How to use militia?

[HeathenSW]

Honestly they just drop like flies and can't hit anything themselves - I saw a full squad of them fighting 5 homunculi for the ~5 mins and they even lost 3 people, shooting god knows where most of the time. Are they supposed to storm the buildings under the smoke cover, be thrown at anything to slow it down with bodies, and sitting in different vehicles with shooting spots (vans, trucks, armored personnel trailer and stuff)?

Since they are rather useless to even hold the buildings with them it seems, only adding to confusion of repositioning to the other squads in buildings.

[Puni$her]

Originally posted by Pete:

Originally posted by Puni$her:

When it comes to militia I often use em as bait or hold strongpoint units. Combined with rpg, weapon team they can hold while your founders units assault to acquire another strongpoint on the map. Example, during oklahoma my Movement units held an area around the main spawn point while founders were doing quick mechanized/motorized assaults around the city. Use em as anchors, get enemy attention with em and your other units flank and destroy.

You won't get good new founder units until Oklahoma City. Hence you have to make it with what you can get until then. A vet Militia Squad can do good against Humunculi Assaults when inside a building.

What do you mean "you won't get good founders units until Oklahoma"? You start with two inf squads, two rangers squads, abrams and a bradley, well you probably have two bradleys at this time.

[Halfcut_Clarkey]

Originally posted by sorcerer_86:

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

I'm bad with guns, so gun names do not tell me anything - kinda like I don't know the armor and class of stryker and M113 for instance, but game files seem to indicate that m113 is a "tank" while stryker is a "car".

Could it be that you mean it the other way around? Im no expert but I believe the strykers armor is more resistent (and thicker?) to both 7.62 and 14.5 mm ammo. Not sure if this is represented in the game though. Although both syrian warfare and its predecessors seemed to be fairly accurate when it came to these things so probably in this game as well.
Pretty sure the stryker is supposed to be more durable than the m113

Both M113s and Strykers are APCs in the real world. Strykers are more modern, being generally more mobile and having a remote-controllerd weapon mount, to help keep the gunner safe. Both offer effective armour protection from small-arms, machineguns and artillery shrapnel.

I believe the game classes M113s as tanks and Strykers as cars, because M113s are tracked vehicles, whilst Strykers are wheeled. This means that a Stryker's speed and handling suffer from going off-road somewhat more than with a M113. I don't think that is meant to imply that the Stryker is any less durable.

They're both better than my rag-tag band of Mad Max vans, technicals and trucks at any rate.

[Ook Oook]

So i took a good look into the files and functionality there is no difference between damage output between militia rifles and founder riflemen. Meaning once your militia get to the same vet as your founders they will do the same damage minus the MG.

Militia also massivly benefit from upvetting to the point were vet 5 militia have better health then vet 5 riflemen, and the cqc skill gets equalized. Not to mention the fact that militia level up a good bit quicker.

[Mr.Kill]

Originally posted by Halfcut_Clarkey:

Originally posted by sorcerer_86:

Could it be that you mean it the other way around? Im no expert but I believe the strykers armor is more resistent (and thicker?) to both 7.62 and 14.5 mm ammo. Not sure if this is represented in the game though. Although both syrian warfare and its predecessors seemed to be fairly accurate when it came to these things so probably in this game as well.
Pretty sure the stryker is supposed to be more durable than the m113

Both M113s and Strykers are APCs in the real world. Strykers are more modern, being generally more mobile and having a remote-controllerd weapon mount, to help keep the gunner safe. Both offer effective armour protection from small-arms, machineguns and artillery shrapnel.

I believe the game classes M113s as tanks and Strykers as cars, because M113s are tracked vehicles, whilst Strykers are wheeled. This means that a Stryker's speed and handling suffer from going off-road somewhat more than with a M113. I don't think that is meant to imply that the Stryker is any less durable.

They're both better than my rag-tag band of Mad Max vans, technicals and trucks at any rate.

The problem with M113 and Strykers is that they don't tow things. The main value of the technical and truck is the towing of howitzer platforms.

As for militia, they benefit massively if you give them plasma rifles since they all use ARs. Always keep them prone or in housing and they tend to murder enemy infantry quite well. You'll probably find heavy weapon squads with grenade launchers and a car to ferry them around is much better though.

