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The Orange Box: Half-Life 2: Episode Two Hints
Antlion Guardian Combat Tips
1 of 15: Before you get too close to the mine tunnel entrance that the guardian breaks out of, there are a couple of things you should do to prepare.
2 of 15: One is to kill all of the regular and worker antlions that have already spawned. After you enter the third thumper's area, they'll stop spawning, so you might as well get rid of all of them now. (Or let your vort companion do it.)
3 of 15: Doing so has the benefit of allowing you free reign of the area, which you can take advantage of by stockpiling items inside the third thumper's protective ring.
4 of 15: The most important things to stockpile are explosive barrels and cylinders. To keep them from rolling away, stack them inside the little three-wall shelter.
5 of 15: You should also bring in large non-explosive items like bundles of small metal beams. They'll be handy to throw at the guards if you run out of explosives before they're both killed.
6 of 15: It's very hard to use the gravity gun to knock the nearby cars and mine carts far enough away that the guards won't go after them and head-butt them toward you. However, you might could grav-blast a mine cart or two inside the third thumper's protective ring so that they can't be used against you. (Also, if the cars are pushed all the way back to the starting area, the guards may not go for them.)
7 of 15: When you're ready, go close enough to the right mine tunnel entrance to get the guards to appear, then run back to the third thumper.
8 of 15: It'll be very hard for the guards to hurt you while you're inside the thumper's area. They might occasionally get lucky with a head-butted item, though, so be sure to save just in case.
9 of 15: This battle is actually very easy as antlion guard battles go, and doesn't require any special trick strategies. It'll just take awhile (especially on the highest difficulty setting) since you have two tough antlion guards to take down.
10 of 15: Start by using the gravity gun to throw all of your stockpiled explosives at the guards.
11 of 15: You'll have to be careful to not waste explosives with bad throws. Also, it's too easy to throw explosives so that they detonate inside the shelter area, which can badly damage you.
12 of 15: With explosive barrels in particular, you may want to leave the shelter just long enough to make your throw, then immediately sprint back inside.
13 of 15: It'd probably be best to quicksave after every good explosive hit, and quickrestore after every miss (and every time you get damaged).
14 of 15: After you run out of explosives, start using the large non-explosive items you stockpiled.
15 of 15: Those items are reusable, so you could just use them for the rest of the combat, but it might be faster to use a few SMG grenades, double-barrel shotgun blasts, etc. when the guards are nearby.
