How many are attempting "Light" Guerrilla Ops with 6-ish soldiers?

[Alketi]

In my experience, attempting a "Light" Guerrilla Op (13-15 enemies) with 6 soldiers, with the intent to fight some/all of the map, dealing with a possible reveal from the "starting point drone", dealing with a serious potential for a multiple-pod activation, dealing with both the timer and reinforcement spam, is borderline suicide.

I think this is one of the reasons people are stealthing these missions.

Considering that there are re-balancing efforts underway, I'm wondering how often others are attempting "Light" or stronger Guerrilla Ops with 6+ soldiers.

[Arantir]

I rather feel like it's the other way around and small 2-3 man stealh squads are somewhat more likely to be wiped out or just unable to complete the objective without risk than 6+ strike teams. It's always beneficial to take as much troops as you can afford when you've got spare infiltration time, you can rapidly level up your barraks that way and salvage loot which gives you a huge boost early-on. I'd say Light missions are pretty manageble with a team of 6 and you can even take 1-3 rookies on those depending on your current resources, Light-Moderate is also not a big deal once you've got some more useful perks & weapon upgrades. You'll get a few wounds here and there but it's still worth it.
Timers are not that bad, I usually fell like I've got just enough time to sweep the map and get the objective, sometimes I've even got some extra turns to camp near the evac (legend difficulty).
Reinforcement spam is also not so spammy unless you've got a nasty dark event going. The strength level in the region is a big thing of course but if we're talking about Light & Light-Moderate misiions it's usually below 5 to begin with. Idealy you only have to care about the first drop cause it's gonna be the only one that can arrive in the middle of a fight. If things go more-or-less smoothly the second drop comes when everything else is dead or too far away and also die in 1-2 turns if you still don't evac. Extra ranks & gear are a big deal of course. Scopes, expanded mags & especially autoloaders IMO your best counter to mission timers & reinforcements cause it helps you to not waste turns and kill things faster as a result. You can pretty much go on Extremely-Light missions with 6+ squads without 100% infiltration so they become Light & Light-Moderate to get some extra stuff & xp to be better prepared for some more difficult missions later-on.

[aedn]

There is a relatively large thread discussing stealth on reddit at the moment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/ ... alth_hate/

For myself, i do 5-6 man light combat missions anytime i can. Its not superior to stealth, i just refuse to stealth all that many missions, and place house rules or limitations on myself so i don't break the game.

Outside of missions with hard timers like VIP extraction/assassinations & jailbreaks, you can reliably complete combat missions provided you have the right equipment, and the parameters promote it, IE enough infiltration time, advent strength, mission timer requirements. Failing these missions is also not really a big deal, as you do not lose all that much provided you do not squad wipe or suffer mass wounds.

Missions with hard timers are problematic because you risk much more then you potentially gain. Sure you can get a scientist or engineer, but if you hit the timer you lose whatever portion of your squad that you do not evac, or you rush and create a bad tactical scenario where your going to loose soldiers at best, or wipe at the worst.

[KevlinTallfellow]

To me, it seems like the goal is for people to use 6 man teams to infiltrate objectives and *try* not to get into contact with enemies unless and until it's absolutely necessary.

Sure, you could have taken a lone Shinobi to sneak around to the jail and hack open the door, then tell all the guys in jail to run like hell for the evac. That can work. Sometimes. The rest of the time something is going to go wrong and it's not going to work, and you're going to need a fire team to help those guys get out alive.

Most of my jailbreaks now are 6 man teams: Grenadier with flashbangs for control, Gunner for suppression and fire support, Shinobi for scouting and offense, Specialist for overwatch and support (typically Revival Protocol and Air Drop), and typically 2 other shooters. I still sneak around the buildings to avoid patrols and try to come at the objective from an unprotected angle, but when it's time to go loud, I have everything I need to hammer a patrol into submission while I try to focus on getting the captive guys out alive.

For "destroy the relay" and "kill VIP" missions, I typically take a 6 man team as well: 2 Sharpshooters (primary shooter is left side of tree, secondary shooter is center of tree for targeting support), Specialist for overwatch and support, Grenadier with flashbangs for control, Shinobi to get eyes on target for squad sight shooters, and a Gunner for suppression and fire support. With this team, I can do things the easy way if possible: set up shooters for line of fire on target, set up scout for squad sight on target, destroy target from squad sight while fire team provides security at evac, evac from AO after mission completion. Sometimes the easy way isn't an option, because you can't get good lines of fire on the target objective from squad sight ranges. It's these situations where having a fire team can get things done, because you're going to have to actually breach a building to smash the thing or shoot the guy and there's probably going to be at least one pod of enemies in sight of the objective.

