**Halo Wars 2 — The Cartographer: conduits, Sentinel swarms and the route to the map room**

**Halo Wars 2 — The Cartographer: conduits, Sentinel swarms and the route to the map room** **Main campaign, mission 5. Mission spoilers.** The Cartographer punishes the habit of giving an attack order and looking away. The conduits call in defenses, and you have to move your army rather than leave it standing in a Sentinel swarm while you check the base. You also need anti-air support in two places: with the attacking force and back at home. Taking every Wolverine on the final march can solve the fight in front of you while your base gets torn apart behind you. **Build an army that can answer the air attacks** Establish the economy and defensive turrets before extending far from the starting base. Wolverines are introduced here because the mission gives you plenty of flying enemies to fight. Keep them supported by units that can handle ground threats rather than treat a group of anti-air vehicles as a complete army. Use Jerome and suitable ground support at the front. Let the Wolverines handle Banshees and other air targets from behind that protection. Capture the nearby Power Node and collect the available supplies while assembling the force. The bonus objective is **thirty enemy air units killed with Wolverines**. Keep them alive and involved throughout the mission. Do not assume a kill by a turret or another unit automatically advances that counter. [Objectives and army roles](https://t.co/lHgO1Zu9gQ) **Learn the conduit cycle at the first barrier** Clear the defenders at the first conduit. There is a **Phoenix Log behind it**, so collect that before you get absorbed in the attack. Attack the conduit until the warning tells you a Sentinel swarm is coming. Withdraw out of the danger area. Use the mission's EMP-equipped MAC Blast when instructed to disperse the swarm and reopen your opportunity to attack. Repeat the process rather than try to outdamage the hazard. Keep a clear retreat path. I would position the army so it can withdraw down the approach without first having to squeeze around the conduit or through its own vehicles. When the warning appears, give a movement order; another attack command is not a retreat. Shutting down this first conduit opens the central chamber. You then have **three more conduits**, associated with the east, west and north sections, to shut down. [Conduit sequence](https://t.co/ikX3pZsq1C) **Clear the side areas before the final conduit** Work through the east and west approaches with a mixed force. Deal with their vehicle defenders, clear the aircraft and repeat the conduit attack-and-withdraw cycle. Repair between assaults instead of carrying the same nearly dead vehicles into every new fight. The northern route is more heavily defended, with a Banished base blocking the approach. Bring enough force to break its protection and remove the defenders before proceeding to the conduit beyond it. Engineers repairing your target need to be dealt with; let the anti-air units remove them rather than keep firing indefinitely at a structure being repaired. Do the optional minibases before finishing the last conduit. That gives you room to clean up the side routes before the final Sentinel pressure begins. [Mission progression](https://t.co/9S9oZu1R4B) **Emperor skull and the second log** Destroy **both Banished minibases in the central chamber** for the **Emperor skull**. These are the side installations, not simply the larger northern base you clear on the main route. The second Phoenix Log is associated with the eastern minibase: after destroying it, check the cleared base plot and collect the log that appears. Destroy both minibases for the skull, but do not assume seeing the objective complete automatically means you walked through the log pickup. [Skull condition](https://t.co/ek4uRDzfED), [collectible cross-check](https://t.co/0Ym2jgHavA) Before the final conduit goes down, return your attention to the base. Replace lost defenses and reserve some Wolverines for protection there. A large army elsewhere is not useful if it cannot get home in time. **Finish the corridor carefully** When the last conduit is shut down, the final route opens and Protector Sentinels threaten the base. Keep checking home while moving the attack force toward the map room. In the corridor, fight the attacking Protector Sentinels that emerge from the streams. Clear the attacks and advance as the path opens. Do not send the whole force blindly into a visible swarm because the objective marker is on the other side. Continue through the corridor's successive engagements, keeping the Wolverines behind the units that are taking the initial fire. At the map-room end, use the MAC Blast on the remaining swarm as instructed to complete the mission. For a higher-difficulty run, the priorities are keeping the two groups supplied, preserving the anti-air units and obeying the conduit warnings. Replacing losses before moving on may feel slower than a nonstop advance, but restarting after losing the base is slower still.