A Guide to FOB Siege - Death to Cade Huggers
Introduction
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A sequel to the Hive Defence guide, this is a guide to help Xenos better siege the Marine built FOB.
It is important to note that how well you can siege an FOB really depends on your pre-FOB Siege battle. Where:
- How many marines will contribute to the defences, the fewer the better
- How many xenos you can spare for the siege, the more the merrier
- How much time did the Marines have to spend on their FOB, ideally the shorter the better (Sadly this sounds like a meta-rush in reverse but, like the principle in Metarushing xenos because you dont want them to have time to fortify and mature to OP Ancient xenos, the same applies to marines)
It is highly recommended you read my first guide on Xeno Hive Defence and understand it before you read this guide. At this point, some of the specifics may be outdated, like maturity which has been removed, but most of the guide is still applicable to this day.
This guide, like the old one, will be written in a way that helps readers understand and not make their minds narrowminded. I like people with creative strats/tactics, so hopefully this guide does encourage people into that form of thinking.
This guide will also assume that things didnt go too well with Hive Defence and you are on a 50-50% chance to win.(Marines will continue the offensive if it is 60-40%)
Preface
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Now, unlike Hive Defence, actual principles are much simpler and easily categorised. But, it is tricky and requires someone with quick thinking/pre-planned attacks/disciplined/quick reactions(Or rather, a quick and general understanding of the situation).
In Principle, we can deduce them into:
- Weakest Link
- Dispersion of Numbers
- Organisation and Communication
- Siege Weapons
- Actual Strength of Numbers
- Skirmishing
- Time & Supplies
Your Objectives
- Breach into the FOB and Control it
- Slaughter as many marines as possible and prevent them from escaping
- Dont lose too many of your hive to silly fights, like controlling the Dropship that is heavily armed and manned
We will be using Big Red LZ1 FOB as the main map example as they provide most of the history and good context of Mega FOB sieges.
Methods and Styles
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Weakest Link
First impression of everyone when the FOB Siege starts is "Oh man 5 hour round here we go", and that is natural if you see an FOB with 7 layered Cades with well numbered marines behind the cadelines. Faced with this situation, most queens panic and are unsure of what to do.
Reality is, all FOBs have the weakest link, or the weakest part. All you need to do is find the weakest point of the FOB and attack it. If we explain in cadeline alone, usually in Big Red the main entrance will be overloaded with 7-9 cadelines, while Tcomms and North LZ will have 1 - 5 cades at least. The bigger reality is, there is always a part of the FOB that is least manned or unmanned sometimes. If the Xeno Hive is aware of this and knows how to best exploit it, they will have an easier time sieging the FOB
One of the greatest way to exploit the weakness of the FOB is to find the weakest part of the FOB. Places least manned or have the least amount of cades. Can't find it? Force it. Force them to make that part of the FOB weaker.
Here is a map of your typical day-to-day FOB in a siege
As you can see, usually at 80% of the time when the FOB siege begins most of the marines will concentrate their forces on the Front door, leaving Tcomms and North nearly unmanned. I put 2-3 marines manning TComms and North LZ as safe estimate, there are about 50% of the time where they are unmanned.
Logically, if you take 20 xenos fighting on a front that has 3 marines, you will naturally win by sheer numbers alone as opposed to fighting 40 marines behind a cade line calling CAS, OB, Mortar.
Once you hit an unmanned part, you have to quickly breach it before the marines spot you. If they ever spot you, you will have a safe estimate of 1 minute to get in before the rest of the marines comes.
Dispersion of Numbers
Should ever you fail to break in, your typical layout will look a bit like this
Notice that Front Door suffered a sharp drop in numbers just so that the marines can kick you OFF Tcomms? So just to kick you off, Front Door became significantly weaker. Not only that, North LZ got depleted just so that they can reinforce the supposed "THEY ARE FLANKING TCOMMS" call. Even if there is one marine, it is still significantly weaker. So obviously, you attack there.
So here comes the Principle of Dispersion of Numbers. This is a likely scenario if the marines are very prepared for a full scale siege or if they sniffed your attempts out.
Marines in FOB Sieges are always forced to spread out their numbers to cover all flanks to prevent a breach. Xenos, being inferior in numbers, have to surround in a more efficient way and breach more effectively. So to best defeat an area of flank, one simply needs to re-organise their forces and send a bulk to attack the weakest part like say Marshall flank or North LZ. The rest are there to keep the marines busy, keep them distracted, fool them into thinking "Oh...xenos are here, better guard here" and play peek-a-boo.
