Initial Deployment

Intent of Page

Stub. May be a redundant section - can be deleted later on if unnecessary.

This section is to include discussion of general battlescape strategies commonly used by players - and common goofs like the lemmings effect.

For example, the spotter-sniper stategy, the grenade/object relay, exponential mind control, leap frogging for deployment of flares or for general troop movement, suggestions on how to deploy from the Skyranger/Avenger and the Lightning, etc.

No explanations on sacrificial rookie strategies please. Sacrificial tanks are fine.

Other items to include could be discussion on behaviour of aliens in the battlescape to watch out for.

Oh, and pictograms. Plenty of pictures to show an example of the stategy in question. Most important.

Deploying from Skyranger

Rookies are often anxious to see (and take a shot at) aliens. This can result in them piling out of the Skyranger as soon as it touches down and charging right into an ambush. A more methodical exit from the Skyranger will maximize alien causalities while increasing the life expentancy of agents.

Tankless delpoyment

XCOM has shot down one of the first UFO's (crash-1 was in the ocean). Time to send a Skyranger full of rookies into action and see what these aliens are made of.

The soldier standing on the equipment pile tosses out a smoke grenade. End of turn 1.

The smoke grenade is right at the foot of the ramp to mask our troops deployment. Keep on eye on troops stun damage or they might pass out from smoke inhalation.

The smoke grenade goes off. Agent one jumps off the ramp and hunkers down behind the landing gear. Agent two does the same in the other direction. Agent 3, knowing the coast is more or less clear sprints out to get a good firing position with her AC-HE.

Each turn the scout agents only advance a few wary steps. If they spot an alien someone else will shoot at it. If it doesn't die the scout will retreat. This pictures shows the agents entire move for this turn.

Three turns into the battlescape and only a few agents are outside the Skyranger. Half the deployed troops are taking cover behind the sky ranger landing gear.

Once they have spread out a bit, more agents will debark. Keeping spread out is vital. Alien grenades can be brutal without armor.

(This game is with some custom maps from XCOMUTIL. It adds pyramids to the desert to give the aliens some cover) About 5 turns into the battle and the first group of agents has spread out into the field. An alien has popped out of the door at (1). The scouts (2) are moving cautiously and are carrying fast weapons (Pistols in this case). Troopers with heavier weapons are backing up the scouts (3). Their possible lines of fire are marked with the colored lines.

When a scout makes contact with an enemy, the scout retreats out of the line of fire and the back line troopers with HE weapons take some shots. In this case there were two troopers with a line of fire on the alien and one of them killed it.

Once contact was made with the enemy the scouts all froze for a turn, kneeling. Sure enough the first Sectoid had a buddy who came out the door on the next turn. The scouts got it with reaction fire. This battle ended then since the other sectiods didn't survive the crash.