Squaddies

Squaddies are the other component of infantry squads aside from the Squad Leader. They are faceless, generic grunts who only have names and backgrounds, though the game does keep track of how many missions they have survived, and they can be renamed at the player's behest.

Squaddies function essentially as HP and damage for a unit. A squad leader alone has only the HP provided by their armor and can only do as much damage as a single weapon allows, but adding squaddies (up to a maximum of 8, so the total number of elements a unit has can be 9 at most) multiplies this by the number of squaddies. Each squaddie represents a certain amount of HP, and when that amount of damage has been dealt to the unit, a squaddie will die. When all squaddies have died, further damage will incapacitate the Squad Leader, and they must be rescued by another unit or they will bleed out and die permanently.

While more squaddies thus increase the amount of damage your units can do and make their leaders safer, they also increase the supply cost of a unit, multiplying it by the number of squaddies (in addition to the cost of the leader). The player can add or remove squaddies in the battle preparation screen. Thus, the player must always strike a balance between the maximum amount of HP an infantry unit may have and the maximum amount of damage it can dish out, and the supply cost of deploying that unit.

Finally, it is also important to note that the number of squaddies available to you is represented by the 'Manpower' resource in the strategic layer. If this runs low you cannot deploy any troops with your infantry Squad Leaders, making them vulnerable and less effective. Since you are also penalized for taking too much damage in missions, this is another incentive to take care of your squaddies, even if they are faceless grunts.