Tips/suggestions on HQ attack?

[code99]

Long story short, i just did my very first tower mission and lemme say that i wasnt ready for something like that!

Barely made it out, no deaths but the sheer amount of units that came at me was way more than what i had expected. I did a tiny bit of save scumming and i even used TTC command on my shinobi to move her one tile as she was short exactly one tile from the objective. I had to do that as the rest of the squad was surrounded and outnumbered.

Point is, im now preparing for the hq mission. Considering how hard the tower mission was, I dont want to resort to cheating and save scumming anymore.

Any tips, tricks, strategies and the like for my upcoming torture mission?


Current campaign detail
Veteran
Not ironman
Both dlcs enabled
Laser weapons
3 predator armors
2 regions contacted
Mostly vipers/mechs with the occasional muton around
Advent strength is at 6 where the hq is located

[trihero]

- HQ is somewhat more relaxed than network tower because you don't have the threat of reinforcements, so take a cautious overwatch creep approach
- Try to take the maximum number of troops
- Load out everyone to the max (smokes/flashes/armor as filler), since movement is not priority. Consider dumping SMGs in favor of assault rifles since you will want every drop of damage (smg do less damage, suffer range penalty), although it's ok for the shinobi to carry one, and if you really prefer your grenadiers/technicals to have them I guess I can't argue with that
- try to camp the high ground for the aim bonus
- Try to take one shinobi/sharpshooter, keep shinobi concealed, sniper to squadsight pull if there is no action happening. It's a bad idea not to have this combination because then you risk "yellow alert" troops patroling into you without you noticing.
- Try not to rely too much on "melee" style killing (shinobi is for scouting, don't rely on run and gun assaults) since there are 40+ mobs on the map and you don't want to pull any extra pods. They will pull anyways because of the corpses you generate.
- in very very general terms, there are a minimum of 2 drone pods (drone pod has 1 basic drone, 1 hunter drone). One is hanging out somewhere to the front, one is hanging out towards the back. These guys are ridiculously easy for a high man squad but their purpose is to surprise you and catch cloakers off guard. There are minimum of two 8 man pods - one is the boss pod with the general, and one is hanging out somewhere in the middle. These are just minimum and go up over time/advent strength. There are various 4-6 man pods scattered out
- try to blow your concealment on an 8 man pod
- use officer abilities, like focus fire and command
- helpful to have highly accurate mid-range fighters, like gunner with hail of bullets/central mass, ranger with lock on/walk fire
- helpful to have a medical specialist since the fight is drawn out and haywiring a drone is a big tempo swing
- helpful to have one or two big aoe guys like technical rocket or grenadier for big pulls

[juplaa]

Here's a copy/paste from my post in another thread. It's very similar to what trihero suggested.

I usually go in with a "Phalanx-squad" for missions where you will face heavy opposition. It works fairly well, only 2-4 wounded usually. (Playing on veteran, early to midgame)

A gunner or 2 + 1 ranger in front as the shield. A bare minimum of 2 Snipers in the back as the long spears. In the middle a specialist-officer and and the rest are grenadiers/ techs. and a Shinobi with a shotgun to scout my flank or to attract an new pod with squad-sight into an OW-trap. I prefer to just neglect mobility as much as possible because the idea is to fight from an entrenched position. Therefor choosing a good spot before engaging is key (-> good cover up front for gunners and ranger, Good cover for your grenadiers/technicians).

After blowing up cover with technicians/grenadiers your gunner(s), ranger and snipers have a field day.

It's more sniper heavy. I'd definitely equip at least one sniper with AP round to kill mechs. Use area suppression on grouped up enemies after destroying their cover to finish off most of the pod. Snipers and the (high aim) ranger I use for priority targets like vipers, sectoids, officers and grenadiers. Obviously(aera) suppression and flashbangs are usefull also if you can't kill everyone in 1 go.

