Noobs in Combat Infantry Tier List (V6.1)

How this infantry list is ranked

This page ranks player infantry for Noobs in Combat on the live V6.1 experience. Criteria favor campaign and co-op PvE: reliable capture, radio spotting for artillery, board control, and tix efficiency under common starting budgets. Pure 1v1 cheese or meme lineups are noted but not rewarded with S-tier.

Use this alongside the Tier List Hub, the sibling Vehicles Tier List, the Units overview, and the Loadout Planner. When you want a full deck recipe, jump to Best Loadout after unlocking the tech you need on the Tech Tree.

Patch hygiene (V6.1.1): Community notes report Marksmen temporary Scouting/HP swings were reverted and Troopers lost Radio in that hotfix window—verify live unit cards before building radio plans on Troopers alone. Prefer Grunts for reliable radio spotting.

Bias note: AI campaigns punish thin glass cannons and reward cheap radio bodies that keep pushing. If you only play competitive PvP, bump niche long-range infantry and ambush specialists one tier in your own notes.

S tier — always worth a slot

Grunts (Troopers → Shock Troops → Grunts)

Grunts are the current mainline infantry win condition for most PvE decks. The Troopers tree added in V6 gives a clean path into Shock Troops and Grunts with strong SMG volume, capture, and radio support that actually justifies artillery investment. After V6.1 price cuts on Troopers (and later radio tweaks in hotfix patches), early Trooper spam into Grunts remains the safest way to flood capture points without burning your entire tix pool.

Why S: they meatshield, they capture, they call fire, and they scale with veterancy. Pair them with a Supply Truck so ammo and morale stay online through long Guest-saga missions.

Light Gunner (Medium Gunner → Light Gunner)

Light Gunner is the anti-infantry answer when AI piles Riflemen, Shock Troops, or SMG bodies into forests and towns. Move-and-shoot pressure clears soft targets that would otherwise stall your Battle Tank push. In PvE, one Light Gunner often does more board cleaning than a second Marksmen squad at similar opportunity cost.

Why S for AI maps: bots love infantry blobs. A mobile gunner plus Grunts deletes those blobs before they reach your armor.

A tier — core specialists

Combat Engineer (Sapper → Combat Engineer)

Combat Engineers are utility kings: repairs, mines, and pistol pressure after V6.1 pistol buffs. V6.1 also cut Combat Engineer XP requirements by about 20%, so the evolution is easier to finish. They are not your primary capture wave, but every serious late campaign deck wants at least one engineer brain for minefields, recovery, and awkward urban tiles.

Park them behind Grunts, repair your Battle Tank after a bad trade, and let mines punish AI armor that likes to drive straight at radio beacons.

Troopers (early tree value)

Even before full Grunt evolution, Troopers deserve A-tier consideration because V6.1 dropped their price and made the tree the default mainline. Use Troopers as disposable radio/capture bodies while you finish research. Do not cling to them forever once Grunts are online—upgrade the line.

B tier — situational but honest

Riflemen → Rangers → Marksmen

The Riflemen radio line still teaches new players the game, and Rangers / Marksmen bring longer rifle range plus radio. Marksmen sit in an awkward cost bracket: too expensive to spam as meatshields, not always better than investing the same tix into more Troopers evolving toward Grunts. Community consensus after V6.1 is that Marksmen are a quality-over-quantity pick—fine when you need two-tile rifle reach and a radio beacon, poor when you need bodies on every objective.

V6.1 briefly gave Marksmen Scouting and shuffled HP; follow-up hotfixes reverted some of that. Treat Marksmen as niche radio rifles, not auto-includes. If your deck already has Grunt radio coverage, Marksmen often drop to C for that specific list.

Medium Gunner (pre-Light Gunner)

Hold Medium Gunner in B while you climb the tree. It still shreds infantry on defense, but Light Gunner’s mobility is what earns the S grade on offensive campaigns.

C tier — niche or outclassed mainline

Pure Marksmen spam / overbuilt Ranger stacks

Stacking multiple expensive long-range infantry without enough capture bodies loses PvE maps that demand simultaneous objective pressure. One Marksmen squad can be fine; three instead of Grunts is usually a C-tier plan.

Sapper without the Combat Engineer finish

Base Sappers still lay mines and repair, but leaving the tree unfinished wastes the V6 Combat Engineer package. If you only brought a Sapper “for the checkbox,” you are playing a C-tier version of an A-tier role.

Role checklist before you lock the loadout

1. Mainline capture + radio: Troopers evolving to Grunts.
2. Anti-infantry sweeper: Light Gunner.
3. Utility: Combat Engineer.
4. Optional niche: one Marksmen if you need two-tile rifles and spare tix.
5. Logistics link: never field this infantry package without a supplier from the Vehicles Tier List.

Cross-check slot and tix limits in the Loadout Planner and compare armor picks so your infantry are not walking into unscreened tanks. For perk definitions (Radio, Capture, Scouting, Ambush), see Units. Cosmetic faction looks do not change these tiers—read Skins if you only care about visuals.

PvE bias, explained clearly

Campaign AI telegraphs pushes, overcommits infantry, and respects radio-called artillery. That environment elevates cheap durable radio infantry and mobile gunners while punishing glass long-range squads that cannot hold a point. In human PvP, Ambush AT infantry and cheeky Marksmen positioning rise in value; adjust one tier accordingly, but keep Grunts near the top either way.

When patches land (Troopers radio changes, Marksmen tweaks, engineer XP), re-check the Changelog before you rewrite your entire preset. Meta shifts in NiC are usually incremental, not total resets.

Quick upgrade path for new accounts

Start with Riflemen awareness in the tutorial, pivot research into the Troopers tree as soon as it unlocks, rush Grunts, unlock Light Gunner, then finish Combat Engineer. Only then spend nuggets chasing Marksmen cosmetics of playstyle. Claim any active Codes for gems or currency that accelerate research, then rebuild presets in the deploy menu using V6’s loadout switcher.

If you migrated from V5.10, confirm units and clears transferred via the V6 Migration steps before grinding duplicate research on the wrong place ID.

Related reading

• Tier List Hub — ranking philosophy and sibling lists
• Vehicles Tier List — Battle Tank, IFV, SPAAG, SAM, suppliers
• Best Loadout — full deck examples
• Getting Started — day-one controls and goals
• Players Hub — roster entry points

Stay flexible: an S-tier unit in the wrong map (naval-heavy, pure air denial, night vision puzzles) can play like B. Rank the role, then pick the unit that fills it inside your tix cap.