**Halo Wars 2: Gatecrashers — towers, rescue objectives and the Retriever**

**Halo Wars 2: Gatecrashers — towers, rescue objectives and the Retriever** **Operation: SPEARBREAKER. Mission spoilers.** Gatecrashers gives you an enemy that can do some of your work for you. The Controller Sentinels hate the Banished too. That is useful until you capture a tower and become their next target. The mission has five control towers, a central terminal and a Retriever fight. For a clean first completion, work outward from a secure base. For the Legendary Vidmaster challenge, track the side objectives from the opening encounter. Destroying everything as quickly as possible can remove something you needed a Sentinel to destroy instead. **Get through the opening** Join up with the Hellbringers and follow the introductory route. The Controller's front is shielded; get fire onto its exposed rear. Let the unit attracting its attention stay out front while the damage dealers move around. At the teleporter, activate the panel and deal with the distracted Controller. Once Holo Decoy becomes available, start using it deliberately rather than saving it for an emergency. The bonus wants ten distractions, not merely ten clicks on the power button. Watch the objective counter confirm progress. When you emerge by the first Banished base, hold your main force back. Let the Controller attack the Banished buildings. Help with threatening defenders if necessary, but avoid finishing the structures yourself. You need five buildings destroyed through the Sentinel-luring objective. Check that counter before killing the Controller and moving on. **Establish a base you can leave behind** Capture the nearby tower and develop the base. Put resources into income, production and upgrades before spreading a small army across several points. Add defenses so an ordinary counterattack does not pull the entire force home. An air-heavy force with Nightingale support is a useful approach here. Keep anti-air fire available for the Sentinels, and use the hero's EMP or decoys to create openings. A mixed ground force can work too, but it needs enough mobility to reach a rescue quickly. Keep the force together when taking a tower. Capture, respond to the Controller, heal, then advance. Running a lone capture unit across the whole map leaves you dealing with several unfinished fights. **The Nightingale takes priority** When its distress call appears, stop the routine expansion and follow the rescue marker. The rescue has a limited arrival window; once reached, you must defend it before it joins you. Keep the rescue area clear rather than chasing a retreating enemy away from the aircraft. The Nightingale's healing makes the rest of the mission much easier, so bring it back behind the fighting units once the objective completes. Its appearance is not something to tie to one rigid timestamp. Watch for the actual call and marker while fighting elsewhere. **Clear the remaining objectives before the terminal** There are four optional objectives: - Rescue the captured Wolverines. - Reach and defend the isolated Nightingale. - Kill both Goliaths. - Activate all three Banished holo-projectors. The bonus counters are: - Eight Controller Sentinels eliminated. - Five Banished buildings destroyed through Sentinel attacks. - Ten Holo Decoy distractions. Free the Wolverines by removing their holding field's power source. Around the Banished bases, eliminate the Goliaths with suitable anti-infantry fire and inspect the cleared area for the holo-projector interaction. The three projector landmarks are the opening teleporter, the Banished base north of tower B, and the area between tower D and the central terminal. Activate them; destroying the surrounding base is not the same action. Before the final terminal, check all seven side objectives. If the building counter is short, preserve a remaining Banished structure and lead a Controller toward it instead of flattening it with your army. **Phoenix Logs** There are two collectible logs: - **A New Commander:** near control tower C, in the central part of the map. - **Hold Fast:** between the base areas near towers A and D. Pick them up during the tower sweep. Use the tower letters as anchors rather than rotating the camera and trying to remember an arbitrary left turn. **The Retriever** Once all towers are captured, assemble and heal the army before activating the central terminal. Fight the Retriever until it calls its Sentinel Swarm, then pull outside the dangerous area. Switch focus to the Aggressor Sentinels coordinating the repair phase. When they are gone and the swarm disperses, resume fire on the Retriever. Repeat that cycle instead of feeding replacement units into the swarm. Keep support aircraft behind the damage dealers and move them with the retreat. A healthy army at the end of a repair phase is more useful than a few extra seconds of damage followed by rebuilding everything. **Vidmaster Challenge: 100 drops** requires Gold and all objectives on Legendary. Plan to meet those conditions in the same run; old advice about splitting the objective completion and medal across separate attempts is not a safe route to the unlock.