Contents show Defending the Antenna in Space Marine 2 If you can plan much further ahead
The defend the antenna objective is a troublesome part of the first campaign mission in Space Marine 2. The endless swarms of the Nids alongside the gargoyles attacking the cannon antenna makes it a tough challenge, especially on the harder difficulties. You’ll need to plan resource usage properly and know when to take the opportunity to fire back at the gargoyles on the antenna for success. It’s very hard on all difficulty settings. Here’s a look at the best ways to do it.
Defending the Antenna in Space Marine 2
There are a few tips we can give you to defend the antenna state of the fight.
- Grab a decent damage and fast bolter.
- Use the Plasma Pistol for charging up attacks against elite enemies.
- Run around collecting grenades.
- Use the plasma batteries to thin hordes.
- Weapon pickups earlier in the level
- Play coop if you can
For the most part, the gargoyles typically go down in a round or two. So, you only need a reliable bolter to typically take down the swarming gargoyles on the antenna. Before accessing the elevator that takes you up the cannon, we recommend that you grab a bolt rifle of some sort. There’s an Auto Bolt Rifle in the weapon drop pod next to the elevator before ascending. This can help you with a rapid-fire bolter to deal with the swarms on the antennas.
You’ll need one weapon great at killing saerm enemies to beat this challenge easily.
In addition, there’s a plasma pistol on the rear end of the elevator platform before ascending, alongside a dataslate location. You can replace your pistol with this, as it will be very helpful for later. The Plasma Pistol when charged can deal splash damage against the floor, handy for dealing with swarms that attack you. It’s also great for dealing heavy burst hits to the Tyranid Warriors that spawn in too. Do not use it for the antenna defence against the gargoyles, as it is very ineffective.
The other strategy that we recommend is scouting the battlefield. The platform below has a few sources of med packs, different weapon bolters, and some grenades. Try to stock up here before moving to the floor above with the Antenna. You’ll find more weapons and pickups up here too, but having more prep from the floor below helps a lot. The good thing about that floor is that if you’re fast enough, activate all the generators and ignore the hordes, conserving materials for the defend the antenna phase.
When you go up the floor, you now have lots of tools available. Krag grenades are handy for nuking the lites in swarms. You can also use them to destroy the gargoyles if you need to, though we don’t recommend it. Frags are better for the basic horde thinners, handy for covering an area so you can thin the gargoyles on an antenna with some bought time.
The other strategy is to look for the blue and red plasma batteries lying around., Hitting these can explode, helping to thin some of the hordes. Fewer hordes equate to more time to deal with Gargoyles.
If you can plan much further ahead
In addition, there are a few weapons you can pick up earlier in the level too that are great for this section:
- Bolt Rifle with grenade Launcher
- Melta Rifle
After the 15 minutes later cutscene, you’ll be tasked with defending the cannon with the Guardsman. It should give you a bolt rifle with a grenade launcher. This is one of the best weapons to carry with you for antenna noob tubing gargoyles or clearing hordes. The added bolt magazine is also very handy against swarms too. It’s a great fit so keep it on you for this section if you like it
Alternatively. the Melta Rifle is a perfect weapon for nuking through the hordes that come at you. You can find one as you cross the bridge If you can get close to the Antenna, then you can burn half the Gargoyles off the antenna at once. Just make sure you have a Bolt Pistol as your secondary as you want something for dealing with lots of enemies should that run at you. The Plasma and Heavy Bolt do not serve those purposes, plus the melta / plasma combo means you are low on ammo fairly often.
If you’re also desperate, we recommend grabbing a coop buddy. Coop buddies are way more efficient than the AI allies you have. They do tend to deal with the hordes, gargoyles, and elites, but a player will always be better than the AI. Plus they’ll make much better use of the grenades to thin hordes while a player works on raising the satellite dish and the defend the antenna objectives as you progress up the cannon.
