Mongoose Mowdown

Mongoose Mowdown

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Halo 3

Mongoose Mowdown is a Halo 3 multiplayer achievement. It was awarded for splattering an enemy with a Mongoose in a ranked free-for-all playlist. This achievement usually unlocks the SCOUT-class Mjolnir shoulder piece for Spartans, but the shoulders were unlocked without this achievement for some players. The achievement awards the player 5 Gamerscore. The only ranked free-for-all playlist was Lone Wolves.

It is represented by an orange circle with a Spartan driving a Mongoose, three red stars, and the flying body of a Spartan.

Following the shutdown of Xbox 360 Halo online services on January 13, 2022, this achievement is no longer attainable.

Tactics

• Players cannot easily be killed by simply driving into them – the direction that the player is headed in is important. If a player is heading in the same direction as you, they are very difficult to splatter.
• The basic approach for getting a mongoose splatter is to think of the map as a giant racetrack. You want to be moving at full speed at all times, and you want your racetrack to pass through areas that give you cover but don’t slow you down – like the caves on Valhalla. You never want to stop or slow down for anything; doing so will get you killed.
• One of the easiest ways to achieve this was to play on Isolation, and drive a Mongoose around in a circle on the bottom side of the map. You can think of Isolation as either an oval or a figure-8 shaped driving tracks.
• High Ground was a bit more difficult to get the achievement on, but it was possible to get it here by driving laps around the beach and be sure to pass through the caves leading from cloak to the sniper rifle. It was also possible (yet risky) to attempt to traverse the entire map by going back by the base, driving through the fence, turning back and traveling through the center main gate to return to the beach area.
• Another tactic was to have someone with a Brute shot on the back of your mongoose. If a Brute shot was fired at the ground, it would make the mongoose fly through the air, allowing the driver to splatter people that try to jump out of the way. Having a passenger shoot people in front of you, however, it was a bad idea; all it would do was alert them to your presence.

Player getting the "Mongoose Mowdown" achievement, in the Legendary Brawl playlist.

• The reason that this achievement was so hard was that there are only a few angles you can goose splatter an opponent from. If an opponent was heading directly towards you, it was possible to splatter them by just hitting them at full speed. If your victim is not headed in the same direction, the best way to splatter them is to lead the target slightly so that they walk into the side of your mongoose just as you run into them.
• The easiest target to splatter is one that was in the air. If you manage to hit someone just as they are hitting the ground, not even an overshield is going to save their lives.
• There are a few weapons that novice mongoose drivers tend to get destroyed by that are easy to avoid – Spartan Laser, snipers and Archer missiles. The best way to avoid getting killed by any of these weapons is to not head directly towards or away from a person wielding one of them. Most players will end up missing you if you’re moving at an angle. Also, try to think of objects you can drive past that will break their line of fire.
• Keep in mind that you never want to quit moving, if you see someone that you think you can hit but hitting them will make you come to a dead stop, chances are you’re going to miss and then die. However, the more confined the space you head into, the more likely you’re going to walk away with a mongoose splatter.