Halo Wars: Definitive Edition

75 Achievements

35-40h

Steam

Detour the Great Journey

Complete the Campaign on Legendary Difficulty.

2.5%

How to unlock the Detour the Great Journey achievement in Halo Wars: Definitive Edition - Definitive Guide

Shadow 00 Fox

TrueAchievements

10 Jan 2017 06:09

There are several ways to play this:
If you want to play legit Legendary, it can be really tough!
However, you can somewhat cheese the game by unlocking the 5 helpful Skulls in the last 6 missions on an easier difficulty, then playing all the missions on Legendary with the Skulls activated to make it much easier.

I'm including my walkthrough for each mission below, and also which 5 Skulls you will want--to see how to obtain them, please check out this solution:

The Graverobber achievement in Halo Wars: Definitive Edition worth 105 pointsCollect all Skulls.

The 5 Skulls you want are from Missions 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15. Catch, Sugar Cookies, Pain Train, Bountiful Harvest, and Emperor Skulls.

In general, Legendary gives the enemies more health(it seems), they are much more aggressive, train much faster, and attack more often. Very often it can be overwhelming.

Below are the missions with a walkthrough for a Legendary playthrough in the spoilers.
Enjoy!

Mission 1: Alpha Base

Mission 2: Relic Approach

Mission 3: Relic Interior

Mission 4: Arcadia City

This is by far the hardest mission in the game on Legendary!

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Wipe out the early Covenant attackers, and then race around the city eliminating as many scattered Covenant as you can before the timer reaches around 17:30--when you can finally build a base.
2. Be very generous with the Leader Heal Power! Use it on the Transports as often as possible!
3. Build up a base and spam Hornets as soon as possible--Warthogs are pretty much useless on this level.
4. Protect Transport 1 as long as possible--you need to keep it alive as long as possible, then shift all your defenses to Transport 2. If you lose Transport 1 in the first 10 minutes you might as well restart!
5. Use hornets in run and gun tactics, knocking out Locusts and Wraiths fast.

My general walkthrough steps:
1. As soon as the mission starts, select all units with

and target them towards the town hall where citizens are being slaughtered---have Forge run over grunts, and quickly take out all the units there. The hornets and Forge devastate Ghosts.
2. Once that area is clear, try to make a circle around the city, killing any Covenant you find. Make sure to Mass Attack, otherwise you'll lose units. Have Forge run over Covenant as often as he can, and try to keep Forge moving so he's a harder target.
3. Once Transport 3 starts talking, head over there and carefully wipe out all the Covenant near it--try to keep Forge from blowing up!
4. After T3 blows up, possibly send one Hornet down to your future base site which is pretty much where you started on the map, and have Forge and the other Hornets all go guard Transport 1.
5. Start building your base, and rush to get Hornets--build 2 supply pads, 2 Reactors, an Airpad, more Supply pads, a Field Armory, and upgrade things... VERY important to get the Wingmen upgrade! You'll have to save up for the 1200 resource Reactor upgrade.
6. As well as building Hornets! Make sure to keep Hornets coming out, and use them to reinforce the defenses at Transport 1.
7. If you see any Locust or Wraiths coming, mass attack them, then pull back to the defenses at Transport 1.
8. Use your Leader Heal Power as often as you can to heal Transport 1 primarily, and then Transport 2 if T1 is good.
9. Build at least one Turret on your base on the top left corner, and equip it with an anti-infantry upgrade.
10. Using your Hornets, protecting the Spartans, and using your Heal power, you should be able to balance things to keep T1 alive as long as possible. The Covenant will build a mega-turret that will take out T1 in a few shots, but there usually isn't enough time left for them to attack T2 also--
11. If/When T1 gets blown up, shift ALL defenses over to T2, although guarding the Spartans is a good idea as well. Protect it, heal it, shoot down Banshees ASAP, etc.
12. If it's gone well, you'll win!
13. If not... you'll lose. It took me 4 tries on Legendary this time around to finally succeed. What got me a success was using my Heal Power as often as possible, as well as keeping the Spartans in the fight.. not to mention knocking out the Locust and Wraiths ASAP.

This was one tough mission. A fun challenge in an otherwise not to hard game!

Mission 5: Arcadia Outskirts

This was possibly the second hardest mission on Legendary. I had a very tough time on the 360 but accidentally found a very useful strategy this time around!

