Covenant

Basic Covenant Tips and Strategy

Early game

The most important structure for Covenant is the Temple, it gives access to base upgrades, and more importantly, the Leader. So i would always suggest building one first. Although the most expensive building, it gives you a "free" leader. This leader can now be used as extra scouting, and resource gathering. Also if your getting rushed, it is a powerful anti rush unit. So start your game off by building a temple, and then collect resources with the leader.
Now you are going to need money, so build one or two warehouses, and try to upgrade as soon as possible. Now run your leader to map hooks, and work on capturing them. Build a hall, and que two jackals to help your leader capture them. While doing this, build another warehouse, and upgrade it, this will now give you a good economy. Now its time for some more units.
Check you opponent, and see what they are doing. This is vitally important because it will determine how, and when you strike. Now is a good time to upgrade the base, and prepare a strike team.

Mid Game

With the upgraded base, buy a factory, or a summit, depending on what the other player is doing. You might also want to invest in some turrets. Prepare a few counter units with the hall. Because the enemy should only have infantry, and vehicles, so jackals and hunters are best for this. but also chuck in either a wraith or two, or a couple on banshees. This will be able to soak up some damage. Once you have your force, start to harass the enemy. You want to now buy some time, for upgrades, or expanding. So with you strike force, go toward the enemy base, and attack what they have, try to do as much damage as possible, and save up some money.
If you battle is going well, and you have easily overpowered the unprepared enemy. It would be a good idea to end the game. Use those supplies o send back up, or upgrade the units you have, and take out the enemy right now.
If it doesn't look to good, or its somewhere in the middle. Save your money, get the leader out of there and upgrade your temple, or go for a new base. You only need a couple of units to get a new base, so don't build to much.

Late game

If you went for the upgrade, this is what you do next. You upgrade what you have, and prepare more strike forces. Unless the enemy has a lot of infantry, you might as well sell that hall for either a summit, or factory, depending on what you bought previously. Now, all you want are counter units. Produce a fair amount and prepare and attack. Make sure to include at least one locust. Go to the enemy base and use the locust to attack the base from long range. This will force your enemy to come out of the protection of their base, and engage you. But your locust are protected by a lot of counter units, so you should be able to over power them.
If you went for expanding, you will need some money first, to buy a couple of warehouses. You should now have a really good economy. So its time to produce lots of units, and simply overwhelm the enemy. So build either a summit or factory, depending on what you previously built, and start building at maximum efficiency. Split this force into two groups and attack from both sides. This will maximize the damage you can do.

Tips and Tricks

• The locust are amazing at long rage. Use this to your advantage, and attack from one side, and bring locust around the back to deal some heavy damage to the base. The opponent will have to chose over saving buildings in their base, or saving their units.

• Upgrade Banshees to boost as soon as you can. Then they become great harassing units. Fly over to the enemy base and target units and structures. Once they know what going on, boost away before you suffer heavy loses. Replenish units, and come from a different angle. This will buy you plenty of time to upgrade, and probably destroy quite a few things the enemy might need.

• Covenant are the best force early game, so when against UNSC attack as early as possible.

• When against another Covenant player, always bring about 9 jackals with beam riffles to take out their leader.

• When attacking, try to over power the enemy units, and then thing about destroying a base.

• Covenant units are cheap, so you don't always have to expand as early as possible

• Hunters will deal large damage to vehicles, but they do do great damage against buildings. So only use them if the enemy is going for vehicles.

Covenant Leaders

In the right hands, the Covenant are a deadly, and powerful team. They do not use brute force to win, they achieve victory through out whiting the opponent. Using brains over brawn. But that doesn't go to say that they don't have power, they have more power in other areas of combat, rather than the damage they deal. Covenant work very well as a counter army. Although they have just as many counter units as UNSC, the Covenant army relies on these counters, because they don't have the same fire power as UNSC,
What leader is best for you? Choosing the correct leader for your play is very important. The correct leader can win you the game, the wrong leader can lose you a game. But how do you know which one to chose? They all have advantages, and disadvantages, so you need to think about them.

The Arbiter

The Arbiter is the most powerful covenant leader. Not as a whole, but as a single unit. He is capable of taking down entire armies single handedly and he is very powerful early game.
To play as him though requires a specific style of play. You can not use the Arbiter in the same way you would use the Prophet. He is very unique, and if used properly, then he is also the most powerful.
Often, other player will be reluctant to rush the Arbiter. I'm not saying he will never be rushed, but he is rushed less often. Especially when the other player is Anders, going for a hog rush.

