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Elite: Shipmaster! They outnumber us 10 to 1!. Shipmaster: Then it is an even fight.

Vader: "They keep sending in grunts." Covenant: "Send in more grunts."

"You were right to focus your attention on the empire. But this demon, this Lord Vader..."

“Vote in the upper right corner” AH YES THANK YOU KZfaq FOR REMOVING VOTING

Just sneak a Jackal Sniper onto a ship/station and then set the difficulty to Legendary. He'll clear it out in approximately 20 nanoseconds.

The Empire: *Sends 1 million troopers* Jackal Sniper: Fools...you are walking into your own grave.

Just imagine Vader vs a horde of Elites, Brutes, and Hunters would be sick.

Empire with ships: Look at these little banshees. Wait why is boss music playing looks up. Long Night of Solace: *Glassing time*

Empire: we are unstoppable!!!! Jackal Sniper from halo 2: hold my beam rifle

Covenant- "KEEP FIRING AND MOVE LAZILY TO THE LEFT" Empire- "Wow, these guys knows some maneuvers"

Empire: "We have trillions of stormtroopers. what do you got." Sangheili Shipmaster: "Want me to time you or......" Legendary Jackel Sniper: "Nah, no point."

Love how you list all of the Empires strength's, and then it's like "Yea they were defeated by the rag tag rebels, but that doesn't count".

Shipmaster: we should send in recon ships to- Jackal sniper: done Shipmaster: how di- what do you mean “done” Jackal Sniper: I destroyed the galactic empire Shipmaster: we haven’t even started our attack yet Jackal: yes I understand this

99% of the comments involve jackle snipers 😂

Empire with AT-ATs and AT-STs: We have you surrounded A few Zealots and a Scarab: All I am surrounded by is fear. And Dead men *Activates active camo*

The Covenant stand a chance because not everyone loves the Empire. Being multi-species it is appealing to help the Covenant even if you dont believe in the religion. Jackals fight because their world profits from the war so others could see it logical to join.

Storm troopers always miss...jackal sniper never miss

The Covenant has Sniper Jackals. Therefore they win 11/10 times on legendary difficulty....

Whole fleet of Storm Troopers: *Shoot and miss* Jackal Sniper: “Hold my beer.”

8:52 "The covenant also most likely fight at longer ranges..." Jackal Sniper: "Hoohoo, yeaaah booi! Here we go!"

Master chief: so what do you do? Luke: well I lift rocks with my mind

I dunno , the empire got defeated by two pink balls , while the covenant got assimilated by pop corn

I think if the Empire started losing the war Palpatine really wouldn’t have to think twice about enlisting other species. Wookiees, nogri, weequay, etc etc are canonically above the hundreds of trillions as seen in the yuuzan vong war.

I'd LOVE to see some handful of Stormtroopers take on two Hunters LOOOOOOOL

The empire sent their best legion of storm troopers to endor didn’t they? and didn’t they get smacked around by hamsters throwing rocks

death star vs high charity, the death star charges its laser, high charity cheers for the beginning of the great journey

Yes the Empire is large, no that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to defeat. The Rebels Managed to do the job almost comically easily. Now if we are being honest they took advantage of operation Cinder. All they had to do was kill Palpatine and the Empire was DESIGNED to self destruct. In a matchup between these two factions, The Empire has to locate and eliminate the Hierarchs.....The Covenant has to locate and eliminate Palpatine.

The empire:falls to the covenant Darth jar jar and his army of gonks:I’ll do it myself

Halo 3 covenant... Nah Halo 2 legendary covenant, a jackal sniper can take out a third of the empire by themself

I would love to see a ... diplomatic meeting... between the Emperor and the High Prophets. Who can chew the scenery harder?

It’s downright amazing how one-sided the space battle would be in favor of the Empire, but how one-sided it would be in favor of the Covenant on the ground

The Covenant could easily induct hundreds of outer rim alien races who have been oppressed by the Empire. Hell, Thel Vadam could strike a deal with Jabba the Hutt for use of Hutt Space.

When we joined the Covenant, we took an Oath... "According to our station, all without exception!" "On the blood of our fathers, on the blood of our sons, we swore to uphold the Covenant!" "Even to our dying breath!" "Those who break this Oath are heretics, worthy of neither pitty nor mercy, even now, they use our lords' creation, to broadcast their lies..." "We shall Grind them into dust!" "And continue our march to glorious salvation!"

"Imperial ships, staggered line. Shipmaster, they outnumber us 1,000-1!" "Then it is an even fight."

Knowing how common Hyperspace is in Star Wars, the Covenant would probably reverse engineer hyperspace tech.

