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The ActionClix game and figurines have been out for many years: I remember Mage Knight ActionClix, then the totally cool HeroClix game, starting with the Marvel Universe. I received my first HeroClix figurine at my local game and comic store over 10 years ago as a promo and I remember thumbing through the very daunting 62 page rule book. In direct contrast to those two games, the entirety of the rules for Halo ActionClix – Wizkid's latest offering based on the world of Halo – fits on a 20" x 15" instruction sheet packed into each retail package of figurines. On the back of that is a 15 x 15 map.

When I heard about it, my first reaction was "ORly?" I hadn't looked at ActionClix since the days of HeroClix, even though I was tempted by MechWarrior ActionClix. Brand Manager Mark Tuttle and I sat down at a demo table he had set out, the size of a four maps. He started explained a few things but I quickly moved him towards gameplay as I could get the rest of the information from the press kit and the easiest way to learn a game is to play it, with him explaining the rules as we went along.

Arbiter with Dual Needlers and Blue Spartan with BR55 Battle Rifle

HaloClix shows itself to be a lean beauty in game design, embracing that most important principle – easy to learn, a lifetime to master. All that you need to start playing this game, is one set of HaloClix each player and two D6 dice. Here's the basic premise: each player fields 5 figurines which add up to 400 points. On a single map, each player sets a spawn point, spawns his characters and moves them across the map to its maximum allowed movement.

Each figurine or character has a set point cost, starting at 50 points and going up at 25 point increments. Your aim is to dominate: kill off your opponent. Camp his spawn points. Each character that gets a kill receives a +25 marker which allows you to upgrade to a more powerful character in its place your next move. The first player to five kills wins the game.

Stats consist of movement, attack, defense and damage and these are shown on the dial, and any modifiers as shown on the character card. I've always loved that convenience. No need to track the stats of each figure in play. It's displayed for you on the character and damage tracked by clicking the dial. Your required success roll is the difference between your character's attack rating and your opponent's defense. For example, if you have an attack of 8 and your opponent has a defense of 18, you would need to roll 10 or better to succeed. If you do, your opponent takes the damage inflicted by your character's damage stats, plus / minus any modifiers. Modifiers can be shields that take away damage or damage enhancers for example.

A player gets three actions a turn. They are:

• Movement – you move the unit – but cannot move it through an occupied square.
• Attack – you fire your weapon (you can shoot through an occupied square), melee (adjacent squares only), throw a grenade or use a special ability against the designated opponent.
• Move and attack – you can move the unit up to four squares and still attack without a penalty. Anymore and you have to subtract 3 from its attack value (unless it has a specific modifier against that.)
• Attack and cover – you can attack then move one square, ducking behind a wall, for example, or away so to diffuse the damage done by grenade attacks.

Those actions are per character, which means you can utilize three characters in any turn. Respawning does not count as an action, but you must move that character off the spawn point. So you can move and attack. The first thing I did was concentrate fire and take one of Mark's characters out in my second turn.

Warthog Base

Mark proceeded to explain that I got a kill token and an upgrade token on the character that made the kill, and on my next turn, could replace it with a higher level one out of my stable of reserves. He proceeded to take out my weakest guy.

I took out another of his. "Hmm... I'm going to use a grenade I think." Grenade? "Oh yes, I should have explained. You know, the guy little grenade icon on his card? Put a grenade token on it. You get it back if he respawns." My eyes must have gleamed because his next comment was "Hoo boy, I think I'm in trouble." Indeed. The defense of any square is 12, minus the number of squares from the attacker. Damage is four on the square the grenade lands on, and two on every adjacent square – friend or foe – in taking out one of my characters, he did damage to one of his own.

We were soon two to two and I had upgraded the same character twice. I grinned evilly and told him "Master Chief must die," blew on my dice and rolled. It took me two more turns, but die he did, with a successful grenade attack weakening two more of his characters enough that they were easy pickings. I won the game handily. "Ahhh, I had some poor rolls in there." Mark jokingly griped. I laughed. Perhaps I was just lucky.

An interesting aspect of the game is the ability to swap weapons. This is actually swapping out characters with the same point value – the advantage is being able to use different abilities, not a refresh of health or grenades because you click the new figurine to match the health of the old.

You can also camp your opponent's spawn point by ending your move with a character on top of it. When you do, you get a loot roll and your opponent cannot use that point until you move off or, are killed off it. Each time you do an action and end with your character on the spawn point, you get a loot roll. i.e. you can camp a character on top of the point and not do anything, or you can do an action such as attack or move it away and back on. That tells me one thing. Protect your spawn points!

The expandability of the game is limited only to the amount of table or floor space you have. Players can determine the number of characters fielded, the number of spawn points each has and the number of kill points to victory. A three sider? No problem. Team against team? Why not? Shared spawn points? If you want.

The game launches in September with the Hunter combat pack and there will be some cross-promotion between Halo3 and Halo ActionClix. Promo figures are packaged with some pre-orders at retail outlets, for example. The Warthog vehicle pack is scheduled for an October release, the Scarab for November (it is righteous!) and the Banshee for January. There are some minor points such as the similarities of characters including color choices – I mentioned it and Mark actually picked up one of my characters during play – but that's not insurmountable. I recommend checking it out. For fans of Halo, how cool is it to play a table-top version of it? For other fans of table-top games, it's easy to learn. A simple game that's has surprisingly strategic depth, combined with that pesky lady luck riding on your dice throw will provide a fun and enjoyable game.