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Get your base up and running while balancing defending
2. Knock out the Covenant Mega-Turret
3. Take over a 2nd base and build up to take out the Covenant
4. Surviving the first 5 minutes is key.

My general walkthrough steps:
1. As soon as you gain control of your units, select all your units with

and immediately head down the ramp to the left. This will avoid running into the large Covenant crowd on the upper road.
2. Keep urging your troops forwards killing the few Covenant in your path, and then climb the hill South towards the objective. Go up the dirt path, NOT the street to the South!
3. Once in your future base area, use your troops carefully, trying not to lose the Scorpion while taking out the Covenant in the pit.
4. Once the pit is clear, put your Rocket Spartan in the barricades cover on the right side of the Northern entrance to your base, the Laser Spartan in the barricades to the left of him, Forge and your Marines in the Barricades near your base, and the Chain-gun Spartan in the Reactor building that is just on the left along the path you came into the base.
5. Build some Supply Pads then a Reactor, and focus on getting Hornets up as soon as you can!
6. While your base is building, when you first get the base, and periodically through this you will get some reinforcements. Use them to bolster your defenses, although your Spartans should be handling almost everything from the topside. Your left side might need some extra defense though so keep an eye on it. Hunters, Ghosts, Grunts, and Jackals will all come across the overpass. Do make sure your Spartans don't go down otherwise you might get overrun, it's good to sometimes pull them out of cover and back them away to recover. Also, gather all the extra resources lying around..
7. As soon as you start getting Hornets, use them to help out your Spartans and cover the bridge.
8. You want to build up your base to start getting Field Armory Upgrades and especially Wingmen in your Hornets!
9. About now, you should start trying to take out the Covenant Mega-Turret.
10. If your Spartan in the Reactor building is ever in big trouble, relieve him right away, you don't want him to go down!
11. The trick I discovered on this mission is that when you garrison a Spartan in the Reactor building, the mega-turret will focus on him and ignore your base! Otherwise, your base would be simply getting WRECKED by the turret. Also, as far as I can tell, the Mega-Turret can't damage the Spartan in the Reactor! LOL.
12. Try to time your Hornet's attack on the mega-turret right after it fires--otherwise it will shred some Hornets.
13. Keep building Hornets, defending your base, and taking out the mega-turret.
14. Once you've taken out the Mega-turret, it's pretty smooth sailing--take over that 2nd base, build it up with Turrets, upgrade things, get more supplies, and make max Hornets.
15. At this point you may or may not have gotten the reinforcement wave of Spartans--if you did, life will be much easier, but you could possibly start attacking the Covenant base already, focusing on taking out all the Turrets, then hanging out behind it and shooting it to pieces.
16. You will lose Hornets doing this, but you have the backup and bases to wear down the defenses.
17. Take out the Covenant base with all your firepower, and win!

Mission 6: Dome of Light

Really quite an annoying mission on Legendary... non-stop Covenant attacks, really non-stop!

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Station your Spartans around to defend efficiently
2. Build up the base
3. Spam Gauss Warthogs
4. Start bringing in the Rhino's
5. Have a messy win!

My general walkthrough steps:
1. Right away, after the initial attack, position your Laser Spartan in the Tower to the North of your base, your Rocket Spartan in the Tower right to the North-east of your base, and the Chain-gun Spartan in the Tower to the left of your base along the road. Also send some Marines into the Reactor building to the right of the base and behind the base.
2. Build up the base, with some Anti-Air turrets, then focus on the Gauss upgrade as well as all useful Field Armory Upgrades.
3. Spam Gauss Warthogs, and start parking the along the front edge of the areas so they can shoot down the Spirit drop-ships before they land!
4. When you hit max population of Warthogs, spread them along the front edges so they keep taking down all the Covenant ships.
5. Call in your first Rhino and move it where you're supposed to.
6. After the first Rhino, position at least 6-7 Warthogs in each of these locations:
A. The little circular area at the end of the road past your Laser Spartan.
B. Both circular platform areas at the end of roads on the right side of the map.
Covenant buildings and troops will spawn in those areas, and if you wipe them out as they spawn it will help a LOT!
C. Also, a few Warthogs near the curve in the road going to the far right platform--a Covenant Reinforcement building will spawn there too!
7. After prepositioning all your Warthogs with enough to still defend the center, call in another Rhino, and transport it along with some guards over to the left side.
8. Transport those guards back once they've protected it, and get ready to wipe out the Covenant reinforcement buildings and troops that suddenly arrive.
9. Wipe them out, build more Warthogs, and call in more Rhinos!
10. Bring in all the Rhinos, use your Warthogs in large groups, and finally win a tough mission!

