Okay, so your playing the Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta. It’s fun, you’ve got all sorts of wonderful cards and these really cool units that you want to see decimate the enemy. You just unlocked Alice from that last card pack you opened for completing a challenge. It’s a good day. You join a standard 2v2 match and send your units to point C. But on your way there you find one of your units being attacked by this beam from somewhere. It isn’t until you pass the ridge that overlooks point B and C that you see it.
It’s a Bloodfuel Locust. Oh, and the enemy just dropped another one. Awesome.
You’re forced to retreat, running back to base to build up a small army and heal your existing units to go attack point C and show that Locust what for! After some time harassing B and helping your teamate defend A from some enemy scouts you find yourself with an army of tanks, infantry, and aircrafts. You decide now’s the time to attack point C!
And then a barrage of Reaver missiles attack your aircrafts. Blisterbacks fire at your army. And now a total of four beams are attacking various units. Yep, you’re dealing with an -Yoink-. But not just any -Yoink-, an Artillery -Yoink-! You still push forward, hoping to get behind the point at least and deploy more units. But then, Hunters, Wraiths, Elites, and more assault you.
Don’t worry Waypoint, I’m here to help. As a user of this -Yoink- tactic myself, I have seen my fair share of counters to it. So, here’s the four best ways to take out an Artillery -Yoink-:
Use Isabelle: Now, unless you are Ultimate Halo; Isabelle is best girl and you must protect her smile. She is a UNSC logistics AI, so she acts more human than others like Cortana or Serena. If that isn’t adorable then go join the Created or something. Anyway, Isabella has this wonderful trait of being a -Yoink!- super computer. So, one of her abilities is going to involve some hacking skills.
Allow me to introduce you to: Ghost in the She- I MEAN MACHINE IT’S MACHINE!
Ghost in the Machine is an Isabelle exclusive ability that allows you to take over and use enemy mechanical units for a short period of time. Basically, anything that doesn’t have flesh can be hacked. So how do you use this? Well, it’s simple. You have two options. Hack the artillery and turn it against the enemy, leading to them killing each other. Or, you can turn the army against the artillery. Either way something is killing someone that was once an ally. It’s fun because it’s a -Yoink- move! You could also be boring and hack the artillery and make them move somewhere else, but that keeps them alive as well.
Another method for Isabelle is to use the MAC, though it’s not all that powerful and you might want to bring something to finish the units off after they’ve been MAC’d.
Blast units: Jackrabbits, Grunts, Banshees, and more have a Blast variant. I really shouldn’t have to explain this but, blast units… blast. They explode when killed. And boy does it do some heavy damage. A Locust at full health can be taken out by a single blast from on of these bad boys. And the best part? The Blast aspect ignores Battle Fatigue, so that means you can throw a Wild Jackrabbit down on top of the enemy and the explosion will still destroy anything it hits despite the halved health and damage. Most of these units are very cheap so don’t worry about wasting one.
There are some downsides, such as the fact that units can move off of the radius and it takes a few seconds to explode, but if you can trap the enemy they’ll be gone before you know it.
Hero & Ultimate Units: Spartans, Warlords, Honor Guards, Condors, and Scarabs make up the Hero and Ultimate units of the game. Each leader has their own hero and each faction has their own ultimate. These are powerful units that have a ton of health and/or shields and do heavy damage to enemies. A single hero units can decimate the battlefield by themselves, so if you bring allies they are basically gods.
Ultimates are great for capturing the point from a fortified enemy. But they are also great for taking out artillery between two points. Though you should only use them as a last resort, a Scarab or Condor can send the Artillery running back to their base for precious heals. Or the enemy could pull a counter Scarab/Condor and make you loose another TV and controller.
The Other Hero’s Abilities: Isabelle is bea but the others have a lot of useful stuff. Atriox can call down a turret with a ton of health, making it great for distracting Locusts. He can also call down a glassing beam that destroys everything.
Cutter’s Archer missiles are good for starting an attack on the ridge, as it’ll hit most of the enemies, follow it up with an assault from some units and the artillery will be very crippled.
Decimus can create a vortex or slam the ground with some giant hammer thing or whatever that damages and pushes units around. They make a very good combo if you have the energy.
Anders can spam sentinels… yeah that’s all you need to know for her.
And finally Let, Cleansing Beam is so much fun to use. You call down a glassing beam and can then move it to where you want. It’s rather slow but does a ton of damage and (so long as you called it down) can be used even if you have no units left in the area.
Use the abilities alongside the units you have and you can send the artillery running, or even destroy all of them before they can escape.
