• Basics
• Refined routine
• Making sure enemies materialize
• Getting enemies out of the tower
• Enemy numbers

The spiral path megabattle takes place in the spiral path area of level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room'), where you meet up with some Marines that get attacked by a pair of Hunters. The idea for setting it up is to get a mass of enemies chasing after you from previous areas, greatly adding to the enemies you trigger here. On Legendary you can end up facing around 60 in all, while on the other difficulty levels it's around 50. Here's the basic method for setting it up. This is all you need to go and start having some fun, and I suggest you do so. You can leave my refined set-up routine and other advice for later.

Basic method

Progress through the level killing all enemies and letting Marines get killed, until past the underground bridge. Steal a Banshee along the way, but keep it healthy. Be armed with the weapons you'll want to enter the spiral path area with (I recommend a fully loaded sniper rifle and rocket launcher), and be fully stocked with grenades.

Fly up the rising tunnel after the underground bridge. Enemies from the tunnel and dropship will chase you. Fly low past the tower doors to draw more enemies out into the chase. Destroy the Wraith, and eject any Ghost pilots with blasts to one side as you want everyone on foot. Actually, to save yourself pilot ejection work, it's good if you can overturn Ghosts along the way before they ever get manned (it's easy with a blast to one side). Also fly low past the narrow pass that leads into the next area to bring out the pass guards.

Try to attract everyone over to the pass, then fly through low down to trigger enemies beyond. This also triggers enemies outside to head into the pass; so fly back out again (after perhaps blasting the Shades, which I'd recommend) and wait for most or all enemies to enter. Some may need a bit of encouragement. It's up to you how much time you spend on that, but with patience it's usually possible to get everyone in.

Fly back in, trigger the Marines and Hunters, kill the Hunters quick and get a checkpoint near the underpass (the short tunnel with pillars at the start). Hopefully you'll get it within a few seconds, but it can get delayed quite a while if you were slow to kill the Hunters and the Marines got into an early skirmish. Hey presto, you're done. Prepare for battle!

Difficulty levels

Even if you're used to playing Halo on Legendary, I recommend using Heroic or lower to begin with as the battling is so much more intense than normal Halo play. Heroic will probably feel more like Legendary a lot of the time. Setting it up on Legendary would give you a new level of grief entirely. Survivable yes, but if you disallow yourself the long-distance luxury of the sniper rifle, you'll sure need to grit your teeth!

This section details a more refined version of the basic method, starting from just before the rising tunnel. With a bit of care and patience it should give you the maximum enemy count. There are various reasons behind parts of the plan, which are explained along the way. Reading through it should be a lot of help with your battle engineering even if you're not going to follow this particular routine.

Throughout you should avoid damaging enemies, and especially avoid killing them of course. You want everyone healthy for the battle. If things go badly at any point, you can always revert to your last checkpoint and try again; I won't keep repeating this.

NB: To be able to get the maximum enemy count, you should've made sure to kill all earlier enemies first, otherwise some of the possible megabattle enemies may never materialize.

Overturn the Ghost and fly up the rising tunnel

As you head into the rising tunnel, be on a suitable flight path for blasting over the nearest Ghost to stop any Elite getting in. Actually they often don't bother, and they never seem to use the other Ghost at all. A blast just off the right wing should do it, but there was a checkpoint just before the corner so it's easy to keep trying if needed. Fly evasively up the tunnel. You may take some nasty plasma at the bottom but you should be able to get past the Jackals without further damage.

Overturn the dropship Ghosts

As you exit the tunnel, fly past the dropship and turn around to hover above and behind it. Just as it's starting to rise and the Elites are moving in, land a blast between the Ghosts to overturn them so they can't be manned. You needed to wait until the ship was slightly off the ground for this shot, else the far Ghost tends to hit the ship and fail to overturn.

