Halo Wars

Hey I've found a bit of a quicker way than most methods I've seen so I've made a video guide to it hope you enjoy

UPDATE : Even Quicker way : Exp Gainer has two Scarabs and 1 base , Worker has all bases same as other method just keep making barracks have the scarabs the perfect distance away so it can destroy the buildings but not the base itself , Worker just keeps rebuilding in three building spots, Insanely fast got 1000 XP in 4mins just Ran out of supplies Over all took us 25 mins

GL have fun

NotSoBraveDave

The scoring system for Halo Wars has changed dramatically. The new points needed to rank up are listed below. It now takes about a 1/3 of the time to get this achievement then it did before. Have fun!

Rank-----------Score Needed (Old<>New)
Recruit---------Play 1 Game
Lieutenant----80,000<>15,000
Captain--------200,000<>30,000
Major-----------400,000<>60,000
Commander-800,000<>120,000
Colonel--------1,600,000<>240,000
Brigadier------2,400,000<>480,000
General--------3,200,000<>960,000

***ADDITIONAL***
I used NotSoBraveDave's method at the top of this list to get General. Seems to be the best method so far with me and a friend trading off turns. The score maxes out at 4000 and with the multiplier you end up with 33,600 points. This means it will take exactly 29 match wins to get this achievement. It takes 35min in Keepaway and 25min in Deathmatch. So expect to spend over 30 hours boosting this.

Ok, my other solution took too long compared to the Release method, so I've removed it.

Instead, I'll spell out how to do the Release method. You should be playing in the Keep Away 1v1 playlist, however, this will require you (and your partner) to have the Strategic Options DLC. Also, you should only do this during times that Keep Away 1v1 shows as 'Low Population' to reduce the chance of getting someone else. And make sure that you and your partner Prefer each other.

The player going for General should be the Prophet of Regret. I've tried it with the Brute Chieftain and there was less room for error with him.

Start off with the following build order...

Warehouse->Temple->Warehouse->Warehouse

Send your Ghost Scout around collecting supplies, but being careful to avoid the Flood bases. You don't want to lose him as it may impact your final bonus multiplier. Once the Temple is built, the Prophet will be available. Send him to the three Flood bases and the two releasing mechanisms. Keep him out of reach of the tentacles.

As soon as you have the cash, upgrade him to Blessed Immolation. This will make taking out the Flood bases quicker. Once they are gone, send the Scout (or the Prophet) in to take the supplies. I generally send the Scout as I can have the Prophet moving in the mean time.

Upgrade your Warehouses to Blessed Warehouses and upgrade to Citadel ASAP. Build a Training Hall and a Summit. Research Peons and the repair thing for the Engineers. Build 2 Jackal squads, 5 Grunt squads (or ignore the Jackals and make 7 Grunts), and 2 Engineers. Upgrade your tech level when you can. Research Harmonious Digestion, Needlers, and Deacon. Once you've gotten those squads and techs researched, recycle those two buildings. Build 2 more Warehouses and upgrade them when you can. Research Followers, Ancestral Perversion, Divine Absolution, and Shield of the Forerunners when you have your Tech level maxed.

As your Prophet cleans out the releasing mechanisms, hot drop a single Jackal (or Grunt) squad to him and garrison them in the mechanism. Repeat for the other when you get to it.

After all Flood bases have been destroyed, move your Prophet to one of the release chutes. Move the other 5 Grunt squads and the Engineers to the other.

Wait for your cash reserves to build up and then build a Scarab. While the Scarab is being constructed, wait for the reserves to fill back up. By the time it is finished, you should have close to 3k. Move the one Scarab to either the Prophet or the Grunts. When the second is finished, move it to the side that the other one didn't go to. Make sure that the Scarabs are not too close to the chutes. Give them some room so their beams can swivel rather than forcing them to turn their entire body.

At this point, you should be at about 18-20 minutes, give or take. I did this without making another base.

Now, you can start in releasing the Flood units. The initial release costs 300 cash per side. Recharge time for that is 1 minute (or so). Second release is 600 per side. Recharge time after that one is 2 minutes, iirc. Third release is 900 per side. Recharge remains 2 minutes. You can check how much time has elapsed by hitting the < button by the Guide button.

Now, you might be asking why include the Grunts? Well, it's because they are very very useful at taking out the flying Flood forms. If you do this right, you won't lose a single unit. The Engineers keep the Grunts healed, and the Prophet's shield will not collapse under the Flood assault. The Scarabs are tough enough that they won't lose more than about 1/8th of their life.

Once you have your 4000 points, send the nearest Scarab over to the other guy's base and have it destroy it.

It will take a grand total of about 50 minutes to complete one iteration of this method. At the end, if you haven't lost anything, you'll get an 8.4x bonus, meaning the full 33,600 points for the one going for General. I'm trying to do about 4-5 matches a day. At that rate, it'll take 6 days or so to get it done. You'll need 29 matches, if you are starting at 0 points.

Good luck!

Edit - Don't worry if you lose a couple of Grunt squads to the Flood. You shouldn't, but it occassionally happens. They should be arranged closely together in an arc a little bit from the release point. Close enough that they can fire their needlers without moving, but far enough to give them a bit of a breather before the ground troops get to them. I think in the 20 or so runs I've done so far, I've lost less than 10 squads.

You may also notice that in the final stats that you can get a lot of squads 'lost'. I believe the system counts a single infected grunt as a whole unit. These don't count against you in the final multiplier.

Step 1. have your friend be UNSC you be the prophet then look for your friend in1 vs 1 DeathMatch.
-----------------------------------
Step 2. when you guys match up and get ur match started let ur friend thats UNSC take over all of the base on the map but he stays away from yours ur friend makes only supply pads.
------------------------------------------
Step 3. then when your friend gets done doing all that then you start makeing 4 locust when done with that wait till your friend has 30000 supplies.
-----------------------------------------
Step 4. then have your locust blow up one of his supply pads then your friend rebulid a vehicle depot non stop till you have 4000 points.
-------------------------------------------
Step 5. make sure your locust are far away so they only blow up your friends supply pad over and over. also make sure you dont let any of your guys die when you get to 4000 points and it stops going up have your friend blow up all of his baseis. then if you did it correct you will have 33000 points. only 1 guy will get the points the UNSC guy gets nothing thats why you take turns....if done correctly it will only take 25 to 35 mins per match....this maybe hard to understand but i hope this helps!
::UPDATE:: iv'e found out how you can match up with your friend faster you start looking for a match 1st when it says Waiting For Players on your srceen have your friend look for you it works and saves time.....Good Luck!

