Large Grunt gaggles
Posted April 19th 2007
By a 'gaggle' of Grunts I mean a group with common flocking behaviour, moving around as a coherent whole. Where can you get the biggest gaggles to have fun with? Not surprisingly, the megabattles are the best situations. If you care to go in pursuit of maximum grunty satisfaction, here's what you can achieve, listed in order of gaggle size.
Dustbowl megabattle
In the dustbowl megabattle you can get a gaggle of 36 on Legendary, at least in theory. But because of how vicious the little critters get, I have my doubts over whether it's achievable in practice. Maybe I'll give it a try one day. On Heroic or lower you can get 32. Getting them all would take serious effort, but it would be relatively easy to get close to 30 on the easier difficulties.
Twin bridges megabattle
In the twin bridges megabattle you can get a gaggle of 35 on Legendary, 33 on Heroic, and 31 on Normal or Easy (and in all cases there could also be 4 'territorial' Grunts). Of course, the wide open battlefield is completely different from the confined terrain of the dustbowl, so you're in for quite a different experience when fighting off the grunty mass. Also, unlike in the dustbowl you've got a pistol available - the ideal Grunt killer.
Spiral path megabattle
In the spiral path megabattle you can get a gaggle of 24 on Legendary, 23 on Heroic, and 22 on Normal or Easy. You can get them in a concentrated group by setting up the sort of situation described in Ice horde carnage.
Rockslide megabattle
In the rockslide megabattle you can get a gaggle of 18. They won't be as concentrated as with that ice horde situation in the spiral path megabattle, but they look pretty impressive in the top pass defence plan when they try to rush you in a highly amusing attack which repeatedly degenerates into mass panic and screaming.
Elsewhere
Outside of the megabattles, I'd say the best gaggle is the very close-knit one you can arrange at the start of level 4; see Grunt gaggle fun for details. Those guys stick together in one spot, so you won't get any serious combat from them, but they're great for humorous fun.