Category: Halo

Halo Wars 2. Arbiter and Jerome

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is at it again. We must say though that the developers are doing an awesome job so far in bringing us new content, which is actually good and charging us at reasonable prices. Great Job 343 Industries and Creative Assembly. The newest character leaders are The Arbiter and Spartan Jerome.

So many gamers where looking forward to these two leaders and boy do they deliver. Both of these new Halo Wars 2 leader function very differently from all the others, which isn’t an easy to do while keeping everything balanced. 

The Arbiter is definitely more focused on his stasis leader powers. He has regular stasis and also mass stasis which is just stasis but on a larger scale. Basically if you use stasis on enemies their units can’t move or attack but cannot be harmed. So it buys you time. Time to escape or time to attack turrets first or destroy a base and they have no choice but to watch. If you use stasis on your own units then they can’t move or attack either but also become invincible. Use this to survive an eradication power from Atriox or keep your army alive until your team mates can show up etc. The Arbiter also has stasis mines which function like regular but also slow down units that trigger them. A mine is still a mine at the end of the day. What is most dangerous about his leader powers is Conduit of rage. This is because it causes any units or buildings near to heal and get a brief boost to damage and speed when near a leader power. So if you use plasma bolt to hit some enemies and your army is near the point of contact then they are instantly buffed. Rage of conduit can be upgraded to make the buff stronger and last longer. Combine this with Power surge and the match is pretty much as good as won. Power surge reduces the cost and cooldown time of all your leader abilities. So imagine upgrading that as well to reduce cooldown even more. You will be dropping mines so frequently, firing plasma bolts and buffing your troops more frequently for complete destruction. Arbiter requires planning and timing. You must be strategic. As a hero unit on the field he is really fast, probably the fastest unit in the game and does great melee damage. When he enters rage though he does more damage and once upgraded gains health from attacks and can even buff his allies while raging.

Commander Jerome is heavily focused on inspiring units. Inspired units have increased damage, armour (defense) and speed. Jerome has to keep his soldiers inspired at all times. Jerome’s leader powers in some way centers around inspiration. Firstly ‘Time for heroes’ naturally gives all your units a buff in terms of speed, armour and damage as long as your unit count is 40 or below. This is useful for the early game. Enduring Salvo let’s you drop debris from the ship ‘Enduring conviction’ to damage anything it lands on but it also grants inspiration to any of your units that are near where you used the leader power. Victory turret functions like any other turret but this turret also inspires any nearby units. Victory mine is like other mines but when it explodes it inspires nearby units. Field promotion is very powerful. It lets you instantly turn units you selected to level 1 veterancy. This sounds simple but can really change the tide of a battle. The most favoured leader power of Jerome is ‘Omega Team’ which drops in three spartans: one carrying a plasma turret, one carrying a railgun and one carrying a beam sword. When used properly they are destructive. Jerome as a hero unit uses a hydra mini missile launcher and functions like any other spartan but comes with a aura circle around him which inspires units within. Jerome can call down his own mantis which fires lasers. Jerome can enter the mantis and grant it more fire power. Once upgraded the mantis can call in a laser strike as well.

Lastly in Halo Wars 2, both leaders bring in a whole new type of unit to the game. The arbiter has the Phantom ships while Jerome has the Mastodon. What’s special about them? Both are tough units that have the ability to carry infantry units. For example, you can place a sniper and and some marines in the Mastodon and they can fire from the mastodon while being protected. This especially looks cool when you have hunters with the beam upgrade in a phantom because you see the hunters beams coming from the ship attacking enemies. Very cool indeed. We won’t give away our personal strategies but the rest is up to you.

Overall these two new leader for Halo Wars 2 are an awesome addition to the game. They are worth buying and worth checking out. X35 Earthwalker himself has tried both and he loves them. If you love them, that’s great but make sure… to love the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Halo Wars 2 – Banished vs UNSC Unbalanced

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is absolutely amazing. The graphics, sounds and whole gaming mechanics are top notch. Even the matches can be intense and take up some time. Halo Wars 2 is even more strategic than the prequel. More leader characters that brings more flavour and options to the matches. Even so, there are some big issues concerning balancing.

Straight up we are going to say it. The Banished have a big advantage over UNSC and it’s big enough that it makes a difference in every match. Seriously. The biggest advantage is the fact that Banished bases get the chance to place shields in the turret sections. These shields are powerful and soak up all kinds of damage. Why is that so bad? Didn’t Halo Wars 1 have shields. Well yes but their shields occupied a slot for building like energy generators, and supply pads. So if you wanted to stack two shields then that’s two less slots for you. The shields in Halo Wars 2 are more powerful because if the shield was dropped due to too much damage but another shield gets built, instantly the shield goes up regardless of whether the base is taking damage or not. The if another shield is built in time then it’s a double layer straight away. Also any Banished (or allies of the banished) withing the shields are protected and take significantly less damage until the shield drops. The problem is that an UNSC army would spend a hard time fighting the enemy army and lose because the shields protect the enemy army but if through leader powers and other means beat the army then you still have the shields which lasts long but skilled banished players leave a slot at the back ready for when they get attacked just to build another shield for instant shield regeneration. It’s so unfair. Don’t listen to stupid who say it isn’t an issue when it clearly is.

The next big Banished advantage are the Banshees. The banshees are practically the strongest units in the game. Surely X35 Earthwalker is exaggerating though. No we aren’t. We have seen a group of banshees beat wolverines and reavers of same group size. We aren’t joking. X35 Earthwalker himself has had his banshees beat anti-vehicle units many times even when there were more of them and vice versa he had his anti-air vehicles lose to banshees. How does that work? How do air units beat anti-air units? Sure air has a advantage over vehicles but anti-air is ANTI-AIR, full stop. Now in recent matches pretty much every Banished character user is always using banshees in great numbers. Either full population of banshees with engineers or half locusts (or something) mixed with them. It gets boring and predictable. It’s too strong. Banshees are suppose to be main air vehicles, in other words basic air units but their strength is much higher. Thanks to their own anti-air upgrade, they can take on two groups at the same time. The anti-air lets them attack nightingales and hornets while their fuel rod cannons and main plasma guns can fire at tanks, wolverines and whatever. That doesn’t sound fair at all.

Lastly, many, almost all, banished players are copying and using the chopper rush and then get engineers as fast as possible. It just makes matches boring now and predictable. X35 Earthwalker himself likes discovering and trying new strategies to accomplish different things. Some work and some don’t. This is how he ended up discovering a big secret. Choppers are vehicles. They are stronger than jack rabbits. They counter marines very well. They counter hellbringers. The way to beat them is to rely on your marines and turrets but that strategy is defensive, meaning while you stay near your base, the banished players can grab power nodes, mini bases and control the map. If you go out there then your marines will get caught by the choppers who can also ram for maximised damage. If you get the grenade throw ability for your marines then you can destroy some but you would have spent so much energy that the banished players will reach tier 2 way before the UNSC do. It’s not fair either way you look at it. 