I received this achievement last December and I think I have a pretty solid strategy to earn it for those of you who do not have it.

I. Join any match in any playlist and use any leader. All of these criteria depend on your taste of preference in how the game is played.

II. Utilize strategy and quick decisions to overpower the enemy into submission until they are eliminated. This portion of the strategy to acquire this achievement requires that the player understands the unit interaction and characteristics within the game. Here is a list of notable traits that has been provided courtesy of developers from www.halowars.com:

In Halo Wars every combat unit has an armor type and at least one weapon (often more), while each weapon has its individual damage, damage type and accuracy stats. Every attack in halo wars has a specific weapon associated with it even special attacks such as grenades or canister shot have separate specific weapons just for that special to use.



Accuracy

The first item we will look at it is the accuracy system in halo wars and how individual projectiles are directed when fired at the enemy. Every weapon has individual accuracy ratings that determine how accurate the attacks it makes are; the first rating is a straight chance to have the projectile be fired true while the second rating is used to determine how far off the aim is if the attack is not perfectly accurate. After the projectile is fired all that is left to find out is what unit is actually hit as a weapon can “roll” a miss and the enemy can move into the projectiles path.



Damage

After a projectile actually hits a target comes stage two of combat where the armor type of the unit being hit and the damage type being applied are used to look up a damage modification. The final damage is calculated by multiplying the base damage by this damage modifier.



A simple example of this is a marine firing on a scorpion with his rifle which for this example we will say does 10 base damage, now then the scorpion is armor type “Heavy armor” and the rifle does damage type “small arms fire” so we cross reference small arms fire and heavy armor on the table and get 0.4 modifier. The final damage will 4 damage done to the scorpion tank, calculated by taking the base damage (10) and multiplying Is by the modifier (0.4).



Wrap up

Overall the damage system is relatively straight forward with the main complexity coming from the number of armor and damage types but where feasible like type weapons share like type damage types. The machine gun on a scorpion does the same damage type as on the warthog for example. Also most game units have a fairly straight forward armor type except for a few special cases I will not be covering (but they are not important for this article).

Some base Armor types in Halo wars:

-Light infantry: Marines, Grunts, Jackals, brutes, Elites

-Heavy Infantry: Flamethrowers, Hunters, Cyclops

-Medium Armor: Warthogs, Ghosts, Choppers, Wolverines, Cobras

-Heavy armor: Scorpions, Wraith, Elephants, Scarabs

-Aircraft: Hornets, Banshees, Vultures, Vampires

-Building: Bases, Buildings, Turrets

Some example of damage types

1. Heavy MG and plasma
-Plasma pistols and rifles
-Plasma cannons on ghost, banshee and wraith
-Heavy machine guns on warthog, scorpion and hornet
2. Anti air missiles/ needles
-Wolverine anti air missiles
-Turret anti-air missiles
-Vulture anti-air missiles
-Vampire heavy needles
-Turret anti-air needles
3. Grenades
-Marine grenade/ RPG special attacks
-Grunt plasma grenade special attack
-Warthog grenadier
-Wolverine grenade mortar
4. Sniper attacks
-Rebel snipers
-Jackal snipers
5. Flames
-Flamethrower
-Flame mortars
-Covenant anti-infantry plasma mortar turret
The following percentages show how effective each weapon type is when combating: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, Aircraft, and Buildings, respectively.
For example,
(Weapon X): 100%, 150%, 0%, 200%, 50%, 250%
means that a weapon of "X" quality would do normal damage to light infantry, 1.5 times that to heavy infantry, no damage to medium armor, double damage to heavy, half damage to aircraft, and 2.5 damage to buildings.

Heavy MG/Plasma:
160%, 120%, 120%, 40%, 180%, 40%
Anti-Air Missles/Needles:
120%, 120%, 100%, 60%, 300%, 60%
Grenades:
80%, 60%, 160%, 120%, 80%, 160%
Sniper Attacks:
400%, 300%, 40%, 20%, 40%, 20%
Flames:
300%, 200%, 40%, 20%, 40%, 40%

Here is also the url for the link to download and/or study the Halo Wars tech tree:
http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/D4B911A1-A5DB-4AC6-B55....pdf

Understanding what energy levels will make it easier to be able to manage your resource income until you are able to produce stronger units.

Also, if you would like to understand all of the units in Halo Wars to an incredible degree, you can study the unit stats spread sheet provided by Halo Wars developers through halowars.com. Use this link and open the spreadsheet:
http://www.halowars.com/assets/units/HaloWarsUnits.xls

Personal notes from experience of playing Halo Wars for as long as I have been:
- Being able to scout enemy bases is a double-edged sword. Beware of enemy scouters but don't always be too shy to scout yourself.
- Sometimes the resource gathering phase in the extremely early period of the match can make or break your chances. Be careful but remember to stay assertive and collect those free resources.
- Micromanage units as well as possible. To some of you (especially those who are here to boost) might not know what this is all about so I have posted a youtube link following this strategy to help you understand "micro'ing".
- Communication is key. You have an extremely higher chance of winning matches and, thus, obtaining bonus experience points for being the victor if you are able to talk with your teammates (obviously, if you play 1v1 then this does not apply to you).
- Think on your toes. Hypothetical situation: If you have massed a lot of marines and are going to attack your covenent enemy only to find that he has an equally large amount of anti-infantry waiting at his base, do you continue to pump out infantry? No! Keep him occupied with your units by micromanaging them and killing as many as possible while you destroy your barrack(s) and start building some machinery (aircraft preferrably since if you switch to tanks, he could just as easily begin hunters).

and finally,
- Experience is the biggest key to this. Just keep playing matches and you will catch the hang of the strategy required for success in Halo Wars.

Using these tips and guidelines, you too can achieve the Halo Wars rank of general. I hope this strategy helps all who read it. Thank you.

P.S.- Yes, I know that FJ is the Halo Wars player providing the micromanaging youtube video. For those of you who do not know who FJ is, it would definitely help you to watch some of his videos. His youtube account name is FJ509.