Early game
Arbiter has no shields, which is obvious, but he is still a great early rushing/harassing unit. Personally, i favor him for this.
Always start your build with a temple, after its complete, run him over to the enemy base, and start building two warehouses. When you arrive, start to attack. But don't use rage yet. There isn't any point against buildings, as Arbiter is poor against buildings. So just use melee attacks, to soften anything the enemy builds. I suggest your next building be a warehouse also, unless you want an all in rush, in which case, build a hall, and send jackals and hunters. But Arbiter isn't the best for this, so i suggest a warehouse.
Upgrade all warehouses as they build, to maximize your income. The enemy player will now start building units. If you see them building units, start your rage, and rage them. Raging the enemy units will destroy them very very quickly, and it comes cheaply. Try not to over do it though, just put pressure on them.
One thing you can do is tele a suicide grunt squad or two, and destroy an early building. Taking out a temple or reactor this quickly will change the tide of battle.
If they put to much pressure on you. Teleport the Arbiter back to base for safety. Now work on capturing hooks, and buying more units.
Lets review your build order.
Temple>WH>WH>WH?>(unit production)>WH>(unit production)
Its up to you what the two unit production buildings are, you decided what units your going to need for battle.

Mid game
If all went well, you should of slowed the other player down, and they would of produced a lot of anti infantry most likely. Although its possible, they got a tank or two as they are the biggest weakness of the Arbiter.
So your going to need to cover that. I suggest getting some counter units, and working on a few hunters, just to cover the Arbiter, but slowly work on upgrading him, as his rage is a unit killer, and should be maximized.
Start building units as fast as you can, and keep them upgraded. But sacrifice units for upgrades, or upgrades for units. You need a mix. What i mean by that is, don't upgrade your units, if you only have a couple, but don't build a lot and a lot of units without upgrades. You need to find a balance, and every game is different. Don't let the enemy out tech you, and keep their units more upgraded then yours, but also, its sometimes better to have more units than them. So you deiced, but this is when you capture hooks, and build units.
When you feel you can cause some damage, go in and attack, i suggest around the 20 population mark. Save up for rage just before you get there, and attack the enemy and try to wipe out their army, then attack the base.

Late game
This is where the Arbiter can be extremely powerful, or pathetically weak. If you have done a good job, and kept pressure on the enemy then he will shine here, if not, then he will fail.
If you managed to keep pressure on the enemy. They wont of had a change to build up scorpions, or beam rifle jackals and wraiths. So you will shine, and easily rip through their units.
Although, if you haven't done a good job, the arbiter will get shot down before he has even had a chance to do anything.
Late game, take advantage of his invisibility, and keep him in the enemy base, and have a watchful eye on them. When they go to expand, or move away from their base, hot drop a few suicide grunts in, and destroy something. Or teleport in a lot of units and destroy them.
You can also follow them, and capture there expanded base, rage them when they least expect it. Wait until a few units stray away from the group and kill them all.

Summary
Early harassing with arbiter. Use him to attack units, and weaken structures. Perhaps even drop in a few suicide grunts if you fell you've got a chance.
Work on building units, and keep pressure on them, and prevent them from getting tanks and jackals.
Upgrade the arbiter when ever you can, and use his rage at every opportunity.

The Brute

The Brute chief is often considered to be the weakest covenant leader. The only possible way he is the weakest, is if you actually talking about HP. Well not even then, because technically, the Prophet does the lowest HP, but he has shields.
The Brute, in my opinion, is one of the strongest leaders. Not as an actual leader, but as a whole. I will use him in most 1v1 games because he is so diverse.
So I'm just going to give you a quick guide into playing the brute. I've seen a lot of players use him, and not use him right. He shouldn't be played like you play the other two covenant leaders. I consider him to be a completely new faction because he is played so differently.

Brute Chief
To properly use the Brute chief, you must avoid his slowness and low HP, and exploit his Vortex. Unlike the other leaders, he isn't supposed to lead the charge, he is supposed to direct it, and assist it.
Set it in position, and hot drop units into battle, but keep the brute at the back. Use the vortex to suck up enemies and destroy buildings, then set it off to do some deadly damage.
When assaulting a base with the brute chief, stand back. Teleport units in, and use them to soak up the damage, and destroy other units. Use that vortex to attack the base. Its incredibly powerful against bases, and you can destroy a socket very quickly.

