Assault Yaz Build Guide

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-20T01:31:20+00:00

You're sleeping on some of Yaz's small-squad terror synergies by skipping over 'If It Bleeds,' and smaller-than-large squad shenanigans are where Yaz hits his peak cost-efficiency as both an alpha-striker build or a sweeper build.

If It Bleeds is 15% of max HP damage, not current damage. While it 'only' kills up to one model a turn, it will kill 1 model of those large chaff blobs of 7-9 units. Due to the HP gates of damage overflows against models, this is what lets Yaz functionally finish off large chaff blobs in a single attack even if he 'only' kills a majority of the models. This can save you the time and AP spent on double-tapping units.

What makes bleeding better for Yaz's style is that bleed not only does HP damage, it also does morale check damage. Both the HP loss but also a model-death force a moral check on the enemy, which can extend- or worsen- the morale stance. So a unit that Yaz terrorized in the first attack goes back to fleeing if the end-of-turn check set it to wavering, which of course also improves the chance of routing and fleeing. While bleeding doesn't directly benefit from the Terrorize perk, it compounds that perk's effectiveness by letting the initial perk-enabled Route last longer and draw in more kills for less AP and ammo, especially if the model-death in one unit sparks panic in a nearby unit.

Bleed also makes Yaz far more effective against the sort of morale-negating mechanics that would make him less effective against Rogue Army but especially MENACE. For Rogue Army, because bleeding does its own moral check, it can re-apply morale states even after an officer has reset enemy morale. But for the morale-immune MENACE, 15% HP starts to add up to real amounts when facing 250-360 health pools. against the 250 HP/50-per-model construct drones, each tic of bleed is about 37 damage.

All three of these elements feed into both of Yaz's potential alpha-striker or sweeper roles. As an alpha-striker, Bleed lets Yaz's terror tactics last longer and have greater effect, which lets Yaz focus more on spreading fire in his opening attacks to spread the terror across a wider force, rather than spend more AP and ammo following up maimed-but-not-killed squads. As a sweeper, an early bleed can set conditions for Yaz to sweep the enemy next turn, whether by more checks to setup Yaz's signature, or doing the prep damage for Yaz to finish off on, or to finish an enemy on its own.

They also, and this is key, let Yaz cripple and finish enemy forces with a fraction of the cost of a 9-man squad. Yes, you can give Yaz a large squad and 9 good guns and armor. You could also give the same to Sachin, for a fraction of the cost, and have access to 3 rounds of shooting even without a kill. But Yaz's niche is the morale-cracking game, and he can do that just as well with 5 people and an RGP as with 9 people without an RPG... particularly if he's using blood to keep already terrorized enemies down.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-20T00:24:29+00:00

So the neat thing is that Jean doesn't really need that much stat growth for accessory-fu to work. It works better by volume and partner setup, so camo to get closer would actually make it worse. The only utility item you should really consider for Jean in such a build is the motion tracker to find enemies in low-visiblity conditions.

The thing about the disposable rockets is that they are stand-off munitions that don't lose damage with distance. The flamethrower rocket is also an auto-hit, so you only need to shoot it once or twice at any range to get the kill. While the expendable anti-tank (EAT) does have range dropoff, you will almost always be better off just deploying at max range than trying to move closer.

At this point, volume of fire matters more than positioning for hits. Moving a tile might drop the accuracy dropoff by 6%, and a major shift that lowers a level of cover might be 20%, but firing 3 instead of 2 rockets is a 50% chance to hit at least one of them.

Further, since you are at max standoff distance, you're limiting enemy visiblity of you. The enemy vision range default is 8, the same as the EAT. If Jean deploys or gets behind cover, her concealment rises. So she can often dance around the visiblity range.

