How to xeno rush?

[ThePiachu]

I've recently seen a few surprisingly short rounds and I hear about xenos rushing marines. How do you do it in general? How do you rush marines without suffering a lot of casualties in form of young xenos?

[Park]

Most xeno rushes consist of defeating the marines in detail i.e. divide and conquer. Queen usually de-ovi's quite soon not allowing herself to reach empress to rush and wipe a single squad in it's entirety with the entire hive at her back. In this current meta xeno rushes are even more worthwhile as xeno are able to attack an entire squad faster than a defending squad can move for a counterattack. With the removal of general comms the out of position squad can not easily perform inter-squad communication as they would have to relay it to their SO then the command channel and hope the responding squad's SL hears the necessary information that the squad they are responding to is dead and the greatest strength of xeno is that you can attack before any information can get anywhere. How do you rush the marines? Attack them when they are most vulnerable e.g. when they're setting up power in engineering, when they're preparing to blast into locations such as Research or Lambda, or when they're enroute to attempt to save an already wiped squad. The only weakness to xeno rushes is when marines are successfully able to dig in and have a massive FOB to stop your advance which might not be an issue because of how quickly you have moved during the operation the FOB may not be completed anyways.

[ThatKazakhDude]

Boiler+Queen screech+crusher= Guaranteed breach in deffences

[zoboomafoo]

Defeat in detail is the gist of it, usually happens when squads are sent off on their own.

[Light]

I've recently seen a few surprisingly short rounds and I hear about xenos rushing marines. How do you do it in general? How do you rush marines without suffering a lot of casualties in form of young xenos?

Metagame Nah kidding, we all know xenos can't do this type of stuff... Right ?

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

The moment you see a squad alone, scouting or getting power up, you crush that squad with the entire hive along side the queen if possible and/or needed. Then, you've basically just wiped like 20 people from marine's number. If you even manage to capture some of them, your hive is now consisted of about 40 benos. Now the queen can do whatever the fuck she wants because it's alien's game to lose with such a massive lead.

If the fight between the hive and the isolated squad goes for a bit longer than normally, you'll get 2 other squads and maybe a QRF from FOB squad on your ass. Once again, try to isolate, because with queen screech and warrior grab and Prae's spray, you can basically take a squad on provided you aren't flanked or your hive isn't stupid.

Of course, this relies on you metagaming a bit, knowing the "meta" of marines on each map. Engineering on Ice and Big Red, research and crashed ship on Prison. The LV fog now protects marines instead of benos, since it's the only thing giving them some breather if you want to rush.

[Meatshield]

I view very early game rushes as a result of meta gaming or spectacular marine incompetence.

Meta-gaming: xeno "finds" the team moving to engineering immediately after they land and somehow have 5-10 xeno nearby to have an all out assault on them killing them all. Marines might send reinforcements that come at different times, and all are killed resulting in half the marines killed in 5-10 minutes of planetfall. This can feasibly work in any level, seen it work in all of them.

Marine incompetence: FOB construction is slow, or one side of it is not caded/defended. All xeno head to the breach and storm the LZ. This usually works best on Prison station because people don't want to stand around in tcomms not doing anything, harder to accomplish on Big Red (although the classic tcomms flank could feasibly be done in the first few minutes) and LV-624, since you technically just need to defend nexus and not the LZ.

[Symbiosis]

I use basic strategic knowledge to crush the Marines.

Using Hive Status, I Order Xenos into the vents when Hosts drop on the planet.

Due to their high numbers I wait for a group (doesn’t need to be a squad or two) to isolate themselves. Once a group has done so and they’re separated from their fellows, I Order the entire Hive to my side, roll over them like a wave.

The way Marines react to this is why it’s successful. If they were a bit more fearful and instead consolidated and fell back they’d be better served. Instead they often Unga rush right into a group of 20+ Xenos. From there it’s a matter of chasing down fleeing Marines.

I tend not to utilize this strategy until the Marines are right outside the hive. Chasing down and capturing the remaining/fleeing Marines is just common sense.

[Rohesie]

Xenos are about mobility and either hit-and-run or overrun tactics.

Marines used to be fearsome while unga-rushing, but right now queen screech, prae acid and crusher and defender armor give a solid protection for warriors, lurkers and ravagers to make mince meat out of marines in the open.

1) Make use of metal and cave ceilings. CAS is a strong weapon and you can completely negate it by playing smart.
2) Have drones weeding the place. A xeno on weeds is twice as dangerous, and marines are slowed.
3) Flank a lot. Probe several sides. Engineers tend to construct isolated fortresses and neglect what's not within their field of vision (or is not their responsibility).
4) Avoid charging M56Ds straight on. They can make mincemeat out of Empresses. Lag a bit and you are done for. Refer to 3.
5) Be patient. Time is actually on your side if you don't do suicide rushes.

Just to add some things to the defeat-in-detail answer, which is very accurate.