Strategy for Portent

[jackdog3]

Hi,

Portent is this hardest mission, for me at least, not to lose troops on. I am playing iron man classic and am about to start the mission with two single promotion heavies and assults all with decent aims, my slightly more promoted troops are currently injured, as usual only hours or a day or two away from being back to duty.

I know where all the thin men pop-up but still struggle, especially without lightening reflexes. Last time I was stood inn full cover behind the metal vent on the second roof with 5 health and a thin man I couldn't even see shot and killed me from the ground throuh the little wall and vent without moving e.g. he never appeared and was out of cover and I was on overwatch but never got a shot. This is usually my luck with portent.

Anyway I usualyy have all but one on the roof and discover the TM (Thin Man) to the right of the seocnd building first without distrurbing the two waiting between the buildings. having hopefully killed that one without loss of life I discover the other two and pray I get them before they shoot back. I was considering going all the way to the left of the first building but just out of sight and waiting on over watch as if you discover them from the doorway not the big garage door one usually goes to the left of the second building and would be flanked. Does anyone do this does it work?

After picking up the exalt guy with one guy I stick entirely to the roofs and take my chances leaving people on overwatch to hopefully kill the ones that drop nearby. Then its usually a slaughter trying to off the ones ones that have dropped on the first building.

I am considering leaving two troops on the roof of the second building. One should be able to get the TM that drops onto the car between the two buildings, on the second roof one can stay back for the on that drops on the truck at behind the second building and can get the one that drops by the vents.

Does anyone have sucess leaving two troops behind. I would have ti first take out the 1-2 that appear before you can get the exalt guy and then send them back to the first roof before getting the guy and triggering the drops.

Any tricks to this mission i'm missing. I have only lost one troop so far and want to try and keep total losses really minimal to game end, lost 12 last time and 33 the time before.

[Playgu]

Here's a guy making it on I/I, use it as a guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAO-_tjlKdg

[Falentir]

Well, it appears that you're right in time because I'm currently on the run to do this mission on Impossible/Ironman Mode. Maybe you'll find some useful tips if I manage to do it successfully - you can follow this thread to have feedbacks when it's up on youtube (this will be Episode 06):
http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/540732889376759067/

Or you can directly jump to my last Classic/Ironman LP for this mission (in french, sorry :));

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x7HSVHReRQ&list=PLyD66iAdgNO-dmzT5pfAhJoMdHiWtgHCu&index=44

And, last but not the least, you can watch how my mighty friend Sarinn managed to do it on his last successful Impossible/Ironman quest here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8i2C7n3nqQ&list=PLyv-YHqJ0DFmaDYEZFnYPDTGq0GWnDd9B&index=8

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

2 Mecs, a sniper, a heavy, and an assualt if you can pull that. Have the Mecs shoot anything that moves, the assualt and heavy get the valves, and the sniper on the towers. Easy.

[jackdog3]

Ive never managed to get officer trainig before Portent so only have 4 people. I also usually go laster rifle before portent and had never considered getting mechs so early. Not sure how to do that without losing countries as to build the necessary that early is gonna prevent a couple of satelites and/or an uplink.

The last clip is very useful.

I got slaughtered again, even worse than usual had 4 over 70% shots miss and it went down hill from there.

I can see why peolle miss the mission as it can screw up your squad by losing good troops but its the principal of the thing for me.

Might try the mech route just to see what happens, certainly surviving a thinman shot would be nice. I never usually ise mechs at all would rather have full loaded sniper and/or heavy but can certainly see the value very early on but have to sacrafice a country or two. I usually only lose a total of one or two.

[Stardustfire]

2 Assault/Heavy MECs, a sniper and one heavy soldier. sniper and heavy climb the first roof, MECs use the street to the first crossroad. after the MECs wiped away the TMs that are seeable from there, the 2 soldiers on the roof go into positions where they can see the other roof and the streetcorner where the MECs stand. than one MEC secures the crossroad and the other move on to pick up the VIP.
Its a simple choise: want to win the game for sure and maybe loose a country or 2 use superearly MEC (means research Melt as first and asap build Cyberlab)
If u want to make the game unnessasry harder for u dont do early MECs and maybe still loose nations and maybe the complete game too becasue all u soliers die like flys without a tank in the squad.
You choise :)

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Wait, Portent is the dam right?

[jackdog3]

Middle of mission with two support mechs (Had no choice) one heavy with shredder and one good sniper with squad sight. Half way through and one mech has taken 4 damage so far so going OK. Report back later nut liking early mechs so far

[DashThrowing]

Originally posted by Legion:

Wait, Portent is the dam right?