Mission 7: Scarab

"Dancing with the Beam Queen" is very true! Tough mission unless you spam Gauss Warthogs or Wolverines, then it's very doable!

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Spam Gauss Warthogs
2. Take out all the Power Nodes
3. Take out the Scarab!
4. Defend your base against frequent Covenant attacks

My general walkthrough steps:
1. At the start, upgrade your Warthogs up to Gauss, delete the Vehicle Depot, and focus on getting supplies and Field Armory upgrades.
2. Spam Warthogs as soon as you have Gauss Warthogs.
3. Take the Scorpion, the two Rhino's, and your two infantry to the right. Try to take out the first Power Node, and possibly the 2nd Power Node on the right side before you lose those troops.
4. Build anti-vehicle Turrets on your base.
5. Spam Warthogs!
6. Once you have around 10-15 Warthogs, start going around the map destroying Power Nodes--watch out for the Scarab beam, and try to go the opposite direction it is going. If it sees you and turns red, you have a few seconds to get out of the way before being incinerated!
7. Take out all the Covenant and the Power Nodes, then go North to the Scarab with all your Warthogs.
8. Make sure your base is still constantly building Warthogs!
9. Park your Warthogs on one side of the Scarab, and whenever the beam starts getting close, run a Warthog through the beam in the other direction, and basically play tag with the beam. It will follow the Warthog for a bit, then go back. Drive into it again, and go back away from your Warthog army, and repeat!
10. Use the Mac Blast as often as you can on the Scarab.
11. It'll just take some time, but eventually your Warthogs will wipe it out quite smoothly.
12. Make sure to have some Warthogs at your base because the Covenant will send in quite a few ground attacks(including Hunters and Locust) as you chew through the Scarab.
13. Don't forgot to balance protecting your base and playing tag with the Scarab beam. If you don't pay attention, the Scarab can wipe out your entire army in a few seconds!
14. Victory!

Mission 8: Ander's Signal

Mission 8 is mostly VERY easy, and can be finished quickly. It's basically an introduction to the Flood.

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Hold off the Brutes attack
2. Rescue the first missing Elephant
3. Build and protect your base
4. Rescue the last missing Elephant
5. Protect all the Elephants from being destroyed!

My general walkthrough steps:
1. Lock down the Elephant immediately, and start spamming half Flame-Throwers and half Marines.
2. Send Forge forwards to the little rock formation, and send all your Marines and Flame-Throwers there as well.
3. The Brutes will start dropping in--use Forge's Shotgun ability, and take them out as fast as possible--sometimes they target the Elephant and it's very weak--also, if you lose it, you lose!
4. Hold off the initial waves of Brutes, then start advancing using troop abilities as much as possible.
5. 3 Spartans will come down your way to help out, and you should be able to clear out the Brutes fairly easily now.
6. Move north(send a couple troops to collect the resources on both sides there), and bring the Elephant up to the plateau.
7. Lock the Elephant down near the left exit to the plateau, leave any Marines you have left with it to guard, then send Forge and the Spartans towards the top left Elephant.
8. Gradually approach, let your 4 heroes take out any flood slowly, but do focus on taking out the Flood Gob Thrower, and eventually liberate the Elephant.
9. Escort the Elephant back to base with a slight detour to the North-East from where it was to rescue some ODST!
10. Head back to base.. or send the Elephant to lock down next to the other Elephant.
11. Start building up your base quickly, with Turrets that have anti-infantry upgrades.
12. Get a Field Armory up soon and research upgraded Turrets.
13. Rescue some more ODSTs--they are scattered around the left side of the map, pretty much wherever you see the Flood "Pods". I believe there are 4 groups of them to find.
14. Now, you can either focus on protecting your base very well--Hornets are the best--or make a run for the final Elephant and win quickly.
15. If you go for the final Elephant, try to keep your ODST's between or behind your Spartan's and Forge.
16. Rescue the final Elephant, and walk back to base!
17. You must keep all the Elephant's alive, so use the Heal Power on the ones near the base if necessary, and possibly train more Marines out of them to protect them.

