Generally best not to insert a tree in your ride. But let's do it anyway!

Posted January 1st 2025

Back in September 2024 when battling in the first snowfield, by chance I got a situation in which a tree was in my Warthog. More specifically it was coming up through the driving compartment. I'd been speeding towards some covies near the tree (see pic), hoping to splatter them. The tree stopped the hog dead and for a few seconds the hog seemed stuck, but then it slid free.

All this was shown in BCM514, along with my subsequent attempts to repeat the phenomenon. I was indeed able to repeat it, and basically just needed to swerve the hog into the tree the right way. After this I went on to explore things further, including with other trees, resulting in a sequence of ten movies.

This article serves as belated accompaniment to all that. I'll try to outline the key aspects, and you can potentially get some further details from the movies and their written commentaries. In conjunction with this, there's also my article on snow machines, a fascinating and spectacular by-product which I consider by far the best payoff in investigating this business.

Tree in the seating area

My initial dealings with the 'tree in a Warthog' phenomenon involved getting a tree in the seating area (two different possibilities were discovered later). So let's focus on that to begin with.

The original method I was using was to simply drive the hog towards the tree at top speed and swerve it late, so the tree could enter through the seat opening on that side (apparently those openings are weak points). It takes a bit of a knack to pull off, but isn't all that hard. You can see this being done in BCM514 and, using a nice tree pair in the later two-Wraith area, BCM515.

However, you can instead do it by ramming or pushing the hog against the tree. The easiest option there is to use a Banshee, but you can also use another hog or the Scorpion. THe Banshee and hog options are shown in BCM516, and the Scorpion option in BCM517.

With all of the methods, you sometimes find that the hog actually passes right through the tree, if the speed or the amount of push was too much. 'Pass-though', I call it. In particular, the Scorpion is so powerful that you have to use it very gently to avoid this. It can be quite frustrating to have the hog keep going through the tree.

Once you've got the tree inserted (getting a 'treed' hog, as I nowadays say), the hog can seem stuck. However, it's not totally stuck. You can drive it free if you do it the right way (with the tree coming out via a side opening). You can also melee the hog free, blast it free, or push it free with a vehicle. Sometimes the freeing is very easy, other times it can take more effort.

An interesting aspect of the configuration is that the tree can potentially shift to a front corner, just behind a tyre (roughly level with the windscreen). With this altered state you can potentially do some completely stable 'anchored rotation' in reverse gear (see pic), with the rear of the hog circling the tree. For examples of that, see 4:05 in BCM514, 4:15 in BCM515, and two good examples in BCM516.

Tree in the back

By pushing with a Scorpion, another configuration is possible, namely in which the tree is in the back of the hog. You can see me discovering that starting at 1:59 in BCM517. Unlike the former configuration (tree in the seating area), it seems like you can't drive free, and it's hard to get much motion at all. There's a much stronger feeling of being held fast. However, you can still blast the hog free, or push/pry it free with the Scorpion.

Something interesting you can do is get the hog angled up with a blast near the nose. Pushing with a Scorpion can potentially then get it angled up a bit higher. When the hog is angled up, you may get a fountain of bark fragments at the back, which I assume is due to the hog's contact with the tree; or more specifically some hog pressure on the tree. A very nice effect, and the fragments can fly quite a distance.

The hog can potentially be angled so steeply that it can't be boarded, and instead there's a flip prompt. In this situation a flip attempt can give rise to fountains of bark or snow, as seen extensively in BCM523. Again, I assume this is due to hog pressure on the tree; except that this time the pressure is only temporary. You can have fun playing about with this. With pulsed pressing you can get a fairly continuous stream (see pic).

Tree in the nose, and hog suspension

A third possible configuration is to have the tree in the nose of the hog. You can see me getting that situation in BCM520. I first of all got the tree in the seating area, then rammed directly into the front of the hog with a Banshee, which shunted the hog backwards, putting the tree in the nose (see pic).

As with having the tree in the back, the hog is held rather firmly and there's no driving free. But you can pry it off with the Scorpion, or blast it free.

Using the Scorpion, you can potentially raise the rear of the hog, and ultimately lift the hog up the tree so that it ends up suspended, held up by the nose. Such a suspended hog was the main subject of the aforementioned movie. And as seen therein, you may get some interesting proximity dependent effects near the contact point, involving bark fragments and snow, along with scraping sounds.

In regard to snow, you can do better than mere intermittent sprinkles. If the hog is high enough (that's what I think the criterion is), you can get a continuous stream of snow falling down. It looks as if the hog is snowing, but I believe the snow arises from the hog's contact with tree branches. This striking phenomenon is covered in BCM522, and the way I got it was to remove the Scorpion from a snow machine, in such a way that the hog ended up suspended high (rather than sinking to the ground, a more common outcome).

Note: I've tried hard to get a hog suspended by a tree in the back, but without success. Couldn't raise it in such a way that it stayed in place. All the suspensions I've obtained have involved a hog with the tree in the nose.

Further remarks

When you've got a tree in your hog, good camerawork can give you amusing close-up views of passengers (see pic), and even of yourself in the driver seat. E.g. see 3:52 in BCM515.

For getting a tree in a Warthog, it needs to be the right type of tree. Specifically, one of the small ones (which are all viable I assume). There are two types of tree in level 5; large and small. But the trunks of the large ones are too big. You could also work things in level 8, so technically this business is multi-level. But I've made this a level 5 article as that's really my only interest for this topic. None of the other levels offer possibilities by the way.

A treed hog can get into some interesting states in relation to ride height, depending on what you're doing to it. Driving over it with the Scorpion might leave it in a 'low-ride' state, crushed down low to the ground and unable to spring back up - although a blast may well do the trick. At the other extreme you might get it in a 'high-ride' state, whereby the chassis sticks in a position abnormally high above the wheels. One way I got such a state was by blasting the hog after it had first been in a low-ride state.

Reminder: see also my companion article Snow machines.

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