Windward (Level)

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Windward is a Halo 3: ODST Firefight map. It is based on the NMPD HQ campaign map. Players do spawn with a Sniper Rifle at the start of the round but it cannot be found anywhere on the map. All players respawn with SMGs. There is a Banshee which respawns at the beginning of every wave and 2 Missile Pod Turrets with which to shoot it down.

Players start in a central building on the second floor. When they leave this room, they will enter a hall with stairs in the middle. On the other side of the hall there is a room with 2 med-kits. If you go downstairs, you will find 2 med-kits on each side of the hall (making it 4 med-kits in the central building). Should you take the doors in the lower hall, you will enter a small room with doors that lead on the left and right ledge. In the middle of this small room is a rocket launcher pack (2 rockets). Looking towards the ledges, you will find the rocket launcher on the left (on a small dispenser, which is near the missile pod) and the shotgun on the right side (this time it is further away from the missile pod that the rocket launcher is).

This map has a number of small tunnels, which lead to 2 landing pads. Enemies can enter the playing field by a number of ways: Phantoms (which land on the pads OR in the middle of the courtyards) or from the "monster closets" (a shielded doors that the player can't enter). When the bonus round begins, the grunts can come from the roofs of the surrounding building or from the mentioned "monster closets". Enemies which appear on this map are: Brutes (all forms and ranks), grunts, jackals (a beam rifle jackal can appear as well, but most of the times they are equipped with carbines or shields), drones (shielded variant is present as well) and hunters.

The best way to play this map is to hold up in the central building and exit only to get the rocket launcher and missile pods inside. Then, it’s all about good aim and a little bit of crowd control. If you decide to stay outside, you will be either shot to death, or stuck after the catch skull comes into play (there are just too many places from which the grenades can bounce off. If you decide to hold the tunnels, then you will get probably burned by stalker brutes (which are hard to detect and even harder to avoid once they enter the tunnels), stuck by grenades (if the catch skull comes into play) or caught by kamikaze grunts. Sniper rifle is not much of use in this map, try to get magnum/plasma pistol combo (carbine is also a good choice, but once the famine kicks in, you are going to have a hard time keeping an ample supply of ammo) to kill brutes/jackals/drones and get the missile pod and rocket launcher to deal with chieftains and hunters.