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Covenant or Locust?

Locusts works better if you want a pure uncomplicated force of evil, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The Covenant on the other hand are a very fascinating and more complex group as a whole.
 
Lumbering cave-dwelling expendable morons vs. fucking space ninjas.
 
Covenant.

Grunts >> Wretches
Elites >> Normal Locust
Brutes > Theron Guards
Hunters >>> Boomers
Jackals > ?
Buggers > ?

But I've only played the first Gears so far, so my opinion isn't final just yet.

I think it's down to how different each species in the Covenant is, compared to how similar the Locust feels. They're all just variations of the same soliders. "This one has more armour and better weapons, this one is bigger, thougher and has a rocket-launcher, this one..." It's really down to how Halo is much more of a sandbox in every aspect, including enemy designs.
 
Covenant.

Grunts >> Wretches
Elites >> Normal Locust
Brutes > Theron Guards
Hunters >>> Boomers
Jackals > ?
Buggers > ?

But I've only played the first Gears so far, so my opinion isn't final just yet.

I think it's down to how different each species in the Covenant is, compared to how similar the Locust feels. They're all just variations of the same soliders. "This one has more armour and better weapons, this one is bigger, thougher and has a rocket-launcher, this one..." It's really down to how Halo is much more of a sandbox in every aspect, including enemy designs.

The sequels have more Locust species in play.
 
I always preferred the order and variety of the covenant. I have no problem with the locust, but the convenant are just far more interesting.
 
343 decided to give some of the Covenant the Gears treatment.

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From unique and identifiable, to bland and generic.
 
Locusts, their is just something fantastically and intimidatingly primordial about their tech and tactics. I can't get enough of their weird salvaged tech and the nightmare beasts they use in combat.
My feelings exactly.

Gears of War is just more "metal" at its soul and I love that about it. Im a big Halo fan, but Gears is the one I like more overall and the Locust have a lot to do with that. Theyre a very hate-able enemy. I love fighting enemies I despise who seem to have an equal desire to wipe me out.
 
Great now i want covenant invading a locust homeworld game
Pick your story/faction campaign
4 player co-op ala gears
Covie use A Arbitar w/3 other elites
Or
A Locust bro squad
 
The Halo novel (Fall of Reach) made the Covenant seem very threatening. Though the games never really captured that sense of impending doom.
 
The grunts arms look different, and those are a differen't race of the Jackals.

Nope. Same Jackals, apparently. If you watch Fall of Reach, they retconned all these newer designs into it. The comics feature both designs side by side in an issue, that's about it.

halo-skirmishers-screen-shot-reach.jpg


These are the racial variants, the Skirmishers. They had a different role in the Sandbox too, butt never seen outside of the Reach game.
 
Well I mean if you want to get technical;

On the surface, the covenant would wipe the floor with the Locust. Air superiority would really be the difference, since the Covenant would just use dropships and Banshees to destroy the Locust. The only air support the Locust have are the Reavers, which would give them somewhat of a 1 on 1 advantage because they're entirely too fast and agile for ANY Covie air weapon to actually hit them. They'd fly circles around Banshees and those plasma based weapons are entirely too slow, while the explosives that get used by the Reavers and the Theron Riders would absolutely destroy Banshees in a 1 on 1. The Locust don't have nearly enough Reavers to fly out and control the battle with as many enemies as the Covenant can throw into a dropship, and the pure amount of plasma/shots the Covenant could throw at a group of Reavers would be overwhelming. Not to mention the fact that, even if the Locust gained air superiority, they don't have anything big enough to make a huge difference in battles. The Reavers could give an advantage, but nothing like what a dropship could do. The closest thing to a dropship the Locust have is a gas barge, which is damn near useless outside of basic transportation.

However, there weren't really any specifics on how the fight's being played out. I mean, are the Locust being invaded in the hollow? Are they all being put on some random battlefield? Are the Locust being transported to Sanghelios or something? The Locust have a huge advantage in the way of being able to mine out tunnels and attack with surprise/guerrilla tactics. Taking that out of the equation isn't exactly a "fair" battle, since it's one of the major traits the Locust have. And, in an invasion-on-the-hollow scenario, it effectively wipes out the air superiority that the Covenant have, since they won't be able to get Dropships into the hollow. The scenario plays too big a part in how this would play out.

