Preferred SL playstyle?

[JennerH]

What's your preferred way to lead?

I tend to let the SO take the brunt of the orders so I can focus on the combat and keeping my troops alive. When I play SL I'm very aggressive, as I've found I can take a huge beating before I'm down and out, and as long as I'm not stupid about it and have marines with me, I'll almost always get saved by marines if I get downed.

One of my favorite things to do is to field the motion tracker or give it to someone reliable, and individually hunt the xenos if they try to sneak up on us, tends to work out really well. I also always aggressively push the queen, usually making her screech early by unloading on her, maybe getting me or someone else to get close enough to make her warrant a scream but not close enough that we can't save them. It's worked out really well and I've gone toe to toe with the big bitch a few times, usually winning. I have a habbit of neglecting cas because I rarely in my playstyle find a location or a time to use it, but I use OBs all the time.

I'm a 'no man left behind' kind of SL, where if I see a marine go down, no matter the case, I'll try to pull them back to us. Honestly SLs need to do this more often because we have the Armor, we have the gear (if you hit req), and it really improves morale if you prevent marines getting kidnapped. I also tend to get good karma treatment for being the hero, where doing good shit for people makes them want to return the favor, which has kept me alive most of my games. I'm also not afraid of getting injured and crippling blows as a spec tend to be a lot less important for me as SL personally. I rarely willingly get my bones fixed, opting for a splint and tram and returning for the fight, because the longer I'm out of action is the longer my men are dying without me able to do something about it and typically a broken rib, fractured arm and a cracked skull aren't crippling enough to paincrit if you keep splints on and take tram occasionally, and worse injuries than that are rare because of leader armor.

Oh jeeze, I rambled. Well, what's your playstyle? Is mine a bad playstyle? I don't think so, but I'm relatively new to SL so I dunno

[Sargeantmuffinman]

Passive for me. I'm not gonna risk everything for one marine and I'd like to support marines with CAS, supplies and orders.

[JennerH]

Passive for me. I'm not gonna risk everything for one marine and I'd like to support marines with CAS, supplies and orders.

See, this sounds nice on paper, and of course I lay beacons diwn, and I always give 1 beacon to someone else to increase chances if still having one, but I find my style actually makes me live longer the other SLs, and leads us to victory, or at least close to it. And I have nothing against cas, but I've just never been able to get it to work out for me, and the xenos tend to be indoors or in a cave so it's kind of moot.

And I give orders when I have them but my SO is usually on the ball with keeping up with what I'm doing so if they do all the work for me I let them so I can lead a push.

To each their own I guess

[Amaxin]

I absolutely adore flexible SLs. Able to adapt to every situation, realizing that flanks are a thing and work for both sides, aware of the situation, the people in their squad, the supplies. Calling CAS is an another good thing, but completely relying on it usually leads to disappointment since either the xenos flee from the laser, or the pilot goofs something up.

Initiative and creative thinking is yet an another cool thing. Command, sitting on the bridge, doesn't always have a full picture of what's going on. Filling the gap and finishing crucial tasks without being asked for it feels great for the whole squad, as long as it works and it's blown out of proportion.

[JennerH]

I absolutely adore flexible SLs. Able to adapt to every situation, realizing that flanks are a thing and work for both sides, aware of the situation, the people in their squad, the supplies. Calling CAS is an another good thing, but completely relying on it usually leads to disappointment since either the xenos flee from the laser, or the pilot goofs something up.

Initiative and creative thinking is yet an another cool thing. Command, sitting on the bridge, doesn't always have a full picture of what's going on. Filling the gap and finishing crucial tasks without being asked for it feels great for the whole squad, as long as it works and it's blown out of proportion.

Exactly! Monday I led a flank around research as alpha SL, I actually didn't have any other alphas with me, it was just me and 4 deltas, a Charlie and a bravo, and we singlehandedly killed 7 xenos according to the motion tracker when we went into the flank. There was a crusher, a rav, a couple hunters, a spitter and a drone, maybe something else, and because the 7 of us decided to take charge, we crippled the xenos and brought a stalemate in research to a swift and easy cleanup job.

If I'd stayed back behind the front just dishing out orders more marines would have died and we might have lost the momentum to push, and more xenos would have retreated to lambda than had already, which would have made the swift lambda takedown a shitshow.

[Skimmy2]

Sadly I find SOs acting as more support then my superior officer who gives me orders, I find COs tend to over step them and issue orders directly.
Regardless I treat the Lieutenant as the great overwatch in the sky that makes everything easier.

