"Question. Which Spartan is best?"
"That's a ridiculous question."
"False. Master Chief."
"Well, that's debatable. There are basically two schools of thought."
"Spartans shoot Sangheili. Spartans. Sangheili.....Battle Star Galactica."
Posted by: anton1792
Posted by: hotshot revan II
Posted by: OrderedComa
UNSC usually win the ground battles, it's mostly in space where the Covies have technological superiority and kick major ass.
And frankly I think the Covenant are ridiculously overpowered in the books, the way the books portray things there should not have been any UNSC victories at all, and humanity should have gone extinct. Now gameplay is certainly not accurate either, but it's a helluva lot better. I take an almost neutral point of view, I view neither as accurate, so I take a middle ground in regards to the power of Covie military tech.
Why are they overpowered?
I think people just over estimate their tactical and strategic prowess and underestimate the UNSC. The Covenant (Or at least the Shipmaster in the Return) described Humanity as the greatest threat the Covenant had ever faced. (Apart from the Flood obviously.)
The thing about those jerks in the Covenant is that they weren't innovators. All they could do is imitate technology and use what they had found. They didn't have the abstract thinking that the humans had, and that's what made the humans dangerous. In space the Covies would kick their dicks left and right in a straight out battle - but due to some crazy human stuff, we'd win a few. Humans could hold their own on the ground, pretty well. Especially with Spartans.