Plateau base rocks defence

At the back of the area where you'd execute a plateau base defence, there's an enormous rock jutting up, and a smaller rock abutting it on the corner away from the plateau. The plan is to mainly defend from behind those rocks, in the narrow strip of ground between the rocks and the cliff wall. It's a highly defensible position with lots of potential.

There's an opening at each end, from which the covies can approach. Surviving with both ends open can be rather tough, because covies would almost inevitably come in on both sides, but you always have the option of blocking off one end with a Warthog to let you focus on the other, such as seen in BCM651, the movie for which I came up with the plan. That may give you the best experience, but by all means experiment with different arrangements.

Approaching and preparing

You have various options for reaching the rocks, one being as shown in the aforementioned movie, where I go through the hidey-hole entrance and around the narrow passage beyond. You can experiment with what gives you the best enemy arrival dynamic. However you do things though, you may need a bit of time for setting up the hog to block things off as desired, probably also getting passengers dismounted.

In regard to the latter, bear in mind that it's possible to get the gunner standing on the gun. If the back of the hog is roughly square against a wall, he can get bumped up above the hog, from where he drops and settles on the gun. In fact it's quite easy to learn how best to position the hog if you specifically want him up there.

In my movie I did want him there, because it was amusing to see. But of course, he'll make a pretty inviting target for the covies if they spot him. Their initial fire may merely dislodge him though, shifting him behind the hog and in relative safety. If you want him in such a position from the outset, it's just a case of angling the hog a little differently when you park it, so he doesn't get bumped up.

Tactics talk

As you might gather from the play seen in BCM651, this defence location is great for sneaky ambush work, drawing covies along to then get a nasty surprise when a cyborg starts drilling them with hot lead or whatever. It's a real delight to play about with that dynamic. At the very start you might want to step out to fire a few shots to draw them your way, to get things going. They don't always know where you are, and can also get distracted by Marines up on the plateau.

You can have lots of close-range fun with an AR or plasma weapon, or even a needler if used with care. And then there's grenades of course, another big element of the fun! With covies getting so close to you, it's especially easy to tag them. The accumulating dead covies can give you a steady supply of plasmas, or you could let the plasmas accumulate and set off a big chain reaction at the right moment.

Geometry of the corner rock

Bear in mind, the corner rock can vary in design. Of the five possible designs, two are nice and large (one of them features in my pictures here, and in BCM651), two are of medium size but still giving great cover, and one is very low, not giving much cover at all. With the latter, the battling would be somewhat different as you won't have such good ambushing potential. So you might want to avoid that one.