Halo tabletop game’s first big expansion adds Banished Brute miniatures

It’s already looking like a big year for tabletop skirmish games, and it’s soon getting even bigger. Mantic Games’ impressive new offering, Halo: Flashpoint, is getting its first major expansion, which will add the Banished as the game’s newest faction. The developer announced Halo: Flashpoint — Rise of the Banished on Wednesday, along with a July release window for the expansion’s boxed set.

Rise of the Banished focuses on Warmaster Atriox, whom dedicated Halo fans will recognize as the main antagonist from Halo Wars 2, and the faction of warriors he leads, known as the Banished. Unsurprisingly, the highlight of this new boxed set is its miniatures, which include four mercenary Sangheili (better known as Elite) models, and eight Jiralhanae (aka Brute) models. It would have been easy to make all these miniatures fairly uniform in size, but Mantic went the extra mile in introducing Brutes to Flashpoint by making their models huge. According to the developer’s announcement, the new Brutes tower over any other miniature in Flashpoint so far, just like they do in the video games.

The set also includes a limited edition sculpt of Warmaster Atriox himself and the cards needed to bring him into play, though apparently a standard version of the Warmaster will also be available at retail outside of the boxed set release. Along with all those miniatures, the Rise of the Banished boxed set also includes Banished-themed terrain, a new play board, some new dice, new cards, and a new rule booklet.

Mantic will offer these miniatures and more at retail in standalone offerings when Rise of the Banished goes live in July, but it seems like this expansion boxed set is the quickest way to get your Brute army up to snuff and ready to take on some Spartans.

Pre-orders for the new expansion set are now live on Mantic’s website for $125, ahead of the expansion’s release in July.