The Empire: sir, we seem to be losing. Palpatine: what if I told you I could reactivate the clones and droid factories haven’t all been taken out? The Empire: I would ask how you could know such things. Palpatine: the benefits of being emperor is a pathway to many assets some consider to be unethical.

Send in Halo 2 Jackal sniper, Halo: Reach Elites, and that’s a Dub

galactic empire: we got vader and death stars forerunners: hold my ring...

I think an under represented strength here is I believe slip space drives are not limited in the same way hyperspace lanes are. It may not completely flip the result but the covenants ability to ignore that limitation and interdictions fields means while slower they are arguably more mobile than the empire.

I was 100% for the galactic empire until you brought up the covenant’s slip space tech and their mobile homeworld. Although it is slower slip space lets the covs use their ships like submarines. They can appear out of nowhere inside defensive lines, glass a planet, and disappear to somewhere between the hyperspace lanes. If the imps can find them they would have to travel at sublight speed to get to them. Without hyperspace the cov ships can’t be caught. And while the imps might blast a few cov homeworlds they could not obliterate the covs without destroying high charity which could just jump away at will the same as the fleet. Next is the covenant ground army. While the empire is fond of enormous armored vehicles and masses of infantry the covenant seem to focus more on upgrading the aliens within its empire to take advantage of their natural abilities. Working together they can counter a variety of infantry and armor threats while being as mobile as infantry. In the air the empire would have the fighter advantage with their wide variety of specialized ships, however if the covs can jump a cruiser inside a planet’s atmosphere as air support the imps would have a rough time. Then there are the politics. The covenant’s religious zeal and unity mean they could suffer massive losses and sustain their morale, while the empire, held together by fear of their own military, would have to preserve an image of perfect order and power. If the covs fleet can appear over coruscant, do a bunch of damage, and leave before the defense fleet shows up that image will fall apart. Worse still for the empire would be if their planets/alien races joined the covs, contributing their tech and knowledge. The hutts would probably be the first to negotiate for powerful cov small arms in exchange for tech and spying the same as they did with the vong. The covs seem much more interested in taking advantage if different aliens’ unique characteristics, which in the empire seem limitless. Their adaptability would be a major edge over the empire’s uniformity and xenophobia. Finally there’ the rebellion. If the covs teamed up with the rebel alliance they would be unstoppable. Alliance fighters, capital ships, tech, and intel would cover all the weaknesses in the covenant military and boost their numbers significantly. More likely the rebels would see the covs as an enemy, but even then that would give the empire two fronts to fight at once. Even with 10-1 advantage over the covs in numbers the imps still have to keep a presence over their whole territory to beat down the rebels and may not be able to gather enough ships for expeditions to cov space. The covs on the other hand are pretty stable and can send a bigger portion of their fleet on the attack.

Plot twist: the Covenant release Flood spores onto the Death Star. Just saw your video about Star Wars surviving the Flood. -added to watch next-

Nah man the covenant have Yapyap the destroyer

Covenant: *moves slightly to the left* Empire: *this is impossible even the celestials wouldnt even understand this!*

Anyone: Exists UR Wrong: You are wrong in every way because I said so.

"The Empire beats The Covenant 9 times out of 10..." The Arbiter - Were it so easy. *Covenant Glasses Deathstar*

Storm troopers: missing every shot Grunts: Am I a joke to you?

I just got the image in my head of Vader cutting down honor guards to get to the prophets like the hallway scene from rogue one. I like that image.

Shipmaster: they outnumber us 5 to 1! Jackal: I like those odds

Darth Vader: we got 2 meat balls and a bunch of blind soldiers The profits: We have some popcorn makers and some dudes with laser that can snipe you in 5 nanoseconds

Or just pack up and ship the empire a nice flood infested high charity

Grunts: oml they keep killing us Jackal Sniper: Hi kids, Do you likr violence ?

I think the covenants could potentially win simply by focusing on boarding the empires capital ships, every elite are almost twice the size of a stormtrooper, they all have personnal shielding and most of them can turn invisible. Throw in some grunts, jackals and brutes to distract the empires troops within the ships and have a small force of about 15 zealots to obliterate anyone in the bridge and basically getting rid of a fleets leadership, after that i think the covenant's superior tactics could win them the fight

Press RB to flip warthog.

Admiral Thrawn would study the hell out of them

You forgot one very important thing... Elites actually hit what they shoot at, and don't go down in one shot. Also, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Covenant's propensity for using boarding craft... Great video, though! Keep it up!

Obi wan takes the high ground Legendary jackel sniper : what are u doing come down from there u might hurt yourself.

I would love to watch Elites with energy swords fight sith or jedis it would be such a cool fight to watch.

