9 Essential Tips to Winning More Battles in MENACE

by

MENACE is a demanding game that will truly test your strategic skills. You’ll face tough challenges and won’t always succeed without taking some losses. However, with careful planning and a good understanding of how the game works, you can achieve rewarding victories. This guide offers helpful tips and tricks to help you navigate missions in MENACE more effectively, even when the situation looks grim.

This guide assumes players already have a basic grasp of how MENACE works.

Cover vs Concealment

Often, the best defense is to put strong units between your forces and the enemy to absorb damage. However, in MENACE, you can also use concealment to hide units from view. This works because units can only see others within a certain range. A unit’s concealment stat lowers how easily other units can detect it, making it harder to spot.

You can tell if your squads are hidden by looking for an eye icon above their symbol. You can also see if they’re within range to be seen by pressing ‘R’ or simply moving your mouse over an enemy unit. Hiding your units makes them invisible to the enemy, so use this to your advantage!

Firing weapons will break a unit’s concealment unless they’re using suppressed weapons.

Always Bring Smoke Grenades

Smoke grenades are useful for hiding your troops. The smoke they create blocks the enemy’s view, allowing you to move squads out of dangerous situations – like when they’re being targeted by machine guns, mortars, or other powerful weapons.

Smoke grenades can quickly turn the tables in a fight, particularly when facing Pirates or Rogue Army troops. Having a squad or vehicle equipped with them gives you a significant advantage.

Suppression is King

Suppression lowers an enemy’s ability to aim and hit accurately. If enough suppression is applied, the enemy unit will become Pinned Down, stopping them from acting – though players can still move them by crawling. In a direct fight, your priority should be to heavily suppress the enemy, ideally pinning them before their turn begins. This prevents them from attacking, reducing your losses and allowing your team to maneuver and eliminate the threat.

You can effectively suppress enemies without directly hitting them, so precise aiming isn’t crucial unless you’re trying to take out an entire squad.

Deploy as Much as Possible

Infantry squads have the Deploy ability. When deployed, units gain the following bonuses:

  • +15% Accuracy
  • +15% Defense
  • +15% Damage Reduction
  • 1 Concealment

Deploying a squad will keep it stationary, but the benefits are worth it. Use this ability when you’ve reached a strong location, or if a squad gets caught in the open and attacked.

Specialize Your Squads

Giving your squads specific roles helps you use resources better and share equipment more effectively. For instance, Pike, a squad leader in MENACE, excels as a support unit providing extra Action Points to teammates. Because he’ll generally stay towards the back, he doesn’t require strong armor, a powerful primary weapon, or additional soldiers. Equipping him with a special weapon like a heavy machine gun or rocket launcher will still make him a valuable asset.

When promoting squads, make sure you’re picking perks that complement their intended role.

Rotate Your Squad Leaders

If you repeatedly ask squad leaders to join missions, they’ll eventually get tired. After about three or four full operations, a squad leader will become ‘Weary’. This doesn’t have an immediate effect, but if you continue to bring a Weary leader on missions, they’ll become ‘Exhausted’. Being Exhausted drastically reduces a leader’s action points (AP), making it difficult for them to move and act effectively in battle, particularly if they already have low AP.

To prevent your team from getting worn out, recruit a couple of new squad leaders soon after you begin, and then switch them in as your original leaders start to tire. After that, simply rotate who goes on missions to ensure everyone is always well-rested.

Use Abilities & Equipment

Units gain special abilities through perks, accessories, or equipment. These enhancements greatly improve their fighting skills and overall usefulness, like the Smoke Grenades and Pike’s Taking Command ability we discussed earlier. Here are some other powerful options:

  • Binoculars: Extends a unit’s View Range and Detection by 2.
  • Target Designator: Mark an enemy unit, making them visible even when they’re out of sight while increasing Accuracy against them.
  • Camouflage Kit: Increases Concealment by 2.
  • Night Vision Goggles: Removes all night-time sight penalties.
  • Call Out Target: Improve Accuracy against a marked target.
  • Command: Rally – Rally allies and reduce their suppression.

Use Vehicles as Transports

Troop carriers and other armored vehicles can quickly move your infantry squads to better locations, and shield them from small arms fire. They also offer strong protection as cover. Just make sure the vehicles aren’t firing their own heavy weapons while transporting troops.

These mobile infantry strategies are particularly effective with Squad Leaders like Lim and Carda, as their Mobile Infantry perk lowers the action point cost of getting in and out of vehicles. Exconde is an ideal pilot for these tactics because his Sentry perk increases the defensive benefits vehicles provide to surrounding infantry.

While mobile infantry tactics can be very effective, they’re also dangerous. If a vehicle is destroyed during transport, both the pilot and the infantry leader could be killed.

How to Get Free Squaddies

Your soldiers are limited – once lost in a mission, they’re gone for good. To help with this, you can add WOO and EXWOO facilities to the Impetus ship using OCI upgrades. These facilities will increase your total number of available soldiers after each mission. Additionally, Med Bays offer a chance to rescue soldiers who would otherwise die.

Read More

2026-02-13 19:06