I organize my squad into fireteams and issue orders to them with mild amounts of micromanagement, fostering stronger leadership amongst the NCOs and dividing the burdens of command.
Overall i prefer to be passive when possible, and maintain as much control as I can, moving from point A to point B is an ordeal I place thought into to ensure the marines dont become lost or bogged down.
My personal fighting skills are mediocre so I just stay close to the front and maintain situational awareness more then I do fighting, however I get a little glory eyed and attempt to organize counter assaults a lot, with lets just say "varying degrees of success".

Overall, enjoy FOB duty/defense as it offers the greatest control over your squad and prevents unexpected casualties.

[Monoo]

IMO if you're pinning yourself down with one "style" while playing SL, you're limiting your potential a lot.

It's one of the most dynamic roles in the game and requires good intuition and a sense of responsibility. Ideally you'll want to be hanging back and using your binocs to give orders and provide air support, as an overly aggressive frontline SL is easily killable and costs the Marines the majority of their resources when they do die. But there are also times when you're needed to herd your squad around a xeno hardpoint or use your leadership to spearhead a charge.

Don't identify yourself as a passive or aggressive SL, just lead.

[JennerH]

Sadly I find SOs acting as more support then my superior officer who gives me orders, I find COs tend to over step them and issue orders directly.
Regardless I treat the Lieutenant as the great overwatch in the sky that makes everything easier.

I organize my squad into fireteams and issue orders to them with mild amounts of micromanagement, fostering stronger leadership amongst the NCOs and dividing the burdens of command.
Overall i prefer to be passive when possible, and maintain as much control as I can, moving from point A to point B is an ordeal I place thought into to ensure the marines dont become lost or bogged down.
My personal fighting skills are mediocre so I just stay close to the front and maintain situational awareness more then I do fighting, however I get a little glory eyed and attempt to organize counter assaults a lot, with lets just say "varying degrees of success".

Overall, enjoy FOB duty/defense as it offers the greatest control over your squad and prevents unexpected casualties.

Oh jeeze, I absolutely despise FOB duty. I just feel useless because all I do is sit tight, listening to other squads get destroyed and occasionally drop a supply beacon. And on ICE you can't even use cas at either LZ so I'm even more useless there. I shine as a SL with anything but FOB duty and I take it really hard when our FOB fails in some way, because I should have been guiding the engies better or something. FOB just isn't fun for me. Also doesn't help that most of my PFCs sneak off with another squad to get some action instead of staying put like they were told

[Szunti]

Oh jeeze, I absolutely despise FOB duty. I just feel useless because all I do is sit tight, listening to other squads get destroyed and occasionally drop a supply beacon. And on ICE you can't even use cas at either LZ so I'm even more useless there. I shine as a SL with anything but FOB duty and I take it really hard when our FOB fails in some way, because I should have been guiding the engies better or something. FOB just isn't fun for me. Also doesn't help that most of my PFCs sneak off with another squad to get some action instead of staying put like they were told

I agree, FOB duty is the worst. You can see how your squad dies inside and you can't do anything. When you get the permission to leave everybody lost their temper already, your squad had no chance to warm up or get used to each other and probably the marines are losing if you are needed, so it often ends terribly.

[JennerH]

I agree, FOB duty is the worst. You can see how your squad dies inside and you can't do anything. When you get the permission to leave everybody lost their temper already, your squad had no chance to warm up or get used to each other and probably the marines are losing if you are needed, so it often ends terribly.

Exactly. The best I can do in that situation is to try and get as many of my squad out alive when the FOB falls, and hopefully myself as well so I can assist in the defense of the Almayer.

[Heckenshutze]

Sign the petition, #nomorefobduty

[Trench007]

The FOB is obsolete, if you need a FOB to win, you've already lost.

[jalen earl]

Sometimes i lead in point but most times im 3-4 guys back, too much useful stuff for me to risk getting ganked and dragged off at the first line of resistance which ive seen happen way too many times while being an SO. Also a lower risk of getting FF by your own men.

I tend to designate a robust marine as point and keep the spec and SG close to me in case i need them.

[Kesserline]

I trust my men in the early-round. Usually, I have some fucking good robust marines, and now I'm way more familiar in combat, I am not afraid of being ganked during scouting. So, I usually lead and go on point during early-round and early-engagements.

Mid-round I usually let some of the men get in front, no more than 2 (they tend to gets ahead of me but still on the sides to let me give them directions). When a heavy fight occurs, I usually stay back for a certain amount of time (reporting contact to command, reporting contact to all squad, current location, and thinking for 10 seconds about a way to deal with that : push/hold/retreat/movement to another location).

Late-round, I lost most of my good men, usually, morale is low. If I'm still alive, I go on point, charging in the frontline, flanking desperately or pushing desperatly to inspire grunts behind me.

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My worst weakness is going for helping an endangered marine, even not from my squad. I tend to go all gun blazing and I usually throw my round away by getting counter-charged by the queen + screech or kidnapped by a neurotoxspam from across a corner.

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Offense/Defense ?

