Sectopod (EU2012)

1st Appearance	{{{appears}}}
HP	30/30/30/30
Aim	80
Defense	30
Will	Mechanized
Movement	12
Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible

An artificial warrior for the Alien Army, these huge robotic units are a massive threat to your squad members. They are armed with some of the best weaponry the Aliens have. Not only can they use a heavy plasma cannon built into its body but it has alien rocket salvos that it can use to lay waste to huge areas. It has an extra auto cannon that it can only use during Overwatch that does area of effect damage. Their armour is the very best around, it will take a huge deal of focus fire to take down and there is also the Drones it brings along with it to consider. It can also use both its turn moves for attacking, but only at different targets.

They are not as aggressive as Cyberdiscs but they are significantly more dangerous. They will usually stay still and destroy your squad from far away.

They are immune to most psionic attacks.

Tactical Advice

All of the Sectopod's weapons do area effect damage, so make sure your squad is spread out in order to minimize the damage it causes. Even if an attack from them misses there is still a huge chance it will take out your cover. This makes having two soldiers directly next to each other almost guaranteed disaster, because the Sectopod can fire at one, destroy their cover and fire at the other with no cover bonus. Be sure that any front line soldiers are backed up by Snipers or Heavies.

The Sectopod's overwatch is enabled for each turn it fires its main cannon. In particular this means a Sectopod will not overwatch fire on you immediately after you see it, or on a turn its preparing a Cluster Bomb.

Heavies in particular are brilliant Sectopod hunters. Their HEAT ammo power makes their weapons far more effective against Sectopods. The HEAT ammo also applies to rockets and the Blaster Launcher. A hit from either with HEAT Ammo does 16 or 24 points of damage to Sectopods. A HEAT ammo Bullet Swarm Heavy with a Heavy Plasma can kill a Sectopod in one turn.

After you get Ghost Armor just send a pair of Assaults equipped with it, together with Rapid Fire and Alloy Cannons - you'll need to either hit all 4 shots or get at least 1 critical hit though to kill it. Alternatively, Lightning Reflexes can also replace Ghost Armor to avoid the Sectopod's powerful Overwatch weapon. With Damage Roulette, an Alloy Shotgun, the right abilities, and a hell of a lot of luck, it is possible to "One shot" (rapidfire, but still 1 move) a Sectopod, even on Impossible.

Use suppression to make their attacks less accurate, it will help a bunch. Snipers may also use disabling shot against their weapons.

Make as much use of Smoke Grenades, Heavy Cover, and Psionic Fields as you can if you do end your turn within their sights.

Using Plasma / Heavy weapons or Mind-controlled cannon-fodder against this unit is also recommended: an excellent tactic is to MC an alien with high move (like a Heavy Floater) or high HP (like a Berserker Muton), and have them stand point-blank right next to the Sectopod. Since it ignores cover anyways, it will not move before firing it's chest canon. Since the MC'ed alien will receive a full blast out of cover, it will likely receive and die of heavy Critical damage. As the Chest Canon is splash damage, the Sectopod will also receive heavy Critital damage.

If you see Cluster Bomb being prepared, kill the Sectopod quickly or reposition. While Cluster Bomb takes a turn to charge and fires on the aliens' next turn, the Sectopod can move and fire after firing the cluster bomb on that turn. Cluster Bomb has no range limit and can be fired if another alien sees you (like sniper's squad sight, except it doesn't need a line of sight). This means after triggering a Sectopod it should be your first priority, because if you retreat out of its sight range to deal with other aliens first you'll find cluster bombs raining down on you (and without being able to see the Sectopod you can't tell when or where they're coming). While a bit difficult to predict, there are some rare cover situations where the Cluster Bomb can actually be ignored: if cover will intercept all the bombs beforehand (ie, the targeted trooper is indoors, while the 'Pod is outside, they will explode harmlessly on the roof). A Flying unit might also be targeted, only to have the bombs pass harmlessly (and probably pants-soilingly) around them.

Abilities:

• Cannon Fire: Beam attack that causes high damage and grants free Overwatch. If the Sectopod does not move, Cannon Fire can be used twice (against different enemies).
• Cluster Bomb: Mark a large area, and after one turn, saturate it with a barrage of explosive minibombs. - Uses both of the Sectopod's actions for that turn. It enters a special deployed state and aims at the target location; on the following turn, it bombards the target area with many small explosives.
• Hardened: Hardened units receive extra protection against critical hits (-60% crit chance)