If marines refuses to move, force them to move. Attack fiercely but not recklessly to die. Then when they move, rotate to the weaker part, attack again! Rinse and repeat. Because given how mobile the xeno is(Until devs decide to change this), rotation tends to be better for the xenos as you have more space and more methods to deal with this. This will be explained further under Siege Weapons.
Organisation and Communication
Xeno Army Composition and Organisation are summed into 3:
Xeno Crack Force
These are there just to keep marines there and distracted for your Main Army. They play Peek-a-boo with them, they peek, run around, screech, fake attack, then run back and heal. They are effective smoke screen and they get marines to call mortar, OB and CAS on them. Sometimes, Marines will perform sorties, leaving the cades to hunt xenos, and the Crack Force can contribute to the siege by killing or capturing these Sorties. These will usually include drones and hivelords to weed, build walls for cover, and build Hive Pylons and Recovery Nodes.
Xeno Main Army
The real main focus of the hive, where most of your T3s will be housed in. These will focus on rotating and breaching the FOB and securing the FOB itself. This force will control the situation and force marines to go where it wants them to go.
Xeno Bulldozer Force
In the event he Marines are aware of what you are doing or some SL/XO/CO read this guide and is prepared to spot the main force out, what you will need to do is to make a secondary force. For the purpose of this guide we will call them the Bulldozer Force. They will consist of the main breaching units to breach and control the breach for the Main Army. OR they serve as the major distraction.
Typically the Queen will do the communicating and coordiation. However, in an actual siege, Heal calls will be frequent so the Queen can only do so much as to heal and coordinate through Hive messages.
The hive itself, especially the Hive Leaders, will have to do most of the communicating.
Siege Weapons
Crusher
The most mobile and most effective siege weapon choice. They break down walls to open flanks and they break down cades and they rotate much faster than the boiler. The bonus point is that they break walls faster than any other xenos.
Boiler(Gas)
Almost equally effective is the Gas Boiler, their strong Acid melts Walls and Reinforced walls and their Gas pushes marines away from the cades and provide cover for the xenos. Additionally, they can help secure breaches by gassing the breach to let the xenos in.
Burrower
Logistically speaking the most important xeno. Surrounding the flanks with tunnels in safe spots ensure that the xeno rotation is insanely fast, especially if you have multiple tunnels.
Ravagers
Basic and Dependable frontline Xenos(Provided they dont die). They break cades and kill marines and are beefy enough to take shots.
Praetorians
A more mobile version of Ravagers, they can be part of the Crack Force or the Main army.
Carriers
Sustainer of Xenos, they make sure the xenos have numbers sustained with captures.
Hivelord & Drones
They build siege fortifications for the hive
Hive Pylons
They provide Hive Weeds to slow down sorties and block certain areas from CAS, OB and Mortar(Note that the marines can laze just outside of the Pylon's block zone and the OB's and CAS Radius alone is enough to kill you inside of the Pylon).
Hive Recovery Node & Queen Heals
Healing is essential in siege, keeps the xenos active in the fight relentlessly and keeps them alive.
Actual Strength of Numbers
This goes without saying, you ideally need fewer marines off planet into shipside and you need a lot of xenos. Make sure you have decent Numerical Strength for BOTH the siege as well as Shipside battle.
Skirmishing
Skirmishing to assasinate Engineers or Destroy cades delays the FOB's complete construction. Melting of materials or cades contributes to this as well. So long as the FOB is delayed long enough for the Marine's Offensive to fail and retreat, you have done your job.
Time & Supplies
Marines are once again Plagued with Supplies and Health and Safety. Only difference from Hive Defence is the FOB is the main Supply Dump itself, and the supply rotation is limited. Meaning to say, Requisitions can only supply a set amount of ammo per 10-30 minutes. If they managed to misuse their resources, they are done for. Some marines are aware of this, which is why the FOB team will sometimes scavenge nearby colony for Vendors or materials for the FOB.
Time is limited, tide of the battle turns at every second. You must understand this and be aware of this. The moment a weakpoint is made, the moment a breach is made, every second count. You must make it work in a short amount of time. And the moment you pour into the FOB, you have a few minutes before Command Calls Evac or before the Marines realise the breach and starts rotating to the breach or retreating to the Dropship.
Examples, Case Studies and Illustration
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In Development