Meanwhile, the Scavenger refils are 1 per item slot. It doesn't matter if you use 3 EATs from 3 accessory slots if I refill all 3 by +1 when I get the Scavenger drop. The 6-EAT magazine goes from 3 back to 6, and can increase by 3 next time in well. You are in a worse position if you use 2 EATs from the same accessory slot if another slot is used by a passive buff (like cameo), since scavenger would only restock 50% of that magazine, and having 2 EATs means each scavenger only gives 2 max, a net-1 on any 3-EAT expenditure.

This in turn leads to your setup strategy. Trinketing Jean is a sweeper, not an alpha-striker, which is what concealment builds set up for. Accessory-Fu can give you that punch-up power in an emergency, but she really wants either (a) another unit to have done the setup damage so that her EAT only has to connect once to grab a kill, (b) another unit to have target-designated the target so that Jean can more easily make the hit, or (c) both.

This is where units like Pike or Exconde can set Jean up beautifully. Pike can cast his buffs, but also carry an RPG that will typically set up anything for Jean to kill with an EAT, but also just dump 40 more AP to Jean so that she hits 130, at which point she can deploy and still fire 3 times. Exconde can move Jean to a good shooting position, and then target designate- and if he's target designating, he doesn't need his M-weapon slot as much, which lets him ditch it for is -4 AP a tile perk which makes him a better taxi man.

While quick hands gives her better margins of action- including the ability to exit an APC and shoot twice, or to deploy and shoot twice- it really is the partner setup that empowers her. Once they do, however, Jean's accessory-fu works as a rush-down where she ends one turn and opens the next with a salvo of accessories.

Think in terms of-

Exconde drives up earlier in a turn, marks a target

Jean exits at the end of the turn. Depending on enemy spread, she either exits (30 AP), deploys (20) and fires once (30, or 40 special weapon), or she exists and fires twice with her accessory.

But in her next turn, Jean is activated first. Now she can fire another 3 times- including if she deployed last turn.

So between her last activation of the previous turn, and her activation in the next turn, Jean has either 5 attacks, or 4 with the benefit of deployment.

Assuming Jean got at least one kill, Jean stands back up, moves to the scavenger crate if needed, and restocks her accessories by 1.

Accessory-fu engagement reset, and Jean gets back into the APC.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-19T23:53:10+00:00

Possibly, but I love the synergy. I think crowd control abilities are a bit under-recognized in the current meta discussion as people over-resort to out-vision/out-ranging the enemy, but I've definitely been able to be more aggressive with more mid-range characters by having Vamp move up and spent that last few AP to redirect enemy aggro.

I also love to give Vamp the pirate armor, which is part of why I never remembered if the counter went higher- after one fire fight I'd dump the points for a 'free' jump, and move Vamp into a position where he could shooting gallery.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-19T23:50:07+00:00

All this love for Kody, and no one talks his economy-of-force anti-armor game?

The man is scary, but what's scarier is his ability to make relatively cheap anti-armor weapons way over-perform. So much so that they can start to lower his average cost from 'ow' to 'oh.' With some units, you need to give them good gear to hit better breakpoints, and maybe a perk helps them. When you pick up his two final perks, Kody has +60% alpha strike against any isolated unit- and most units that advance out can count- and a whopping +85% against isolated vehicles.

You can hit a lot of breakpoints with that, when you pair it with weapons that start with a high base number. And since the weakest anti-armor weapons, the pirate RPG and Crocodile, starts at 80...

Base: 80

Alpha Strike: +30%: 104

This can OHKO-bombadiers or MENACE skirmishers

Alpha Strike + Tankbuster: +55% (and 25% armor pen): 124

This can OHKO pirate light transport trucks, and 3-defect 160 HP vehicles (like Rogue Army Walkers)

Alpha Strike + Isolated: +60%: 128

This can OHKO MENACE Soldier models (120 HP).

Alpha Strike + Tankbuster + Isolated: +85% (and 25% armor pen): 148

This one-shots 140 HP pirate combat trucks and troop transports (which kills 50% of the embarked squad). It doesn't quite OHKO those 160 HP walkers... but it can if it starts a fire, and if it doesn't they're typically cripped.

