Bring in the reinforcements! Here's a far area defence with lots of Marine support…

(3:50) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. This shows a rockslide megabattle against 33 covies, using the far area defence plan with an 11-man squad, mostly using a pistol and needler.

Released August 5th 2012, gameplay recorded August 2nd 2012.

00:02 This time I'm driving into battle solo for a change, but it's still fun. A couple of Grunts and blue Elites dive clear as I curve around to the battle area. As usual I skirt past the island plateau to get the dropship 3 covies released from the lifeboat area, so they'll join in with the attack. As the Marines come into view you can also see a dead Grunt, the sole casualty from when dropship 3 hovered near my squad. There's also some blood and scorch marks from that brief encounter, before the covies moved off to the lifeboat area. I've got a nice collection of spare weapons waiting but I'm already carrying a pistol and needler (my favourite combo for the battle), and that's what I'm basing my defence on for this play.

00:32 "Whoa!" Here they come. A first Elite gallops into the attack and I take him down with pistol fire. When a second follows up, I blast him with a frag and he gets finished by a chain reaction. Two more Elites come running and I switch to my needler, piling in a clip apiece as I charge aggressively right then left. Most enjoyable. That's two more down, and I send out a frag towards the final three who've taken shelter in the semicircle of rocks. That shakes them up a bit and I follow with a few plasmas; one deep to drive them out, and the other nearer the exit to try and catch them. One Elite remains inside and gets blasted, while another fails to notice the plasma behind him and likewise gets killed (though I've wasted some needles fired at him). The other Elite I finish off with pistol fire when he tries to advance.

01:16 Over on the left, a Jackal is giving a Marine a hard time. They do tend to do that. I could've peppered the Jackals earlier to address that danger, but frankly I was more interested in having fun here, rather than trying to minimize Marine casualties. The Marine buys the farm but his death is quickly avenged. I do a bit more pistol shooting after that as a few Grunts and a Jackal on the right get close, but some of my shots go well wide - not too good.

01:36 After another pistol miss I decide to switch back to the needler. A plasma ball sails in from distance but I pick it up and dodge at the last moment. Needles scatter off a few Jackal shields - I'm hardly being very effective at that point - but things improve when I turn back and charge in on two Grunts who've advanced towards the Marines, and they both go bang. Meanwhile the Marines get busy with a few frags, including Stacker: "You are a statistic boy!" A brief spell of mayhem follows, and some of the Grunts run for it: "Save yourself!"

02:09 Back to the pistol for a moment. A Jackal moves forward firing rapidly and I'm a bit slow to give him some attention, but at least he goes down before I lose any health. I get some fresh needles from the spare full needler on the ground, and head out for some more needling action. A yellow-shielded Jackal goes bang rather nicely, and so does a nearby Grunt as he tries to throw a grenade.

02:32 I'm well into the mopping up phase now. A Jackal is pestering the Marines with rapid long-range fire but I give him a scare with a grenade, making him dive. As my needles pile into a Grunt lower down the hill, I throw a second plasma near the Jackal, having seen that the first was landing short. He again dives clear but I finally get him with a stream of needles, and the bang takes out a Grunt too.

02:56 With a final spot of fun in mind, I pick up a plasma pistol for use on the remaining Jackals. With the first, I take down his shield then pile in some needles. With the second, I circle the large rock hoping to come up behind and give him a nasty surprise, but he spots me and turns. Doesn't help him much though, and he goes airborne anyway. BLAM!

03:26 Back near the squad, it looks like I've still got six Marines left, including Stacker and Johnson. One Marine has ended up behind the hog. You may prefer to slide the hog down the hill so it doesn't end up blocking anyone. I was doing that in some later battles.

Closing remarks Actually BCM52 would've been yet another AOTCR movie if I'd got it done, but I wanted a bit more time for that so I decided to rustle up a quick spot of rockslide megabattling for you instead, to be going on with. Months ago I created a few saves for doing a far area defence with a large squad of Marines, and it's high time I used those anyway. In this first movie of the pair, I thought I'd open with a battle including some needling, to get things off to a nice explosive start.

As you may've noticed, my squad included both Stacker and Johnson. Stacker is armoured and came from the hillside survivor area. Thanks to his armour he tends to survive battles such as this far more often than Johnson. See my page on Extra Marines for full advice on setting things up. There's a section specifically on the far area.

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