Deny an Elite his Banshee, and maybe take it yourself!

Posted April 9th 2025

When you reach the snowfield which has the twin bridges overhead, one of the toys the covies have brought along to fend off your cyborg onslaught is a Banshee, resting at the far end. The twin bridges Banshee, as I call it. In normal play the pilot spawns when you get a certain way up the field (namely at the same time the Ghost pilots spawn), and pretty soon it'll be heading into the attack. However, you can quite easily prevent this and, if you want, use the Banshee yourself!

The trick

All you need to do is flip it (overturn it) with a long-range rocket before the pilot spawns. In doing this, a sniper rifle helps because it allows you to take a precise aim which will hopefully do the job in one go. But it's not essential. Without the rifle your aiming will be relatively crude and it's less likely that you'll succeed with a single rocket. But of course, you could always fire more (if the Banshee remains sufficiently in view), or just revert to the last checkpoint to start over.

You need to take the shot from a suitable spot though. After going up the zigzag path to reach the field, turn sharp left and head for the tree against the cliff wall. Specifically, head just to the right of the trunk and position yourself at the wall, facing up the field. From there you can see part of the Banshee.

In regard to the aim, personally I go for a spot just below the nose and on the right somewhat, as seen in the accompanying picture and in my tutorial BCM567. That aim usually seems to do the job. If you just take any old aim, all too often the Banshee will annoyingly settle upright. Or that's been my impression at least. But feel free to explore using other aims if you like.

A word of warning: be careful not to rocket the tree and kill yourself! There's not much danger though, unless you're really careless about your positioning.

Zigzag path checkpoint

Just so you know, there's a checkpoint triggered at the start of the zigzag path leading up to the snowfield. This is the 'zigzag path checkpoint' which I've spoken of elsewhere. If you want, you can easily keep it delayed until in position for your shot, and looking at the target through the sniper rifle. That would also be the easiest way of exploring the effects of different precise aims.

Other shooting spots

It's also possible to rocket the Banshee from the other side of the tree, but there seems to be a significantly greater danger of rocketing the tree's branches and killing yourself. There's also not quite such a good view. So really there seems no point using that side.

Of more interest, there's a rock you can stand on for a potentially good view (which can be slightly better in fact). It's namely the one along the cliff wall, to your left if you were initially in the default firing spot at the tree. However, the rock needs to be high enough and it might not be. Rock geometry got randomized last time you came through a loading point. So, your particular rock may or may not give you a good view. Your view can even be impacted by the geometry of two rocks along the approximate line of sight.

Using the Banshee yourself

Having flipped the Banshee, you can go and board it yourself (the pilot may be a little angry), and have some fun using it against covies in this area. In fact, with this activity in mind, you could've killed as few of them as possible beforehand (and eliminated the powerful Marine sniper), to maximize the number available for Banshee slaughter.

Another thing you could do is use the Banshee against bridge troops up above, once they're triggered some while later. That's good fun!

One more possibility is to land at the exit of the second bridge, to then go through the rest of the level with no more covies to face. Although, that's a bit dull isn't it?

All of these things could equally be done with a Banshee obtained some other way much earlier (see here), so you don't actually need the flipping trick. But it's a late option if you want it.

Background

This trick (which I've given a name) is an old one and I think I learned of it quite early on in my Halo playing career, though I'm not sure where. Possibly in a magazine? I can't say who might've advertised it first or if they were using the same spot highlighted here, but I suspect that most people aware of the trick do use that spot, though maybe some have been standing on the rock instead.

Nor do I know if a precise aim has ever been suggested. The aim I've described is just my own, settled on in the course of making the movie. Can't actually remember if I used to use that aim earlier.

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