In a pure land battle, with no air support, I think it's pretty obvious that the Locust would completely decimate the Covenant. The lone advantage the Covenant would have is the use of Scarabs, but just how many do the Covenant really have? Not to mention, their weakness is clearly explosives, which the Locust have a ridiculous amount of between Diggers, Boomshots, and Torque Bows. A group of Therons could immobilize a Scarab without much effort. A lot of people say the Elite's would mop up the Locust because of energy swords, but you don't seriously believe an energy sword is going to pierce the skin of a Berserker, do you? And what good is it going to do against a Corpser? And on that note, is the Plasma of the plasma/energy weapons enough to burn a Berserker's skin? Because, if not, the Covenant don't actually have any feasible answer to Berserkers. Bullets and explosives are totally useless against them. The only damage you can do to one is by lighting it on fire first. Maybe a ton of Plasma-focused firepower onto a berserker could light up its skin?

Also, are we including the Lambent Locust in this discussion? They're enemies of the Locust and they refuse to work together, but are they part of this discussion at all? Because if the Locust can harness the power of a Lambent Brumak or Lambent Berserker, the Covenant don't stand a chance, Air Superiority or not. Obviously, a full on deployment of Lambent Locust is out of the question, but the Locust would be more than willing to drop a group of Berserkers into a battlefield by themselves, then do a gas-barge Immulsion dump onto them, forcing Lambent Berserkers. Same thing with Brumaks. They might lose 5-10 workers and a gas barge or two, but what kind of answer does the Covenant have to that? A single Lambent Brumak would decimate any Dropships in the area, whether by immulsion spray or by just eventually blowing up. It's like the ultimate trump card if the Locust are capable of making it work. The worst they would be able to do in any given battle would be stalemate and destroy all the land in the area.

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tl;dr - Where the battle is being taken place and what's considered "off limits" makes a huge difference in "who would win". Very different battle styles. And the Locust have a lot of things that may or may not work so well in a cross-universe battle.

Also, the Locust are way cooler. They can fucking transform when they get exposed to acid.
 
To be fair, regarding the ability of the Covenant to glass a planet, the Locust survived the HoD, so...

But even in a gun fight or hand-to-hand I've got to side with Elites. They're just ultra mobile by comparison, and plasma sword > chainsaw bayonets (which is why I'm glad there's no plasma swords in Gears - chainsaw executions never get old).
 
I think picking a single race/breed of the each would be a better match.

Drones vs. Brutes would be a good, and smelly, contest.
 
Covenant. Much more variety in the basic troops and a much slicker look. Plus, much more alien designs, especially the Hunters.
 
Nope. Same Jackals, apparently. If you watch Fall of Reach, they retconned all these newer designs into it. The comics feature both designs side by side in an issue, that's about it.

halo-skirmishers-screen-shot-reach.jpg


These are the racial variants, the Skirmishers. They had a different role in the Sandbox too, butt never seen outside of the Reach game.

No they aren't. Halo Escalation and the Halo novels say they're different races.(Hell in one two page spread of Halo Escalation show two different races of Kigyar fighting alongside each other.) The Fall Of Reach animated series isn't canon over the original material.

Cause the animated series is filled with a lot canon inconsistencies.
 
The Covenant would absolutely lay waste to the locust.



It would not even be a contest.

That would be like pitting the 2015 human race against the Covenant. It would not even be considered a fight.

The Locust are cool, but I love the design of the Covenant, from the ships, to races, to the guns.
 
Considering that, despite the fact that I played through Gears 1-3, I can neither recognize the posted image of the Locust nor remember the design of any other Locust enemies, I'm gonna go with the Covenant.

They're just simply more memorable to me.
 
Locusts, Covenant are some of the worst adolescent alien bad guy design I have seen. Seriously, the oopa loompa talking guys are the worst.
 
No they aren't. Halo Escalation and the Halo novels say they're different races.(Hell in one two page spread of Halo Escalation show two different races of Kigyar fighting alongside each other.) The Fall Of Reach animated series isn't canon over the original material.

Cause the animated series is filled with a lot canon inconsistencies.

Not to mention it doesn't actually show the fall of Reach. For shame.

Was pretty disappointed to have paid extra for that, tbh.
 
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