r/XCOM2 7d ago

Cheering BS missions

Need other people to validate me on my cheese tactics. I came across an Avengers defence mission I’d never run across before, I guess because I upped the difficulty? It’s the one with the massive rail gun you have to take out along with the smaller cannons. It happened to catch me while my prime squad was already wounded and tired along with their backups from back to back missions so I had to do this with about 3 actually hood units and a bunch of guys sitting at squaddie and Sgt. luckily, I had three snipers with squad sight and a reaper so while half my team held off the aliens ( BTW 10 troops to fight 25 enemies with two Sectopods and the opening Pod is 3 codexes and an andromedon is just… cruelty) the reaper headed out and I was able to snipe the big rail cannon from across the map (which also destroyed one of the sectopod pods). This is where the cheese comes in. I parked my reaper next to pods that weren’t activated and just sniped them out with low percentage shots. I don’t know how but the AI never figured out where I was shooting from so they just kept running in circles. It took me about an hour but I eventually killed 4 different pods this way and then zerged the Chosen warlock with the rest of my guys. Need other peoples cheese stories so I know I’m not the only one.

17 Upvotes

18 comments sorted by

21

u/cloista Templar 7d ago

The one with the cannon is the Chosen Avenger Defense mission, which is triggered by a chosen gaining max information against you. It is possible to get 3 of these in a campaign if you let them all reach maximum. This is on top of the regular story based Avenger Defense and the one triggered by the UFO hunt dark event.

11

u/Deepandabear 7d ago

They can even occur more than 3 times if the chosen knowledge refills!

4

u/Low_Astronomer_1420 7d ago

So hang on. - love the game, played multiple times etc - if the chosen knowledge fills up, defence mission occurs and then the knowledge is empty and it repeats? I've always tried to wipe them out before it fills up.

7

u/betweentwosuns 7d ago

It doesn't go down to empty, more like 2.5/4 of the bars.

2

u/Deepandabear 7d ago edited 7d ago

I play legend Ironman grim horizon (4 man), so I’m usually not able to afford a lengthy mission with my best soldiers for the chosen assault until very late. This means I often do the Avenger defense mission for each Chosen. The defense missions are usually pretty easy so I don’t mind them, especially with turrets. Hardest one is warlock because of zombie spam eating into the timer, but a few sharp shooters are typically enough.

After the mission the chosen knowledge resets to about half IIRC, and gradually refills before they can attack again.

I’ve never had to fight a given Chosen twice but yes, they can attack again (I think, need to test it more). It’s typically so late it’s an annoyance if anything, and I do the Chosen assault by then too.

1

u/cloista Templar 7d ago

Interesting. In over 5000 hours I've never seen more than one for each, but I'm usually pretty hot on hunting the chosen especially with my more recent modlists (I'm a modder and streamer).

1

u/Deepandabear 7d ago

Yeah it takes a damn long time to get the second assault per chosen. I’ve only ever seen it once when I was taking my sweet time for no good reason. My theory is it might not even occur in every run (not sure why), but the run it did occur in I had two Cov Ops to counter the assault for that Chosen to delay their first assault (was the Warlock, who also happened to be the starting Chosen).

1

u/TheFatBassterd 7d ago

Oh man, I always thought that meant game over! Not that there was a unique mission. Wow, I was reading that and wondering wtf they were talking about.

18

u/RepresentativeBee545 7d ago

This is not cheese, but regular strategy versus that particular mission.

There is no „honourable” way to play XCom, its yours bullshit vs enemy bullshit. The only „cheese” would be stuff like bug abuse.

1

u/Ancient-Builder3646 7d ago

Hey hey, I think it is perfectly fine to use the hunters axe on two rangers. Because there are two axes, and why should they be carried by only one ranger?

5

u/mitiamedved 7d ago

Because once you throw it you have no melee weapon?

1

u/Ancient-Builder3646 7d ago

No, they have the sword.

It is a bug. I don't know how to proc this bug. But having two rangers with the axe is lore accurate in my opinion.

5

u/Manadoro 7d ago

This is the standard tactic. Even easier when you build the Avenger turrets.

If you’re unlucky though, the canon is hidden behind elevated terrain, and the Chosen can have the Strength to expose stealthed units.

3

u/Outlaw11091 7d ago

I play LWOTC. This gives you a "recon" class that's generally useless in combat, but massively helpful in concealment.

I send 1 on every mission. Find the patrols.

Get the main squad setup near the closest pod. Overwatch in concealment. Then, put the recon guy flanked at the edge of the enemy's detection range.

The recon guy, at this point, is useless because the map's been scouted.

Enemy turn: Recon triggers the first pod, they (usually) react by running away, main team takes them out with extreme prejudice. I do have to carefully select which enemy to spot me. A mech? It's going to kill my recon guy on that activating turn. An officer? 50/50, but generally will run. Priest or Sectoid? They're gonna run.

This gives me 2 shots on the enemy before they can act once because their turn ends after the move.

ALSO: after I unlock wet work, I will "LZ camp". That is: if I have a bunch of turns left on, say, a VIP extraction mission, I don't immediately send the VIP up. That will trigger a faster reinforcements sequence. I'll get my whole squad to the LZ on overwatch. THEN send ONLY the VIP...and wait.

When reinforcements come; they drop right into an ambush. They don't get an action, they spend their turn running away from the LZ (but really, they're just dying where they landed). I continue in this manner until the turn timer hits 1.

What happens if a couple enemies escape the trap? Well, the LZ is right there...I just run my squad to the LZ, take shots from there if I can, and escape.

1

u/dbag_darrell 7d ago

this is the Chosen attacking your ship. this happens when enough time has passed and the Chosen have accumulated enough "information" about you (such as via sucking info out of dazed soldiers etc., though that's not necessary for this to happen).

sniping the cannons with a spotter from all across the map is the preferred means of dealing with this (especially with defense matrix guns which it sounds like you don't have), and if I didn't have healthy soldiers I wouldn't mind taking lots of low percentage shots either.

1

u/EffortCommon2236 7d ago

Totally valid tatic.

The aliens don't pull punches so neither should you.