Titanfall Tactics: Having Fun with Satchel Charges

I’ve been hacking the Spectres around me, they do the killing while I stick to the wall twelve feet up near the ceiling. I could be on the ground joining in the mayhem, but this is fun too. The Hardpoint that is under me is mine, you can have it over my cold dead body! I deploy two more satchel charges near the entrance of the room with the detonator in my hand. I’m getting low on these as I only have one remaining. The first through the door is the IMC Grunt. He can fight the Spectres as I’m only interested in who’s behind him. She comes through the door cloaked, but I spot her anyway since that works on Titans more than men. Just as she breaches, I hit the trigger and observe as the room shakes with the detonation. Those two charges are meant to do damage to Titan’s, so they certainly wreak havoc on flesh. What’s left of the two grunts and pilot paint the room and the hallway outside, and I’m glad I don’t have to clean that up.

A frag grenade bounces into the room and off the hardpoint. Uh-oh, time to run! I release my hold on the wall and double-jump through the door as the grenade goes off. I’m already holding down the trigger of my C.A.R SMG and spraying where I think someone might be hiding. I get a couple of hits before they jump. It’s not enough to kill, but enough to make them move. There are bullets everywhere as we both bounce around the room like rubber balls, each trying to get a few more hits to take them down. My screen flares red, though. I’m down. Damn grunts! Time to respawn and seek my revenge.

There are a lot of things that I still love about this game, including the above scenario, but that’s just part of it. When you get your first Tier 1 kit unlock at level 5, the Advanced Parkour Kit is included. This allows for longer wall runs and wall hangs, but it doesn’t last too long. When in a city, this is extremely handy and opens up even more tactical options. Being able to instantly stop on a wall after running and then just hang there while cloaked is a great way to avoid detection by Titans. Not to mention that most people playing won’t look on the wall, they look on each floor or roof first. After all, what we grew up with is what we are used to. Try to think about hunting spiders when you’re playing. They can be anywhere, so keep a sharp eye out.

Reaching level 17 unlocks the Satchel Charge which sticks to anything. Once deployed, you will automatically have the detonator in your hand. If you switch weapons though, you can easily trigger them by double-tapping the ‘E’ key without having to switch back. These are great to use if you don’t want your ordinance bouncing around before it, hopefully, explodes near your enemy. You can place them on ceilings, walls, Titans, or just about anywhere you want. It’s fun to Rodeo a Titan, drop a couple of Satchel Charges, jump off and make a big boom while it’s just standing in it’s own Electric Smoke hoping to kill you. You might not take it out, but you’re going to cause some pretty good damage and hopefully frustrate the Pilot while doing so. Frustrated pilots make mistakes that can exploited by others.

Combine those two items with Burn Cards and you get even more deadly on the battlefield. The Burn Card in the above scenario is the Wifi Virus card that captures all nearby enemy Spectres, at which point they fight for you. It’s pretty handy to have, but it won’t work everywhere or in every scenario. So be selective about which cards you use, but don’t be scared to use them. If you keep them too long and don’t use them, your deck will get full. At that point you can no longer earn any more cards. There are currently 51 cards, but hopefully there will be more if/when they release DLC for the game.

So keep exploring and using new tactics, and I hope to see you on the battlefield soon!