There are several ways you can go about getting this. I used a variety of the following just to keep things from being boring.

#1 If you have the DLC, Keep-away and Reinforcements 1v1 is rarely played, they're great lobbies for boosting (although once people see players are playing it they start trying to find games)

#2 If you can't boost or just don't want to then Deathmatch "can" be the best way to get points. Unless you're really skilled at the other gametypes, deathmatch is usually the quickest way to get points. Everything is already fully upgraded, saves about 20 mins per game and you get similiar points. I suggest using Cutter or Forge in deathmatch. Cutter's 4x mac blast can make quick work of bases or chop down scarabs and tanks. Forge's Carpet bomb is decent when fully upgraded and Grizzlies are powerful units and unlike hawks they can't be fully wiped out by a leader power (cryo). Other great units are Banshees, hunters, and wolverines.

#3 Standard. (This is how I got mine)

Scout often! I can't stress enough how important that is. Being able to counter enemy attacks will save you so often and keep your score multiplier high[!IMPORTANT!]. Rushing with covenant leaders usually ends games quickly with a lot of points. I don't reccomend doing this on 3v3 because 3 leaders with home advantage could easily stop a rush. I feel like the brute is the best choice to rush with. Arbiter's suicide grunts are another option but a brute + jackal combination is usually unbeatable.

Another form of getting points is called "milking". If you know you're going to win, back off for a bit, let them get a decent army halfway built, then go destroy them again. A variant of this tactic is using the prophet fully upgraded (watch out for vampire/disrupter bomb combos). Just fly over to an enemy base, beam some objects, then either teleport or fly back to safety and let your shields recharge.

The last thing to note is learn how to play the game well. Use terrain to your advantage. There's places that scarabs can go that protect them from land-based units. So a Scarab/vampire combo can be useful on maps like Frozen Valley. Micro-ing is also important to learn. A lot of units (mostly unsc) can shoot while running. This decreases the enemies accuracy but doesn't affect yours at all. Personally I hate it when people micro because I enjoy seeing things go boom(including my units), but regardless it's a useful tactic that will help you get the acheivement sooner.

Other than that it's all strategy. Brute Chieftan + Engineers, ODST spamming, whatever you fancy. And the biggest thing you need for this achievement is a love for the game because trust me, you will get frustrated often and halo wars are usually not short matches. Hope this helps!

I was shown a boosting method that could be viewed as a stripped-down version of the one above involving the prophet of regret. Seemed to work pretty well as the player using Regret maxed on points out at 22-25 mins, depending on the speed of setting up bases etc. It's best to search on keepaway 1v1, as that playlist has a low population most of the time, meaning you and you're boostin partner have a greater chance of bein paired up, particularly after preferring each other.

Player using Regret should:

Build a temple, followed by 3 warehouses, then send the ghost to find resources. Continue upgrading the base when possible. Once the prophet's out and resources are available, blessed immolation should be purchased. Regret can then be used to clear out other bases fairly easily. Keep purchasing upgrades to the prophet, along with gathering resources. If there are any forerunner structures available be sure to make use of them. Researching tech should be avoided where possible.

Meanwhile the opposing player should also be building up resources. I find it best to play as cutter, due to the elephant and the fact cutter's bases start as stations, meaning greater efficiency. Again, make use of any structures on the appropriate side of the map. Ideally one supply pad on one of the bases should be not be upgraded to a heavy supply pad, that's where the boosting will take place.

Both players should wait until they each have above 15,000 resources. Once achieved, the prophet should be directed to the appropriate UNSC base. When in place, position the prophet's cleansing beam BETWEEN the normal supply pad and the heavy supply pad, so that it destroys both. The opposing player should keep rebuilding when a supply pad is destroyed, thereby amassing more points quickly. I used this when playing with two friends to get to general. Matches lasted around 23 mins each. We set ourselves a target of 100,000 points each day, meaning we each got through at least 3 matches until we finally got to general.

I understand this method can be extremely borin. Nevertheless, it is manageable, not to mention worthwhile.

Anyway hope this helps, and good luck to everyone tryin to get to general!

Play as Forge, hope for release, make whatever will defend best against your enemy, take the second base and the terminal, make 3 Spartans, 3 grizzles, and at least 4 cyclops-es, put the Spartans in the grizzles and move them to the release pad, have them kill the flood, then heal with the cyclops-es, all the while upgrading your scorpions (to grizzles) and Spartans until they have max veterancy, if the enemy attacks leave them out of the fight unless you REALLY need them, when all 3 are fully upgraded take your indestructible (and yes they pretty much are) grizzles to finish them off, you get the max amount of points, you don't need to boost, none will accuse you of cheating and you feel like a bad-ass, this is the way I earned it and I share it with the world

=== Boosting this achievement in a fair way ===

This guide I written for people who are going to boost this game with a new/unknown friend. During the initial boosting with a new person there is always some tension and insecurity. People want to go first to get their XP. The other person is maybe a bit worried about being stood up by the other. For this situation you can use this guide. Once the confidence and trust is there you can swithc to other boosting methods.
advantage: You will both get about the same amount of XP. there is a difference of 2000 XP between first and second place.
disadvantage: The total XP gained is 20.960 XP. First place gets 11.312 XP and second place gets 9.648. This is definitely less then the 33.600 you can make using the normal method. (see below for normal method)

=== The method ===

requirements: Strategic Options DLC, this will enable you to play keepaway 1v1.

Both players choose covenant with Prophet of Regret as their leader. For matching up I used a little trick which seems to work well. One player readies up and sees the countdown. Once the countdown is done the second player should ready up. This seems to work better then readying up at the same time.
Use your initial scout to find supplies around your base. Once the supplies around your base have been recovered you can destroy the scout. You can destroy him by sending him to some "neutral" bases or supply points.
On your first base you want to build a temple and warehouses. My build order was: supply pad 1 ... supply pad 6 - temple - upgrade all warehouses - Only upgrade the ages in the temple.
Once the ages are researched you can build a scarab. You can use him to liberate a second base. Build the second base and only build warehouses which have to be upgraded. Then you wait untill you have about 20.000 supplies.

summary:
both players have two bases.
ages are fully researched.
initial scout is destroyed.
both players have about 20.000 supplies.
both players have one scarab.each.