Mission 9: The Flood

Mission 10: Shield World

Shield World on Legendary is annoying because you only get one base, and therefore takes a while to get things going! It's very doable as long as you act very quickly to rescue the first group of troops.

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Build up your base FAST.
2. Get some Scorpions attacking the first Flood base ASAP.
3. Rescue the first troops, then take over the map with Scorpions.
4. Escape!

My general walkthrough steps:
1. Immediately build two supply pads and a Reactor.
2. Send one of your Marines to the Reactor that's right behind the Tractor Beam to the right of your base.
3. Get some Turrets up at the front of your base, with Anti-Air on them.
4. Get a Vehicle Depot up, and start training as many Scorpions as possible.
5. Park your Scorpions near the first Flood base, and use them to gradually knock out the Flood flying units. If a Scorpion gets badly hurt, pull it back towards your base, and when enough are hurt, use the Leader Heal Power!
6. If necessary, send your Hornets to the Alpha troops and/or use the Leader Heal Power on them to keep them alive long enough for your Scorpions to break through.
7. Get a Field Armory up(you should have 4 Supply Pads, a Field Armory, a Reactor, and a Vehicle Depot on your base).
8. Upgrade the Reactor, and research the Canister for the Scorpions as soon as you can.
9. If you haven't taken out the first Flood base by now, 5+ Scorpions should be enough, although using a Cryo Bomb on the flying Flood right before you attack is a good idea. Focus on the 'Gob throwing' Flood Towers, and wipe out that area. Possibly run through to Alpha with Scorpions if you need to to defend Alpha, then work from Alpha backwards.
10. Once you've rescued Alpha, you're doing well.
11. Keep building Scorpions, station them at the first flood spawn point so no flood respawns, and heal them up for the assault on the center.
12. Around this time, you should explore North of where Alpha team was, and the far East(right) side of the map for more Tractor Beams. Gremlins will be called in, and send them to those locations for some extra time. (You could even try to explore the last location which is just to the left of Charlie Team, and send a Gremlin there. It may or may not make it)
13. Mass tanks with Canistor shot into the center after a Cryo Bomb, and wipe out the center. Don't forget to leave a few troops behind on the left Flood base so it doesn't respawn!
14. Heal up, take out the little Flood base just North-east of the center base, make sure you're at max population, then take out the final Flood base, as always with a Cryo Bomb first.
15. Once you rescue Charlie Team, the Flood will spam attacks--send some Scorpions near the Reactor you have Marines in, and park the rest in the center of the map possibly--or try to make sure the Flood don't rebuild any of their bases, because if they do the attacks are ridiculous!
16. Send Charlie team the safe path(assuming you took out the Flood Gob Throwers near the North Pylon) along the top of the map, down the left side back to your base.
17. Victory!

Mission 11: Cleansing

A tricky mission, that requires a lot of micro-management at times. Not too hard though with a good strategy.

The overall focus in order of importance:
There are two ways to do this:
A. 1. Spam Hornets and only protect the Hornet spawn buildings.
2. Station the Hornets at the Flood spawn points and have them take out the flood buildings quickly.
3. Wait for the cleansing beam, and eliminate most of the Flood if not all in one pass.
OR...
B. 1. Spam Turrets and station your troops to protect the turrets and the buildings.
2. Gradually build up your Hornet force and take out the flood buildings in between cleansing waves.
3. Build Turrets everywhere and eventually win.

Being a 'safe' play style, I never really tried "A", however I'm almost positive it would work on this mission as long as you kept some Hornets(or the Spartans) in reserve to clean off the Flood drop pods.

My general walkthrough steps:
For Strategy B:
1. Immediately divide your forces to the four corners of the North deck area, and a couple troops on the raised deck area to the South.
2. Station them so that they can hit the flood that come up the walls and land.
3. Focus on building as many turrets as possible, and balancing between anti-infantry and anti-air upgrades on the Turrets.
4. Once you have a lot of Turrets going up, including on the raised deck area in the middle, then start building Hornets.
5. Station the Hornets to help out the various defense points.
6. Get some reserve Hornets and start taking out the Flood factories.
7. Try to take out the side Flood first if possible--and leave at least one Hornet at least Flood location as you go so they can take out the respawning Flood buildings.
8. Keep building Hornets and building/repairing Turrets when you can.
9. Try to have both sides clear by the time the first cleansing beam comes through, then take out the North flood spawns, build Turrets there(with Anti-Air), and leave a couple Hornets up there.
10. Mass attack the South flood, taking out the Flood 'Stone Throwers' first! Station some troops there so they don't respawn, and wait for the next cleansing wave.
11. You're done!

