In terms of specialization, the Support can easily adopt the roles of effective healer or battlefield commander. For building a Support who is meant to keep people alive, Recovery Patch from and Group Therapy from the Surgeon and Combat Medic branches, respectively, are more or less indispensable. Fitting in with the Surgeon specialization's focus on passive and continuous healing, Recovery Patch grants a chosen unit healing at the end of each of the next three turns, great for orchestrating the takeover of a specific location or aiding a team mate in a narrow escape. Group therapy, like Stim, is simple but effective, healing the whole party at once. For those more interested in keeping a team in peak fighting form, the Paragon branch's Lock and Load and Strategist Branch's Surge are exceedingly beneficial. Lock and Load saves the entire team the hassle of reloading, meaning that an entire turn can be focused on putting down fire, while Surge completely recharges the targets skills and abilities, granting them back their full toolkit immediat

As mentioned before, each unit has a set number of actions they can take in a single term, and these actions are defined by action point. Points can be spent on moving, shooting, throwing grenades, and using abilities. When using an action a certain number of points will be used up, however by performing an execution on an enemy, a player regains action points. Theoretically, if a player chained multiple executions their turn could last fore

In addition to these universal options, players can effectively use skills to boost and stretch skill points. Each of the five classes have skills that add much-needed action points. For example, the Sniper's chain Shot skill will award the shooter AP for hits; the Support can use Empower to grant bonus points to a squad-mate get their own points for reviving a friend with the Encourage passive ability; and the Vanguard's Breach skill gives a point to any soldier canny enough to bring down a breached enemy. Spend some time exploring the skill trees to suss out what options will generate the most action points without costing on combat skills, and think about this when setting up team composition - it may be worth having a Support who, while not a damage dealer on their own, can keep every other soldier firing that bit longer with bonus AP. More points means more gunfire - keep the heat up and the battle is the player's to

There is no better time to dust off the old Xbox 360 and replay the original Gears of War than after beating the story of Gears Tactics. Gears Tactics is a prequel to the original, so why not? The original was the one that started it all, so go back and enjoy the nostalgia of the gory third-person shoo

Overwatch allows players to stay behind cover and hold angles while still opening themselves up to the opportunity to kill enemy units. However, friendly fire is turned on in Tactics , so if a friendly unit moves into the player's overwatch area they are susceptible to taking damage and possibly being kil

Though the standard three action points each character has available can feel quite limiting, it is helpful to remember that there are several ways to get more out of each point. One way to do this is to take full advantage of cover. In Gears Tactics , ending a movement action in cover will reduce the point cost, meaning that it is wise to plan moves from defensive point to defensive point to make the most of movement. Additionally, take full advantage of the execution mechanic: finishing off a downed enemy will award the executioner's squad an action point, adding some much-needed versatility. Take full advantage of this, clearing the field of executable enemies if it is possible without throwing a soldier into the o

Also, some of the achievement names are very amusing. The whole list can be found here , but one of the best is named "Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face," which is to down a Gear with friendly fire. Also, difficult ones that require players to beat a mission on insane difficulty with a single soldier can be fun to go af

The two opening skills for the support are both incredibly useful in their own right. Empower essentially hands an action point off to an ally, delegating the damage-doing to a more specialized soldier for a net increase in hurt thrown the enemy's way. Stim is simple and direct healing, a nice pop of 100 points at the skill's first level. While not exactly overly impressive, Supreme Loot rewards that little boost can be game-changing - 100 points of health can mean the difference between a soldier making it out of a crossfire alive or d

There are some situations where a player may be unable to use any weapon. Unfortunately, guns are vital in the game, and missing them could mean a failed mission. A simple reset or restart should solve this, though no one wants to resort to t

For the series' first foray into the rapidly evolving turn-based tactics genre, **Gears Tactics ** is an impressively balanced and well constructed strategic experience. Managing to avoid the pitfalls of some other genre-crossing series (for all that is good about it, the first Halo Wars game had some pretty rough edges), Gears Tactics hits many of the right notes for a squad tactics title, including a fairly fleshed out equipm.ent customization system and some very involved soldier skill trees that allow for specialization that is critical to a rounded battle experience. While it is easy to see how these features have lead to comparisons to the likes of XCOM (which is amongst the highest of praises bestowable on a young turn based tactics series), the game manages to retain the unique flavor of its source material, finely portraying the gritty world that plays hosts to the ongoing conflict between mankind and the Locust hordes, with some clever, thematic mechanics to match . As adaptations go, this shifting of the Xbox flagship Gears series to a genre more about careful consideration than frenetic aggression has gone exceptionally smoot