Next we will set up one scarab for one player.
Setting up the scarab is a little bit tricky. You want your scarab to target two or three warehouses from the enemy base. The scarab should not be able to target the base itself.
Then you set up the other player's scarab.
Once both scarabs are at their sweet spot both player can start rebuilding the warehouses. If a scarab doesn't shoot these new warehouses then you can try a few tricks to get it going. You can build a turret which will sometimes trigger the scarab. Or you can move a unit (prophet) between the warehouses to be targeted. If this fails then the positioning of the scarab is not ideal.

summary:
both player's scarab will be shooting two or three warehouses.
both players are rebuilding their warehouses
both players get XP because they are destroying warhouses.

Every now and again you should check the score. You can see the score by pressing the "back"-button on your controller. The maximum score is 4.000. Once both players have reached 4.000 points they can recycle thier bases. The game ends after all the remaining troops have been eliminated. After the match you can see your actual XP earned in the score screen.

=== normal method: ===

One player chooses covenant with Prophet of Regret as his leader.
Other player chooses Humans with Cutter as his leader.
For matching up I used a little trick which seems to work well. One player readies up and sees the countdown. Once the countdown is done the second player should ready up. This seems to work better then readying up at the same time.
Use your initial troop to find supplies around your base. On your first base you want to build a temple/reactor and warehouses/supply pads. The human player should research gunner and build six warthogs to take over a second base. The covenant player should fully upgrade his prophet to take over a second base. Build the second base and only build warehouses/supply pads which have to be upgraded. Then you wait untill the human player has about 25.000 supplies.
Then you take the prophet to the human base and let him target his (fully upgraded) beam between two supply pads. The human player should rebuild the destroyed supply pads. The human player can not take a break from this because the prophet keeps burning up his supplies even if there is no target (supply pad) and he might run out of supplies.
Once the score reaches 4.000 you can recycly the bases and kill all remaining troops. Now the covenant player has earned 33.600 XP.

This isn't so much of a solution as it is a variation on NotSoBraveDave's method, but I felt it warranted it's own solution instead of getting lost in the comments. I'm doing this myself with a second XBOX/game/gold account, but you can still do this with two players on Live and take turns.

Whenever I have long, grindy achievements like this, the first thing I think of is how can I do this with a turbo controller (see my GTA IV Wanted solution). Any time I can get an achievement while sleeping, watching TV, doing dishes, etc., I'm a happy person. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of setup that you can't AFK, but you'll still get 15-20 minutes per match to go do something else.

I start out doing everything the same as NotSoBraveDave, building warehouses/supply pads, reactors/temples, capturing bases, etc. For the Exp Gainer (Prophet), I build my temple, and everything else is upgraded supply pads. If there is a reactor you can take on the map, I'll build a barracks to train a grunt squad to go take that, saving you from upgrading your age once. I'll the recycle the barracks and build another upgraded warehouse. Once I can build my Scarab, I recycle a warehouse to build a Summit and train an Engineer.

For the Worker (Forge), I capture all the other bases, upgrade them, and put supply pads on everything. I build one reactor on the first base in order to research Gunner, then recycle it and build a supply pad. If the map has the buildings that add supplies, I'll build a barracks to train soldiers, garrison them there, recycle the barracks and build another supply pad.

Once all this is done, Forge should have somewhere around 15-20k in supplies and it's time to start the AFK portion. Obviously you need a turbo controller, I use a Hori, but anything that lets you turbo the A button will work. The player or XBOX that is the Worker (Forge) is the one that needs the turbo controller.

Exp Gainer - Pick whichever enemy base is closest to you, take the Engineer and fly him over the closest supply pad. Take your Scarab and inch it closer to that supply pad, once it starts firing, stop. It will now automatically shoot that building and nothing else, so the Exp Gainer can go AFK until the end of the match.

Worker – Hit A on the supply pad that the Scarab is destroying to open the build menu. Tape the left stick up and to the left so it highlights the barracks, now turbo A. Your turbo controller will now open the menu, select barracks, and build them as fast the Scarab can destroy them, the Worker can now go AFK until the end of the match.

This method is going to be a little slower obviously, you're only destroying one building instead of three, but not by that much. This method is taking me 30-35 minutes per game. Keep in mind I'm doing all of this myself, with walking into one room, building/training/capturing, and then going into another room to do it on my other XBOX, so set up time is usually about 15 minutes for me. If you have two people doing this, set up should go much quicker. That leaves you about 15-20 minutes per game to go do something else, so it all comes down to which is more important, getting this done sooner, or your time that can be spent doing something else. For me, my time is more valuable than getting this done a day sooner. Hope this helps some people out, if you have any questions I'm usually pretty good about replying to comments on my solutions.

Alright, just a quick summary of the method I used. Maybe you'll find some hints and tricks to shorten your time. I was able to get times between 22 and 24 minutes per match (= 33.600 EXP).

- Be in an xboxlive party with your boosting partner. Pick Deathmatch 1v1.
- One is gonna be the PROPHET and one is CUTTER. Why the Prophet is obvious and you should choose Cutter because in deathmatch you build heavy supply pads already from the beginning, so no advantage with Forge. And also Cutter can build bases with all spots right from the beginning. Pick CUTTER, not Forge!
- To find you boosting partner, let him press start and then count five seconds (counting-speed like the countdown for player search) and instead of counting number six, press start, too. Then you should get matched up. You can even mark your boosting partner as a favourite player, that makes it almost 100% to get matched up.

- START PROHPET (= EXP Gainer)
Start by building your temple, then a Summit, and the rest only (blessed) warehouses. As soon as your Prophet spawns, go to the closest rebel base, destroy it using your beam, and build a second base asap. When the Summit is built, produce four Engineers. When the second base is built, build a scarab in your first base and as soon as it is being constructed, destroy your second base and also tell that to your friend on the mic.
- Between all of that or during the scarab is building, destroy all other rebel bases and kill the rebels at the reactors/spires but leave all the crates there and don't build another base. If your four Engineers are built, destroy the Summit and build a (blessed) warehouse instead.
- Then it's just waiting for Cutter to get enough supplies.

