The Elders transformed a few humans into purple psi-powered psychopaths, and they are the best thing about this mod. Fighting the Chosen is fun because there is no easy way to beat them… at first. Eventually your soldier’s will acquire enough kill power to make short work of the Chosen, but that is a long time in coming. During the summer months there will be numerous encounters with the Chosen, and you will have no way to control them. The only way to stop them is by killing them, and that is easier said than done.
Burst Damage
So, you need to kill them - that’s the only option. Stasis, Stun, Frost, Disorient, Panic, Combatives - all completely useless. Burning only disables some of their abilities, and Venom only slows them down - nothing can stop them. Also, they are almost immune to critical hits,1 and they will reposition when flanked and damaged. So what do you do?
Burst damage is the closest thing to an answer. You want to hit them as hard as you can, and kill them as quickly as possible. With a bit of luck, that can be done in a couple of turns. Eventually it will be very possible to kill a Chosen in a single turn. The better your burst damage skills become, the better it will go.
At the start of the game, you will not have access to many skills that give your soldiers multiple attacks with a single action. Here is a list of Burst Damage abilities roughly in order of when they become available:
Both Barrels (Ranger - SQD)
Amplify (Templar - LCPL)
Chain Shot (Skirmisher - SGT)
Chain Shot (Gunner - SSGT)
Cyclic Fire (Gunner - TSGT)
Rapid Fire (Assault - TSGT)
Banish (Reaper - TSGT)
Rapid Fire (Ranger- GSGT)
Aside from a couple hero class abilities, Both Barrels is the only burst damage ability available at a rank lower than SSGT. That’s it, and it only works at close range. Eventually, you get Chain Shot on the Gunner, followed by a few more multi-shot attacks at TSGT rank, but until then you will be hitting the Chosen with one shot at a time, probably with Laser Weapons. Quickly reaching Mag tier is a huge bump up in damage, especially for Both Barrels because it unlocks the Mag Shorty.
You need to work with what you’ve got, and that means wearing down the Chosen with flanking shots and/or grenades and perhaps finishing them off with Both Barrels - that may require the use of Command to help the Ranger get in close enough to use this ability. The Warlock has CCS, and will need to be suppressed for your Ranger to approach him, whereas the Assassin can be finessed into moving adjacent to the Ranger if you position your soldiers accordingly.
But let’s be honest - most of the time this is not going to go down the way you hope, and you will need to manage the Chosen for a turn or two (and take wounds), before you are able to kill them. There are a few tricks that will help minimize the damage against all three of them.
General Chosen Tactics
Having a tank (Templar or Spark) is especially helpful. The best tank is always a hacked MEC or drone, so it is good to have a Specialist along, and since your squad is very likely to take wounds, it is nice for that Specialist to be a Healer. In addition to healing your soldiers, you can heal up resistance personnel. They have a lot more HP than in LW2, and they will often survive the first hit.
The Chosen will reposition if you damage them while they are flanked, and so cover destruction doesn’t work… unless you use Demolition which doesn’t cause damage. Bombard can also remove cover without causing damage.
The Chosen are fast, and they cannot be immobilized with Crippling Strike. Instead you can slow them down with Venom Rounds and Iron Curtain.
It is a usually a good idea to burn the Chosen. The Burning effect will disable some of their secondary abilities and this will often prevent them from attacking twice in a single turn.
Fighting the Warlock
If the Warlock has allies, he will often cast Greatest Champion on one of them, and you will need to kill that unit before you can dispose of the Warlock. If he is all alone the Warlock will summon more units. For this reason, it is often better to burn his minions rather than killing them outright.
The Warlock can mind control your soldiers but rarely chooses to do so. Instead he is probably going to cast Mind Scorch. You can incite him to do this by positioning 2 or more soldiers next to each other. If those soldiers are immune to burning, they may still take damage, but won’t catch fire. If you have a resistance MEC on the mission, you can put it next to your Hazmat equipped Templar, and the Warlock will waste his turn targeting them.
The Warlock has CCS, so it is good to bring a Gunner when you face him. Burning is an even better way to cancel his CCS ability.
The Warlock is fast and will move away from your squad, making him harder to kill. If you are worried about him retreating, it is sometimes better to attack him first with the soldiers that are furthest away or the least mobile, and then use the nearer and more mobile soldiers.
Fighting the Hunter
The Hunter is super annoying. He can use his grapple to fly around the map, always finding a flank, and then hitting you like a truck. He will also move backward quite frequently, making him harder to kill.
On the plus side, he has the wittiest banter.
At the end of his turn, the Hunter will often go on Farsight overwatch, which means he can target any soldier on the map. You will not see a red danger icon when you move your soldiers, which can lead to some frustrating mistakes. It is a good idea to bring soldiers with abilities that can negate overwatch from range; Combat Protocol, Soul Fire, Grenadier, Technical, etc.
Burning the Hunter is a good idea, as it will disable his pistol ability, and that will slow down the rate at which he murders your resistance personnel.
Against the Hunter, I think it makes sense to fight mobility with mobility, and bring soldiers that can move quickly, and project force at long range. If your squad gets in close to the Hunter, you should be able to kill him.
