Quite a dangerous place to stand, as it turns out.

(8:32) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Continuing with the Wraith pilot from the last movie who gets ejected onto the Scorpion, I now shift him onto the barrel, and proceed to have a whole lot of fun with him. Had a ball making this, there was so much potential. In the past I've occasionally done movies in which I kill a covie in lots of different ways (there was BCM105 for example), but this has got to be the richest and best situation to date.

Released January 24th 2026, gameplay recorded January 16th-22nd 2026.

00:02 (Setting up) After setting things up so the Wraith pilot would be ejected onto the Scorpion's turret and have solid footing (see last movie), I triggered the battle and killed most covies from high up with my Banshee, then sank down below the hill to get the delayed battle start checkpoint. That would be my starting point for trying to get the Elite moved onto the barrel, which I thought might take a few tries to do well enough.

You see here my successful attempt, though I cut things pretty fun in terms of imminent Banshee destruction. I then switch to the platform Banshee (very handy!) and trigger a further checkpoint up the battlefield (the Banshee pilot spawns at that time), then get it near the supplies area. I'm now nicely set up for having fun with the pilot. Current weapon combo: sniper rifle & rocket launcher.

00:51 (Play 1 - Close launch, with mid-air rocket) This first play gives you a good initial view of the perched Elite, and of course I then enjoy a bit of launching with a plasma grenade and rocket, plus a mid-air hit for fun and spectacle.

01:22 (Play 2 - Corkscrew Ghost splatter) Moving to my first vehicle play (another twelve to come), I found that I could splatter the Elite rather nicely with the Ghost by driving in at this sort of angle. The Ghost does a nice corkscrew, slicing the Elite with the left fin, and settles upright.

01:34 (Play 3 - Long-range rocket & snipe) Quite early on, I had the idea of doing a long range rocket and snipe such as this, perched on a rock. Initially I was using the rock next to Herbie, but later I used this closer rock instead, getting a better view of the Elite for the movie. In my early plays like this, I was taking the time to amusingly tag Herbie to kill him. But as I thought of more and more ways to attack the Elite in the movie, there was growing pressure to have shorter clips. So I instead started just blasting Herbie with the Banshee as I came in to drop myself off, as seen here. That saved several seconds.

01:54 (Play 4 - Warthog) Here's the first of my five Warthog plays, all of which feature Stacker on the gun. In this case we have an aussie in the side-seat (a different guy features in two of the other plays) and he gives a good whoop after the hog makes an unusually level jump off the hill. I'd been going for the Shade, but the hog just brushes it. In the other four hog plays the pilot gets spectacularly splattered, but in this opener he's simply taken down by chain-gunning. So I'm thinking of this play is being like a warm-up and introduction to the Warthog theme.

02:15 (Play 5 - Tank grab) Experimenting with boarding the tank, I found that the Elite would sometimes whack me as I did. That interesting novelty, which I'm pretty sure I'd never experienced before, is partly why I've included this play. He soon gets off the tank, and I blast him of course.

For a while I also had a second tank play in the movie, in which the Elite stayed on the barrel and I very gently drove the tank in such a way that he slid off the end of the barrel, which I'd angled upwards. But that clip was quite long and slow, and got cut to make room for a couple of more dynamic clips.

02:36 (Play 6 - Shade shunt) In this first of three plays involving sending Shades to splatter the Elite, I do a blast 'n ram with my Banshee to send the nearby Shade down to him. Quite pleased with that!

02:49 (Play 7 - Camo mischief) I made a few uses of the camo in the last movie when he was just on the turret, but here I didn't have other covies to worry about, and there's more room for me up top. After getting him firing at the ice (amusing how long he'll fire!), I clamber up and give him some plasma grenades to be baffled by, until the camo wears off and it's time to finish him. Fellow takes a swipe and misses, heh!

03:30 (Play 8 - Warthog) Second hog play, and here we get to the main business: getting repelled by the Shade (it throws a spanner into the works) to end up splattering the Elite. An excellent example here, with the hog doing a great bounce off the tank and ending up on its wheels.

03:44 (Play 9 - Banshee circling) Here I tightly circle the Elite as neatly as I can, keeping him in view. I wasn't expecting him to lose his footing due to his rotating, but the idea makes for a caption at least. In the end I break off and just splatter him, square on.

04:09 (Play 10 - Fizz-bomb special) Well, I can't say I actually have such a thing as a 'fizz-bomb special', but I've long been aware of how you can send a plasma grenade flying off using a rocket. Here I target the Elite and score a comical hit. Didn't actually take many tries. Had to get my shot timing right of course.