Fly up and hover above the tunnel exit (resting on the ledge if you like) to wait for the dropship to move off. This is partly to avoid dropship fire and partly to help draw the tunnel enemies up and out. Occasionally some tunnel enemies may stop part way up (take a look if you're not sure everyone emerged), but you can easily tempt them out if you briefly fly in to get their attention. You could leave that for later if you prefer to have fewer enemies around to fire on you.

If you'd like a checkpoint sometime around now, just raise your altitude to get more distance from the enemy (go quite a way higher than the ledge), and the game should give you a delayed checkpoint from when you triggered the dropship. Checkpoints are delayed while the game considers you under threat.

Overturn more stuff and destroy the empty Wraith

Fly off down the front of the tower, staying high when going past the door to avoid triggering enemies yet (you're skipping the tower checkpoint). Be above tree-top level to be safe. Overturn the Shade; you may need more than one shot as it often lands on its feet. The Grunt that appears later will be unable to get in, and will join the crowd. Moving on, overturn the Ghost at the tower corner, and destroy the Wraith. It's alright to be low down by now as you're not near a tower door. Because you've destroyed the Wraith, the pilot that appears later will join the crowd. Turn around and overturn the other Ghost near the tower. All this Ghost overturning saves you having to eject pilots from them later, and it also stops Elites running over their own troops!

Trigger the front door and draw enemies towards the pass

Head back past the front door low enough to trigger the enemies behind it; you can fly left of the Shade slope to stay clear of enemy fire. Ascend and briefly fly on to get the attention of earlier enemies near the tunnel exit. Staying high, try to draw everyone along towards the narrow pass that leads through to the spiral path area; I often hover slowly backwards doing this. Part of the reason for doing this now is to minimize the chance of any of these enemies getting drawn into the tower when you fly around the back of it shortly. Enemies that go inside can be awkward to get back out. Some enemies may be obstinate and remain near the door, but never mind, you'll get them along later.

Push off the Shade and trigger the back door

When you triggered the front door, you also triggered a checkpoint but it will have been delayed while the game considered you under threat from the enemy. Climb high to finally get it. Now fly over to the manned Shade and arc around to avoid taking fire as you push it off the plateau with a firm shove at the base. Hopefully the Grunt will fall out and survive. If he doesn't, you can just revert to that recent checkpoint for another go (that's why you wanted it). If you don't have that recent checkpoint to revert to however, and he ends up still seated, never mind; you'll still be able to eject him later when the other enemies have cleared off. Briefly fly past the back door to trigger the remaining tower enemies, firing a few shots to rouse them, then head back towards the pass.

Trigger the pass guards and draw enemies over

Fly low past the pass entrance to trigger pass guards: two Hunters and two Elites. This also triggers a Banshee pilot on the tower roof but he seems to just stand around, so there's apparently no threat (but if you want to make sure, you could fly up beforehand and blast or push the Banshee down, or overturn it). Hover high near the pass entrance to draw most enemies over. If you see anyone remaining distant, go and get their attention to tempt them along if you can. Some Elites may hang around at the corner of the tower, but that's okay. If you want a checkpoint after this phase of the work, raise your altitude and you should get a delayed checkpoint from when you triggered the pass guards.

Fly in then back out

With the pass clear, swoop in and fly through some part of it low down to trigger enemies beyond: Jackals and Grunts to the right, Elite and Grunts sauntering up the spiral path, and Shade Grunts on the far ledge. Climbing back up again (you can be doing that even before you're through the pass), kill the Shade gunners unless you prefer to leave them alive for the battle. I'd normally kill both, as the Shades can otherwise be irritants in your back and side when battling. I strongly recommend at least killing the one on the right, else you'll later have a problem getting the 'underpass checkpoint' (you'll be under threat from his Shade, causing a checkpoint delay). When you're done, turn around and exit the area.

Get enemies into the pass

When you triggered enemies in the spiral path area, it also triggered a new behaviour in the enemies outside. Instead of flocking after you they'll have an instinct to head into the pass, though some may still need a bit of prompting. Try to get everyone inside, unless you care to deliberately leave a few stragglers outside. Enemies that are outside at the start of the megabattle are likely to stay there until you fight your way up to the pass, at which point your proximity tends to attract them in. That can be a nice way of finishing off a battle, but it also means fewer enemies piling down the path of course. If you want to maximize the intensity of the main attack, get everyone into the pass.

