I agree, this is shotgun tactics 101, but in practice, it isn’t always possible to maneuvre anyone into position to actually do that, especially on lairs, and the early turns of an ambush. Well, it might be, but it’s usually a huge gamble, and the soldier is left flapping in the wind. You might be able to dash in and dash out again, but in the longer view, you’ve just spunked 8 will points up the wall, 4 of which you know you will probably need more urgently in a few turns time.
There have been so many occasions where I was sure this would work using the Anu shotgun, and it hasn’t done, I only really do it for absolute guaranteed kills now, where if the shotgun guy fails, there are snipers to back him up.
Take a single guy with a good dash to the lair.
Ignore everything and dash to the spawnery on turn one.
Pump it full of lead, and let chirons bomb it.
Win on turn 2.
Why? Because you don’t have to kill anything at all but only this spawnery thing to win.
Sure I do this all the time, but tell me how am I supposed to do it, when everyone is on a ledge I can’t get to and there are 5-6 of them with overwatch :D? (Look at the screen above)
Had something like this on my first Lair… I started on a Platform without ANY connection to the rest of the Lair… at the end of the Mission there were around 40 Crabby’s on the other side of the Map on their Platform, I stand on my Platform… we watch each other closely in the eye… no one blinks… and than my 3 sniper killed the spawner as I found a sinlgle tile from which I could see and hit it… GG won…
Still I think Lairs and Nests are utter bullshit and trash. The only missions so far I complete think of “anti fun”.
In fact, I’ve commented on this in several threads. I’m so used to IM mode and all the tension it brings that I can’t go back. So, while waiting for the patch I decided to learn the game and prepare.
What I’ve discovered is a game that, imho, simply won’t work with IM as it is. The first 10-15 hours, once you get used to a couple of vicious enemy types and mechanics, are straightforward, even on Heroic. There’s no real tension from the start, you’re just building PP up quite comfortably.
Eventually, things get to a point when you have a mixture of easy, average and hard but also bizarre spikes which are incredibly tough. Many of these are simply down to the fact there are quite a few situations and enemy abilities that feel like you could end up with bizarre, random outcomes where you’ll lose troops or maybe a whole squad. In IM, it will often mean starting the campaign over.
So what happens then? You have to go through the chore of all the early hours all over again just to get to the ‘good bits’. It seems like the campaign can be quite lengthy and there seems to be the potential for a lot of repetition, especially in nests and Haven defence.
I’m actually wondering if that’s the real reason it hasn’t been patched in yet; they realised that new players would sink 15+ hours into the game, moving along fine, only to get wrecked by what seems like an unbalanced/random encounter and would therefore be enraged and not bother to finish it, possibly leading to poor word of mouth. Many games manage IM successfully without losing your saves so what’s taking Snapshot so long?
I’ve been playing on Veteran difficulty and Lairs have been a pain in the bum every time. Last night I restarted many times in order to complete it, with 1 death (always a berserker lol…).
The first lair I took down had at least 5 active Sirens and I was lucky enough to have a unit that could not be mind controlled to deal with them. I tried to deal with them from range but they used cover too well.
The lair last night had 2 Chiron and eventually I worked out I could just use war cry to negate their ability to launch bombs. I used incendiary grenades to burn them + hold back the tides but in the end I had to send my heavy to solo-kill the lair as I could not win just by killing as I didn’t kill fast enough.
It’s annoying that you cannot prevent Sirens from using MC even after their head is disabled and that it doesn’t cancel a current mind control that’s in progress. My units will usually run over and use their own medikit to heal the Siren as well lol…
I don’t know if it was successful tactics or I just got lucky from last night’s lair. The heavy I sent solo was mostly ignored, with just 1 of the 2 Chiron launching bombs at him (missing the hvy and doing dmg to the hatchery). It only took 2 rounds for the hvy to kill it too so “distract-and-solo” may by my new anti-lair tactic. I have no idea why a Siren didn’t head towards him either - I don’t think the path was blocked and I knew at least a few were around.
Same for me, I can’t get how Lairs can please to some players, and can be too easy for a few.
In fact I gave up, and just search the best exploit for the soldiers I have. Last one was around Infiltrators but I’ll give it up despite it’s really a true exploit that skips main core of lairs. Previous exploit attempt was Priest and crab control, but at end either it requires luck either it’s quite difficult anyway, I had to retreat some of such exploit attempt.
I think I’ll give a try to Heavy/Berzerk, but my experience is it will hardly work, in my lairs crabs tend guard not far, without to mention the risks behind jumps that let only one AP to cancel a disastrous position.
