How to Build a Squad in MENACE — Beginner's Guide
When I started playing MENACE, I built squads the way I build them in every tactical game: give everyone the best gear I own, max out squad size, and hope for the best. My first campaign ended in disaster around operation 6. I was fielding three squads, all of them starving for supply, and I couldn't figure out why my "best" weapons were sitting in the inventory unused.
The problem wasn't my tactics. It was my squad building. I was treating supply cost as an afterthought when it's actually the core constraint that every decision flows from. Once I understood that, the game clicked.
Rule Zero: Supply Is Everything
MENACE's supply system works like a points budget in a tabletop wargame. Each mission has a supply cap. Every piece of gear you bring costs points against that cap. Go over, and you can't deploy. Simple in concept, brutal in practice.
Your total supply per mission comes from:
- Base supply: Scales with campaign progression, soft cap around 1,500-2,000
- OCI modules: Auto Supplies (+5% each, stackable), AI Logistics (-15% vehicle cost per stack)
- Operation modifiers: Some operations give +10-15% supply, some take it away
- Difficulty level: Expert starts lower, Normal is more forgiving
The key insight that changed how I play: you are not supposed to max out every squad. The game expects you to make trade-offs. A fully-kitted 3★ squad costs 500-700 supply. On a 1,500 supply mission, that's one squad and change. You need 3-4 squads to complete most missions effectively.
This is why 1★ and 2★ leaders exist. They're not "worse" — they're cheaper, and cheap is good when every supply point matters.
Step 1: Pick Your Mission, Then Your Squad
Most new players (including past me) build squads in a vacuum. Wrong approach. Build for the mission.
Check these before touching the squad screen:
- Enemy faction: Pirates use cover and can be suppressed. Aliens ignore cover but can't be suppressed — bring raw damage. Rogue Army fields vehicles — you need anti-armor.
- Mission type: Defensive missions reward range and suppression. Assault missions reward mobility and CQB.
- Terrain: Open maps favor long-range rifles and vehicles. Urban maps favor SMGs, shotguns, and grenades.
- Supply limit: This is the hard number you're building against.
I keep a mental checklist: one anti-armor squad, one anti-infantry squad, one support/recon element. Every mission gets at least those three roles. The specific leaders and equipment change, but the structure stays the same.
Step 2: Choose Your Squad Leader First
The leader determines everything: squad size ceiling, supply cost baseline, perk synergies, and which weapons are worth bringing.
For new players, I recommend starting with two squads and expanding:
Squad 1: The Workhorse (2★, medium cost) Pick Edwin Pike or Charles Lim. Both cost 10 base supply. Pike gives you AP battery utility plus -50% squad weapon cost. Lim gives you aggressive CQB power. Either one fields 6-8 squaddies comfortably.
Squad 2: The Specialist (1★, low cost) Pick Jean Sy for the -15% global supply discount, or Marta Carda if your missions run long. Keep this squad lean — 3-4 squaddies, cheap equipment. They exist to support Squad 1, not to carry the mission.
Squad 3 (optional, budget permitting): The Heavy (3★ or vehicle) If you have 400+ supply left after squads 1 and 2, add Darby for recon/assassination or a budget pilot like Bog in a light vehicle for mobile fire support.
Step 3: Equipment — Spend Where It Counts
The biggest mistake I see (and made repeatedly) is over-equipping. A Tier 4 armor on every squaddie feels good. A 700-supply squad that can't deploy alongside anything else feels terrible.
Weapons:
- Squad weapons scale with entity count. An 8-man squad with 20-supply rifles pays 180 supply just for guns. This Is My Rifle (Pike/Sachin perk) halves that to 90. That's a free armor upgrade.
- Special weapons cost a flat amount regardless of squad size. An RPG2 costs 40 supply whether you have 1 squaddie or 8. This makes special weapons more efficient on smaller squads.
- The special weapon exception: when you equip a special weapon, your SL carries it instead of the squad weapon. Your entity count for the squad weapon drops by 1. Small optimization, but it adds up.
Armor:
- Armor scales with total entities (SL + all squaddies). That Marine Infantry Body Armor at 15 per suit costs 135 supply on an 8-man squad.
- Vamplew's Flamboyant (-30% armor cost) brings that 135 down to 95. On heavy armor, the savings are bigger.
