Long War - Summer Tactics

During this stage of the campaign, you need to have a plan for taking down stronger enemies, and raiding transports. Also a few notes about Battlescanners.

This is a continuation of my posts on tactics - the previous post was Long War - April to June Tactics.

In March through June, your squads are dealing with small groups of weak enemies. In July to September this changes as you start to see cyberdiscs, mechtoids, and berserkers on normal missions. To take down these larger foes, you will need to plan ahead, as often they are defeated in the loadout screen, rather than on the map.

Another change during this period is that you should have more satellite coverage, and so the opportunity to raid large UFOs is likely, and should be taken. To do so safely, it is important to bring your A Team, and that squad should have some classes leveled up to TSGT. At that rank many key soldiers will acquire transformative abilities that are uniquely useful on landed transports.

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Lions and Tigers and Bears

Before I discuss each large enemy type, and specific skills that are particularly useful against those enemies, let’s talk about the skills that are useful against all of them.

Very strong against high HP enemies:

• Chem Grenade

• Shredder Ammo

• Hit & Run / Light ‘Em Up / Double Tap / Rapid Fire

• Rocket/Shredder Rocket

Mechtoids, Cyberdiscs, and Berserker leaders have high damage reduction, and so chem grenades are extremely effective, assuming that you can get close enough to use them. They are only easy to use against berserkers, because only berserkers charge at your position.

Shredder Ammo and more firepower are always going to be very helpful against enemies with high HP. There are a few ways to shred, and many abilities that grant multiple shots, so it should be possible to obtain these advantages.

Rockets are great against all three enemies, but especially against hard to hit flying cyberdiscs. Often a rocket will destroy the entourage as well, and so prevent those annoying drones from repairing their leader.

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Cyberdiscs

Very strong options:

• Suppression

• Heat Ammo

Suppression is almost hard control against cyberdiscs. I have never seen a landed cyberdisc do anything other than overwatch when being suppressed. Even when they are flying, if you smoke up the suppressor, they are very likely to overwatch. Cyberdiscs usually go on overwatch during activation, and so suppression is also useful to cancel that overwatch.

Heat Ammo is very useful against the cyberdisc but hard to put into use, as it is likely that the Gunner will be needed to suppress. Supposing your medic or infantry handle suppression, the Gunner is free to use direct fire.

Nice to have:

• Lightning Reflexes

• Smoke

• Disabling Shot

All of the above skills are nice, but not necessary. Lightning reflexes is a dangerous way to cancel overwatch, and it will also re-open the disc, so the next hit will not have crit reduced by the hardened trait. Smoke is useful if the cyberdisc activates well out of range, or to give your gunner more defense when suppressing a flying cyberdisc. Disabling Shot will often cause the cyberdisc to run away and reload, and so it is not as effective as suppression; still it can be extremely useful when there are two cyberdiscs, or when your gunner runs out of ammunition.

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Mechtoids

Very strong options:

• Disabling Shot

• Heat Ammo

Disabling Shot is the Mechtoid killer. They will run forward and reload every time they are disabled, unless they fail a panic check in which case they will use both actions to run away.

Heat Ammo is great, of course.

Nice to have:

• Smoke

• Suppression

Mechtoids can shoot twice, or they can run suppression and then shoot. They also hit like a truck. For these reasons it is not a good plan to allow the Mechtoids to shoot under any circumstances, but sometimes it is unavoidable, and when that is the case it is nice to have smoke and suppression.

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Berserkers

Very strong options:

• Flashbangs

• CCS

Berserkers can move 11 tiles per action, but only 6¹ if you flashbang them. This is a great way to delay them, while dealing with other enemies. It is a good idea to always have either chem grenades or flashbangs once berserkers start appearing.

It is worth noting that Berserkers can use their Bull Rush ability with their second action - so even when flashbanged, they can do serious damage from 12 tiles away.

CCS is an easy way to add one more shot on a berserker, and it does not trigger the panic check. CCS Assaults of SGT rank can easily get 3 shots on a Berserker, supposing they don’t panic.

Nice to have:

• Steadfast

• Suppression

Steadfast is nice things to have against berserkers, as unlucky panic roll will cripple your squad, and is particularly bad in a prolonged fight.