Sentinels will keep spawning throughout this mission, and are harmless until after the first cleansing wave--then they will start attacking you also, and particularly wrecking your Turrets. Keep an eye out and keep rebuilding Turrets.

Mission 12: Repairs

Mission 13: Beachhead

This is a fairly easy mission, even on Legendary. The AI will keep sending Banshees at you though on Legendary, and they will wreck your Turrets early on. This mission was easier on the 360 because you could build Cyclops to repair your turrets and buildings.

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Take out the Covenant base that's just south from Anders departure position(after Anders has left the Battlefield and the Spartan's have arrived)
2. Build up the base very fast.
3. Capture the Scarab and use it to take out the right side base and the center.
4. Get the ODST upgrade and all other useful upgrades.
5. Assault the last Covenant base.

My general walkthrough steps:
1. Take out the Covenant base that's just south from Anders departure position(after Anders has left the Battlefield and the Spartan's have arrived)
2. Have your Spartan's hijack as many Covenant vehicles at that Covenant base and take it out ASAP.
3. Send your healthiest Marine group to the Supply Tower just North of your base.
4. Have all your other troops guard your base by standing near the left front corner.
5. Get 4 Turrets with Anti-Air on them up.
6. Build an Airbase, and at least 1 hornet.
7. Send the Hornet as soon as you can over to the right into the field there--it'll discover a Scarab the Covenant have abandoned, and will start shooting the Flood holding the Scarab.
8. Once the Hornet finishes, or before, you need to transport a Spartan over there and he'll help with the flood. Use the Chain-gun Spartan if you can!
9. Hijack the Scarab with the Spartan, and send it up the little road up the hill to the right first--that will eliminate one of the Banshee spawn points!
10. Then take the Scarab towards the Covenant base on the right side, at the bottom of the cliff and park it where it can slowly work through the bases shields.
11. There will be Covenant reinforcements that drop in at around half base health. Back away if necessary from the Hunters, and take them out with Hornets/Scarab.
12. Use your Heal Leader Power generously on the Scarab! You DO NOT want to lose it.
13. Once the right side base is captured, and fully turreted, consider parking an army of Gauss Warthogs or Hornets just to the North of it to defend against Banshees.
14. Use the Scarab with a few Hornets and/or ODST's to take out the center base. Make sure to use the ODST's Rocket ability as often as possible.
15. Take out the center base, quickly build it up with all Anti-Air turrets, and prepare for the final assault.
16. There's two ways you can do this--I always used the teleporter above my 2nd base, however I think you can just go all air units and take out the final Covenant base from the left side avoiding fighting the other Scarab! If someone tries that, please let me know. 2-3 Vultures with the Mega Barrage upgrade and some support Hornets and a lot of ODST's should make quick work of that base from the left side. (Sneak left side attack Proven effective by Robster80!)
17. Either way, take out that base--if you use the teleporter on the right side, kill the Scarab using everything--it will quickly upgrade it's stars killing your ODST's, but your Scarab and Bombing Run should take it out fairly quickly as well as the ODST's rockets.
18. Build on the final base location and Victory!

The Banshees spawn from at least 3 locations. There is one spawn on the hill on the right side. Another spawn point just to the left of the final Covenant base. And I believe the third spawn location is to the right of the Covenant Scarab you don't get to hijack. It could be worth sabotaging those Banshee spawn points early on with a Hornet/Bombing Run attack just to save your bases from the constant and annoying attacks! I never tried this, if you do please let me know how it goes!

Mission 14: Reactor

This mission can be VERY annoying especially on Legendary! The AI will keep sending Scarab's at you on Legendary.

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Protect the Reactor!
2. Get the ODST and max Mac Cannon upgrades ASAP.
3. Take another Covenant Base.
4. Have an army of your preferred units--Warthogs, Tanks, ODST's, and Hornets all do well in massed formations on this map.
5. DO NOT send the Reactor up anywhere, in fact, hide it behind your starting base, until you have taken out all the Covenant bases.