- Start CUTTER (= Builder)
Start by building (heavy) supply pads on all seven spots, build 3-4 warthogs. During the warthogs are being built, collect crates around your base. Send every new warthog to collect the crates and when they're all built, attack the rebel base closest to you. Build a base there with (heavy) supply pads asap. Then send your warthogs to the next rebel base to do the same. At some base you'll meet the Prophet, who is trying to help you destroying the rebel bases. If you're not building or scouting something, collect crates with your warthogs!
- If there are Forerunner Supply spires on the map, drop one ODST Marine in each. ODST will be available after a couple of minutes in the game when it says something like "all units fully charged".
- At some point your friend on the mic will tell you that he has destroyed his second base, so you should build a base there and it should also be the last free spot to build a base.

- Situation now:
PROPHET has one base, four Engineers (+ one Ghost and one Prophet) and is building the scarab.
CUTTER has all other bases with (heavy) supply pads and a couple of warthogs.

- Now you both just wait for CUTTER to get between 26.000 and 30.000 resources. (Depends on the map and Forerunner supply).

- Attack PROPHET
Go to one of CUTTERS bases and position the scarab so that it is attacking the three buildings on the left or right of the base, but not the base itself. (Here you can use one of your Engineers as a "range extender" for the scarab. Place the Engineer right in front of the buildings you'd like to destroy. The scarab can now attack from much further away, because it can still see the buildings. The other Engineers are just for fun or scouting what your boosting partner does ;)
- If that's set up, bring your Prophet in and position his beam between the last two buildings behind the base. Like this you should destroy five buildings (3 scarab, 2 Prophet). That's it for you. Now just wait and check your score every now and then.

- Build CUTTER
You just build either barracks, vehicle depot or an air pad. They're all at 150 resources. I, personally, find the vehicle depot the easiest, because it's just straight left on the stick and not diagonal. Find your rythm and build as fast as you can!

(Rinse and) repeat till the PROPHET has got 4000 points MINUS X!!!

How to determine X: At the end of the match (timer should be between 20 and 23 minutes), CUTTER can self-destruct his bases. That's 90 points per base for the PROPHET (10 per building and 20 for the Fortress). So just do your math.

Example 6-base map: CUTTER has five bases, one of them being attacked. For the four intact bases, self-destructing brings 4 x 90 = 360 points. And for the last base which is being attacked, it's 20 for the Fortress and 20 for the two buildings left, so 40 points for this base and 400 for all bases total.
That means CUTTER can stop building barracks/vehicle depots/air pads at 3600 points already, then self-destruct all his bases and the PROPHET will get 4000 points (which are then multiplied by 8.4, which gives 33.600 EXP per match).

Hope you can speed up your boosting with this ;)

Fastest possible method! This solution is for the speedsters and those who want to achieve the fastest times. :-)
Okay, best time of 19:38!! Since we were able to achieve that time I'm going to post the solution despite there being so many already. This time was achieved on one of the maps that has supply elevators, 1v1 Deathmatch. We weren't in a particular hurry either, and I think a time of 19 minutes flat is definitely possible!
If you get a map without supply elevators, but instead with extra bases, our best time was around 20:45.
Figure on a total General rank boosting time per person of ~12 hours.
Credit should go to someone.. but I'm not sure which ideas were mine and which weren't. Credit to whoever came up with the destroying of buildings before they are built, credit to whoever figured out the best buildings are the vehicle buildings, and credit to the great TA community!! :-)

A few pointers: The HARDEST part is the first 5 minutes!! (steps 1-10) The goal is to destroy all AI bases asap, the Winner takes one extra base to build a scarab and self-destructs it the moment the scarab starts building at the main base, all bases are taken asap by the Loser. Loser should build warehouses on every base asap. Every second it takes to get an extra base takes away time at the end. On maps with supply elevators, Loser should train two elites from the main base immediately, and both players Prophets should clear out the AI at the supply elevators first, then move onto AI bases. Loser will send Elites to supply elevators safely ASAP.

Goals for winner: by somewhere around 5 minute mark, 2nd base built, Scarab construction started at 1st base, 2nd base self-destructed, prophet destroyed 2 AI bases, and Prophet in position to aid scarab with boosting pattern.
Goals for Loser: by 5-7 minute mark: the prophet first eliminates 1 or 2 AI bases to build extra bases on, ALL bases other than Winner's original base building supply pads, and Prophet and ghost running around and collection ALL map blue resources.

It's all in the TIMING. :-) Have fun and see what best time you can get!!

Okay: at the start of the game, hopefully you get a 4 base map((those have supply elevators--if you get a 4 base map, without elevators, I recommend restarting quickly)).