While Suppression is not helpful in any defensive way, it can be used to prevent the suppressor from panicking when taking a shot at the Berserker, and as it will employ the Opportunist perk, there will be no loss in aim, though it will use more ammunition than a direct shot. Overwatches in general do not trigger the panic check, and are thus sometimes preferable when soldiers have the Opportunist perk.

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Landed Transports

Raiding a landed transport is rough, and you will want to bring your highest ranked soldiers, but 2 classes in particular become very important at TSGT. Engineers and Medics gain significant advantages at that rank which will prove most useful on long missions.

at TSGT, engineers can acquire the Battlescanners ability, which will grant 3 uses when paired with smoke and mirrors. As this does not require a utility slot, the engineer can still bring the full payload of grenades. Battlescanners have enormous utility on all large landed UFOs. They can help in battle, but more significantly, they can determine if the pod of aliens at the rear of the transport, is the command pod, or something else. Activating the command pod will trigger all the other enemies on the map to converge on your position.

Medics that go the Smoke track can attain Dense Smoke at TSGT rank, and will be able to hold 4 uses of it with only one utility slot, saving the other for a medikit. Ordinary smoke is fine for most situations, but on landed transports there are 8 pods of enemies, and you are likely to fight in poor cover. Dense Smoke is incredibly valuable on these missions.

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Trapped UFOs

There is a small chance that each research UFO is trapped. This primarily means more enemies, making the raiders and abductors almost as challenging as a landed transport. More pods are patrolling on trapped UFOs and so the chance of encountering multiple pods at the same time is increased, and on small maps, inevitable.

The chance a UFO is trapped is equivalent to the threat level divided by 30. It only applies to research missions, which are exclusively scouts, raiders or abductors.

The main reason why Trapped UFOs are so dangerous is because of Hunt Protocol, which will trigger on a trapped UFO after you engage ANY pod. This means that once you start fighting, every other pod on the map (except the command pod) will converge on your position.

For this reason, on all landed UFOs you should pick a good defensive position from which to engage the first enemy pod - and then you should stay there for a couple turns waiting to see if the whole map charges at you. It’s also good to stay near the LZ just in case you need to retreat.

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Transport Command Pod

The command pod on transport UFOs is challenging, even after having cleared the map. It is extremely important to approach the pod with caution as it is possible that one of the outsiders will be on the exterior of the engine room or command center. In my latest campaign there was an outsider on the wrong side of the engine room entryway, and when I rushed my approach, lazily trying to speed things up, I activated the command pod with my Pathfinder on his second action, leaving him helpless right in front of them. I was able to save him with the shadow device, only because I had not yet moved the soldier that was carrying it, but otherwise could do nothing; every one of my soldiers was out of position. What followed was an extremely tense encounter, that I was lucky to escape without any deaths.

A key to my success was that outsiders do not like being flanked. They will reposition when flanked unless they have an incredible shot. Knowing this, I moved soldiers to flank some of the only available cover spots, leaving the enemy with very few positions they could take. Because of this, or maybe just dumb luck, two of the outsiders elected to stay in the engine room during the first 3 rounds of the encounter. To deny the outsiders these cover positions, I had to leave a soldier completely exposed, but he could only be targeted by outsiders that were themselves flanked. The other soldiers hid or hunkered, and every outsider repositioned rather than shooting, and so I survived the first turn unscathed.

As expected, I had some good targets on the next turn. Two outsiders took vulnerable positions, and I was able to flank and kill them. Unfortunately the Outsider Captain made a great move, leaping up to the roof, and taking high cover relative to my squad. I suppressed him with my gunner, who was in half cover and dense smoke. The captain still managed to hit the gunner on the following turn, I think it was a 38% probability shot, making his aim an unreal 118? (+20 from elevation, -100 from suppression, dense smoke and low cover). Can that be right? Here’s some expert insight: Defense is less effective against outsiders. High HP and DR work better. The WtS gunner with reinforced armor and iron skin took only 4 damage.

Again I left a soldier completely exposed, but only targetable from positions that would leave the attacker flanked, and again, no outsider took those positions, and my exposed soldier survived. I repeated this again on the third turn, and it worked then too. Now, this may just be stupid good luck; while outsiders hate being flanked they will remain in a flanked position when they have an excellent shot, or have no where to go. So I can’t be sure that this exposed position was truly safe from attack. All I know is that I have never seen an outsider remain in a flanked position with less than a 100% chance to hit. Perhaps the threshold is a bit lower than 100%; I don’t plan on experimenting further to find out.

