Halo Reach: LASO Guide – Part 2: ONI: Sword Base - II

ONI: Sword Base LASO Walkthrough Part II:

(Find Part I here.) 

Unleash Hell.

You can go either direction now, towards the Comm Station or the Anti-Air battery.  Most people seem to go towards the AA Battery, so let us do that.  There will be a small group of enemies but they are easily dispatched.  Drive your Wraith up onto the pond but do not pass it.  The General up there will nail you with a Plasma Launcher if you get to close.  Just bombard the base like crazy.

Bastard With Your Damn Concussion Rifle...

Halo Reach: LASO Guide – Part 2: ONI: Sword Base - I

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Winter Contingency LASO Guide.

Here are some general strategies to remember for LASO difficulty:

• Be a Team Player - Let your Teammates do the work.  The rest of Noble Team is invincible and has unlimited ammunition.  You are not and do not have that.
• Avoid, Avoid, Avoid! - Avoid any fight or enemy that you absolutely do not need to engage.  Sometimes you will have to clear an area to continue the mission, but other times you can just sneak around.
• Melee for Shields - Black Eye Skull is on, which means that meleeing an enemy will bring your shields back up.  If you are close in, with a low number of enemies, melee and make sure those shields are strong.
• Sneaky, Sneaky - Crouch and you will find that you can sneak around quite a few enemies if they are far enough away.  Stick to walls and this will help you avoid fights.
• Cover - Use it.
• Assassination - The best way to deal with strong enemies, like Elites, is to assassinate them.  It is a one hit kill and a hell of a lot faster than the traditional method of killing them.
• Two Player? - The Challenges are for beating the level on LASO difficulty, not SLASO (Solo, Legendary, All Skulls On).  Turn on a second controller and then you will not have to restart the entire mission every time you die.  The enemies will become slightly harder, but then at last you do have to be perfect through the entire level on its hardest difficulty.
• Headshots - Headshot anything you can, because it kills them faster.  Enough said.
• Mark the Spot - Get a small piece of paper and some tape, or just tape and a sharpie.  and Make a dot with the sharpie on the tape and then put the tape on your screen where the reticule should be.  Do not write on your screen, please. 

Now that you have brushed up on your LASO knowledge and strategies, let us get down to business.

ONI: Sword Base Walkthrough:
(Warning: This is a long walkthrough and contains spoilers.  Links lead to pics illustrating strategies.)
NOTE: Currently, the Challenge does not require the Blind Skull to be turned on.  Do yourself a favor and keep it off.  Do not get used to it though.

Kat will be your teammate for the majority of this mission.  You will start out in a courtyard outside Sword Base and are required to clear it and then to clear three other areas outside the base.  Then you will come back inside and clear out the base.  Obviously, you cannot run through much of this like Winter Contingency, but there are some tricks and shortcuts.

The Right Ramp.

At start, run up the right ramp and you will have an Elite one on one.  Melee, sidestep, and assassinate.  Watch out for the kick because it is lethal.  Grunts down below will probably go kamikaze so take them out before they kill your second player since he is just a stand in.

Melee, Sidestep, and Assassinate.

Now you will want to sneak across the small foot bridge and got to the opposite side.  There will be a pair of Jackals there that you can possibly flank plus some ammo, grenades, and a health pack.  Try to clear this upper walkway entirely.

Halo Reach: LASO Guide – Part 1: Winter Contingency

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Joy riding...

At the start of this level, you will be riding in a Falcon with Carter and Jun.  Once you land you do not need to stop at any of the locations.  You can simply keep sprinting.  If you have a team mate, or are a really good shot at distance, with the pistol, without a reticule (I severely doubt anyone is), you can try to take out the Cloaked Elite at the very beginning of the level for a datapad.  He is cloaked and running from the burning Warthog as you near the area.  Do not worry if you miss him though because he is not vital.  

Down

 Once you reach the area where the Covenant reveal themselves, go down the stairs and then go right back up.  The point is to trigger the rest of Noble Team to go down and wipe out the Covies for you.  Always remember that the AI members of Noble (A.K.A. not you) are invulnerable and cannot be killed.  Treat them like tanks; they plow through and you follow behind.

An Intro to LASO/Mythic Difficulty in Halo Reach.

On the heels of the current weekly challenge, tempting members to try the second level of the Halo Campaign on LASO difficulty, I present this guide which will help the not-so-hardcore members of the Halo population a fighting chance at completing this challenge and hopefully beating the whole game this way.

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Halo Reach Daily Challenges Guide - 2/22/11

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The Challenges:
Light Fare - Kill 100 enemies in any game mode in Reach. - 1000cR

• It seems as though we have been getting a challenge like this every day recently. Like usual, do not sweat it. This will be done really fast. You will get it working on all the other achievements today.

Just Hold On... - Complete 6 rounds in Firefight Matchmaking without dying. - 1500cR

• Now, a round in Firefight Matchmaking is five waves. This will take you at least six games of Score Attack or two games of Firefight Limited/Arcade.  If this is at all like previous challenges, however, if you die once the following rounds will not count until you start a new game. I will test to see how that goes. Hopefully, it has been fixed and you can die and not ruin the other rounds. Either way, pick Sniper Fight on maps like Beachhead, Glacier, or Outpost for safe bets.
• Update: I have confirmed that dying in an earlier round of a game will make it impossible for you to work on the challenge in later rounds.  If, say, you die in the first round, you can not get any more rounds to count for the challenge.  So if you are going to die, do it in the last round.

Points Pyramid - Score 25,000 points on any Campaign mission. - 1500cR

• The best level for getting points fast, for me, is New Alexandria. Simply set whatever difficulty you want, Heroic works well, and turn on one or two skulls. Play through it normally but go after a lot of the Banshees and the Phantoms as well. And you do not even have to destroy them by yourself. Just get one shot in with the man turret and let the side gunners finish it off. I have noticed that if you do not get any shots in you will not get any points even though your passengers are the ones shooting. Hitting 25,000 points will not be a problem at all with this strategy.

Freelancing - Earn at least 21 kills in a multiplayer Matchmaking game. - 2100cR

• This might still be attainable in Multi Team but, with the four three-person teams now, it just seems less likely. Instead go to Grifball or an objective game. Do not try to capture the objective though. Just go for kills. This might take a few tries but no more than four games.

The guide for the Weekly Challenge will be up later today.
Also on Examiner.com.

First Vid! And We're on Youtube!

So one of the keys to good blogging is to expand beyond just a simple blog. It's media networking people. So here is the first of, hopefully, many Youtube videos for Facetious Sincerity: Assassination Prevention in Halo Reach.