What SLs are good? How to play them? Tuned for highest difficulty. What Makes S Tier Long story short, an SL is S tier if they do the following: 1. They are highly relevant in all mission types vs all enemy types 2. There are no good alternatives to replace them because they are the best at what they do For A tier: 1. They are highly relevant and there are only a few alternatives of similar ability OR 2. They are somewhat relevant and there are no alternatives For B tier and below, these SLs aren't powerful enough nor do they provide anything that is game changing. They can generally be replaced by other SLs. We can consider B tier as the "useable" tier and C tier as the "miserable" tier. S Tier (The Darby Tier) Jane Darby Jane Darby Jane Darby is the best starting SL that you can pick and fulfills a role no other SL can do. She is the only SL with the concealment skill Covert Ops. Early on, this allows you to safely scout (combined with Scout) and attack enemies if you equip her with a BR3. Later on, once you acquire the armor Jager Fatigues you will be able to reach 4 concealment. Ironically, this doesn't change much because new enemies will gain more detection. However, against most enemy types, she can safely go pew pew. And she really goes pew pew. Against 30-50 armor targets, she can reliably squad wipe in one or two volleys at maximum range. Her range can be further extended with the Match Grade Ammo. She does have a promotion that gives her 20% range but its unnecessary because of damage and accuracy drop offs. You can deploy her on any type of mission against any type of enemy and she will usually kill 7-10 enemy squads (remember to bring extra ammo). There are two exceptions to this. 1. She doesn't do as well in defend location missions. However, these missions are very hard on maximum difficulty because all 20+ enemy units converge on your location at the same time. Darby is all about killing enemies without being seen, so she won't perform as well in these missions. You can position her outside of the death box and get good flanking value, but she will need to be repositioned once she cleans her flank. 2. She cannot deal enough damage against constructs. However, out of all the infantry SLs, she deals the most damage most consistently. Yes you can run CQC heavy armor infantry for a similar amount of supplies as Darby and deal about half as much damage throughout the mission with some casualties (your burst damage would be higher though). She is still extremely useful on construct missions because she is the only unit that can safely solo hunt construct skirmishers (unless you use radar). And skirmishers are absurd units. They're pretty much Darby with an autocannon, so spotting and killing them before they shoot you is very important. While other SL's might achieve similar value as Darby, there are always substitutes for those SLs. Darby is the only SL that has no substitute and is extremely useful in 90% of the situations. *Special weapons aren't super helpful on Darby, esp if you have BR3 suppressed or BR6. You can give her anti material rifle but she is just so good at killing infantry that you really shouldn't waste her actions on anything else aside from scouting. A Tier Edwin Pike Marta Carda Renu Rewa Edwin Pike Pike can transfer AP to other units. That's pretty much it. He is otherwise a meh infantry SL in a world where infantry is meh. You could build him to deal good rifle damage, but why bother when you have Darby. His main purpose is to give turns to Darby or Rewa. He can also make hit and run tactics possible. A vehicle SL with 40 extra AP can take 2 shots and reverse back out of vision range. He is also a good pick out of the starting pool of SLs. Marta Carda Carda is really bad at the beginning and then becomes the best Mobile Infantry SL. This is because she is cheaper than other Mobile Infantry options and can provide value even with no equipment. She has Team Spirit (5% acc for everyone) and Call Out Target. If your base accuracy (adjusted for distance) is 50%, then Carta can pop out bump you up to 75% for 2 targets. That's a 50% dps increase. If you run naked Carta she costs less than 80 supplies. Boosting your 400 supply Achilles for 80 supplies is a pretty good deal. Aside from here no equipment option, she becomes a very effective Mobile Infantry unit because of Share the Load. Since you don't need armor if you can hide in the trunk, you can splurge on squad size and good guns while also getting free RPG ammo. If you pick her at the beginning she will grow to 90AP pretty quickly which is sufficient. She's in A tier because she is the only support SL that has Mobile Infantry. Renu Rewa Rewa is better than Achilles. She is both cheaper and deals more damage. Fury works perfectly with Revel in Slaughter to give +40% damage on all attacks with no downside (once you get the kills). She is also more ammo efficient, achieving more DPS than Achilles by spending 2 bullets instead of 3. 