A beginner's guide to the Menace that is filled while I'm exploring the game. Starting a new game and initial squad leaders You have the options for Ironman, a seed, and difficulty. If you are new to these games, or Battle Brothers, or if you don't want brain hemorrhage in the first game, don't do Ironman, and start in Normal. If you are experienced, go as you wish. Normal difficulty gives you a few starter items, and it allows for a better supply point rate, i.e. less stringy unit deployment. The next thing is to select your starters. You have a couple of options here: 5 infantry 3 pilots It is usually recommended to start with 3 infantry and 1 pilot, as you only have one vehicle at start. For the first try selecting the characters is a bit overwhelming. The game tries to help you with a star rating about the squad leaders, but that is a bit tricky, as it doesn't always translate to real combat capability, especially after late game. Infantry: All starting infantry has the perks Scout, Athletic, Solid Grouping, Buff, Bags & Belts, and New Tricks available to them. Darby: Darby is very decent. She is the sniper squad leader. She is a vanguard/commando unit, good for stealth. Covert ops, Ambush and Sharpshooter are a very nice combo on her. Standby can be strong. Darby also has exceptional accuracy out of the box, and good growth potential. Her special is good against weapons teams or taking out an annoying RPG launcher before it accidentally breaks your tank in two with a lucky shot. Lim: Lim is also a very strong option. He has even more growth potential, and he is a mobility gunner and CQC. One of the squad leaders to have the Mobile Infantry perk for quick entering or exiting the APC, which makes him fairly mobile and tanky while travelling, though it is a bit more wasted on him in a gunner/CQC role. Blaze of Glory, Berserk, Counterstrike, Pointfire, Grenadier, Return of Serve, Stubborn and Run and Gun all point towards CQC role; returning fire and grenades to suddenly incoming enemies around the corner, and managing suppression and mobility. Pike: Pike is a support/gunnery option. His special can be very strong and outright life saving depending on the other team members, or it can be a bane of your action economy (as much as Mobile Infantry can). Pike has good stats but low growth potential. Pike is always a welcome option, especially later. As far as my investigation goes, Pike's ability to mark doesn't help with indirect targeting. Carda: Carda starts with abysmal stats, but the best out of the box growth potential. Her special cripples her even more for the first 3 rounds, after it it is a net gain. She is the real peekaboo-style Mobile Infantry, a passenger princess by heart, at least while she is greenhorn and doesn't have the staying power or usefulness. It also helps to mitigate the malus in the first 3 rounds. Other than that, Carda is amazing for a special weapons team, jumping out the vehicle, shooting 2 RPGs, then moving back. If you are using her as a more stationary weapons platform, for instance for defense missions, Steady Gun is amazing and can get her in the shooting game. First Aid and Call Out Target is useful while Carda isn't, in the early game, or in the first few rounds, but apparently it doesn't serve as a Target Designator for indirect fire. Tech: Tech has a foul mouth, great HP and tanking, and the ability to use bigger guns without deployment (though he still benefits from the accuracy and defense bonus, but it is partially mitigated by the Pointfire perk). While there are some that can be used by anyone on the run (sniper rifles, RPGs, light machineguns, EMP gun), and some that even Tech can't use without setting up (tripod weapons), he can use a couple more, including PAL and the Crocodile Antimatter Rifle. He is also the best starting grenadier, having access to Quick Hands, Fragmentation, and Long Bomb. Tech is a very good option for a tanky CQC character that can bring the bigger guns into a knife fight. Pilots: All pilots start with the Expert Pilot, Solid Grouping, Tankbuster, and New Tricks perk options. Bog: Bog starts with bad stats, and he has the lowest growth potential along with Pike. However, he is very cheap to field, even more so with Recycled Parts, which makes him a glass cannon. He is fairly tanky with Zig-zag, Minimize Silhouette, Fortify and Hotwire, but better used as a ranged platform