Two battles, two different plans - but both involving a bit of height…

(6:52) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Using the same spiral path megabattle save as in the previous movie (featuring 53 covies), I employ two battle plans which both involve a bit of altitude. First a high position defence with sniper rifle and rocket launcher, then a Banshee defence.

Released March 6th 2017, gameplay recorded March 4th-5th 2017.

00:02 (High position defence) I start this battle off with a bit of stunt flying, up through the fork of the dropship. Fun! Then after blasting the blockade to release the covies, I fly to the ledge and dismount for the main business, starting with a bit of sniping.

00:30 Time for a rocket now. A bunch of Elites have paused on the cliff edge - covies do that a lot - and I blast them. Two are killed, another is shaken up and finished with a sniper round. Plus I snipe another Elite.

00:42 After reloading I throw a plasma grenade, another fun way of attacking dawdling covies. Before it arrives I briefly pan to the right to snipe an Elite attacking the Marines. When I pan back I see a blue Elite leaping off the cliff to get clear of the landed plasma. He doesn't survive the fall though.

00:55 Another fun-filled rocket, with four Elites on the other end. One is killed outright, one gets fatally shunted off the cliff, and I finish the other two with a sniper round apiece. By now there are five loose plasmas over there, and they subsequently launch a newly arrived red Elite when I lob a frag over. I wish I'd unzoomed at that point to see him flying through the air. He must've been going fast. I follow up with a bit more sniping, then a frag which gets two Jackals.

01:13 Now I switch attention to a Jackal near the top of the path. He's pestering the Marines but I take him out with a frag. I've also noticed the cloaked Elite heading along the cliff edge, so I maintain my zoomed view, ready to gun him down when he comes into sight. A Grunt comes into view first though, and I pick him off. Then there's a blue Elite. I wing him but the Marine sniper almost instantly finishes him off. Finally the cloaked guy comes into view, but my first shot misses. With one round left in the clip, I really need to hit him else he'll be slicing up the Marines in no time. Pressure shot! Fortunately I score a hit, and although it doesn't kill him, it makes him visible to the Marines and they finish the job.

01:46 Assorted sniping and rocketing follows, in which I pick off the remaining covies along the path, including the blue Elite by the tree. No Marine casualties yet.

02:17 A Hunter emerges from the pass. Yay, another target! I bounce a few sniper rounds off him before lobbing a frag, which he sensibly backs away from. He ends up killing one of the Marines before I finally get him with a rocket. When I then look at the Marines, I can only see three on the path. I think one fell off the inner edge. He may be stuck on a slope.

02:55 Now the second Hunter comes forth. I fire a rocket quite early but only succeed in giving him a shunt. He starts firing at the Marines and I lob a plasma grenade over, but then decide I can't wait that long, and fire another rocket. However, when I switch back to the sniper rifle for a zoomed view, I see that he's about-faced and is heading clear. But at least that means his back is presented; so I snipe him with my last round.

03:15 Ok, now here's a Grunt wandering out. Looks a bit lonely! My first rocket misses but I get him with the second. After this I take another look at the Marines, and now I only see two on the path. I think another fell off when the second Hunter landed a fuel rod blast.

03:33 Time to finish. I fly over to get fresh weaponry, then fly to the pass. A fuel rod blast kills two Grunts at the blockade, then I have some needling fun with the rest. When two Marines finally arrive, one says "Mira, a Mark five!" What, he only just noticed me? Hey fella, I'm the reason you're still breathing!

04:13 (Banshee defence) To start things off I fly up and attack the dropship for fun, before blasting the blockade. When I circle back around, I aim a fuel rod shot at the three dropship Grunts and get the lot.

04:37 Circling around again, a nice glut of Elites comes into view below the rising dropship. Would've been nice to land a fuel rod blast among them but my shot goes long. I then have fun attacking the dropship as it leaves.

04:55 Ok, that's enough of that. I break off and head in for a glorious scything attack along the cliff edge. It's a bit risky because there are so many covies, but fortunately I don't take too much fire. Examining the footage, it looks like eight covies get splattered, including four Elites. Two Elites and three Jackals escape by diving off the cliff, but two of the Jackals die on impact and the rest don't survive much longer. I blast a blue Elite almost immediately, then circle back and blast a Jackal (who only survived the fall because of some friendly rocks), and also zap the final Elite.

05:18 Circling back around, I land a fuel rod shot among a mass of covies. The initial blast kills lots but also there's a chain reaction set off. I wish I'd caught proper sight of that, but I was busy veering clear. It sounded impressive though, and there's a whole lot of grunty panicking. That was a good bit of decimation. Still some covies left up there though, and I send in another blast.

05:30 Right after that I catch sight of an Elite attacking the Marines, so I circle around to give him some attention. But as I line up a shot, I fail to see a Marine quite close to the Elite, and also a Marine who's unexpectedly on the left beyond the Elite (obscured by the tree). So my blast ends up killing not just the Elite but also the two Marines. Oops! That's not gonna look good on my UNSC record. I don't normally include captions in my megabattle action movies, but in this case I felt obliged to explain myself. Looking at the footage, one of the Marines is actually pretty easy to see, but in the heat of the moment I missed him.

05:41 After that I circle around and blast another Elite. He doesn't go down immediately but I finish him with plasma fire, then risk continuing on ahead to splatter a Jackal and Grunt near the cliff edge. My Banshee loses another health bar but I think it was worth it.

05:50 With only one health bar left, I'm living rather dangerously from here on. I kill the Elite under the tree then blast a Jackal over on the left, before circling around to blast another who's advancing from the pass. A Hunter is not far behind and I splatter him before climbing and heading into the pass. More splattering follows, as I get the other Hunter then two Grunts in the pass. I blast a few Grunts too.

06:10 Finally there's just one Grunt left, out in the open, and as I cruise in to splatter him he throws a plasma at the last surviving Marine - who completely fails to get clear of course. Doh! Fun ending though.

Closing remarks Originally I was minded to do two high position defence plays, but those tend to be relatively long (the way I like to play them), and I realized it would make for a movie longer than I wanted. So instead I coupled one such battle with a Banshee defence, which plays quicker. Actually though, I think that was also good for variety and a change of pace.

In the high position defence, you'll notice that after firing a rocket or throwing a grenade, I liked to then watch the target zone with a zoomed sniper view. Of course, that's not terribly efficient battle-wise; I could've been getting on with killing covies away from the target zone. But it's fun to see the destruction - and I think you'd have less fun watching the movie otherwise.

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