Early Game
The brutes early game is different again, from the other two leaders. You want to get the temple as your first building, the a warehouse. If you get rushed, then sg, a few brutes and some counter units. But I'm assuming you don't.
A good build for the brute would be. Temple>WH>WH>WH. Upgrade each warehouse as soon as you can, to support the building of units. I would also suggest upgrading vortex early as well.
Scout around and see what the enemy is building. Then build a structure to support counter units. Then a WH and another counter unit structure. Lets say you went Temple>WH>WH>WH>Hall>Factory. Because the enemy had a lot of infantry.
Now, its time for units. Run the brute around the map and capture hooks with your brutes. Then send to work on building up a force. Keep building brutes, build as many as you can.

Mid game
Start to harass now. Get your brutes and chief to the new base, and attack a socket or two, and teleport the leader back. Then rise and repeat. The whole time adding more and more brutes to your army, and backing them with counter units.
Try to keep the vortex upgraded as well, it comes in very handy. A few seconds of vortex against a building will quickly destroy it.
A trci you can do is. Run the brutes at the enemy base, and then start to retreat a bit if you need to, but your mostly faking. Then when the enemy follows, run them towards a group of counter units you had just outside their line of sight. This will destroy a lot of their units. When your counters start to attack. Jup pack the brutes over the enemy, or back at their base and start destroying sockets while your counter units clean up the enemy units.

Late game
This is pretty much the same as before. Keep Brute upgraded, and also counter units. Still use the brutes though. Their shock weapons are amazing.
In the late game, you can run at an enemy base, tele brutes in, and destroy a socket very very quickly. Then tele leader back, and jump pack brutes away. If they follow, then use counter units.

Tips
I will now give you some tips as well, to help you use him.
Early game, try to keep around 3-5 brute squads near your base, to protect it from early attacks. The brutes will buy you enough time to build better counter units.
Use the Brutes Pull ability to pull lone units out of the protection of the enemy base.
Brutes are very good counters to air. You wont need to build grunts to counter early air attacks.
The vortex should be used as often as possible, its very cheap and effective.
Brutes can attack on the move, so they can be microed very easily.
The chopper is also a very good unit. Its god at building damage, so it also can be used in hit and runs.

The Prophet

The Prophet is a feeble old man, that's why he gets a shield and guns, to play him well you must take full advantage of this, and use him to perform tasks with no draw back.

Early game
Its all about early game with the Prophet, the longer the game goes on, the weaker he becomes. Bear that in mind when playing.
First of all, go for a temple, then a warehouse. Then collect resources with the Prophet and the ghost. If you can collect 2 sets of crates, then you can have Blessed Imo really early. So go Temple>wh>wh>blessed imo.
Run towards your enemy, and attack supply pads. Just start to wear them down with the prophet. If they send defense, give them the run around, and try to take down a supply pad. Once you lose shields, either run away from their base, if they follow then retreat, and run straight back in, once your shields return.
Run around the base, and beam anything they attempt to build. Then attack the supply pads. Again, once they send defense, run away. Rise and repeat this for as long as possible.
Meanwhile, in your base, build some units, and explore the map, and capture hooks. The prophet is really good at distraction. The enemy will be very focused on your Prophet, so keep them busy, and capture the key points on the map.

Mid game
Mid game, its a good idea to get sentinels on the prophet, because his attacks will be much stronger.
Now it’s time to launch some heavy attacks. Keep the units coming, and attack the enemy. Ambush them from two side. Send your units in from one side, and the prophet in from another. Attack supply pads with the prophet, and units with your units. Keep piling up the pressure, and constantly keep them defensive. Once shields go down, retreat, and come straight back in.
If your beam is upgraded, and you've got some cash. Run in, beam a socket, and run out. Keep attacking them for as long as possible, and keep the enemy always in defense.
Also, expand with the prophet, and earn him some veterancy. This makes him much more powerful.

Late game
Once you've made it to late game, upgrade hi to the super chair, and float him around the map. Launch an offensive attack somewhere in the map, then run the leader to their base, and beam things. The prophet is great for these hit and run attacks, and should be maximized.
You can also, come in, drop 2-3 locust, and double the damage. Although you may lose the locust, be prepared for that. Instantly come in with counter units.
Over all the prophet is a hit and run units. Never let the enemy expand, and keep them playing defense the whole time. If they start to put up a fight, bring back up units, and upgrade the beam, so the little time you have before shields drop, you can do maximum damage to them.

Written by I FJ I