Take 15 Marines, 49 covies, mix in a trough and add rockets. A tasty recipe, providing my most explosive megabattle action yet!

(5:31) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. This shows three plays of a twin bridges megabattle save featuring 15 Marines and 49 covies (14 Elites, 23 Grunts, 12 Jackals). I'm doing a trough defence with a blockade, armed with a rocket launcher and sniper rifle. Major carnage - and don't miss the sequel BCM114 either!

Released September 14th 2014, gameplay recorded September 8th-9th 2014.

00:02 (Play 1) At the start of this save I'm low over the ledge to the right of the underpass, a position which made the covies move up the battlefield. That's a dynamic mentioned in my set-up material, and it should lead to a more intense attack. It should also lessen the chances of any covies failing to join the attack. A lone Grunt is a bit late to join his buddies and I blast him on my way to the trough. Approaching the landing zone I make a few Marines dive, heh heh.

00:27 The covies are already in sight at the start of the trough, and I take down two Grunts and a blue Elite. My fourth shot hits the Shade which, along with a Ghost, is basically there to give me a potential rocket target. I throw a quick frag towards the mob, and a Marine has already thrown one too, though not as far. Meanwhile two blues have got close and I throw a frag their way. However, I think it sets off a plasma dropped by one of the blues, which hurts the Marines and messes up the blockade a bit - an early setback. While that's going on, I do a bit more sniping.

00:48 Just as I throw another frag, a Grunt throws a plasma towards the blockade (I don't even hear a cry for that), and when it goes off, a couple of Marines sail across my view. While the fuse was burning I rocketed a red, but I would've done better sending the rocket further back to try and stop another plasma throw. In fact another throw comes quickly, but something freaky happens. A frag goes off in mid-air (must've been blown there by the plasma blast at the blockade) and diverts the plasma grenade to the left. That explains why a Marine is subsequently seen running in agony with a plasma stuck to him. Bad luck pal! I rocket a Grunt and a blue in the meanwhile.

01:06 When the unlucky tagged Marine dies, the blast causes several casualties, and things have gone distinctly pear-shaped. Johnson yells "Retreat!" but fails to do so himself. I fire a couple of useful rockets, though my second tube was delayed while I waited to see if Johnson would get clear to give me a good shot. He didn't, but on the positive side, a chain reaction kills the last of the Elites.

01:19 A hectic phase of survival action ensues, during which I whack a few Grunts on the head and aim a nice rocket to kill a triangle of Grunts and forestall a plasma throw. My final grenade throw is good - out towards the Shade - but the chain-gunner kills my target before it goes off. There's just one more Jackal after that, and I generously let the gunner finish his work. Only the two of us left; must do better next time!

01:56 (Play 2) Flying left somewhat, the covies are briefly triggered to start heading back from their advanced deployment. After blasting a Jackal and an Elite, I head along one of the trough platforms (good fun!) to land on the back slope.

02:23 I quickly fire off a rocket, hoping for it to slam into the advancing wave of covies. It does rather nicely, killing two reds and damaging two blues. I sniped a Grunt just beforehand, hoping he'd drop a grenade or two which might then go off, and I believe I succeeded. I follow up by using the rest of my sniper clip, targeting a few Grunts because their grenade throwing is so dangerous for the blockade.

02:37 I reload as I advance, but I'm too late to stop a Grunt on the right throwing a plasma. I shoot him afterwards but that doesn't help much! The grenade tags a Marine - good throw grunty! - and the blockade is wrecked. Only one other Marine death is incurred though, so it's not a total disaster yet, and meanwhile I've thrown a frag which does some good damage on the upper slope.

02:57 I send a rocket towards a cluster of Grunts, but again I'm too late to stop a plasma throw. A couple of Marines die. One directly, and I think another is killed by Ghost impact.

03:07 The Marines are advancing and I join in, rocketing a dangerous red then causing havoc amongst Grunts and Jackals on the upper slope by using shallow frag throws and rockets, while leaving the Marines to handle a blue Elite I bypassed.

03:22 That just leaves a blue standing on the platform. My plasma throw makes him jump, and when I see him getting peppered in mid-air, I go for a spectacular finish with my launcher. Direct hit! It's not often you'll see a covie rocketed while he's in mid-air; so that was really the deciding reason for selecting this play from among the many I did. Only five Marine casualties this time - a definite improvement!

03:36 (Play 3) Briefly jinking left to get the covies running back, I send a Grunt flying then quickly ascend to skip over the worst of the enemy fire. In fact I'm scarcely hit at all. At the start of the trough I curve around sharply and leave the Banshee near the Shade. It's going to be an extra object bouncing around among the covies - and maybe it'll squash a few!

04:05 My plan this time is to open with a grenade barrage. The Elites are quickly on the scene, so I don't waste any time getting it started. A Marine contributes a frag, and in due course the upper slope erupts in a hilarious cataclysm of explosions, sending multiple covies flying. "Holy crap!", as the Marine says. Gotta love those screams eh? This was pretty much the best chain reaction effect I got from my various plays with a grenade barrage, so that's why I selected it.

04:30 There are still plenty of covies left, but then a frag takes out another bunch. I follow up with a rocket into the general area, but it's aimed a bit high and sails through harmlessly. Darn, I hate doing that! While the Marines attack a closing blue, I throw a plasma which unintentionally tags the Banshee, then I rocket the Banshee to send it left - and when the grenade goes off it kills a passing blue, hee hee!

04:44 I fire a rocket towards a close Grunt or two but it's badly aimed and does no good. However, things pick up when a blue Elite appears and I score a satisfying direct hit. Just before that a Grunt manages to make a grenade throw, but fortunately the Marines get clear of the blast. My final few rockets towards a blue-shielded Jackal are ineffective and he's dead before my final one even hits, but never mind.

05:06 Things seem to be all clear now, but then I catch a hint of a red dot on my motion tracker, and I start looking around. A Jackal is clearly visible at the end of the trough just as I switch to the sniper rifle and pan back, but I fail to notice him, because at that time I'm pretty sure I was paying more attention to my tracker, trying to confirm a red dot. I thought a covie might be part way along the platform, which is why I'm facing the wall for a while. But then the chain-gunner starts firing and finally I see my target - and I finish him off. No Marine casualties this time - although one of them was almost killed by the chain-gunner at the end.

Closing remarks Fighting a trough defence with Marines behind a blockade is quite a highlight of the twin bridges megabattle I think, and I meant to cover it in my movie series earlier, but didn't. Finally I've got around to it though, and together with the sequel BCM114 I think I've done it justice.

I made an effort to vary my tactics and my entry flight, across the three plays. I didn't fight terribly well in the first play (the earliest one I recorded, among the three), but it showed how serious the covie threat is, which I thought made it a good opener (plus I liked the Grunt whacking and the closing line - "Just you and me now").

With so many personnel in my save, plus multiple Ghosts and other stuff, the gameplay here does suffer from a significant degree of framerate slowdown, but things are still plenty playable and enjoyable with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle. The other weapons feel more frustratingly sluggish when you've got this amount of slowdown, but later I hope to create a save featuring fewer Marines and perhaps fewer covies, in which the slowdown is less noticeable, making other weapons more usable. And if I do, you can expect more trough action with more weapon combos!

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