Should Halo Flashpoint Add The Flood? A Case for a Third Faction

Anthony Salazar

Where's the Flood?!

Flashpoint players have been clamoring for another faction for a while now, and the next logical step in that conversation is The Flood. People forget sometimes that Halo isn't just a badass sci fi action shooter with stellar music. It's also got real elements of space horror baked into its bones. Remember being a kid and genuinely shaking in your pants during Halo 3's level "Cortana"? Yeah, me too. That level lives rent free in my head to this day.

Today's article is going to cover where the Flood actually come from in the lore, why they'd make a genuinely compelling third faction for Flashpoint, and the kind of gameplay dynamics they could bring to the table. Let's get into it.

This Wouldn't Even Be Their Tabletop Debut

Before anyone brings up the "too weird for tabletop" argument, let's kill that one right out of the gate. The Flood have already been on tabletop before, and it worked. Back in 2007, WizKids released Halo ActionClix, a collectible miniatures game that launched the same week as Halo 3 itself, and the Flood were a full part of the roster right alongside Master Chief, Elites, and vehicles like the Warthog and Banshee. Carrier Forms, Infection Forms, Combat Forms, even infected Flood Marines all got their own figures and stat cards in that line. Players were already building lists, swapping weapons, and fighting the Flood on a tabletop nearly two decades ago.

***Image Featuring Action Clix Models, Sourced From: IGN***

So when people ask whether the Flood even makes sense as a physical miniatures faction, the answer is simple. We've literally seen it done before, and it sold well enough at retail chains like Target and GameStop to matter. Flashpoint wouldn't be inventing something new by bringing them in, it would be bringing a proven concept back home to a much more mechanically developed system than ActionClix ever had. That precedent alone should put a lot of the skepticism to rest before we even get into why they'd be a great fit here specifically.

A Quick History Lesson, For Anyone New to the Horror Side of Halo (Spoilers for Campaign Evolved and the Core Trilogy)

Now let's talk about what the Flood actually are, because their backstory is honestly one of the best kept secrets in sci fi villain design. The Flood are an ancient parasitic lifeform, and their war with the Forerunners predates humanity's entire recorded history. The Forerunners fought them for what amounted to centuries, and when containment eventually failed on a galactic scale, they made the call to fire the Halo Array itself, wiping out all sentient life in the galaxy in order to starve the Flood into extinction. That's not a small decision. That's an entire civilization deciding total genocide of every sentient species, themselves included, was preferable to losing the war. The Flood are the reason the Halo rings exist in the first place. Let that sink in for a second.

Players first met them in Halo Combat Evolved, inside the Library on Installation 04, and it remains one of gaming's great plot twists even decades later. From there they showed up again in Halo 2, spilling out of High Charity and tearing through the Covenant's holy city from the inside, then again in Halo 3, where they took over huge stretches of the Ark itself across missions like Floodgate and, of course, Cortana. Outside the main trilogy, the original Halo Wars gave us a full outbreak on Shield World 0459, and Halo Wars 2's Awakening the Nightmare expansion brought them roaring back years later with an even nastier twist tied into the Flood Gravemind fusing with a corrupted AI. And here's the part that ties directly into what Flashpoint players are already playing on the tabletop right now, Zeta Halo itself, the very ring Halo Infinite takes place on, was historically used by the Forerunners as a Flood research and containment site, complete with proto Graveminds recorded on its surface. The ring you're already fighting over in game is Flood territory whether the current models acknowledge it or not.

Even the old Bungie multiplayer days weren't shy about it. Halo 3's Cold Storage map famously features a partially dismembered Tank Form frozen in a cryo container just sitting there, twitching. It's a small detail, but it's exactly the kind of environmental storytelling that made those maps feel alive. The Flood have never really been gone from this universe. They've just been quietly contained, which, if you think about it, is a genuinely great premise for a Flashpoint expansion.

