01 NOVEMBER 2010

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

NOTE: NEW WEEKLY CHALLENGE TODAY!

---

DAILY CHALLENGES

---

GUNSLINGER

Multiplayer

Kills

Type: Kills
Setting: Multiplayer
Difficulty: Easy
Reward: 400

Kill 40 enemies in Multiplayer Matchmaking.

Not much of a Challenge, eh? You’ll holster this just by playing enough — which, for only 40 kills, is hardly at all.

Rumble Pit offers the quickest option: smaller maps — meaning less dead-space between firefights, so the kills come faster — though Multiteam and any of the Slayer playlists will also push through this at a rapid pace. Your biggest challenge will be noticing that you completed it at all, so take yer pick.

Avoid Infection, since it records the lowest kill-count of any playlist, as well as Big Team Battle, where you’ll spend more time just reaching the enemy than registering kills. And, by all means, skip Juggernaut, where you might finish the match without any kills at all.

Pretty simple, right? And yet — still not the easiest Challenge of the day. Yow!

ONE SPARTAN ARMY

Firefight

Kills

Type: Kills
Setting: Firefight
Difficulty: Easy
Reward: 1500

Kill 150 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking.

Aother relatively simple Challenge that you can get just by playing enough, though you can save time using the right game mode. Your best bet: two Rounds of Gruntpocalypse in Score Attack, since you can dispatch Grunts quickly and nobody can score them out from under you. Focus on headshots and multikills, since Firefight offers additional cR for medals earned.

HOUSE OF PAIN

Skull On

Campaign

Type: Completion
Setting: Campaign
Difficulty: Medium / Easy (Midnight Run or Co-op)
Reward: 1000

Complete a Campaign mission on Heroic with Mythic, Tilt, and Thunderstorm on.

Tip Of The Day

OK, three Skulls on, so lets take a quick look. Thunderstorm upgrades all enemies to the next rank. Mythic doubles an enemy’s Health and Shields. And Tilt doubles both an enemy’s weaknesses and resistances. Guess what? Where we’re going, they’ll hardly make a difference.

Decide ahead of time if you intend to do this solo or co-op. If flying solo, your best bet will be to take the Midnight Run on Nightfall. (Never done the Midnight Run? Oh, you’re gonna like this.)

• After assassinating the initial Elite at the opening of the mission, you’ll Sprint your way through almost the entire level, skirting the perimeter of the map, meleeing an occasional Grunt or Jackal as you go with only a small amount of gunfire when you reach the bridge to Powerhouse.
• There’s an absolute GEEEnius maneuver with the forklift (yes, the forklift!), and you won’t even encounter the Hunters at all. The extra health, damage resistances and upgrades to enemy rank will hardly figure in, since you’ll spend most of the level along the perimeter, Sprinting at a full clip.
• Here’s a video of the complete route — the guy here finishes the level in five minutes, and that’s with ALL Skulls on; but even if Forky doesn’t immediately cooperate, you should still wrap it in under ten.

On co-op, the Challenge becomes even easier, since the New Alexandria level features long stretches of aerial combat unaffected by the Skulls except Mythic, which only means it’ll take a few extra shots to nail the Banshees and Turrets. But, with a Falcon gun, it’s actually pretty hard to miss, and it’s not as if they’re going to Armor Lock.

When you do need to take an Objective on foot (three times total), leave one teammate behind with the Falcons. Most of the time you’ll simply be able to Sprint past enemies to reach the Objective switches; but in any event, the real hardcore combat only occurs once you’ve hit the switch and reinforcements storm your location. Hey, look at that! If you get killed, you simply respawn back up with the teammate who’s making sure no one steals the Falcon’s hubcaps. Hop back in the choppers, job done.

One special note, however: Make sure to watch the level’s final cutscene all the way through. No, it won’t affect the Challenge; but after putting up with her bad driving all game, you’ll get paid 1,000 cR to watch Kat take it through the head. No skipping!

LINKED UP WITH BUNGIE.NET

Multiplayer

Type: Meta
Setting: Multiplayer
Difficulty: Retarded
Reward: 3000

Link your Gamertag with Bungie.Net and play a game in Halo: Reach Matchmaking.

Yeah, you’ll never see this one again.

---

WEEKLY CHALLENGE

---

MULTIPLICATIVE

Multiplayer

Multikill

Type: Multikills
Setting: Multiplayer
Difficulty: Grind
Reward: 2000

Earn 45 Multikills in Multiplayer Matchmaking this week.

Okay, relax. This isn’t as hard as it sounds: If you score only seven Multikills per day, you’ll still wrap this up with half a day to spare. Considering that previous Challenges have required you to score seven in a single day, this isn’t much more than a fifth Daily Challenge, with the payout postponed till the end of the week.

• Stick with Rumble Pit. More enemies on smaller maps = more Multikills.
• Vote for gametypes on small, tight maps that encourage enemies to converge into single flashpoints: King Of The Hill and Oddball, for example. Spam grenades into the hotzone, followed by DMR or Magnum headshots and the occasional coup-de-grace melee rush. Avoid the area yourself, however; no sense adding your corpse to the fiesta.
• Juggernaut represents a mixed bag: If you’ve got the Hammer, you’ll have an excellent opportunity to skullcrush your way to multiple Multikills. If you’re not Jugs, you won’t be able to score any. Seek out power weapons like Rockets that can deal massive damage to the Juggernaut from a distance; and even without them, steer clear of close-combat to nickel-and-dime your target from range — if you’re lucky, you’ll score the last shot, and get the Hammer for your efforts.
• If you’re not having much luck in the Pit, get with a friend and head into Multiteam; it’s like Rumble Pit With Partners, and your enemies usually travel in pairs, making them choice Double-Kills. Coordinate with your teammate: team-shoot one enemy, then whoever doesn’t score the final shot can melee or plasma-burst the second, setting up a Multikill.
• Big Team Battle and Invasion also offer prime Multikill targets: a vehicle with passenger, or a pair of enemies in the unlock zone of an Invasion phase, for example. Your main problem will not be enemies, but allies: with so many players on each side, you’ll have considerable competition to actually score the kills.

NOTE: Unlike some of the Challenges from last month, chaining Multikills together here WILL register multiple points on your Challenge meter. The coding counts Medals, not actual kills; so, while a previous Overkill didn’t register a second Double-Kill Medal — and thus counted as only one point for the DK Challenge — this Challenge registers ANY Multikill Medal. This means a Double-Kill that stacks into a Triple-Kill and eventually an Overkill nets you three Challenge points, not just one.