A useful method of getting obstinate enemies to move is to fly beyond them, as if leaving the coast invitingly clear for them to advance. If that doesn't seem to get them moving, try another position. Hovering above the pass often works; that's worth trying first actually. I sometimes also give Elites a light peppering of plasma (not enough to get through their shields), to try to get them moving. Spend as little or as much time on this as you like; but with patience you should be able to get everyone through.

There are a few special enemies you may need to deal with once other enemies are out of the way. If the gunner remained seated when you pushed the Shade off, carefully push it over to get him out so he can join the crowd. If there are any enemies on the tower balcony or the ramp up to it, or seemingly stuck inside, there are ways of getting them out so they'll join the crowd too; see Getting enemies out of the tower.

Get a new Banshee

Assuming your Banshee is damaged by now, fly up to the top of the tower, kill the dozy pilot and switch to his undamaged machine. You might as well have a new one, yes? Actually you might have blown or pushed this thing down to the ground earlier, in which case you won't need to fly up again unless you just want to kill the pilot (there's no particular need though).

Also get a 'final phase checkpoint' sometime

Soon you'll be heading back into the spiral path area for the final phase of the work. In case it doesn't go well enough, it's good to get a checkpoint just beforehand, or at least after you've done most of your work outside. You should preferably also save it, so you'll be able to return to it even if you have to eject the disc and reload (which you might, because there could be a further checkpoint before you decide things haven't gone well enough). There are two options for this 'final phase checkpoint'.

One option is to get the 'pass exit checkpoint' you triggered when flying through the pass low down. It'll be delayed while the game considers you under threat (which it does even when you're quite a way from any enemies), so it's pretty easy to do most or all of your work before getting it. If you ever want to make sure it continues to be delayed when you won't be under sufficient enemy threat (e.g. when flying up to get a new Banshee, or when making an excursion on foot to get enemies out of the tower), you can always do so with Banshee fire or jumping (see Checkpoint delaying). You can even maintain the delay when switching Banshees if you're quick. With these delaying techniques, you can delay the checkpoint until you're completely ready for the final phase.

Alternatively, there's always the option of going back over the underground bridge to trigger a tunnel checkpoint which you can then delay with Banshee fire until you return. In going back however, bear in mind that you'll cause the rock geometry to be newly randomized. If you're going to use this for your final phase checkpoint, you could use the pass exit checkpoint for something else, e.g. getting it just before trying to extract enemies from the tower.

Fly in and maybe do some herding

Now for the final phase. Start by flying through the pass. At this point you have the option of hovering around to draw enemies forward or backward to some extent, to influence the battle dynamic. The more advanced an enemy is, the more likely he is to attack early rather than hanging back (especially Hunters, who otherwise tend to remain in the pass until you come up the path to finish the battle). Drawing them forward - at least out of the pass - can thus give a more intense battle. But it can also cause the Marines to get into a heavier opening skirmish, maybe leading to an unacceptable checkpoint delay as discussed shortly - and maybe a lot of prematurely slaughtered Marines too! So it's not necessarily a good thing, though you certainly can get it to work.

Trigger Marines and Hunters, and kill the Hunters

Trigger the Marines and Hunters by getting sufficiently low down, and kill the Hunters. The neatest way to do things is to fly high so you're practically above where the Hunters will appear in the corner, then let yourself freefall. As you near the ice they materialize, and you can squash both at once before they've started going after the Marines. Killing them quickly has an advantage discussed shortly.

The reason I suggest freefalling rather than doing a powered dive is that you'll be coming in faster, which gives them less time to move off. But if you prefer the control of a powered dive, that can work fine too. A pretty reliable way is to be coming in along the direction of the path at a steep angle, starting to level out near the end. They'll initially have their backs to you, and usually you can mow them down where they stand. If they do realize the threat and take evasive action, it's good if you were heading very slightly to the right of them, as that would tend to make them leap back into the corner where the boulder meets the wall of the spiral path, where you can squash them with a little forward thrust.