15% acc with +40% damage is more than a 50% increase in DPS, unless you are above 85% ACC. Remember to grab expert pilot on her (and all pilots). It is the best skill for pilots bc they can move forward, shoot, and move back into smoke or concealment (due to vision range). Works best with autocannons or M6 heavy mg. She will often need extra ammo from resupply OCI combined with extra vehicle ammo accessory, since you will be shooting twice with her every turn (3 with pike). B Tier Kody Griefinger Achilleas Kainoo Gabriel Exconde Charles Lim Fedor Yazhov Kody Griefinger (AKA not Darby) Griefinger is not Darby. He is still a very strong infantry SL with a less consistent damage bonus compared to Darby. However, he doesn't have concealment so he is vulnerable like all other infantry units. You can build him as light infantry, heavy infantry, whatever you want. However, he doesn't do Darby's job at all because he doesn't have Covert Ops and also he doesn't get Mobile Infantry. Long story short, if an infantry unit is not Mobile Infantry nor Covert Ops, they need armor or else they will die to mortars/artillery/short barrel tank guns. Even if they have armor (now they cost as much as Darby), they are still vulnerable to suppression. Rogue army conscripts can reliably suppress infantry units, so its not a good investment of 400 supply. Achilleas Kainoo Kainoo is very expensive. Most of the time you can just run Exconde and achieve similar results. The extra AP is nice but you won't deal as much damage as Renu Rewa even if you take 3 shots per turn. If you choose to damage yourself before engaging, then a guaranteed hit ATGM after getting marked will simply end you. On max difficulty, relying on Shield Wall is not a good idea. However, he is a usable pilot and you sometimes want a 3rd pilot on certain missions (vs constructs mostly). Otherwise, he does well in mobile infantry setups too. He's just not exceptional. Gabriel Exconde Exconde is a defensive pilot when defense is bad. Sentry? Use cover get suppressed. Hotwire? Don't get EMP'd (5 range weapon on pirates). Divine Intervention? Actually pretty good (better than Shield Wall). The problem is that pilots are there to deal tons of mobile damage. On max difficulty, its usually safer to chunk enemies at max range than to try and flank. The AI will chase you so if you just reverse and poke, they will leave cover and flank themselves. Exconde's help you when you get shot, but the goal is to kill enemies before they can shoot back. Still, he is one of 3 usable pilots. The other two pilots are extremely disappointing (Ivey is usable but not really). Charles Lim / Fedor Yazhov They have Mobile Infantry and are not Carda. Lim is better in terms of accuracy from Point Fire (relevant for RPG teams). Most of the time you will be giving these guys RPGs or AM rifles because the only threat at long range to vehicles are other vehicles. If its not a vehicle, your vehicle can suppress it. C Tier Garry Boganwright Ivory Isom Sachin Singh Jacques Yves Vamplew Tekko'Beo Phosa Jean Sy Ivory Isom / Garry Boganwright 90 AP on a vehicle is pretty much unplayable. Bog can run a pirate truck + radar when Darby is not available. Ivory can in theory become a good pilot over time, but she doesn't join you at the start like Carda does. Furthermore, she provides no value at extreme cost while Carda provides extreme value at almost no cost. Sachin Singh Remove PIke's best ability and you get Singh. He will do absolutely nothing to constructs. Jacques Yves Vamplew Not mobile infantry. Can get suppressed. Will often get suppressed by pirates that can't even hurt him in his 90 armor. Tekko'Beo Phosa At first it seems like this is a really useful ablity, to fire without deploying. However, once you realize that many good special weapons require double deploying (M6 CMG, Autocannon) or no deploying (RPG1, RPG2), his ability is kind of pointless. You can argue the heavy RPGs (PAL and MAAL) are worth it. However, 60AP to shoot is a lot more expensive than 40AP. You can't double shot and you can move shoot and move back. AM rifle does benefit from his perk and lets you shoot and move. Otherwise, same as Vamplew but more useful early on. Jean Sy Vamplew but you don't have to run heavy armor. Except why deploy an infantry unit without armor and without Mobile Infantry? Her stats are bad and she doesn't do anything well. Pirate's luck is just worse Divine Intervention and allows her to get suppressed. J.G. Wetteroth Aliens are not a particularly challenging enemy type, unless its a defense mission. If it is a defense mission, you can just lose on max difficulty and carry on. He has Carda stats without Carda growths or support. Playstyle This tier list assumes you want to minimize casualties and vehicle losses. The problem with the current balance is how suppression is simply way too effective. Player vehicles can often suppress 2 infantry squads per turn. Enemy vehicles can do the same thing to player infantry squads. However, player infantry squads will have trouble suppressing enemy infantry squads (unless they are Darby). This is because as the game progresses, the enemy discipline and armor improve faster than the player's weapons and accuracy. Some options (eg. 80AP on AR to suppress) are not available to a player's infantry squad (spending whole turn to deny an enemy whole turn is unsustainable because they have 20+ squads). Furthermore, enemy infantry suppression improves faster than player discipline. This means that you will get suppressed by Rogue Army Infantry very consistently. This forces players to use vehicles and Mobile Infantry. Unlike infantry, vehicles can disengage because only a fraction of enemy units can damage vehicles. Because the player and enemy take turns moving, it is more likely the enemy chooses a unit that can suppress than a unit that can damage vehicles. Furthermore, suppression doesn't miss, but RPGs do. Sometimes, you will see RPGs miss your vehicles and suppress your infantry. infantry are also extremely vulnerable to artillery, mortars, snipers, etc. Infantry are also less supply dense, meaning you need to deploy more of them. This means that you will find yourself in a situation where you have to move 2 units out of danger, but only have 1 turn (the other will get suppressed and miss their turn). Mobile infantry allows you to move 2 units in 1 turn, avoiding enemies when necessary.