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.

Share this post

Hide Sites

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!

Game Stats

Share this post

Hide Sites