Drop yourself behind Brute defences at the third tower for some novel fun.

Posted February 8th 2009

• Introduction
• Dropping in and triggering guards
• Brutes on the prow
• Guards from within
• Banshee fun
• Bringing in Marines
• Weaponry notes

At the end of November 2007, NOKYARD emailed me about sneakily dropping in behind the enemy at the third tower. I gave it some play and had some great fun, but I was already busy with other cyborg mischief so I put a write-up off for later. More than a year later, as it's turned out! Poor NOKYARD has had to be patient, which can't be easy for a high-speedster. But finally, here we are. So get yourself along the coast and try out this novel insertion behind enemy lines. I've included lots of ideas for fun things to do once you're down.

When you reach the third tower in your Hornet, you want to end up above the roofed entrance area leading to the door. One way to do this is to start by dropping yourself well behind the first AA Wraith. Right at the back there's a spare fuel rod gun if you want to grab it on the way or get an existing fuel rod gun topped up. You can then skirt around the cliff at the back and clamber up onto the tower structure. Nice! Alternatively, you could just drop yourself up there directly, on either side.

There's some light-coloured roofing you can jump down onto from the outer grey rim, and if you do that you'll get a loading point. If you care to get within a few steps of the edge, nine Brute guards will emerge from within the tower, heading out along both entrance ways, and you'll usually get a checkpoint too. Unless the Elites get triggered, I don't think you'll get a further checkpoint until inside the tower. That's convenient because you'll be able to keep reverting for more of this outdoor fun. Note that if you want to revert further back than the guard checkpoint, you can do so with suicide reversion. That should take you back to when you were approaching along the coast, enabling you to start the whole insertion again. It's a good idea to've deliberately left Banshees intact as you flew along the coast, so you retain the option of having some Banshee fun after dropping yourself.

I'd recommend doing all this without assistance from Hornets or Elites, so you can take all the time you want to tackle the various enemies. See Solo attack at the third tower for advice on going solo. Note also that the Pelicans stay clear while at least one Banshee remains intact. An advantage of this is that the Chieftain and his buddies up on the 'prow' should stay intact for you to deal with. They have a tendency to blow themselves up when firing on a Pelican. With the Pelicans staying clear, things are also a lot more peaceful because the Wraiths and Shades have nothing to fire at, unless they get sight of you. You can also be free of music if you like; see Coastal assault without music.

Moving about

From the light-coloured roofing you can jump up to the central divide, allowing yourself to switch sides if desired. From the divide you can also get back up onto the rim. From up on the rim you can advance down it to get great positions overlooking Shades and Wraiths, ideal for sneaky attacks with grenades or explosive weapon fire.

A beam rifle is great for picking off the Chieftain and his buddies way up on the high 'prow' of the tower, near some invitingly explosive plasma batteries; or for setting the batteries off! A fuel rod gun is also good, and these guys are also in grenading range. With the Cowbell skull on, the enemies can get blown clean off the prow in a glorious explosion.

If Pelicans are hovering around (Banshees having been all destroyed), the prow enemies will tend to focus on those and you can enjoy watching, perhaps picking your time to set off the plasma batteries or whatever.

Enemy retreat

The prow enemies retreat once the Chieftain is dead or when at least two of their number are dead. When you see them going, it can be fun to try and bring them down before they reach the bottom of the long ramp. Alternatively you might like to let them join the mass of guards, to make for extra targets in some close-range blasting.

As already mentioned, nine guards can be triggered when you near the roof edge. One bit of mischief is to ambush them from above as they come into sight. For example you could blast them with a fuel rod gun or Brute shot, or try to tag them with grenades (hopefully you came fully loaded). Alternatively, let them emerge and gather around trying to get a bead on you, then have a full-on blasting match or whatever. They'll retreat when they've taken sufficiently many casualties though. At that point you may like to jump down and let 'em have it in the back as they go.

Incidentally, if you ever fancy doing this sort of thing in normal play, it's possible to get up on the roof from below. You can jump up onto a purple container then onto an upper surface, then onto the roof proper, ready to do some ambushing before the guards are fully out.

If you left some Banshees intact - and it's easy to have left them all intact on Heroic or lower - you can have fun with them in various ways as follows.

