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[Drakale]

Long war is so good, having an epic game at the moment.

Last mission was a terror attack on Paris, and second movement of the game I wake 2 pack of 4 chrysalid and a pack of those floating tentacle things. There is also 2 zombies closing in, but they are the least of my worries at this point. I back everyone up while laying some cover fire. One rookie and a trooper got strangled and didn't make it, but the rest of the squad got out to the extraction point. Paris is overrun, but we live to fight another day. I really like how you can fuck up some mission without instantly losing the war, makes ironman so much more fun.

[umiman]

I brought three mec troopers and a shiv for that zombie festival when I first did it. Had no clue about the hilarity that was going to happen.

It was a glorious zombie festival.

I didn't lose anything, but it should be obvious as mec troopers and shivs are stupidly OP.

[Culise]

Heh, that's even better than mine.  My first game, I didn't roll it until the Gollup Chamber was being constructed, which meant that I went in with full plasma weapons and end-game armor, but only two MECs; even with that alone, I basically rocked its little Newfie world.  My second game on, I started receiving it in the early game, but by that point I knew exactly what I would be in for and was able to gear accordingly. 

[GiglameshDespair]

I always wondered in Enemy Within how making a cybernetic death walker was somehow harder than making a robotic gun platform, considering they already exist.

[Robosaur]

I sent my assault to get every kill that came out of the whale, right up until they stopped spawning. I also managed to get her to kill a whole bunch more, leaving at the last possible moment.

[PanH]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes. Everywhere. And Zombies all over the place.

For next time, I'm thinking about taking a rookie with me and sending him on a kamikaze mission to hit the beacon while the rest fall back. Is that a good idea?

Also, which continent do you start in?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ah yeah, the mission with the boat. Quite fun, but quite hard to do without a loss (especially to activate the thing). A medic with +2 movement can do the trick (also, they don't spawn every turn, but nearly, so you could plan for it, coupled with overwatch).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personally i never had any problems with that mission. Played it on Normal it was an affair of punching the chryssies and activating the beacon with the MEC and covering fire from the snipers as most of my team rushed to the exit.
Wouldn't call this mission simple but it's mostly a gear check that asks one simple question.
Can you kill all those chryssalids before they get to you?
if yes you won.

Also if you want to maximize the XP gain... there is only a limited ammount of chryssalids that spawn from the whale when you activate the beacon so you might want to detect the whale and go defensive waiting for the chrysses to run out.
They you can just swagger whoever you want to the beacon while the rest of your team assumes defensive positions and give overwatch cover for the poor sod activating the beacon.
Then it's jsut a simple allout retreat but again you might want to stick around to get off more chryssalid kills (exp) for your troops.

Also i assume this mission is actually easier on long war since you get far better skills and weapons for your troops earlier... coupled with the ability to move much faster than in vanilla if you use te right skills armor and weapons... i can see it beign a cakewalk there.

Yeah, the only difficulty is if you receive it fairly early (e.g. as first or second council mission).

[Shadowlord]

I brought three mec troopers and a shiv for that zombie festival when I first did it. Had no clue about the hilarity that was going to happen.

It was a glorious zombie festival.

I didn't lose anything, but it should be obvious as mec troopers and shivs are stupidly OP.

Oh? I made one mec trooper, but he survived something like 5 missions before getting killed (by a mind-controlled high-level assault), and through all those missions he never gained any levels. I was not very impressed with his effectiveness either. The only useful thing he was really able to do was to buff everyone else's defense with his area shield thing. Oh well. According to the wiki, I chose the worst class to turn into a MEC, and should have chosen a lieutenant instead of a squaddie.

[Rolan7]

They do gain less experience, so I use high-ranking soldiers.  I've never even tried the flamethrower yet so I don't know how it is, but the kinetic strike module is a large amount of *reliable* melee damage.  I think just having it makes them move faster, too.  Basically they have a ton of health, a reliable source of massive single-target damage, and a pretty good weapon (though it has to be reloaded like crazy).  Later abilities can make them even more survivable, and they can be healed with arc throwers.  The healing mist is a nice bonus.

[rabidgam3r]

The biggest problem with them is the later choices in equipment aren't very valuable. The healing mist needs everyone in a cluster, and only heals 6. The grenade launcher does only 4 damage, and doesn't have much for tactical uses.

[GiglameshDespair]

Destroying cover without emptying your magazine?

[rabidgam3r]

I'm an easy mode scrub, so I get by without having your namby-pampy fancy tactics. You know, back in my day we didn't have yer rassin-frassin' grenade launchers!

[umiman]

The grenade launcher and the mine layer can stack damage.

So you drop a mine on an enemy then shoot a grenade at it with another guy. Boom. A billion damage.

Reliable damage is how you win in XCOM. A fully specced Mec trooper has three amazing sources of it.

[puke]

They do gain less experience, so I use high-ranking soldiers.

Dont they get superior advancement profiles though?  By looking at the configs -- at least for Long War -- it seems like MECs of each class have better stat advancement than the comparable trooper.

[Sirus]

Personally, I've had a lot more luck with genemodded soldiers. In my last game I had an assault who could regenerate health, and in my current game my Squadsight sniper has the ability to leap to any height and the Depth Perception mod for extra Aim and crit when above enemies. Compare that to my MEC heavy, who got wasted by a trio of Mutons on his very first mission and couldn't even hit anything.

[Flying Dice]

I always wondered in Enemy Within how making a cybernetic death walker was somehow harder than making a robotic gun platform, considering they already exist.

Uh. Answered your own question there; we already have robotic gun platforms in active service.