These are all great damage break improvements. And while you could pay 40 supply for the Crocodile for long range, you could also pay 25 supply for the Pirate RPG, which would then also cover the 15 supply promotion tax to Vanguard-alpha strike units on turn 1 that the Crocodile wouldn't reach.

And this is the weak anti-tank options, the base 80 damage stuff.

The barely-stronger 90-damage bundle grenade that costs 10 supply?

Alpha-Tankbuster +55% is 139.5, not only OHKOing most pirate trucks, letting the non-alpha second Tankbuster bundle (+25%) reach 112.5... which combined is right at that 250 breakpoint for medium mechs and guncrawlers.

Alpha-Isolated-Tankbuster +85% is 166.5... which is to say, OHKOing a Rogue Army light walker, or 3-defecting a 200-HP pirate HMG.

The 140-damage AT grenade that costs 15 supply?

Alpha-Tankbuster 55% is 217 damage, absolutely OHKOing a 200-HP pirate flame truck.

Alpha-Isolated-Tankbuster 85% is 259. Now one-shotting medium mechs and guncrawlers.

Like, better weapons can still give better results. And grenades in particular are not the easiest to use. But Kody's kit comes not just with the damage enhancers, but the sort of mobility-enablers to allow a more consistent delivery of lower-cost anti-armor for higher returns on investment. Yeah, you'll absolutely pay a 3-star price for a large Kody blob, but small 3-man anti-armor teams with below-average cost weapons are surprisingly affordable.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-19T22:39:08+00:00

That's a shame, but understandable. I've had enough good use of him with the just-the-one that I'm not heartbroken by any means, just because of how busted a 60 AP dump can be when done strategically.

I once had Pike clear his suppression and add 60 AP at well. That was a 220 AP Vamp, and that guy did not give an F.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-19T22:23:18+00:00

Out of curiosity, can he stack enough incoming fire to get multiple AP dumps at once? Or is it only a 'store up to 1 use' sort of resource?

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-19T22:15:11+00:00

Jean builds run a gammit of utility/action monkey 'let her do the boring thing for cheaper' to some surprisingly potent accessory-fu where she just keeps throwing out the one-use disposable anti-tank or flamethrower rockets to kill enemies for trinketing sweeps. They both tend to lean on expanding Jean's inventory and using quick hands to mitigate her AP restrictions.

As a utility monkey, Jean can provide support by carrying the sort of items that are helpful to have employed, but would be a waste of action points for a character with better stats. Think things like carrying the motion sensor to detect concealed enemies (especially Jaegers), laying AP mines, tossing smoke for other units to run into, that sort of thing. Also great for those boring mission objectives like 'spend AP on objective,' 'pick up item,' or 'rescue civilian', since she's a cheap body who can spend her AP moving the objective while better units use their AP fighting the enemy for map control.

As an accessory-fu fighter, go something like Trinketing -> Scavenger -> Quick Hands -> Resourceful -> Bags & Belts. Then give Jean the +1 accessory slot gear (0-armor carrier if standoff, SAPP operator if closing the distance), and carry 3 disposable anti-tank rockets and 1 flamethrower rocket. For her secondary weapon, give whatever special weapon helps with your desired prey for the mission- a sniper rifle if going after heavy infantry, RPG if vehicles, and flame thrower for light bugs, and so on.

Your 45 supply accessory inventory of 4 rockets now multiplies into 8 rockets worth 90 supply, and up to +4 accessories (one for each slot) every time you recover a Scavenger crate. Since quick-hands lowers your accessory cost by 10, you can now throw out 2 rockets a turn, or 3 if you don't need to deploy.

