MENACE Guide for Beginners
MENACE can be pretty overwhelming with all of its mechanics and the walls of text covering your screen, but once you get a firm grasp of how the game works, it becomes much easier (or at least, as easy as a hardcore tactics game can get). If you’re new to MENACE, you might find yourself wondering what to do or how things work. This guide will walk you through your first mission, covering some of the most crucial parts of the game along the way.
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Pick Your Starting Lineup
We strongly recommend starting with the following Squad Leaders:
- Darby has the best stats out of all starting Infantry units, and she can completely neutralize enemy special weapons like chainguns and rocket launchers.
- Pike is a fantastic support character who can give other units extra AP.
- Rewa is a vehicle pilot who can snowball in battles by stacking Accuracy and Discipline after destroying enemies.
- Carda is a cheap character who can grow stats very quickly.
This is a balanced setup that fully uses each characters’ strengths. Have Carda board Rewa’s troop transport so they can serve as your vanguard with Pike following closely. Meanwhile, use Darby as your scout/flanking unit so you can take advantage of her high AP and Accuracy. If you want to focus on using vehicles, pick Achilleas instead of Rewa, and Lim instead of Darby.
Picking Your First Operation
After picking your starting crew, you’ll find yourself in the System Map. There’s a whole bunch of options to your left as well as one planet with a random Operation on it. We’re going to ignore the former for now, since there’s not much you can do with them at this point.
Your first mission will put you against either Pirates or Aliens. As much as possible, you start by fighting Pirates first since you can get a lot of useful loot from them. If you end up getting an Alien Operation, accept it, then Abort it immediately. This will reduce your Reputation with whatever faction offered the job, but thankfully, you start with 0 Reputation, and that number can’t go any lower than that. If you’re lucky, you might even gain Reputation.
Planning Your First Mission
Once you start an Operation, select a mission, then start the planning phase. The first thing you’ll want to do is maximize your Supply Cost usage. To do this:
- Select Rewa’s portrait and equip the Light Troop Carrier vehicle, then add her to the mission by pressing the button to the right of her name above her info card.
- Select each of your Infantry squads, then press the small + button next to the Unequip Squad button. This will increase the number of Squaddies present in the squad itself, giving you more firepower.
- Arm your squad with special weapons, if you have any.
- Equip your Infantry units with Magazine Pouches to increase their total ammo count for their main weapons.
In each new campaign, you start with 50 Squaddies in reserve, and if one dies, they’re gone permanently. You can recruit more later via the Black Market.
Adjust Your Deployment Zone
The tactical map to the left of the Mission Prep screen shows the location of enemies, objectives, and your deployed characters. You can drag and drop your squads’ icons to any tile within the Deployment Zone (highlighted in bright orange).
Pay attention to where potential enemies are and plan your approach from there.
Commanding Your Troops
MENACE’s combat flow can be boiled down into three simple steps: suppress, flank, and destroy. Throughout a mission, you’ll be constantly trying to secure a position where you can do this. Move from cover to cover, use your Squad Leader’s perks and abilities, and try your best not to get your people killed.
Here are some important tips you can incorporate into your MENACE gameplay:
- You can choose which of your units act whenever it’s your turn to move, provided that unit hasn’t moved yet during that round.
- All units, hostile or friendly, receive an AP and Accuracy penalty when Suppressed, and they won’t be able to take any action (besides crawl) when they’re Pinned Down. Use this knowledge to safely move your troops around the map while in a firefight.
- Units (both yours and the enemy’s) will lose morale if they or their allies take losses. You can send multiple enemy squads running for their lives by using shock and awe tactics that inflict heavy casualties and suppression.
- Use vehicles to transport low-AP units like Carda over long distances.
- Make sure your vehicles are always facing their front toward the enemy.
- Use the Deploy skill to gain a bonus to Accuracy and defenses, at the cost of 20AP and the inability to move.
- The L100 Rocket Launcher is surprisingly good at sniping enemy units. Unless there’s a high-priority armored enemy on the field, feel free to use this against infantry.
- You can shoot at and hit enemies that aren’t visible to your troops by issuing a fire order on what tile you think they’re standing on.
Post-Battle Rewards
Completing missions will earn you some spoils, a random reward based on the mission you completed, as well as some Promotion Points. You can either use the loot you received or sell them in the Black Market for better gear.
Black Market Recommendations
We strongly recommend buying either a K-PAC Assault Rifle for Darby or a Crowbar Battle Rifle for Carda. These will significantly enhance their lethality during your first few Operations.
There is no currency for trading in the Black Market. Every transaction based on item value; if you over-sell, you won’t get any spare change, and you won’t be able to just sell items for money either.
Promoting Squad Leaders
Promotions will let you unlock a new perk for your Squad Leader. However, this will also increase the SL’s Supply Cost based on their Supply Cost Tax stat. While it may be tempting to fully-upgrade someone, doing this isn’t always the best course of action as it may force you to compromise your other units.
OCI Components
At the end of an Operation, you’ll get OCI Components, which you can use to unlock new features for your base. These upgrades are crucial for keeping up with the enemies in MENACE, and they include things like better intel gathering for the map in the Mission Prep phase, fire support stratagems like strafing runs and artillery salvos, and other passives like faster healing for injured units.
Faction Reputation
Successful Operations will also increase your reputation with the faction that requested your aid. By leveling up your Reputation with them, you’ll also be able to unlock more OCI facilities. You’ll still need to build the facilities themselves by using OCI Components.
- Sometimes, having more squads with fewer soldiers in each is better than having fewer squads with more people each. This is usually the case during defense missions where enemies can come from all directions.
- Build Sensors on your ship first to help you plan your missions more effectively.
- Turning Pike’s squad into a dedicated support weapon platform is great for saving up on Supply Costs. Keep 3–4 Squaddies with him, and he’ll be good to go.
- Carda has the potential to be one of the best units in MENACE thanks to her high Growth Potential stat. Use her as often as possible, so her stats can rise quickly.
- Fighting the Alien faction is great if you want to stock up on trading goods.
- Quality is better than quantity, as far as the early game is concerned. Focus on kitting out your squads first before getting new ones.