*Image of Halo 3’s Multiplayer Map “Cold Storage”, Sourced From:* *Halo Alpha*

Why a Third Faction Actually Matters

The Flood are compelling for players specifically because they break the mold the current playerbase has settled into. Right now there's a fairly well understood pattern of play between UNSC and Banished. While the incoming 1.5 rules are going to be a much needed refresh and rebalance, diversity is always a welcome trait in any game, tabletop or otherwise. As it stands, depending on what your opponent is fielding, you can get a pretty solid read on how the game is going to unfold in tandem with whatever gamemode is on the table. You know how to maneuver around snipers, how to break shields, how to make your units synergize for maximum lethality. Flashpoint players have been intelligently theorycrafting some genuinely great team dynamics and weapon loadouts, and honestly some of that has already fed directly into changes we're seeing in the 1.5 rules, like Gungnir losing Tactician after players kept pairing him with a Spartan Laser and turning him into a genuinely terrifying board presence.

But breaking up that meta with a third faction would be a real shift, and a good one. Tournaments right now only have two factions to build around, which means players can prep for mirror matches, knowing the ins and outs of their own faction while simultaneously building lists that parry and counter the one faction they know they'll be facing. Introduce a third option into that equation and organized play gets a lot harder to plan around, in the best way. Players can't just prepare for two simple outcomes anymore. That uncertainty is exactly what keeps a competitive scene interesting long term.

How the Flood Could Actually Play

The Flood in the games have some genuinely unique mechanics. They scale walls, they reanimate the dead to bolster their own numbers, and they swarm across the field faster than you'd expect from something that started out as a corpse. We're already creeping into Horde territory with the new Banished Reinforcements and UNSC Marines dropping soon, and sure, the Flood could lean into that too. But I think there's a whole separate opportunity here once you actually translate them to the tabletop properly.

***Image Featuring an Action Clix Model, Sourced From: IGN***

Infection forms are legitimately scary in the games. Every friendly Marine that dies has a chance to come back as an enemy, and that pile of Brutes you left behind in a corridor a few minutes ago is suddenly screaming as reinforcements for the other side. Bringing the Flood into Flashpoint as the next playable faction opens the door to a genuinely fresh special order mechanic. Picture this. Upon killing an enemy model in melee combat, a special order lets you immediately spawn a dead unit into that cube in place of the model you just eliminated, provided there's space within the usual 2 friendly model limit or the expanded Support keyword capacity. That alone would shake up positioning and risk assessment enough to open up entirely new battlefield opportunities that neither UNSC nor Banished currently offer.

Pure Forms, Because Reskinned Models Would Be a Missed Opportunity

The concept is great on paper, but if the actual units on the table are stale reskins, is it really fun? The Flood don't have to just be remolded copies of existing models. Don't forget, they've got their signature Pure Forms, biomass constructed creations with genuinely unique properties that have no real equivalent in the current Flashpoint roster.

The Tank Form alone would be a serious threat, and anyone who's played Campaign Evolved already knows exactly why. It's not even the same monster it started as either. By the time Halo 3 rolled around it had evolved from its earlier appearance, capable of hacking up infection spores to crawl around and chip away at you even while the main body slugs it out. Then there's the Ranged Form, the needle spewing variant that pins you down with a relentless barrage of tiny spikes from a stationary position. And rounding out the trio is the Stalker Form, the fast spider like variant that closes distance faster than you'd like and isn't afraid to use it.

Here's an idea for how Pure Forms specifically could work as a special order. Upon a Pure Form's death, you spend a special order command die to immediately spawn a different Pure Form in its place, essentially a transformation. This would only be usable if there's currently a dead Pure Form available to fuel the swap, and only once per round to keep it from spiraling out of control. You can kill them, sure. But they'll just keep coming back in a new shape, and that changes how you have to think about committing resources against them.

Infection Spores and the Horde/Support Combo

The infection spores themselves would be a natural fit for the Horde and Support keywords already in the game, letting you stack them alongside other friendly models the way Grunts already can. Give them a keyword that lets them Infect an enemy model directly, placing a token that applies a status effect, requiring the target to spend a short action to clear it, or otherwise take 1 wound that bypasses both shields and armor entirely. Units that die from that infection wound could then serve as a respawn point, bringing a non Pure Form Flood unit back onto the table in their place.