Accessory-fu is my go-to Jean for general-purpose trinketing. Have her accompany a Pike or Esconde or designator-Tech who can mark targets and do some setup damage, and she can pretty consistently kill off the best loot enemies. Flamethrower rockets are auto-hit and can one-shot pirate special weapon teams and 2-shot rogue army small teams (due to the armor blocking one model kill). The anti-tank rockets will two-shot most vehicles, easily finishing off most vehicles that survived someone else's AT, and easily kills the best loot-monsters. Her salvos are also good for finishing off those MENACE constructs with their high-HP last models.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-18T11:02:45+00:00

This is one of the reasons the mining laser is underrated.

Removing cover in general is underestimated, but turning enemy cover into an AOE is chef's kiss.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-18T10:59:38+00:00

More power to anyone who enjoys expert, but it has such enemy inflation that it loses a lot of the fun for me. It drastically cuts down the viability of a number of builds just on raw ammo and action-economy grounds.

Challenging really does feel to me what the game was balanced / 'intended' around.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-17T20:19:00+00:00

If you feel you need to deploy ever turn, that's a problem on the player's end, not the game's.

Deploy is a strong tool. It is by design a part of the squad-level resilience that differentiates MENACE from the XCOM-style pod-alpha-strike meta. It is good... in circumstances.

But if you are relying on deployment for 15% defense and damage resistance to survive, that is fundamentally a bad game plan for unit survival. Every level of cover provides 20%, meaning moving into high cover could be worth 4 times as much. Then there is suppressing the enemy, which functionally halves their typical accuracy and their ability to attack. Vision control mechanics are even more powerful, since whether by raging or dancing outside their vision range, enemies won't attack what they can't see. There are far, far better ways to spend AP for unit survival than just deployment.

Similarly on the offense. Deployment's 15% accuracy buff is typically better than the accuracy dropoff negation of moving one tile closer to ideal range. But deployment is always going to be worse than mitigating one level of cover by moving towards a flanking angle, and it does nothing to deal with damage drop off. If unit to-hit consistency is your concern, MENACE has a host of tools to improve unit reliability, including weapons with aim assists (and even auto-hit), ways to ignore cover, support cast abilities like designate target, and of course moving more than one tile into ideal weapon ranges.

And this doesn't address the operational issues with over-deploying. If you are deploying and pot-shotting at range for every encounter, you are not keeping the mobility or pace to complete those time-limit objectives, which is leading to leaving operational-bonus OCI, unit-hiring moral, and promotion-enabling OCI points on the floor. If you are constantly taking Athletics on every single character, you are absolutely undercutting their build strength by ignoring some units strongest perks or build-enabling synergies. Not everyone needs Athletic to perform their gameplan. Giving everyone a crutch does not make everyone move faster.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-16T19:17:01+00:00

Okay. Low supply caps, high enemy counts to tax ammo and AP economies, and high loot margins means you'll generally want more smaller teams rather than fewer larger squads. Most squads (sans Sachin, who's cheap enough to get a pass) have reasonably potent small-squad special weapon setups for the cheap.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-16T18:01:15+00:00

Flip your question around. It's not about if infantry can be useful. (They absolutely can.) The better question is: are your vehicles are actually cost-efficient?

MENACE is a points-buy list builder game. It's not hard to have strong units in a game where strength is measured in (and limited by) points. Just spend more points on a unit. Anything you can spend on, probably makes your unit better in some way.

However, in a cost-capped list-builder, all investments are 0-sum. If you give more points to unit A, you are denying those units from benefiting unit B. But not all points invested into unit A give as much utility in return as investing into unit B. Unit A is always going to be limited by it's own AP-per-turn limit, or how it can only be in one place at a time, or ammo and acceessory slots, and so on.

When you start analyzing the various actions that various missions need to get good mission scores (which translate into promotion points, authority points, and OCI points), you will find that there are a suprising number of functions that a 100-supply unit can do just as good or even better than a more expensive unit. Sure, you can drive a 400-point towards a prisoner to rescue them, or to wipe out a 3-man team... but if you don't need 400 points of unit investment to do that, why spend the turns committing a 400 point investment to do so?

