As you will see the site hasn’t been updated for a long time, this is down to my new work commitments resulting in me not being able to write much on this site anymore.

I therefore am looking for someone to take over posting on the site completely. If this is something your interested in please use the contact form and get in touch.

Thanks!

halowarsguide.com

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The last few days ive been playing mostly 3v3, and although Gauss might still be successful on 1v1, i have noticed a massive decrease in effectiveness in the larger games, to the point its getting increasingly annoying to play with an Anders player now.

Getting Gauss now takes a bit longer, and although it still be effective when spammed; a lot of people now seem to be turning to Forge. In the past going at the enemy on 7 minutes was a near sure win if done right, and if you meet 5 Scorpions it wasn’t such a bad thing. you’d just Cyro them and Gauss tore through them.

Now however Scorpions stand up on their own, and even Marines do a great job in defence against hogs. I’ve seen fail after fail when Anders players on both my team and my opponent, still try to go for the Gauss route.

Was the Title Upgrade a bit too harsh on Warthogs? I don’t think so, they are a scout vehicle; and the only people who are hurt about it are the people who regarded it as a game winner.

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There are a few key ways of getting stars on a few important units. If your playing Covenant you’ll be wanting to get stars on your leader, and if your playing UNSC you’ll be wanting to get stars on your valued units or Spartans. Here’s a quick guide to give the basics…

Your stars basically come from kills (buildings and units), so to get them you’ll need to concentrate on both getting those kills, and keeping your unit alive. If you lose it, you lose all the progress you made. The speed in which your units will gain stars depends on their population size. For example, a Warthog will gain 1 star from destroying a few infantry units. A squad of Jackals will gain a star from killing just a couple of Marine squads; these are examples of the lower population units (1). However a Scarab will have to kill close enough to a whole army before it gains a Veteran star, likewise with other high population units (Vultures etc).

Starter bases: The rebel and Forerunner bases at the start of each map provide the biggest opportunities to start your kills off. If you want to have your Spartan, Leader, or unit on their way to Star level, make sure you’re taking advantage of the kills on offer. The rebel watch towers and turrets each provide a point score and count as a kill, so destroy them individually, starting with the turrets, then the rebel units, then watchtowers, then the base its self. Just one base is normally enough to gain you a star on your unit(s); it’s that simple.

Hooks: Hooks like reactors, barriers, tele-porters and mega turrets are all guarded by rebel infantry, and provide more kills for you to concentrate your unit on. Taking these areas out means more contribution towards your veterancy, even if you’re not going to use the hook its self.

AH, ah, ah, ah staying alive: It’s not good working your way to Veterancy if your just going to die within the game, keep your units alive and this will give you and your Veteran stars the edge in battle. If your playing as Covenant always recall your leader in plenty of time when attacking. If your using Spartans and the vehicle they’re in is destroyed, don’t leave them wondering around the battlefield taking fire – get them in a new vehicle as soon as possible so you don’t lose them. If you have general units with a star, place them at the back of your army, so they are out of harms way, but still doing the damage.  Don’t forget to heal as you go, which will lengthen the life of your units and increase your overall game multiplier.

Remember, getting Veteran stars on units increases their attack and defense level, so having them can mean the equivalent on another 5-10 population in your force; it’s worth working towards.

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Titled ‘Historic Battles’, the new DLC will feature 4 new maps  accompanied by the 4 achievements:

• Barrens (1v1 Map): Difficult terrain channels units into killing zones. The side that controls the Forerunner artifacts will have the advantage.

• Blood River (1v1 Map): Secure base locations on nearby cliffs overlook this naturally red-tinged river. The soldiers that fought over its two narrow crossings gave the river its name, which has since taken on a greater meaning.

• Glacial Ravine (3v3 Map): A snow-topped mountain range forms a natural barrier that cuts this region in half. Control of the two energy walls at the narrow central pass often determines the outcome of the battle, though clever use of the Sentinel Factories may play a role as well.

• Memorial Basin (2v2 Map): The high ground in the middle offers good cover for infantry, while the generally open terrain transforms organized battle plans into bloodbaths.

