Gears Tactics guide: Locust Horde enemy units

Gears Tactics boasts a slew of enemies that are part of the Locust Horde. Many of these are familiar to long-time Gears of War fans, but a few have been engineered by the Locust geneticist Ukkon. Here’s our guide on enemy unit abilities and how to take them out.

Note: For more information, check out our Gears Tactics guides and features hub.

Gears Tactics: Locust Horde enemy units

Hammerburst Drone

These are the first Locust Horde enemies you encounter in Gears Tactics. They’re armed with rifles, but they’re also total chumps. If you have a bayonet or chainsaw attack readied, you can rush them to proc effects from the skill.

Emergence Hole

While technically not an enemy unit in Gears Tactics, the Emergence Holes or E-Holes will definitely pester you. These E-Holes are only dormant for a turn once they appear on the map. After this, Locust Horde baddies will start spewing forth each turn. You’ll want to keep it covered with overwatch to handle threats for a while, but be forewarned that you can get overwhelmed. Much later in Gears Tactics‘ campaign, E-Holes will even spawn tougher monsters like Disciples or Boomers.

Here are two ways to completely collapse the tunnel:

• If it’s still closed, plant your frag grenade on top of it or use a proximity mine and get out of there quickly. The tunnel will explode and collapse once enemies start spawning.
• If it’s already open, you’ll need to throw a grenade (or shoot a grenade using the Boomshot or Torque Bow).

Note: You can also find Reavers in Gears Tactics. They’ll spawn new Locust Horde enemies just like Emergence Holes. But, because they’re high up in the air, you can’t target them, and it’s almost impossible to predict where they’d drop hostiles on the battlefield.

Wretches

These little critters will try to slash and slice you to pieces. They also have an opportunity attack that triggers when you get to melee range. The good thing is that their low health means you can decimate entire packs via overwatch or a well-placed grenade.

Grenadier

These brutes pack a punch due to their shotguns. They can cut you down to low health in one blast, and they also have an opportunity attack (another shotgun blast) if you get too close. You might need to fire several shots with the Vanguard’s Lancer weapon just to take them down.

Sniper Drone

These baddies don’t have a lot of health, but they’re extremely deadly due to their range. You likely won’t even be able to rush up to them to use your bayonet or chainsaw, so your only recourse would be to have your own Sniper class who can take them out. Otherwise, you’re going to have a slog just to get closer to them with your other soldiers.

Oh, and they can also pin down your troopers. Unlike the regular overwatch that friendlies and hostiles can use, the Sniper Drone’s overwatch ability only focuses on one target at a time. If a character is targetted and they so much as move (or use any ability that triggers overwatch), they’re in for a world of hurt, and even their movement range is lowered.

You can see an example below where Augustus Cole (a pre-order DLC character) is pinned down. He’ll likely get annihilated if I move him, so I’ll have to snipe using Mikayla Dorn instead:

Nemacysts

Like Reavers, Nemacysts can’t be targeted since they’re high up in the air. They do play an important role in one mission type: Scavenger. Each turn, Nemacysts will rain down from the sky and explode, causing a ton of damage to anything caught in the red zone. As such, it’s important to keep moving to grab chests until your squad reaches the extraction point.

Boomer

These big boys are slow-moving, tough as nails, and are armed with the Boomshot grenade launcher. They’re definitely more impactful than an internet meme that lasted a month, so you’re going to need a lot of firepower to take them out or a Heavy class who can chew through them with the Mulcher.

Also, unlike most enemies in Gears Tactics, Boomers tend to fire their weapon at a target once they spawn. This is due to the grenade launcher’s ridiculous range and arcing shot. Once you kill it, though, you can pick up the launcher and use it against your foes. It’s only got two ammo, so make them count.

Ticker

You’ll learn to both love, and hate, these little jerks. They can cover a lot of distance just like Wretches so they can get near you. When close, they’ll explode for massive damage, hitting anyone within the blast radius. In most cases, this can mean certain death for your soldiers. Assuming they haven’t reached close range yet to automatically go boom, you can also kick them towards other mobs. Then, go ahead and shoot them to cause mayhem in your opponent’s ranks.

One more thing: Tickers will advance towards your character’s position if they miss a shot, so it’s easier to kill them via overwatch rather than risking a miss or partial hit. Scouts perform admirably if you want to do a kick-then-shotgun combo. Unfortunately, if they miss (and they might due to low accuracy with shotguns), prepare to have a ticking timebomb explode in your face.

Kantus

Think of the Kantus as an officer in the Locust Horde. These guys do have a weapon in hand, though they’re mostly just there to provide buffs like your squad’s Support class. Their buff, Toughened, can be very annoying since this gives all its allies +75% damage reduction.

If possible, try to focus your fire on the Kantus since its death will remove the buff. Otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of action points and ammo due to enemies turning into bullet sponges.

Theron Guard

The Theron Guard is one of the deadliest units in Gears Tactics. This is due to their use of the Torque Bow and their ability to make a character vulnerable. If a character is vulnerable, they’ll take 25% increased damage and all other hostiles will focus on them.

As for the Torque Bow, this shoots an explosive projectile that does a lot of AoE damage. You can pick up the weapon (which has three ammo) from the dead Theron Guard to use its firing modes:

• The High Power Shot (seen below) fires the projectile in a straight line (so you’ll need line-of-sight), and it can miss. However, it does over a thousand points of damage too, likely killing most hostiles you encounter.
• The Low Power Shot (seen below), meanwhile, can be freely aimed and lobbed towards a general area. It does slightly lower damage, but you can’t miss.

Disciple

The Disciple is one of Ukkon’s creations in Gears Tactics. Any hit you take from its weapon automatically pushes you out of cover or interrupts your overwatch.

Once a Disciple dies, it also releases a poisonous cloud that severely weakens your damage output for a couple of turns. This includes any damage coming from your character, including Ticker explosions. As such, you’re better off finishing it using your guns than going for an execution. You can see the poison cloud’s radius in the image below:

Zealot

The formidable Zealot is encountered towards the end of Gears Tactics‘ campaign. Like the Disciple, it’s also one of Ukkon’s genetic experiments and it even has the same poison cloud effect when killed.

This monster will make its way towards you to use its melee abilities. If you get close, you’ll trigger its opportunity attack which causes your character to get dazed and be unable to use abilities for two turns.

Gears Tactics is available via Steam and Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass for Windows. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.