First supply raid: How many people to bring?

[Undershaft]

I just did the first supply raid. I had 2,5 days to infiltrate (baseline light-moderate) and decided to only take 8 and not 10 people so that I'd get at least a little infiltration going on. I ended up with roughly 25% and played a swarming mission, which was a lot of fun, but cost me one soldier. Would it have been better to take a full squad? Are there different stages of "swarming" or could I just as well have gone it at 0% with two additional troopers?

[LeaderEnemyBoss]

I just did the first supply raid. I had 2,5 days to infiltrate (baseline light-moderate) and decided to only take 8 and not 10 people so that I'd get at least a little infiltration going on. I ended up with roughly 25% and played a swarming mission, which was a lot of fun, but cost me one soldier. Would it have been better to take a full squad? Are there different stages of "swarming" or could I just as well have gone it at 0% with two additional troopers?

As far as i know usually people bring 10 people and dont bother to infiltrate at all at leas tin the first half of the game (except when they get extremely good time left on the mission). Yes there are different levels of swarming, but more aliens means more bodies, and there is a point where additional enemies dont matter as much anymore since you can bunker up almost indefinitely with a good squad in a nice corner.

[Ketchup4684]

Sometime im going to take 10 grenadiers with sapper on my first supply raid in a new game, each fully outfitted with grenades. 40 aliens? 40 grenades.

[trihero]

Well half the point of a supply raid is corpses, but I guess safety first? (or are you taking needle grenades on everyone?)

[archangel]

Sometime im going to take 10 grenadiers with sapper on my first supply raid in a new game, each fully outfitted with grenades. 40 aliens? 40 grenades.

Not everyone plays with commander's choice mod since it makes the game easier.

[Antifringe]

I always take ten. You'd be amazed how much the extra actions help. I will take rookies if I have to, just to have a few extra grenades.

Ideally, I take a mix of classes and bring along 2 sharpshooters. The snipers can hang back, and having two extra cover slots on your frontline helps a lot. If at all possible, I get the sharpshooters on high ground, and situated 90 degrees away from the direction of my advance so that they can get lots of easy flanks, get they're still helpful even if that can't be arranged.

[marduk]

Yeah, squadsight snipers are worth their weight in gold in supply\troop\HQ missions. When supported by a concealed scout (usually a shinobi) to provide said squadsight of course.

As for extra people and levels of swarming, well, you don't deal with all the pods at the same time, hopefully. An extra enemy activity level is 2-4 aliens. But when we are talking about adding that to 40-50 enemies to begin with, a 10% increase in their total force is not a big deal. 8 vs 10 your troops is 25% increase in your force, and its not divided among many pods.

[wei270]

you said there are different level of swarming but i have never gotten more then 42 enemy count on non reinforcement missions, so my question is if there is different level of swarming, there is still a maximum level of swarming right ?

[trihero]

you said there are different level of swarming but i have never gotten more then 42 enemy count on non reinforcement missions, so my question is if there is different level of swarming, there is still a maximum level of swarming right ?

It's pretty easy to get 55+ swarming if you are fighting in a high advent strength zone.

[Dwarfling]

I've yet to discover the first Supply Raid with any decent time left, so I always go with 10-soldiers 0% infiltration, trying really hard to have a team trained and ready for it since it regularly hits mid-late 2nd month.

[Devon_v]

I've yet to discover the first Supply Raid with any decent time left, so I always go with 10-soldiers 0% infiltration, trying really hard to have a team trained and ready for it since it regularly hits mid-late 2nd month.

Run all Intel and you'll find them with good time on them. I've started going 13 Intel and easily rushing the Liberation chain, then you can switch your starting region over to 13 Supply + Engineer and run all Intel in your expansion regions. It gets you lots of missions to choose from with good timers on them.

The bigger issue is how easy 0% ambushes are. At that low an infiltration there should probably be a global map alert three or so turns after you break concealment where ADVENT gets their shit together and counter attacks you en masse. That should put an end to low tech sharpshooters killing 50 guys while they stand around like morons.