MENACE, a new turn-based tactical space marine game

Menace, by Hooded Horse and the studio that brought us Battle Brothers, just released the early access of their next game, MENACE, on STEAM.

The Wayback colonies, long isolated from the Imperium by their unstable wormhole, are embroiled by a Civil War and threatened by giant alien bugs and worse. Your lone cruiser arrives, heavily damages, bringing drop ships of marines to restore order.

I spent all last weekend playing it and positively reviewed it and was writing a lot about it on Reddit. The difficulty level is extreme on high difficulties and utterly masochistic on Ironman mode. It’s a hard game in many ways similar to XCOM2, but with vehicles and squads rather than individual soldiers. 

The theme and aesthetics of the game remind me of Aliens and Starship Troopers.

Learning how to equip and promote your squad and ship against the enemy types you’re facing, and using the terrain to your advantage using tactical positioning, are key. 

Has anyone else on OTF been playing Menace?

I would play it if I could play games on my computer :[

Eventually.it should be adapted to console. There’s nothing about it that really requires a keyboard and mouse rather than a controller.

The MVP of my current game was Tekko’Beo Phosa. His unique ability is to hip fire heavy weapons like rocket launchers and flamethrowers without wasting action points to deploy them first. One of his promotions lets him throw grenades 5 squares rather than three. Throwing a thermite grenade melted one the immense hive queens in almost hit. “Ay! We got bugs!”

Charles Lim is also indispensable. Once he has the counterattack and blaze of glory promotions, I will continue to field his unit even if exhausted. I use the troop carrier to transport him to a fortified location or watchtower. Even exhausted of action points, he continues to return fire against enemies targeting him every round. Blaze of glory gives him a surge of action points to execute attacks when he looks like he’s wavering, suppressed, and out of the fight. I give his unit some of the better tier IV armor. They hold the line. “Medals don’t earn themselves”. -Charles Lim

If I could go back in time to last week and give myself a tip starting out, it would be to purchase the OCI ability that lets you salvage and rebuild your destroyed vehicles rather than the one that restores more of the functioning ones’ hit points between battles.

The good vehicles like heavy walkers and tanks are extremely rare and valuable but can be easily destroyed, even one-shotted, by rocket launchers or with lucky shots against concentrated fire.

I’d keep buying the cheap pirate trucks whenever available to rotate in during lengthy repairs, since they can be fitted with weapons, and keep powerhouse vehicles ready for the most challenging battles only.

Throughout your Menace campaign, the you can hire additional “mercenary” characters native to the Wayback. These squad leaders appear randomly.

Of those I enlisted, my favorite was probably Jacques Yamplew. Not one of the tank pilots, but a “tanky” character. His narcissism-themed promotion tree makes him thrive as the center of attention— even if that means getting shot at. His unique ability, Partir de Rien (I came from nothing) gives him stacking action tokens when he is targeted by enemies. This synergizes with his promotions for taunting the enemy and drawing their fire and discounts on equipping heavy armor.

Hey I play that I buy it on the very first day, any tips to beat robots (manace) easily?

I’ve only fought a couple of battles against the Menace so far. They only appeared after completing 9 operations (about 30 battles) against pirates, xeno bugs, and insurgents.

Did you hit them with the Long Barreled Tank Turret? That weapon is clutch. It transforms your troop carrier into a small tank that loses its transport capacity, but it obliterates most mechs and vehicles in one shot. Keep checking the Black Market for it.

Who is your favorite vehicle pilot?

At the start of the game, I think Renu Rewa might be the best choice. Her revel in slaughter bonus will readily accumulate against weak early enemy groups.

My pick, though, is Garry Boganwright. The overdrive promotion gives you a lot of tactical flexibility, an extra attack at a critical moment even if he is stunned the next round. I also like the junk parts promotion, that reduces the supply cost of his vehicle by 30% at the expense of 30% of its hp. This frees up more points for other things, possibly a whole extra squad.

I would play it if I had a pc tbh...

When you complete operation, you are rewarded with components to upgrade your ship. Some of these upgrades, like the med bay and exwoo, keep a greater reserve of squaddies. Others are abilities you can shoot off once during each battle.

There’s a medevac ability that once a battle lets you rescue a wounded squad leaders when there is no nearby character to stabilize them. This synergizes well with leaders who have the commando promotion and fight best off on their own, especially Rene Rewa. If her vehicle gets blown up while she is out of range of rescue, she could easily die.

There’s a tier 1 promotion called New Tricks that has diminishing returns when taken later in your campaign. Squad leaders have a stat called “growth potential” that has a small chance to increase their other statistics during a battlefield event such as landing a hit or taking damage. It’s great on a front line starting SL/Pilot like Charles Lim and Renu Rewa, but less so on supporting SL’s like Pike and Jean Sy who use items from behind the frontline, and not good for later hires who won’t see as many battles for growth events to roll up their stats.

#7 who Leon? 🥀

TIL (today I learned) there is a faint eye icon in the square you’re moving into that tells you whether your units are in stealth/concealment. Before every square you move, you can check to see if you’d still be concealed. Your Squad Leaders whisper while in concealment, and some (e.g. Jane Darby) can do more damage when they retain the element of surprise. It’s similar to Xcom2 in this, but without the overwatch all tripping at once.

Smoke Bombs are both offensive and defensive weapons. You can advance on the enemy without getting shot up, and you can also use them to block line of sight to your defenses. A lot of missions revolve around holding ground and preventing annihilation of allies for 8-10 rounds. Smoke isn’t flashy and does no damage, but it adds another layer of tactics to these battles.

If you have trust level 1 with the corporation, the first OCI structure you should buy is Salvage Teams. You get a 20 value commodity for every enemy vehicle you destroy. A horde of pirate trucks get thrown at you early on, and you can cash in on these to buy better gear—especially those “disposable AT launchers” to help destroy even more vehicles. Despite their being called “disposable”, all accessories recharge before every battle.

Increasing your trust level with Dice of the Gods faction (by completing operations on their ice planet, mostly) you can purchase an OCI hacking ability that goes in your intelligence slots. This instantly disables those bots (or other vehicles) for a round, letting you pile on the damage before they can respond. It’s probably the most powerful OCI you can buy for those slots.

Your Squad Leaders (SLs) have another statistic called “Growth Potential” the effect of which isn’t readily apparent. They also have a base deploy cost and promotion tax.

Growth Potential is a small chance that your SL’s will permanently increase their other statistics as a result of a battlefield experience such as hitting the enemy or taking damage but not dying.

There is a promotion called “New Tricks” that further increases your sl’s growth potential. It’s worth taking on SL’s that will be on the front lines through most of the game. I’d take it immediately on Charles Lim, aren’t Rewa, and Jane Darby. Later on, they can increase their action points so much through this that they might be able to get an extra attack.

There’s another SL named Marta Carda whose entire theme is her low supply cost and promotion tax coupled with high growth potential to compensate for her poor starting stats. If you stick with her, you get a strong, underpriced unit in the end game. I can’t justify not taking Pike rather Marta though, at the start of the game. His “take command” ability is just too good to pass up. 

There are two empty planets in the Wayback system that you can’t visit, and some character portraits that aren’t in the game yet. There will another faction or two included later as well as more Squad Leaders. One looks like Sophia Boutella as a nomad, but what her abilities are remains unknown. Whether this content will appear filled in after early access or in a later game expansion is unclear.

MENACE is an acronym for the biomechanical horrors faced in the later stages of the game:

Mechanically

Enhanced

Neurologically

Augmented

Combat

Entity

(M.E.N.A.C.E)