Yikes, ten more covies than usual. Gonna need to be sharp!

(6:41) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Legendary. Earlier I showed some boosted glasshouse battles on Heroic, but now I'm stepping up to Legendary, using a set-up created with the method of the last movie. I've got 37 covies, including 6 Elites, namely 3 reds and 3 blues. I eliminated two reds in the Elite room and another after the rear trigger. Three plays here, with three different weapon combos.

Released January 7th 2020, gameplay recorded January 6th-7th 2020.

00:02 (Play 1 - Plasma combo) Around the left, my set-up initially features an unsuspecting group of two Grunts and a Jackal. Ideal for a grenade. I tag another Grunt just beyond and the blast takes out a red Elite too, saving me some possible grief. He's one of the two Elites I got the Elite room. The other is a blue with a needler, and I get him with a stun and tag after he's amusingly blown my way by a frag. Doubling back, I get the final ground Elite with another stun and tag, a favourite tactic. A fine start!

01:20 I won't cover the details of the whole play, but just to mention my favourite bit, this Grunt gets blasted my way by a frag and I smack him dead. Nice comedy.

02:17 (Play 2 - Rocket launcher & AR) Now I try to hold out in the inner area, mainly using a rocket launcher but I've also got an AR as back-up. It's an extra dangerous place because the covies can come at you from multiple places. I often got quickly killed attempting this.

02:47 Here I get ambushed by a red Elite from the glasshouse. But before I take much damage, I dodge a whack then rocket him, then finish him with a bit of AR fire. There's another red just afterwards but I take him out with a rocket.

03:03 Two more Elites rocketed, this time both blue. Then a third blue appears at the bottom of the first ramp and get tagged, and then a glorious rocket sends a couple of Jackals flying at the far end. That was my favourite little sequence of play.

03:28 As you can see, my set-up features a handy spare rocket launcher. I threw it there from within the exit passage, a while after the room had been triggered. It's something I'd brought along from earlier. In fact, it's the level's first rocket launcher.

03:54 The final Elite comes down the ramp and promptly gets rocketed. I try to get him with a follow-up, but what it actually does is shunt him out the other side of the glasshouse, something I only realised as I was going up the ramp. You can actually see him landing around 4:01, but I didn't notice at the time.

04:16 After trying to tag the last Grunt, I make another try but realise I've thrown a frag instead. Oops! Luckily I get clear and thus avoid fragging myself, which would've been embarrassing. The Grunt ends up in an amusing spot, on top of the window frame.

04:26 (Play 3 - Plasma pistol & needler) Finally I head to the right with my default combo, a plasma pistol and needler. At the start you can see the red Elite I culled by stealth. He dropped a plasma which is sometimes handy to pick up, as seen here after I tag and dodge the blue. Other times it gets detonated, which can be fun.

04:34 Moving on to the mass of Grunts, a lot of enjoyable carnage ensues, including an impressive blast early on, which lets me advance to the end, where most of the Jackals are. In the ensuing struggle covies approach from both sides, but I'm alert to that possibility and manage to stay on top of things, doing some stun and tag moves along the way.

05:23 Things seem fairly clear on the ground so I hop up onto the siding and do some sneaky needling into the glasshouse, a very effective tactic which I haven't shown before, though it's mentioned in my article. Two of the three Elites are killed before I'm interrupted by a Grunt.

05:51 When I get around to the rear of the glasshouse, the final Elite is friskier than expected; I thought I'd put him on the defensive. Never mind; just add more needles! I get him growling and I'm ready to finish him when he emerges, but oddly he doesn't. I suspect he got a bit stuck. Eventually he pops out though, and is easily finished.

Closing remarks This set-up turned out to be pretty good, offering a tough challenge without being rediculously hard. Of course, it helped that two of the three ground Elites were only blues. If it had been three reds, life would've been a lot harder!

Actually, getting three blues was partly due to my engineering. For starters, in the Elite room I made sure to get a blue Elite with a needler. I kept spawning the room until I heard a needler being loaded just ahead. The spawning is random and you don't often get a blue with a needler. In addition I made sure to get a blue among the two patrolling Elites in the seventh room. By having these two blues on the ground, I figured that would be a good way of keeping things manageable - because reds are fierce! I wasn't so fussed about the make-up of the three Elites in the glasshouse, but as it turned out, one of those was blue as well, which I'm glad about.

Not much assault rifle use this time, but my next movie will be an AR special so watch out!

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