If you're going to actually capture a VIP and bring them back for the intel then you're going to need a decent fire team to secure the objective, because you're probably not going to run up to a guy, punch him in the face, and carry him down the street without being noticed.

There are still opportunities for one or two man teams to do sneaky stuff, but the margin for error is slim to none. If something goes wrong, your guys are screwed because they have no alternate mission plan.

[LordYanaek]

There are still opportunities for one or two man teams to do sneaky stuff, but the margin for error is slim to none. If something goes wrong, your guys are screwed because they have no alternate mission plan.

That's where we disagree.
Is something goes wrong with a 2 man stealth "squad", the objective is lost but your guys are under almost no danger because nobody have seen them and nobody will.
In addition, you can run 3 2-guys missions at once for a single 6-guys. You will also infiltrate much faster allowing to redeploy on new mission faster so in the end your 3 "stealth squads" can probably complete at least 5 missions when your 6-men squad could do one. When those missions give you free sci/eng, intel and PoI it can add up and is probably worth more than the loot you loose. Even if you were to fail half of those missions you'd still be ahead of a single one from your 6 man squad.

My current run (Commander) have 2 large fighting squads and 2 small infiltration squads. Those 2 can take an impressive number of missions quickly. I lost only one guy in one of those missions trying to recover items from an Advent Vehicle. It's probably the only mission where i would consider bringing a 6 man squad as there is often a pod or two near the vehicle and you must get next to it to open the door in addition to hack the container. I feel like i should have trained 1-2 middle size squads but not for guerilla or extraction missions, for troop ambushes. Now that i'm later in the game and have contact with all regions i often have more of those than i can take at once, especially since on of my large squads is always busy infiltrating a facility or campaign objective. With good infiltration timers (you can have those unlike Supply Convoy) it's possible to infiltrate those to 100% and take them with a 6-men squad. I could also use those squads on those occasional "vehicle" missions but every other guerilla mission is done easily with 2-3-men stealth and i think the benefit (doing more missions), outweighs the loss of some loot.

Probably the ideal situation is to have all squad sizes available and if a guerilla mission pops while one of your 6-men squads is idle, take it, but don't try to take every guerilla mission with such squads, 2 guys are enough and under almost no danger.

[Jadiel]

There are still opportunities for one or two man teams to do sneaky stuff, but the margin for error is slim to none. If something goes wrong, your guys are screwed because they have no alternate mission plan.

That's where we disagree.
Is something goes wrong with a 2 man stealth "squad", the objective is lost but your guys are under almost no danger because nobody have seen them and nobody will.
In addition, you can run 3 2-guys missions at once for a single 6-guys. You will also infiltrate much faster allowing to redeploy on new mission faster so in the end your 3 "stealth squads" can probably complete at least 5 missions when your 6-men squad could do one. When those missions give you free sci/eng, intel and PoI it can add up and is probably worth more than the loot you loose. Even if you were to fail half of those missions you'd still be ahead of a single one from your 6 man squad.

My current run (Commander) have 2 large fighting squads and 2 small infiltration squads. Those 2 can take an impressive number of missions quickly. I lost only one guy in one of those missions trying to recover items from an Advent Vehicle. It's probably the only mission where i would consider bringing a 6 man squad as there is often a pod or two near the vehicle and you must get next to it to open the door in addition to hack the container. I feel like i should have trained 1-2 middle size squads but not for guerilla or extraction missions, for troop ambushes. Now that i'm later in the game and have contact with all regions i often have more of those than i can take at once, especially since on of my large squads is always busy infiltrating a facility or campaign objective. With good infiltration timers (you can have those unlike Supply Convoy) it's possible to infiltrate those to 100% and take them with a 6-men squad. I could also use those squads on those occasional "vehicle" missions but every other guerilla mission is done easily with 2-3-men stealth and i think the benefit (doing more missions), outweighs the loss of some loot.

Probably the ideal situation is to have all squad sizes available and if a guerilla mission pops while one of your 6-men squads is idle, take it, but don't try to take every guerilla mission with such squads, 2 guys are enough and under almost no danger.

Sounds like you're using a different definition of 'going wrong'. If a drone bursts out of a building where you weren't expecting it and spots your shinobi, activating two other pods of 3, it's not straightforward to extract your 2 man team and you're generally left with Sophie's choice.

