying project. I got this done in about 5-6 total hours of effort, much of which was spent with the wife watching a sitcom. I greatly look forward to getting these on the board.

And honestly, I thought this would help assuage my incessant desire to paint more of this game. Instead, I find myself eyeing the Rise of the Banished box like a man starved for things to do. Let alone the releases coming out in September, completing the alien races with Unggoys (Grunts) and Kig-Yar (Jackals).

I guess… more Halo to come. At least until my kid finally gets tired of it. We’re something like 15-20 games in and showing no signs of slowing down. If I weren’t in school, I’d be starting a Northern Virginia group for this game. I like it far more than I had expected.

Though, with the rate at which I’m buying it, I’m considering breaking my rule about not loading up actual Halo multiplayer and playing online again. It tends to eat up my free time a bit too well… but my wallet might thank me.

“Babe, I have to play Halo so I don’t buy more Halo. I promise this makes sense!”