So basically Banished have the advantage in defense, early game and mid game. This stuff has put some of us off the game for a while because unless we also play as banished, mainly Atriox, Decimus and Colony, you will have a real hard time. Until this is fixed we won’t be playing this game as frequently as before. Either way, this is what we and many others have experienced. If you are a banished player then aren’t you happy but if not, you could always do… The ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Colony is destructive in Halo Wars 2

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Colony is the newest leader in Halo Wars 2. First of all Colony looks cool. He is a hunter but a hunter in charge. His voice is like one of the coolest voices ever. He speaks simple short sentences but that voice just make us wish we could have it as the new default voice for announcements, answer machines etc. It’s so cool. Now as usual when a new character comes out everyone does nothing but just play that character. X35 Earthwalker yesterday did a livestream where he only uses Colony and in every match there was a Colony. Colony on Colony violence.

Colony stands out greatly from other Banished leaders, not just from how he’s designed but from his units and leader powers. He actually brings some new units into the battlefield. Now when Kinsano came out, We never cared to get her at all. She seemed not that fun to use still seemed similar to the other leaders is many ways. Can’t really blame her since the UNSC are humans meaning they will be similar in units but Colony takes things to the next level.

Colony seems to excel most at being at the front of the battle. Colony has the Goliath infantry units which are giant sized hunters that behave like gorillas. They are all about melee. Goliaths are strong against buildings, alright against infantry, weak against vehicles (for some reason) and can’t hurt air. I know they need to balance out the units in the game but how comes a big strong creature (twice the size of a hunter who are 12 feet tall) are weak against vehicles. Those things could smash them apart but whatever… balancing and all that. Goliaths are no joke. They are literally the best units against buildings. Just two of them do some serious damage against enemy bases. Goliaths also have the ability to ram which is great for dealing with annoying vehicles as it is fast and travels quite the distance.

Colony also brings skitterers which are small little mech bots that scuttle along the ground and fire lasers. These mechs are easy to build and come with the ability we have been waiting for. They can attach themselves to another unit becoming invincible and attacking enemies that come near the attached unit. So you could attach skitterers to Goliaths meaning Goliaths can now defend themselves against air units. You could attach them to hunters so they can defend against air as well. It’s up to you gamers to figure out some crazy combinations. You can attach two skitterers to units by the way.

Colony’s leader powers are very different cool. They really have the ability to mix things up. You immediately have access to living barrier and skitterers. We all know about skitterers but living barrier is something X35 Earthwalker underestimated at first but later saw how good it is. Living barrier let’s you drop down Lekgolo caltrops in a line that completely blocks infantry and vehicles. The enemy has to fight and destroy these barriers to get through. So while they are fighting the barrier you can target the enemy. It’s good for distractions, cutting of the enemy while fleeing, blocking movements, extra eyes around the map and more. It’s only for the strategic.

Engineer swarms calls in many engineers to start healing any units or buildings in range. They stay for quite a while and can really help turn the tide of a battle. Upgrade this ability to make killing your army near impossible. Combat repair makes all your units and buildings slowly heal over time, even in battle. This encourages strikes and retreats, keeping your units alive and building their veterancy since they heal by themselves. Colony drop calls in two level 2 veterancy Goliaths meaning they hit harder and themselves are harder to kill. Vehicle symbiotes allows you to buff selected vehicles and buildings with increased range and armour. So good for turrets on defense and off course your vehicles like locusts. Hunters brand allows you to fire 3 glassing beams that quickly converges in the middle. It’s actually very strong and doesn’t take too long to recharge but when it’s level 2 or 3 it is devastating. Lastly Devastating host lets you drop in multiple different vehicles like wraiths, locusts etc but get a instant buff from a vehicle symbiotes. This is powerful indeed. As you can see Colony is something powerful.

His leader unit, The hunter captain, is a very useful leader. It is a giant hunter, pretty much the same size as the goliath units. This hunter instead comes with shields and can actually fire his cannon at air units (wow). As he does damage he siphon some health back. He’s great against vehicles and infantry, alright against air and buildings. Once upgraded his cannon beam has area of effect so he can damage groups and does more damage overall. He can be upgraded to get the taunt ability which forces nearby enemy units to target the hunter captain instead. This is good since he can take lots of hits and siphon health meaning he won’t die easy. Combine him with Combat repair and Engineer swarm and he’ll never die. His main weakness is that he is so slow. Completely slow. The slowest thing ever and because of this he slows down the whole speed of your army so it takes you forever to cross the map and attack or help out an team mate. That’s the only negative thing.

During the livestream X35 Earthwalker won all his matches with Colony except the match where he was teamed up with a rank 7 and he had to go against level 32 and 41 (round about) and the level 7 team mate left the match. Through practise we have seen just how useful Colony is. He is very powerful and when used correctly can be devastating against everything. He is a lot of fun to use and it’s so satisfying when you beat another player who is using Colony as well. He is worth getting. Whether you try out Colony or not… you can always try the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below: 

Halo Wars 2. Leader powers strategies

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is home to some big and powerful wars. Players meet on the battlefield and explosions take are happening everywhere. If you plan to get in a match you must come with strategies. Don’t just build anything and everything. Like we said before, pretty much one of the big things that makes all the difference in a match is the character leaders. Character leaders have leader powers. The leader powers can flip the match in your favour. Leader powers can also just seal your opponents fate in that match.

X35 Earthwalker has played and defeated many with all the leaders. He has his favourite and least favourite leaders but knows how to use them all. He will share some of what he knows so take a look and enjoy.

“Atriox at first I wasn’t sure how to use him. His strength does lie in expansion but his bigger strength is in his leader powers to make his armies invulnerable. This is a game changer for sure. As you build your armies you must have ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ and ‘Unbreakable’. These two will guarantee you victory any battle and possibly the match. When your army collides with the enemies fight them for a while and stay as close as possible. Then when some units are weak or about to lose some, activate Unbreakable. Your opponent will normally retreat, so chase them and keep up the damage with no fear as you can’t take damage. After they have lost many units get ready for them to use a leader power to counter. If it’s anything but Forge’s scatter bomb, then activate Atriox’s bulwark to heal your weak units and negate all damage from that leader ability. I have made opponents resign after seeing this knowing that my army is still strong, blocked everything they sent at me while still dishing out damage. Give this a try.”

“Captain Cutter should be straight forward that his strength lies in his orbital leader powers. No infantry is stronger that Odsts. This means you have to get as much as possible. Do this by using ‘ODST drop’ which gives you 3 squads of ODSTs. The ‘Cyclops Drop’ is powerful as it drops in a high veterancy Cyclops meaning it’s health and damage is off the charts. Keep dropping those guys in. The last orbital leader power and the strongest is ‘ODST Assault group’. This calls in a wolverine, some ODSTs and even a scorpion tank. Before you battle the enemy make sure to have these leader powers ready for use. This way you can replace all destroyed units making it like you never lost anything in the first place and better, you replace them with stronger units of high veterancy. This discourages the enemy. Lastly notice that any enemy unit that has a ODST droped on them, get stunned. Use that to your advantage.”

