Those Elites really shouldn't stand around on the cliff edge when I've got my sniper rifle out.

(7:22) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Again with the same spiral path megabattle save, I've put together three varied plays, starting with some sniping fun I came up with, in which you station yourself part way up the path. And by the way, be sure to stick around for a freaky novelty at the end of the movie!

Released August 27th 2025, gameplay recorded August 25th 2025.

00:02 (Play 1 - Mid-path snipe-fest) Exploring use of the middle path area, I found that you can have pretty good fun sniping from there. Namely, sniping covies along the cliff edge (where they often pause), or when they start to come down the path. You can have fun with grenades too, once you learn the right throwing elevations to use. This play showcases the potential pretty well and ends with some Banshee fun, though the Banshee soon smokes up and I decide that it's time to bail.

02:48 (Play 2 - Path blockade rumble with late release) After a quick solo assault on the initial covies, I release the blocked mob. Armed with plasma weapons, an excellent combo for this situation, I then defend alongside the Marines from near the big rock by the tree. Things can often get rather intense with such a situation, but here the mob takes quite heavy attrition early on, so we have a relatively easy time of things - at least until the Hunters come after us!

04:54 (Play 3 - Path top defence with extra Banshee work) With this path top defence I start off with a bit more Banshee work than usual, for fun. It's something you might like to do sometimes. Near the end of the flight I manage to kill the tree Elite, neutralising the threat he'd otherwise pose with his needler (to the Marines especially).

But as well as some extra Banshee work, the other thing I wanted to feature was the pistol & AR combo, which is quite nice for a path top defence. In this particular play the released mob is quite slow to advance, so I end up doing more long-range shooting than expected. In doing that, a couple of Elites dive off the cliff edge due to my grenades, and I have to deal with them later.

I could've shown a play with more intense close-range action featuring the AR, but I chose this play because of the novelty at the end, featuring a panicking Grunt trapped in a rock. If you look at the footage closely, you can see that he was initially by a Ghost next to the rock; e.g. you can see that at 6:44. Not long after that, he seems to've somehow gone through to the other side, and into the rock I think. When I take a pistol shot at the final Hunter at 6:54, you can see the Grunt jumping in surprise, which starts him panicking. But there's no escape from the rock. After pausing to watch, I shoot him at almost the same time as the sniper. Incidentally, for other rock runner examples see an Elite in BCM503 at 4:18, and a combat Flood in BCM273 at 1:27.

Closing remarks If you're enjoying this, don't go away; there's another instalment coming up, showing yet more battle ideas, and something quite amusing!

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