A one powerful man once said “quantity is a quality of its own”

I’d look at Reach for a great example. The Covenant manage to deploy recon units behind enemy lines, managed to make a breach point for the rest of the fleet to arrive and deploy the rest of the troops.

The thing is we’ve seen before that a single Jedi or Sith, wielding both the force but also their lightsaber, can take down an entire ship once they are on it. I think that a small contingent of elites (say a dozen) with energy swords and plasma rifles, could easily cut through an ISD once they are on board. Also the Covenant could just slip space jump from world to world, and just glass everything( Interdictors would have no effect because slipspace is a different dimension)

Stormtroopers vs jackal snipers Yeah the empire is screwed

*covenant jumps from planet to planet glassing each one then running* Empire: frick

Honestly I'd say the empire. Main reason I say this is because the only reason the covenant was kicking the UNSCs ass was because they were quite ahead technology wise but with the empire it's a more even fight.

Eckharts: the sheer power and intelligence of Emporer Palpatinte Also empire: is divided into splinter factions and is scarcely populated due to teddy bears

Unlike the Storm troopers, the grunts when they shoot their projectiles they actually HIT their targets.

Everyone is talking about Legendary Sniper Jackels...You know, Legendary Grunts with Fuel Rod Cannon is pretty insane too!

I think a key tactical point in your breakdown is missing. The Covenant inhabit the Milky Way Galaxy and the Empire inhabits another galaxy, far, far away. Neither side is intergalactic travel capable, so, for the sake of argument, let's say a stable wormhole is discovered connecting the 2 galaxies. This balances out the resources argument because of the bottleneck effect. Now, if the Covenant invade the Empire, it is in their best interest to align with the Rebellion once they recognize the scale the Empire exists on. If the Empire invades Covenant space, they automatically have a major disadvantage because of the lack of mapped hyperspace lanes in the Milky Way. A wormhole bridge not only makes the conflict more plausible, it levels the playing field.

As much as I love halo.... The empire would wipe the floor with the covenant. I mean it would just be a slaughter.

The real question is Who would win? Chips Dubbo or Darth Jar jar

The Covenant has sniper jackals, the Empire is doomed

"The Death Star will just destroy the Covenant" Covenant: *Reach invasion fleet exits slipspace* Empire: °0° *many gulping noises*

I think the one biggest advantage that he forgot is the covenants use of cloaking and the fact that it's widely available. I don't think the empire has tech that can detect cloaked individuals or even starships. All it would take is one suicide squad or a zealot team to hitch a ride on a transport heading to a SD or Death Star. Have one half of the team seek out the core whilst the other finds the mainframe and uses its AI to download all the information about the empire. Once done leave some suicide grunts and one zealot with the bomb fornthe core whilst the others escape. They could do this for every ship, dockyard, battle station, and even their senate. Imagine if the senate was destroyed in one blast. The turmoil in the systems would be massive. Causing the empire to stretch its numbers thin to police every system.

I do think you discount the possibility of the Covenant recruiting species in the star wars universe. That's probably not the kind of annalist that you were going for in this, however I think races such as the Twi'lek or the Wookies who have been historically used as slaves the most would almost jump at the chance to join an organized force against the Empire.

Is this in legendary mode? Because if so then the Galactic Empire stands no chance...

The covenant goes like this Credit card: *declines* Covenant: FIGHT HARDER FOR THE GREAT JOURNEY!!! Empire Credit card: *declines* Empire: yeah... I'm just gonna go to the bathroom for a few...

I feel like 2 Zealots or Field Marshals would put up a good fight against Vader with their energy swords

The empire is no match for the great journey. Their heresy will stay their feet.

Damn. The Covenant looks so much better than the Empire seeing them side by side.

