Apparently these Banshee pilots really have a thing about that sniper!

(6:35) Level 2 ('Halo') on Legendary. Here's some novel fun in a tunnel, involving a couple of Banshees. You can easily have such fun yourself. They're out of their normal flight area and exhibiting Mad Banshee behaviour, a topic I aim to cover properly later with a whole bunch of movies. But meanwhile I happened to get this unplanned action going, and couldn't resist making a quick movie out of it.

Released December 1st 2016, gameplay recorded November 29th 2016.

00:02 (One Banshee) In regard to the set-up for this clip, I'd driven into the tunnel with the aim of getting clear of the Banshees so I could get a checkpoint. It worked, and I got a checkpoint just as I was going down the slope. The footage starts a few seconds after reverting to that checkpoint and turning around. I get the attention of one of the Banshees, and then it's easy to draw it deep into the tunnel.

00:28 Once down the slope, I start with a bit of circling then have a brief chase, then I dismount to watch the Banshee go after the sniper. I'd already done at least one play of that, so I knew what sort of action I could expect. My dismount is rather unsafe and I only narrowly escape getting squashed by the hog. In watching, I do my best to keep close for a good view.

02:25 Time to draw things to a close. After shooting the Banshee a few times, I throw a frag to try and make the Banshee chase after it. However, instead of throwing it past the Banshee, I accidentally hit it, and end up blasting the hog, though not severely. My next frag throw is better but the Banshee misses the blast, so I try a plasma, and that does the trick.

02:48 (Two Banshees) Once again I've reverted to my checkpoint and returned to the Banshees. But this time I draw both of them down the tunnel. After a bit of chasing around I dismount - a bit more safely than last time - and the Banshees both focus on the sniper.

04:09 Eventually they're slowly pushing it along the wall, and I man the chain-gun to give it a brief try. Looks like I might've done some damage to one of the Banshees, but I don't want to destroy it yet, so I hop out. Things look deadlocked after that, so I throw a frag to try and make the Banshees chase it. But it's another bad throw. I accidentally hit a Banshee (I'd meant to throw just over it), and the frag falls to the ground and kills everyone. Oops!

04:46 (Two Banshees over the loading point) I eventually lost the aforementioned checkpoint, because it got unintentionally overwritten by another. So I started over, leading the Banshees down the valley again. I drew them into the tunnel and got them focused on the sniper, and then I went back up the slope to get a new checkpoint. In this clip, I'm playing from that checkpoint. I go back down the slope, and as you can see, the situation appears remarkably stable. I'm not sure why the sniper isn't firing. Seems like he could easily rotate to line up a shot.

05:13 After watching a while, I board the hog and drive it clear, then let the Banshees push me over the loading point. One of the pilots loses his AI (seems random), and drifts into a corner, but the other guy gets into some enthusiastic circling.

05:40 I dismount and watch the circling a bit longer, then tag the Banshee in the corner. Both Banshees take damage. Circling resumes and my next plasma destroys the corner Banshee. Meanwhile the other one breaks out of the circling and does some pushing - until fatally chasing after my final plasma.

Closing remarks In getting this footage, my starting point was a base save for setting up Banshee battles. I'd been trying to get a Banshee pilot ejected in the tunnel, so I could then check whether the empty Banshee would become boardable after the Pelican arrived at the end of the level. But before I made that test, I happened to get a Banshee down the tunnel and started having fun with that. So that's what I focused on for a while - leading to this movie. As for the intended test, I did eventually get an empty Banshee, and no it never became boardable, which is just what I expected. The reason I was checking was because someone had raised the idea in a YouTube comment on BCM203.

If I'd taken a little extra time with the set-up work, I could've eliminated Cortana's lines and the orange direction indicator, as described in my Banshee battling article. But for doing the aforementioned test there was no call for bothering, so I didn't. It hasn't mattered too much for the movie though, even if Cortana does say the same lines a few times.

The three clips are in chronological order, and this also gave the best order in terms of progression. First one Banshee, then two, then two again but going over the loading point, leading to some new behaviour.

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