Never hurts to have a little more help eh?

(6:52) Level 3 ('The Truth and Reconciliation') on Heroic. Covering a simple old trick at last, here's how to get extra Marines in the grav-lift battle, potentially giving you a squad of ten against the waves of covies coming down from the ship. Also shown: how to make sure the guys you bring along are nice and healthy!

Released May 17th 2026, gameplay recorded May 16th 2026.

00:02 (Setting up for battle) Picking up the action at the dustbowl, this section covers everything up to getting a handy battle start checkpoint in the entry passage to the grav-lift area. Not much to add here as it's pretty self-explanatory (and there's full detail in my article), but I'll just make a few comments.

Around 0:12, it's a bit dangerous that I was using a needler, as Marines could've got hurt by the bangs. More typically I'd be using a plasma rifle for best control and snappy killing. But I'd just been using a needler for getting some Grunts on the other side of the battlefield, and I still had it when I got to the incoming ship.

Both of the Elite passage guards turned out to be red. For Heroic, that was a bit nasty! But as you can see, I handled them okay without losing health. That saved me having to backtrack to the medkit.

01:00 (Getting the extras, and battling) At the start of this battle (cut short to just the main waves) I do a bit of stealth work, though not trying to get everyone I could. I get the Marine reinforcements by going up near the trees on the right. After whacking the Elite, I quit being stealthy and soon get spotted, causing the waiting Marines to enter. And soon I've got a squad of ten forming up, including Johnson. There's a nice view of them in action near the end, when I let them have a go at two Elites.

02:48 (Bringing five healthy guys along) This section demonstrates letting the original Marines die off in the dustbowl area, to get fresh ones. A good idea, and especially on Legendary. I get to work handling the passage guards while the newcomers are arriving and closing in.

03:56 (Full battle) With a fresh and healthy squad including Johnson waiting in the passage, I head into battle, this time heading towards the grav-lift to trigger the reinforcements. You don't have to go far, and here I actually went considerably further than needed (I didn't even need to reach that big rock).

The Pelican turns out to have Stacker, so I end up with both sergeants in my squad. A merry time ensues. I deliberately took a needler into this battle, to add a bit of bang. Besides which, I already featured a plasma rifle in the earlier battle. At the end, I still have ten Marines. Heroic is rather easy when you have a boosted squad.

Closing remarks Next up, some rather tougher grav-lift battling as I step things up to Legendary! For this tutorial though, I thought I'd go with Heroic as it would make things easier to manage, as well as giving shorter battles. Not that I needed to include much battling at all, for the tutorial, but I certainly wanted some decent action for entertainment.

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