“Decimus is terrifying when used correctly. With Decimus your units will always have the advantage. ‘Vortex lightning’ should be used at the start of a battle. This way your enemies units will be taking damage, have reduced defense making them easier to kill and get stunned, making them a sitting duck. So now you have the initial advantage. Also use ‘Siphon’ (upgrade it) on the units at the front of the battle so that they become harder to kill and last longer. Now they gain health as they damage the enemy. Combine this with the two passive leader powers: ‘Boundless Siphon’ and ‘Boundless Rage’ and the match is pretty much yours. They grant your units permanent siphon and increased damage and speed. It’s like super siphoning. My armies like this have taken down a army, then a scarab, then the base in one match before. In another match I have taken on two armies at the same time with my own. It was a hard battle though. Decimus is not to be messed with. Weaken your enemies then buff your own.”

“Isabel is at first what I considered very weak. After some training I learnt a few things. She ain’t so weak after all. Her MAC Blast is amazing. What sets it apart from the others is that her’s is almost instant. They shouldn’t bother show the cross-hair on the ground for the enemy as you can never evade it in time. It’s that fast. It’s fast and yet so strong. A upgraded Mac Blast will destroy everything. I once got hit by a max level MAC Blast and had to do a 180 and retreat… Then later came back and destroyed them (well they started it). Spend some time in the match countering your opponents infantry. They will then give up infantry and go vehicles and air, which is what you want. Wait until they are quite near their base. Push up and fight. Wait for their army to group up and then hit them with ‘Ghost in a machine’, which grants you temporary control over their mechanical units. Use their units to directly attack the base and leave the turrets alive to damage units you have controlled. Your army supports the controlled army and that base will go boom. With Isabel, timing is everything.”

“Anders probably one of, if not, the most difficult to handle because her leader powers make things at times unfair. We won’t talk about the ‘Protector Sentinels’ as i’m sure we all know about them. Get some kodiaks and have them spread out a bit around the map on your side for defense. Combine this with ‘Sentinel beacon’ which means every shot from the kodiaks and siege turret produces aggressor sentinels which attack everything. This makes infantry useless against you. Literally a few kodiaks on guard duty with this leader power can be unfair. Drop ‘Sentinel Network’ right at their base to keep causing damage to everything they build and their base as well. It stays for a very long time making it pretty much the best harass tool. The ‘Retriever Sentinel’ is best used to throw your enemy of. Force your enemy to focus on countering your infantry and vehicle, then when they have many things that don’t do so well against air just drop your Retriever Sentinel in and let it have it’s way with the enemy troops. It’s too strong for them to start effectively counter. With Anders you can make your enemies afraid to do certain things.

“Ship Master is almost a troll with his leader powers. Basically you can control the map and mess with your enemy. Plant as many scout mines as you can throughout the match. Scout mines provide you with sight where that bomb is. It’s like many eyes around the map. Also Scout mines do a ton of damage, so no one will want to stand on them. Plant them near power nodes. Use ‘Spirit Support’rt’ to fill your army with high veterancy hunters, elite rangers and engineers. You should also call it in during a battle to replace your dead units and get extra damage as the spirit stays around to fire at the enemy for a while. Once you have a large army use ‘Tactical gateway’. Tactical gateway is one of those leader powers that is pure strategy. Create one gate right behind an enemy base and lead your army through the other to get there and when you need to leave hop right through. Be aware though that your enemy can go through your gate. Use Displacement properly. Many don’t know how to use this leader power. Most use it to send enemy units away just for them to soon come back. Use it instead to send enemy units to you. More than once I have sent a large group of enemy air units straight to my group of reavers who tore them apart. When you are destroying the enemies army and tries to escape, use Displacement to bring them back, so you can finish them of. Ship master requires a lot of skill to use as he has very little direct damage abilities.”

“Forge is all about the vehicles. He can’t do much with infantry so air and vehicles is how he rolls. You need to have grizzlies. Very strong tanks that do great damage. When in a battle wait for when you know you will lose some units. Then use ‘Combat salvage’ to easily get back the units you lose (the first 8). This allows him to keep the vehicles coming. Vehicles, even against their counters still are pretty strong so just because they have some cyclops doesn’t mean they will get destroyed just like that, especially not grizzlies. Use ‘Grizzly Battalion’ to replace fallen units with more grizzlies. Do not rely on ‘Scatter Bomb’ as how you would rely on eradication. It does low damage and is so easy to evade. Only use it to scare away your enemies to create breathing space or if the enemy is trapped behind a base and you have them cornered as that’s when the full might of Scatter Bomb takes place.”

“Kinsano is who I know least about as I don’t have her. From what I have seen though her leader powers come back really quickly and ‘Inferno’ is incredibly dangerous. Just launch that on a base and everything get real weak. Launch that on a enemy army and watch them melt away really fast. Her inferno is her trump card. ‘Hell Charge’ should be used after you mingled your army with the enemies so that when yours die they explode damaging as many of theirs as possible. Have multiple bases and mini bases around to make ‘Red line’ effective. All newly spawned units of yours will be boosted. So have units come out from all of them to overwhelm your opponents with boosted units constantly. That’s all I will say concerning her.”

That’s a lot to take in. Go into skirmish and try out some of these strategies or tune them to your style. Either make sure to do the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Halo wars 2 big update

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo wars 2 has received a big update that contains many changes and some new content. This big update is so big that it’s worth checking out. We mean it. Every Halo wars 2 gamer needs to check it out before playing anymore matches.

First of all the fact that this update is here shows that the developers ‘343 industries’ and ‘Creative assembly’ do listen to their fans and gamers who play their game. That’s a good sign. There is lots to say so lets just jump right in.

Leader powers have been effected. Now Shipmaster’s Scout mines can no longer be dropped on buildings to do big damage. This is fair as it can be used to destroy buildings straight out.
The Banished Cleansing Beam speed has been slightly reduced to make escaping it easier. We agree with the speed being reduced and so don’t have a problem with it.
ODSTs cost increased from 600 to 800 and their HP has been slightly decreased. This is fine. Nothing too big here. 

Concerning Economy they have adjusted the Supply income curve to give less of a bonus income on the first few Supply Pads/Warehouses, but less limiting as player’s build additional pads. So now players who have multiple bases have a bigger advantage over those with one base.

Now concerning Sergeant Forge they have removed the discount on Supply Pads and Reactors in the “Rolling Economy” leader power. Thank goodness. We are so glad. Rolling economy made Forge the strongest leader in the game. We are so glad it’s gone. Also Accelerated Assembly has switched places with Lotus Mines. We also think that’s fair. Stronger abilities should be available later, not early.

Concerning rush and counter-infantry units
Jump Pack Brutes
have Increased HP
Increased basic DPS
Slight increase to move speed

Hellbringers
Significant increase to HP
Significant increase to fire damage dealt to basic infantry units
Slight move speed increase
Cost reduced from 80/50 to 80/40
Reduced pre-attack and post-attack cooldown to improve responsivenes
We disagree with this. Hell bringers have enough health already. We do agree with damage against infantry and movement speed but everything else not so much.

Suicide Grunts (Not Blitz Suicide Grunts)
Increased HP
Base damage decreased
Base AOE range increased
Move speed slightly increased
Charge distance increased
Charge speed decreased
Cost reduced from 100/25 to 100/20
Suicide grunts if anything should be boosted in every sense after all their job is to run at the army and make things go boom. We have never seen anyone use them in a standard match but will this update to them be enough to convince players?

