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| More Strategy Tips! |
|
Ah, so you have found your way in here. Sit down, young apprentice
and breath in the wisdom of generations of LSN players. It is here
within these pages where the revelation shall come to you, you will
see the world with new eyes. :-) |
| Corner Dancing |
| Anything can corner dance. It's used in most games.
The purpose of the corner dancing is that your unit shall shoot the
enemy, but not get shot himself. This is how it works. You might remember the concept Opportunity Fire. It is used in corner dancing, however the other fire modes can be used as well. 1) You must find yourself a corner. This doesn't neccessarilly mean a corner. It means that you need to have a place where you can shoot something, and a place where you have cover nearby. It could be a window too. 2) The concept is this. Your unit steps out behind his cover, and does an Opp Fire in the direction of the enemy (other fire modes can be used as well, Direct Fire, etc...). Then he steps back behind cover. 3) Hopefully, this is what happened. Your unit fired his shot at the enemy. The enemy did also fire, but the enemy's shot missed since your unit snuck in behind cover before it got to his location. This can be repeated several times during the same turn. 4) Units that fire fast are better at this. This is because they might be able to shoot the enemy, before the enemy actually gets a shot off. This makes the corner dancing unit a lot safer. They can also corner dance a lot more, since their firing rate is higher. 5) This can be used to fight enemy Snipers with your own Snipers. I am likely to use this against you on the first game on Crossroads. You might notice that my Snipers will fire once, step behind cover, and come out and fire again. Even if your Snipers fired at my Snipers, the distance is so vast the shots will never hit me. 6) At close range, Grunts can fight most slow firing units like this. 7) There are a few things that might interfer with your corner dancing, and is important to take in mind when you do it. (might be a bit advanced) Say that a Grunt is corner dancing against a Sniper. The Sniper has a firing time of 2,5 seconds. If the Sniper has been given four Opp Fire orders at the direction of the Grunt, it might well shoot the Grunt when it pops out, because the Sniper will be aiming already. To avoid this, you need to time the corner dancing so that you pop out just when the Sniper begins another round of aiming, which would be at 2,6 seconds all the way to 3,9 seconds (Grunt has a one second firing time, remember). Then it would again be safe between 5,1 seconds and 6,4 seconds. Then from 7,6 to roughly 9,9 seconds. This could vary depending on the distance of the Sniper. If the Sniper is far away, it could be safe from 2,6 seconds to say 4,2 seconds since the shot has to travel a bit. The point is to avoid being exposed when the enemy unit is in it's final stage of aiming on an Opp fire order. 
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| Use The Map and Gather Information |
| Remember that the enemy is a mortal just like yourself.
If you think he is doing something, he might be doing just that. If
you are wondering what the enemy does, think of what you'd do in his
situations and respond to that. Use the map for this. Check what paths he might be able to take. Don't be too paranoid thinking he's right behind your back. Be reasonable. Secure parts of the map, and make sure he is not in there. Find out where he is by placing Grunts that are corner dancing at positions where they have a good field of view. Think a few turns ahead and plan an ambush. Don't just react to what the enemy does, you must think of something to do after you've reacted to that too. Keep the initiative on your side. For example, sneak up a Grenadiers up that can fire at certain locations before anything neccessarilly is there to shoot at. If you manage to strike the enemy just as he reaches a new spot, it will be hugely to your advantage. |
| Playing vs. Spawn |
| Spawn eat Marines for breakfeast. If you think you're
facing Spawn, don't deploy your forces too scattered. You need to
have them concentrated enough to not be able to be picked off one
by one, and scattered enough not to all be killed by one Splatter
blast. That is a hard balance to achieve. You should place your units in such a position that they have an area around them that is relatively clear. You can create such a no man's land by blowing out buildings with Grenadiers, Snipers and Commanders. Generally it is good to keep a small building in the middle where you will keep covered yourself. At the start you should be worried about Splatters. You can count on the Spawn player to have taken one or two. If you haven't killed them, they're still a great risk. Commanders can kill Splatters pretty good, and at full health they can survive a Splatter blast. Queens can eat corpses to create new units. If you leave a corpse behind, that means that the Spawn just got one guy stronger. Blow up corpses with grenades as often as you can. The Spawn player will also try to attack you with goo. It can be devastating if it strikes units low on health, or if it keeps several units stuck for very long. This is one of the reasons to why it might be good to have a small building to hide in (along with the no mans land around it). Goo Spitters will find it harder to shoot their snots into your building than if you had none. Most often, games of Spawn vs Marines is either or. Either the Spawn win big time, or the Marines win big time. Usually the Spawn player will attempt some sort of rush. He might try to soften you up a bit first, however by using his Splatters or Goo Spitters. Always prepare for a final rush, however. Try to figure out where he is massing up for the rush and strike those locations. 