04:27 (Play 11 - Ghost splatter) Back to the Ghost for some splattering again, but this time I come in from the side almost square on, shooting him as I go. By the time I'm just about there, he's on his knees and then… SPLAT! After taking a spill, I get a close-up of him with the sniper rifle and deliver a round for good measure.

04:39 (Play 12 - Distant launch, with mid-air rocket) This attack plan was a late replacement for a different one in the same location, and was the final plan introduced to the movie. Originally I was launching the Elite with just a tag on the leg and then sniping the body in mid-air, but as I neared the end of movie development, I had the idea of instead using a more powerful launching method and rocketing him in mid-air, to make for more spectacle. So I started getting into that.

I recorded quite a few excellent plays, including rocketing him when he was way up high, but I've ended up selecting one in which I deliberately rocket him at dangerously close range. As well as being appealingly visceral, that made for more variety, given that the movie already featured two plays in which he was rocketed when up high. It was something different for the viewer to remember.

05:05 (Play 13 - Warthog) Third hog play, and we're back to the aussie in the side-seat. After doing an inverted splatter of the Elite, the hog gets two bounces off the tank and then settles on its wheels. Excellent dynamic! Stacker ends with a line about playing possum. I'd got that line also with an earlier recorded clip, and I couldn't remember hearing it before.

05:23 (Play 14 - Shade launch) Earlier I shunted this Shade his way with my Banshee, but this time I use a plasma grenade and rocket, sending it high. Fine comedy ensues, enhanced by his "Wort wort wort" and pointing. Took me quite a lot of experimenting to get the right sort of trajectory (I think I was also trying a frag sometimes), and I was glad when I finally scored this hit.

05:45 (Play 15 - Air strike) Quite an unusual play here, as I start off way up high in my Banshee. A carefully aimed fuel rod shot goes into slo-mo descent and eventually arrives after I'm down on the ground, peppering him with plasma (I'd picked up a plasma rifle for this attack plan). Thought it would make for good comedy. Initially I was actually trying to score a direct hit, but it became clear than I was getting better fun out of things if the shot hit behind him, sending him up and forwards somewhat.

Incidentally, for this attack plan I'd set myself up with a delayed checkpoint up high, ready to tweak my aim as needed and fire. That was the sensible thing to do, as I knew that each good result would likely take multiple tries, because of how sensitive the aiming is from that high up. A tricky business!

06:05 (Play 16 - Flare blast) We've already had one plasma grenade sent his way with rocket power, but this time I'm going for a blast near his head. This was a difficult plan to execute, and it took quite a bit of honing to put myself in with some sort of chance. Ultimately I got a lot better at it and was able to get a good number of nice candidate clips to choose from.

Initially I'd just been using the launcher, but later I switched to making two uses of the sniper scope. Once for getting an initial view of him, and then for getting a magnified view of the actual kill. I needed a speedy weapon switch for that second use though, and had to focus the scope on him fast. Not the easiest of jobs, and plenty of plays were ruled out due to insufficiently good scope control, but all this scope use made for much better imagery for the movie, so it was certainly worth it.

06:21 (Play 17 - Wing slice) Early on in the movie's development, I'd had a Banshee clip where I sliced through the Elite with a Banshee wing. As the movie grew in length, that eventually got cut as it was a relatively simple way of killing him and I reckoned I needed the space. But later I came back to the idea and made it much more engaging using the flight plan seen here, where I swoop around a tree and dive into an attack. Quite a difficult flight plan actually; there were many times when I missed him with the Banshee leg, or didn't get a good enough hit, or collided with the ice after a hit. Eventually I was also going for a post-kill fuel rod shot and hoping to set off spilled plasmas. Well, everything went quite nicely in this particular play, so the 'wing slice' was back in the movie!

06:32 (Play 18 - Warthog) Fourth hog play, and this time the hog comes down on the tank inverted. The Elite is splattered and the hog gets an impressive bounce. Looks like it sort of swings around the barrel, but I'm not sure how much of a role the barrel is playing there. Anyway, we crash out on the ice and he boys start running off, back to where I picked them up from.

06:49 (Play 19 - Wraith explosion) This was almost the last attack plan added to the movie, only superseded by a late change to my plan for slot 12. I thought it could be nice to involve the Wraith somehow, and initially I was trying to get it to splatter the Elite after a flip. I had a few successes there, and definitely could've used one of those plays, but then I had the idea of getting him killed via Wraith explosion, which I thought could be more entertaining, as well as being rather novel of course.

