What was your first time like as an SL?

[Monoo]

Can't remember. Probably died, horribly.

[Cactos]

My first time as a squad leader was quite the experience. We were on Big Red, and I was leading Alpha squad. Everyone was prepared for FOB duty, and that's exactly what we were assigned to doing. The squad was doing great, following orders, we were a good team. Maybe 20 minutes after landing, the privates had already ran off to the battle, and it was me, the engineers, medics, and specialist holding the FOB. One of the engineers had misplaced a sandbag, and it was backwards. They couldn't break it down with their knives for some odd reason, and neither could I. Eventually they said, "Hey SL, can't you just blow it up with your C4?". I said "Yeah, worth a shot". So I proceeded to get on the tile with the sandbag barricade and click on it with my C4. After a few seconds, I backed up and realized my C4 wasn't on the sandbag. I was very confused until I looked at my character. I had placed the C4 on my character. There were five seconds of pure terror on my engineers' faces before I exploded. I didn't go SL for three weeks after that experience.

[Kesserline]

OH MY GOD CACTOS ! You made me laugh so hard !

Oh poor of you.. but at least that makes a fucking great story to tell !

[WinterClould]

Holy fucking shit that's funny Johnson.

I don't really remember my first time as SL. Pretty sure it was on LV, anddddd it was with Delta... annndddd I think we scouted? Lots of people ignoring me till we eventually all died on the river like hero's. Good shit. I hate playing SL.

[Kesserline]

You hate saving pizzas and cookies too. (I can't forgive you that Chen.. I.. eh.. I really can't..)

[completelynewguy]

Half and half. The only thing I can clearly remember were two experiences: SL with a competent, listening squad; and SL with a middling squad that is predominantly occupied by marines that ignore you. Even then, I think I was a field/emergency-promoted Smartgunner that was lucky during those two experiences.

[lgmmrm]

Couple of days ago I started my SL time. Decently at first, until Command ordered my squad into an assault across the river and no one was willing to take two seconds to actually regroup and cross over as a unit.

[JennerH]

Oh god, so last night I decided to try SL for the first time, but we had absolutely no command staff. The CE was the highest ranking and gave us very rough orders, but said we had pretty much total freedom to lead how we saw fit. On top of that, there were 2 SLs for 4 squads, and no one could communicate with alpha and bravo so they kinda did whatever until they died.

After all that, I still managed to lead Charlie decently (from what people told me, I think I did terrible), and we made a good run to the caves before our smart gunner got her arms ripped off.

Oh, and I managed to tank 5 rav pounces with only bruises

[NenMaster]

So not really squad leader but rather aSL. I was an engineer during the round trying to help a newbie out with stuff, This was during an ice round keep in mind. So our spec,SL and other engi got smooshed by normandy. So i got assigned to it.

Honestly didn't go as bad. I had people who listened to me, and kept in contact. They followed orders went i told'em and kept within viewing distance. So overall a 7/10. Though I wish we had RO atleast listening to me, didn't get a single supply drop when asked.

[Amitt0]

First time was today actually.

Was in command of Bravo squad. FOB DUTY.

Everything was going well. i had 2 fireteams. 1 for response and 1 for guard duty. the guys seemed to like me well enough. I listened and got them the supplies they needed.
The round was strange though. The CO ordered a second FOB set up around LZ2 then moved to the corporate dome. So much to my awesome engineers dismay we had to start dismantling our wonderful fortifications and move the material to the new base as ours was no longer considered important.
I sent the 2nd fireteam with a medic and the SG under the command of the spec to support the fight while me and FT1 worked on tearing down our hard work.

The battle did not go well. The other FOB couldnt be supplied fast enough and wasnt built properly. most of FT2 was killed and everyone started falling back to Nexus WHICH AT THIS POINT WAS NO LONGER WELL PROTECTED. (MY ENGINEERS SCREAMED)
We held out for a while. I called a pretty effective OB and what was left of bravo squad covered the evac on DS1.
At the memorial I was given a medal (my first one) even though i spoke out against the CO's orders which led to needlessly lost lives.
He also mistook my character for a woman....
Anywho, the aliens boarded and we holed up in CIC. i tried to lead a counterattack through the brig and was promptly murdered brutally with a bunch of squad members...

ah well. could have been worse. gotta play it to get better at it.

[Arbs]

It was okay actually. Died a bit early cause i was a noob. I think it was LV though. It was okay as I had gained some experience as an SO at the time.

[nerocavalier]

The sole survivor of my squad was a rambo that ran off alone and didn't die. We also had a massive blob of marines that all went SSD when our connections died and I believe I gave my headset to a Russian marine.

[Rio]

My first time was as Alpha leader on LV during lowpop. I won't make a judgement on my performance, but needless to say it would have been better if command wasn't the CE substituting as an SO, Alamo came down more than once every solar eclipse, and requisitions wasn't busy building an unga fort to declare Cargonia an independent nation. Power went down shipside at some point, meaning there was a 20 minute span where the marines had no contact other than the PO who came down once every 10 minutes.

