Cavern megabattle
Posted May 24th 2012
Associated movies
- BCM48 - Normal; Setting up with a large squad (9:58)
- BCM49 - Normal; Bridge assault with needler & rocket launcher, x2 (4:50)
- BCM50 - Normal; Bridge assault with pistol & plasma rifle plus hog, x2 (5:00)
- BCM59 - Normal; Solo bridge assault with Hunter companion (5:03)
- BCM141 - Normal; Banshee attack x3 (6:07)
- BCM142 - Normal; Deep incursion x3 (5:42)
- BCM143 - Normal; Banshee attack montage (6:31)
- BCM165 - Normal; Bridge assault x3 (5:56)
- BCM181 - Normal; Bridge assault x3 (6:22)
- BCM182 - Normal; Long-range mischief (7:29)
- BCM183 - Normal; Long-range mischief montage (6:21)
- BCM206 - Heroic; Attack from the broken bridge (6:12)
- BCM207 - Normal; Deep incursion over the hump x3 (6:28)
- BCM215 - Normal; Rocket assisted bridge assault x3 (6:29)
- BCM216 - Normal; Banshee attack x3 (6:38)
- BCM217 - Normal; Bridge assault x3 (6:56)
- BCM240 - Normal; Long-range mischief montage (6:20)
- BCM341 - Normal; Bridge assault x3 (6:20)
In the massive dark cavern containing a bridge, you normally meet 21 covies. But with a bit of effort that can actually be boosted to 35 by making 14 covies retreat there on foot from the two-Wraith area, including Shade gunners and Ghost and Wraith pilots once ejected, and even including the Banshee pilot after getting him down to the ground (though that may be hard without PAL Xbox). In the cavern itself, you can also trigger all covies on the near side (including the newcomers) to retreat across the bridge, to get the opposition into a more concentrated mob. Special extra work can boost enemy numbers by another 3 if you wish, making 38. As well as that you can bring along as many as 13 Marines to help you out, making for up to 52 personnel including yourself. Quite a party!
This situation is unique among the megabattles in being the only one in which the enemy aren't coming after you. So it's a case of you attacking rather than defending. There are some interesting tactical possibilities, and if you've never had the patience to set up a twin bridges megabattle with a large squad of Marines, this one can give you some terrific big-squad battling for much less effort.
In this article you'll find comprehensive set-up advice plus ideas for the actual battling. Besides your basic bridge assault, it's great for sniping and other long-range mischief, and you can have huge fun supporting your guys with a Banshee. In fact, this scenario affords possibly the best Banshee fun in the entire game!
In regard to the history of this fifth megabattle (quite a latecomer), making covies move to the cavern was actually mentioned as early as September 2004 by Agony in a reply to one of my forum posts, though he talked of leading them there which isn't really how it works (I don't know if he realized that); so I'm certainly not the first to be battling an expanded horde of covies there. I suspect I ended up forgetting about that reply (found after writing most of this article) and latching onto the enemy retreat behaviour for myself a long time later, but I'm not sure. At any rate, a full exploration of the potential was on my backlog of things to do for quite some while, until I was finally prompted to get busy with it when PerseusSpartacus mentioned a cavern battling plan of his own, albeit with only the usual covies.