Hobby Gaming: Revell's 'Halo Pelican' for tabletop gaming

Troops deploy from the rear ramp.

It was brought to my attention in a post on TMP (The Miniatures Page) that Revell has a "snap-tite" model kit for the "Pelican" transport from the Halo videogame universe that is reasonably priced, and, despite being modelled to a differnet scale (1:100th/15mm seems likely), works well with 28mm science fiction miniatures.   I'm sure it would work well for 15mm and 20mm as well.

I have posed it with some GW Tactical Marines and a GW Rhino for scale purposes.













The features I like about this kit include:

++  Since it is designed to be played with, and not just a static display, it is made of durable plastic.   This is a problem that I have with the Dust Tactics models - which are not very robust, despite being made for tabletop gaming.

"LZ looks clear"

Side by side with a Rhino.

Ramp is up, ready for liftoff.

+ +  Assembly takes minutes, not hours.   This has been a problem with GW vehicle kits, which moved from the original Rhino - which was a "quick to build and put on the table" model with a lot of options for simple customization - to the more recent models which feature things like multi-part tracks and take longer to assemble.



+  Landing gear and ramp are retractable.

Ramp is down.

Hot landing - watch the jet/rocket wash!

"Okay you apes - unass that lander!"

Deploy! Deploy! Deploy!

+ Parts are made in different colors, so you can get by without painting it, if you need to save time/effort.

+ Wings are movable into VTOL mode.

"Clear the ramp!  Crew wants off of this hot LZ!"

Since I am not a Halo fan (I have played a few times a few years back), I am not familiar with the way the ship is portrayed in that universe - but it seems to be large enough there to deploy small vehicles and a bunch of troops.  However, in 28mm, it still looks like it would make a credible assault transport (either from orbit, or simply atmospheric) for a single squad of troops.

You could modfiy the cockpit interior to include some 28mm crewmen, or simply make sure that the cockpit windows are dark enough that it doesn't matter.

While this is a "snap-tite" kit, I am planning to glue some of the parts together, for durability.   I will also have to decide whether or not I want to paint it, or may simply apply weatehring to the colored plastic.