Subanese crystal

Blamite, known commonly as needles, is a crystalline ammunition used in Needle Rifles and Needlers. They are mined from Suban, one of Sanghelios' two moons.

Overview
Blamite is one of the Covenant's few unique ammunition types in their arsenal. It can cause two types of damage: penetration, getting hurt on impact of the crystalline needles, and super-combine, explosion of needles wedged in the body and splash damage to surrounding units. A crystalline projectile can cause fatal damage to its victim—a single shard can cause internal bleeding or strike a vital organ, with untreated wounds resulting in death. Depending on the impact area and angle, several crystalline shards can cause amputation of limbs, and impacts to the chest are in most cases fatal; the super-combine properties can easily crack ribs, damage the lungs or heart, and cause severe flesh damage that can be very difficult to repair.

While used exclusively in Needle Rifles and Needlers, the needles behave differently in both weapons when fired upon. Needles fired from a Needler appear to have some sort of "identify-friend/foe" function, as they will track on hostile targets but not allies of the wielder. Needles fired from a Needle Rifle lack this function, behaving more like traditional projectiles.

Trivia

 * The name "blamite" comes from Bungie's method of censoring swearing on their forums, which replaces objectionable words with -blam!-.
 * Killing 10 enemies in either Firefight or campaign with a supercombine explosion without dying unlocks A Spoonful of Blamite, a Halo: Reach achievement.