Elite Rangers
Significantly increased HP
Armor type changed to be more resistant to small arms fire from Marine & Grunt squads
Faster projecticles that don’t miss as often
Cost reworked from 80/110 to 125/90
DPS increased
Finally! The Elite Rangers were absolutely useless. They lost to marines, Hellbringers… They lost to everything and did very little damage but now they should actually be worth using.

Scout units
Reduced ram reflect damage, so will now take less damage when ramming
Reduced damage versus buildings

Jackrabbit
Cost reduced from 220/15 to 200/12
Ghost
Cost reduced from 265/20 to 230/15
Chopper
Cost reduced from 280/20 to 245/15

Counter vehicle units
Hunters
Cost reduced from 150/200 to 160/160
DPS reduced
We don’t agree with this change. I mean have you not seen the hunters in every other Halo game? They blow everything up in one shot. They should be strong anti vehicles but let’s see how this turns out.

Cyclops
Cost changed from 120/150 to 120/120
DPS reduced

Tanks
Wraiths
HP significantly increased
Shields significantly increased
Build time reduced
Cost changed from 550/40 to 525/70
Plasma Cannon DPS increased
Plasma Mortar DPS increased
Plasma Mortar Fire rate increased
Y ability initial damage increased significantly
Incoming healing reduced
We are saying this for both the wraith and scorpion tanks. This is one of the best changes. The tanks need to be powerful. We felt that wraiths before got destroyed more easily and didn’t stand out much. This should now encourage players to use them a bit more. What a big update indeed.

Scorpion
HP increased
Cost changed from 650/50 to 600/90
Machinegun DPS increased
Cannon DPS increased
Cannon AOE size decreased
Canister shell DPS increased
Canister shell AOE size increased
Incoming healing reduced

Grizzly
HP increased
Machinegun DPS increased
Missile pod DPS increased
Cannon DPS increased
Missile Barrage ability damage increased
Well if the regular scorpion gets stronger then it makes sense to boost the Grizzly as well.

Core infantry
Grunts
Grunt squad build time reduced
Overall DPS increased for basic and mine-upgrade squads
Overall DPS increased for pack brother-upgrade squads
This is a good change. Grunts were laughable even when upgraded but now it looks like they should be quite equal to marines as it should be. Grunts or marines shouldn’t be clearly stronger than the other.

Marines
Grenade DPS decreased
Grenade large AOE size reduced
Marine Assault rifle DPS slightly decreased

Protector Sentinels
Move speed decreased
No longer has a huge damage bonus vs. buildings
General DPS decreased
Lockdown Bolt damage decreased significantly
We know that almost everyone has been waiting for this. It’s pretty much everything we at X35 Earthwalker asked for. Now they don’t melt bases within seconds and aren’t as fast meaning your armies can actually catch them to fight them. Finally!

Banshees
Banshee Plasma Torpedo damage significantly reduced
We never cared but do agree with this. The plasma torpedo should be an assist to fight air not count as a proper anti-air unit level of damage. So yeah, good job with this one.

Locusts
Basic DPS slightly reduced
Line of sight range reduced
Weapon range reduced
We agree with the weapon range and damage reduction. Locusts annoyed us. They should be for destroying buildings and that’s their main purpose only.

Base turrets
UNSC and Banished upgraded turrets DPS increased
Banished turrets HP increased
UNSC turrets build time reduced
Banished turret build time reduced
We also agree with this. Turrets should be able to hold their ground against enemies that come but not against armies. When you fall back to your base, you should feel safe to some extent knowing that you can make a stand there.

Strongholds
UNSC and Banished HQ HP increased to a constant, high HP amount across all tech tiers

The big update also brought some new content as well. Basically ranked matches.

Halo Wars 2 Xbox One Playlists:

Ranked 1v1 War
Ranked 2v2 War
Ranked 3v3 War
(Blitz) Standard
(Blitz) Brawl
(Blitz) Ranked Standard
(Blitz) Ranked Brawl
We agree that their should be ranked for those who want to do that. Honestly they should have had this before but whatever, we aren’t in their studios knowing what’s going on.

Halo Wars 2 Windows 10 Playlists:

Ranked 1v1 War
Ranked 2v2 War
Ranked 3v3 War
(Blitz) Standard
(Blitz) Brawl
(Blitz) Ranked Brawl 

Overall we are very happy with this big update as it addresses many big issues but also helps make things more balanced. Adjustments to Forge, sentinels and tanks were our favourites though. X35 Earthwalker himself is excited to get back on the battle field and give these changes a try. Whether you are happy with the big update or not… You must be happy about the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

More information

Halo wars 2. The power of leader characters.

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo wars 2 is one awesome game with lots of action and things to do. Gamers love having options so thing this game has a lot of it. If you don’t know about Halo wars 2 yet, then once again, shame on you. Go check it out. There are even none RTS (real time strategy) gamers playing the game and liking it.

Pretty much one of the main things about any multiplayer match are the leader characters. What leader character you and your opponent or opponents have makes a big difference from strategies, units to abilities. There are some leader characters that are currently considered a bigger threat than others. Leader characters are leaders based on main characters from the game, who are the head of your army. They are like the face of the army. There are currently 3 UNSC and 3 Banished leader characters. They are: Captain Cutter, Professor Anders, Isabel, Atriox, Ship master and Decimus. All three are powerful once used correctly. X35 Earthwalker himself will also be giving his words on this topic.

Captain Cutter: His leader powers are mainly orbital based and infantry seems to be his strong point. Captain Cutter has strong offensive and defensive capabilities. One of his significant abilities is ‘Battle hardened’ which is quite difficult to make effective as it should change how you handle combat. With this your aim is to keep your units alive so that the increased veterancy rate can take effort. While fighting, the unit that’s low on health you must call to the back of the army, don’t leave them there to die. This combined with ‘unsc raid’ which increases your infantry movement speed allows for easy hit and run tactics, meaning it’s also easier to keep units alive to gain veterancy. ‘Archer missiles’ and ‘close air support’ are high damaging powers that must be timed properly. Many times do people launch this as a game changer but the enemy just simply leaves the area. Be strategic with them. Maybe save it for finishing of a base as bases don’t move. You could also use them to force an enemy to get away from you, buying you some time or saving certain units alive. We will say that nothing compares to his powers that drop in units. It’s a great way of calling in reinforcements, flanking the enemy and replacing destroyed units with stronger ones. If you unlock all three drop powers and you wait for your army to get reduced a bit and then drop in odsts, a veteran cyclops, a tank, wolverine and more with high levels. This has made some enemies panic before. It’s just that good. Cutter is best to use with infantry but always be ready to mix it up when the situation calls for it.

Atriox: His leader powers are definitely more mystical. Atriox is definitely more defensive with his leader powers. His most significant ability is ‘unbreakable’ which makes all your units invincible for a period of time. This power once used correctly can easily turn the tide of a battle. We like to use it as a counter to enemies active leader powers like archer missiles if our army is grouped up. There have been times when one enemy used a glassing beam while the other used a scatter bomb and X35 Earthwalker’s units just stood in the middle of it all because they were invincible and still kept destroying the base. You do feel like a boss with that power. ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ is basically a superior ‘restoration drones’ as it not only heals your units but also grants invulnerability. Again it must be used with perfect timing like taking on another army or to survive a powerful active leader ability. This isn’t to be ignored. You can’t beat what’s invincible so keep your units in the circle or move your wounded there. ‘Dying breath’ gets ignored by some but this allows you to make some units still able to fight as normal even after losing all health for a period of time. Think about it. If you had 4 grunt squads you could still keep dishing out four grunt squads worth of damage which can give you the edge in a fight. You could even use the dead unit to hold of the enemy units while yours can get away alive. Atriox’s fortification power is essential, providing discounts on building and upgrading buildings and turrets. This will save you money, to some extent, especially near the start of a match.