As for weapon mods: Gunner- hear trigger, laser and extended mag. Ranger: Best autoloader, scope and extended mag. Sniper: scope, extended mag and autoloader. That way your heavy hitters can keep firing reliably.

Edit: Oh and do call for the skyranger the second your are revealed!

[Arcalane]

- helpful to have a medical specialist since the fight is drawn out and haywiring a drone is a big tempo swing

If in doubt, take two. Last thing you need is a squadwipe because your medtech got floored. First HQ assault I got flanked by a trio of Vipers and things got ugly.

- helpful to have one or two big aoe guys like technical rocket or grenadier for big pulls

Also for pulling down cover, taking out trash, and area stuns/disables with launcher-enhanced flashbangs. Shutting down enemy accuracy, mobility, and abilities is too good to pass up.

[code99]

Nice, thanks for your replies guys.

Ill wait before attacking the hq until i finish the 3 infiltrations i have going so i can free up my best troops.



Also lets hope that UFO wont find me now since i dont have much in terms of troops in the avenger to defend it

[Arcalane]

Also lets hope that UFO wont find me now since i dont have much in terms of troops in the avenger to defend it

It's not guaranteed, at least-- in vanilla, the first UFO they send after you is all but guaranteed to catch you no matter what kind of crazy moves Bradford pulls.

In LW2 I managed to evade the one they sent after me as a Dark Event, although it kinda put a damper on my activities since I was keeping a low profile to avoid being caught.

They can definitely spend several days searching the region that you're in without finding you at least, but I'm not sure how it works exactly.

[trihero]

Forgot one point; it may be a good idea for "filler" utility slots to be loaded with medical supply kits, because viper poison is really really annoying and you may not have a medical specialist and/or he can't cure enough poison if they catch 5+ guys in a cloud. (just carrying a medkit makes the soldier immune to poison)

[Valaska]

Consider saving a shredstorm or something for the very end.. The General is just, stupidly imbalanced lol.

[trihero]

Consider saving a shredstorm or something for the very end.. The General is just, stupidly imbalanced lol.

What buff did he get on higher difficulties? I usually take 1 incendiary grenade to lock him down.

[Arcalane]

What buff did he get on higher difficulties? I usually take 1 incendiary grenade to lock him down.

Even on Rookie I think he does about 8 damage per hit and has 18-20 HP or something along those lines, nevermind armour and the buffs he confers to all ADVENT in range (he's basically an Officer, but for the alien side, I know for sure that he provides Defilade which enhances cover defense by 5). Monocle dude is no joke.

I imagine he's even worse on higher difficulties.

[trihero]

I know what he's like; it said in the patch 1.1 notes that he got "buffs" on higher difficulties, I wonder what those are.

You forgot to mention has 100 aim, and takes two actions per turn (fire + overwatch), but he's not immune to fire so that's why I take an incendiary grenade with his name on it. In my most recent attempt I somehow got his aim down to zero after double suppressing + flash bang + red fog, but only barely

For fun I skulljacked him once, it takes away 75% of his max hp o.O

[Hazelnut]

I sent 2 assaults since I rely on shinobi+1-2assaults on all my harder missions... sounds like they're not too useful for this HQ then? (I can easily reload and choose a different team makeup)

[Arcalane]

Assaults, especially stungun assaults, are fine. You want plenty of recharge/cooldown based resources available (i.e. not expendable/one-shots like grenades) because of the sheer number of enemies on the field.

Stungun-spec assaults and their ability to disorient opponents even on a miss is pretty handy. If you have the damage-to-mechs perk, they're also great anti-armour support as even the Mk1 Arcthrower can oneshot Drones and the Mk2 Arcthrower has a decent chance of oneshotting most turrets and MEC variants (plus I assume it shuts them down even if they survive).

[Valaska]

What buff did he get on higher difficulties? I usually take 1 incendiary grenade to lock him down.

