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[EnigmaticHat]

I have a legendary run that (was) going well.  No resistance fighters for the first retaliation mission but I still did well.  Then the chosen showed up, and...

Spoiler: Now, well (click to show/hide)

Two pods have been killed, haven't seen more and the mission was "easy" difficulty so maybe no more aliens?  The specialist had the only medkit and bleeds out this turn.  The assassin has 12 health remaining, and one of her strengths is regeneration.  The skirmisher can take two shots, 52% to hit, 4-6 damage and no crit.  Currently the grenadier has 4-6 damage, 63% to hit and 40% crit, and she can move closer.  The way I see it, there are 4 options:

1.  The skirmisher takes 2 shots, the grenadier takes one as well.
2.  The skirmisher stays and fights while the grenadier evacs with the downed specialist.  Hopefully the skirmisher can finish the mission before the remaining grenadier bleeds out.
3.  The entire squad evacs and abandons the mission.
4.  The skirmisher stays and fights while the grenadier runs and hides.  The skirmisher is presumably captured, leaving the 1 health grenadier to kill at least a single faceless on her own.

Which one do you guys think has the best chance of saving the caimpaign?

[umiman]

Your only hope is to attack the assassin with everything and hope for the best.

[Tack]

3. Attack the shooter

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm going to count that as two votes for option 1?  I'll tell you guys how it goes.  Probbbbabbly going to be a dead caimpaign.

[umiman]

I posted this about the Assassin in the first mission: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151059.msg7554529;topicseen#msg7554529

I won't blame you if you ever encounter her first, to just let her scan and peace out. It's not worth dealing with her that early in the game. She becomes a cakewalk later, but in the first retaliation mission it's insane as you will probably have nothing to deal with her.

The other two are totally beatable.

[Mephansteras]

She's probably beatable if you have a Reaper to scout her out and roll lucky on her strength/weaknesses. But it'd be rough even then.

[Sindain]

So can Chosen capture X-com soldiers in battle? Going into WOTC I was under the impression that they could, but I've only ever seen them do the info extract thingy.

[EnigmaticHat]

There's an easy out to the assassin.  She always uses her blade first to daze someone.  If you intentionally leave that person dazed, she'll always grab them and teleport out AFAIK.

There is kind of a trick to the assassin.  You have to back away, position your guys close together but not so close more than 2 can be hit by an AoE, and just keep backing off.  The camera perfectly tracks her movements even out of sight, so just wait till she's close, then blow up her cover (shredding her armor) and pounce on her with everyone.  The problem is that in her first reveal, since you won't have a specialist with 4 heals + revive, your squad won't be resistant enough to wait for the opportune moment.  So like you said, its very luck based.

Edit: Alright so this was the outcome:
Skirmisher fired for 6 damage, turns out they only had one shot so a kill was even less likely than I thought.  Grenadier hit for 5 but it wasn't a crit so no kill.  Specialist bled out, then the assassin used harbor wave to hit BOTH my soldiers.  Then she extracted knowledge from the grenadier and fled the scene.  There was nothing left, not even faceless, so we won instantly and both my grenadiers survived albeit with wounds.

The caimpaign seems... pretty OK?  I pursued a build focused on getting covert ops up as fast as possible.  So less than one day after the mission this happened

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So now my roster looks like this

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Overall I'd say that everything has gone about according to plan.  No missions failed, 3 deaths total, still have more than a full squad for next mission.    Sadly I decided to rush sectoid research forgetting that its another whole research to get psionics, so that's an oopsie.  In a month or two I'm going to get some crystals from an exposed power coil anyway, so maybe I can do it then.  The main question left in my head is when to go for magnetic rifles.  My fear is how I'm going to survive the power dip between conventional and mag weapons.  Is it still mandatory to rush mag weapons?  My current plan is to do minor researches now, THEN get psi, THEN get mag rifles.  But that feels like it could be wayyyyy too long.  I'm also considering building and manning an early lab for the, what is it, 50% research speed boost?  33%?   I'm trying to experiment with builds here since I know legendary can get real hard.

