A double dose of rockslide action with Marines out front on the plateau!

(6:08) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Here are two plays of a rockslide megabattle save featuring 34 covies, using the plateau front defence plan. In the first I restrict myself to AR and frags, and in the second I use pistol and frags. There are six Marines on the plateau, five of which are actually extras ferried in from outside.

Released February 11th 2018, gameplay recorded February 5th 2018.

00:02 (Play 1 - AR & frags) Driving in, I see the dropship 3 troops heading towards the lifeboat area. I could splatter at least one Elite here but I want them to be part of the plateau action, so I just pick off the Grunt on the end, by making him dive then swerving into him. From there I take a route around the cliff wall, encountering only a couple of Jackals.

00:28 I don't want Stacker's chain-gunning support as it would be too powerful, so I get him dismounted along with my aussie side passenger. Both of them are armoured, which gives them extra resilience. That makes a total of five Marines joining me in the main defence out front, though there are also three further back. Hostilities soon kick off, and in the remaining commentary I'll note a few particular events.

00:50 I see a red Elite moving through the squad. Can't have him distracting the Marines from the main attack, so I quickly give chase, drilling him then smacking him down. Dealt with that rather nicely I think - and even managed to avoid shooting any Marines.

01:11 Another red advances, then gets badly hurt by a frag, leaving me to finish him off with two whacks. Just as I'm finishing him, I hear another Elite going into rage mode. I put him down with AR fire when he comes into view.

01:39 Another attack wave prompts an aussie Marine to throw a frag. It does good work and he jokes "My mum thought I was gonna be a doctor, hah!" I don't think that guy was my passenger; I think he was a different aussie. Then after that, I throw a nice frag of my own.

02:19 Not many covies left now, and I leap over the cover rock to finish off what looks like the last red Elite. He's down after some drilling and a crisp whack. I lose a few health bars because I didn't wait to recharge my shield, but I don't mind, and it was expected.

02:45 When I locate the dropship 4 Elite, I toy with him a bit as he's only a blue with a needler. Specifically, I get him into rage mode so I can have the satisfaction of smacking him down as he growls.

03:00 (Play 2 - Pistol & frags) I take a different route to the plateau this time, splattering the two Jackals encountered on the previous drive. Nice route. It's good fun swerving about among the rocks.

03:32 The plateau fighting kicks off with my taking down a distant Jackal with zoomed pistol fire. Then things get more hectic with the arrival of Elites. As before, I'll pick out a few select things to comment on.

03:57 I get up onto the central rock to have a nice vantage point for a while. Nice bit of variety I think.

04:12 Just before I get back down, the squad initiates a wave of frag throwing. Four of them throw in the space of about two seconds. But Stacker was first, and his frag causes a nice fountain of dead covies. He yells in celebration - "Whoo, paint by the numbers baby!" - but the joy is short-lived. One of the other frags settles near the hog (deflected by Stacker's bang I assume) and blows it onto Stacker and Johnson, both of whom were right up against it. Nooooo!

04:43 After having done assorted good work with pistol fire, I throw a frag which hurts a blue Elite. A few shots take him into rage mode, then I finish with a smack.

05:29 The final red Elite is crouching down to recharge, and I jump down behind him for an easy melee kill.

05:38 Seems like there are no more covies around, so I hop into the hog to go deal with the dropship 4 Elite. Jumping it across to the island plateau, I notice red on my tracker, and make a snap decision to try and drop the hog onto him. Works like a dream - and a Jackal catches it too! Could hardly ask for a better ending than that.

Closing remarks It was high time I got back to some battling at the plateau. Really it's scandalous that I've done so few movies up there before. Only BCM1 and BCM44; and both of those were only single plays! The trouble is, far area defence is so much fun that it's dominated my rockslide megabattle movies. I really need to spend more time covering other battle plans; and now at last I'm making an effort to address that.

The save I used was quite a highly engineered one, which I haven't used in my movies before. Of the six Marines waiting at the plateau, only one was from the original rockslide squad of seven. The other five were ferried in from outside. Also, I made sure my two hog guys were armoured for extra toughness. And I made the side passenger an aussie because I like the accent.

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