Your back is against the wall... We live our lives in service of our lords... You're facing a soldier's worst nightmare... Today, honor and dignity will be restored... Trust your team; Trust your guns... With our blades we will cull the Heretics from this world! Remember those two things, and you just might make it out alive. For Honor. For Earth. 'Allo there gents, and welcome to Honor Blades. This is a gametype I've had in my back pocket for a while now. A lot of people have played this over the years, and I always put it in my custom game rounds at least once. People kept on asking me why I haven't posted it, and frankly, it came down to apathy. However, no more! I am posting this, and it will be LEGENDARY. I originally wanted to put this gametype out with a map pack included, but the ideas eventually just fell through, and I stopped working on it. While there are three maps I will be posting that are compatible (actually, built FOR) with Honor Blades, I would hardly constitute that to be a "Map Pack". So, let us begin! Premise Honor Blades, while being an Infection varient, plays out a lot more like a team game. The game pits a team of ODST soldiers against a team of Elite Zealots. When a Zealot is killed, the ODSTs gain a team member. When all but one of the Zealots have been killed, the last Zealot turns into an Ultra. But I'm not just going to leave you with that. Lets dig in deep. Zealots You know these bad boys from your days back in Halo 2. The Zealots in Honor Blades are just like that. They have heavily increased shielding, and an Energy Sword to mercilessly cut you down with. They're smart, agile, and deadly. Even one of these monsters in close quarters can easily wipe out an entire ODST squad with ease. Melee combat? Forget about it. They laugh at you as you desperately try to knock down their shields with the butt of your wimpy rifle. They'll sink a sword into you faster than you cay say "WTF?!?". Be prepared for one hell of a fight. Oh yeah, and that's just one. You're going to be fighting an entire TEAM of these guys. Have fun. If you're one of the Zealots, you are "humans" in this gametype. That means if one of you dies, they're gone for good. While your shielding is strong, it won't hold out forever. As invincible you may seem in a one-on-one fight, a lone Zealot is actually very vulnerable. It is essential to travel in teams of at least 2 or 3 if you don't want to get mowed down by a tight-knit team of ODSTs. Keep in mind that they'll keep respawning no matter what, you've only got one life to live as a Zealot. The strategy is pretty obvious: Don't let the ODSTs catch you out in the open. Try to move around in areas where you would have the advantage. While one lone ODST is very little threat to you, an entire team of them can down you within seconds. Stay together, and stay sharp. If one of your team-mates shields are down, let him retreat and take up the point position in his place. Your teammate will be spared, and once his shields are back up, he can rejoin the fight as strong as he was before. The ODSTs may have been able to down the shields of ONE Zealot, but can they do it twice? And I can't iterate this enough: WORK AS A TEAM. The results can be very intimidating... If you happen to be an ODST in this scenario: Run. If you can't run, you're DEAD. Speaking of ODSTs... The ODSTs Leathernecks. Helljumpers. UNSCs best. Second only to Spartans. These bad-asses kick ass for a living, and live to tell about it. They clean up the scum of the Covenant and wipe the floor with the rest. Fearless, hardened, and professional, the ODSTs are NOT to be messed with. These machines of death are equipped with the finest in UNSC military technology. MA5C Assault Rifles and BR55HB SR Battle Rifles are all these guys need to deal out some serious death. Grenades are only awarded to veterans, if you're a rookie, you're out of luck. But as much ass as they kick, the ODSTs are flimsy and weak compared to an Elite Zealot. If you get caught alone with one, you can kiss your ass goodbye. Your odds of survival are 0. Kill together or die alone. It's time to nut up or shut up. As an ODST, you're a "zombie" in this gametype. Death isn't a huge deal, you'll respawn and start all over soon. However, don't let this go to your head. You're no match for a Zealot. If you try to Lone Wolf it, you'll end up spending more time in the respawn screen than actually playing the game. So teamwork is a given. You're equipped with an AR and a BR. I don't care what all you MLG nutcases have to say, in this gametype, your AR is your best friend in a mid-range situation. It'll eat through a Zealot's shields much faster than your BR ever will. However, if you see a Zealot down a nice, long line of sight, time to pull out that BR and let it rip. Not to mention it's very handy for popping headshots on un-shielded Zealots. You have grenades, but only as an Alpha. Those who are converted from Zealots do not get grenades. The only other advantage you have on the Zealots is speed. They're stuck at 100% speed while you get 125%. But running backwards isn't going to cut it. They'll catch you. If you're about to be overwhelmed and don't want to eat sword for lunch, turn tail and run. At a full sprint, you'll outrun a Zealot. Also, remember you have Grenades. If a Zealot is being a little ***** and hiding behind a corner...Blast his ass. In Honor Blades, it's customary to "choose your side" before the game starts. Basically, you switch to Elite or Spartan armor depending on who you like playing as best. Even though you can't actually CHOOSE your teams, it's still fun to do. As you've probably noticed, you'll see a few dinos on the ODST side of things as the game goes on. We have a word for that... "ODS-Elites" Occasionally, you'll hear this as a battle-cry for an Elite that's just been bumped to the ODST side