The Invasion Mission

[Ketchup4684]

Middle of August, everyone has Lasers and Predator Armor, 2 SPARKS (1 overwatch focused, other heavy weapon focused) about 4 levels in each, bunch of Tech Sergeants, Psi soldiers but only a level in each. How scared should I be? I heard this mission is pretty difficult.

[UraniumOverdose]

Depends on the Tactical Dark Events that ADVENT has.

Your best bet is to bring a shinobi and a couple of snipers, and have the shinobi find at least one rebel. Never break stealth with him. Have the rest of your group take up defensive positions around the EVAC point until you get that rebel safe. That way you can have a xcom soldier and that surviving rebel on recruitment. Now it is just a battle of attrition. Stealth your shinobi to the psi tower and try to position your snipers so they can snipe it when you get vision.

If there isn't a good line of sight to the psi tower then you are going to have a tough fight. You will have to break off two or three guys to deal with the tower, while the rest of your unit takes the brunt of the engagement. Use technical rockets, grenades, etc to draw enemies toward your main group.

If you were lucky enough to get conceal on some heavy hitters (gunners, assaults, or a sniper to help get in position) then those soldiers will join the shinobi to find the tower.

Good luck.

[trihero]

Middle of August, everyone has Lasers and Predator Armor, 2 SPARKS (1 overwatch focused, other heavy weapon focused) about 4 levels in each, bunch of Tech Sergeants, Psi soldiers but only a level in each. How scared should I be? I heard this mission is pretty difficult.

How difficult it is, is relative to the advent force level. But I believe this mission prefers to throw some chrysallids at you whether you've met them before or not, so watch for those. Like the other poster said, at bare minimum make sure you rescue 1 rebel, and don't risk your troop lives too much past that. Treat it like an HQ attack with the "general" being the psi emitter. It's tough, but it's not HQ level tough. The worst part is losing a lot of rebels, but you can always set whoever's alive at the end to recruiting and you're likely to be unbothered for quite some time.

[xmd1997]

Middle of August, everyone has Lasers and Predator Armor, 2 SPARKS (1 overwatch focused, other heavy weapon focused) about 4 levels in each, bunch of Tech Sergeants, Psi soldiers but only a level in each. How scared should I be? I heard this mission is pretty difficult.

How difficult it is, is relative to the advent force level. But I believe this mission prefers to throw some chrysallids at you whether you've met them before or not, so watch for those. Like the other poster said, at bare minimum make sure you rescue 1 rebel, and don't risk your troop lives too much past that. Treat it like an HQ attack with the "general" being the psi emitter. It's tough, but it's not HQ level tough. The worst part is losing a lot of rebels, but you can always set whoever's alive at the end to recruiting and you're likely to be unbothered for quite some time.

So as long as we have 1 rebel alive, Advent wont succeed in retaking the region?

[trihero]

Correct. If you get zero rebels alive, then they recap the zone; your haven will be wiped clean. You don't lose contact of the region (at least on rookie when I let them win for fun), but you have to liberate it all over again. The zone doesn't start at advent level 1 strength either, it depends on how late in the game it is. When I let them win in the super late game, they restarted at level 10 strength o.O

[UraniumOverdose]

I am pretty sure winning the mission lowers global ADVENT strength by something like 5. I am pretty sure before the mission their global strength was 68 and after I beat it with 4 living rebels, it was 63.