Here are some special battle plans you can use with blockades.

• Blockade defence
• Chain reaction
• Release the horde
• Filtered enemies
• Platform support (with trough blockade)
• Distant support (with trough blockade)
• Around the side (with trough blockade)
• Perched support (with side blockades)

The most obvious thing to do is defend from behind the blockade. Quite often it ends up getting blown to pieces, sometimes in a massive chain reaction. After the break-up, the loose objects remain a source of much carnage and amusement as further explosions go off, sending Ghosts or whatever flying about the place.

Trough blockade near the middle

With a blockade just past the middle of the trough, the sniper rifle and rocket launcher make a great combo for this defence. From your low perspective you'll be seeing waves of enemy coming at you and they make a wonderful target for the launcher; you can hardly miss! Sometimes I fire a rocket even before the enemy are in sight, banking on the expectation that a mass of them are just about to come over the rise (you soon get a good idea of how long it takes for them to appear). And BLAM! They run straight into an early surprise. Pretty funny when it comes off - and let's face it, the sooner you start decimating the advancing horde the better. You can also be sniping Elite heads the moment they come into view.

Another combo I like for this defence is the pistol and plasma rifle as they're both fast-acting. But I'll usually be shovelling lots of grenades too.

Further into the battle, you tend to get groups of Jackals crouched in support of more advanced colleagues. The glowing shields make such groups very obvious, and they're great to rocket or grenade.

I've been quite impressed by how far a Grunt is able to lob a grenade at the Marines by the blockade. They can do it from way back up the slope, and it's something you'll probably want to watch out for to try to prevent.

You may get a few enemies coming along the platforms and eventually attacking you from behind, which could be a nasty surprise. One way of countering that is to have a chain-gunner standing guard - for example at the end of the trough.

Position yourself some way back from the blockade, at least far enough back to make any Marines withdraw. Snipe Elites and Grunts that gather at the blockade, then send in a rocket or grenade for a spectacular chain reaction. You'll often wipe out the whole group like that, but there are usually still some enemies yet to head your way.

For this plan it's actually helpful if you've got no Marines at the blockade. Firstly, that allows you to get close to the blockade (if you want) without having to worry about bozos closing on it and lobbing grenades or whatever. Secondly, it allows you to gradually attract all enemies to the blockade, by flying about in your Banshee. Talking of which…

Handy checkpoint for repeated blasts

It's possible to set things up so that you've got a big crowd at the blockade and you've just had a checkpoint. This way you'll be able to repeatedly set off chain reactions with only minimal delay in between blasts. It's definitely the way to go if you want to really get into this chain reaction business. How's it done? Once you've eliminated any Marines at the blockade, just do the sort of thing described in Getting variations of a save for adjusting the initial enemy layout. It should be fairly easy to draw most of them over to the blockade, prior to finally getting your delayed checkpoint.

Although you don't want any Marines at the blockade, it could still be nice to have a few guys in a Marine-retaining hog some way back, so you can enjoy their comments when things go bang. You could also allow a chain-gunner and sniper to join in with the initial killing.

Blockade design

Certain blockade designs may cause the enemy to gravitate to a particular spot, allowing you to get a tighter concentration of loose grenades than usual. I haven't investigated this in detail yet, but here's an obvious idea. Suppose the blockade is an arc that curves your way. Enemies want to get as close to you as possible, so they'll probably be drawn towards the centre of the blockade, right? Watch this space for a possibly explosive update!

Position yourself some way back from the blockade, at least far enough back to make any Marines withdraw. Let a large group of enemies accumulate, then rocket the blockade to release a sudden tide your way. Oh, and prepare to fight for dear life.

Create a small hole in the blockade to let the enemy filter through relatively slowly. Defend from some way back. This plan can give you a chance to defend with a less powerful weapon combo than usual for example. It can make a nice change. To create the hole, you could simply land near the blockade and drive a blockade Ghost off. Or maybe you could carefully rocket a hole from further back. A hole at one end of the blockade may be best for slowing up the enemy flow; I think they'll take fractionally longer to navigate their way through it.

Chain reaction mischief

Here's an idea for a bit of mischief. Snipe lots of enemies as they come through the hole, to build up a concentration of loose grenades. Then send in a rocket, and enjoy the bang. Enemies launched far and wide! You could perhaps elaborate this idea. A few carefully arranged Ghosts could form an alley the enemy will have to go down, making it easier for you to snipe them as they come through. That could help you build up more grenades than usual.

With a manned blockade just past the middle of the trough or even more advanced, station yourself up on one of the side platforms, or even on top of one of the passage arches (hop down onto it). As long as the Marines are ahead of you, I find that the enemy focuses most of their fire on them. Meanwhile you can create havoc from on high with your methods of choice. Enormous fun, especially with a rocket launcher! With this plan you'll probably want to have blocked off the platforms to stop enemies coming along and troubling you.

You can also adapt this plan to the case where your blockade is well back near the end of the trough. From your platform, let enemies run past you below and attack the Marines. Now send in rockets from behind them, or whatever. Nasty surprise for those Elites!

With a manned blockade near the middle of the trough or more advanced, you can support Marines from distance - probably using a combination of the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and pistol (and maybe a few long-range grenades). Even if you're right back at the end of the trough, the Marines will still be inclined to remain in the trough - you have to be further back before they'll withdraw to flock after you.

With a blockade near the middle of the trough or further back, there are some novel things you can do after letting enemies accumulate in the trough. For example, quickly nip around the side of the pipe structure that overlies the trough. At the enemy's end, they'll start to filter out of the trough towards you, and because they're still so clustered together they make a great target. See if you can keep them held back, getting decimated before they can start spreading out and getting close. Rockets are especially good of course. Maybe you can think of some other novel things to do like this.

With a manned blockade across either side of the battlefield, there are some interesting spots you can perch on to support the Marines - probably using a combination of the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and pistol. Here are my suggestions.

If you've got the well advanced diagonal blockade I mentioned in Right side blockades, you can defend quite nicely from on top of the huge cliffside rock where your blockade ends. Depending on the exact rock geometry (which gets randomized whenever you come across the loading point back in the tunnel), the rock may even afford you some cover. Even if it doesn't, I find that most of the enemy fire gets directed at the Marines, as they tend to be closer to the enemy than yourself. It's a great spot. One of my favourite challenges is to try to take down most enemies before they even get near enough to trouble the Marines. See how well you can do.

Again with a blockade on the right, you can defend from on top of the door arch, though it takes a bit of a knack to drop yourself onto it from a Banshee.

With a blockade on either side (pretty much anywhere along the length of the side), you can defend from on top of one of the pillars that goes over the trough. Or, lower down, defend from on top of the pillar block that holds the pillars. It's low enough to hop up onto. You can use the gaps between the pillars for cover. If you're near the blockade, you'll potentially be attacking arriving enemies from their side, which is likely to give them a nasty surprise. Pop your head out and send in a rocket, pop back under cover again. Good stuff.

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