[LordYanaek]

Sounds like you're using a different definition of 'going wrong'. If a drone bursts out of a building where you weren't expecting it and spots your shinobi, activating two other pods of 3, it's not straightforward to extract your 2 man team and you're generally left with Sophie's choice.

Nope, i might simply have been lucky as i've never had a Drone burst out of a building this way

I've always seen the drones before they could see me, or detected them with Battle Scanners and later Scanning Protocol or else they weren't close enough to detect my shinobi. Maybe it's luck, maybe i'm more careful when exploring, maybe there are more of those lone drones on Legend.

Anyway a Shinobi can always re-conceal and try to make it to the evac but if you have a specialist it's not an option for him. If things go wrong thought, you shouldn't loose more than 1 guy and never more then 2 if you are using 2-men squads so the risk is limited compared to loosing a full squad to bad pods causing you to fail to Evac in time on City Center missions so while they might not be totally risk-free, pure stealth missions have limited risk.

Off topic. What is "Sophie's choice"?

[Jadiel]

I find it difficult to believe you've never had a case where you had soldiers unexpectedly spotted, or pods activating unexpectedly. Or at least, if you've never had that happen, you're probably not doing very many stealth missions! Yes, there are tools to mitigate it late game, but early/mid game, stealth ops do go wrong, and often result in dead soldiers, in my experience.

Sophie's Choice is a 1970s novel about a woman who was sent to Auschwitz and was forced to choose which of her two children would be executed, and which would be allowed to live in the labor camp. She chose her son, but the guilt of choosing him over her daughter eventually led to her committing suicide.

[Dwarfling]

I'm usually bringing 4 or 5 soldiers whenever I can afford it to these missions.

- It's fun.
- Less things that can go wrong if you can fight it out. Say, when you choose your stealth path wrong and end up stuck unable to keep concealment.
- You keep more people leveled up.

Those 3 day missions are done in full stealth tho. And VIP extractions I do solo or duo Shinobi because I can only Oscar Mike + Command one person.

[LordYanaek]

Or at least, if you've never had that happen, you're probably not doing very many stealth missions! Yes, there are tools to mitigate it late game, but early/mid game, stealth ops do go wrong, and often result in dead soldiers, in my experience.

Well, i've had a "vacuum" of guerilla ops early-mid-game after liberating my first region (full intel) as the 2nd and 3rd were busy trying to recruit more guys and then i concentrated on liberating those. Most missions i detected had short timers so i had no real option but ignore or go full stealth on the very light ones. When i had more regions and many missions available all the time, i had battle scanners for both of my stealth squads and soon scanning protocol on one of my specialists. I might have avoided dangerous missions without even knowing it.

Early game of course i ran mostly 5-men groups to get some experience.

[Icreatedthisforyou]

Fight it with 5-6 is fine, but it depends on the mission.

If I have a squad, have the infiltration time, and don't really anticipate any big mission I would need that squad for, I'll send them out because those soldiers need experience.

If it is a liberation mission, then I'll stealth it. 15 is starting to get to the point where stealth is no longer reliable AND safe, but the mission is usually worth more than the soldiers getting injured (or even killed) and they can still be reliably stealthed...just not always safely.

Otherwise I'll possibly stealth it, kinda depends on if I care about the reward or not.



I don't view light as all that risky with 5 or 6 soldiers, but a soldier or two may come out with some wounds. Realistically you can find a pod to open up on, which means you are really only fighting 11 or 12 Advent. That is ~2 Advent per soldier AND odds of you fighting all twelve of those at once is pretty minimal EVEN if you are aggressive, if you ARE going aggressive it means another pod of stuff is probably dead. It is more about being cognizant of WHERE the potential pods you are pulling could be and moving into positions that will be protected from them.

That being said Light becomes increasingly safer for squads as you progress the tools/options, kill power, and ability to survive squads have ramp up very quickly with more abilities and better items, even light-moderate become okay.



I should add a caveat though, I am a very aggressive player, assaults are my favorite class and always have been. I consider myself pretty good with them and knowing how far I can "safely" push them, where "safely" is relative because they are still assaults wounds are going to happen (maybe that is also why I don't really mind doing light or light-moderate missions with 5 or 6 people). Play style wise assaults really have not changed too dramatically between games outside of the ability to AOE pods. And they are the kind of class where a statement like "If we are out numbered 2-1, then we will fire twice and then go home."