of things =) But it isn't all fun and games. Once there's only one Zealot standing, he gets kinda angry... The Ultra The Ultra is the baddest of the bad. He is one tough son of a *****, and you'll need the whole damn ODST team to take him out. His shield strength is doubled, and his movement speed is increased to match that of the ODSTs. No more running, you'll have to face him head on. If the Ultra isn't assassinated, he can rumble with the ODSTs for a LONG time before they take him down. A smart Ultra can rack up a HUGE headcount before he ends up dead. However, the Ultra does have a giant, red waypoint over his head. No running for him, either. It's an all out war between one super-powered Elite and a buttload of ODSTs. It gets pretty damn hectic. Maps, Footnotes, and Download So now that you know what you're doing, time to play it for yourself. However, there are a few important things to note before we continue. First of all, this game CANNOT be played on all maps. Second, there are actually two different versions of this gametype, one for small teams, and one for teams of 5v5+. Maps Listed below are the few default maps we've found work well for this gametype: Construct High Ground Epilogue The first time you play Honor Blades, it should be on Construct. Just, default Construct. It is time-tested, and probably the most frequently-played map for this gametype. High Ground is the only default map really suited for BIG combat. We're talking 7v7 or 8v8 parties here. Construct, though awesome, really can't support that many players evenly. It's just too much for the small map to handle. High Ground provides even gameplay and fun times for all. Just remember...GRENADES. Epilogue is strictly for 3v3. Even 4v4 gets imbalanced here. However, if you don't have any of the other maps, and you want to play something other than Construct, Epilogue is your answer. Not to be confused with Epitaph though. Epitaph is just unbalanced, with shield-doors abound! Make sure you have Epilogue, not Epitaph, before attempting to play Honor Blades on this map. Over time, others and I have constructed maps compatible with Honor Blades. I will post these up in this thread as soon as I have the threads made for them, which might be a few days considering I have some cleanup work to do on some of the maps =/. But if you want to download ONE of the maps without a thread...I don't mind... Aelstar Citadel Download As I said before, there are two different versions of this gametype. One is for 3v3 and 4v4, and the other is for 5v5 and up. Honor Blades is the former, and Honor Blades+ is the latter. Download both for maximum compatibility! Honor Blades Honor Blades+ Footnotes Well, I hope that you all really enjoy this gametype. I've kept it under wraps for a long time, and as soon as I can I'll have those custom maps up for you all to download. I'd release them now, but some of them have some serious forging flaws because they were built back in the day, and some of them I took shortcuts for just to playtest them. So yeah! If you really like it, as always, anyone has permission to make maps for it and what not. Thanks for reading!
looks like alot of fun, I'll be downloading when possible. I'll try it out with some friends, they like this kind of thing (no map requirements). and the name gives me an idea for an all-elites Sword/plasma rifle/carbine duelling gametype. very nice.
I have a question; If the elites are the "non-zombies", and the humans are trying to take them out, what are the elites fighting for? In regular zombies (ie, if you switch the roles around), the humans fight for survival, while the zombies fight for team-mates. In this game. Do the elites in Honor Blades simply have to survive, or is there a score they have to reach?
I'm guessing it's just to get your score up to win. Anyway I really like this idea. What is the difference between the two gametypes (besides the preferred amount of people)? If it's only some minor differences than I can just change it when necessary instead of using two slots in my memory. I'm assuming in Reach you'll be able to make one team elites and one team spartans, so if you re-make this there it would work even better! Anyway, if I get some space cleared up I'll give this a dl.
While this is good in theory, it would take a preselected party to make this game type work the way you intended. The mentality of players out there is slim to none. All they will do is attack as zealots and very quickly, this will become a last man standing situation. I don't fault you for creating this game type, because it could potentially be fun. It's just the type of infection players that are actually out there that would ruin this.
I got to playing this gametype alot and it was very interesting and very fun that i might add. I think this works best on construct in generally i think you should make a map for this it would be fun as hell.
Not really. If the ODSTs decide to just throw themselves at the Zealots, they'll all just end up dead. Eventually (unless they're REALLY stupid), the ODSTs will realize that they have to start working together if they want to take the Zealots down. The game is basically who can work together the best. Score is secondary in this game. It's more about just having fun. You know Zombies always win anyway =P. The differences are pretty significant. If you try to play the normal version with a 12 player party, it will fail miserably because of the damage resistance and damage dealt settings. You can just compare the two and adjust on the fly if you'd like, I honestly don't remember the individual values. The Zealots are fighting for survival, yes. The ODSTs are technically the attackers, but if the Zealots choose to go on the offensive, things can get pretty dicey for the ODSTs as well. Like I said, this tends to feel more like a Slayer game than Zombies.