Grunt gaggle fun
Posted January 28th 2007
The start of this level allows some excellent 'Grunt gaggle' fun. To set it up, make the beach assault end up with everyone dead except for the Grunts and an Elite amongst them. You can do that by immediately killing off your own Marines and then killing off the reinforcement Elites and Jackals around the back of the structure. Preferably drive off somewhere to get a checkpoint before you start your Grunt gaggle fun. Moreover, you could delay a checkpoint until approaching the Grunts. That way you'll be able to conveniently revert after wiping out the gaggle or whatever. Here are various ideas for mischief.
Grunty panic
The virtue of leaving a single Elite with the dozen or so Grunts is that when you kill him, the Grunts go into hilarious massed panic; always good for a laugh. Great to watch close up; and when they start to recover you can have some fun with friendly fire.
Friendly fire
Move about letting the Grunts accidentally shoot each other, ideally until there's only one left. See how well you can do. It's especially good fun on Easy. To begin with, grunty death comes thick and fast and you get an almost non-stop succession of phrases like "Not me!", "Watch it!", "It wasn't me!" and so on. Very cute. If you want extra protection, bear in mind that it's possible to have got an overshield first, from elsewhere.
Rocket fun
If you've taken the trouble to bring a rocket launcher along (after going off to do your stuff in the substation), you can enjoy some rocketing. It's great fun to send in rockets from distance, blowing unsuspecting Grunts sky-high. Another idea is to station yourself under the arch where those enemy reinforcements were, and blast the whole group (they gather conveniently for you), sending multiple Grunts flying in all directions.
Grunt watching
If you wait a while undetected, the Grunts start to wander around slowly and do that odd jumping exercise thing they do. You can watch them from afar through the magnified view of a pistol or rocket launcher, or get close up behind a shield (they can't see through it).
High grenade
From behind a shield, lob a plasma grenade almost vertically upwards and see the Grunts watch its path as it goes up and heads down into their midst; pretty funny.
Whoa!
Sneak up and walk in among the Grunts. Many will leap in surprise as they see you. You can potentially get one leap after another like that, before you retreat. If you want them all to leap at once, fire a shot to get their attention.
Plasma pistol sniping
If you station yourself well out to sea, you can have some fun getting the Grunts with plasma pistol sniping as they pace around unsuspecting. You can get the Elite too if he's still there; more grunty panic to look forward to!
Swiping Hunter
Lead a Hunter or two along to the gaggle, then start dodging around to enjoy seeing Grunts get accidentally swiped by wild Hunter swings. Hilarious. You're best off doing this on Normal, else the Grunts are liable to kill you before you've had much fun.