Note: this 10 step solution is written for a 6 base map; if a 4 base map with elevators, change your procedure appropriately.
1. Both players choose the Prophet.
2. Search for each other by starting searching in 1v1 Deathmatch, it seems to work better if one player starts searching and the other starts searching when player 1's countdown timer reaches 1. ((Important note about searching at the end of solution))
3. Game starts! Both players immediately build a temple and then queue up all warehouses.((optional, Winner can make a shield generator, just to make sure Loser's Prophet won't damage his base while collecting resources later)).
4. While both Prophets are building, Loser uses his ghost to start collecting resources and exploring for resources((beware of AI units destroying your ghost)). Winner should NOT collect any extra resources, he won't need them anyway and Loser will be collecting them. :-)
5. As soon as the Prophets arrive, both players use their Prophet to start destroying the AI bases--use the cleansing beam on the closest base and blink it on and off on the surrounding AI units to clear it faster. Loser should use his cleansing beam sparingly to save resources.
6. As soon as the first bases are destroyed, send the Prophets on to the next bases ((communicate as to what direction you're heading, there's nothing worse than having a Prophet battle at the start of a boosting session, although it can be funny!))
7. Send your ghost to the first base while the Prophet is going for the 2nd AI base and wait for the countdown timer to end; watch for the timer and build bases as soon as it's ready. Then Loser's ghost continues collecting resources.
8. Prophet's for both players should be destroying the last AI bases. While destroying the final base or sooner, Loser's sends his ghost to Winner's 2nd base; Loser's 2nd base should have all warehouses building by now; and, Winner's original base starts building scarab and Winner immediately self-destructs 2nd base.
9. Loser waits for building-delay timer on Winner's self-destructing 2nd base, building a base there as soon as possible. By now the Prophet's should be long done with the final AI bases, Loser's ghost heads to the base Winner just destroyed, and Loser's Prophet's hangs out and builds the base he just destroyed when that build-delay timer expires.
10. Winner's Prophet should be sent up in the hills somewhere so it won't be in the way. Winner should also lock-down his base so the scarab won't come out until Loser's ready for it; optionally, Winner can send the scarab into the mountains with the prophet to keep it out of the way.
11.Loser should now have all the bases building warehouses, his Prophet and ghost can now finish collecting all the resources on the map. Winner can take a break if necessary...
12. Before Loser reaches 20,000 resources, both players should decide what base the Winner will attack, and which TWO pads he will target. 13-15 minutes in or sooner is around your target for the destruction boosting to start. You want something that's far enough away from the scarab so that the scarab won't go after the main base, but also at the right angle so the scarab won't go after 3 pads. Use the Prophet for extra sight range for the scarab and play around with the placement until you get it right--the Scarab auto-attacking only two pads. The Scarab is super handy because you can park it on any mountain or hill or trees, as it's not limited by normal boundaries same as the Prophet. You just can't go through the holes. :-) You can spend some time on this step because it's definitely worth getting it right!! You can't afford to have the Scarab destroy the base by mistake.
13. With the Scarab and Prophet in place, Winner sits back and watches Loser do all the work. Loser starts rebuilding any vehicle or infantry building(NOT warehouses!) as they only cost 150 vs. 225 for warehouses. Winner's Scarab and Prophet go to work destroying them instantly. Feel free to use the Winner's cleansing beam to help destroy stuff faster as long as you have resources. Don't forget to move the Prophet away when you run out of resources because he will be naughty and attack the base on his own as soon as you run out of resources!
14. At some point, Loser should send his Prophet and ghost in to get annihilated by the Winner's units.
15. Important part about math! Every base that has all pads built on is worth 90 destruction points; the base itself is worth 20, and each pad is worth 10, no matter the building on it. If you have a 6 base map, that means the loser has 4 bases worth 90 points, and one base worth 70 points(the one being attacked has only 5 pads built on). That's a total of 430 points that can be subtracted from the total 4000 points needed per boosting game. If the game has supply elevators and only 4 bases total, then the Loser now has a total of 250 points that can be subtracted. Sooo... 6 base map, at 3,570 points, the Loser can self-destruct all bases and then resign if he forgot any units! On a 4 base map, the Loser can self-destruct all bases at 3,750 points, and then resign if units are left by mistake.
16. Just a few wrap up numbers; since each building built and destroyed is worth 10 points, and each building built costs 150(if you're doing it right), do a little math and you need to gather 53,550 resources and build 357 buildings on a 6 base map, while you need to gather 56,250 resources and build 375 buildings on a 4 base map. However!! The supply elevators apparently bring in supplies faster than they look, and you also don't have to spend extra resources building more bases, so the 4 base maps actually go faster, and the Loser does not run out of resources as fast as 6 base maps.
17. Winner should be attacking by the 10-12 minute mark! Depending on map, Loser will run out of resources somewhere around the 18-20 minute mark. You can check the game time by pressing the 'back' button on your controller btw.

A few notes: Find what works for yourself, I personally had a very hard time connecting at 9AM-2PM my time with someone who was 8 hours later than me(lives in the UK), however we could connect every time first try at 11PM-4AM my time. I don't know why, don't get frustrated if you can't connect! The big thing is to keep trying, and experimenting until you find something that works. Sometimes you may have to dashboard to reset the system, we did that sometimes.
I also found that trying to make it faster, beat last times score and time helped make the boosting go faster.
After all, doing it with best time every time(not possible) and not counting the loading screens and time to find each other, you're looking at a minimum of 29 games for each person to win to reach General rank, which is just under 10 hours fastest time. Figure on 15 hours and you'll be happy, counting time to find each other, loading screen's, mistakes, fun games, etc. Make it fun. :-) Mix it up with some co-op campaign! Cream the AI a few times on legendary on Arcadia or Arcadia Outskirts or with the Rhinos! lol. :-D (Yes, those are fun scenarios btw!)

Notes: About finding each other when searching: make sure you are communicating VERY close when searching for each other. If you are fast enough, when one player sees "Found Player", and the other person sees "Connecting"(I can't remember exactly the words it says), Whoever sees it first IMMEDIATELY tells the other person, "Found Player!" If the other person does not confirm this nearly instantly, IMMEDIATELY back out. You should be able to avoid having to go into a match with a random, and be able to restart your search rapidly. Find the time it takes, then communicate when launching. It'll save you many a wasted series of loading screens. :-)

Thanks to Sotto Voce for the helpful critique and Dae1373 for being a great boosting partner and helping with figuring most of this out!!

Scarab boosting method (average of 22-23mn (not counting matching each other) and 33k XP per match).
30 wins to get the achievement, so around 30h of boosting (for both to get it).
Objective: XP gainer reachs 4 000 points.
Don't forget to choose "Deathmatch 1v1 low population"

Preparation (+/- 9mn)

XP gainer: choose Prophet of Regret
1. Start building a temple to have the Prophet.
2. Use Prophet to clear bases on the map for your boosting partner.
3. Keep one for yourself to build a 2d base.
4. As soon as your 2d base is built, build a scarab on your 1st base, then immediately destroy your 2d base for your boosting partner to get it.

Boosting partner: choose Forge
1. Build stations on main base.
2. Grab the other bases when cleared and build stations.

----------
Attacking phase

XP gainer starts attacking with Scarab only when boosting partner reachs enough resources (depending on how much bases he has). 5 bases: 21k resources, 4 bases: 23k, 3 bases: 25k

XP gainer: position Scarab at the right distance so that it destroys only buildings, not the base. It should alternate really fast between 2 buildings. You don't have to do anything else.

Boosting partner: keep building barracks on the 2 spots destroyed.

----------
Destroying bases phase

Boosting partner destroys his bases (depending on how many he has) when XP gainer get to a certain amount of points.
5 bases: 3 600
4 bases: 3 700
3 bases: 3 800

The best solution I've found is to have one person (who will be gaining the XP) ONLY conquer 1 base and research everything. The other person will control all the bases and build only turrets and supply pads. Once you have all the bases with turrets and supply pads destroy all turrets and 2 supply pads per base. Your opponent will get the credit for blowing up the buildings even though he did nothing. Once one person is at 4000pts the other should kill himself and then switch off for the next game.

