**Halo Wars 2 — Ascension: take the towers without leaving the skulls behind**

**Halo Wars 2 — Ascension: take the towers without leaving the skulls behind** **Main campaign, mission 3. Mission spoilers.** Ascension looks like a race to capture three towers. It is, eventually. But charging straight into that race can leave you trying to defend three places, attack a fortified base and find a hidden facility with the same small army. Build a force that can do the job first. Then decide whether this is a straightforward completion run or a cleanup run for the side objectives. **Reopen the bridge** The opening introduces Cyclops units, which are useful against the enemy vehicles on your approach. When the bridge is shut down, use Jerome's special ability to reach the marked upper ledge. Follow the elevated route, hijack the Wraith and clear the defenders around the controls. Reactivate the bridge so the rest of the force can cross. Keep that captured Wraith supported. It is useful against infantry, but sending it alone into Hunters throws away the advantage you just gained. Clear the route, then establish the forward base and build the requested economy buildings and Airpad. [Opening mission sequence](https://t.co/7zbLpsjr9z) **Survive the first attacks and build up** Prepare for vehicle attacks after the base-building introduction. Cyclops and Hornets give you answers to armored enemies. Add turret support and keep the army close enough to respond while the base is getting established. I would not spend every available resource on a large air force while leaving no infantry to capture objectives. Hornets can fight over a location, but you still need appropriate ground units to take control of it. Give the army a few separate selections: aircraft, ground support and the infantry you intend to use for captures. That also makes retreating easier. If the aircraft are taking losses, you can pull them back without dragging the capture squad away at the last second. **What the towers actually do** The towers are marked A, B and C. Capturing them builds your domination score; holding more towers makes it grow faster. The opposing side can capture them too. Reach **3,000 points**, then follow the final instruction to secure the elevator entrance. A tower that was blue when you left is not permanently yours. Leave protection or keep a mobile force close enough to respond. Watch the map while moving between objectives instead of staring only at the army you are currently controlling. [Capture mechanics](https://t.co/vN0zHKj5Pn) For a side-objective run, do your preparation and exploration before capturing the first tower. Once the contest is underway, manage it actively. Do not try to squeeze a major assault into the last few moments of a nearly full progress bar. **The two skull objectives** **Pain Train:** destroy all four structures at the hidden Banished facility. It is on the island to the east/southeast of your base area, so send aircraft across the water. Check that all four structures have been destroyed rather than assuming clearing the defenders was enough. **Paintball:** destroy the main Banished base. This is the heavily defended installation in the northern part of the map, not one of the smaller vehicle Foundries. Take a properly supported force to the main base. Concentrate on breaking its defenses instead of letting each unit shoot a different target. If the attack stalls and you are losing troops, retreat, heal and reinforce. Feeding replacement units into the same failed attack one at a time is expensive and rarely improves it. [Skull conditions](https://t.co/ek4uRDyHP5) The three vehicle Foundries are another optional objective. Removing them is useful while clearing the ground routes; do not mistake their destruction for the main-base skull requirement. **Both Phoenix Logs** - Search the elevated area off the route near the lightbridge, where resource pickups are scattered. - At **control tower C**, explore the adjoining Forerunner structure rather than stop as soon as the tower changes ownership. Take these during your sweep, before committing to the final capture-and-finish phase. [Collectible route](https://t.co/0Ym2jgGCG2) **Bonus objectives without sabotaging the mission** The mission tracks vehicle kills with Cyclops, vehicle kills with Hornets, kills using a hijacked vehicle and uses of Archer Missiles. Keep the relevant units alive if you intend to finish their counters. An army made entirely of Hornets cannot make progress on the Cyclops objective. Assign the unit type you need to suitable targets, but do not deliberately lose a tower or your base to preserve a perfect kill allocation. On higher difficulty, survival and control come first. You can replay for a counter more easily than recover an economy that has been wiped out. Once the side objectives are settled, take and protect the towers. Keep the remaining force together enough to respond to a threatened point, let the score reach its target and move to the marked elevator entrance when instructed.