**Halo Wars: Shield World — buy time, then bring the platoons out**

**Halo Wars: Shield World — buy time, then bring the platoons out** *Campaign spoilers. Halo Wars: Definitive Edition, mission 10.* There's a timer, three groups to rescue, and enough Flood between them to punish a careless dash. The pylons are your way to buy breathing room. Use them as part of the rescue route rather than treating them as something to investigate after the clock is nearly gone. **Prepare the vehicles and interrupt the first pylon** Build income and technology, then produce a ground force with Scorpions for the fighting and Wolverines for the flying Swarms. Upgrade the units you're actually using. Keep defenses at the base because the evacuation effort doesn't stop enemies from attacking it. Investigate the nearby pylon and use the Gremlin provided for the objective. Move it into the marked position to disrupt the beam and extend the available time. A Gremlin parked somewhere in the general neighborhood isn't enough; confirm the objective and timer change. There are **four pylons**. Disrupting all four earns **The Procrastinator**. The remaining pylons are spread around the rescue routes, so bring the needed Gremlin through ground your army has already cleared. Don't send it alone through unexplored Flood territory. **Alpha, then Bravo** Take a supported vehicle force toward Alpha's position. Remove the Flood Launchers and other threats obstructing the evacuation rather than driving past them and leaving them free to attack the rescued infantry. Clear the marked flight path and confirm the rescue has progressed before moving away. Reinforce and repair the attack group, then work toward Bravo. Use the outer routes rather than blindly driving through the densest central infestation when you don't need to. The fighting on the way to Bravo is a reason to bring anti-air, not to replace all your ground damage with Wolverines. Keep both roles covered. Stop to destroy dangerous ranged defenses before moving the softer support vehicles forward. The black box is at **Bravo's position**, behind the rescued group's area among the supplies. Collect it during the rescue so you don't have to remember another trip later. Continue using the pylons as you reach them. Check that each disruption has registered; finding a pylon and actually shutting it down are separate steps. **Charlie needs an escort** Charlie can't simply be left for a convenient automatic pickup. Clear the route, link up with the group and escort it back to the landing zone. Move the combat vehicles ahead of the vulnerable troops so the rescue doesn't become a procession into surviving Flood fire. Don't issue a return order to the whole group and then spend the rest of the trip in the base menu. Watch the convoy, remove newly encountered threats and keep the slower units from falling behind. Keep defenders at home as well. The landing zone needs to be somewhere the rescued platoon can actually survive reaching. If the base is under attack, deal with that while the escort is still in a controlled position instead of arriving in the middle of a collapsing defense. **Catch and the remaining objectives** Destroy **350 Swarms** to spawn **Catch**. These are the flying Flood enemies. Ground Infection Forms are not the same objective. Once it appears, use a Hornet to collect the skull on the isolated southeastern island/plateau, past the nearby tractor-beam pylon in the Flood-covered area. This is an air-unit detour, not a reason to drive the rescue convoy away from the landing zone. Confirm the pickup before completing the last evacuation. If you're pursuing all four pylons, make sure the final one is disrupted before the mission ends. Don't confuse an extended timer with proof that all four have been done. **Heroic and Legendary** The rescued infantry need more careful protection on the harder settings. Eliminate the Launchers before allowing them through. Spend the extra time from the pylons on a safer escort and necessary upgrades, not on building an oversized force while the rescue sites remain unattended. The gold target is **55,000 points**. **Evacuation of the Fittest** is the Definitive Edition completion achievement. Check the box, Catch and The Procrastinator separately afterward. This mission is much easier to manage when you make one cleared route serve several purposes: rescue the platoon, disrupt the nearby pylon, collect the box where relevant, then use that secured ground for the return. Repeatedly sending isolated units through dangerous shortcuts is what turns the timer into a crisis.