because of low HP if you select Recycled Parts. He has Steady Gun for that purpose. He is also the crit shooter with Critical Hits and Lucky Shot, but his base stats and slow growth won't take him anywhere for a while. Steady Gun helps if he is a long-range indirect fire guy. Bog is the only starting pilot that has Standby. Rewa: Rewa is the Vanguard Commando pilot, and an offensive damaging one. She has a very good special to chain kills, has Berserk, Finisher, Fury, Grind Down, Tankbuster, and To Shreds to make short of any vehicle she founds (and basically everything else). She also has good growth potential for a pilot. She is the recommended pick. Achilleas: Achiilleas is the Vanguard Walker spec, and the most CQC of the pilots. Fairly tanky with Shieldwall, Zig-Zag, Fortify, and Disruptive Fire, and a fairly heavy hitter with Lancer, Critical Hits, Full Send, and Tankbuster. Keep in mind, that Lancer is only in CQC range, so you might not want it first (and later on it is also situational). Other squad leaders These are the ones I got crossed with so far: Greifinger: The other vanguard sniper. Less stealthy than Darby, but more damaging - Guerilla, Assassin, Tankbuster are the perks he needs to damage like hell. Sharpshooter helps to deliver the message. He is very good with anti-tank weapons that give you a big bang, or even with the Crocodile. Jean Sy: She is very cheap with low starting AP and skills, and a not-too-good growth potential. She is the accessories gal - Resourceful, Quick Hands, and Scavenger can make her a beast with disposable launchers and the like. Trinketing increases drop rate for items, so this makes her the one you would like to use for high value targets, or to luck out a few more jaeger armors or something. Steady Gun, Pirate's Luck, and Disruptive Fire makes her a kinda sniper/countersniper. The Yaz: He is a terror trooper. Gives out more morale damage and shoots better against feared enemies. He is a CQC with Mobile Infantry, or Commando, depending on which one do you want. Good stats and good growth potential, though low starting accuracy, it gets fixed in close range with Close And Personal. Very strong against aliens, weaker against morale immune enemies. Sachin: Another 1 star candidate like Jean Sy and Carda. Has okay stats for a guy this cheap and better than average growth potential. He is actually fairly accurate if his squad is full. His quirk is to fire cheaper squad weapons, fire them more often, and do great suppression. That also means that his main quirk is wasted on aliens and vehicles, but is very decent against any infantry from rogue army or pirates. He prefers to not have special weapons but gets no bonuses to accessories either. Vamplew: a kinda masochist squad leader that gets AP back if he is shot at. Shooting Gallery has an interesting damage synergy with vehicles and enemies in the open, though usually those are not the enemies you have trouble to hunt down. Has Critical Hits and Full Send. Okay stats but no too high growth potential. Has an unique taunt ability. Wetteroth: the big alien hunter. Has a melee attack, a bleed, Critical Hits, and Finishing shots stacks up with how much wounded the enemy is. He has good accuracy but low discipline and action points, however, he is dirt cheap. His growth potential ain't too high either. Exconde: a pilot that gets bonuses from adjacent infantry and gives better cover to them. It is a support/scout/sniper that tanks well. Ivey: she is the Carda of the pilots. Goof growth potential with starting stats that are worse than Bog. She is amazing with heavy weapons, ultimately shooting them by -10 AP for the first shot and -20 starting from the second shot. If you get her early, like Carda and Lim, she can become a beast. Very decent and very cheap pilot. Weapons Weapons are divided into categories: Squad Weapons: they are carried by squaddies (and the leader if it doesn't have a special weapon). Basically there are a couple of different weapon classes, and a few modified versions. BR3A3 Kr-BAR "Crowbar" - big hits, good armor pen, but low rate of fire. Greatest range (9). R14A2 ARC - best damage, good armor damage, low armor pen, good rate of fire. Smallest range (7). R10A6 K-PAC - middle range (8), middle armor pen, smallest damage, but good rate of fire. MP3A9 PPP - very high rate of fire, low armor pen and armor damage, very low range (5). MK46MOD2 SPC - longer range (6) SMG that has double the penetration of the PPP, but lower damage. Comparable to the pirate SMG. Stoneclad CS185 - shotgun. Very high armor damage, very low armor penetration. Lowest range (4).. Shreds armor like there is no tomorrow, especially with Rend Ammo. CQB variants: So far, I've met these: "CSP" ARC: +2 hit point and armor damage, lower optimal range and higher falloff, but +10 base accuracy. "CQB" K-PAC: -1 range and +1 ROF, and a sharp descent of accuracy over the board. MOD2 Carbine: this is a modified crowbar with +10 accuracy and a shorter optimal range. Silenced variants: These are very good for stealth sqads, but are beneficial to everyone in long range. MOD3 Suppressed - a crowbar that is a squad level silent sniper rifle. Also has +10 accuracy over the regular gun. "SOCC" ARC - +10 accuracy and a slightly better accuracy profile over the regular gun. "SOF" K-PAC - +10 accuracy and +1 hp damage over the regular K-PAC Other: "Range" ARC: +1 range, +5 armor pen, and a better accuracy profile at range. Pirate looted PDW: SMG that has way less damage and less suppression but double the armor penetration of the PPP. Special Weapons: SR31-HM SPR: poor man's Crocodile, it is a sniper with very nice infantry armor penetration, but only one shot, compared to the normal sniper rifle's 2 shots. Very decent on larger bugs or smaller pirate trucks. Has 75 armor penetration, 40 armor damage and 30 hp damage. Anti-Materiel Rifle "Crocodile": The big brother, with 110 pen, 70 armor damage, and 80 hp damage. K-SAS Designated Marksman Rifle: True sniper rifle, shots twice, so 2 shots from it can kill any weapons team in extreme ranges. 45 armor penetration, 25 armor and hp damage. I was lucky to get a T2 version of it (only has placeholder name for now), and it is even better. That one is good against light vehicles too. Vehicle weapons: Light walkers can equip one medium weapon, as do pirate trucks. I've seen a medium mech in the store, but as it was priced at 6000 trade value, I had no chance to try it out. I never had the luck for a tank either. The Light Troop Carrier can accept a medium or a heavy weapon. It usually can have a light one too, except in case of the Twin M6 Heavy Machine Gun, which doesn't allow for that. Heavy weapons disable troop carrying capacity, making the IFV a small tank instead. By the time you get to the bigger weapons you will have a good understanding of the game, but a few to remark: Long barreled tank gun is good against tanks. Autocannon is good against normal vehicles. Minigun or Twin M6 is good against soft targets as they shoot _a lot_. ATGM is a very strong weapon especially if you have some way to indirect fire. Laser lance seems good on paper, but it is 60 AP (like the tank gun and the ATGM), but it shoots twice and you often have to purge the heat for another 60, so it is basically 90 AP if you are using it as sustained fire. Vehicles After meeting the Menace, a few new options come in, like the IFV and the Medium Walker. The IFV is similar to the troop transport you get, with similar slots, but it gets 150 armor (+25 from LTC) and 400 hp (+150 from LTC). It also have 8 vision (+1 over LTC). It is also 380 supply points (160 more than the LTC). It costs 880 trade value. The Medium Walker gets 140 armor (+30 over the light), 250 hp (+90 over the light), and plus one medium weapon. It also 400 supply point (220 more than the light). It costs 1000 trade value. While the Medium Walker sounds prohibitly expensive, it is a very good upgrade, because it can get both AT and anti-infantry weapons. Or it can use 2 laser lances and fire every round. Team composition examples Girls und Panzer: Get Carda, Darby and Rewa at the start. Get also Tech because she is Disney Princess Terry Crews now, and because you can't get a 4th girl otherwise at the start. Luck in Ivey as your second tanker. Also luck in Jean Sy. The team is: Carda: infantry special weapon platform Rewa: attack girl with any wehicle or walker that you come across. Ivey: your heavy weapon platform LTC, and later IFV (or tank if you have one). Depending on the enemy, long barrel tank gun or twin heavy machine gun is her toy. Darby: your stealth sniper Jean Sy: your loot sniper Princess Tech: CQB fighter (if needed), One or two other squad leader if the girls get tired. Lim, Greifinger, and Achilleas are good candidates.