Halo 4 Grind Guides: Spartan Ops – Season 1, Episode 1

Welcome to the first in a series of guides for those of you looking to boost your commendations, be it for the quick experience commendation levels can offer, the special armor and visor variants certain commendations unlock, or just out of a compulsion to fill progress bars. For Spartan Ops, I’ll be providing kill counts for each of the various chapters in each episode, so you can find what you need to kill, along with any other advice I can offer. Anyway, on to the numbers for Episode 1: Departure.

Please note that your mileage may vary slightly, based on things like suicide Grunts dying before you kill them, taking out vehicle drivers, and accidental team kills on the AI’s part.

Chapter 1: Land Grab
Grunts: 28
Grunt Imperials: 10
Grunt Ultras: 2
Elites: 23
Elite Officers: 8
Elite Generals: 1
Hunters: 2
Ghosts: 7
Wraiths: 5

Note that the Ghost count is the total available to take out; if you kill the drivers, you won’t get the vehicle kills. Additionally, if you’re playing co-op,any kills by someone on a vehicle turret will count toward the driver’s Wheelman commendation. This stage is an easy place to work on Hunters, given taking them out with a Wraith or Gauss ‘hog is a lot easier than facing them on foot.

Chapter 2: Sniper Alley
Grunts: 39
Grunt Imperials: 28
Jackal: 21
Jackal Majors: 7
Jackal Rangers: 10
Elites: 4
Elite Zealots: 2
Elite Officers: 8

Chapter 3: The Challenge
Crawlers: 24
Crawler Snipers: 12
Crawler Primes: 33
Watchers: 28

Kind of a narrow enemy spread here, but it’s one of the best for popping Crawler Snipers and Watchers. It’s also your best chance, so far as I’ve seen, of getting close enough behind a Watcher to assassinate one. It’s quite a sight, and a bit easier if you have a co-op buddy to distract them.

Chapter 4: Sacred
Crawlers: 27
Crawler Snipers: 2
Crawler Primes: 22
Knights: 6
Knight Battlewagons: 4
Knight Commanders: 2
Watchers: 4

This is one of the best places I’ve found for getting Assassinations toward the Backstab commendation. You can also probably score the Knight In White Assassination achievement here; having a loadout with Active Camo and finding a place to drop down behind one on one of the last two batches of Knights will give you a pretty good chance of sneaking at least one in. Watcher count may vary given whether or not you give the Knights a chance to spawn any.

Chapter 5: Core
Grunts: 17
Grunt Imperials: 16
Jackals: 8
Jackal Majors: 2
Elites: 4
Elite Zealots: 3
Elite Officers: 2
Crawlers: 26
Crawler Snipers: 2
Crawler Primes: 10
Knights: 2
Knight Battlewagons: 3
Watchers: 4

As with Sacred, you may lose a Watcher or two if you pop the Knights that spawn them toward the end of the level. Other than that, this chapter has one of the best spreads for enemy varieties, and is one of the quickest runs of the first episode if you’re looking for a speedy experience hit. If you’re playing on a higher difficulty, such as Heroic or Legendary, watch out for one of the Knights at the top of the hill after you’re done dealing with a mob of Crawlers; he’s got a Binary Rifle and is not afraid to ruin your day with it.

And there you go, kill counts for the first episode of Spartan Ops. Stay tuned here to GamerSyndrome for more guides on other episodes, as they’re released every Monday, as well as guides for working on commendations in other game modes.