**Spartan Strike: Operation C — Valiant Hammer**

**Spartan Strike: Operation C — Valiant Hammer** Mission spoilers. Operation overview with detailed achievement routes, not a complete turn-by-turn walkthrough of all six missions. There are two things I would plan around in Valiant Hammer: keeping dead Knights dead in C-4, and getting through C-6 without your own gunfire draining away your protection. **Getting onto the Altar: C-1 through C-3** The opening mission is **All the Way to the Altar**. The operation's destination is the Covenant-held Forerunner site, where the Conduit could let Prometheans invade the ring. Leave the crashed Pelican and fight through to the inactive portal. The nearby power stations must be activated before you can use it to reach the Altar approach. This gets you through C-1; destroying the anti-aircraft Wraiths belongs to C-2, not this opening crash-site mission. **Up in the Air**, C-2, is specifically about destroying the anti-aircraft Wraiths. The UNSC needs that airspace cleared to deliver a Scorpion. Do not mistake a convenient infantry clearance for the main objective: the tanks preventing the delivery are what you need to remove. If you are also cleaning up Assault Ops, this mission asks for SMG kills on Drones, rifle kills on Prometheans, and Binary Rifle kills on Jackals. Keep the weapon-and-target pairing straight. A Binary Rifle is not useful to that last challenge if you spend its ammunition on everything except the Jackals. In **Till Death Do Us Part**, C-3, the objective becomes taking the Altar and recovering the Conduit. The Incineration Cannon has two separate cleanup uses here: Shade Turrets and Crawlers. There is also a Battle Rifle challenge for Knights. Save the heavy ammunition for the targets you still need rather than replacing every fight with cannon fire and wondering why the rifle challenge has not moved. These are the mission objectives and challenge priorities, not a claim that every junction on the approach has been mapped here. **C-4: Leave 'em at the Altar — Night Knight** **Night Knight** requires you to finish without allowing a Watcher to resurrect a Knight. The problem is not simply killing the flying enemies whenever they happen to be in front of you. It is keeping track of what you have already killed while moving between the energy-conduit positions. Keep a weapon ready that can remove a Watcher quickly. When you kill a Knight, remember where it fell. If a Watcher moves toward that position, deal with it immediately rather than finishing a less important enemy first. Try to make necessary Knight kills close to the activation area you are defending. A body left at the far edge of the screen becomes much harder to watch when another wave arrives. Avoid spending your last useful ammunition just before a Watcher appears; conserve it on smaller enemies when a safe melee will do. You do not have to hunt down every Knight for this achievement. If the objective lets you move on, leaving a living Knight behind is different from leaving a dead one available for resurrection. The former can be safer for the challenge, provided you can actually escape its attacks. Overshield can help you stay at the objective when pressure builds. Shock Chain is another option for controlling a crowded fight. Neither replaces watching the fallen Knights. If you see a resurrection complete, that attempt has failed even if you kill the revived enemy a second time. **C-5: Deliverance** Take the recovered Conduit to the extraction point. The Pelican is there to get the artifact off Gamma Halo; this is the transfer toward the defense in C-6, not the end of the operation. The three Assault Ops are weapon-specific Promethean kills: Plasma Pistol against Prometheans, Scattershot against Knight Battlewagons, and Focus Rifle against Knights. Before swapping weapons, check which one of those you are actually working on. Save a suitable close-range fight for the Scattershot rather than trying to force it into every encounter. The exact navigation through this mission remains outside this guide's verified route coverage. **C-6: Don't Touch My Ride** Begin by defending the Pelican. You have a mounted gun available, but do not stay on it until it destroys you along with the emplacement. When the Pelican leaves and the route opens, continue toward the alternative escape rather than remaining behind to clear every leftover enemy. The route takes you past Covenant defenses and through the jungle. Brute Chieftains do not all have to become prolonged fights if you can safely get around them. At the final area, survive the resistance and clear the arriving Spirit's crew, then board the dropship to finish. For **Vidmaster Challenge C**, enable **Black Eye and Pacifist**. Shooting drains shields, and ordinary waiting does not provide the usual shield recovery. Melee is how you restore protection under Black Eye. Overshield is a useful purchase for this attempt. Keep grenades for enemies you do not want to approach, especially Scattershot Knights, and use manageable Crawlers as melee opportunities rather than spending your own shield on unnecessary gunfire. Do not interpret that as an instruction to charge a whole group with no protection left. Move between cover while the ability recovers. Use it when the route becomes dangerous, not automatically the moment it becomes available. The opening defense still needs to finish before you can leave; after that, reaching the ship matters more than clearing every enemy along the way. Complete the six missions for **Ready for Departure**. Check the results afterward, then decide whether the next replay is for a gold medal, an unfinished Assault Op, Night Knight, or the Vidmaster.