Elites and Grunts who don't fight back? Could have some fun with that!

(8:22) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Here's how you can easily get some oddly inactive covies in the hillside survivor area, something I originally described in 2006. Plus I demonstrate some fun with them, for which there's a lot of potential!

Released October 20th 2018, gameplay recorded October 14th-20th 2018.

00:02 (Getting the inactive covies) You can read about the set-up work in my article so I won't repeat it here, but in this example I quickly snipe nine covies (which leaves four), then two of the three distant Marines. Amusingly, my seated passengers says "Hey, nice shot!" when I kill Stacker.

After the dropship spawns and I kill the final Marine, I pause a moment before heading down to the drop zone, because I don't want to draw fire from the ship, lest the occupants get activated. There's a Jackal down there, and his fire could get the ship's attention. In fact it subsequently does, but only quite late.

The dropship troops turn out inactive as expected. An early indication was the fact that the Marines weren't targeting the ship as it neared the ground.

02:20 (A bit of slaying) After killing two more of the initial covie group, I turn my attention to the new arrivals, killing them in various ways. I could've checkpointed at the nearby entrance beforehand, but didn't want to do that. I wanted to retain the ship spawn checkpoint to replay from there.

To speed things along I've edited out the arrival of one last member of the original group. A Grunt turned up after I caught the plasma pistol, and I killed him with a plasma ball (you can see his body in the background around 2:44). I've also edited out about 17 seconds of play with the blue Elite, as it was rather similar to what I did with the red.

03:40 (Close look) Moving on to clips from later plays (not all from the same set-up), here are two short clips to emphasize that you can take a good close look at the covies, as they're just standing around. In the first clip the two Grunts jump simultaneously near the end, which I thought was amusing.

04:15 (Moving them with a hog) The main way to move the covies around is by pushing with a hog, but it's a delicate business. Here I go a smidge too fast at one point and the Elite gets violently splattered, sending purple blood onto the metal piping in the background. You'll need some patience but you get used to it.

04:33 (Four Grunt execution) As an example of the creative potential of moving covies, here's a line of four Grunts (took about four minutes to make), ideal for comical execution with a sniper rifle! I got multiple clips of this, having checkpointed after setting it up, but one thing I like about this one is that sarge and the aussie level their rifles at the Grunts, looking as if they're keeping them in line. It added to the comedy I thought.

04:49 (Marines with covies) Here are two clips where I've got Marines close to covies, so you can see relative sizes. I forget whether I did any covie moving for the first clip, but there was definitely some needed for the second, to get the Elite near the Grunt. It's amusing how Johnson has his rifle pointed at the Grunt's head of course.

05:10 (AR slaughter) Another play using my line of four Grunts. This time I plough through them with an AR, creating a glorious trail of blue blood. I want a dozen Grunts in a row now! However, the best you can do is five, which is how many you get on Easy and Normal.

05:19 (Grunt launch) There was a Grunt launch in my opening play, but here's a bigger one which involved a fair bit of set-up work. I moved a Grunt onto a nearby rock (mainly because I thought he'd look cute there), then got a delayed checkpoint there for making attempts at launching him with a double tag and sniping him. Which checkpoint? The same one used in BCM307 (triggered in the cliffside survivor area). On this launch I manage to get three sniper hits while he's up high. I think this was the only time I did that. A lot of the time he flew off in less convenient directions, rarely going so high, and making sniping harder.

05:38 (New battle formation) Yikes, looks like the covies are trying out a fearsome new battle formation. An Elite with a rear-mounted Grunt! Better watch out for those.

If you're wondering how I created this, I moved the Elite to a place below the main structure, and moved the Grunt onto the struture, up near the edge. I checkpointed afterwards. By shooting the Grunt with a pistol, I was able to make him fall down onto the Elite, though it was quite hit-and-miss. I'd been hoping that I could get him standing on the Elite's head, but instead I kept getting arrangements such as this, in which the Grunt is lodged further down (and actually you can potentially get this an easier way, by pushing the Grunt up with a hog). Maybe I'll try for the head thing another day.

05:56 (Group shot) Another thing you can do with covie moving is arrange a nice group photo. One for the album eh? I had a bit of trouble with one of the Grunts here, and had to remind him not to jump. Of course, it's not generally good policy for a photographer to shoot his subjects; but hey, I'm a cyborg and he's a Grunt, so it just comes naturally.

06:07 (Grunts on a hog) Now here are two clips about getting Grunts onto a Warthog. In the first clip I actually get two. In the second I get a novel close view due to the camera being constrained by the tree (I was specifically going for that). But really the main reason for the second clip is the plasma grenade comedy.

07:27 (Causing friendly fire) When a straggler turns up with a needler, I make him kill one of his inactive pals. Doesn't take long at all.

07:47 (Say goodbye) A comedy clip to end with. Got the covies lined up for an explosive send-off. Unfortunately the aussie gets taken out too. Whoops!

Closing remarks Hurrah, that's another very old topic finally given some movie treatment. My original article about these inactive covies was a dozen years ago! Now that I've revisited the topic for this movie, I've revised and expanded the article - and retitled it from 'Oblivious hillside covies' to the more descriptive 'Inactive hillside covies'.

Although not all the clips were from the same set-up (something you can potentially tell from the Grunt types present), all the footage used the same two Marines, namely Johnson and an aussie. They're the same guys I had in BCM309. All the footage came from a base save in which I'd got those two guys across the light-bridge.

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