Eventually I was able to take out the Captain with a few lucky shots, and the remaining outsiders made poor moves and so I finished the mission without casualties. Also it was one of the best firefights I’ve had in recent memory. Some of the most fun is to be had after a spectacular blunder. Still, if you want to win a campaign, it is best to not use tricks to kill outsiders, but instead to exercise extreme caution on approach, take the time to surround their position, and then kill them all on turn one.

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Battlescanners

Another new development in this stage of the campaign will be the increased availability of battlescanners, which are commonly carried via the perk, which Engineers can take at TSGT; Scouts at SGT. Any soldier with Smoke and Mirrors can dedicate a utility slot to battlescanners, but I seldom choose to do so, preferring other gear. However you get them, the proper use of battlescanners is important as they have some weird quirks, that can ruin your day.

Battlescanners can activate nearby pods

A few campaigns back, I decided to stop using battlescanners to locate or ambush inactive enemy pods. Instead I would only use them after enemies were active, to spot them beyond visible range, or behind obstacles. I made this change after enduring numerous disasters all caused by battlescanners. On a terror mission, everything was going fine until a battlescanner activated two pods well out of range, and my best engineer was killed in the aftermath. The frustrating thing was that the scanner didn’t hit an enemy. It just landed near to them, but still activated both pods. At the time I thought this was just more buggy behavior. But it kept happening. On a landed harvester, a pod of mutons was activated unintentionally, resulting in a prolonged and difficult firefight that should have been much easier. On another terror mission, a battlescanner activated a Cyberdisc in an awkward position. I had to suppress it for multiple turns while dealing with chryssalids. When my gunner ran out of ammunition, the cyberdisc one shot killed my best officer scout, and out of frustration, I quit the campaign. I was determined to never again use battlescanners on inactive pods.

My reasoning was sound. What good is this powerful weapon, if it can stab you in the back? But the problem wasn’t the scanners; it was that I didn’t know how to use them correctly. The solution actually dawned on me when considering another disaster caused by a battlescanner. I was trying to determine if it was safe to flank a Thin Man behind a building, and so I threw out a scanner to verify that there was not another pod behind that same building. It landed near a burning vehicle, which promptly exploded. The tragic part was that I had not yet moved a soldier who was using the vehicle for cover. It was so frustrating. If I had known that could happen, I never would have done it. Now I find the anecdote amusing, and like most disasters in XCOM, it is educational. The exploding car and the triggering of pods is related. Battlescanners do a small amount of environmental damage, which is probably negligible, but for whatever reason can blow up vehicles. And if that environmental damage is also what activates enemy pods, then the probability of activation should decline with distance, because environmental damage declines with distance. After two campaigns filled battlescanners, and no disasters, this seems correct to me.

EDIT: Actually this strategy is not guaranteed to work. More distance makes them less likely to activate pods, but they still might…

So now that I know the risks, and have a decent guess about the mechanics, I follow a very simple guideline for the safe use of battlescanners. I will always throw them a tile within visible range, or when using a motion tracker a little beyond visible range, but not much, and of course avoiding any pods detected by the motion tracker.

Battlescanners and Overwatch

There is one other way that battlescanners can backfire. Suppose that you use a scanner to spot a nearby enemy pod, and then put all your soldiers on overwatch, hoping the enemy will charge your position. But instead the pod moves away from your squad, which would only be inconvenient, except that your Sniper with a Strike Rifle has squadsight, and is able to take a shot, and this activates the pod, which is now well out of range for your other soldiers to engage. What could have been an easy encounter has turned into a mess.

Once again the problem is not the tool, but user error. Squadsight overwatches are limited to 5 tiles (when using Strike Rifles²). To prevent shooting at enemies that would not activate otherwise, position squadsight soldiers 5 or more tiles behind the front line, which will prevent them from shooting until the enemy crosses into visible range.

This post is followed by: Long War - More Summer Tactics.

1. Flashbangs cut mobility by 40%. Berserkers have 17 mobility - my notes say berserkers can move 6 tiles after being hit with a flashbang.

2. I remember MECs also being able to take overwatch shots beyond the 5 tile limit, but perhaps I am remembering wrong.