If you want to set things up just for solo battling however, a different approach is recommended. Drop down to the ice near the base of the spiral path, then skim forward with the Banshee angled down a bit so the front of the legs get low to the ground. As the Marines come around the corner in a neat line heading for the base of the spiral path, scythe them all down in one go, then deal with the Hunters.

Get the underpass checkpoint

By the time you've killed the Hunters, you should be due the 'underpass checkpoint' because you got sufficiently close to the underpass (you merely need to've been anywhere past the huge boulder which is on the right of the ice path as you approach). This will be your battle start checkpoint, so it's pretty important! If you killed the Hunters promptly, you'll probably get it within just a few seconds. During that time you may like to dismount and approach the the supplies so that each time your battle starts, you'll be able to quickly swap weaponry if desired. That's a good idea unless you specifically want to be starting off in your Banshee so you can fly off as soon as possible.

Getting the checkpoint quickly is good as it can give you enough time to join the Marines for a defence at the base of the spiral path before the enemy is too close, or even to fly up onto the spiral path to try to hold out from near the top. If you failed to kill the Hunters promptly however, the Marines may have got into a bit of a skirmish by now, which can delay the checkpoint considerably. There may be casualties on both sides before you get it, which isn't ideal. If it doesn't come quickly enough for your liking, you'll just have to revert and try again.

Note: If you happen to have a blockade that will keep the Marines and enemy well apart at the start, it should stop them getting into an early fight, so you'll probably get the checkpoint without delay.

Try out the battle before saving

Once you get the checkpoint, fight the battle to see if things turned out well enough to be worth saving. Battle dynamics vary quite a bit according to how the enemy is initially scattered around up on the cliff and beyond. If things aren't good enough, for example if you find that disappointingly many of the Marines got themselves killed at the start, all you can do is return to your latest save by ejecting the disc then reloading, to try again. That's where a saved final phase checkpoint comes in useful. Once you're satisfied with the battle quality, save to make things permanent.

If you're not careful about setting things up, some of the potential megabattle enemies may not materialize. Here are two tips on this, just to spell it out.

Kill all earlier enemies!

You'd better kill all enemies on your way to the rising tunnel, else two groups of enemies in the spiral path area can fail to materialize, presumably because the game tries to keep a lid on how much it's got to deal with. In many of my early set-ups I'd been bypassing lots of enemies in order to set things up with minimum work. I later realized I'd been short-changing myself by several enemies because of that. Specifically, the enemies you trigger when going through the pass should include Grunts to the right, and an Elite with some Grunts coming up the spiral path. But if you left a lot of enemies alive prior to the rising tunnel, those groups can fail to materialize. That would be a loss of 8 enemies on Heroic, and 10 on Legendary!

No manned Ghosts please

Make sure that before you approach the pass to trigger the guards, none of these Ghosts is manned: the two from the dropship and the two furthest from the tower doors (that would normally be piloted). Some testing on Heroic suggested that if any of these is manned, you won't get the two Elites in the pass; only the two Hunters. Perhaps this is the game's way of balancing the challenge. Maybe it's thinking something like "Ah, the player already has a Ghost to cope with, better not add the pass Elites, that would make things too difficult".

Sometimes you can be left with one or more enemies in the tower even after everyone else has cleared off to the pass. Here are some tips on freeing them up so they'll run off to join the crowd, if you want every last enemy. This doesn't include cloaked Elites though, as they don't seem to share the instinct for heading into the pass (you can easily lure them out but they'll end up returning).

Getting balcony Elites out

Quite often there's an Elite on the tower balcony or on the ramp leading up to it. If you can get him off the ramp or outside, it usually seems to free him up to head for the pass.

