Rifleman

 

"Rifleman ready! Let's take the fight to the enemy!"

Summary

• The Rifleman is the first troop available in the game, being unlocked as soon as the game begins.
• Riflemen are decent troops with moderate HP, damage, and attack range.
• They require the lowest amount of space in the Landing Craft of any troop.

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 spades tucked into his helmet band.

Offensive Strategy

• The Rifleman is effective when deployed in large numbers.
• The Rifleman is 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. Be warned that because Riflemen walk so close behind Heavies, they are likely to be hit by splash damage defenses such as Rocket Launchers, Machine Guns, Mortars and Shock Launchers that target your Heavies, even when the Heavies are in front of them.
• Another great strategy is Rifle-Medic. Riflemen have moderate health, so Medics will be able to heal up most of the damage that the Riflemen take from splash damage defenses. Medics' healing does have a splash effect, so they can heal Riflemen faster than any other unit (though high-level defenses can eventually overpower the healing).
• 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 devistating 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.
• The Rifleman is great to use against Cannons and Boom Cannons as these defenses are single-shot defenses, making them easily overwhelmed by Riflemen hordes.
• Riflemen are weak against Machine Guns, Mortars, Flamethrowers, Rocket Launchers and Shock Launchers as these defenses are multi-target, meaning that they excel at damaging groups of enemies.
  • At respectable levels, Riflemen may counter Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher fire with the help of a Gunboat deployed Medkit.
  • You can allow Riflemen to spread out as much as possible to minimise the effect of these defenses. However, spreading out too much will expose them to fire from too many defenses!
• 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 can be swarmed by large groups of Riflemen so be sure protect them with Sniper Towers, Machine Guns, Flamethrowers, Rocket Launchers or Shock Launchers.
• Place your Mines well. Groups of them can kill Riflemen quickly if the attacker ignores them.
• Some very good Prototype Defenses against Riflemen include Shock Blasters, 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%), and training cost.

Trivia

• They appear as the snipers in Sniper Towers. However, their rate of fire is different.
• During the tutorial, the training time of 5 Riflemen is reduced to 5 seconds, and costs 0 Diamonds to complete.

Statistics

Unit Size	Training Time	Movement Speed	Attack Range	Attack Speed	Headquarters Level Required
1	1m	Moderate / 220	Medium / 4.7 Tiles	1s	1

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Level	Hitpoints	DPS	Training Cost	Research Cost	Armory	Research Time	Instant	XP Gain
1	140	30	20	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2	150	32	50	9,500	1	2h	56	14
3	160	35	100	19,500	2	3h	79	17
4	172	38	150	42,000	3	6h	138	24
5	184	41	200	83,000	4	8h	190	30
6	196	44	250	140,000	5	12h	261	37
7	210	48	300	236,000	6	17h	349	43
8	225	52	350	370,000	7	22h	444	50
9	241	56	400	540,000	8	1d	517	52
10	257	61	450	630,000	9	1d 1h	552	52
11	275	66	500	710,000	10	1d 4h	602	55
12	295	71	600	970,000	11	1d 9h	716	61
13	315	77	700	1,320,000	12	1d 12h	832	67
14	337	84	800	1,500,000	13	1d 15h	901	67
15	361	90	900	1,800,000	14	2d	1,038	74
16	386	98	1,000	2,480,000	15	2d 3h	1,211	78
17	413	106	1,100	2,850,000	16	2d 5h	1,304	78
18	442	115	1,200	3,200,000	17	2d 11h	1,417	83
19	473	124	1,300	3,800,000	18	2d 13h	1,549	84
20	506	134	1,400	4,400,000	19	2d 17h	1,690	87
21	542	145	1,500	5,100,000	20	2d 19h	1,832	89
22	580	157	1,600	5,500,000	21	2d 21h	1,916	91

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