Being new to SS13 and Colonial Marines, I’ve learned a bit from playing the game the past few weeks. One of the things I’ve learned is some slang, particularly that there’s those who are “bald” and those who are “robust”.
I honestly think that is hilarious naming, but I thought I’d chronicle my quest to become robust. Specifically, I wanted to challenge myself to become good at the squad leader role, which is a role that I understand to be very influential during a game round, and one that interacts with almost every type of “mechanic(s)” (medical, engineering, command, supply, JTAC, combat, etc.) in the game.
I wont lie, I’m a bit nervous about being bald, because from what reading I’ve done It seems like there is (at least from some) an emphasis on reputation and ability, but nonetheless I think it’ll be fun to discuss and explore this role and my journey as a baldie through it.
Another reason for writing this is that from what reading I’ve done, the MAJORITY of the SL guides are rather old, and mostly from a single person. I wanted to also give my perspective and maybe see how I felt about my games versus the way Kesserline did.
HOW IT WILL WORK
I’ve decided that the way I’ll go about learning is just by, well, playing Squad Leader for some rounds and recording my thoughts on what happened during the round and what I learned.
ROUND ONE
My general thoughts on my first round SLing were that it was fun, a bit nervewracking, and definitely had some room for improvement. I was Alpha SL with ~11 marines at start, with one smartgunner, one pyrotechnician specialist, and no medics nor comtechs. The map was LV-426. The marines won and I lived to roundend (via nuke).
Some things I think I did well:
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Communicating with command. I think that I was pretty good at routinely talking to command, though I wonder if the thinks I talked about were necessarily relevant all the time, especially given that when comms are down the CO can only speak to one person at a time through the CIC phone.
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Interacting with characters. I think that I did a decent job at fostering some light RP from the characters at the start of the round, which helped me remember names and get familiar with who was in my squad and what they were carrying.
That’s about it, honestly for thing I think I did well. 
The first pitfalls I fell into:
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Get back you moron! I only survived maybe ten-ish minutes of xeno contact before getting jumped by a warrior and nearly dying. I was critically injured and lost my weapon which worked in an interesting way becuase while I couldn’t personally fight it forced me to step back and think about the ways I could contribute to the fight that weren’t shooting aliens, which I probably would have done less had I not had my weapon lost. – The lesson that I learned is to not be so close to the front. I’m a HVT for xenos, and even worse, a VIP for marines, so people will die trying to save me.
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Fire Support, harder than it sounds. I realized quite quickly that while I knew mechanically how to do things like lase, relay coordinates, mark flares, etc. actually properly marking and timing those powerful abilities is very difficult. This was doubled by the issue that I was very injured and not able to effectively navigate the battlefield, and that the aliens were fighting from the cave entrances which to my understanding prevent air-based supporting fire.
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Decision Making. Meaningful decisions like when to retreat or attack were things I only had a limited opportunity to do when the fight was fresh. I tried to convince command to feint a withdrawal to the table fort to bait the aliens into OB coordinates I lazed – which may have worked had I not gotten critically injured AGAIN by a warrior and left with brain damage, thus unable to coordinate the fire – but otherwise I think I did not make any particularly impactful decisions. Something to try for next round.
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Squad Abilities. D’oh, the way your squad roles work is really important! I thought that I knew the basics of the squad: Comtechs can repair and build things, Medics heal, Smartgunners shoot boolets, Specialists carry heavy weapons; and that’s not necessarily wrong. However, I realized that I did not actually appreciate how to employ these people in a way that they were useful. For example, one of the main reasons I got jumped was because I was ignoring my smartgunner pointing at a resin door! The Smartgunner can see through fucking walls! He’s probably not just worried about the door silly! (Which is valid enough of a reason anyways even if he couldn’t.)
For Next Round
For my next round, I think what I will do is primarily focus on staying alive. I will err towards being too cautious (in regards to personal safety) than not cautious enough, and continue to adjust off from that. My goal is to survive the groundside deployment with only superficial injuries (no going back to the ship or going unconscious). Additionally, I am going to do more reading on the squad specialist roles, loadouts, and what kind of equipment and abilities they bring to the fight. On top of that, my experience with having my weapon removed has made me decide that next round I will try to fire 0 rounds unless my life is personally at risk. While this may be an extreme too far in the other direction from fighting as SL, I think until I learn that balance that erring on forcing myself to not fight with my personal weapons will encourage me to use the more impactful powers and abilities that the Squad Leader has.
If you’ve made it this far to the bottom of this post, please feel free to give your own input!