I prefer offensive, because offensive tend to make you kill xenos. A killed xeno doesn't go regen itself for 20 seconds and then comeback. But yet, you can't make a good offensive without having your flanks/rear secured. Offensive is not a "all-good" choice So, some times, you have to dig in.

My defense playstyle is usually tactical retreat from 5 to 20 tiles, then, counter-attacking. This can lead overextending xenos to get slaughtered, but has a great weakness : the screeching-queen when you counter-attack. Before pushing, if I feel that's the push is risky, or a counter-attack is easy from the enemy, I dig in a little, before pushing. Just to have some barricades where to fall back in case things go wrong.

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@Monoo : your leadership is based on your personality as a human being. Your tactical choices yet, can still be improved by sharping your tactical view/analysis of a situation. But yet, your way of leading your guys heavily depends on your way of being on your daily basis, as simple as that.

So, a big part of your leadership, especially on videogames, is deeply influenced by who you are, as human being. Take the example of COs. You can clearly detects COs that love frontline and are used to lead men like SLs, and those who stay on the ship until they actually NEED to go to fight (sometimes on the Almayer, not before).

[Gnorse]

If you're an SL main, you should probably have a preffered squad.
Sure, you can manage as Alpha SL if you're a charlie main, but If you get charlie, most marines will be used to you and might actually acknowledge that you exist.
I've seen two kinds of SLs. First one is passive, staying behind, relaying orders and the like. And while I don't disagree with that, it's a waste of firepower if you don't shoot. I'm not asking you to charge in, just to shoot whatever comes close.
Second kind is agressive SLs. And well, they usually die first.
As for me, I'd say I've been playing in charlie long enough for most people to know me, And so I try to 'discuss' with my squad about what action we should take next.

[Caryl]

Be flexible, set-up in a place a few tiles away from the engagement, preferrably 10-20 tiles. Always think a step ahead, fortify and hunker down if you're scouting, that'll give you a vantage point. Give your men pep-talks to encourage them, lead them into death, but make sure they don't die. Kill ayys while laughing inside.

My SL playstyle is pretty much vague, I generalize things. I do things other SLs don't, others hate me for it. I set-up outposts near designated ayy hot-spots, I love last-stands, I want an entire squad to be valiantly fighting but not without purpose. When under FoB duty, I tend to make three FoBs. One in the main area, two as forwards EWS Outposts.

[Skimmy2]

I've seen two kinds of SLs. First one is passive, staying behind, relaying orders and the like. And while I don't disagree with that, it's a waste of firepower if you don't shoot. I'm not asking you to charge in, just to shoot whatever comes close.
Second kind is aggressive SLs. And well, they usually die first.

You know actual squad leaders IRL were (atleast at one point) taught to not fire their weapons unless necessary, right?
You're ability to acquire information diminishes greatly when you have a loud flashy stick banging into your face and encouraging you to examine the enemy.

Unfortunately in CM, "shoot whatever comes close" is literally every engagement.

[Gnorse]

You know actual squad leaders IRL were (atleast at one point) taught to not fire their weapons unless necessary, right?
You're ability to acquire information diminishes greatly when you have a loud flashy stick banging into your face and encouraging you to examine the enemy.

Unfortunately in CM, "shoot whatever comes close" is literally every engagement.

I know about the first part, yeah, but i'm talking about SLs that run away when a hunter pounces the marine next to him.
Its really not going to kill you if you shoot at it a bit and help the marine, is it ?
Being passive/away from fighting is okay. Abandoning marines isn't.

[Vibraphone]

From the few times I've dabbled with playing SL, I found out you're much better off treating yourself like a semi-support role. Charging into caves is fine and dandy, but you don't always have to be the pointman.
If you've got good pilots, mark CAS, and while the Normandy's refueling you can still set up lazers to try and spook the xenos and keep them away.
If you're a fan of the railscope, ask for one on your M41A to take potshots or have it as a ghetto binocular.
If you're around at roundstart go ahead and ask (but not pester) command to see what job your squad will have before the brief. Might help you pick out your own loadout as well as your squad's.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Personally I am very aggro.

Flamer up the front w/ Charge orders, trying to get my pansy marines to shoot the retreating T3s so we don't get slaughtered.

It... ususally works.

[McRamon]

Personally i love to lead my squad to flank the enemy and i try to call cas as often as possible. "Leave no man behind"? no, powerpack, crate of supplies or backpack with ammo often is more important than a marine

[Vispain]

As a SL I find myself more and more using OBs and CAS as much as possible before I truly try to get in the fight. Most of the time I'll rock the flamer and flame ahead to clear out a little resistance and counter-push when the xenos push while sticking behind most of the time to lay down beacons, CAS, and coordinate with the Lt for supplies BEFORE I need them. Forethought is good.

