Advice for assassin stronghold commander?

[✚ Mariel ✚]

So I'm considering whether or not I should attack now and wanted some advice on whether to strike now or to postpone

I currently have Mag gatling guns, plated armor, advanced grenade launchers and plasma grenades and it's early June. I was a bit slow getting to mag which I only just acquired because I went for early psi labs to try to have 6 psi ops with stasis in time for archons, and hopefully solace for warlock, so I've already begun seeing advanced advent units and the assassin got her first upgrade

Unfortunately my grenadiers are still mainly sergeants, they dont seem to level up fast, so I don't have extra grenades or damage + radius from promotions which is a cause for concern going into a stronghold. I also don't have any equipment upgrades for other classes, tho I'm thinking of upgrading my reaper weapons and bringing her along because she is a high rank with a strong claymore and bonus vs assassin

My current planned team is 5 grenadiers and a reaper all with bluescreen rounds (even reaper she has the extra item slot). I was also going to bring a single frost bomb usage to help in the sarcophagus room with locking down the adds. Will this team be enough? I was thinking maybe I should wait til I get the extra grenade/grenade damage but then I might start seeing archons and she will probably upgrade again.

If I can take her down now I get her weapons and can start bringing a ranger on every mission without buying gear for them, and was planning to expand and activate the other chosen then rush to kill them quickly. Ranger will really help with the weapons, a quick hunter kill will let me start bringing a sharpshooter along as well, and by the time I get to warlock I will have psi ops to bring along for the party, but if I blow the assassin stronghold then it's gonna completely wreck my strategy of an early chosen massacre!

Should I strike now or wait? Even if assassin gets stronger and there are tougher units, I will have more experienced grenadiers, psi ops and even maybe powered armor if I wait, and she's only at 60% knowledge

[KRON]

First of all, you don't need that many units with bluescreen rounds, extra grenades might be more useful. Plus, afaik, when you attack the Chosen stronghold he/she will be fully upgraded. At least in terms of health and damage dealt. Also you might want to bring at least one specialist to heal your team. A psi-op with solace might be useful, too. And if you have any exo-suits, equip them.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Sadly you cannot equip grenades in the utility slot. I don't have any healer specialists sadly, I always take the extra damage from combat protocol etc because prevention is better than cure, and I can often kill an enemy that has 1-2HP left rather than risk it shooting someone. Additionally I don't have any rifle or gremlin upgrades as I used a lot of supplies in the early upgraded psi lab, and I try to compensate by only upgrading grenadiers in the early game. I wasn't aware that the assassin would get full upgrades so thats good to know, might wait til I have experienced grenadiers, some psi ops and the powered armor before I strike then

[Slapstick]

I would defintively bring a templar. They might not put out much damage, but the ability to tank one mob all the way there and during the fight is very good. Also, bring more than normal healing.

[† Bayonetta †]

Chosen Strongholds arent that hard imo, its more troublesome to skulljack codex then to take down chosen. Down ill put you one of my tactics in case you want to check it.

Still you should be okey with good reaper+ranger (ranger with talon rounds) and 2 grenadiers (one with dragon/poison rounds if you have any)+ Skirmisher with talon rounds, 6th one is someone of your choice i always have 1 or 2 spec's to heal or hack enemy units. Sharpshooter is good if he is purely gunsliger for some OP damage with his chain damage skills, thats all in my expiriance and opinion. So once you enter in boss room, you can put reaper in stealth and dash him near chosen spawn in thoes little towers in case your Assassin is weak against high ground damage, you clear first few mobs with your ranger if he have serial thats good you can chain them both. now you push everyone towards spawn and prepare ambush, once chosen is spawned you can open him with your Banish from reaper, there is big chance to kill him with that if he has disadvatage against reapers and highground, if he survives that you open him with someone who can flank him. Once you kill chosen you rush towards that piller and strike it with everything you have especialy with ranger dont hesitant to shoot with everyone it should be down because you shoot it with Skirmisher that has 2 shoots, ranger that will deal 10+ and you have 2 more to deal over 15 for sure thats above 40 already if they all hit that is.

[Commander Gorda]

Its nice to have abilities that shoot twice for one action like rapid fire and chainshoot to take down the pillar asap. Might be worth picking up those abilities for your soldiers and some medic skills for your specialist of you have the training center built. Reaper with remote detonate Will help alot before the boss fight. There are alot of explosive containers in the stronghold so if you are patient with scouting and let patrols move to explosive containers you can save pretty much all your limited resources like grenades for the boss fight.
Once you kill the assassin the mission is over so you can sometimes ignore the other aliens and just focus on killing assassin once the pillar is destroyed.

[† Bayonetta †]

Also i just saw that you dont have and healer specs, one thing is must have in my playthroughs, always use training facility to upgrade your units especialy specs you want always to take both combat and heal protocol, in case all your healers and injured or tierd, so you need to go on hard mission without heal that is big NO.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I only use specs for remote hacking objectives on missions with strict timers. If I use a reaper to scout I can usually get an angle on it without aggroing the third pod. Since I don't buy the assault rifle or gremlin upgrades theyre basically a waste of space for me, and since I almost always go for alpha strikes to cut down on wound recovery time they never get the chance to heal anyone either.

If I had rangers with serial and double shot or grenadiers with chain shot I would be in late game and would've done the stronghold no problem. The only reason I'm asking for advice right now is because I'm in June with mag weapons, plate armour in sergeant ranked grenadiers and I'm unsure if I can do it yet

[Commander Gorda]

You can get serial, chainshoot early as random abilities from training center. I only play on legendary and assassin Room can get abit Messy since its quite hard to alphastrike the assassin everytime he respawn plus additional pods so i think its quite handy to have some medkits for the final room.
I can do that mission on legendary ironman with your rank of soldiers but with 2-3 wounded soldiers probably.