Achievements:

• Tour Coming Through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant Leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 G)
• Never Leave a Man Behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 G)
• Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant Leader Power on Memorial Basin (30 G)
• Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active Leader Powers in a single game on Blood River (25 G)

via Kotaku

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The Second thing is that Arbiter can regenerate his health on a first upgrade, and almost stay alive completely in a battle scenario while killing opponents. The Prophet has his shield, but he has to draw back to regenerate it, and the Brute has nothing. The only real fear for Arbiter is the Jackal, and Scorpions with Canister shell. Flamethrowers are a small threat, but has you rage they can’t get their hits on you to do damage.

There are some sensible ways, and some not so sensible ways to use ‘Rage’ in the game, and this is my little guide for it.

1. Don’t bleed your money: I personally never use Rage in the first 3-4 mins in the game, it’s just too expensive! It’s important to maintain your economy in the early stages. Using rage on Rebel bases drains your supplies away and you’ll soon find your self in a ‘credit crunch’. I always wait for the ‘Vicious Blades’ upgrade before going for a Rebel base, that way i can just use Arbiters melee attack and it does the job in no time, and it’s free! As soon as the third upgrade is done making ‘Rage’ cost less, i start to use it.
2. Recalling in a fight: If you do need to use ‘leader recall’ to bring Arbiter back, use rage to sprint away from the fight before you dis-engage it and recall. If he’s on red health and just standing there while been shot as you move back to your base and ‘recall’, he’s a sitting duck and you could lose him. Remember to hit D-pad < to get to a base fast for recalling.
3. Move around in ‘Rage’: When your in rage mode, Arbiter flies around the screen like a Wasp on crack, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t take hits from the enemy. Make sure your not raging on one unit at a time, it might kill them faster, but this means Arbiters in the same spot going up and down for a longer time, allowing enemy fire to reach their hit points. Rage around the army and ‘Rage down’ on your enemy in different directions, hitting different units each time. This means your doing gradual damage to all their units while avoiding their firepower. This is probably the key bit of using Arbiter’s ‘rage’, so practice it and get used to it.
4. Leader killing: This applies to any close proximity damage (something which attacks close to you, like the Brute’s hammer) unit in the game, but is most useful when taking out another leader using leader powers on you. When your using rage on a single unit like this, don’t go up and down on the same spot; when you land on the floor, run Arbiter in a different direction each time. This means he’ll never be vulnerable to the Cleansing Beam or Vortex, and he’s never in the same spot at the same time. Doing this, you’ll be taking out leaders in no time.
5. Eggs in one basket: Although people say it, Arbiter isn’t a one man army. A good player will not break a sweat killing him and you should be prepared for this. Don’t put all your trust in to ‘Rage’ as a D.bomb will end your fun very swiftly. Never focus your game on just Arbiter, he is insane, but not immortal.
6. Damage Return: You as you upgrade Arbiter’s blades, it increases returned damage. This can be useful for situations when Arbiter can’t use his Rage; for example on hooks (garrison-able reactors, barriers etc). Just stand him next to one and let them attack arbiter, gradually their health will go down and they’ll die. This is also useful for taking out the Forerunner bases, where Arbiter finds it near impossible to use ‘rage’ on the Sentinels which protect them. Take out the base first, then stand him near the Sentinels and they’ll quickly lose health and die as they shoot at Arbiter.

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Build Order: The build order i use for a straight out brute rush is as follows:

Temple > Warehouse > Warehouse

As far as targets go i generally go for them in this order

Shield (if its still building) > Units > Turrets > Shield (After its built) > Unit Production (barracks etc) > Supply Pads / Warehouse > Main Base

Now once the attack is under way as soon as you feel you are either losing badly or winning (DO NOT if its fairly even as you need the resources for more brutes) build a shield and start evening out brutes with base production (more warehouses and tech out to either banshee’s or wraiths, its your choice. I choose banshee’s for cost/build speed)  and continue attacking as at this point the enemy would have probably switched to jackals/flamers.

Hope this basic overview helps out

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One vs One:

Now regardless of what opponent I face I will always build

Temple > Shield > Warehouse > Warehouse > Production

Now the reasons behind this build order are:

1. The shield nullifies any early game harassement/rush
2. While giving you a slow economic start you have your chopper and chieftain to gather crates quickly
3. If you are rushed and need to defend, you have your chieftain and the ability to produce brutes

Alot of people argue that going Warehouse then Temple is a better option, it can occasionally give you a slight economic advantage early on but it leaves wide open to a Anders hog rush/Arbiter suicide harass and so forth and so forth. Going Temple first gives you the Chieftain to gather crates with and the ability to build a shield very early on which will save your bacon 100% of the time in a early rush.