The dam is Deluge. Portent contains the two rooftops, and yes, it's a pain with just 4 soldiers (as a reminder to myself, NEVER do Slingshot/Pronegy on Classic). Also, this happened once on my Army of 4 run, on Portent:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=222047047
No MECs (personal challenge), no Gene Mods. Just a Sergeant Heavy, a Corporal Snapshot Sniper, a Squaddie Sniper, and a fourth soldier I forgot about (bad memory, some couple months ago). Honestly, this is the hardest of the Pronegy missions. Deluge and Furies are much easier.

[Zigg Price]

No, Legion. Portent is not the dam. It is the mission in France where you escort an Exalt man to safety. The mission is a long map, and is filled with Thinmen.

[Falentir]

Originally posted by TheCarlsonBoys:

Honestly, this is the hardest of the Pronegy missions. Deluge and Furies are much easier.

Perfectly right. This mission can wipe out your squad in one turn. WAY too bad on Ironman mode, and WAY too risky on Impossible. The only other council mission I find as challenging is Confouding Lights (the diposals in the train, with this awful clock timer, SlingShot #2). All the other DLC missions are much easier (strangely enough).

I've just completed Portent in my current I/I run with 4 soldiers, no beam weapons, no carapace, no MEC. Silly equipped like that you MUST know how the mission goes, and you MUST prepare your soldiers for every spot. There are some critical moments that you surely don't want to miss.

This is not cheating - I made this mission several times. This mission is scripted ? Fair enough. This mission is awfully packed with waves of thin men (seriously: nobody can do it for the first time without knowledge, let me tell you) and you MUST trigger them one by one - and still be lucky.

This episode will be uploaded today in my youtube channel. Feel free to learn from it since you'll know exactly how things go. There is surely other ways to do it but I feel comfortable with the one I went through. If you don't want to learn from it, or find it strange to follow my path: fair enough, and have courage :) I learnt a lot from my own experience, and from those guys (special thanks to Sarinn) who managed to do it cleverly.

[Martial.Lore]

I found this mission a doozy on Ironman Classic with just a four man squad. Two Snipers and two Assaults. Positioning of your soldiers is key, once you know where the Thinmen drop down to. The escort target made it to extraction in just four moves (about eight turns because my squad was moving more frequently to key firing positions).

I had no armor but laser weapons for the Assaults. My squadsight sniper held the top corner in full cover, close to where the escort target was found, commanding a range of fire all the way to extraction (and the top end where the thinman drops down behind the retreating escort).

My regular unpromoted sniper held the roof of the second building with a range of fire to the roof of the first building (where the sectoid and thinmen drop down).

My assaults moved in tandem (once I had taken out the abovementioned thinman who drops behind near or on the semi truck) including my one with lightning reflexes who waited on the roof of the first building for the sectoid/thinman drop before moving to cover the extraction zone from above and the third thinman who drops on the roof, covered by the two snipers and supported on the ground by the other assault.

All of my squad had pretty good aim. One Assault is now dead, however after a more recent mission and bad Meld rush. (Which is different from Meld rash!)

[jackdog3]

Well completed the mission no deaths, both mechs took damage that would have killed a normal troop, not lost a country yet but close on a few so we'll see, Was one scary monent with my uncovered suad sight snipper on first roof with 71% shot that thankully hit and killed or would have been different.

Thanks above for a better place to put the squad sight if you have one and thansk for the last video especially about placment of troops for those first three.

Still most high risk mission in the game for me.

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Oh. That one was even easier for me, as nothing even showed up on it.

[Stardustfire]

And again this blabbering of " u must know where they come" , BS if u have a tactical skill that is bigger than that of a peanut and at least dont think XCOM is counterstrike u DONT need to know where they come, its a simple choise of strategical positioning. No matter if u know or dont know where they come, when u see a housecorner that can overfew 2 complete streets and u can access its roof will u climb it? when u say no now i see why u need to know where they spawn.

[Falentir]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

if u have a tactical skill that is bigger than that of a peanut and at least dont think XCOM is counterstrike u DONT need to know where they come, its a simple choise of strategical positioning.

well, it's nice to have a decent conversation with you, it seems... tell me: ever played Impossible Ironman while recording a video - like I did when replying here ? ever been wiped out on this mission and had to reload, maybe ? tried different ways many times until you figured out ? that's what I meant. And why do you think that chess players have to learn basic openings ? strategy is not enough for this mission, sorry, at least on higher dificulties. If you don't say so, then you must be the luckiest man in the world.