BCM89 - Twin bridges megabattle, long-range left side defence x2

(5:42) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. This shows two plays of a twin bridges megabattle save featuring 52 covies, including 16 Elites and 2 Hunters. In both cases I use the left side defence plan assisted by a squad of 12 Marines, including Johnson on a chain-gun. The covies are mostly dealt with at long-range using a sniper rifle, rocket launcher and grenades. Luxury!

Released January 15th 2014, gameplay recorded January 11th-14th 2014.

Commentary

00:02 (Play 1) At the start of this save I've positioned myself low over the ledge to the right of the underpass, to get the covies to move up the battlefield - a dynamic mentioned in my set-up material. I take a fairly direct route to the defence location, and a Hunter shot catches up with me at the end. Could've been nasty!

00:29 In this first play I use quite a bit of long-range grenading in between sniping. On a good day you might tag someone, but I didn't get that lucky this time. During this early phase of the fight I get headshots on two reds in quick succession at about 01:24, and not long afterwards there's a nice sequence of headshots on three blues.

01:44 I notice that a few Elites are getting close, so I switch to a rocket launcher for a bit of variation from sniping. My shot kills one and badly shakes the other. I elect to let the squad finish him off, while I send my second rocket out towards the distant mob. At around the same time I see two long-range Hunter shots cruising over. They disrupt the pen but there are no Marine casualties. I do a bit of sniping on the mob afterwards, then send out another rocket, which intercepts a raging red. My second rocket goes on some minor enemies closer at hand, with fairly spectacular effect.

02:14 Two more rockets aimed at minor enemies. The first is good but I think the second overshoots a little, so I only get one of the two yellow-shielded Jackals I was aiming for. But that's ok; Johnson's pretty good at mopping up with his chain-gun.

02:26 Just the Hunters left now. The first takes a rocket and goes flying from a chain reaction. The second withstands my first blast, but I finish him with the second.

02:55 (Play 2) This time I'm planning to do more rocketing and less long-range grenading, so I briefly land on the underpass roof to pick up a launcher. I send out a Banshee blast towards a lonesome Elite soon after I take off, and at about this time my position triggers the covies to fall back. I circle back around a tree then take out two Jackals as I head up the battlefield. Continuing with the fancy flying (partly for fun and partly for show), I take an evasive route into the trough and back out of it to reach the defence location. That exit through the piping is really a lot of fun, partly because of the challenge.

03:35 As a further bit of variation, I position myself outside the pen this time. When I take a look towards the end of the pipe block, I see Elites approaching so I send out a rocket and it meets the leading Elite head on. BLAM! After a quick bit of sniping I fire rocket two, but it goes past the corner area and hits a more distant Grunt. Sorry grunty, but you really should keep your eyes open!

03:56 After a plasma throw it's back to the sniping, and I score a triple kill involving two blues and a Grunt. Then two Jackal and a Grunt are getting close and I send out a frag which gets the Grunt. Johnson gets the Jackals. Next, back to some sniping. I make a red Elite mad and finish him off as he's waving his arms at me.

04:20 I send a few more rockets towards the distant corner, and they do good work. Sniping takes care of more arriving Elites, then I get reloaded while there's no immediate threat.

04:46 Elites are closing in now. I send a blue flying with a rocket, then a more distant red. Another red is reaching the large rock on the left and I throw a frag, but then I decide to send in a rocket too. When he tries to dive clear of the frag, he gets deflected up off the rock and dies in mid-air. That may've been from the rocket blast or the chain-gun, I'm not sure which.

04:58 After a spot more work I hop into the pen to get more rockets, but the launcher is missing! I finally spot it outside, so I hop back out to get the ammo and finish off. During this slightly hectic period, I appear to score a hit on the rear Hunter (he cries out at 5:18), and then the closer Hunter takes a shot in the back from his buddy. I especially enjoy the shot I fire at about 5:23, which slams into the closer Hunter and also takes out the Jackal who'd dived to avoid my grenade.

Closing remarks After recently spending time in the twin bridges area in connection with detaching a dropship turret, I got a bit itchy for some serious combat there, so I decided to do some more megabattle movies. It's high time too, because my last twin bridges megabattle movie was BCM37, more than fifty movies ago! How did I ever let such a long delay arise? Now that I've been battling there again, I feel like I want to make another half dozen movies there soon, because there are so many great ways of tackling things, and the action is so good. Even with just this deep left side defence, there are lots of ways of playing things, and actually it was quite frustrating limiting myself to just a double play this time. So you can definitely expect me to pick up the pace in regard to megabattle movie production.