Two vs Two:

Now this will vary depending on your partner, but I will give you the order in which I use with my partner, Haradaku who plays Forge, and explain why and what changes are made versus common leader combinations.

Vs Dual Anders:

In this situation I will basically use the one vs one build upgrading my vortex instead of making a production first. The reasons are; if you spam hunters and both Anders have mixed hogs with air, your’e in trouble. Now I know most dual Anders will just hog spam you and go for gauss but not everyone. If they DO rush with relentless hogs, just vortex them allowing forge to pump out them Scorpions and then its game over.

Vs Dual Prophet:

In this situation we will be expecting a dual prophet rush, so again I will build using the one vs one strat but upgrade my hammer this time to help wear down the enemy resources while they beam away next to nothing on my health.

Nearly every single prophet player will upgrade Blessed Immolation before they go for a beam upgrade, thus a beam will do almost no damage to you. Your objective in this situation is to hold off the prophets allowing Forge to do a canister build and then its game over.

Vs Dual Arbiter:

This is probably one of the easiest combinations to fight against, all I do is

Temple > Warehouse > Shield > Warehouse

And upgrade my hammer. While you are doing this you want to send your Chieftain immediately to the Arbiters base. Now two things can happen here;

1. He will rage you doing about half your health away but wasting all his money stopping him from building shield/units/upgrades
2. He will run around trying to hit you while you kill off his warehouses crippling him

All you do is when you are attacking him, make a few engineers or give forge money to heal you, zap back when you are red health, heal up and go again, this will keep the arbiters non-upgraded and shieldless. Forge will roll down with 4-5 canister shell scorps and it will be game over.

Vs Arbiter and Anders:

This seems to be a popular combination at the time (I wonder why, cough cough) but i personally don’t see this being used once the patch has been released so i wont go into much detail explaining. All I would do is grab a vortex upgrade and keep anders hogs to a minimum and harass him to stop him getting gauss ignoring the arbiter and just zapping back when your health is low.

Three vs Three:

Personally I don’t play three vs three due to many people just trying to Cutter mac rush etc making an easy win but a boring match. But as a rule I would normally go for max tier hunters or max tier vampires depending if I were against more anders players or not.

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With 3 main ways to cross from one side to the other, FV has a lot to offer. A ton of extra supplies lying around for the picking is something you should go for asap. Send a scout across to the other side of the map to grab them before your enemies do before heading back to your own. There’s also a good few inbetween the extra bases out there, so as long as you don’t mind taking a few rounds, you can get that 90+ more credits.

While farming that dosh, you’ll probably notice a forerunner construction in the middle. This is a healing spire which acts similarly to the heal/repair ability of the UNSC. Stick a unit, or multiples of,  in the area to get it back up to health. Keep in mind, like the heal/repair ability, you can’t be taking damage for this to initialize. This helps to keep your bigger, more expensive units alive, and patches up your leader in between battles. This spot can also be a decent choke point. Keeping some cobras and wolverines there can hold this spot only too well while racking up some decent kills and limiting your opponents routes.

(image from halo.wikia.com)

If you’re lucky, you’ll start off next to one of the two bonus reactors on opposite corners of the map. You’ll have to take care of the base closest to it as their turret will open up on whatevers occupying the reactor, but this saves time, resources and an extra boost to tech with minimum fuss. Remember to share though! There’s a bonus reactor there which everyone can use. When upgrading, you only need the tech level to start the research/unit production, not during, so jump out and let a mate in so they can benefit too!

There’s an extra 5 bases to take control of on either side. This can make things a little difficult when trying to push an enemy down. By the time one base is rubble, they’ve got reinforcements from their allies and other bases/s.

Tactics wise, as always, it’s up to you. Making a push with everyone on one side can decimate your opponents. But this leaves you majorly undefended yourself. As long as you have the right unit types figured out by scouting, two attacks down either side can stun your enemies into which needs the support. Again, camping the healing spire keeps the enemies at bay, but you need a fair few units against a force attack on that spot as well as reducing your attacking army.

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You’ve no doubt gone through a game and started to see a star or 2 above the units which are doing well in your battles. This is a Veteran star, and each of them increases the defense and attack performance of the unit.

Defense & Attack increase per Veteran star (%)

1 star=15%*
2 stars=45%*
3 stars=95%*

So 1 3 star unit almost delivers the same damage and has the same ‘health’ or prevention of damage as 2 standard equivalent units.