I struggled with it at first, finding it hard to get the Wraith to explode near enough to kill him. But eventually I found a good Wraith configuration to aim for (for the flip), and I also got faster at moving it into position, which I needed because by now the movie had become quite long! Notice how I also shoot up the Wraith as I close in and move it, the idea being to save a bit of time.

Ultimately I was able to get many good candidate clips to choose from. In this particular one the Elite ends up flying directly towards me, and also his plasmas detonate. That was unusual on both counts, and had strong visual impact, so that's the one I picked.

Anyway, very glad I thought of this idea in time, as this play seems like one of the more memorable ones in the movie. I mean, it's not every day you see an Elite being killed by a Wraith exploding over his head, right? And his own Wraith to boot!

07:15 (Play 20 - Shade launch) The idea of launching this distant Shade at the Elite came relatively late in the movie's development. Actually getting a suitable trajectory was quite a job though. Initially I was using a plasma plus frag plus rocket, and although I got a few hits, I only had weak control and the Shade was going all over the place, and often way too far.

Eventually I found that just using a plasma and rocket seemed to give me the best chance of a hit, though it was still difficult and I had to put a lot of time into making attempts. It was certainly the most troublesome plan in the movie. This particular play was a good one though, and by now I'd also adopted the habit of closing in as the Shade flew, so I'd be close enough to hear a death cry. That made for more comedy too.

Incidentally, when I get a scoped view of the Elite at the start, you can briefly see the barrel of Herbie's Shade in the distance. Poor fella doesn't have much to shoot at though!

07:35 (Play 21 - Close launch, with mid-air rocket) I started with a close launch using a plasma and rocket, and now here's another as we're just about to end. Part of the reason I have this second version is that I like the visuals when I'm right underneath him and he's crouching. There was none of that in the earlier play, which was more about getting a first look at his balancing act. But also, scoring a high mid-air rocket hit is just so much fun, I wanted to show another. I blast him from the other side of the tank this time, and again it's a good high launch.

08:07 (Play 22 - Warthog) Another good splatter here, and an amusing bounce off the tank, with the hog settling upright. Together with those strong elements, Stacker's concluding "Class dismissed!" made this play an ideal way to end the movie I thought, so it was slotted into place pretty much as soon as I got it, on my second day of recording.

Closing remarks Definitely got some good mileage out of that situation! To run through a few stats, there were 22 plays in all (5 being Warthog plays), with exactly half featuring the Elite getting splattered in some fashion. Namely, 4 times with the hog, 2 times with a Ghost, 2 times with a Banshee, and 3 times with a Shade. As well as the 11 splatters, I fired 11 rockets in all.

Let me say more about the Warthog plays. It was only a fair way through the movie's development that I considered using the hog at all, but thought it might make for a good end clip. There were many Marines available for pick-up, including some left behind in the first battlefield which is also where the hog was, so as a trial I got two of the latter and set myself up with a delayed checkpoint in the curving tunnel, ready for speeding through the rest of it, towards the hill.

In due course I realised I could get the hog sent towards the Scorpion by getting bounced off the Shade on the edge of the hill, and that had potential for serious Elite splattering fun. It was hard to reach the tank though, and I also decided I'd like to have Stacker on the chain-gun. So I started over, getting Stacker and an aussie from within the tunnel leading to the cavern. That's where my accompanying Marines had run off to earlier, as seen at the start of the previous movie. Another change I made was nudging the Shade along the edge a bit, to hopefully make it much easier to reach the tank.

That Shade adjustment worked well and I started to record much better plays than before, including many entertaining bounces off the tank. Initially I'd been thinking to just have one hog play, which I'd use to end the movie. But I was getting such a wealth of great plays that I progressed to the idea of having two, and then as a tentative trial I bumped things up to three, and even four, until finally I decided I could squeeze in five, making the hog plays a strong running theme - and never mind if that did take the movie over the 8-minute mark.

I didn't want to have any Marine lines repeating though, and that's part of the reason why I also used a second set-up, replacing the aussie passenger with another guy. That set-up was derived from the aussie one, so the Shade is in the exact same position.

In closing, let me mention that there was so much potential with this guy that I wouldn't be surprised if I do a sequel to this movie sometime, featuring yet more attack plans. So you may see him again.

Note: the only other covie forces present in my set-up were Herbie, the high Wraith (seemingly dormant), and a Banshee pilot up on the platform, wondering who'd nabbed his ride.

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