A Splatter is allowed to get close enough to do damage. This is a crucial mistake. |
| Playing vs. Machina |
| Machina can be a tough nut to crack, but not neccessarilly
as unpredictable as Spawn. With Machina you'll have your family jewels
hanging in the open unless you have sufficient amounts of Commanders
and Snipers ready to go. That means, that you need to care for your
Commanders and Snipers a lot! You should watch out for Missile Tanks. Missiles can blast a Marine force to bits easily. They can fire two missiles each round, and have five missiles availible before they must reload. You should count the missiles fired at you to figure out how many are left. Missile Tanks are weaker than AI:s, even Grunts can do a somewhat good amount of damage too them if left long enough. AI:s should be avoided in close quarter fights. Not only because it explodes at death, but also because it does quite a lot of damage and has a quite rapid firing rate. Both Commanders and Snipers will do a good job plowing through AI:s at medium or long range. You must always consider that the Machina player might have a Scanner. Scanners can see through walls at some range. This means that if you try to sneak up close to a Machina player he might already have seen you! You should always try to figure out where the Scanner is or if he has any. Otherwise all your other plans might be uncertain. Units like Exterminators or Hunters can be quite a nuisance. Hunters die easilly from anything but can still take out HQs that are left unchecked, or Snipers, or damaged units. Exterminators can take some beating, but a Commander can kill them with one shot if a bit lucky. If you let hurt units get away, remember that AI:s can repair them. So always try to kill hurt units before they get healed up! Grenadiers can be good for this. If a Machina player has one or more Missile Tanks, you should aim at killing their HQ as soon as possible. If you do this, they can't reload and the Missile Tanks will be crippled grealtly.  An AI is sent to the scrap by a Commander. This illustrates how AI:s should be killed, as well as the fact that you should not be this close to AI:s when they blow up. The Commander lost about 1/2 of the HP when the blast wave hit him. |
| Playing vs. Marines |
| Marines vs Marines are usually quite enjoyable games.
The units are equal to one another and the main factor to who wins
is the actual use of the units (rather than perhaps deployment). Grenadiers
are very good since Marines can't take that much damage. Grunts aren't
to be forgotten either. Commanders can be of good use as they stand
out as a somewhat more damage resistant unit. Snipers... well I could
go on about every unit like this, but most units will actually be
good in Marines vs Marines games. If you have a balanced force (in opposition to vs. Spawn (more Grunts) or Machina (more Commanders and Snipers)), then you will have a good chance to be the last woman or man standing when the smoke settles. The best advice than can be given is to just try to anticipate the enemy's moves better than the enemy does yours. Keep the initiative and get an edge on the enemy.  An anticipated move. The Grunt and Commander advances under cover of a Grenadier (the grenade he threw is circled in red). The Grenadier kills everything on the other side and inside of the room, while being relatively safe himself. |
| Playings vs. Greys |
|
Playing against Greys is very hard as Marines. Some Marine units
require to be close to the enemy force in order to do damage (Grenadiers,
Grunts). The Greys, however, are deadly at close ranges. |
| Testing Orders |
| Testing Orders is vital to any game. You will want
to do this many times during each round to check so that the moves
perform just as you want them to. Don't send a turn away without testing
orders first! When using Grenadiers you should be extra careful of this, as the grenades can actually be a bit misfired (Grenadiers aren't 100% accurate), meaning the grenade can bounce back on your forces. If you do a test orders a few times, you can see that if the grenades are bouncing back often, you should probably fire at something else with your Grenadier. |
| Keeping On The Move |
| Many players do the mistake to not use all of their
units during a turn. Being a new player, this can be time consuming
- but oh so worth it. If your units are standing still they are easy
targets for anything that wishes to kill them. If you suspect a unit has been spotted by the enemy, don't let it linger. Run away with it or launch an attack at the enemy with it immediately, or lure the enemy into an ambush. Your units have 10 seconds each. Use them! When you watch the game afterwards your units shall move in a continuous movement. They shall not move, stop, move, stop, move, stop! The turns must be tied together and not be played seperately. Especially on the Crossroads map many new players seem to let their units stand still in the middle buildings. Don't do this! It doesn't take much for me to throw a grenade right into the center, and blow them all up :-) |
