First Mission Long War ??

[Gui]

So I managed to get a few mods including LW2, and the first mission seems pretty brutal even in Veteran. Basic soldiers have one shot 2 of my guys and they bled out without any option to stabilize them, despite the mod. Am I doing somethign wrong ? Will those losses hinder the rest of the game ??
It is weird I haven't picked classes or equipment or anything...

[Heau]

First, know that there's a dedicated long war subforum. You should post LW related questions there in the future.

It's technically recoverable but I'd just restart gatecrasher if I lost a guy or had a bleed out injury of like 30-35 days. The game is pretty lengthy and difficult already. Why start a 60 hours playthrough with a big handicap.

There's a fair bit of rng in the early game until you get more skills to deal with situations but it is likely you are doing a few things wrong too.

In the very early game, it is common practice to setup an full-team overwatch with units out of cover to let the enemy pod discover you on their turn. They can't take shots on that turn if they were not already alterted of your presence. And with some experience, eventually you find ways to set your overwatch ambush up to improve the odds that the way the unkilled ennemies scatter will open you up for easy flanks on your turn. The last thing is gatecrasher is typically about ensuring any enemy surviving the turn are flashbanged. There's still some odds that they will successfully shoot you though cover but its sharply reduced.

You will start getting classes after the level-up from rookie to squaddie. Without additional mods though, the class allocation will be random but spread evenly by the game. You can train your rookies to be a specific class with the GTS building but you usually will already have taken most of your barracks on a mission already by the time its built. So you won't get to "pick" classes much. At least not with the default LW mods. You will be managing your equipment for all of your troops on every mission beyond gatecrasher.

[Gui]

Ok, this is really brutal for a first mission, and not a single word of help like in a real tutorial. Wasted 2h already... Thanks

[Heau]

The UFOPedia wiki is very useful to patch some of the missing tutorial elements. But the mod expects you to have some familiarity with the base game tactical layer combat. UFOpedia wouldn't be particularly helpful with figuring out the gatecrasher mission.

The few mod-specific tutorial texts are for the bigger revamped game mechanics.

[megansweden]

Long War is a mod for people who found the standard game not difficult enough. It's not intended for complete beginners.

Gatecrasher in the vanilla game is different. Not necessarily easier (you have fewer soldiers and they are all still rookies, but you also have fewer enemies to deal with). Also in the vanilla game there is a tutorial option. Some recommend if you do the tutorial to only go a little way to get the intro, and then start over without it because it forces certain choices as it walks you through the basics of the game, and those are not necessarily the absolute best choices. But my first playthrough I went all the way after the tutorial and it worked out fine.

[Gui]

Actually I'm not sure the mission is Gatecrasher, I looked it up.
My mission is about killing a column of ADVENT. At the beginning there is a surveillance drone and at the end a Sectoïd.
I don't have WOTC

[Heau]

Its the mission that starts the game. You start with 8 units and face 2 pods of 4 and 1 pod of 2 (the sectoid pod). There can be 1 or 2 drones depending on RNG and there's always one officer in one of the 2 4-advent pods.

AFAIK, the only difference between LW2 and LWOTC is that LWOTC replaces one of the starting 8 rookies by a hero class.

I've never been entirely sure why its called gatecrashers. Maybe something in the video that precedes it or in the game files.

[Gui]

Ok, but in any cases the losses carry over and hinder the campaign. Thanks

[megansweden]

It's called Gatecrasher because that's what Shen says at the end of the intro video as the Skyranger is swooping in to drop the squad after Bradford and Jane Kelly have caused chaos. "Ok Gatecrasher, your turn". So it's the canon mission name whether that's what shows in the end mission report or not I've never actually paid attention.

[joebruce185]

Long war of the chosen (LWotC) does provide a bit more of a tutorial, with popup screens in the first mission and early geoscape. They fill a big gap that existed in base long war 2.

If you don't have LWotC, then reading the in-game ufopedia is a huge help, as Heau suggested. It's helpful even with LWotC. But I can't remember if you can bring that up during a mission.

If you're not an expert in the base game, you're going to struggle in Long War. Probably would even if you were an expert.

[Amanoob105]

As almost certainly has already been said before in here. Yeah, that's LW in a nutshell.
It was a mod made by people that felt that the base game on its hardest setting was "a bit too easy".
If you're new to the game or just looking for a more relaxing gaming experience I would strongly recommend removing that thing.

[Gui]

I beat XCOM 1 back in the days and I have OCD for tactical games. I restarted that mission and killed everyone without a casualty. That Long War is going to be shorter than ADVENT expects :)