If he's on the ramp, you can get him to go down it by making him swipe at you. You can get close enough by simply running up to him, or to avoid heavy fire on the higher difficulty levels, using the nearby active camouflage to move in and brush up against him (then immediately back off to try and avoid the swipe). If you lose health there's a medkit outside.

Another method is to land a frag grenade nearby to blow him down a way (you'll be able to replace the frag outside), or you could blast him with a Banshee bolt from outside. But obviously you run the risk of damaging him, which isn't ideal. Yet another method is to drive up the ramp at him in a Ghost, hoping he leaps clear helpfully. Once when I tried this with a nasty red Elite halfway up the ramp, he leapt straight back and out into the snow. Some leap! However, it's hard to get it to work, and carries the risk of squashing your target. So you're best off trying to stick with the swiping method.

Things seem trickier if he's on the balcony. If you've got a Banshee you don't mind damaging, fly at him to make him jump off the open end or at least towards it. There's a trick you can use to minimize your damage here. Fly up at him from right below the balcony, which gives you cover; he'll still dive. If he's right near the end, it's hard to make him jump off; he'd tend to jump the other way. Instead, blast him off the rest of the way with a Banshee bolt nearby (trying to minimize damage to him). Actually, it's also possible to nudge him along with the Banshee's nose, but you take bad damage and run the risk of squashing him.

Getting other enemies out

Any time you're on one side of the tower, enemies on the other side might get drawn inside in pursuit. They might also be drawn inside if you're on the roof. As long as you minimize such flying like my refined routine does, you'll rarely be left with any other enemies inside; just balcony Elites. If you do get a problem however, here's my advice.

If you've got a Grunt or Jackal on the balcony, try flying at him in a Banshee to make him dive off, much as you'd do with balcony Elites. Alternatively, drive at him in a Ghost. If he's elsewhere in the tower and seems unwilling or unable to move, (e.g. if he's got stuck on the sloping sides of a passage), go and pester him a bit, and if it's a Jackal make him roll by pinging a shot off his shield. He'll move position, which might free him up to move outside. You could also try killing the cloaked Elite to panic him out. Or you could drive at him in a Ghost, hoping to make him dive.

On Legendary you can get 59 enemies, on Heroic 52, and on Normal or Easy 49. Just to clarify things, I'm only talking about the enemies up the spiral path. I'm not including the two Shade Grunts or the two Hunters near the underpass, even if any of these are still alive at the battle start checkpoint - which they're usually not anyway. It is possible to leave the underpass Hunters alive if you start from the Marines checkpoint rather than the usual underpass checkpoint however.

Enemy breakdown

For each difficulty level, there seems to be a fixed breakdown of the enemy numbers you can get. Expressed as 'Elites + Jackals + Grunts + Hunters', the number N of enemies breaks down as follows.

Here's where all these enemies come from:

There's also an important factor to consider. In regard to the Elites, what's the split between reds and blues? After all, reds are a whole lot nastier! The split is not fixed; it's randomized but with a possible bias towards reds or blues, depending on difficulty level. Legendary has a strong bias towards reds, so you can expect blues to be rare. Heroic seems to be a middle ground, with no obvious bias either way. Normal shows some bias towards blues, whilst Easy has a strong bias towards blues.

Territorials

Initially at least, three groups of enemies are territorial, specifically (1) the Grunts who hang around near the pass exit, (2) the Jackals who hang around the cliff-edge rock near the pass exit, and (3) the Elite and Grunts who hang around by the tree near the top of the spiral path. Everyone else is freely able to head down the spiral path to attack. That includes the Hunters, though if you want them to attack down the path, you really need to draw them out of the pass in your set-up work (after flying through the pass in the final phase), else they tend to remain there until you fight your way up later. The territorial groups can actually be freed of their limitations using a special set-up technique that involves starting the battle from a later checkpoint than normal, but that's something I cover on a whole separate page; see Horde boosting.

In regard to the tree group, once you've killed all but one, the last member loses his territorial restriction and will attack. The same goes for the group of Grunts near the pass exit.

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