The Flood have big numbers in the lore, but I don't think players actually want to bring dozens of tiny models just to represent every possible infected enemy. Leaning into mechanics that let dead units respawn instead of requiring a mountain of extra minis is a much cleaner way to capture that same feeling without turning your army case into a small forest of infection tokens. That, and the board would get crowded fast otherwise.

Unit Design and the Leap Keyword

The Flood would really benefit from two distinct unit archetypes, fast moving melee oriented hitters (Spartans, you'd better keep that Snapshot keyword handy) and slower ranged units that punish anyone caught standing still. That split creates an interesting problem for opponents, an immediate assault threat and a lingering ranged threat that punishes anyone left out in the open at the same time. There's genuinely no safe place to hide on a given map once both are in play.

Another keyword worth attaching here is Leap. In the games, Flood forms will bound impressive distances to close the gap on you, and translating that directly into Flashpoint could work well. Units with Leap that are a single cube away from a target could gain the ability to move directly into that cube to make an assault. It brings the mechanic over cleanly while forcing players to lean on Snapshot or rapid fire attacks to pin units down before they close the distance. Genuinely scary to think about, right?

*Image of a Halo 2 Infected Marine, Sourced From:* *Reddit*

For general purpose ranged and melee units beyond the named Pure Forms, they could largely share base keywords and stats while differentiating through loadout, model design, and pose. I'd personally love to see a whole range of infected Jiralhanae, Sangheili, ODSTs, and Marines represented in the ranks, all sharing similar mechanical footing but offering real visual distinction on the table. It keeps the design space manageable while giving painters a ton of variety to work with.

Homebrew Potential and Why Painters Are Going to Love This

I also think it opens the door to more fun homebrew setups. Imagine a 1v1v1 where each player fields a different faction on the board, fighting for control rather than just trading blows in a straight two way fight. That kind of chaos is exactly the sort of thing this community already loves cooking up on slower weekends.

And for the painters out there, the Flood present a completely different creative lane than anything currently in the game. There's real opportunity to lean into the gross, slimy, gory side of the hobby that UNSC and Banished just don't offer right now. This is prime territory for Goblins Hut's Slime and Gore effects paints, or Army Painter's Oozing Vomit effect paint, if you're looking for an excuse to finally crack those bottles open.

The Real Strategic Wrinkle

Given everything we've brainstormed here, while the Flood's overall playstyle would lean aggressive and rapid response, it would also force players to second guess bringing that cheap, low stat Marine or Grunt into a match. That unit isn't just a liability for you anymore the moment it drops, it's a potential resource handed straight to the enemy. How would that change the way you reorient your own strategy while trying to stay the dominant force on the board? That's a genuinely interesting question, and honestly one I don't think Flashpoint has ever had to ask its players before.

Closing Thoughts

At the end of the day, the Flood check every box a great third faction needs. They've got a genuinely rich history in the lore, a war that quite literally shaped the entire Halo universe as we know it. They've already proven themselves on tabletop once before, so this isn't some wild unprecedented ask. And mechanically, they open up design space that neither UNSC nor Banished can touch right now, forcing players to rethink positioning, resource management, and what it actually means to lose a unit on the board.

*Image Sourced By: 343 Industries/Halo Studios*

Whether or not Mantic ever takes the leap, I think it's worth putting the idea out there and seeing what the community thinks. This hobby thrives on theorycrafting and community voices being heard, and the Flood feel like the kind of faction Flashpoint players have been waiting for without fully realizing it yet. Here's hoping we see them crawling onto the tabletop sooner rather than later.

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Disclaimer: The gameplay concepts, keyword ideas, and special order mechanics discussed in this article are original fan created concepts written for entertainment and discussion purposes only. The Black Harriers and the author freely and willingly release any and all creative ownership or authorship claims over these ideas. Mantic Games, Halo Studios, Xbox, and Microsoft are welcome to use, reference, adapt, or implement any concept discussed here in official Halo Flashpoint content, in whole or in part, without attribution, compensation, or any obligation to the author or this site. This article is a fan contribution to the community and is offered in that spirit.

Should Halo Flashpoint Add The Flood? The Case for Flashpoint's Next Faction