Very easy, as long as you have a good teammate.

The Ranks are listed below:
Recruit---------Play 1 Game
Lieutenant----80,000<>15,000
Captain--------200,000<>30,000
Major-----------400,000<>60,000
Commander-800,000<>120,000
Colonel--------1,600,000<>240,000
Brigadier------2,400,000<>480,000
General--------3,200,000<>960,000

I would say you and a friend try to get on the map where you can release the flood over and over and just have your troops at the flood gate when it opens to kill everything. And just keep doing that.

Now If you just want to play normal which is going to take a little longer, but this is what I did. I just started 3v3's and went on from there.

Good Luck to whoever is trying to get it.

Getting to a General is all about racking up huge points. So, high multipliers make your 300-point games turn into 2500 point games.

By far the best way to get this achievement quickly, will be written below, but it is sort of boosting, so I'll list other strategies first.

The first idea I'd have to give you, is play 3vs3 non-party team games, make a small army, and kill any rebel (AI) bases/units. Covenant leaders are extremely good for this, and 5 rebel bases can be worth upwards of 200 points. Considering they're free to kill, and wont resign on you, rebel bases are easy points.

The second idea I'd have to give you, unfortunately requires you to simply play tons of games, get really good at the game, and then practice rushes and other strategies that allow you to win against your opponent, but keep a high multiplier/points. The video below shows a banshee rush, which is a decent strategy in any match, but primarily 1vs1.


The final, and quickest way to get to a general, is by playing 1v1 games (matchmaking) and resigning every match until you hit "RELEASE". If you don't want to resign every match, you can play them and go for more points, but 'Release' is your best hope for tons of points. Once you hit this map, make an attempt to talk the other guy into boosting with you. Either invite him to a party, or talk in game chat. 1vs1 games allow you to talk to your opponent outside of a party.

Once you are on the map, if your opponent agrees to help, the only difference is that you are able to use this strategy for longer (i.e. your opponent wont actually try to kill you, always a plus). To start the game, build a supply pad, barracks, supply pad. After you have your barracks, make a spartan and send him to YOUR flood console. YOUR console is the special marker on your minimap closest to your base. This console will send flood units at you, and they're worth a decent number of points. Get your spartan to kill the flood tentacle located at the console, and then hop in it.

While your spartan is killing and such, begin making plenty of flamethrowers. Make a reactor, two more supply pads, and a barracks on your base. (upgrade your base if you are playing anders/forge). Now that you have plenty of flamethrowers [10-20], go to your spartan in the flood console and select the option. It will cost 300 dollars and you will attack yourself with flood units. Two minutes later you'll be able to send another wave of flood on yourself for 600, and then every two minutes after that you can attack yourself for 900. In between attacks, refill your flamethrower army and upgrade them and your reactors until you have 30 'oxide tank' flamethrowers.

Provided you have this long before your opponent has killed you, or if you're boosting with the other guy, you can get 4000 maximum points, and with an 8.4x multiplier, that turns into 33,600 points for you towards your general.

Since i spent a lot of time in this, i put some thought on this achievement and even though the other guides are awesome, i might have discovered the fastest method available!

1. Find a boosting partner which you like, since you will spend some time together from now on
2. Make sure that you set the gameto the following settings : open group, open game and deathmatch 1vs1
3. One player is any human player (in deathmatch you dont need to bother about technology level and stuff) and one player is covenant (i recomend the prophet, but its up to you)
4. Search for a match and make sure both players have the same settings for search
5. The human player takes every base possible by using 4-5 warthogs (since they are fully upgraded, its no big deal at all) EXCEPT for the base closest to the covenant. He also builds only supply pads (depending on the map, he might also have to take supply nodes, which in that case will need a barrack for soldiers) The covenant player takes the base closest to him and builds a temple, a summit (for flying units) and supply pads and turrets on BOTH bases.
6. The human player aims for 25 - 30.000 supply points. Now comes the tricky part for the covenant. He builds a scarab and 2 engineers AND after all has been built destroys the 2nd base to be taken by the human player. Now the covenant destroys all his buildings except for the main building and 2-3 supply pads. On the now empty sockets the keeps building any kind of barracks and turrets and destroys them as soon as they are built. This will give the human player points on his score even though he is loosing!! (between 800-1000 points)
7. Now the scarab destroys all the warthogs and 2-3 buildings on the closest building and the human rebuilds them. He uses the engineers as scouting units so he doesnt accidentaly destroy the main building.
8. Another tricky part since you DONT have to get up to the full 4000! Make sure the covenant reaches around 38.000 and then the human auto destructs every building he has. This will destroy around 20-40 buildings and should net the missing 2000 points. However, this strongly depends on the bases you have.
For example if you have 5 bases totally built up with supply pads you canstop at 36.500 and still reach a 4000 by autodestruct. Experiment a little and you surely can even deminish this number.

This method in total will aproximately cut down your boosting/grinding time around 4-5 hours, maybe more. Each match will take around 30 minutes, which is the fastest time i was able to manage. Also the covenant is occupied while the scarab destroys the buildings on its own.
leave good feedback if you liked it and coments if you want to improve this.
Also note, that this way you DONT need to buy all the DLC´s since you only need deathmatches!!

If you are like me and want to double box this achievement, look no further, it is possible.

I used the XP gain method from NotSoBraveDave (the top voted solution)
However, I heard people saying that it is not possible to only win with your main account against your dummy since the skill based matchmaking (SBMM) will prevent matching up with each other. I figured out that SBMM works based on the True Skill Rank in each playlist, not the total rank.
For each game you win your True Skill Rank will increase. To keep the gap in the True Skill Rank between both accounts as small as possible I did the following:

1. Get to 4000pts as NotSoBraveDave described
2. When the dummy's True Skill Rank is higher I let him lose and when the main account true skill rank is higher I let him lose.

Winning with 4000 pts will give you 33600 amount of XP and losing 28800. So it will still take around 32 games to get to the General Rank.

