That advent assault on liberated region

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infidel901
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Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 6:41 pm

That advent assault on liberated region

Post by infidel901 »

So there is this mission type now where the aliens come after your liberated region, and they come in with a swarm of guys on the map, running around killing all your resistance personnel. It is a revealed start. That would be hard enough, kind of like the terror missions from Xcom EW.
But this one has a high health alien beacon, constantly (every turn) summoning reinforcements.

How the heck do you guys deal with this? I almost want to skip it and let them have my haven. Seems like that might be better than losing all my xcom soldiers.
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8wayz
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by 8wayz »

Use at least 2 Sharpshooters and a stealthied Shinobi to have sight on the beacon. Then just land 2 shots per turn on it and it should go down relatively fast.

Position the rest of your squad accordingly to stop any incoming reinforcements. Overwatch specialists can help, as most of the mission you will be on the defensive.

Or you can go Hail Mary with 3+ Technicals and launch all your rockets at the beacon.
Psieye
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by Psieye »

If the beacon is on a roof, blowing up its floor will insta-destroy it. If not, the explosives can help GET sight on the beacon for the snipers.
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Dwarfling
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by Dwarfling »

I go about like I go about my Terror (Haven Siege?) and Intel Raids, with a fast team that uses consumables and cooldowns to wipe out as many enemies on the ground as quick as possible. If you reduce the number of enemies on the ground then the RNF won't be as bad and you can advance towards the beacon faster. Think more about SPARKs, Grenadiers with incendiaries and Assaults and less about Rangers and Gunners. 1 or 2 DFA Sharpshooters, but they can be slow because sometimes it's difficult to get shots thru buildings so I take only 1.

To be honest I just avoid them by not doing any missions on the high strenght regions around a liberated region, instead trying to pull strenght out of those by doing missions on the regions surrounding the high strenght region. Last campaign, which I didn't bother to finish, never had an invasion happen, despite having a strenght 8 region next to it several times.
gimrah
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by gimrah »

This may be my favourite mission type. But yes they can be pretty rough.

Hopefully you won't get these until late or late/mid game so you should have high level soldiers and gear. So I'm going to assume you do.

You also get 10 soldiers and don't need to worry about infiltration. The latter point is important, as it means (as with all retals) you can take all your best soldiers and gear without worrying that you won't have it for other missions. Don't send a weak squad; do consider pulling a squad out of a non-essential mission elsewhere if needed.

The set-up is you don't start with concealment and you need to destroy that relay fast. You get a turn or two grace and then RNFs start dropping every turn. Those start small (3 advent) but quickly ramp up to be some very serious pods indeed.

So my first pick soldiers are 2 blade shinobis. They move forward and outwards and hopefully mean no accidental activations as the unconcealed squad pushes forward. Bladenobis also excel in large breakdowns once they have reaper.

Next you need soldiers to destroy the relay. Most often it's on the roof. So sharpshooters can be good. However static soldiers can be a liability on this mission (which can become very fluid), so snapshot and/or pistol-user sharps are best. But the single best tool for killing a relay on a roof is a Spark with bombard. Bombard can be used against any location in squadsight and it destroys all cover, which means it will insta-kill the relay. (Sparks are also nice to have as tanky units with good action economy on critical turn.) Rocket technicals with javelin can do something kind of similar.

If the relay isn't on the roof, the mission can be a lot harder. I had one where it was on the ground inside a building and obscured by a wall. In which case bombard and rockets are still very important to expose the relay. And then you need soldiers who can put a lot of damage onto it quickly, but no need to think too much about that as you should have that kind of damage output in the squad anyway.

Otherwise for soldiers... A chain lightning assault is awesome if you have one. Fire/sting/EMP grenadiers are great if they are MSGT with Full Kit - otherwise they tend to run out of consumables too fast. OW ranger is nice against RNF drops. Soldiers who can kill big things at range, so shooty gunners and rangers. Shotgun assaults of all kinds. Center column rangers are great. Psi are nice if they are high enough level to keep spamming powers and/or if you can put him in an exo suit. Technical rockets are good against the relay but otherwise they don't excel on these missions IMO as they don't have enough consumables, unless it's a high aim MSGT with shredder and rapid fire.

Not sure about specialists. OW is nice for RNFs but that build has limited alpha strike on your turn. Restoration would sure be nice to have as you will take a few dings. If you've really built for hacking then grabbing a big robot would certainly help for tanking.

Once you're in the mission, it's really important to keep pushing up aggressively. You will get into a huge fight with multiple pods and you might get flanked. But you have a large and (hopefully) powerful squad that should be able to take a lot on at once. If you try and fight one pod at a time the RNFs will start to overwhelm you after a few turns. So just bite the bullet and engage, just use the shinobis at the start to make sure you activate on your terms.

And then you get all the corpses as reward. These missions can be the best source of rare late game corpses like sectopods and gatekeepers.
infidel901
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by infidel901 »

i have fairly high level soldiers ( a few of them are just one under max level), but mostly just lasers with like 2 mag rifles mixed in.
Last edited by infidel901 on Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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8wayz
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by 8wayz »

Well, the mission is more about tactics than equipment. Granted, being better armed and prepared helps, but you need to focus on the beacon and if on a roof, just destroy the floor with explosives which will automatically destroy it. I would still say the Sharpshooter tactic is the safest, you just need to secure a line of sight to the beacon.

Lasers should be enough, that will help you land hits on the aliens. Coil guns would be perfect, but that is just wishful thinking. :)
infidel901
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by infidel901 »

The beacon has 35 health. Sneaking a shinobi up far enough to give sight to my snipers is possible, but takes a few turns. Thus, there are going to be somewhere around 4 to 6 reinforcement pods dropping in. This in addition to a ton of aliens already on the map. I just don't see a way.
gimrah
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by gimrah »

What month are you in? Bit surprised you're getting an invasion at laser tech.
guypapyrus
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by guypapyrus »

2 or 3 rapid reaction rangers, 1 rapid fire ranger with shredder ammo, one chain lightning assault, and the rest sword shinobis. Maybe a psiop: MCing/dominating a greater archon or hive queen can be very handy. Spider/wraith suits for everyone but the OWers. Make sure the shinobis have medkits or hazmat vests: one or two will cut the relay, and they're liable too catch fire.

Same basic composition for retaliations, just with one OWer (spec or ranger, or one of each).
Dwarfling
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by Dwarfling »

Well the thing with banking on OW on Invasions is that there seems to be a tendency of RNF dropping behind you out of sight as you move towards the beacon. I'm not 100% sure of it, but it has happened to me in my last two invasions. So it really seems like the best option is to bumrush the beacon and use AoE to deal with all those activations.
guypapyrus
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Re: That advent assault on liberated region

Post by guypapyrus »

I'm really banking on sword shinobis more than OW rangers; but between those two classes, I feel like the action economy is so ridiculously high and scales up to a 10 person squad really well, in spite of their weaknesses.

Unless the Iron Skin DE is active, then I just start over :P
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