Isabel: Her leader powers are very technology based. Initially we never liked her due to her powers have less use but after we dug into her a bit more we saw the use of her powers and what kind of bang they can produce. For example ‘Holographic decoy’ is actually so good. X35 Earthwalker has used these to scout enemy bases and activities and since they are decoys, you lose no units. He also use them to attract all turret fire first and then have his real units move in. It’s straight tactical here! It never hurts to have a ‘MAC Blast’ around. MAC Blasts should only be used to take out a specific enemy unit that is causing trouble, like a shroud or group of wolverines. Halo wars 2 is very strategic and so you must make strategic moves only (duh!). ‘Accelerated assembly’ is a must have for vehicle lovers. There isn’t a reason why you shouldn’t have it. It reduces build cost and time for your vehicles. This power should be combined with ‘The best offense’ which grants your scorpion tanks shields and improved canister shells. We have never lost a match with these two powers combined. After all, tanks with shields sounds scary. In the later stages of a match you must have combat salvage on standby. Throw all your vehicles at the enemy and wait for when they are near death, then activate your power to bring 8 of them back at your base when they die. Timing is key with this ability. ‘Ghost in the machine’ is only to use for extreme conditions. It allows you to take control of any enemy mechanical units you target. Send your decoys to charge an enemy army then use Ghost in the machine to take over at least half of all their machines (don’t take everything), this way you can make their army fight each other to reduce their numbers and if you have time send the last remaining straight at their base then follow with your own units. Isabel is only for the strategic.

Decimus: His powers are all about buffing his army. Straight of the bat you have access to ‘Killing frenzy’ which grants your units a damage boost when they kill. Straight away this is an advantage over your opponents. Combine this power with ‘Siphon’ which allows your units to gain health in proportion to damage to have dealth, which make things really nasty. A few grunts and other units with siphon and killing frenzy makes them too hard to kill if played right. They can just stand there healing themselves and killing. This can even allow early attacks. ‘Boundless Siphon’ is a must as it grants permanent small siphon to all your units, don’t need to say more here. Then get ‘Boundless rage’ which increases your units speed and damage permanently as well. Now let’s do some maths: Killing frenzy + siphon + boundless siphon + boundless fury = unstoppable army. Bring that to school with you. The last major power that we think you should invest in is the ‘Decimus drop’ which calls in Decimus who has a lot of health, can draw in enemies and give them the best slap ever. Decimus is that simple. Scary aggressive army which allows rushes and quick attacks. 

Professor Anders: Her powers are all forunner technology. This lady is all about the sentinels. ‘R & D’ which Reduces costs and build times for global infantry, vehicle, and aircraft upgrades. The best thing is that the turrets gain shields. which is a real boost to defense. It’s up to you how much points you invest in R & D. Get the ‘Protector sentinel’ as soon as possible so that you can start building them. These things are fast and melt structures. They should not be used for combat just yet. So run away (ya wuss). We never bother with ‘ark defense’ as it isn’t all that powerful and easy to avoid but once combined with other powers have it’s uses. ‘Sentinel beacon’ on the other hand is very good. Have some siege turrets at the back of your base and it will make defending so much easier as every shot releases aggressor sentinels which take no scope shots at enemy units. ‘Sentinel synergy’ makes your protector sentinels combat worthy as they now have more health and damage plus a bonus of shields. It also adds more aggressor sentinels to ark defense and sentinel beacon. The retriever sentinel power lets you summon a retriever sentinel. This unit gets treated like the other ultimate units which is a mistake. The retriever sentinel is much weaker than the scarab and condor. It can’t stand up to them nor can you send the retriever into an army and think it will win. Use it as a big support only. Anders is all about the sentinels but everyone knows this so don’t be predictable as some will see you as Anders and go straight for anti air so please mix it up.

Shipmaster: His powers are teleporters mainly. Shipmaster is X35 Earthwalkers favourite leader. At first look, shipmaster seems like he has the weakest powers. His powers directly are weak. They are heavy strategic. ‘Teleport’ has many uses from quick travel even to dodging enemy leader powers like close air support and eradication. ‘Extraction which allows you to instant transmission your slected units back to base and heals them is essential as you can attack the enemy and then when taking too much damage come straight back to base, healed and ready for another attack. We don’t bother with ‘Glassing beam’ anymore as their are other powers that are more handy than direct damage. Advanced cloaking should only be used if you will have lots of marauders and a shroud or two as it grants marauders the cloak ability and shrouds special ability gets improved. This means a cloaked army and marauders can be used for scouting. ‘Displacement’ allows you to move enemy units to another location. Many use this wrongly, they just send parts of an army away while they are getting attacked. This is bad the army will just come straight back. Timing and situation is so important. X35 Earthwalker once used it to send all the engineers who were healing a scarab far away making the scarab easy to kill. Mass cloaking is powerful as your whole army gets cloaked. It’s powerful but easy to counter as all the enemy needs is one detect unit, so knowing what your enemy has is essential before using. Tactical gateway is maybe the scariest power as you can use it to transport entire armies all the way across a map, even behind the enemy base. Beware as your enemies can use the portal too. Almost all of shipmasters abilities can be used for different strategies. That’s why scouting is important with him. Most likely the hardest leader to use.

Sergeant Forge: His powers are vehicle based. He was  the strongest leader by far because of one power, ‘Rolling economy’. This reduces costs and build times for Supply Pads, Generators, and their upgrades. The worst part is that you can access this from the start making a normal supply pad which costs 150 instead cost 100. This doesn’t sound bad but when you build 3 supply pads you save 150 supplies which is enough to buy another supply pad or 1 marine squad. So basically Forge players can build faster and have more resources than anyone else. In a RTS game, speed is everything. X35 Earthwalker tested this. If you could get to citadel base and 10 marines in 5 mins then with Forge he had way more marines in a faster time which is too big of an advantage. We are glad that it’s getting fixed. Grizzly Battalion is not needed as you can just build the grizzlies yourself. Only get when you have no other good powers left to unlock. Other from that he almost functions like Isabel. If you are going vehicles the accelerated assembly is a most. Scatter bomb isn’t that great at all either. It’s so easy to dodge. We end up escaping with all out units alive most of the time. We wonder how Forge will be affected after the patch on his rolling economy power.

