**Halo Wars 2 Terminus Firefight: build a defense that can survive more than one kind of wave**

**Halo Wars 2 Terminus Firefight: build a defense that can survive more than one kind of wave** Terminus Firefight is the base-building survival mode from Awakening the Nightmare. It is not Blitz Firefight: you are managing an economy, an army and fixed defenses while protecting the Terminus. The early waves give you time to establish a position. Use that time to prepare for what can bypass it, especially aircraft. A strong ground choke means very little if the next threat flies straight past it. **Build a useful opening, not an empty fortress** Start the economy while the initial army handles the first attackers. Watch the incoming-wave information and minimap, then move defenders to the approach that needs them. Add turrets where they can cover a real route. Use barricades to shape the ground approach and buy firing time, but keep the army able to reach the threatened side. Do not assume one barricade arrangement solves every enemy composition. Avoid spending everything on permanent defenses before you can replace losses or respond elsewhere. A mobile force gives you a way to collect bonus resources, protect an expansion and help a lane that is taking more pressure than expected. Between waves, repair, replace missing units and improve production. Leaving those tasks until the next fight starts makes the entire defense slower to recover. **Give each part of the army a job** A reliable defensive force needs sustained ground damage, anti-air and support. Artillery can punish attackers approaching a defended position, but it needs protection from units that get close or attack from the air. Keep anti-air near the important targets, not only beside the farthest ground barricade. Move additional units to intercept aircraft before they reach the Terminus. Place healing support behind the damage-dealing force. Pull damaged valuable units back into that support rather than letting them die while new production is still on the way. Maintain some separation between expensive units. Area attacks become much more damaging when the entire army is stacked around one point. **Use the quiet moments to improve the map** Collect the bonus resource canisters when a suitable unit can reach them safely. Build and protect additional bases as the defense becomes stable; more economy helps pay for the later waves and replacements. Do not send every defender away to secure an optional position. Keep a force capable of intercepting the next attack while the expedition moves. If a distant position is being overwhelmed, decide whether it can actually be rescued. Saving the Terminus is more important than feeding the main army into a fight that is already lost. Pull back in time to form a second line rather than waiting until the only surviving units are the ones still training. **Coordinate co-op before the expensive waves** Agree who is responsible for anti-air, ground control and mobile support. Those responsibilities can overlap, but they should not be accidental. Call out a weak lane while it still has defenders. Ask for the counter you need rather than just “more units.” Aircraft require a different response from a heavy ground push. If you want **Watch My Six**, the team must include both UNSC and Banished leaders and finish wave 20. Check that composition before starting; a strong all-UNSC team does not satisfy that particular requirement. **Separate survival runs from construction challenges** The early wave milestones are 10, 20 and 30. Learn to reach those reliably before treating every attempt as a high-score run. Several achievements require a different opening or a deliberate detour: - **Survivor:** finish wave five without training additional units. - **Pristine:** keep the Terminus undamaged for 15 waves. - **High Maintenance:** build 50 barricades in one game. - **Turret Farmer:** build 50 turrets in one game. - **Ka-Ching!:** destroy 20 bonus drops in one game. - **Walled In:** occupy every wall plot with a wall simultaneously. - **Outflood the Flood:** hold a minibase on every available minibase slot simultaneously. The construction totals are single-game requirements, not a lifetime counter. Do not dismantle a critical defense in the middle of a wave just to make progress toward a building total. Work on it when the army can cover the position and the economy can afford the replacement. The simultaneous-ownership challenges are also different from having visited every location at some point. Make the final check while the earlier positions are still held. **Track individual and team score separately** Terminus Defender and Terminus Tactician target individual scores of 500,000 and 1,000,000. Terminus Teamwork targets a team score of 2,000,000; Terminus MVPs raises that team target to 5,000,000. Read the correct score display before deciding the target is reached. A teammate's points do not become your individual total. Finish the match normally and check the result rather than quitting as soon as a number looks high enough. The mode reaches its final wave at 100, but reaching that point is a much larger endurance goal than the wave-30 achievement. Build toward it by identifying what ended the previous run: a missing air response, an undefended route, exhausted production or an army lost away from the Terminus. Fixing that specific failure is more useful than repeating the same defense and hoping the next set of waves is kinder.