Tried a 0% Ambush Troop Column...OUCH!

[Jacke]

I've been playing slowly in a heavily modded LW2 Legendary campaign. Mid April I got an Ambush Troop Column mission in my original zone. 8 days 8 hours left. Sent 7 troops on it. Light, so 13 to 15 enemy. Although I could send them in on 100%+, thought I'd try it out at 0% to see how it is. That put it to Extremely Heavy and 30 to 32 enemy.

Painful. Not just the situation, but how rusty I am at XCOM combat.

tl;dr: Despite having modded advantages, having Sgts, Cpls, and LCpls with just the starting weapons and armour against so many enemies almost led to a squad wipe. As it is, 3 of the 7 came back wounded, 2 of them Sgts for 21 days (that's with a Scientist in the AWC).

0% infiltration on Troop Ambush and Supply Columns may be a problem, especially with better trained and equiped troops. And with a player with better tactical skill. I think that can be addressed by settng a minimum time/infiltration level before launching a mission.
Anyhoo, Operation Sweaty God (some of these Op names).

My mods that affected this battle:

- Upping the average Aim by 10, Mobility by 2, and HP by 1.
- Adding Ammo pouches and grenade pouches to all classes.
- Removing the weight of ammo items.
- Grimy's Morale Mod has all shots including misses cause Willpower damage.
- The Shinobi had two charges of C4 from the mod Tactical X4.
- BleedOutMod increases the chances of getting bleed out versus outright death.
- Stabilize Me! allows another soldier to use a casualty's own medkit to stabilize them.

My squad was
- 2Lt/Sgt Sharpshooter Holotarget w/AP ammo
- Sgt Specialist Medic w/Bolt Caster w/AP ammo
- Sgt Grenadier Needle w/Tracer ammo
- Cpl Assault w/Nanoscale Vest w/AP ammo
- LCpl Shinobi Stealth w/C4 x2
- LCpl Grenadier Support w/Tracer ammo
- LCpl Gunner w/AP ammo

Don't know the map name, but deployment was to a "Small town in ADVENT Patrol Zone 14, outside of Seattle".

Started off in a corner. Trees as hard cover. Looks like 2 rows of damaged housing with a ADVENT barrier system betweeen them including 2 turrets. Whole pile of ADVENT pods just at the near end of that ADVENT barrier system, a bit beyond the nearest house (wish I'd brought a Technical, perfect rocket target).

Considered trying to secure nearest house as firebase, but didn't think I had enough troops to do that. And with so many pods likely to activate at once or soon after the first, thought ADVENT would overwhelm my forces through its far end. If I fought from the trees around my deployment, ADVENT would take the house as cover and still overwhelm. So I went down the edge of the map parallelling the house row until I got to the far end.

On the way, the Specialist hacked a tower and got a result that was vital to victory: -50% ADVENT Willpower.

At the far end, a larger open space where I set up the snipers in the back and other troops more forward.

Only having 7 troops, I needed the 2Lt Holotargeter to shoot as much as possible. Keeping him out of sight of the enemy led to most of the squad being outside of his command range. Mostly didn't use any officer perks. Should have been more forward, but cover was so rare that over half the squad was in low cover.

The Shinobi preped the far side of the nearest house with the C4 charges, as I'd thought I'd be fighting ADVENT coming down the centre road and they'd take cover just outside it. Then he moved out to cover the squad's right flank and observe the house with the C4.

And then had 8 ADVENT troops (1 or 2 pods) come down the outside, same path as the squad had taken earlier.

First ambush was spectacular. Dropped a Frost Bomb and froze 6 of them. Overwatch got the other 2. Then the Assault came up and Trench Gunned the lot, killing most of them, with the squad finishing them off.

Then things got tougher.

The Gunner was almost always doing reload and then Area Suppression. Had 3 grenades in her loadout that never got used. Would have helped to have more smoke grenades in the Assault's loadout to supplement the low cover. Should have had 2 Gunners.

