I won a busted stealth mission

[SouthpawHare]

I had a pretty cool experience tonight. I had a Ninja and Specialist duo on a stealth mission for hacking a computer. The campaign is currently in mid-June on Veteran Ironman. I've been doing quite a few stealth missions successfully (ironically, more than in previous versions of LW2, as I used to be afraid of them and learned not to be), and this one seemed to be no exception on the surface. Extremely Light activity, infiltrated up to 190%. Despite being "merely" a stealth mission, the two characters were actually some of my highest level characters - the ninja due to being my go-to stealth shinobi, and the specialist because I had just unlocked Gremlins Mk.II and decided to send my highest level specialist and best hacker for a change so that I could ace the rewards.

Unfortunately, we got spotted by a sudden drone on the very first enemy turn (they spotted my ninja, even, so both were revealed), and were immediately surrounded by a squad of ADVENT that included the first Advanced Officer of the campaign. My team now had 4 active enemies against the two of them, backed up close to the edge of the map, with a minimum of 2 turns to evac, and with no equipment whatsoever aside from ceramic plating (I always give stealth units this just in case) and the improved Gremlin. Their weapons were only ordinary uzis and an ordinary machete.

I naturally threw down the evac immediately, placing it behind a line-of-site-blocking fence. However, things weren't going to be as simple as to merely hide behind the fence for two turns with the enemy so close; they had to fight and thin the numbers. And so they did. The drone was taken control of with a hack, being shot down by its ADVENT allies on the following enemy turn. My ninja then started going to town on the enemy, hacking and slashing every one of them in turn. The specialist laid down support fire with her uzi. By the time the evac had arrived, only the Advanced Officer remained.

I decided not to evac, and to instead keep going. The two of them continued to battle the officer, who had a staggering 13 health. It ended up taking 1 SMG shot and 2 sword attacks to take him down. My ninja naturally became exposed when attacking, but I decided that it was worth the risk. He sustained some damage, but he survived (he actually has very high HP for a stealth character). My specialist, who is entirely medically-specced, despite not having a medkit, was able to heal him back to full with Medical Protocol and Savior and remove his red fog. During the fight, another drone appeared, but it was dealt with via a single SMG critical hit against all odds.

By the time I had finished dealing with these 5 enemies, I had only 3 turns left to hack the objective. Worse, reinforcements were incoming. Fortunately, the map was incredibly small, and my specialist was now only a single move away from being able to hack by gaining line-of-site through a window. Even better, it was just out of range of activating the squad that was supposed to be guarding it, but had turned away just slightly enough. She threw down a new evac, moved, and hacked the objective. Mission complete. Now they just had to get out.

Next turn, 3 enemies pop out of a portal right next to the team. The enemies previously avoided near the objective activated too. And so the squad ran into a nearby house and hid for one more turn. Then, at least, on the next turn, they made it out. My specialist even managed to hack a successful small intel cache from the evac point before leaving. Mission successful. My ninja is gravely wounded, his first wounds of the game.

In short, despite completely failing stealth and having no combat equipment at all, my team managed to kill 5 enemies, hack a 10-turn objective, escape 6 more enemies, and hack some supplies, and make it out alive. Pretty intense stuff.

[LordYanaek]

Well done Commander.

High hack Specialists are extremely useful on many timed missions where you have a small squad. The ability to take control of an enemy unit (thus removing an enemy and adding an ally) is insanely strong.
I've won several missions i would have lost (and maybe wiped) without controlling some drones. I don't know why people would want mimic beacons when thy can have 10 HP-3 Armor mimics capable of stunning enemies for 2 full turns

Sword shinobis are also very strong till late June - early July even with basic gear. I had basic swords until my first HQ in early July and that didn't stop my full-sword shinobi from being my first MSgt.

[SouthpawHare]

Sword shinobis are also very strong till late June - early July even with basic gear. I had basic swords until my first HQ in early July and that didn't stop my full-sword shinobi from being my first MSgt.

I agree. I understand that sword shinobi are considered somewhat risky to use due to their tendency to uncover new enemies. However, they are my number one favorite type of soldier, and I've gotten great use out of them. This campaign currently has 6 shinobi, evenly split between stealth and sword types (though all of them, including the sword-spec ones, take Shadowstep, which I consider to be a defining ability). I actually have 2 arc blades in use in the campaign already, but I didn't prioritize giving one to my stealth ninja on a stealth mission as it seemed unnecessary at the time.