Fighting the Assassin
The Assassin begins each mission in concealment, which is an invitation to play a fun game of Hide & Seek. Her starting position is revealed by the cutscene, but her high mobility means that the search area is actually pretty big. You can cheat at Hide & Seek by bringing battlescanners (kind of effective) or a Specialist with Scanning Protocol (extremely effective). On Haven Defense missions, it is nice to find the Assassin quickly as it will give you a head start on killing her before reinforcements start dropping in - but often it is best to just let her stay hidden. Once revealed, she gets 2 attacks (sometimes 3), rather than the single blade attack she uses when breaking stealth on her own. Trying to find her can also eat up multiple actions which could otherwise be spent killing other enemies. I would recommend not searching for her unless there is A) no other enemies to fight B) you have a reasonable chance to do some real damage and C) you will be able to light her on fire and thus prevent one of her bonus attacks.
Once revealed the Assassin offers a more straightforward challenge; whenever she is damaged she will charge at the nearest soldier or attack adjacent targets, standing right out in the open and daring you to keep attacking her, so that she can keep attacking you. Don’t play that game. Each time the Assassin takes damage, she gains 20% damage reduction for the remainder of the turn, up to a maximum of about 50%. The damage reduction makes her a bit of a tank, but she has less HP than the other Chosen, and is usually easy to hit, so it’s not as hard to overcome her toughness. The bigger problem is that each time she attacks, she also gets a bonus to damage. After a few attacks, she’ll be hitting for double digits. This bonus applies to the Harbor Wave attack, which can hit multiple targets. Things can get ugly fast. I’ve seen the Assassin’s Harbor Wave hit 3 soldiers for 12-14 HP.
Usually the battle plan is to hit the Assassin a few times on the first turn, softening her up, so that you can kill her on the following turn. Once she is adjacent to one of your soldiers, you either must move that soldier, or stop attacking. If you keep hitting her, she will keep hitting you, growing stronger all the while.
A good strategy is to kite the Assassin from soldier to soldier, so that she will keep moving rather than attacking; The soldiers near to the Assassin save their actions, so that once she approaches them, they can move away. You attack her again, and she move towards someone else, then that soldier moves away, and so on. You can also use the Templar’s Invert ability to transport the Assassin to a spot far away from all your soldiers, giving you multiple attacks before she is nearby any of them.
Her mobility can be reduced with Venom Rounds and that will allow you to attack more times before she reaches one of your soldiers. There is a disadvantage to this tactic; when poison damage procs on the next turn, it will immediately grant her 20% damage reduction.
If you burn the Assassin, she will no longer be able to use her Shotgun, but just as with poison, the burn damage will grant her 20% damage reduction on the next turn. This is still a good strategy if she has acquired CCS, because it will prevent her from shotgunning the adjacent soldiers who need to move away from her. Burning is better than suppression at negating CCS because it works for the whole turn, as well as the next turn, whereas suppression is broken when she moves, and thus only negates CCS for a single attack.
When she starts getting low on HP, you can stop kiting the Assassin and instead tank her attacks. You need to kill her on this turn, because her damage output will increase dramatically. It is best to tank with hacked enemy robots, but if you brought a healer specialist on the mission, you can use one of your resistance personnel to tank, then heal them up at the end of your turn.
Alien Rulers
Alien rulers can be a serious threat in LWOTC, because the Ruler Reaction mechanic allows them to attack multiple times during your turn, and they have some extremely dangerous abilities that can target your entire squad, or KO individual soldiers. When these nasty bosses are on the board, you must use the utmost caution or you could find yourself headed for a squad wipe.
On the other hand, each alien ruler can be easily defeated if you use a few control abilities wisely and things go to plan. Here is the plan:
Bring a Psi Operative with Stasis. Bring a Grenadier with Sting and/or Frost and/or Incendiary grenades. Bring an Assault with the Stun Gunner ability and the best Arc Thrower you can buy. Bring a couple good shooters, one with shred.
Scout cautiously to prevent fighting an Alien Ruler while another enemy pod is nearby. This is crucial. You can beat the Ruler’s pod without taking wounds, but not if you activate another pod as well.
Before you activate the ruler’s pod, make sure that all your soldiers are where you want them to be and have good lines of sight; you may not be able to move them once combat begins.
An overwatch trap is the best way to activate the Ruler’s pod if you are not in concealment. It gifts you some free shots that won’t trigger a Ruler Reaction.
Otherwise you want to start the battle with a Sting/Frost/Incendiary grenade hoping to control the ruler’s minions. Burning will not subdue the ruler, but Sting/Frost grenades may do so for a couple turns.
If the ruler is temporarily subdued, go ahead and shoot him a couple times with shred.
Before the ruler can do anything, put him in Stasis. This is the best way to control alien rulers because unlike other methods of control, it will not wear off as you take actions. On the downside, you can’t hurt the ruler either.
Your Assault should move close enough to the ruler to guarantee Stun on the following turn.
Use any remaining actions to kill or control the minions.
At the start of the following turn, have the Assault stun the ruler, then go right back to hitting it with your most powerful attacks. When the stun effect is about to wear off, you can freeze the ruler with a frost grenade, or let it run away; whatever seems best.
Oh, and if you have an officer Shinobi still in concealment, he can use officer abilities without triggering Ruler Reactions - perhaps commanding the Assault that just stunned the Ruler, to take another turn, and use Rapid Fire.
This plan works against all 3 of the alien rulers, keeping them locked down for the entire fight. They have very nasty special abilities, but if you do things right, they will never get a chance to use them.
They have 200 crit resistance, which can be worn down by the Rend the Marked ability, but isn’t worth the effort.