Anyone for a spot of creative sniping in the cavern?

(7:31) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. You may recall my 'harlequin Grunt' from BCM192, a surprise novelty from sniping two Shade gunners. But because I then found and focused on a completely different way to get merged bodies, I never did investigate how easy it was to get merged Grunts via sniping. Until now! This movie gives some example play and basic advice, but for fuller information see my new article Merged Grunts via gunner sniping.

Released October 7th 2025, gameplay recorded October 2nd 2025.

00:02 (Harlequin) Having already done some stealthy sniping to make the place safe, and having got a delayed checkpoint (with a Banshee close at hand for transport), I do some shooting to hopefully get a harlequin. My shots are timed for when the gunners are at their lowest. And I indeed get a harlequin. By the way, I'd got rid of the third gunner in advance, so he wouldn't be any bother.

Incidentally, with this shooting routine these guys sometimes instead gave me a super-merging, but less than half as often as I got a harlequin. However, when I instead did the shooting from over on the other side of them (at around a 7 o-clock position relative to the Shade), the stats seemed to be reversed, with harlequins being the less frequent outcome. So it seemed like the effects were angle-dependent.

01:51 (Harlequin with the opposite Shade) Continuing straight on with the opposite Shade, I use the same routine with two curl-backs. By the time I'm heading across in my Banshee, the third gunner (who I hadn't bothered eliminating in my set-up work) has boarded the Shade but it's no trouble; I simply shunt him off the edge. As for the sniped gunners, I've got a harlequin again. In fact these guys always seemed to give me a harlequin when I was shooting like this.

03:09 (Super-merging) Using the first pair afresh but moving in closer, this time I fire when they're at their highest, and they turn out super-merged, with an initially orange colour but stabilizing to red after a first blast. That's what I was expecting, having done this multiple times before. With this shot timing, these guys were always ending up like this.

The curl-backs opposite behaved differently, incidentally. When shooting at their highest, they almost always gave me a harlequin. There was just one time when they gave me something else, namely an almost all red appearance, with just a small patch of orange showing. That may've been a super-merging, but as I recall, I neglected to test it with blasting.

04:49 (Using slightly different timings to get a harlequin) This time I'm doing similar (with a different set-up to the rest of the movie) except delaying my second shot very slightly. So slightly that the difference may not be obvious, but I was firing just as gunner 2 was starting to head down. And hey presto, I now get a harlequin, rather than what would've normally been a super-merging. The difference in timing caused a very slightly different body settling I assume; so the body alignment wasn't so perfect this time. A useful technique, in cases where you keep getting super-merging but instead want a harlequin.

05:27 (Using two different angles) Here's a quick demo of how misaligned the bodies can be if you take your shots at two different angles. No chance of a good result with these two angles! Sometimes different angles can be okay though.

05:57 (Using alerted Grunts) We've used non-alerted gunners so far, which is easiest, but here's an example of using alerted gunners and still getting a good result, namely a harlequin in this case. I'm having to be a bit careful though. As at the start of the movie, I shoot when they're at their lowest.

There's a bit of comedy along the way, with the replacement gunner enjoying some plasma pistol shooting before realising that there's a much bigger gun just behind him.

Closing remarks To anyone curious about this whole merging business, see my Body merging article and the multiple movies listed there. Let me remind you also of the new article, Merged Grunts via gunner sniping.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why there's no music playing, it's because I hadn't played through the level in standard fashion. I'd grabbed the bridge Banshee, quickly triggered the first ground battle, then flown directly to the cavern, skipping over the crashed Pelican area and two-Wraith area. Because the two-Wraith area hadn't been triggered, the usual tunnel music didn't trigger. The lack of music does give the proceedings an unusually quiet feel (aside from the ear-splitting shiper shots of course), but I found it quite nice to work with.

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