Halo Wars: Definitive Edition

So this is an oldie but a goodie that I used to do in the original game of Halo Wars to earn the general ranking (before they reduced the requirements to nearly nothing).

Load up the map release, in the standard game mode, and play as forge. Your enemy doesn't matter but I like the arbitar strictly so forge can kill him again.

(This first step is personal preference, the only important part is that you take the nearest base, make three grizzlies, three spartans, one set of marines, and at least four cyclops. Get those and you can do this and you can skip these next two paragraphs)

On your first base make a supply pad, a reactor, supply pad and another warthog. While those build send your warthogs to get supplies, upgraded to turret hogs when the reactor is up. Once they can defend themselves, make another supply pad and another warthog, send them to the base directly ahead of yours and have them shoot the flood tendrils (they should stay out of range of them but check to be sure). As they're killing the base make another warthog and a supply pad (at this point you should have four warthogs, four max supply pads and a reactor) upgrade your main base for more space and make the other base.

On your main base make a barracks and a reactor, on your new base make supply pads (4) and a garage (last make an airpad and a field armory). Send your warthogs directly up again to the forerunner console and have them take out the flood tendril. Make one set of marines (who you immediately send to the newly opened forerunner console, three spartans (upgrade to machine guns when you can because they're kind of weak without them) and make three scorpions. While these are making do the upgrade for cyclops that allows them to heal then make four of them. Once you have three spartans and three scorpions send them to the flood release area (it has a symbol on it like the console) and release the flood. Kill them and heal the units. Put the spartans in the scorpions and get ready to hold the line.

(Those that skipped ahead look here)

Now that you have the set up you're going to want a defending force for whatever your opponent ends at you, make whatever you like so long as you fill up your population (I like to have some hornets, cobras, and wolverines but whatever works for you) and the plan is to have your scorpions keep killing the flood spawns to gain veterancy. It's essential to keep upgrading not only the scorpions but also the spartans (the upgrades translate to more veterancy), you'll know you've reached max veterancy when the stars fully wrap around the spartan helmet above your grizzlies. Keep releasing flood and killing them with the grizzlies and building up points while doing the upgrades for everything. When at max veterancy the grizzlies are nearly indestructable (I've killed two scarabs at once using just those grizzlies). When you've obtained 4,000 points roll over your enemy and get the max amount of points with minimum risk.

So this might help you get a ballpark figure of what you need to do. It took me about 1h (a little over) I was at 4000 points before I ended the match because I realized that for each unit kill I was getting I was no longer getting any more points.

This is how I got the Achievement.

I was playing 1v1 skirmish against the computer on legendary on blood gulch.

I was the Chieftain and A.I I selected Forge.

I rushed and took the supply's on the side then the generator after I secured them I built a second base and just kept an eye on what the A.I was doing. I did not let them build up many units before I went in and attacked (try not to lose any units) I mostly did it just with the Chief. After I had enough money I just made a Scarab out of my base and parked it just far enough so it would kill any units that came out of the base. After that I just kept an eye on things... I upgraded everything lets some engeniers out to protect my Scarab then I turned on all the skulls that gave the A.I an advantage. By this point it was easy because I had a 3 star Scarab and Chife and I would just distroy a few building with the Chife and let the Scarab take care of any ground units (Don't let them build an Air Pad). After I noticed I was not getting any more points I just killed off Forge and I got the Achivement.

I hope this helps anyone else who is trying to get it if you want to do it solo.

So, back in the day, when this achievement was difficult to get, I had a friend set his Xbox to search for local language matches, but then set the console to some oriental language, and I did the same. We searched at the same time and we drew eachother. At which time, we both just built cobras and locked down our start area, while the other just kept sending tanks.

But for this version, without a friend to help cheat with (lol), I set out to attempt this solo against the CPU. So yesterday, just to get an idea of what I'd have to do to reach the score needed, I made a skirmish against the CPU just to test and see where to go from here.

To my surprise, it was astonishingly easy.

(This is dependant on your personal skill level, as I can beat Legendary alone fairly easily.) I just started a standard match as Forge and played against an Anders in 1v1 on Heroic Difficulty. I find normal and easy difficulty TOO much so. And Legendary can be annoying to play. I find Heroic to produce enough resistance to be fun, but not overwhelming. Basically, I just turtled up and let them keep coming at me while I ran up the score.

To start, I went 2 supply pads, warthog, reactor, warthog, supply pad, warthog, supply pad, Gunner upgrade, base upgrade, supply pad, barracks. 3 Spartans, recycle supply pad for reactor, upgrade chain guns. All while taking hooks and collecting resources as found. Went on and took second base and moved to army building, got out 7 tanks, 5 cyclops, with a couple cobras and locked it down.

Maybe I got a little lucky, but the Heroic Anders I faced was pretty insistant on using tanks and gremlins against my cobras and grizzlies. When they actually showed up with a full population wave, the carpet bomb helped soften them up enough that the cobras were pretty much 1-shotting them all (before they became 3*). Once my score hit 4000, I turned all debuff skulls on and went and trashed their base.

The whole process took about an hour and 50 minutes, but not nearly as long as I thought it would. I literally did this while I had a tea party with one of my daughters and coached my other daughter on Splatoon 2 matchmaking. I'm sure it can probably be done faster, but as a casual attempt to reach this achievement, it really wasn't back breaking. I employed no specialized strategies to obtain, except to turtle up defensively and just sat and waited.

Note: I DID allow the CPU to take a second base, and left both bases alone for the majority of the game. The reasoning is, if they are limited to one base, they will not produce troops often enough, or strong enough to make this viable.