Halo: Flashpoint

What is Halo: Flashpoint

Halo: Flashpoint is the officially licensed Halo tabletop game from Mantic Games. Mantic calls it a “tactical miniatures skirmish game for two or more players.” You build fireteams of Spartans, ODSTs, and Banished warriors and play classic Halo multiplayer modes on the tabletop.

The rules grew out of Deadzone, Mantic’s own sci-fi skirmish game, which also plays on a grid instead of with tape measures.

It launched on November 16, 2024 in the US and November 30, 2024 in the UK, EU, and Australia. Mantic called it its biggest game launch in 15 years.

There are two sides:

UNSC. Spartans, ODSTs, and Marines.
The Banished. Sangheili (Elites), Grunts, and Jackals.

The current rules are version 1.5, released in early September 2026. Mantic says it isn’t a new edition. It’s a balance update that gathers 18 months of changes, FAQs, and keywords from the expansions into one rulebook, and it moves the rules for building your own fireteam into the main book.

How it plays

One warrior at a time. Players take turns activating a single model.
Cubes, not tape measures. The battlefield is a 24-inch-square grid that stacks up into three dimensions, and models move by counting movement cubes. Height matters: Goonhammer’s demo report notes that shooting from the same level as your target earns no bonus dice.
Always three dice, plus or minus. Every roll starts at 3D8, with dice added or taken away for weapons, items, and cover. In Goonhammer’s demo, a critical hit gave an extra roll, and some weapons crit on a 7 as well as an 8.
Command dice. At the start of each turn, each side rolls command dice to see which special actions it can use, like a follow-up shot.
Shields, then armour. Spartans carry energy shields that have to be stripped before damage gets through their armour.
Respawns and weapon pickups. Each team has a pair of respawn points on the board, and a killed Spartan can come back in from one of them at the start of a turn. Weapons can be picked up off the board, and a model that dies drops its weapon where it fell. In Goonhammer’s demo, a Gravity Hammer sat out in the open waiting for someone brave enough to grab it.
Play the objective. Missions are based on Slayer, Oddball, and Capture the Flag. You score victory points by taking objectives and taking out the other side.

Mantic says you can learn the core rules in about 15 minutes, and a game takes around an hour.

How to start

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Halo: Flashpoint Official Ruleset (free)

The current core rules and list builder in Mantic's web app. Needs a free My Mantic account.

Read the rules for free. The core rules live in the Halo: Flashpoint app, and Mantic says they’re free for all users, along with the list builder. You need a free My Mantic account. A paid subscription adds the full unit profiles from every expansion on release day, plus unlimited saved lists. There’s also an official FAQ and errata page.
Or buy the book. The v1.5 digital rulebook is $12.50 as a PDF. The Rulebook Pack is $30 for the printed 1.5 rulebook and a punchboard of card scenery and tokens. It has no miniatures.
Get the starter set. The Spartan Edition is Mantic’s two-player box, and the updated 2026 version is $149. It has 20 plastic miniatures in team colours that need no assembly (16 Spartans and 4 Banished Elites), plus the 1.5 rulebook, cards, dice, a folding double-sided board with a tutorial mat, tokens, card terrain, and 3D arena pieces like the oddball, flags, and weapon drops. As of September 30, 2026 it’s on pre-order, with shipping estimated to start on December 4, 2026.
Watch how it plays. Mantic’s Learn to Play page links to its how-to-play series and demonstration games.

Community & reviews

Mantic runs organised play through the app. Players can submit lists to tournaments, and events with nine or more players are ranked, feeding Mantic’s global and national player rankings.