[umiman]

There's an easy out to the assassin.  She always uses her blade first to daze someone.  If you intentionally leave that person dazed, she'll always grab them and teleport out AFAIK.

I won't blame you if you ever encounter her first, to just let her scan and peace out.

I would have recommended that if you encountered her earlier, but your screenshot had you already fighting her.

Honestly, I'm starting to doubt any reason not to let the Chosen get all the intel they want. There's no real downside to it. They just do that mission where they donate a bunch of free shit to your doorstep and you can fight them with way too many numbers on your side. 10-man squad lol.

[Parsely]

So far in my veteran playthrough I've lost one squaddie to a full cover crit, and it's rare to make it through a mission without someone getting wounded. The attrition on 11 men is pretty intense, pretty much the second guys get out of the hospital they're being sent back into combat. This is my first XCOM 2 playthrough and I sense my build order is shit. A few months in and I just got my second engineer as well... I'm wondering what's going to happen if I can't get armor before the game starts upping the difficulty.

2 total KIA so far. If I was playing Legendary I'd probably have a lot more casualties from crits because my guys get wounded all the time. Exo suits + rockets have been carrying me pretty hard. Explosives are kind of hilariously useful because they never miss, destroy cover, shred armor, and deal guaranteed damage. I really want to install Long War 2 just for the stuff they do to explosives to make them less reliable.

[Mephansteras]

The base game does have an Advanced Option that gives grenades damage fall-off, if I recall correctly.

[umiman]

So far in my veteran playthrough I've lost one squaddie to a full cover crit, and it's rare to make it through a mission without someone getting wounded. The attrition on 11 men is pretty intense, pretty much the second guys get out of the hospital they're being sent back into combat. This is my first XCOM 2 playthrough and I sense my build order is shit. A few months in and I just got my second engineer as well... I'm wondering what's going to happen if I can't get armor before the game starts upping the difficulty.

2 total KIA so far. If I was playing Legendary I'd probably have a lot more casualties from crits because my guys get wounded all the time. Exo suits + rockets have been carrying me pretty hard. Explosives are kind of hilariously useful because they never miss, destroy cover, shred armor, and deal guaranteed damage. I really want to install Long War 2 just for the stuff they do to explosives to make them less reliable.

Long War 2 may make them less reliable damage-wise, but it makes them more powerful and you get more of them. WAAAAY more.

But yes, Grenadiers are the second best class in the game (excepting any mission that is a gauntlet).

[EnigmaticHat]

Grenadiers didn't impress me in WoTC so much as I missed them when shredding was needed.  In the base game I'd call them the third best class but two months of Lost World and I no longer value them quite that highly.

My personal rankings for the classes would be Psi ops > skirmisher > specialist, but from there it gets real situational..  Ranger and specialist are like PB&J but I have to give specialists the edge for being more versatile and essential.

[umiman]

Actually, scratch that. I think the sharpshooter is godmode in WotC now.

1. The optimal strat for Lost missions is all sharpshooters
2. Pistols do insane damage with all the research breakthroughs and shit you get now.
3. Same with sniper rifles.
4. Sharpshooters can now reliably go BOTH trees for all the damage. Pistols and sniping.
5. The Chosen's sniper rifle is stupid powerful, making the sniper rifle a double shot weapon.
6. That can combo with the pistol for even more shots. A lot of shots. A LOT of shots.
7. Combo with Reaper to win any mission.

Every single time I ran with a bunch of sharpshooters in WotC, I slaughtered the enemy despite me thinking it was a joke.

[EnigmaticHat]

My main problem with sharpshooter is simply they physically fall behind if you squadsight them, and aren't *quite* as good as the AR classes in close combat.  But, yeah.  MILES better than in the base game.  For missions with no timer, reaper + sharpshooter is win button.  What's funny is you literally need one of each; two sharpshooters just makes it less tedious.