My general walkthrough steps:
1. Get 2 supply pads, then a Reactor, then more supply pads. If you're going for tanks, then get 2 Reactors and upgrade one. Otherwise one Reactor early and Warthogs works well.
2. Get the starting base built up well then take all your units and move up the hill to the first Covenant base. On harder difficulties it's best to get a large army up the first hill--and possibly stick your Spartan's in Tanks.
3. Take out the first Covenant Base--build it up as fast as possible. On legendary a Scarab might show up at anytime, so keep getting more units and towards the ODST and Mac Cannon upgrades.
4. Once you have a max army, move up to the flood base, and annihilate everything. Leave a couple Marines here to make sure the flood base doesn't rebuild.
5. Move up to the 3rd Covenant Base. On Legendary you've probably already had 3 Scarabs come your way.
6. Don't forget to build anti-air turrets everywhere!
7. Kill the 3rd Covenant base with ODST's, Tanks, and possibly Hornets/Warthogs.
8. Lick your wounds, build up that base, and move up the final hill with a massed army.
9. Kill the last Covenant base, take it over, build it up with some anti-air Turrets.
10. Space your units out along the path to the top so they can take out the enemy Vampires aircraft.. that have a very annoying range.
11. Station 2 groups of units at the two Sentinel spawn locations at the very top of the hill next to the Elephant's objective to take them out as they spawn.
12. Bring the Reactor via Elephant up to the top along the now safe pathway!

The Vampires spawn on the top right of the map, near the 3rd Covenant base. It's hard to intercept them however, so spreading your units around is helpful.
The Scarab's are TOUGH on Legendary. Hit them with everything--drop ODST's around them so they can't move then use the Mac Blast, Canister shells from the tanks. You'll probably lose half your army every time a Scarab shows up.

Mission 15: Escape

The overall focus in order of importance:
1. Get more bases
2. Get the ODST and Hawk upgrades
3. Wipe out the Covenant

Specific walkthrough steps:
1. After killing the first few enemies, take the starting Marines, send two to the left, one to get into the Supply Tower, and one into the Sniper Tower that activates a light wall. Send one marine up to the right and into the Supply Tower up there.

2. Start building up the first base with 5 Supply pads and 2 Reactor pads.

3. Build at least 3 Warthogs, or an Airbase and start pumping out Hornets.

4. Move up the right side, take out the Flood around the first base, build the base, and put Turrets(with Anti-Air upgrades), a Barracks, Supply pads, Field Armory, and possibly Airbase.

5. Keep upgrading towards Hawks/ODST's and getting any good Field Armory Upgrades(Turrets, Mac Blast, Population Boost, and Training Boost).

6. Don't build anymore Warthogs.

7. Keep an eye on your starting base, watch the map for attacks against you, and make sure your Spartans are doing ok--often a Locust will shoot them from a long ways away--hijack the Locusts and Wraiths when possible. Also make sure your Marines/ODST's in the Light Wall Sniper Tower are doing ok--eventually a Locust will attack them. If they die, replace them.

8. Use your Hawks which you hopefully have by now to take out the 3rd and 4th bases, build them up quickly with supply pads, one airbase, and turrets with anti-air.

9. Continue to the Covenant bases with your Hawk fleet, wipe out the Covenant bases...

10. Keep building Hawk's as you lose them, and place ODST's in any good locations/Sniper Towers/Supply Towers.

11. Activate the doors! In order, they need to be paired with the opposite ones. Also make sure there are NO enemies of any kind near the doors!
The first doors are the one right at your base, and the one exactly opposite.
Second set are the ones near your 2nd base, (counterclockwise on the map from your first base), and the opposite again.
The last set are Clockwise from your starting base and it's opposite twin.
You're done!

If the Scarab ever starts attacking a base, hit it with everything you can at once--Mac Blast, Cryo Bomb, Carpet Bomb, and attack it with Hawk's(if you have them) right after the Cryo Bomb.