[HeathenSW]

Another thing is that after I dunno how many hours of playtime I only just understood that infantry can fire while moving. Guess I'm not smart, huh :D

I thought that only vehicles can do that, since most strategy games require infantry to be in cover or standing still to fire - I was desperately searching for "attack move" button and found "q" that I've used ever since, while it's clearly not optimal.

This helps the issue of them being completely useless a bit. At least with plasma rifles they can quickly close the distance to attack and not standing there on the edge of their range, being target practice for the enemy. I can only hope some will survive enough to lvl up (grenades, armor and extra person seem essential).

[jbwjr]

I suppose 1 use for Millita is just have them sit in "transports" and have them fire from within the Vehicle. If you check the Encyclapida their are a FEW vehicles where the "passangers" can shoot (I assume just small arms like Rifles, LMGs and sniper rifles maybe) while remaining in the vehicle.

Keeping with the MOVEMENT theme, the VAN allows for this, as does the armored Trailer and few other vehicles.

[Kirbyt610]

Give them plasma rifles or NGSWs and they are cheap shock troopers that can be easily replaced unlike rangers and other founder infantry.

[Harbinger]

The best trait for militia units are that they are expendable. Use them as cannon-fodder early game. Later down the line, they can be effective garrison units with better weapons or just out right replaced by better infantries.

[Sardonac]

I would second giving them plasma rifles. They're one of the units that makes the serious range issue with the plasma rifle worthwhile, since 10 plasma rifles when upgraded is a lot of pew pew. Run them into buildings under cover or let them fire from a trailer and they can do some good.

I still think the best moment infantry is probably the RPG squad though - when upgraded they can fire both anti tank and anti infantry rockets with two in the squad, have 5 soldiers, grenades, while only costing 500 supply. They're a bargain.

[PoDH]

I honestly use those 8 men militia as a punching bag for my other troops, and once they're injured they become a scout (always prone and ambush/shield mode). Though I want to know how good they are when they're in the armored trailer can you can get 24 rifles/men inside those, and I feel like those should be pretty good.

[jbwjr]

Originally posted by PoDH:

I honestly use those 8 men militia as a punching bag for my other troops, and once they're injured they become a scout (always prone and ambush/shield mode). Though I want to know how good they are when they're in the armored trailer can you can get 24 rifles/men inside those, and I feel like those should be pretty good.

And the Devs would agree. Hand em plasma rifles load em up in the Trailer and ROLL UP AND START BLASTIN! Not to mention any additional armament the Trailer and whatever is Towing it might have.

[wei270]

i give them plasma rifle and have them ambush roming patorls, either the dogs for the homcui

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by jbwjr:

Originally posted by PoDH:

I honestly use those 8 men militia as a punching bag for my other troops, and once they're injured they become a scout (always prone and ambush/shield mode). Though I want to know how good they are when they're in the armored trailer can you can get 24 rifles/men inside those, and I feel like those should be pretty good.

And the Devs would agree. Hand em plasma rifles load em up in the Trailer and ROLL UP AND START BLASTIN! Not to mention any additional armament the Trailer and whatever is Towing it might have.

Ye, seems like plasma rifles and full stack in trailer works pretty good, tested it in Santa Fe on a new campaign. If there's something that takes the attention of homunculi cluster - they are toast from the 24 rifles (8 plasma, 16 m16) in the trailer plus truck&trailer MGs. If the attention is on them... well trailer with no armor is meh, so it was expected.

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

I use them mostly for map control and vision from inside buildings. From a Medium or Strong building they're pretty survivable, especially if you give them the Armored trait, so you can park them in a building on your flank to deal with any infantry assaults or even light vehicles with Plasma Rifles, while keeping vision on the area.

Considering I usually use the Founders infantry squads for this as well and the Militia are significantly cheaper while only losing the rocket and MG slot, they're pretty good bargain infantry, though Heavy Weapons Squads with the default M2s also perform this job reasonably well and can also let me loot mounted weapons and drive a loot vehicle at the end of a mission.

[GameMaster]

When armed with mid-to-top tier rifles, they can get scary as garrison infantry. Put them in a building and pair them with RPG teams and they'll mulch infantry even at rookie. Also, RPG teams with SMAWs can get scary, especially when you have the Rocketman perk equipped.