Summary
- The Rifleman is the first troop available in the game, he is unlocked as soon as the game begins.
- Riflemen are balanced troops with moderate HP, damage, and medium attack range.
- They have the lowest unit size of any troop, which is 1.
Visual Appearance
- The Rifleman appears as a fair-skinned man with a blue uniform, simple boots, and a grayish-green helmet with a blue cloth band around it. He carries a rifle and has a red ace of diamonds tucked into his helmet band.
Offensive Strategy
- Riflemen are usually deployed in large numbers for maximum effect.
- Riflemen are effective when used with Heavies acting as meat shields.
- Using Heavies as meat shields will allow them to take most of the damage while the Riflemen behind them deal the damage as Heavies do not yield much damage themselves. However, due to very short range differences, the Heavies may not be able to properly defend the Riiflemen.
- Another great strategy is Rifle-Medic. Riflemen have moderate health, so Medics, with their area healing, will be able to quickly negate damage taken by groups of Riflemen from splash defenses (though high-level defenses can eventually overpower this).
- A third popular strategy with riflemen is the Rifle-Zooka strategy (Full guide by TheCoolBoss). This strategy is very weak to splash defenses due to the high amount of troops and relatively low health per troop, but this is a devastating tactic when combined with high-level Medkits and/or Medics or when used against a base with low level or at least very few splash defenses. Using Smoke Screens can also help to flank the Riflemen and Zookas around defenses and to the Headquarters.
- The Rifleman is great to use against Cannons and Boom Cannons as these slow defenses are single target and therefore very weak against swarms, only destroying one every several seconds.
- Riflemen are weak against Machine Guns, Mortars, Flamethrowers, Rocket Launchers and Shock Launchers as these defenses deal splash damage and can easily cripple groups of Riflemen quickly.
- At respectable levels, Riflemen may counter Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher fire with the help of a Gunboat-deployed Medkit. Alternatively, a well-timed Shock Bomb can allow the Riflemen to finish off these defenses.
- You can allow Riflemen to spread out as much as possible to minimize the effect of these defenses. However, spreading out too much will expose them to fire from too many defenses!
- If the player cannot afford their Riflemen to take damage from area-damage defenses, it is a good idea to destroy them with Artillery or Barrage beforehand.
- Due to their large numbers and short range, Riflemen can be used to protect Tanks from Cannons and Boom Cannons.
- Use a Barrage on large groups of Mines to prevent them from killing your Riflemen quickly. If you have Critters, it can be a good alternative if Barrage gets too expensive. The Cryobomb is very good at clearing Mines if it is available, due to its large radius.
Defensive Strategy
- A group of Riflemen's worst enemy is the Rocket Launcher, so place it well behind other defenses.
- The Mortar is effective in taking out large numbers of Riflemen, but it fires very slowly. Having a Machine Gun in front of a Mortar will cause the Riflemen to target the Machine Gun (in the absence of a Flare), giving the Mortar more time to fire at the Riflemen.
- Place the Mortar behind various buildings so that it is difficult for the Riflemen to reach the Mortar without having any casualties, the same goes for any other slow-firing defense.
- Riflemen are vulnerable to fast firing defenses such as Sniper Towers, Machine Guns, and Flamethrowers, so place them strategically.
- Cannons and Boom Cannons can easily one-shot kill Riflemen, but remain ineffective if they aren't properly supported by appropriate counters. As Riflemen often appear in extreme quantities, Cannons and Boom Cannons would rarely make a dent, as they can only pick off one every few seconds.
- Place your Mines well. Groups of them can kill Riflemen quickly if the attacker ignores them.
- Some very good Prototype Defenses against Riflemen include Lazor Beams, Hot Pots, Microwav'rs and Flotsam Cannons. All of these are capable of defeating hordes of Riflemen quickly, but they can also prove to be prime targets for Shock Bombs.
Upgrade Differences
- There are no visual changes between levels, but each upgrade increases the Rifleman's hitpoints (by 7%), DPS (by 8.2%), and training cost.
Trivia
- The Sniper Tower appears to house a Rifleman and reuses their model and firing sound. Additionally, the rifle he uses deals more damage with a slightly slower rate of fire.
- You can have a maximum of 232 Riflemen in a complete set of fully upgraded Landing Crafts.
- During the tutorial, the training time of 5 Riflemen is reduced to 5 seconds, and costs 0 Diamonds to speed up.
- Riflemen sent by Lt. Hammerman in the tutorial are weaker than normal. A level 1 Sniper Tower requires three shots to destroy a level 1 Rifleman, while Hammerman's troops are easily destroyed in one hit.
Statistics
Unit Size |
Training Time |
Movement Speed |
Attack Range |
Attack Speed |
Headquarters Level Required |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1m |
Moderate / 220 |
Medium / 4.7 Tiles | 1s | 1 |
Warships
Rank |
Level |
Reserves Size |
Upgrade Tokens |
Tech Level |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 8 | 224 | N/A | 5 |
2 | 12 | 272 | 58,000 | 10 |
3 | 16 | 320 | 84,500 | 15 |
4 | 18 | 368 | 112,500 | 20 |
5 | 22 | 416 | 165,000 | 25 |
Total | 420,000 | 75 |