There should also be one defence chamber for every two or three offence chambers, no matter what stage of the game you are in.
As an alien you must know the map, its nooks and crannies, and the quickest way from your spawn to marines base.


Early game: 1 Hive

There should only be one Gorge in the begining, no more for any reason what-so-ever.

Chamber Order- This should always be defence, movement, then sensory. Some people like to make sensory chambers second, some even like to make them first, this is completely wrong. While cloaking is an essencial skill for aliens to take on marines, it is only nessicary in late game when marines have you out-gunned and are equiped with Heavy Armour. This is the only real time you have to sneak up on someone to get the kill. A Skulk with carapice can easily take out a marine with anything up to a shotgun and no Heavy Armour. Celerity is also a must for Skulks to take get past turrets in middle game, but I'll get to this in a minute.

Skulk Rush- This is the single most devestating move aliens can pull. If it is done right marines can easily be crippled in the first few minutes of play. Here's how it goes. First have everyone stay Skulk except for one person who goes gorge and gets started on RT's. Rush marine base ASAP, before turrets, and before marines get orginized. This should be an orginized rush, everyone should go in at the same time. Go for people first. After marines are killed go for spawn pads. I have seen Skulk Rushes ruined because the lone survivor went for marine's RT or CC but left the pads intact. Marine spawn pads have very little health, and without them they get no backup. After pads are killed the CC can be taken out very easily, game over, aliens win. This is a must for every game. Even if the attack fails and marines survive it can set back their building quite a bit, and it slows down their progress. To be perfectly honest, out of all the times I have seen the kharaa win this move has cause more than half of those victories.

Pinned Down- Another must for every game if the Skulk Rush fails. One of the only ways for aliens to win right at this point is to keep marines from expanding. Have all exits watched by as many Skulks as possible, leaving none open. You MUST stop them from expanding to keep their resource count down. If they get two or three RT's they can easily save up enough for HMGs and HA. Aliens have to keep marines Pinned Down for as long as possible.


Middle game: 2 Hives

In middle and late game you need to get more Gorge's, anywhere from one to three depending on map and teamsize.

CC Rush- Another great move, but will only work if marines are not suspecting it. To do it correctly you need anywhere from 1/3 to 3/4 of your team, everyone who isn't Gorge or defending should partake. Everyone going should be Skulk with carapace and celerity. Everyone should rush at the same time into the marines base running past turrets, people, pads, everything, and go directly to the CC. Since, in all maps I have seen, the CC room is seperated from the marines starting room and is usually undefended, all you need to watch for are marines who come up ladders or go up elevators while in CC room choming away. The CC should be destroyed in very little time with only 2 or 3 people. I have twice gotten CC red using this tactic going solo because I had no backup. With a well orginized CC Rush marines can easily be crippled beyond repair.

Defence- In the begining offence chambers mixed with defence chambers should easily be able to keep off all attacks. However, when you get into the middle game, and marines start getting HA, HMG's, and GL's<albiet in limited numbers>, more is needed. Fades are decidedly underpowered in assault but make great defence when mixed with a Gorge, offence chambers, and defence chambers. Gorge's webbing and a Fade can desimate an attack of HMGers, and if they are tossing grenades in a Fade can easily blink past the explosion zone and go for the pest who is tossing them.


Late Game: 3 Hives

Onos/Lerk Combo- To make the best of this combo you must first pin down an expansion or base with offence and deffence chambers. After this is accomplished the Onos and Lerk make their move, Onos first of course. When they reach the turrets who are guarding the expansion/base the Lerk needs to umbra while the Onos ducks and chomps away<I have found that ducking and biting is the best way to take out turrets, I can't stand charging and standing up I find I don't do as much damage>. While the Onos is destroying turrets the Lerk can take out any non-Heavy Armour marines<if there are HA's then Onos should take care of them before he starts on turrets>. After you have taken out one or perhaps 2 turrets retreat back to defence chambers and fill up on life. Repeat this until all turrets are disabled, and then Skulks can come in to help out. This strat can also work with Fade/Lerk Combo, but it is not as effective. When using Fade/Lerk Combo you should always retreat after destroying one turret, to get back lost health and gain energy.



What do you think of these strats, how have they worked for you, and what others do you like to use? What class combos have you found interesting and effective, and how do you stop marines from expanding?

01Chrono

Lovely. Everyone soak up the above.

Fade is an awsome assault unit if he has full adrenalin, I've taken out 3-4 HA marines useing fade with adren, carc, and sent. Sent is realy usefull since you can gess when the marin is about to come around the corrner and launch your rocket/bomb in time.

Nothing like a marine walking about the corner to get a rocket in the face

Now if only Lerks could ride Onos.

Earlier today I was on a great alien team who used every single one of these strats to perfection on the map bast. It was brilliant. This is the basics of our struggle.

We started off with the good ol' Skulk Rush, one person staying behind to go Gorge and start RT's. We didn't cripple their base, but we did stall their base making by coming in hard and fast again and again. As soon as turrets were up we knew we couldn't take them out by rushing in as Skulks, so we used the Pinned Down strat. We had another on our team go Gorge and he started making offence and defence chambers at their exits, far enough away so that they would have to come out to take them out. We then waited to ambush any marines who tried to take out the chambers. It was excellent. They were unable to expand at all, only having the one RT in their base, while we got our second hive.

At this point we had movement and defence towers. Me and another person, who was going by the name NSPlayer even though it was obviously not his first time playing as he was very good, bum-rushed their CC three times in a row. Because of the way bast's CC room is set up they were unable to set up turrets by CC and we easily dispatched the marines who camped up there trying vainly to protect their commander. We destroyed their CC on the third rush. Of course, it took us so long to kill that they had already made another, but it was on the bottom and that made it a much nicer target for later in the game.

Now we had three hives, while they STILL had been unable to get out of their base. We smelled blood in the water and went after them again and again. In bast there is a vent that leads into the marines spawn room, a great place to hide and pepper them with bile bombs and spore clouds while hidden behind a cloud of umbra. As a Lerk with adreneline, SoF, and regen I was in the vent with a Fade. We demolished their base. Sure, after a while they saved up enough for a GL, but by that time I had already gotten 13 kills with spore cloud, and the Fade had done untold damage to all of their structures, he also racked up quite a few kills I'm sure. All through this time our Skulks were doing xeno runs into base, it got real nasty for the marines.

Well, there you have it. With a good team and good strategy aliens can overcome.


01Chrono

Nice guide I have been doing a similar strategy like this lately and I have been winning everytime as a alien since then.