All the leaders are fun to use but we definitely believe that some are better than others. If you take away Forges rolling economy then he is the weakest. If you counter Anders sentinels then she becomes quite useless as well. Cutter, shipmaster and atriox is harder to counter as they are more diverse in their powers but less obvious on how to use them. Some are more support based than solo fighters. Overall we have had victories with all of them and they are quite diverse from each other. Interested to see what the new character leader will be like. Try them out… also remember to try the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Halo 5 Warzone. Underestimated Weapons

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Warzone in halo 5 Guardians is great fun. It’s also big and very chaotic at times. Warzone isn’t like other games. Normally in games like gears of war, your threats are right in front of you. In Warzone your threats are from a mile away, right up in your face, from below and from above. You could be sprinting across the map just to run into a shotgun wielding spartan. You could be sneaking around the edge of the map and then all of a sudden you have a giant hole in your head thanks to a sniper. You may be on a killing spree and having a great time until a random banshee out of nowhere bombs you from above. It’s not fair at times but hey, that’s Warzone. Now many have talked about some req weapons as rubbish or useless and we at X35 Earthwalker don’t think so at all. Off course there are some req weapons that even we don’t use but we will talk about some of them.

The ‘Needler’ is very underrated. We have hardly seen people use this weapon. X35 Earthwalker said, “The regular Needler is a good gun but the tier 2 ‘hail storm’ is extremely good. It fires faster than normal, with more ammo and the needles track enemies much better. You don’t know how many times I have gotten double and even triple kills with this weapon. There was even a time when I got an overkill on the ‘Spire’ map fighting for control over the spire. You only need a few needles to make them explode and they die fast. I have even got a killing frenzy from using the whole gun and then grabbing another one. You have to be smart though. Don’t just run up to enemies and start spraying, chances are, you will die. You must fire only a small amount of needles for each enemy and change targets fast. If you just run up to one enemy and fire, you will always kill them (unless you miss) but if you run up to two then it can go either way. When it comes to bigger groups… be smart.” 

The ‘Saw’ use to be bad in our opinion and rightfully be ignored by spartans except for the tier 3 ‘the answer’. X35 Earthwalker said, “I never use to like the saw at all. Diamondz L45 and I use to love it in halo 4 but here it is too weak. There were times when I would beat someone using a saw with an ‘Smg’. Like why and how. That isn’t right. Then there was a time where someone with an smg beat me when I had the saw but lately I think the halo 5 update increased it’s power because know it does a great job at destroying shields and applying pressure to vehicles. Just by playing smart and picking my targets carefully, I was able to get killing sprees with the saw. The tier 2 saw ‘appetite of destruction’ is even better. I feel like it does ever so slightly more damage but the extra ammo and clip size does make a difference. When you have that gun do not be afraid to attack light vehicles like ‘wasps’ and ‘banshees’ as the drivers always panic when they receive constant rapid damage. They crash into walls and whatever trying to escape. Never be afraid to use that ammo. By the way, it isn’t a gun that allows you to take on two at once, remember that.”

The ‘Sentinel beam’ has been dissed by almost everyone. No one has anything nice to say about this req weapon except that it is cool because it fires a laser. X35 Earthwalker said, “The Sentinel beam is not that strong at all but it does have one awesome feature that many do not know about. This req is like super effective against the wasp. This makes me so happy as people love to use that thing all the time. When I for the first time used the sentinel laser against a wasp it literally burned up before my eyes. No, it wasn’t a already damaged wasp. It wasn’t smoking or on fire. I am not sure how effective it is versus other vehicles but I believe it’s an anti vehicle type weapon but that doesn’t mean it’s not good against Spartans. When using it on enemy players they tend to panic because of the laser and constant damage. It works pretty much every time. So you literally have to experiment with this weapon.”

The ‘Plasma pistol’ is a powerful weapon that many just seem to avoid using because they most likely believe that another weapon would be better and maybe so but never underestimate this req weapon. X35 Earthwalker said, “The plasma pistol is one of my favourite req weapons because of how good it is and how strategic it is. This weapon especially the tier 3 plasma pistol ‘Void’s tear’ makes everything easier. This finishes enemies so quickly. It is anti-vehicle as it stuns and disables vehicles allowing you to take enemy vehicles. It’s best feature is that you can noob combo enemies. A noob combos is when you use a charged shot to drain a spartans shields and then headshot enemy straight afterwards. This has brought me so many kills before. Matter of fact on the level ‘battle of noctis’ I got so many kills because I would catch many out in the open with noob combo kills. The range of the plasma pistol when using smart link (basically zoom) is ridiculous. You can lock on and shoot enemies from so far away that it’s funny at times. Find the right spot and equip a long range precision weapon and you’ll have a great time.” 

The ‘Gunfighter magnum’ was a cool addition to the load out reqs. The pistol looks different and fires differently. It isn’t the best pistol at all, matter of fact we believe it is the worst load out pistol but once understood and used correctly, it may give you the edge. X35 Earthwalker said, “This pistol does less damage than the regular pistol but it has a much higher rate of fire. This weapon at least gives you more chances to hit that head shot. This gun can actually kill enemies really fast but you have to make sure not to miss any shots though. If all the shots hit, then the enemy drops really fast. It feels like a revolver from an old western movie with a quick draw and reload. Thanks to the high rate of fire the shield of the enemy will fall quite fast meaning it’s good for melee kills. Get sort of close to the enemy and rush them while firing as fast as you can, then when close get your fist into their face. Simple right? At the end of the day you basically just have to practice with this weapon.”

The ‘Energy swords’ have been claimed as useless by many which we say is ridiculous, their reason isn’t good enough. Off course if you run across the middle of the map, in the open, you will get gunned down by snipers, battle rifles, dmr’s and more. Use strategy spartans. X35 Earthwalker said, “The energy swords are excellent reqs and very powerful in the hands of a strategic and patient spartan. Just because you have a sword doesn’t mean you have to use it and run around with it all the time. Play normally for a while and wait for the opportunity. I have had multiple moments where I zoom into an enemy base at the right time and get over kills, kiltrocity and other multi kills. Swords naturally give you a speed boost so abuse that ability. Also by using power up reqs you can change the type of attack. Take things slow with active camo or charge through with speed boosts and a overshield. You could do the same with hammers but swords don’t slow you down as much plus swords have the natural speed boost.”

Off course there are some reqs that we truly believe aren’t worth using like a regular boltok and supressor. Their higher tier versions are much better and have low level requirements to unlock so there is literally no reason to use it. That’s a blog for another time though. Over time we will be uploading more clips of game play by X35 Earthwalker and friends on this website overtime so feel free to check them out to see some action. Pretty much every req has some sort of use and never just write something off because others are saying something about it. Be the one who makes it work. That’s what we do but whatever you do… make sure it’s at least the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Halo Wars 2 so far

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Hello friends and fellow Earthwalkers. We have been checking out some of the action in Halo wars 2. So far we are liking it. The online battles are big and explosive just like we hoped. The size of the maps are large enough to allow retreat and recovery, flanking and distractions. We do seriously hope that the developers made their maps with our feedback in mind. What can be confirmed is that the game has a lot going on and there is so much to take into account when in matches.

The maps have multiple things on it. There are supply crates and locations that once captured grant you additional energy. These two in particular are incredibly important. Get your crates as fast as possible and make sure to at least capture the energy points on your side of the map otherwise you will be at a medium sized disadvantage. Some maps have additional things on them to make things more interesting. We hope some maps have structures like ones that increase population or that giant covenant cannon thing. Off course they have to be balanced though.