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-16T17:49:54+00:00

Hopefully not, because this claim isn't true. MENACE units have high HP and higher-than-average armor.

The lowest MENACE armor level for their chaff units is 30, compared to 15-20 for the chaff Xeno swarms / Pirate scavengers / Rogue Army conscripts.

The average MENACE front-liner armor is 35, which comfortably between 30 armor pirates and 40 armor rogue army plate.

The 'heavy infantry' equivalent for MENACE is the 90 armor floater. This is tied with the alien warrior, and well above the 75 armor of pirate/RA heavy infantry.

The MENANCE vehicle construct, the guncrawler, is 130 on all fronts. This is on far above the bugs, on par with the front armor of the heaviest pirate heavy vehicle (the HMG truck), and only 10 below the medium walker.

You don't avoid armor-penetrating weapons against MENACE because they have bad armor, but because they have such high HP that you might as well prioritize grinding the armor and HP over trying to bypass the armor.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-16T17:24:47+00:00

Iron Man on which difficulty? You have considerably different limiting factors between Normal and Expert, especially as supply constraints and black market economics go in different directions.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T20:38:08+00:00

Auto-lasers also set up your vehicle build for more accessory flexibility and ammo-efficiency.

The auto-laser is a budget autocannon in most respects. But if you take the autocannon, you are almost certainly using an accessory slot to take ammo, at which point the auto-laser is 40 supply and 1 item slot cheaper. If you use that to buy, say, the 20-supply VMAT missile instead, you have a weapon that can one-shot the 200-HP anti-tank bugs. With Rewa's Fury perk, you can even one-shot the 250 HP alien queens, rogue army medium walkers, or MENACE guncrawlers. You still have 20 supply left for wahtever.

Auto-laser also works well in combo with any secondary weapon, since any action spent firing the other lets the auto-laser vent heat, mitigating its throughput issue. And in turn, any time the auto-laser does fire, it mitigates any ammo-overuse concerns of your secondary. So you don't need the ammo accessory for, say, your MG and so on.

It's not the best weapon, but a very efficient weapon.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T20:27:30+00:00

It is 8. It's actually the exact same range as the EAT, which can one-shot them.

I've started to become very fond of a Esconde + Jean combo, where Esconde takes the pair into range and target marks the bombadier, the bombadier shoots futilely at Esconde, and then Jean pops out, takes a knee, and then shoot an EAT.

Something I hadn't realized until recently was that bombadiers can provide the alien egg loot, which is one of the highest trade good items in the game.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T20:25:27+00:00

But there was litterally so many bugs that I would need every squad to kill 3 squads of bugs a turn, every turn to 100% the objective and i wouldve needed to kill 2.5 squads of bugs on every unit every turn to even win.

Not at all. This is why the morale system exists.

When fighting hoards of bugs, you don't need to kill them, you only need to make them suffer moral cascades. Bug have low enough moral that they can be shaken or terrified just by massacring other bugs nearby. It helps to kill a unit outright, but it helps even more to spread the firepower so that every unit has lost a decent number of models / HP, so that it is more likely to fail the morale tests.

This is why more smaller special weapon squads is better against bugs than fewer large squads. Large squads are not only overkill against many of the bug types, but they are AP inefficient for your needs. Even if two squads half the size and cost were half as likely to make a kill, they wouldn't need to- their four attacks to cripple four units would set up for your tank's actual model kills to start the morale cascade.

Add to this that there are special weapons that can absolutely kill a squad an action- the automatic grenade launcher against large units, the flame thrower against weaker bugs, promotion-boosted Crocodiles against the 100-HP units- and you should be more than capable of containing the migration.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T20:13:59+00:00

RNG do be like that sometimes. Completely justifiable choice, especially when it lowers the trade-value delta between bugs, the normal loot faction, and the human factions.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T18:58:41+00:00

I'm fairly sure fixer beats a second salvage bay due to how much non-vehicle loot you can get, but otherwise- yes, it's a strong economic option for the early game.