Usually as a SL I die because of a Queen screeching and proceeding to target me as the "One with nice armor".
The longer I live in a SL game the longer I, typically, get better at fighting, killing and living.

As for saving marines? Situational. I won't waste the squad's strength on saving a lone marine unless I have some underlying goal like freeing a whole group. As for individuals, a ranking marine is more important than a squaddie.

Oh Yeah! I also like rallying people on my location first and THEN saying something along the lines of "Follow me, we are going to X". Keeps cohesion and prevents confusion and lost squaddies.

Shoutout: Caryl is good with the forethought thing. Foregthought goes a long way. Yesterday for example, we found a CLF position in the Classified Prison area. I told the men to hang back and charge after the OB. Placed OB optimally. Fired Optimally. Charged forward. Despite four layers of cades at a chokepoint, Five CLF, and the CLF having medical support we took no losses. Just several injured due to over eagerness really (OB + really eager marines=burn wounds).

Condensed Version
SL Keywords: Coordination, Cohesion, Forethought, Inspirational.

[conthegodoffire]

I am a sucker for being to careful of my marines, I will often risk my own life to save one marine in clusterfuck moments.
And because of that I like to be the squad on FOB duty, a chill job for most of the round, at least till the end when the xenos rush ya.

Though I would say that if not on FOB duty I love to flank around large groups of xenos attacking the front lines, having a nice squad to blow up a crazy amount of bugs, or just support with CAS is the best part of being SL for me.

Oh and fixing all the stuff the deltards broke/fucked up is fun too, well most of the time. Having to punch through a hoard of bugs to get to the power room is a chore but what can ya do.

[Kesserline]

Now that some more months passed..

I more and more rely on heavily aggressive tactics as SL.
Now that I can robust a good amount of xenos in 1v1 and decently hold my ground 1v2 or 1v3, I need numbers as a force multiplier instead of a meatshield-wall around me.

What I think in my head : if I can kill at least 1 xeno, every round, with my own life, what if I can allow 10 other marines to do so ? That would mean 11 xenos, which would roughly equals to 1/3 of the Hive itself.

Of course, it doesn't work that way, sometimes I'll make 0 kills, sometimes I'll make it 7. My marines will have 0, or 20 cumulated kills. I can have baldies, I can have loyal squaddies, I can have robusto-marines.. Many variables.

Yet, the only constant is the will to push and to achieve an overwhelming and tactical victory on my area.

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Last ultra-successful flank on Ice Colony example

QRF Almayer squad after getting repelled from LZ2, FOB is attacked at LZ1, CO Balto asked us to redeploy.

Deployment, outflanking from N-E LZ1. Going N. Going W. Going S-W. Going S. Flanking Hangars from N and trapping 5 Xenos, killing them all and breaking the siege of FOB.

120 sec of maneuver, nothing more, nothing less. All Deltas behind me. Only one Xeno spotted managed to reach a ladder and get back underground. No USCM casualties, except for one moderately injured marine.

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Last ultra-failed push on Ice Colony example

Same round as above, but 10 minutes later. Order is to assault the underground, attacking. Pushing hard in a corridor. 3 counter-screechs with heavy boiling cover and ravagers going through depleting 20% of my manpower each time.

In 240 sec, 90% of all Delta squad (100% of all Deltas in the underground) were killed, not even captured, just killed.

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Offensives are gambles, and you can lose EVERYTHING on it. Fortunately, we have SLs with defensive-playstyles to make up for agressive-SLs failures.

Here are the factors you can try to turn in your favor to limit the critical-fail occurence :
- Morale (yep, it's important). A fragile morale means your marines will be routed easily. Routed means they won't answer your orders, they just won't give a shit and evac the area. Just in some RTS games such as Steel Division or Wargame. Suffering heavy casualties, having shitty command, clusterfuck on the battlefield can ruin morale. Encouragement, inspiring actions, talking to your squaddies can reinforce it.
- Ammo. Your squad could resplenish ammo recently ? Or at least you can be sure that most of your marines have at least 50%+ ammo ?
- Robusto-skill. How many vets or good marines do you have in your hand ?
- Loyalty. Are your marines following you ? Will they ditch you after the first casualty/encounter ?
- Terrain : Tight or wide area ? Are you pushing or holding a chokepoint ? Which are the escape points ? Can you be flanked ? Can you flank ? Weeded area ? Sticky-resined area ? Light ?

Everyone has his own playstyle, the questions are : How can you take advantage of it ? How can you exploit it at its maximum ? Can you acknowledge your own limits ?

[JennerH]

Oh and fixing all the stuff the deltards broke/fucked up is fun too, well most of the time. Having to punch through a hoard of bugs to get to the power room is a chore but what can ya do.

Assuming Delta does anything but win is heracy