As Cutter, your ODST can be more than a menace on this level. Each middle base on the map is on high ground, but just over the edge sits the 3 sniper towers defending the opponents teleporter node. Put an ODST in one of those sniper towers and you’ve got instant drop access to the back of one of one of your opponents main bases.

(via Halo Wars maps)

My favourite strategy with Cutter and Fort Deen is to go for Turtle. Getting the energy walls up quick is a must, so any potential Hog rushes are stalled. If they do come through the teleporter it’ll still slow them down. While my teams locked in our relatively secure barrier-tprotected cocoon, its time to roll out the ‘hard counters’. I normally build only a maximum of 30 population, mostly split between Cobras, 1 Elephant and Wolverines (eg. 7 Cobras, 6 Wolverines and the Elephant). This means when when i research ‘reenforcments’ and ODST, i have up to 10 spare population drop all my ODST if things go a bit pear-shaped.

I normally lock my Cobras down in the middle valley (read here how to lock them down properly), then spread my wolverines along my ‘line of death’, so if a Cyro is dropped i have a few unfrozen to deal some damage. I place my Cobras just out of range of any potential vehicles which might approach the barrier, so their long range holds the advantage over attackers.

My Elephant is normally placed nearby, so if i have to deal with infantry or a leader, i can quickly get out some Flamers mixed with dropped ODST. It’s important to always try and keep that room in your population to drop ODST or build flamers, as good players will always adapt and send in marines to break down the medium armoured Cobras and Wolverines.

When i want to push for the win, i go for the ODST drop on the rear base while my team mates move in to start working on the other bases. This then gives me freedom to take the energy wall down, move my Cobras up and lock them down near one of the 2 bases which are placed either side of the valley entrance. They can then start working at the base but also cut off reinforcements which might be heading to combat my teammates on the other side of the map. As i lose the odd unit i replace with ODST.

(via Halo Wars maps)

Read the Developer’s strategy on Fort Deen here.

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I’m a pretty regular Cutter player now, I used to play a lot of Anders and Forge but the old guy has won me over. If I can get past the first 10 minutes of the game untouched then I feel confident about the mid and late game, and that’s where Cutter comes in to his own.

In this post, i’m going to write about how to best prepare Cutter in the early game…

My first Cutter base will always have a Barracks on it, and this is what’s most likely to keep you alive in the first 5-10 mins when rushes come in. If your facing an Anders player and anticipate a Hog rush, go for a tank build instead. Generally your going to get rushed one of three ways, all of them if your unlucky. The first thing to do is lock your base down. From there, here’s some ideas to what to do.

1. Beating a leader rush: 90% of the time a Covenant leader rush uses infantry, and 75% of the time they never put Jackals in the mix. Flamethrowers will save your life here. First off, if a leader shows up at your base don’t panic, if it’s really early on he’s not going to do much damage, if he uses his leader power he’s going to run out of resources fast, and he’s not going to have a great deal of units to use first off. With your base locked down, get together 6-10 flamers and wait for the right time. If you see him start to teleport units to his position, you have to move fast; unlock your base, set your flamers on the leader and drop a Destruction bomb right on him. This means he can’t teleport any more units to reinforce him, and you should try and trap him in with a number of flamers so he can’t move out of the D. bomb range. Cutter is gifted with the ‘Elephant’, this is another lifesaver when it comes to leaders, especially the ‘Brute Rush’.
2. Beating a tank rush (1): When people think of the strongest counter to vehicles, Cobras spring to mind; but they’re a unit which require Tech level 3 to even build. The chances are you’ll have tanks on your doorstep long before you can get a third tech level. The next best things are Hornets, which can be built at Tech level 2. Check out  my tank rush with Forge post and copy the build plot of a Scorpion, but have an Air Pad instead of Vehicle Depot, upgrading your supply pads as you go.
3. Beating the tank rush (2): This ways a lot more risky, but generally pays off and tackles an earlier rush (and is a lot of fun). If your playing as Cutter your most probably have a Barracks. Get out 3 Spartans and move them well out of the way of your base. Most of the time players rush with just 3 or 4 tanks. These are easy targets to jack with Spartans, but you’ve got to be quick. Once the tanks arrive at your base, don’t move anything. Your Spartans shouldn’t be in sight. Leave the tanks to do a bit of damage, chances are once the other player has seen you have no defences, he’ll turn his attention to his base or other units while his tanks are doing the dirty. After 30 seconds or so move your Spartans in. This is where the 2nd advantage is to having them placed out of sight, it gives you time to Micromanage them properly to each tank, so they aren’t standing around infront of tanks getting shot. Select each Spartan individually and set them to jack a different tank each. If you have enough money, MAC blast the remaining tank so it’s out the way. As i said, this is risky but 8 times out of 10 it works, it’s just about timing.
4. Beating the Hog rush: An early Hog rush is well defendable with Scorpions, so go down this route as you would with any other leader. Cutter can actually get Scorpions out just as early as Anders or Forge, so it’s an easy build to go for. After the TU 3 coming out soon, RPGs will also become a good defense for Hogs, and its something you can prepare for with just a Barracks.

