Assault (Long War)

Assault

The Long War Assault is similar to the vanilla Assault. Their signature ability is Run & Gun, which works exactly as it does in vanilla XCOM.

Primary Weapons: Carbines, Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles, SMGs, Shotguns.

Secondary Weapons: Pistols, Machine pistols, Sawed-off shotgun.

Class-Limited items: Walker Servos, Impact Vest, Shredder Ammo, Breaching Ammo.

Abilities

Rank	Ability
Specialist	Run & Gun Allows firing or Overwatch after Dashing on the turn Run & Gun is activated. 2 turn cooldown.
	No other bonuses.
Lance Corporal	Flush Fire a shot that causes enemies to run out of cover. The shot is easy to hit with, but does reduced damage.	Close Combat Specialist Confers a reaction shot against any enemy who closes to within 4 tiles. Does not require Overwatch.	Steadfast Immune to panic, except Psi Panic.
	Provides +2 Aim.	No other bonuses.	Provides +5 Will.
Corporal	Gunslinger Confers +1 damage with sidearms and negates the long-range accuracy penalty when shooting beyond 14 meters.	Tactical Sense Confers +5 Defense per enemy in sight (max +20).	Aggression Confers +10% critical chance per enemy in sight (max +30%).
	Provides +1 Aim.	No other bonuses.	Provides +1 Will.
Sergeant	Rapid Fire Take two shots against a single target in quick succession. Each shot carries a -15 penalty to Aim.	Close Encounters The first standard shot made within 4 tiles of the target does not cost an action. Cannot combine with Run And Gun.	Extra Conditioning Confers bonus health based on which type of armor is equipped. Heavier armor increases the bonus.
	Provides +1 Mobility.	Provides +1 Mobility.	Provides +1 Aim, +1 Will, +1 Mobility.
Tech Sergeant	Will To Survive Reduces all normal damage taken by 1.5 if in cover and not flanked.	Killer Instinct Activating Run & Gun now also grants +50% critical damage for the rest of the turn.	Ranger Primary weapons do one additional damage.
	Provides +1 Will.	No other bonuses.	No other bonuses.
Gunnery Sergeant	Packmaster Limited-use items in your inventory receive additional uses.	Bring 'Em On Adds 1 damage on critical hits for each enemy the squad can see (up to 5).	Sprinter Allows the soldier to move 3 additional tiles.
	No other bonuses.	Provides +2 Will.	No other bonuses.
Master Sergeant	Resilience Confers immunity to critical hits.	Vital Point Targeting Confers 2 bonus damage against targets that have been autopsied.	Lightning Reflexes Reduces hit chance from overwatch fire by 90% for the first shot, and 75% for subsequent shots.
	No other bonuses.	Provides +3 Aim.	Provides +3 Aim, +3 Will, +1 Mobility.

Stat Progression

Rank	HP at level	Total HP	Aim at level	Total Aim
Specialist	1	1	3	3
Lance Corporal	0	1	3	6
Corporal	1	2	3	9
Sergeant	0	2	3	12
Tech Sergeant	1	3	3	15
Gunnery Sergeant	0	3	3	18
Master Sergeant	1	4	3	21

Tactical Advice

Role: Mobile Offense

Long War Assaults are quite similar to vanilla Assaults. They are more mobile than Infantry while packing less firepower, swapping Light 'Em Up for Run & Gun. Due to the existence of the Infantry class that excels at mid-range combat with rifles, Assaults tend to equip shotguns and use their mobility to engage at close range, though using them as a medium range flanker with an assault rifle is also viable.

Assaults are fairly simple soldiers, and the choice in their build tends to be a simple one of offense vs defense at each rank, with some mobility thrown in. A role-changing perk however is Lightning Reflexes, allowing them to draw out overwatch fire much like a Scout can, though they have to wait until Master Sergeant to do it and it can't be combined with the highly useful Resilience perk. Given some aliens in Long War have Opportunist, this makes absorbing overwatch with an Assault still quite dangerous, unless tough enough to absorb a crit.

Assaults make very good covert operatives. They have high base HP, allowing them to survive better without armor, Lightning Reflexes to not be hit by overwatch when running to comm arrays, and they can use Run & Gun to hack arrays on the same turn after dashing.

