**Halo Wars 2: a campaign achievement route that keeps the different challenges straight**

**Halo Wars 2: a campaign achievement route that keeps the different challenges straight** There is a lot to finish after the credits, but it helps to separate the things the game is measuring. Completing a mission, earning gold, clearing its side objectives and collecting its logs are different jobs. A successful story run can leave several of those unfinished. Start with the main campaign, then treat Operation: SPEARBREAKER and Awakening the Nightmare as their own checklists. Owning the Season Pass does not, by itself, include Awakening the Nightmare. **First pass: finish the missions and keep a short record** Play at a difficulty where you can learn the maps without constantly restarting. At the end of each mission, record its medal and any unfinished objective. Check the Phoenix Logs menu before moving on. A useful entry is as simple as: - Mission and highest completed difficulty. - Best medal. - Optional and bonus objectives still missing. - Phoenix Logs still missing. - Skull unlocked, where the mission has one. Write the actual unfinished condition, not just “replay this.” Returning to The Foundry for the fortress time limit is a different run from returning for a missed log. The base campaign has 24 Phoenix Logs and 15 skulls. SPEARBREAKER adds four logs; Awakening the Nightmare adds ten. The two expansions do not add another set of unlockable campaign skulls. **Collect the skulls before planning an all-skulls run** Halo Wars 2 awards skulls for particular mission accomplishments. They are not little objects lying beside the road. Check the mission guide for the relevant objective, complete it and confirm the unlock afterward. For the logs, you do need to reach and collect the objects. Finish the mission after gathering them and check the collection menu. On missions that close routes behind you, deal with that area's logs before triggering the next major transition. Do not turn on every newly unlocked skull while cleaning up gold medals. Read its effect and score modifier first. A helpful combat modifier can make a score attempt less useful, while a difficulty-increasing modifier can turn a manageable objective into an unnecessary fight. **Gold, difficulty and co-op are separate tracks** The main campaign awards **Palmer's Pure Gold** for gold on every mission except the Prologue, at any difficulty. **Surviving the Long War** is the Legendary campaign completion target. Use a clean, comfortable difficulty for learning a medal route. Identify which objectives can be completed during the normal path, which require a detour, and when the mission ends automatically. Improve the slow section instead of replaying the entire map with no change in plan. For Legendary, build around survival and the mission's actual pressure: artillery protection, timed capture points, reinforcement lanes or a boss mechanic. The mission-specific guides explain those changes. A gold strategy that deliberately accepts losses is not automatically a good Legendary strategy. **Comrades in Arms** requires gold on one qualifying mission in co-op on Legendary, excluding the Prologue. Agree who controls the economy, who moves the attacking force and who watches defensive objectives before starting. Two players issuing contradictory orders to the same army can make the mission harder, not easier. **Lone Wolf is not an entire campaign LASO achievement** **Lone Wolf** asks for one mission, excluding The Signal, completed solo on Legendary with all skulls enabled. Unlock all 15 first. Then choose a mission whose route you already understand, read the full set of effects and plan around the restrictions. This is a separate challenge run, not a reason to make every remaining collectible run more difficult. Use the mission setup screen to verify the difficulty, solo status and enabled skulls before launching. A good result with the wrong setup will not satisfy the requirement. **Keep the expansion requirements distinct** The SPEARBREAKER Vidmasters require gold and every objective on Legendary in the same run. Gatecrashers and Not on My Watch each have their own objective list. Check every counter before ending the mission; earning gold on one attempt and finishing the missing objective on another is not the same requirement. Awakening's gold-and-all-objectives mission challenges are not the same Legendary-only rule. Follow the requirement attached to the individual achievement rather than carrying SPEARBREAKER's settings into every expansion replay. The Archive also has a no-reinforcements-until-the-final-room challenge and a separate Heroic-or-higher beam-section challenge. Manifestation's critical-mass restriction is another condition you should plan before the mission begins. Those are much easier to track when they have their own checklist entry. **Finish with an actual comparison** Compare the in-game mission records, collection menu and achievement list. Clear one category at a time: missing logs, missing objectives, medals, difficulty and special restrictions. This covers the campaign route. Multiplayer, leader-specific tasks, Blitz and Terminus Firefight remain separate parts of the achievement list. Finishing every campaign mission does not finish the whole game.