So all in all when it comes to Cutter, you just have to remember to build proper counters to what might be thrown at you in the early game. Flamers will kill anything that lives, Spartans will jack and Hornets will kill vehicles, Marines with RPGs will be good against any light armour (after TU3). There’s a lot of luck involved with granddad Cutter, and you find yourself sitting there praying that you don’t see a rush. But the mid-late game generously rewards you; my top 5 scoring games have been with him, and seeing 10,000 point scores isn’t rare.

You might not be able to research as fast or cheap as Anders, and you might not have as much money as Forge; but stay alive past 10 minutes and you’ll start to see why Cutter isn’t so underpowered.

I’ll be writing about Cutter’s middle game soon, stay tuned.

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Last night i had a spate of matches against largely Covenant players, mostly Prophets and Arbiters, I decided to go Vulture crazy on them. Cutter’s a good leader to go for this. If you lose a vulture you’re down 6 or 12 pop immediately as they take up a lot of capacity, so once you have ODST charged with Cutter this is a godsend. Losing a vulture or 2 in the middle of a fight isn’t such an issue, you can deploy all your ODST’s to reinforce the fight. The MAC cannon is also a great tool if you see the dreaded sight of 8 Wolverines roll up under your Vultures.

Where was I? Ah yes, playing mostly Covenant. As you know the only real anti air they have is the Vampire, which is a great unit with its stasis drain, but it is extremely weak. I put out 8 Wolverines with Dual Launchers to combat this inevitable counter to my vultures, and in fact all my team was going with air units (Banshees and Hawks), so there’s no doubt the only unit the other side could really use effectively was the Vampire.

I popped my 3 Spartans in the Wolverines and sent them ahead of my Vultures. I was playing 2 Prophets who had (fortunately) upgraded to becoming an air unit and useless against the Wolverines.

The game went on, I would pop my Vultures over the hills of Fort Deen and barrage their base, quickly followed up by the Wolves in anticipation of their Vampire response; when they came, they fell to the ground and the kills just racked up. Until this game i had never seen a 13 star Wolverine with Spartan, and my other 2 weren’t far behind.

It was a great combo, the Vultures tore up the bases and if i saw Arbiter come in to play he’d get a Barrage too, knocking him over in seconds. Scarabs weren’t a big problem either; the Wolves would take care of the engineers, and a 4x MAC blast and Barrage from the Vultures would destroy them no problem.

I had killed almost 70 vampires in this game, and a couple of Prophets. The Wolverine is certainly a great anti-air. They did attempt to send in Hunters, but it was just a case of pulling my Wolverines out of the fight, and the Vultures would tear them up.

This game got me my Brigadier badge, wahey!

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