Yikes! Faceless overload

[Jackal]

So, I have six havens... one liberated, one stacked with 13 advent and one i'm trying to liberate... all the others I have just established... i just had a faceless (catch the spy) mission in a haven i wasn't even doing intel in.... I heard faceless groaning from turn one... it was one walking with the advent troops.. this haven is st 3... I had to kill it and then two more ... is this normal... I had a 1 month DE of faceless appearing during missions, but that has expired... what gives?? Is this the normal now?

[Clibanarius]

I've had that happen plenty on Legendary. Never once on Veteran.

[Tuhalu]

If the Force Level and/or Strength of Advent is high enough, Faceless can appear as regular troops on the Rendevouz mission as well as the actual spies. The only ones that are actual spies are the 1 or 2 that transform from humans to faceless.

I've seen Rendevouz missions that were almost entirely Faceless due to this on some rare occasions (in Xwynns videos and in my own games).

[Wigpeeler]

I should know the answer to this, but haven't noticed before: if you liberate a region that had faceless spies in it, what happens to the spies? I'm sure I've never had a rendezvous mission in a (never lost) liberated zone before, but can it happen?

[LordYanaek]

Faceless don't magically disappear when you liberate a region. They are still trying to help ADVENT by undermining your efforts as long as they are not discovered.
Newly recruited rebels can also be faceless. Even in liberated regions ADVENT has hidden agents.

I usually try to keep a soldier advisor for some time after liberation to get rid of those.

[Wigpeeler]

Hmm, thanks, Yanaek. I guess I've switched to engineers too soon after liberation and been relatively lucky in getting "theft" low enough overall I didn't bother looking for the last spy. I think I'll start putting in a good officer for a little while after lib. Thanks.

[Jackal]

to clarify... this was a haven with 5 soliders and advent of st of THREE. It wasn't liberated. I had four soldiers on recruit and i in hiding so i wouldn't get any retaliations as the recruitment did it's thing slowly

the soldier level was weak, but i faced three faceless (see what I did there? ) I really just go crazy lucky because two faceless chased my soldier and a shotgunner toward the top of the map and ended up being next to a gas container... that allowed me to kill one of the two with a grenade launcher ...

I don't know if i could have survived otherwise.

i was building plasma grenades in the proving ground at the time... I am feeling better about my chances now.

[fowlJ]

ADVENT Strength is not important for this purpose, just Force Level - faceles have a minimum FL of I believe 3, which because Rendezvous missions use I believe FL/2 - 2 to determine which enemies appear on them means that starting at around 4 months in-game they can appear as regular enemies, in addition to any infiltrators you discover.

[Jackal]

ADVENT Strength is not important for this purpose, just Force Level - faceles have a minimum FL of I believe 3, which because Rendezvous missions use I believe FL/2 - 2 to determine which enemies appear on them means that starting at around 4 months in-game they can appear as regular enemies, in addition to any infiltrators you discover.

thank you, fowl... i was afraid it was a bug... guess i need to be ready for harder spy missions in my havens..