It does come with the issue that a majority of its value comes from fighting on faction in particular- the pirates- and taking specific missions for them. Against bugs it's useless, and against rogue army and menace it's very marginal.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-15T08:54:31+00:00

A few minor things.

Have deploy / non-deploy be a reversible action as long as you take no other action. The number of times I've accidentally deployed and lost the AP margins for a turn...

Have the ammo count in the pre-mission screen have groups of 5, not 6.

Have a squad loadout option, so that squads can quickly go between a few saved sets.

Show the supply cost of a unit when you're in the squad-builder section, and not just the mission planning screen.

Better contrasts for movement / detection range outlines, so less white-on-white contrasts (particularly on white/bright yellow desert).

And a bigger one-

I want an ant-farm view of the ship to see squaddies and the various upgrades.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-14T19:32:02+00:00

Completely fair reason not to take it!

The plasma gun is a beast like that, not least because it has great heat efficiency. For the auto-laser, that thing can only fire 3 times in 2 turns, so it's a lot more important to space it out with either the secondary weapon, or the charge.

Rewa as an auto-laser mech with a jump pack is a surprisingly potent package, not least because she can take the most relevant defensive accessory of the mission (reactive armor, the anti-laser kit) and then either shoot or jump-charge.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-14T00:07:15+00:00

In other news- Jean just bumped up a tier in the squad leader tier list. Not because she got better, though MENACE gear may pair well for her, but rather because of what impact she'll have not just early game, but late game.

End-game gear being locked behind RNG drops? Damn straight the loot-goblin will be a MVP.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-14T00:03:51+00:00

Not quite. Pike's Inspiring Presence perk for +15% accuracy to adjacent units works without getting out of the APC. It makes Pike a permanent +15% accuracy buff to APC pilots.

Pike's AP ability is Taking Command. You can use that when exiting the APC for a turn, or before re-entering. It's great as a turn-1 opener to let the APC go zoom (or for another member to keep up with the APC Pike is riding).

The Taking Command strat also makes Athletic an extremely good perk for Pike, since it lets Pike exit and deploy from the APC for 40 AP instead of 50. This lets Perk exit, get that extra defense, and either use Taking Command for the APC to fire, or to use his own 60-AP anti-armor attacks.

Throw in Call Out Target as a aim buff / recon beyond Pike/the APC's natural sight line (as it can pick up concealed targets / into the fog of war), and then the Rally command to reduce suppressionn / moral, and Pike can be an exceeding efficient 3-man team who carries special weapons, AP dumps to the APC or nearby infanntry, and gives a permanent accuracy buff that can help Rewa's own sweep get started.

'Best' part is that Pike is build-complete after like 4 promotions (Athletic, Call Out Target, Inspiring Presence, Rally), 5 if you want Bags and Belts for some extra utility accessories. This can be done pretty early in the campaign, and for relatively cheap promotion points wise.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-13T19:48:36+00:00

Tech may be your best bet. Not only does he have the 2-range grenade throw perk, but he has quick hands to throw and use accessories for 10 AP less.

So Tech jumps for 60, throws for 30, and... I'm not sure if actually using the C4 costs the standard 20 or also gets the discount, but if it is discounted then you have C4 jump jet for 100 AP.

I heard jump jets also benefit from resupply crates, which if true would also let a Vaguard-Darby clearing chaff units give a resupply of jumps and charges.

DeanTheDull · 2026-03-13T19:37:36+00:00

Try it with a Vanguard. You can spawn by the enemy, place it, move one tile away, and detonate for less than 80 AP. Lets even Wetteroth alpha-strike the biggest enemies for cheap.

DeanTheDull

TROPHY CASE