Even on Rookie I think he does about 8 damage per hit and has 18-20 HP or something along those lines, nevermind armour and the buffs he confers to all ADVENT in range (he's basically an Officer, but for the alien side, I know for sure that he provides Defilade which enhances cover defense by 5). Monocle dude is no joke.

I imagine he's even worse on higher difficulties.

Yeah on Commander/Classic he has... I think it was about 10 armor I had to shred through them holy hell his HP bar was so many pips I couldn't count it out lol. I had to keep hacking heavy mechs beside him and flashbanged him over and over.

@Arcalane Oh an incendiary grenade... Hmmm that's a good option. I manage dto get through the mission with mag weapons against a S6 advent HQ with only one loss and a few heavy wounds. I might bring a sharpshooter next time... Certainly would have been more useful than the Grenadier I had, I really, really don't like Grenadiers in this mod.

[code99]

Well, i finally did it. Took me a while but i managed to beat the hq mission.

Wasnt as tough as i thought it would be altho i guess ive been lucky with the map and the way pods seemed to come to me one after the other. I think i killed all pods from a single location, without moving much. Almost a flawless too but sadly one of my rangers got hit by a stupid turret of all things.

46 enemies (lots of mutons and such) ... i also got lucky with my sniper shot that took the general down to 4 hp from one sniper shot (crit)

It definitely helped having a 100+ aim sniper and ranger (with mag rifle)

T'was all fine until they showed me the avatar countdown ... im in august and there are 4 more ticks to go and they complete it. (got about 2 or 3 dark events related to avatar since i started playing)

Not sure how im gonna be beating this but ill try!

[trihero]

The HQ assaults get pretty messed up once the proper aliens start showing up (codex, andromedon) and they're at high advent level. But they shouldn't be too bad early on. If you were going for your first with magnetic weapons, that would be overkill. You can probably do the first 3 with lasers.

Good luck with the doom timer; it's not too bad considering each objective reduces by 2+ pips (maybe the hack codex is just 1, but the rest are more), and if you have any facility leads in your inventory (missions, hacking supply these) you can go raid a station just like in vanilla to rek some more pips.

[Devon_v]

Open with a rocket on the command pod, freeze the general with the frost bomb. Drop a couple of grenades on him, light him on fire, holo-target him, then hammer him with small arms. Worked for me.

[Hazelnut]

I had to completely restart my only HQ mission and reroll the pods. First attempt had 2 sectoid controllers (first time I saw them in the campaign) which was completely hopeless. Killed the first and 60% the two 8man pods activated, then the other reanimates all the corpses. I have no idea where he is on the map and am stretched really thin with the existing contacts. Squad wipe with no way out.

On the reroll none spawned, and it was hard, like really tough, but doable and a lot of fun. The CO never got a shot off cos I stunned him with a run'n'gun arc thrower then shredded with plasma nade and rapid fire shottie with some various other shots.

The other goons (2 pods worth) were mostly stunned by the support grenadier while this was happening... so powerful, so good for giving rest of squad time to breathe. Recommended for all difficult missions. Only issue is limited supplies, and airdrop can't grant more flashbangs

[code99]

Oh yeah, i too love the support grenadier. I only trained for maximum destruction but i said wth, lets give the support a try and sure enough, i fell in love with him/her!

Sectoid Controllers? Wut is that? Doesnt sound good!

[cerebrawl]

I know what he's like; it said in the patch 1.1 notes that he got "buffs" on higher difficulties, I wonder what those are.

You forgot to mention has 100 aim, and takes two actions per turn (fire + overwatch), but he's not immune to fire so that's why I take an incendiary grenade with his name on it. In my most recent attempt I somehow got his aim down to zero after double suppressing + flash bang + red fog, but only barely

For fun I skulljacked him once, it takes away 75% of his max hp o.O

My first one, I archthrower stunned the turn I activated the pod, then after cleaning up the rest I shot him a couple of times and then walked my ranger up adjacent and gave him both barrels and crit for a lot, I think it was 16 damage.