Unit ‘combat ranking’:

You’ll also see with most units when they are selected, a small shield with a number in it. This displays their upgrade and veterancy ranking. It will start at ‘1′, and as you upgrade the unit with research, that number will increase. The higher that number the better the unit, as it gets each Veteran star it will gain an additional combat rank.

Both veteran stars and the unit ranking contribute to the overall number you see in the shield (upgrade level + veterancy = unit rank)

Spartan stars:

You’ll notice immediately when you place a Spartan in a vehicle, or ‘jack’ an enemy’s, that there are stars next to the Spartan symbol on the unit. This is the Spartan’s own individual ranking combined with the unit’s. Spartans can get 1, 2 or 3 stars just like other units, and when jacked are added to the jacked vehicle’s veteran and upgrade ranking.

See below how each star adds up to the overall ranking of the unit.

For example:

• Unit: Spartan (1) + Chain gun (1) + Implant (1) + Spartan laser (1) +
• Veteran: Spartan 1st Veteran star (1) + Spartan 2nd Veteran star (1) + Spartan 3rd Veteran star (1)
• Unit: Cobra (1) + Deflection plating upgrade (1) + Piercing shot upgrade (1) +
• Veteran: Cobra’s 1st veteran star (1) + Cobra’s 2nd veteran star (1) + Cobra’s 3rd veteran star (1)

= 13 stars (maximum for a Cobra)

Each star a Spartan gains gives an additional 15% damage and attack.

If you have a ’super unit’ such as a Hawk or Grizzly, you can get up to 14 stars, as each of these units has a 3rd upgrade (turning the Hornet in to a Hawk, and Scorpion in to Grizzly, thus adding an extra star).

This is why if the vehicle your Spartans in gets destroyed, and that Spartan gets in another vehicle; it won’t have as many stars; as that vehicle has to work towards its own Veteran stars which will in turn add stars. It is also why you can get a 15 star Wraith, as they have 1 additional (4) unit upgrade, rather than the 3 you get with the UNSC Hawk and Grizzly.

*information from Halo Wars rep. Note: Some of this information has neither been confirmed or denied by Robot or Ensemble to my knowledge, the theory though is justified.

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This is a continuation from my previous Part 1 post about getting together ‘gunner’ Warthogs. This post is a moves on from that stage on to getting up to Gauss as fast as possible.

Going for Gauss holds a few key elements – timing, spamming and tasking. The ‘Gauss rush’ itself can be defend-able, but its the spamming (continual production of them) which is difficult, bordering on impossible to beat. Your goals are to get another base, advance up to tech 3 to research Gauss, have a big enough supply intake to spam the units.

Continuing from my Part 1 post, you should already have 1 base with 4 supply pads and a reactor, and a freshly built 2nd base which your using to build hogs. This process moves forward from that stage:

1. Upgrade your first base, on which you can build your second and third reactors. Build supply pads on your new 2nd base as you’ll need the supply to afford the reactors while still building Warthogs.
2. When your 2nd Reactor is done, hit ‘Grenadier’ while your other base continues to build Hogs.
3. When you have a surplus 750 supply, build your 3rd reactor; you may have to wait a bit without queuing hogs to afford this. When that’s done, hit ‘Gauss Cannon’ upgrade and immediately recycle your third reactor.
4. With this now spare slot, build a field armoury. If you have a spare slot on your second base, use this for field armoury to speed things up. When Field Armoury is complete, hit the ‘reserves’ upgrade. This allows the hogs to build much faster. When you have this upgrade, you can either recycle for a Supply Pad or keep it for future upgrades.
5. By now, you should have 2 bases pumping out Gauss hogs like no tomorrow, and just enough supply to keep up with it.

The timing of your attack relies on how many Warthogs you want to send in vs. how early you want to do it. You can take 10 or so in as soon as Gauss is researched, hitting them early as you feed in fresh hogs, building up as you go. Or you can wait a bit and go all in with 20-30 hogs at once.

As repetitive as Gauss Hog rushing might seem, there are many variations and techniques you can use to do it in different ways; and you’ll probably find you’ll adapt what i’ve said in this post to suit your timing and to address each map and opponent your facing; adding a couple of Gremlins in to the mix for example, if your facing Scorpions or vehicle counters; but i hope you’ve found this a good starting point.

<< Read part 1 for starting your Hog rush

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