I think the Covenant stand a significantly better chance (I'd even argue they have an advantage) than the video lets on, although there was no way Eck could have known some of this information at the time he made this. 1. Star Wars is very heavily inspired by WWII, which means that pretty much all SW commanders (even the very highly skilled ones like Thrawn) are stuck using extremely outdated tactics that resemble WWII naval battles more than what actual space combat might look like. Halo, being a bit more grounded in realism (even Eck agrees on this), is far more three-dimensional than Star Wars. He says in the video that Imperial tactics are on a lower level, although he doesn't emphasize the degree to which this is true as much as I would. Covvie ships could quite easily and consistently outmaneuver and take down Star Destroyers using SW's ineptitude at three-dimensional combat to their advantage. 2. Imperial advance into Covenant territory would be extremely, extremely slow. For one, Covenant space would be completely uncharted to the GE and thus hyperspace wouldn't really be viable until specific routes are mapped out. Winning ground battles would also be extremely difficult, as Imperial ground tactics tend to be just as s#!t as their tactics in space. Dispersion is a lot lower in Star Wars making them extremely vulnerable to explosives, Stormtroopers usually don't bother taking cover all that much, the Covenant have a large edge in artillery and long-range weapons, and handheld explosives tend to be a lot more common in Halo. The GE still has an upper hand overall due to sheer numbers, but it buys the Covenant time. This is extremely important as 3. As we found out in trailers for Halo 6, the Banished (which supposedly control a significantly smaller area of space than the Covenant) are capable of repairing a Halo ring and restoring it to full operational capacity. Keep in mind, just SEVEN of these rings were able to near-completely wipe out all biological life in the entire Milky Way. A single Halo would easily be enough to turn the tide of war as HUGE swaths of Imperial territory are entirely cleansed of life. The only question is, would the Covenant be able to last long enough to do this? It's hard to say. Even if we assume the Banished started working on repairing the Halo ring IMMEDIATELY after they were founded in 2548, that's only twelve years until it's nearing completion in 2560. Given how slow the GE would be advancing through Covenant territory, I think that should be just enough time assuming they keep the project hidden enough.

Pfff a battle between these two factions darth jar jar would show up and destroy both of them, darth jar jar is such an OP character.

The Empire wins a Total War because they can easily win a war of attrition. The Covenant just doesn't have the resources, especially when there is such parity in space tech. Superior Covenant infantry doesn't matter when you can't control space. The only way the Covenant wins is if their guerilla tactics can force the Empire into a drawn out, inconclusive, unpopular war that spawns rebellion in the Empire's territory.

Who would win jackal sniper or storm trooper? “I think we both know the answer to that”

Dude, I've been having this debate with my friends for YEARS. How am I only just finding this video

A covie squad is trying to get into a forerunner structure. Breathing starts, they turn to see Vader ignite his lightsaber. Vader: Boo!

Lol “the covenant don’t have ways to deal with the deathstar 1 & 2” cuts to scene of covenant ships glassing the death stars.

There is one thing you have forgotten. The forerunner dreadnaught. That thing powers high charity with a minuscule fraction of its power. If the prophet of truth thinks it is necessary, he will use it. To put it in comparison, a single forerunner dreadnaught with no form of weaponry in the hands of the prophets gave the elites trouble. Now imagine one that is filled with weaponry. It could probably take on entire fleets with out much trouble. Although, I'd still say the empire would most likely win, the dreadnaught is more than enough to give the covenant an advantage.

The CSO-class supercarrier is double the size of the the empires largest ship (executor-class super star destroyer)

I feel like the covenant will be dominant until Vader and the royal guards appear.

Star Wars: exist Legendary halo reach elite and h2 jackal: ok.

I would argue that the benefit of having slipspace drives over hyperdrives is that they're not tied to the Hyperlane Network. Not only that but they're also faster to activate. Remember, hyperdrives need pre-designated coordinates in order to safely jump. Slipspace drives have no such constraint.

The reason you never see so many imperial ships in one place is because unlike many other star wars and sci fi factions, the empire lacked control over it's own territory, and the star destroyers and other various ships were needed to make sure many imperial worlds, trading routes, and important sectors didnt descend into piracy, chaos, or into rebel hands.

Empire: Stand down or we will fire. Grunty voice: Hold my teat!

I think you missed a big factor in covenant boarding parties. They come in swarms during large fleet battles, in shielded ships designed to make their own airlock basically on impact. They either take over your sht or blow it up and leave. It's a deadly tactic and they use it all the time in the Halo universe. I don't know if it would push the number very far, but the covenant almost never fights in small numbers, so almost all of the fighting will be large fleet battles. The boarding parties take advantage of the chaos and are difficult to deal with once they get inside. I think a single covenant ship could deal with multiple star destroyers in this way. The problem would then be the discrepancy between Covenant fighters and Empire fighters. Weapons probably goes to Empire, Covie has shields, Tie Fighter is more maneuverable and in greater numbers. But I think a few boarding parties could get through, and it only takes one to deliver the bomb.

On the blood of our fathers on the blood of our sons we sworn to uphold the covenant

Galactic Empire: We have the biggest ships! The Covenant: Pathetic.

You forget the fact the high chairs defense fleet was more than a thousand, considering more sources say it had a lot more than 900, I'm going to say your guess was wrong

You forgot the Covenant's active camouflage. They can make entire fleets invisible if they wanted, I'm pretty sure.

The problem with slip space is that the ships coming out of slip space have to come out of the slip space portal because of this if the ship is near any hostile ships those ships would be able to have an early strike on said the said ship.

Awesome video!!!