10 Jan 2017 06:09

30 Comments

for Repairs, I had a hard time following the guide. but I tried my own strat and beat it first try. I had all positive skulls on:

1) have all units stay in front of the engine, tell the Cyclops to repair and put the global rally point there
2) build turrets on all 4 of the points in the raised center area, and on the 2 points near the engine
3) THEN start spamming Cyclops, using the Repair ability and have the Spartans and Hawks trying to focus down the bigger threats

as long as you have enough Cyclops and have the resources, rebuild any of the 6 aforementioned turrets as they are taken out. the reason for the turrets is they make at least some of the Covenant (Hunters especially) stop and waste large amounts of time taking them out, and they will also soften them up for your other units. with the skull that gives extra HP, the turrets should last longer even when being hosed by Hunters. the AI is stupid and just sits there with a couple units attacking the turret so that's that many less units attacking the engine.

By Khan Garth on 11 Apr 2019 06:05

Can this be done on co-op? I'm not seeing any progression on the achievement, even though I've done 5+ missions.

By Brutaka5 on 10 Jan 2017 08:45

I actually never checked my achievement progress for any of the achievements, so don't know sorry--I would assume it can be done Co-op though as it doesn't specify? Can anyone else give some input on whether single player gives achievement progress progression?

By Shadow 00 Fox on 10 Jan 2017 18:40

i too would like to know

By YoDz on 11 Jan 2017 03:25

Can't confirm, but you could on 360.

By MikeProcurator on 11 Jan 2017 12:23

Not sure about co-op but single player doesn't seem to track progress. I've completed 9 missions and the tracker shows me at 0%

By on 22 Jan 2017 23:17

Ah ok, that helps! Thanks. I guess there's no tracking progress for that then.

By Shadow 00 Fox on 23 Jan 2017 00:40

So far your strategies work, though I am doing a Heroic playthrough for finishing the missions under the Par Times. Call it a "practice run" before I attempt Legendary. As of this comment, I have 3 missions to go yet (13-15)

By Robster80 on 31 Jan 2017 15:33

Ohhh.. you're past some of the hardest ones! :-) Although, I'd love it if you could test out my alternate strategy for mission 13, where you take out the Banshee spawn buildings.

By Shadow 00 Fox on 31 Jan 2017 20:07

Nice! I've added a note for that!

By Shadow 00 Fox on 02 Feb 2017 17:07

Oh ok, I might've misremembered and assumed there was another spawn station up there. I thought it was in the top right corner past the other Scarab. Thanks for trying though :-) And good job with the Legendary completion!!

By Shadow 00 Fox on 04 Feb 2017 04:52

You should be able to get this in co-op. A friend and I got the Legendary achievement for the 360 version and Halo Wars 2 in co-op. I don't see why this one would be any different.

By PaperCircle on 09 Jun 2017 04:25

This is not unlocking for me on xbox one.

By P33Mann on 13 Jan 2018 20:24

There appear to be xbox issues right now..

By Shadow 00 Fox on 13 Jan 2018 23:20

You're very welcome! I love the Halo games, and this Halo RTS might be my favorite RTS of all time.

By Shadow 00 Fox on 05 Mar 2018 06:22

Just finished all missions on legendary and collected all black boxes and no achievement for either😞 gonna try a hard reset and hope for the best lol

Edit. After hard resetting and still nothing I replayed the first level on legendary and the achievement popped. Hope this helps

By MeraMeraNoAce on 03 Jun 2018 15:34

Yes, those are some good ideas for Repair. Doing it Legendary with no helpful skulls is pretty tough, all about spamming the Cyclops and running a losing defense. A fun mission though. I'll see if I can put a note in the solution to check for your method in the comments.

By Shadow 00 Fox on 12 Apr 2019 18:13

and for Beachhead, while the Scarab is definitely nice, I found that teching into 6 Vultures works fine even if you do lose the Scarab, all is not lost. so my recommendation for that would be if mass Hornets don't work, try turtling and building up to 6 Vultures (with the missile ability if possible) and the AI just can't handle it.

By Khan Garth on 14 Apr 2019 04:22

The reason for the Scarab is it eliminates multiple Covenant positions early on allowing you to build 2 more bases early and speed up your assaults dramatically both due to less Covenant spawns and more build power. You could wait and turtle, but it's painful with the constant banshee/Covenant attacks. Vultures definitely could work once you have your 3 bases.
You've made me want to play this mission again on Legendary just for fun!