There are lots of options in matches due to the large amounts of units, and leader abilities at your disposal. What’s really great is that now you can see what each units strengths and weaknesses are from a quick glance. They have a colour coded: red, amber, green and black system to show how well they fight against unit types. Amber means normal, green means very good, red, means very bad while black means can’t do anything. For example the ‘Cyclops’ unit (from what we remember) will have orange for infantry, green for vehicle and black for air. This means that Cyclops are alright against infantry, great against vehicle and can’t do anything against air. This makes understanding units and deciding what to build much easier and quicker.

We do wish that they kept the leader power skill tree look, which was in the first beta, instead of the wheel but that’s the decision they made. Maybe it’s because everyone is use to the wheel from the first Halo wars. It’s still nice but the skill tree looked much cooler and new. There are lots of abilities to unlock and use. As you kill units, capture energy locations, upgrade, basically do useful things in matches you will be awarded with skill points that you can spend to unlock leader powers like eradication or specific upgrades like making your units move faster. This is one of those decisions that are actually strategic. First of all choose what suits your style or the type of strategy that you are going for in the match. Next thing to think about is the situation of the match. For example your enemy may have a large army and you need to help thin them out so you may unlock mines to do damage as they approach you. Or maybe close air support to deal big damage to all their units. Or at the start of the match you get the upgrade that increases infantry speed so you can capture areas and get supply crates before the enemy. Think carefully instead of just picking whatever seems cool.

Seeing Decimus getting dropped in for the first time was quite cool to see. He has a ton of health, comes with a shield and does all kinds of destruction. He’s like a combination of the ‘War Lord’ from halo wars 2 and the ‘Brute chieftain’ from halo wars 1. He pulls you in and greets you with a nicely crafted hammer. We believe that their are hero units and then there are super units (they may be called ultimate units now). So the War lord and Spartans are powerful hero units but ultimate units like Decimus and Condows are things that terrorise the battlefield and strike fear into the hearts of players. Don’t even call their name or they might just show in your room (made you look). We believe the best thing to do is to get your ultimate unit as quickly as possible while not neglecting everything else like resource and unit management. 

Seeing the amount of leader abilities, the upgrades and everything else that’s going on shows that game is, just as I hope, more strategic and fights can almost easily go either way. Games should always have a way that allows players to forma a comeback, even if it is a small chance. There are leader abilities that can wipe out or heavily damage entire armies. There are units that can hold of many units while your army can retreat and heal up. There are options here and we love that. From what we can see, we am loving how Halo wars 2 is turning out and want to see what else happens with this game.

This is just some of our initial thoughts and views of the game and of what we know. Have fun with Halo Wars 2 and do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Halo wars 2 Blitz beta – Strategic approach

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

The Halo wars 2 Blitz beta is continuing until the 30th of January. In case you didn’t know. Halo wars 2 is a halo RTS (Real time strategy) game that will be coming out on the 21st of February. So far the beta has been played by the Earthwalkers, especially X35 Himself and they all agree that the game so far is excellent with so many positives and little negatives. The beta is free and should just get it to at least try it.

Now Halo wars 2 is going for a more strategic approach to game play now. Much more than the prequel. In the prequel most people would get tanks with wolverines and that was pretty much it but in halo wars 2, you need keep an eye on your opponent, think fast, react fast and have strategies. Blitz is fast paced and requires you to use your cards wisely. Don’t just use a card just because it is there, especially if it is an ability card or a unit with special abilities. Then again, don’t hold on to cards that you don’t need at the time. There are many ways to go about this. First of all, there shouldn’t be any cards in your deck that you find not useful or wouldn’t use. Have cards that you know will come in handy or counter a certain situation on the battlefield. If you desperately need a card or need to get rid of a card, you can ‘cycle’ a card for a small cost of 5 energy. This most likely will be worth it but never cycle too much because small costs combined make a big cost. If you have unit card and don’t need it yet and it doesn’t cost much then just summon it in your base and leave it there for now. It’s always better to have an army in blitz so don’t cycle cheap cards.

You deck should always have cheap cost cards and high cost cards. Cheap cards because then you can have an army quite quickly and summon when needed like to collect energy for example. Big cost cards as they are the powerful units. If you are going to have too much of one, then make sure it too much of cheap as then you can have a easy to build large army. You deck should also have at least 1 or two ability cards like the ‘archer missiles’ or ‘cloak’. Abilities allow you to reveal your leader characters true powers which can make all the difference in a match once used effectively. You deck should also have a legendary unit to bring the pain. Each character leader has their own legendary unit. Atriox’s is ‘Atriox’s chosen’. Captain Cutter has ‘Spartan Jerome-092’. These units are powerful and very expensive. They almost make any battle in your favour but you must protect them. They aren’t invincible. We have seen players get excited about legendary units that they drop one in the middle of an enemy army and expects them to kill everything, instead just gets their legendary dead. It’s a waste. Have them lead a fight and when they take too much damage then return them to your base to get them healed up. There is no excuse, they even have shields so keep them alive.

Ability cards have one time use abilities that must be used strategically. You can’t afford to waste them or miss. For example a very strategic and powerful ability is the ‘MAC Blast’ card which allows you to “Launch a high damage slug to blast a target area”. This is a card you can activate, then aim and then fire. Use this to destroy that one pesky target that maybe is out of reach of your units that sit on a hill, like ‘Blisterbacks’ or ‘Kodiaks’. You could also just use this to damage and destroy a group of enemy units that have bundled up together. You could use your army to drive them into a corner and then fire the MAC gun. Do not use this on the ‘Condor’ or ‘Scarab’ as those super units are only temporary and will die eventually. Save it for the right situation. When you have powerful ability cards like ‘Boundless Fury’ and ‘MAC Blast’ you have to decide whether it’s better to use them or summon units because they have high costs and you could normally have 3 or two units instead. It’s up to you to know and judge the situation you are in to know what action you should take.

Some units are enhanced versions of the originals like ‘Ironclad Hunters’. They fight and attack in the same way but come with extra abilities. The abilities so far are: Guard, Blast, Detect, Rush, Reflect, Cloak, Rally, Shock, Shield, Support and Siphon. Guard means this unit will absorb all the damage your other units would have took, protecting them. Blast means that when they die a small circle area is glowing, soon an explosion will happen there damaging everything within. Detect means that unit can see and reveal nearby cloaked units. Rush means that unit is not effected by fatigue when summoned and can therefore fight at full strength straight away. Reflect means that unit returns half of the damage they take back onto an enemy unit. Cloak means when the unit is deployed (summoned) it is cloaked for 90 seconds it can’t be targeted but can still fight and move freely. Rally means that unit increases the damage  your ally units nearby can do. Shock means that unit reduces the armour of nearby enemy units making them weaker. Shield means that unit has a rechargeable shield like spartans in halo, the shield takes the hits before the health does and recharges when out of battle. Support means this unit doesn’t fight at all but instead can do things like heal units, protect or other cool effects. Siphon means that unit gains health equal to the damage it gives, sucking the life out of your enemies. These abilities are important and make huge differences in a match, so make sure to know them all and have some in your deck.

In every Blitz match you have to make collecting the energy drops a top priority. Sure they don’t seem to add much at all to your energy but it increases your energy rate. You have an automatic energy rate and the more energy you collect that rate increases much faster meaning you get to use your cards faster. Controlling the zones is important but not as important as the energy as control zones come and go throughout a match but with a higher energy rate than your opponent, you could summon legendary units and build armies much faster than your enemies and a bigger stronger army is what matters in halo wars 2, especially Blitz. Get the energy, even if it means the enemy gets 50 points ahead of you because they control to zones. There is time for a come back.