Marines started getting whiny because the spec was running low on sniper ammo, smartgunner was tapping out on ammo, engi low on metal, etc. Eventually they just started running off into the dark, perhaps for the specific purpose of dying and ending the nightmare. We somehow major'd after nearly 3 hours, but I'd like to think things would have gone much better had shipside not been so tistic.

I will say I did enjoy that round though, mostly because a lot of sitting in the FOB meant people had time to RP their characters and banter. Made it fun to listen to the backstories people cooked up for their spessmen.

[NicoDeimos]

My first round as SL was with Bravo on Big Red. We were given power duty, little did we suspect that the xenos decided to set up a forward nest at the power plant and we ended up walking right into it. Only about half of Bravo managed to escape by running all the way north to the FOB. I had been knocked into crit and had to be dragged along. After that disaster of a first encounter and while I was receiving surgery the remainder of Bravo was swapped with the squad on FOB duty and we just had to stand around and guard while the rest of the fully-intact squads swept through engineering and wiped out the hive.

It was a marine major and I'd like to think it was because of Bravo's early encounter and sacrifice of locating and weakening the bugs, but that was almost exclusively because of the well-played handling of a rough situation by the team itself rather than any leadership on my part. I just issued move orders to get us out as fast as possible.

[Ttly]

Delta, Big Red.

Went to L entrance, all the action is at south research, send FT there, get told for whole squad to move there, our spec killed queen, the end.

[Omicega]

Everyone died about thirty seconds after first contact because it was on Ice and we got sent down the elevator.

[Vispain]

Pretty average. I asked for some tips in LOOC and was lucky. Got FoB with limited combat on the front I think. Took me a while to learn how to use a flamer though ha

[Maxim Inc]

Well a few days ago was not my first time as an SL but my first time as an aSL, though earlier in the round the CO decided to test a "radioman" role in witch volunteers from each squad was given an MP backpack and a command radio. I was not in combat for most of the round what I did is sit just outside of combat I ended up spending the entire round being the only "radioman" doing my job and soon all the gains we had we lost and we quickly lost the round.

[warpwave]

it was hell of stress full since i was playng spec sniper i had to yell orders,snipe,see were everyone was so i dint ff others and had to check for other new orders. on ice colony tryng to fix and hold comunications when i was dry try to get back at
the FOB for ammo get jump by a hunter on the way lose a foot then got save by one of my fellow deltards thank god an SL got in and i was sent to medical. in the end marines won the round and most of delta made it

[HKO20006]

>Ice
>fix tcoms
>engie SSD
>stuck at Tcoms for like for dozen minutes, marines wandering because no fighting
>Tcoms fixed, wait
>other squads fighting underground, head down dorm lift
>caught xeno off guard, chase them to underground engineering then security
>squad shattered around underground, only one and two followed, spec ran off and captured
>won the round alive but only a few round start squadmates lived till the end

TIL you really need to get the squad together

>Prison
>XO: scout north with charlie
>charlie dealt with survivor who nade us at warden office, then the crates, stayed at FOB
>1245 wanted to wait a bit for the doors to down but Spec went ahead
>Spec led the squad from FOB to infirmary to max sec to north high sec to north civ to civ center
>I was capture when pulling out

TIL you can't let Spec lead the squad head first and you better give one or two SBs to the squadmates for safekeeping

[Alky]

Pfft. You guys, a real SL here, not really.

Anyways, my first time as SL was fun. This was during my time as a SO main, so I knew what marines needed, wanted, and where to go. I never played any real combat roles until now, and I always relied on RP than actual shooting at the time where I let marines get killed as I'm relaying information to my SO. This was a rarity, and I frankly don't remember the specifics. But I think I was the SL of Bravo, we were in Big Red. Told to act as a QRF and FOB duty. Most of the I spent relaying information of whatever happened to the SO's on command chat and relaying information to my squad of other SL's discretion.

Funtimes.

[Bancrose]

LV-624

Just walked in, was pretty smooth until some PFC shot me in the foot calling me a Jerry Cuck

Watched that same PFC asked me for help as I watched him get mauled by 3 Elite Hunters.

Carson was CO, Gives me a medal. Was a great day.

[Arbs]

It was sometime after quite some SO rounds. I was delta SL pushed north of hydro into containers.

I do remember itching to use the OB. I still do. So I OBed the containers. Then died sometime later.

Wellp.

[BluntForce420]

i threw an OB in viro, killed 5 things, got rammed by a crusher, and got a medal for it

[ComradeCorbyn]

After alot of rounds as a Lieutenant, I decided to go SL. Lead the Alpha lads to glorious death by the containers trying to hold back beno hordes, in hindsight I should've been much farther back from the front.