Destroying attackers

If you're on the left side of the roofing as you look out seaward, Banshees tend to come in to attack and you can have some good fun trying to bring them down. The main options for that would be a fuel rod gun, Brute shot, Spartan laser, or tagging them with grenades when they get close. One nice place for doing this is up on the rim that you would have first clambered up onto if you skirted up around the cliff. Things will be additionally challenging if the Chieftain with the fuel rod gun is still alive, bombarding you, forcing you to keep one eye on incoming shots to dodge them. But if you don't want that bother, you could always kill him beforehand of course.

Note that in order to attract a Banshee, you may need to briefly advance, as if to make yourself obvious. The Banshees usually only attack one at a time.

When using a fuel rod gun or Brute shot, I'd recommend firing a volley of two shots as close together as possible. Often they'll both hit. Firing three tends to be wasteful as the Banshee will probably veer off before colliding with the third shot. Amusingly, the shudder from a Brute shot blast - possibly a quick double blast - can be enough to shake a pilot out of his ride, leaving the Banshee intact. Maybe this can happen with a fuel rod blast too, but I haven't witnessed it. You may even end up with a pilot on the roof with you! But I'm sure you'll soon take care of that eh?

Hijacking

Instead of blasting a Banshee, you may like to try and hijack it, perhaps to engage in a little aerial action, or perhaps just because you like the feel of booting those big apes out of their rides. It's actually quite easy as long as you're on Heroic or lower so you can survive the plasma cannon fire as the Banshee makes its attack run (things can be a bit touch-and-go on Heroic though). As it gets close, jump up to one side (maybe after running forwards to intercept it before it veers off), holding RB down so you board it.

For a challenge, see how many Banshees you can collect. On Easy I managed a nice collection of six, up on the roof. After that, I triggered the Brute guards and had fun sending the Banshees over the edge, hopefully to drop on a few hairy heads.

Foot sniping with a beam rifle

Another bit of fun is to try and kill Brute pilots by sniping their feet with a beam rifle. When you kill a pilot he falls out, and if he was over the sea you'll shortly hear a muted thump from the Banshee getting destroyed on impact.

There are two ways to play this foot sniping game. One is to tempt each pilot to come in to attack, then get him as he flies almost directly away from you. You can get a nice big target that way. The other way is to keep out of trouble and pick them off from distance as they fly around, bumping into each other a fair bit if there are lots of them. Maybe the best place for that is over on the rim around the far side of the roofing, as the Banshees tend to leave you alone there. See how many pilots you can get. It's not easy but after a bit of practice I managed five, starting with a full beam rifle. Don't rush things. Be patient, wait for a good shot and take it calmly. With the other approach, i.e. getting them after attack runs, I managed to bring down seven, though that was on Easy so I didn't have to worry much about cannon fire.

If you care to bring along one or two Marine outriders on your Hornet, they can potentially join in some of the fun with you, and you might enjoy the atmosphere they create with the comical things they cry out. You'd best be playing on Easy though, or they're unlikely to last long under all the incoming fire.

Bozo behaviour

If they start up on the rim they may stay there for a while, but they tend to eventually jump down onto the light roofing or else get blown down there. On the left side of the roofing as you look out seaward, they seem to want to run through a small gap to reach the other side; but they can't get through so they just end up running on the spot looking silly. You can always barge them clear though, to encourage them to engage enemies. They'll often roll around near the edge, dodging incoming fire; but they're liable to jump down before long. Marines on the right side of the roofing tend to jump down straight away. Once down, they head for the lowest bit of ramping, near where the Scorpion is due. If you care to join them at that location, you can enjoy a novel bit of fighting there. Banshees will come in to attack, and Brutes will advance down the ramp to get a bead on you.

Spare weapons

Another use for bringing outriders along is to use them as weapon carriers. You can kill them once you put the Hornet down; and hey presto, you've got extra weaponry.

Here are a few notes on acquiring certain bits of weaponry for your fun.

Beam rifle

If you didn't already get a full beam rifle from near the first tower (perhaps getting one after leaving), you can get one on the Wraith island near the second tower. There are two in a container where the foot soldiers start off from. Just be careful the container doesn't get blown into the water!

Fuel rod gun

It's possible to have an almost full fuel rod gun by the time you board your Hornet. See Extra fuel rod gun before the first tower for some relevant advice, and be careful not to leave the weapon behind to pick up later, else the game may annoyingly remove it. Of course, there's also the one available for you to pick up behind the first Wraith at the third tower. So you can certainly end up with a full one, ready to blast the hell out of those oversized space-monkeys.

Brute shot

You can arrive at the third tower with a full Brute shot of course. Prior to getting a Hornet, you'll have met several Brutes armed with them, including some on Prowlers at the first tower.

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