Each character leader is different and have access to certain cards that the others don’t get. Some leaders are more support type while others seem as more assault types; however all are powerful and dangerous enough to destroy the other in a fight. It comes down to the player, their armies and strategies which are all dependent on the leader. The ‘Ship master’ can start of with three ghosts, who aren’t the strongest units around but their speed cannot be matched so you can use them to zoom and beat your enemies to the energy drops. ‘Anders’ starts of with probably the strongest combination of units with two cyclops, two marines and a wolverine. That means she can counter air, vehicles and give infantry a fight. This means you could go straight for a control zone and most likely beat anyone who challenges you. Atriox has access to the ‘Eradication’ ability which literally destroys everything so it can be the move that turns the tide of a battle. ‘Isabel’ has the MAC Blast and lock down scorpion which weakens enemy units and her special units keep the enemy guessing. ‘Decimus’ has multiple siphon units and if you can keep them alive they become a real threat and hard to kill but abilities allow destroying the enemy much easier. ‘Captain Cutter’ has strong starting units and has powerful abilities making him a heavy assault type leader. You must check out the units that they have and the abilities to know what to do. The ‘Ship master’ has cloaking and steal abilities while ‘Atriox’ has the more straight forward approach and heavy abilities.

So firstly learn the character leaders and know their units and abilities. Quickly secure at least one control zone and then aim for the energy drops. Build an army. Do not let half your army get destroyed under no circumstances. Always bring your units back to base to get them healed up. Don’t over extend and do more than you nee to do. If you have the bigger army and have at least two of the zones then don’t over extend and risk units.

Now all that’s left to do is go into matches and practice. Have fun and don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’! 

 

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Halo wars 2 Blitz beta. Strategic mayhem!

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Halo wars 2 blitz beta is available from today all the way to the 30th of January. Halo wars 2 in case you don’t know is a Halo RTS (Real time strategy) game being developed by ‘343 industries’ and ‘Creative assembly’. The beta is available to everyone and can be downloaded today. So just get it and jump in. Straight away you get the chance to have a tutorial to learn the basics of ‘Blitz’. We recommend that completely as not only do you really need to know how to play but you get a free pack for it. So why not? The tutorial is exactly how a tutorial should be: quick, easy and explains the basics.

After completing the tutorial go and open your packs. With these go and edit your decks to create the strategies that you want. Blitz is the new game mode where taking out the enemy team isn’t the objective anymore. Instead you need to control certain points called, ‘Control zones’ to be able to gain points to win the game. There are always 3 zones and you must have two of the three to start scoring points. First team to 200 points wins. In order to capture one of the 3 zones you just need to put one of your units there. Now blitz so far can be played in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3. Each one does require a different approach from our experiences. You don’t have bases to build units, instead you have cards from your deck which you use to summon units and effects, like Yugioh. Each deck can have a maximum of 12 cards. These cards don’t run out but go in a cycle so after using one card, another automatically takes it’s place in your hand, waiting to be used. Listen to us when we say, use your cards wisely.

There are 6 character leaders that players can choose from. They are: ‘Captain Cutter’, ‘Professor Anders’, ‘Isabel’, ‘Atriox’, ‘Ship master’ and ‘Decimus’. Each have different unique leader units, abilities and starting units. This is a change from halo wars 1 that we agree makes the game better and more strategic. For example if you are more of a scouting player who likes to make quick moves then you would prefer Isabel over Anders because she starts of with two ‘Jack rabbits’ which are very fast units. You could zoom around, collect energy and capture points faster than almost anyone else. If you prefer to get right into the fight, you might like Captain Cutter because he has two marines (each marine unit consists of 4 men) and a ‘Nightingale’ which supports and heals other units. Make sure to try out all the leaders to know what best suits you, or be like us and master all 6. 

There are lots of cards to use. Some are unit cards while others are ability cards. For example the ‘Warthog’ card summons a Warthog while the ‘Archer missiles’ allows you fire high damage missiles where you choose (obviously within sight). Since you can only have 12 cards you have to mix and match carefully and to serve whatever strategy you have in mind. You can’t just have all the high energy cards as then you won’t be able to summon anything and even small armies will destroy you. You can’t just have low energy cards as they are normally basic or weaker units. So have some low energy and high energy cards. It’s good to have all three types (infantry, air and land vehicle) in your deck to give you more options and to mix it up. The cards come with different rarity. Some cards are common while some are legendary like the ‘Jerome-092’ card which summons spartan Jerome. You start of with little energy in a match but gain slowly over time. To increase this collect energy drops whenever you can. So in order to use the ‘Veteran Cyclops’ card you need 80 energy. So save up to get it. What we love that’s great about the units is that summoned units that die return some of the energy used to summon them so it isn’t a complete lose when you lose a unit. 

Capturing zones on the map, building armies, scouting, collecting energy, deciding which cards to have in your hand and use while watching over your units on the constantly evolving battlefield is so much to do and sounds like a problem but Halo wars 2 makes it work and work in a way that is fun. The game relies heavily on strategy like World of Van Helsing. You can’t just summon whatever you want and rush the enemy (it may work at times) as it normally will be countered and you want have any energy to recover or mix things up. You have to decide whether to use a ability card for 12 energy or summon a unit for the same amount and your decision could determine the outcome of the war. Blitz also makes it so that you never are out of the fight until it is really over most of the time. For example the enemy could have a bigger and stronger army and they are bullying your units all around the map. If you focus on collecting energy and claiming points on the map you could save up for a super unit like the ‘Condor’ or ‘Scarab’ which are both large, heavy hitting, lots of health and powerful units that strike fear in the hearts of even the most skilled players upon sight. There are multiple ways to get back into the fight.

X35 Earthwalker himself has played many matches already and he is so pleased and happy with the game so far. He said that it is awesome and likes what’s already happening. The units do acceptable amounts of damage and have acceptable speed like how the ghost is a fast unit while a tank is slow. X35 Earthwalker is so far winning most of his matches and loves how he must think fast in each match to stay on top. How the way he fights a 1v1 is so different from how he fights a 3v3. He even one a match where he got 200 points to win the game while his opponent got 0. Already, players of different skills have showed up and each doing the best they can whether win or lose and it’s great to see. The matches can get so out of control as super units could be showing up and you have to take cover. The later an army rushed towards one of your points then everyone scrambles for the energy drops. It’s mayhem.

The graphics of the game is wonderful and the attention to details are amazing. If you look closely at the units, you can see their markings, designs and movements. The animation are great. The music also is professionally done. The sounds in the game are on point. The game play is fast and flows well. The blitz mechanics are great and easy to understand. We do have our feedback but there are 100% certain as this is just ‘Blitz’ and not the main traditional multiplayer mode so we are away that some things are different for this type only. We participated in the last year beta and both are looking real great. The developers ‘343 industries’ and ‘Creative assembly’ have done an awesome job. We are so looking forward to this game and hope the real thing will be even better. This game is definitely worth checking out. Most importantly, do not forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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