When ADVENT started infiltrating the house, my Shinobi blew the C4 (which doesn't blow his concealment) and killed a few.

I was greatly aided by Grimy's Morale Mod and that hack that gave all the ADVENT a -50 Willpower. Under fire, even when my fire missed, their will often broke and they'd hunker down until they'd recover. Kept the return fire limited, but with so many ADVENT, they still were shooting a lot.

Had to keep enemy Gunners suppressed or they'd suppress my troops.

Managed to kill off both Mutons at range. Also sniped both turrets eventually.

Really noticed the difference between a Sharpshooter without Death From Above and one with it. My Holotargetter had 8 more Aim and an Elite Scope to boot, but at long ranges the other Sharpshooter with DFA was getting 100% chance to hits while the Holotargetter was getting under 80% and worse.

The medic got hit bad and was bleeding out. The Assault had the only other medkit and was unable to come to her aid. Fortunately, having the Stabilize Me! mod meant the Shinobi could come up and stabilize her with her own medkit. The 2Lt dropped the evac flare right on her, but should have had that down sooner.

Sometime around now the Assault's will broke and was out for a few turns. Also took a minor wound either now or just after. By now, both Grenadier were out of grenades.

As the enemy thinned out, made a mistake and started moving forward to hunt them. Should have waited for them to come to me. One more pod. Needle Grenadier took a wound and was reduced to 1hp. Almost considered evac her carrying the medic, but held off. Shinobi and the Assault were doing a loop around but only the Shinobi got back in to kill. Then the Needle Grenadier finished off the last enemy.

Killed 35 enemy and 2 turrets. Whole lot of loot (but 5 Alien Alloys, 4 Elerium Crystals, and 10 Supplies seems so minor). But came so close to wiping, so close to bugging out. And with 2 Sgts out for 21 days, that hurts. Everyone but the 3 Sgts got promotions, so that wipes out their Willpower damage from Grimy's Morale Mod. But not the Sgts.

But if I'd infiltrated to 100%, I would have had an easier battle. Sure, less loot, but likely less wounds too. Those Sgts need a number of missions to get their next promotion. Being out 21d hurts.

And I really have to work on my XCOM tactics. I don't know if I chose the best ground to defend.

I think I will reload the save after the squad deployed but before they went in at 0%. And infiltrate to 100% or better.

[LordYanaek]

Troop Ambushes play in much smaller maps (small town maps) than Supply Convoy (wilderness) making 0% wayyyyyy trickier. It's definitely possible once you have a bunch of MSgts and good weapons/armor but it's very easy on those maps to trigger several pods at once before being able to get your troops in a good position (DfA sniper on roof, tech/assault ready for a strong opener, OW ranger in ambush ...)

Even in late December with 2 large MSgts squads i tend try to infiltrate those to 50% to be on the safe side. They are definitely harder then convoys on 0%.

[bountygiver]

imo 0% troop ambush is actually easier than 0% supply raid, because despite the huge maps in supply raid, the pods just spawn next to your spawn point anyway, I never had a supply raid mission where I actually need to move around the map to kill pods, it's always defending on a corner and kill every pod that come at me. So there's no difference in pod density, but troop ambush tend to have more high ground and heavy cover to utilize, giving your squad an edge against the aliens more often.

[LordYanaek]

So there's no difference in pod density, but troop ambush tend to have more high ground and heavy cover to utilize, giving your squad an edge against the aliens more often.

Funny how experiences can vary. Most of the time i start troop ambushes in the "market" area with tents and crates. No high ground and fragile cover. At least convoys give me some extremely strong trees to hide behind if i can't find some high ground, sometimes i have high ground+high cover.
The worst convoy maps are trains in my experience and you're right that on those maps there is usually several pods near your starting position and few (if any) high ground.

Totally unrelated, are you -bg- by any chance?