- The supply cost of armor generally tracks with protection. RMC Fatigues at 0 cost are genuinely fine for backline squads that shouldn't be getting shot anyway.
My rule of thumb: frontline squads get good armor. Support/recon squads get whatever's cheap. A dead support squad is a positioning failure, not a gear failure.
Step 4: Squad Size — Smaller Is Often Better
The squaddie tax (6/13/22 per head for 1★/2★/3★ leaders) adds up fast. An 8-man 2★ squad pays 104 supply just in squaddie tax. Reduce to 6, and you save 26 supply — almost enough for a magazine pouch or armor upgrade.
Smaller squads are also harder to suppress (fewer elements to hit) and more mobile. I typically run:
- Anti-armor squad: 2-3 squaddies. The special weapon does the work. Squaddies are there to absorb hits and provide spotting.
- Anti-infantry squad: 6-8 squaddies. Squad weapons scale with count. More rifles = more damage.
- Support/recon: 2-4 squaddies. They're not there to fight. They're there to spot, mark targets, and pass AP.
Step 5: Accessories — Optional but Impactful
Accessories don't scale with entity count. A Magazine Pouch costs 5 supply regardless of squad size. This makes accessories more cost-effective on small squads.
My priority list:
- Magazine Pouches (5 supply): +50% squad weapon ammo. Cheap, always useful on rifle squads.
- REND Ammo (20 supply): +2 damage, -15 armor pen. Great against lightly armored infantry.
- Night Vision Goggles (15 supply): Mandatory on night missions. Don't deploy without them.
- Armor Plates (10 supply): One-use armor repair. Bring on your frontline squad.
I skip drugs entirely on new recruits. The supply cost adds up and new players won't time the usage window correctly. Master the basics first.
Putting It Together: A Sample 1,500-Supply Loadout
Here's a real loadout I used on a mid-game operation against Pirates:
Squad 1 — Pike (2★, Rifle Squad): 8 squaddies, BR6A1 HaMER rifles, Marine Infantry Body Armor, Magazine Pouches. Supply: 10 + 104 + 90 + 135 + 5 = 344. This Is My Rifle cuts the weapon cost in half.
Squad 2 — Jean Sy (1★, Support): 4 squaddies, Standard Carbines, Soft Armor, no accessories. Supply before discount: 0 + 24 + 35 + 25 = 84. Economics 101: 71 total. She's not fighting. She's providing the discount and carrying utility items.
Squad 3 — Darby (3★, Recon/Assassin): 3 squaddies, MP3A9 SOF rifles, Jaegar Fatigues, M320 SSW special weapon. Supply: 30 + 66 + 39 + 20 + 40 = 195. Small, stealthy, deadly.
Total: 610 supply. Leaves room for a fourth squad or a vehicle, depending on the mission.
I built a MENACE Squad Builder that handles all this math automatically. Select a leader, pick equipment, adjust squad size, and it shows the exact supply breakdown — including passive discounts from Economics 101, Flamboyant, and This Is My Rifle. I mainly built it because I got tired of alt-tabbing between the game, the wiki, and a calculator app. It's free, runs in the browser, and all the formulas are verified against the official wiki's worked examples.
Common Mistakes
"I'll just use my best gear on everyone." You can't. Supply won't let you. Pick who needs the good stuff and who can make do.
"Bigger squads are always better." Bigger squads cost more supply and are easier to suppress. A 3-man Darby squad with a special weapon kills just as effectively as an 8-man squad in many situations.
"1★ leaders are weak." Jean Sy's discount saves 100+ supply per mission. Marta Carda outscales 2★ leaders by turn 8. Don't sleep on 1★ leaders.
"I don't need to plan for the whole operation." Your supply resets per mission, but your equipment follows you. If you burn through armor plates in mission 1, you won't have them for mission 5. Plan your consumable usage across the operation.
When to Break the Rules
Everything above is a guideline. The real skill in MENACE is knowing when to ignore it. Sometimes you need that 800-supply Darby death squad because the mission demands it. Sometimes you field five 1★ budget squads and overwhelm with numbers.
The game rewards experimentation. Try weird combinations. Put Darby in an SMG build. Run Vamplew with no armor just to see what happens. The supply system punishes mistakes gently — a suboptimal squad still deploys, still fights, still teaches you something for next time.
Got a squad build that works well? Or one that failed spectacularly? I collect interesting builds for the Tier List page. Send them over.