Iron Marines+ Campaign Unit Tier List and Squad Guide

Snipers and Walkers are the most effective units in Iron Marines+ campaign missions because their long engagement ranges eliminate hostile threats before enemies can breach your defensive perimeter. To build a reliable squad, pair these long-range damage dealers with a dedicated frontline blocker, such as Brawlers, to absorb incoming fire and lock enemies in place.

Iron Marines+ Unit Tier List

The following rankings evaluate each squad based on damage output, defensive utility, and performance against late-game armored targets and swarms:

Tier	Unit	Branch	Primary Role	Best Use Case
S	Snipers	Infantry	Long-Range Single Target	Eliminating high-armor mini-bosses and distant priority targets
S	Walkers	Mech	Artillery / Area of Effect	Clearing alien egg clusters and incoming swarms with guided rockets
A	Brawlers	Mech	Frontline Tank / Stun	Blocking narrow choke points and soaking ballistic or acid attacks
A	Blades	Alien	Melee Assassin	Leaping onto high-threat backline targets and shredding medium armor
B	Safeguards	Mech	Defensive Support	Shielding allied artillery and heroes during prolonged holdouts
B	Flamethrowers	Infantry	Cone Fire Damage	Burning through unarmored biological hordes in early stages
B	Tempests	Alien	Sustained Beam Damage	Chipping through clustered ground units in narrow corridors
C	Rangers	Infantry	Generalist Rifle Infantry	Cheap early-game defense before specialized branches unlock
C	Channelers	Alien	Disruption / Energy Support	Applying debuffs when raw damage or heavy armor is not required

S-Tier: Core Damage Anchors

S-tier squads consistently solve campaign objectives from safety, making them your top priority for mission deployments.

Snipers

Snipers provide unmatched single-target burst damage at the longest range in the game. They excel at picking off volatile bomb carriers, alien casters, and armored elites before those enemies can fire. Positioning Snipers on high ground or directly behind defensive structures keeps them safe from melee swarms, which represent their primary vulnerability.

Walkers

Walkers serve as the premier anti-swarm artillery squad. Their tracking rockets deal high area-of-effect damage, softening entrenched enemy outposts and obliterating dense waves of light units. Deploying Walkers ensures that high-volume waves never close the distance to overwhelm your base or drop points.

A-Tier: Frontline Anchors and Specialists

A-tier units provide the disruption and protection necessary to keep your long-range artillery firing undisturbed.

Brawlers: The sturdiest frontline blockers in the game. Brawlers rely on massive health pools and area ground slams to interrupt enemy attack animations. They easily hold narrow choke points against sustained ground assaults. However, they possess slow movement speed and zero anti-air capabilities, requiring ranged support against aerial targets.
Blades: High-mobility melee shock troops capable of leaping into the fray. Blades chew through priority targets and medium armor faster than any other squad. They lack the raw health of Brawlers and suffer heavy casualties against point-blank explosive bursts if left unmanaged, making them best suited for quick, targeted ambushes.

B-Tier: Situational Utility and Crowd Control

B-tier squads excel in narrow conditions but lack the universal power of higher-ranked units.

Safeguards: These support mechas deploy kinetic barrier shields that reduce incoming damage to adjacent allies. They significantly extend the survival time of Walkers and Heroes during defensive sieges, but fielding them consumes a squad slot that could otherwise provide offensive firepower.
Flamethrowers: Highly effective in early-game levels dominated by low-health alien swarms. Their short attack range becomes a critical liability in later stages, where exploding enemies and heavily armored foes quickly deplete their health.
Tempests: Channel continuous energy beams that burn through clustered ground units in choke points. While reliable in corridors, their high deployment cost and slow turning speed make them less versatile than Walkers for long-range artillery duties.

C-Tier: Early Fillers and Niche Disrupters

C-tier units fall off rapidly once advanced squads are unlocked across the campaign trees.

Rangers: Reliable, low-cost baseline soldiers for early missions that target both ground and aerial units. As enemy armor values increase, their basic rifles struggle to deal noticeable damage, and their moderate health pools cannot survive late-game bombardments. Replace them with specialized units as soon as alternatives become available.
Channelers: Offer utility through energy disruption and enemy debuffs. In practice, their low damage output and frail defenses rarely justify a deployment slot over units that provide direct crowd control or heavy damage.

Recommended Squad Composition and Role Swapping

For standard campaign encounters, field a balanced tri-part squad rather than stacking a single unit type:

One Frontline Blocker: Deploy Brawlers to plug choke points, or use Blades to quickly assassinate mobile threats.
One Artillery Squad: Use Walkers to clear incoming waves, egg nests, and light swarms at range.
One Precision Squad: Use Snipers to eliminate armored leaders and priority casters from behind your blocker.

Take advantage of the drop pod role-swapping mechanic during multi-phase missions. Use mobile units like Blades or Flamethrowers to rapidly clear alien outposts during push phases, then swap those squads into Snipers, Walkers, or Brawlers before initiating stationary holdout objectives.