I hope this will help someone out that also wants to double box this achievement :)

Edit:
Some general tips:
- When you search with one account wait for the timer to finish before searching with the other. This way you will find each other quicker
- The games lasted around 25-30 minutes
- The True Skill Rank is displayed when you start to search for a game

A faster method than waiting to build a Scarab is to have both players play as UNSC on Deathmatch.

The player who is going for XP builds two Cobras, the player feeding XP captures all available bases and builds supply depots.

The reason for Cobras instead of a Scarab? They're faster to build and do not require you to own a second base. They also deal just enough damage to destroy supply pads being built but not enough to threaten the core of the base itself. They also do not have a long range when not deployed so you can park them right next to the base you're targeting without needing an Engineer to spot for you. If at any point they target the core of the base, they won't do enough damage to threaten it and can quickly and easily be moved away from it.

With this method, you'll be able to hit the max score in a match a lot faster than the time it takes to build up a base for a Scarab.

Summary for the quickest 2-Scarab-boost from NotsobraveDave and additional Info:

Mode: keep away (dlc) or normal Standard
(haven't played Deathmatch)
Human Player can collect the flag two! times for extra ress

XP Gainer = Prophet:
Need only one base
Temple first then just blessed warehouses
with the Prophet start clearing Rebel bases and forerunner supply Pads beginning from nearest to the human
Start first scarab, Population Upgrade, second scarab, Summit for engineer (helps for the sight range for the Scarabs)

Worker = Cutter
Supply pad, Reactor, supply pads
When forerunner supply pads on the map a barrak at last
Other bases only supply pads
When the Prophet player is quite good at clearing the neutral bases/units there might be no need for any troops than for the forerunner pads.

Around 14-15 minutes the second scarab is ready and the attack can begin. One scarab only hits one pad the second the other two, rebuild alternating between those "two" spots.
Sometimes U might be reach the "zero" Money before the 3700 Points:

A full human Base gives 90 (20 for Center, the rest 10 each) Points. So around 3700 Points the human destroys his bases and send His units (forerunner pads) to the Scarabs.

Time for one round: 25 mins

This is a simplified solution for double boxing to General.

Requirements:

- Any two consoles that can run Halo Wars. I used a Series X and an Xbox One S.
- Around 15-20 hours of your life.

Double boxing to General is honestly really easy but it's tedious as hell. When I started out I tried doing the scarab method mentioned in most other solutions but this did not work for me as the scarab would either shoot the main base or not target the base at all. The method I used was the Regret glassing beam method. Essentially the set up is as follows.

1. The account going for General must choose Prophet of Regret. Other account must choose Forge.
2. Both accounts to search 1v1 deathmatch to match up. This playlist is the best as it will save time in the long run for build set up. 1v1 keepway is another option but will take longer, but this solution will assume you are using 1v1 deathmatch as all powers and upgrades are automatically maxed.
3. When the game starts Regret will build a temple then the rest warehouses. Forge will build all supply pads and then 4 warthogs.
4. Next will depend on whether the map has 4 or 6 total bases:
4a. If 4 total bases, Forge will claim the remaining 2 and build all supply pads on them.
4b. If 6 total bases, Forge will claim 3 and Regret will claim another base. In this instance Regret will have 2 and Forge 4 bases all with warehouses / supply pads.
5. Now you can wait a few minutes until the bases are fully built. You will want to wait until Forge has around 25,000 resources to start the actual boosting method.
6. Once this is complete, move Regret over to the back of one of Forge's base.
7. Aim Regret's glassing beam between two supply pads at the back of the base. This controller can now do nothing for a while.
8. The controller for Forge will need to keep building Barracks as soon as the beam destroys them. This will grant the XP Gainer 10 points per destroyed building.
9. Keep doing this until the XP gainer reaches 4000 points then end the game by having Forge destroy all bases.
10. Rinse and repeat about 29 times. If you get 4000 points each game, you will be awarded with 33,000 xp per match. 960,000 xp required for General.

Additional notes:

- Using this method in 1v1 deathmatch will resort to matches lasting between 25-30 minutes once you get the hang of the routine. The best I've managed to do is 26 minutes. If you use 1v1 keepaway you're looking at up to 40 minutes per match.
- Regarding trueskill, I would recommend trying to keep your trueskill between both accounts similar (i.e. within 10 points of each other). This will ensure you always match up. If you feel one account is exceeding the other in trueskill, purposely lose a few matches in a row. I've seen people say trueskill doesn't matter at all but I was just being safe.
- It is possible to fail to match up with yourself regardless of trueskill. I found that if this happens, you can circumvent this by having one account enter the search, wait 5 seconds then have the other account search. Sometimes searching at the exact same time will not match you up for some reason.

So I realize that there are a ton of guides for this solution, but a friend and I worked out a mash-up of a few different solutions that ended up making things much quicker.

Do a 1v1 Deathmatch, the booster (person giving the XP for this round) should play as Sergeant Forge. The boostee (person gaining all the XP for this round) should play as Regret. Once the match starts, Forge will fill up his base slots with supply pads. Regret should do the same, but first build one Temple in a slot so that they immediately gain Regret as a hero. Forge should queue up about 7 Warthogs as well.

Both players send their respective forces to capture secondary bases. Once captured, fill up slots with more supply pads. Regret should build one Scarab.

If on a map with more than four base slots (including the ones you started with) skip this next step. If the map only has four base slots, Regret should self-destruct their secondary base AFTER the Scarab has been built. Move units away from the slot, and allow Forge to take a third base. Forge should then build supply pads in all slots.

If there are more than four base slots, Regret keeps his secondary base, but Forge should capture any other open ones. Build supply pads on all empty slots. Once Forge is done capturing bases, he needs to send his forces to Regret's Scarab to have them killed. Players should then wait until Forge has around 30,000 resources.

Once this has been reached, Regret should move both the Scarab and Regret himself to one of Forge's bases. Position the Scarab carefully, so that it only attacks 2-3 building slots at the base, and not the base itself. Once this has been arranged, guide Regret's glassing beam to another one or two slots and keep his beam there. Forge will then continually replace destroyed buildings with Vehicle Depots. Do this until Regret has 3,800 points at least (you can check by hitting Select). Once this number has been reached, Forge should self-destruct all bases.

36,000 points should go to the player controlling Regret, and the best part is, they can be idle once that glassing beam is set up. Each round took us about 15-20 minutes each, the hard part was just getting paired up with each other. Cheers!