sp4rt4n: Korther: Covenant.
Most versatile. Plus they're zealots, which is always fun.
Grunts - Easy, and WILLING cannon fodder for the enemy. Also can do mass damage in numbers and willing to run into a group of enemies to blow themselves up. Very effective if 20 of those came running at you while you were already under fire ready to explode on you.
Elites - As powerful as a Spartan in terms of lore. Not to mention their shields are always fun, and the swords they handle are quite possibly the most amazing weapon ever. Add in some stealth and they are perfect special forces units for infiltration.
Brutes - Pure strength. An 8 brute squad, Three with Hammers, One with Fuel Rod, One with Carbine, and Three with Spikers. Give the last 4 of the group there jetpacks and they can be a force to be reckoned with (especially with shields from Halo:ODST and such). A gravity hammer can easily shatter an entire group of foes and take out whole vehicles. Not to mention again, their pure unadulterated strength.
Drones - Flying bugs that are really hard to shoot without spray and pray (aka making them waste their ammo). Great for zerging the enemy and destroying moral, infiltration through vents and higher places and again, the inherent fear and zerg factor.
Hunters - Seriously. With a bit of modulation to their armor they can be almost impossible to kill (more than they already are). Put like 4 or 6 of these in the back of a force and let them send out their beams across the enemies forces and they will just annihilate.
Jackals - Great snipers and put four lines of 8 of these with shields walking forward at a force and they'll provide great cover.
Ghosts - Especially with the shields that are shown in HW, these are amazing vehicles against infantry and light air. They can strafe, which is a big plus and then just boost away when in danger.
Wraiths - Again with the strafing. Although a giant shell can do some good damage, this one has the range advantage. Put one of these far back in the lines of a battle and giant balls of plasma being mortar'd into your forces will ravage them. People don't realize how devastating plasma is, this stuff could burn right through steel with only a speck. This can be DEVASTATING to fixed positions, large infantry battles, light and heavy armor.
Banshees - I'm going to have to concede that the Hornet is better than the banshee in almost every way.
So on and so forth...
Ok lets do thisGrunts are very stupid and just throw themselves on to the enemy till the enemy is out of ammo and gets trampled by them. A good tactic unless your fighting a far more intelligent foe like spartans which can outsmart grunts and lure them into traps then blow them up. Example prologue of Fall of Reach
Grunts are intelligent, determined and numerous foes that have been the bane of many marines, ODSTs and more than a few spartans in the time of the human-covenant war, they have a pack mentality that forces them to stick together and relay information to each other within a group, they are physically superior to humans(by far) and have better equipment.
Elites there are far more elites then spartans but only few could match the spartans in combat. Those few had shields that could take a tank shell to the face and live. The rest were afraid of spartans and were constantly molested by them. Example Halo Wars cutscene monsters where spartans decimate Elite honor guards with ease.
Example: Thel Vadamee, as the arbiter from halo 2 and three he accomplished the same things as the chief, probably more in fact, furthermore he did this on pure skill, rather than luck, he has forerunner-crafted nigh-invincible armour with incredible levels of shielding and a cloaking device. Anyway, elites are extremely powerful warriors capable of ripping apart marine squads with consummate ease and are armed with vastly superior weaponry to anything the UNSC has.
Brutes retarded monkeys that do not feel pain which is very good to a point. They will take several rounds into the body and keep going. Brutes if head shoted will die like any mammal monkey looking thing. If you shoot a brute in the face it will not keep charging it WILL die.
Brutes are so tough it's not even funny, they could take an entire pistol clip to the forehead with only mild concussion, when bezerking nothing less than total obliteration of the brain is sufficient to stop them, they also have cool powered armour(with shields) and loads of awesome guns.
Drones are by far some of the weakest covenant beings i have ever seen a burst from a AR will kill two or three. In numbers they do pose a threat but they die so easily they can sometimes be considered hardly a threat.
As korther has said, Drones utterly devastate enemy morale, they are also strong enough to beat two spartans at an arm wrestling contest, at the same time...
Hunters are dangerous and scary, but for a spartan against a spartan are way to slow. You could try to cover the whole body of the hunters colony of eels but i think you would not be able to because hunters need to be exposed the colony of eels have to be, plus if you do close of the whole body by encasing it the hunter would be blind. Examples of spartan superiority. Will 042 tackled two hunters and took them both without a weapon sure he died but he killed one with his bear hands, no elite or brute would be able to do that. Plus it was a cheap shot. Kurt killed a hunter with a rocket while he was dieing. MC killed so many hunter pairs its not even funny.
Actually, I think most brutes would probably be able to do that, and som elites too... but that's not the point, the point is that hunters walk all over puny human infantry, they can block rockets or tank shots with their awesome doom-shields and can put brutes to shame with their resilience, they are also almost impervious to small-arms fire.
Jackals are even weaker then drones. That is why they need those guantlets. Oh you advance with your line of jackals consisting of twenty of them. Nothing a few nades couldn't stop. That is how all jackal advances are stopped. An example of ownage is when spartan Tom killed 4 or 5 jackals right after hitting the floor with his drop pod while he was blinded and winded. Example 2 Adraina 111 i think killed two jackals with ease.
Jackals could out-snipe spartans with eye-implants and armed with the best sniper rifle ever devised, 'nuff said.
Ghosts please In the book The Flood the ghosts were so pathetic one hundred ghosts got wasted by two platoons of marines. Hah don't make me laugh.
Ghosts are armed with plasma weapons, plasma weapons actually MELT through enemies and terrain, canonically the ghost is superior to the warthog... by far.
Wraiths one word Scorpion. Enough said wraiths get demolished by scorpions.
Wraiths are armed with plasma mortars, plasma mortars can fire from miles away, have a large splash and are easily capable of melting a scorpion's hull in one shot, they are superior to scorpions, and they have shields.
Banshees at least we agree on something write. It has been nice debating and so forth
Actually banshees double as air-superiority fighters, meaning that they would rip hornets asunder, they also have fuel-rod guns.