Thin Men kicking my Behind in Classic Mode!!!

[Kilo_60]

Thought I was doing ok till these guys started showing up enmass!

They snipe my guys from afar and do Critical damage with every other hit!

I can't even get in Gernade range most of the time.

Any helpful tips with these guys?

Thanks!

[achus93]

facing Thin Men:
either go full on offensive (kill them the moment you find them) or defensive (retreat, get full cover, hunker down)

[P-47 Thunderbolt]

Poison makes the notion of cover moot. Best to get out of line of sight. Letting thinmen live past activation is always a gamble. Medikits make you immune to poison so you can hunker down without the poison threat.

Rockets work.

Dont bother with any health boost that does not give more than 9 HP. They can crit for 9 damage.

Do not split up.

[Apocalypse]

Definitely try to kill ASAP. A good shotgun to the face always works :) (love run & gun)

[Apocalypse]

Also save plenty ;-)

[Goliyth]

First you know medkits give an auto-immunity to poison right?

Run tighter groups, and Run them down .. Soldiers focus fire = dead thinmen

[Gonshevski]

A tip, that can also be used in impossible - use hunker down if you don't have a good shot. It makes your soldiers immune to those BS thin man crits and makes it much less likely that they hit you at all.

[Tzzimy]

I always research laser guns early in the game just to make sure I have the right guns to one shot the bastards down at the first missions. Especially the first mission in France with the exalt survivor is a crucial breakpoint, if you have not researched laser guns dont even try it on ironman classic. I found out the hard way after dozens of restarts... xD

[Eunomiac]

First, here's why Thin Men are so deadly in Classic: They have a base Aim of 75 and carry Light Plasma Rifles, which come with a +10 Accuracy buff. This raises the Thin Man's Aim to 85, meaning they have a 45% chance to hit a soldier in full cover. Making matters worse, they often jump onto rooftops or trucks, which gives them a further +20 to their Aim---enough to hit a soldier in full cover two out of three times. Their base damage is 4-6, which is enough to one-shot a rookie, and they have a one-in-five chance to crit for 8-10 damage. Taking all that into consideration, an unarmored soldier has about a coin flip's chance of surviving a shot from a Thin Man in Classic mode.

There are really only two good ways to beat them: explosives and ambushes. Rockets are great, but you can only rely on one or two per mission. While Medkits do give immunity to poison, I don't think they're worth sacrificing a Frag Grenade for (unless it's a Support with Field Medic): Taking out two Thin Men with two Frag Grenades is very worth it, so you need a lot of grenades.

As for ambushes: Thin Men are very aggressive, and will chase you down if you break line of sight. You can exploit this by moving forward until you spot a Thin Man, then running back towards your squad while putting everyone on Overwatch. The Thin Man will charge in and get blown to hell.

As a last resort, if you can't get out of the way of a shot from a Thin Man, try to Hunker Down in full cover---that'll lower their chance to hit to 5% (or 25% if they're firing from high ground). Not ideal, but better than full cover alone.

(And Portent---that Council "look for survivors" Mission with over a dozen Thin Men---is one of the harder hurdles to overcome in the game. I wouldn't say you need Beam Weapons to beat it, but you do need to use lots of explosives and overwatch ambushes. Take a pair of Heavies and, if you have one, a MEC.)

[himmatsj]

Portent was a huge jump for me on C/I. But, like all scripted missions, it is very predictable. I know that level by the back of my hand now. Also, while escorting people in council missions, enemies spawn based on the movement on the escortee. So, move little by little if you do not wanna be over-whelmed.

[Tzzimy]

Originally posted by eunomiac:

First, here's why Thin Men are so deadly in Classic: They have a base Aim of 75 and carry Light Plasma Rifles, which come with a +10 Accuracy buff. This raises the Thin Man's Aim to 85, meaning they have a 45% chance to hit a soldier in full cover. Making matters worse, they often jump onto rooftops or trucks, which gives them a further +20 to their Aim---enough to hit a soldier in full cover two out of three times. Their base damage is 4-6, which is enough to one-shot a rookie, and they have a one-in-five chance to crit for 8-10 damage. Taking all that into consideration, an unarmored soldier has about a coin flip's chance of surviving a shot from a Thin Man in Classic mode.

There are really only two good ways to beat them: explosives and ambushes. Rockets are great, but you can only rely on one or two per mission. While Medkits do give immunity to poison, I don't think they're worth sacrificing a Frag Grenade for (unless it's a Support with Field Medic): Taking out two Thin Men with two Frag Grenades is very worth it, so you need a lot of grenades.

As for ambushes: Thin Men are very aggressive, and will chase you down if you break line of sight. You can exploit this by moving forward until you spot a Thin Man, then running back towards your squad while putting everyone on Overwatch. The Thin Man will charge in and get blown to hell.

As a last resort, if you can't get out of the way of a shot from a Thin Man, try to Hunker Down in full cover---that'll lower their chance to hit to 5% (or 25% if they're firing from high ground). Not ideal, but better than full cover alone.

(And Portent---that Council "look for survivors" Mission with over a dozen Thin Men---is one of the harder hurdles to overcome in the game. I wouldn't say you need Beam Weapons to beat it, but you do need to use lots of explosives and overwatch ambushes. Take a pair of Heavies and, if you have one, a MEC.)

For portend Ironman Classic, you either go with 4 heavies (if you get lucky), or with beam weapons. Grenades cant kill them and even overwatch ambushes you will be very lucky to get more than 2 damage (or even a hit at all unless you cheat on overwatch positions), even if you know the position of Thin Man before they drop and you stand right next to them... It is sad actually that, if you dont move the survivor and you know exactly where the thin men drop, you can cheat. Still grenades and rifles are horrible way to deal with them, assuming you did not get the 5th or 6th soldier upgrade early in game (which is also hard to get so early).

[ThunderGr]

Join the club! :). Good advice? Sure.
1)DO NOT GET SHOT
2)DO NOT GET SHOT
3)If you *must* get shot, hunker down behind full cover at a distance where you won't be flanked(and pray the first shot won't destroy the cover...)
4)USE EXPLOSIVES
5)USE EXPLOSIVES
6)USE EXPLOSIVES

This pretty much sums it up...Oh, and if you play with MECs, Colateral damage ROCKS against Thin Men ;).

[Kilo_60]

I think I'll have to bite the bullet and restart as I'm currently left with 2 rookies and 2 squaddies for this mission as my 4 veterans are all in the infirmary healing...

Too hard without a heavy with a rocket launcher and the piss poor aim of the rooks!

[oz.harbottle]

Move in short bounds to cover and activate overwatch and engage them as soon as you see them. That gives them little chance to use poison.

[ThunderGr]

In my opinion, overwatching against Thin Men on the second month is suicide, once they have activated, unless you can be certain they will not get a chance to fire at you when your overwatch shots miss or won't do enough damage to kill them. Even one thin man surviving overwatch, means one soldier dead most of the time. One risk I'd rather not take.

[K'senia]

My personal approach is generally keeping a squad sight sniper around. Get them up high and in Line of Sight of where the rest of the squad is operating Distance doesn't matter for squadsight. The sniper tends to pick them off fairly easy when they thin men get spotted.