Sample Builds

Line Assault - Balanced damage build for early assaults with balanced stats (particularly good mobility). Deploy with most squads, particularly on missions where you expect close quarters combat to either be advantageous or necessary (council missions, terror missions)

At Lance Cpl: Close Combat Specialist for situations where enemies will close to point blank range in attempts to flank or melee your Assault. As for Steadfast: consider ranking the assault for later MEC conversion if their base will is perilously low; refer to another build for tanky psi assaults that can make use of Steadfast's bonus will.

At Corporal: Tactical Sense for the bonus defense, which Assaults will need, as they will draw plenty of fire. Only grab Gunslinger for a line assault if your pistol production is advanced enough.

At Sergeant: Close Encounters for maximum flexibility. Since Run and Gun is more of a problem solver than a build focus, Rapid Fire will only be more efficient than Close Encounters once every three turns.

At Tech Sgt: Will to Survive to improve survivability in light of not taking Extra Conditioning. OR Ranger if you're finding that you're not dealing quite enough damage (remember the damage reduction penalty on shotguns; procure Breaching Rounds to solve that.). Killer Instinct-fueled crits only come up ever three or more turns, making it a less efficient buy.

At Gun Sgt: Sprinter to improve ability to close to Close Encounters range and carry heavy armor/lots of heavy items. This assault build doesn't make heavy use of expanded crit chance or limited-use items.

At Master Sgt: Resilience to complete the durability package. OR Vital Point Targeting to help confirm kills. Only take Lightning Reflexes for this build if you're low on effective Scouts in the organization.

Equip completed build with: Shotgun weapons for increased damage, clip size with early weapon tech, and crit chance. Heavy armor for durability (they'll draw a lot of fire!). Breaching rounds to improve damage against armored targets. Impact Vest, Chitin Plating, and high-cap mags are good choices for remaining item slots.

Go for Offensive Psi powers so your Assault has options to engage the enemy at range. Secondary Heart is a good idea on gene mod side.

R&G Operative - Gene-modded Covert Operative build for assaults with great base HP and mobility. When not used for Covert missions, deploy on missions where powerful single foes are expected and will need to be kill-confirmed with Run and Gun Rapid Fire.

At Lance Cpl: Flush if you want to use your operative/assault as utility while waiting for R&G to come off cool-down. OR Close Combat Specialist when you want to use your operative as a close-in damage threat for alien missions.

At Corporal: Gunslinger as a core perk, allowing assaults to contribute significant damage at all ranges on covert operations, as well as have a secondary damage source on alien missions.

At Sergeant: Rapid Fire as a core perk, as Run and Gun is central to this covert operative's strategy and Rapid Fire can be used with it. Extra Conditioning only grants one HP for covert operatives thanks to their basic armor.

At Tech Sgt: Killer Instinct to make Rapid Fire R&G crits seriously hurt. Consider Will to Survive if you prefer more conservative use of Run and Gun.

At Gun Sgt: Sprinter to hit relays on the far opposite side of the map with Run and Gun. OR Bring 'Em On for a more relevant Assault post-EXALT base; combined with Killer instinct, Rapid Fire, and potentially a friendly Mind Merge, this assault can devastate any single target with crits.

At Master Sgt: Lightning Reflexes if you hit this rank and still have a few exalt missions to go, to make grabbing Comm Relays under overwatch a bit safer on Covert Extractions (and allow the assault to be useful as a pseudo scout in alien missions while waiting out R&G cooldown). Any perk is a good choice here otherwise.

Equip Completed build with: Operative builds are generally self explanatory (machine pistol, alloy plating and a grenade). As for alien missions: Shotguns and machine pistols to make best use of crit bonuses and gunslinger. Heavy armor (Titan and/or Archangel) as this assault will have the mobility to handle it. Breaching rounds to penetrate high-armor targets. Situational picks for remaining items.

For Gene mods, pick any head mod, Depth Perception (synergy with Muscle Fiber Density, and improved pistol reliability at elevation), Secondary Heart (when something goes wrong on a covert op; bring a medic with revive along on Covert Extractions so you can continue the mission!), Bioelectric skin (bonus visiblity at the start of EXALT missions; feel free to switch to Iron Skin if you like once EXALT's Base is gone), and Muscle Fiber Density (Makes Run and Gun charges more versatile and safer when you can dash up to elevated, hard-to-flank high cover and still dispatch your target.)

See also

Long War: Soldiers
	Soldiers Assault Infantry Rocketeer Gunner Sniper Scout Medic Engineer
	MEC Troopers Marauder Valkyrie Archer Goliath Jaeger Pathfinder Guardian Shogun
	Officers Psionics Gene Mods S.H.I.V.s