By Shadow 00 Fox on 14 Apr 2019 19:00

For mission 13, the Banshee spawns are on the right of the scarb you can highjack, above the ramp of the scarb you can't, and in the final base. I was able to destroy the first two just by sending two banshees I highjacked around to each of them. For the last one in the base, I sacrficed a couple of hornets and carpet bombed it with a couple upgrades to the carpet bomb, so it is possible to get rid of them all.

However, to get to the point with the upgrades where I could leave my base and spend money on the upgrades, it took me to about 30 minutes to destory the final spawn (and destroying the other two spawns doesn't seem to slow the spawn rate for the banshees) so it might only be worth it if your worried that they will destroy your base. The other two I destroyed within five minutes of destroying the first base.

To get to the second one, I just had the highjacked banshees hug the far side of the map (same side of the first banshee spawn obviously) and made sure not to let them be within range of any other enemies

By Ditto51 on 06 Dec 2019 21:30

Hey Ditto51, that mission was a lot of fun! I did include that information in the end of the mission 13 spoiler.. just at the end so you probably didn't read that far.

I think it might almost be worth sending a single Hornet up the left side to slowly shoot the final base banshee span to death, and perhaps another Hornet up around the right side for the Scarab banshee spawn... either way, those Banshees are annoying!

By Shadow 00 Fox on 07 Dec 2019 07:54

This mission is not easy on the Xbox one version doing it in coop with skulls only and still can’t take first base the spawn way too many enemies and send over multiple engineers which heal the base quicker then you can damage it. Then you have the stupid got to wait 15 seconds to build base yet enemy can rebuild base every 5 seconds.

By Goggs25 on 26 Oct 2020 12:51

Just confirming for anyone like me whose achievement didn’t pop immediately, replaying the first level of legendary made it pop.

By The Uncle Sack on 16 Mar 2021 00:17

It glitched for me as well. Redoing the first mission popped it. I didn't even complete the mission, I died and went to restart and it popped.

By NoKSueCow on 30 Apr 2021 19:52

If you complete all but one or two missions on Legendary in a single playthrough can you go back and get the achievement on the remaining missions after beating the game?

By MysticFusion on 11 May 2021 05:54

This glitched for me too. Didn’t pop upon replaying the first mission. Had to hard reset the Xbox then replay first mission and that worked.

By BeeKay013 on 21 Aug 2021 03:29

Thanks for the detailed tips on each level. Helped me on a few!

By Shel2theburne on 21 Dec 2023 15:32

Actually, I only took out one of the Banshee spawn points and just worked on the rest of the mission. I will say, though, that was able to send 2 Vultures and several Hornets up to the final Covenant Base by going up the left side of the cliff to avoid the Scarab, and it worked.

By Robster80 on 02 Feb 2017 14:43

Achievement reached! Thanks for the guide, though a couple of times I had to redo missions as they went south, but I did it using your guides. Thanks so much for this. I never finished Legendary on the 360 version.

Also, I only found 2 out of 3 Banshee spawning stations in Mission 13 - one to the right of the captured Scarab and one next to the final Covenant Base. Oh well.

By Robster80 on 03 Feb 2017 05:51

Did this game get patched recently? My experience in mission 4 doesn't line up with the guide at all. There are hunter squads and locusts already tearing through the escape ships by the 17 minute mark, the 4 hornets aren't near enough to defend them during that stage and the mission is lost before I'm even able to build an airpad and recruit my first unit.
This doesn't even seem like it's WAD anymore.

By Fristi61 on 01 Nov 2020 19:34

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DEG23

XboxAchievements

This will likely prove to be the toughest achievement in the game but it's certainly not overly difficult by any means. On Legendary, the AI will have more health, deal more damage, and play more aggressively. The key to beating missions on Legendary is to have a strong early-game in the form of a good defense. If you have collected the skulls, then using the five positive ones will make this achievement significantly easier.

Although some strategies are better than others, there’s no one way of doing each mission. So, there is quite a bit of flexibility in how you approach each mission. If a strategy worked well on your Easy/Normal playthrough, then it will usually work on Legendary as well. Additionally, make use of the save function if you feel you are in a good position to avoid having to replay the entire mission if things go wrong.

Bubba Brad created a solid guide for the Xbox 360 version of the game and still applies to the Definitive Edition. It can be found here.

Missions 4, 5 and 6 will likely prove to be the toughest with Mission 4 in particular causing some frustration because of how random it plays out. Even following guides will not necessarily result in victory first time round.