New to Xcom, on lowest difficulty, yet the UFO attack seems impossible

[john gears of war]

Pretty new to this game, thought I was doing well and fine, but then I get to this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mission. This horrible, horrible ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ mission. I thought I could handle it, until I see the ungodly amount of enemies, one new, all others old. Load back to the start whenever I know I'm completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Eventually get the jammer thing destroyed, and then have my ass kicked and 50 reinforcement ships incoming. Try holding back and defending, and get "Thats Xcom, baby"'d by missing every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ overwatch shot. At this point, I'm thinking of just loading back to before the UFO caught the avenger's ass.

What should I try doing? Should I just load back?

[Stinker]

Small info: The UFO starts hunting the Avenger after you destroy the Blacksite or if you get it as a Dark Event. Additionally, the first UFO intercepting you in the campaign is a 100% chance, follow up UFOs only have a 50% chance to successfully intercept.

Now for the mission; Sharpshooters and Reapers (or concealment Rangers) are your friend. Stay at the Avenger ramp. Only move forward with your concealed unit. When they see the jammer spike, your sharpshooters can shoot at it from all the way at the beginning of the map and safely destroy it that way. Use Specialists and/or Grenadiers to keep the ramp secure while doing so. Depending on the map terrain your Sharpshooters may have to move a little to actually start shooting. Stationary objects like the jammer are a 100% chance to hit (except for when you use abilities like Chain Shot, Rapid Fire, Deadeye) so it shouldn't take long. Afterwards just dash the concealed unit back to the ramp and off you go.

You can usually clear the defense mission before even a single reinforcement arrives. Good luck Commander!

[Create@Review(Ravire)]

A strategy I use is get a few rangers to be the ones that go ahead have any sharpshooters in a place with long watch anyone else have them be able to support the rangers that are going ahead pick the far right path to get to the jammer pick the same right path to retreat to the zone. Pods will constantly spawn so take a pod or two out before moving up each time. Best part about this mission you don't have a timer.

[SereneK]

I sent a Reaper dashing way ahead to destroy the jammer. The jammer happened to be next to a tall building so my Reaper crouched on the roof and threw a claymore at the jammer.

Detonating the claymore did not uncover the reaper, and nearly wiped out a nearby pod (cuz the aliens camped hard on the jammer).

But the jammer wasn't dead yet, so the Reaper shot it once, but got exposed.
I think some aliens attacked but on high ground only one of them hit.
Thankfully, the Reaper can use ability to go back into concealment, and after that took another shot to finally destroy the jammer.

[Amanoob105]

Missions like these are one of the main reasons I am always very eager in the early/mid game to get a hold of an advent turret wreck, as this lets you build a Defense Matrix.
Not so useful a piece of advice now, but useful for next time.
It's basically gives you 2 (4 if upgraded) extra guns to fight with, in the form of your own turrets. Staff the room with an engi and these guns now all have squadsight.
Just something that may help next time (so long as you don't have my luck at getting a hold of the turret wreck in the first place).
Also if you have a templar with Exchange you can cheese those turrets into some silly/powerful places.

Other than that, my advice is take the mission slow, you're not on a time limit. If you have people that can scout ahead then freely do so until you think you found the right moment to strike.
If possible don't send all your people to get the beacon and have some hang back, though never alone, to help deal with the reinforcements as they start to drop in.

When it comes to the extra troops you get sent out to you mid mission they are not random and can be predicted. They are taken in order from your troops list in the order you were first given them from first to last. To figure out who is sitting at the top of that list find the last person/spark to have been recruited, select them and then click the option to tab to the next person to the right.
That is the person at the top of the list and so on for each person after that. So once you have equipped your main squad you can hand out any remaining items to the people that will be sent afterwards (not counting anyone already in the squad).

Originally posted by Delinquent:

Small info: The UFO starts hunting the Avenger after you destroy the Blacksite or if you get it as a Dark Event. Additionally, the first UFO intercepting you in the campaign is a 100% chance, follow up UFOs only have a 50% chance to successfully intercept.

Need to add a bit to this^.

The UFO that shoots you down will first turn up about 20-30 (about a month) days after you do either of the Forge Facility Assault or Codex Brain Coordinates missions (whichever you do first). This, and only this, UFO has a 100% chance to shoot you down. All others before or after from a dark event are not a guaranteed chance.
Though in my experience the aliens flying those other UFOs are so blind they couldn't find planet earth if they were ordered to crash into it. Mores the pity as those missions are a fantastic exp farm as the campaign goes on.

Doing the other of these two missions will never result in another UFO, this 100% chance to be shot down is a thing that will only trigger the once in a campaign.

[psychotron666420]

Overwatch shots get penalties on them. They should only be used as a last resort if you have nothing else to do, and even then shouldn't be used if it's gonna cause you to have to reload the next turn.

[john gears of war]

Thank you all for the help! It took a while, but I got it done, although it left 2 soldiers dead and many wounded.

[Kel'Thuzad]

Originally posted by psychotron666420:

Overwatch shots get penalties on them. They should only be used as a last resort if you have nothing else to do, and even then shouldn't be used if it's gonna cause you to have to reload the next turn.

While true, overwatch shots will usually be taken as an enemy moves OUT of cover, meaning the chance to hit is actually much higher than firing at them during your turn.

[Stinker]

Originally posted by Evac:

Thank you all for the help! It took a while, but I got it done, although it left 2 soldiers dead and many wounded.

You're welcome! Dead and wounded is better than losing the campaign ;D