Noob question, how to counter overwatch?

[Stout Little Pot (Skippy)]

It feels like every time I order my troops to move somewhere they get hit by an alien with overwatch on, how do I advance without triggering this? Thanks!

[LilyanaKabal]

Blocking the alien's line of sight with smoke is about the only way I know.

Which, yes, when they are hidden in the Fog of War and could be anywhere, does make things awkward for nade throwing.

[83athom]

High reflex for general overwatch avoiding, and flashbangs/supression to disable known overwatching enemies.

[roix342]

Don't be low in energy. Because it will give all enemies the best chance to react.

The shield allows to cash in frontally.

Send the robot, it's pretty good at resisting. As far as possible.
Throw a stun grenade at the enemy.

Pass through the walls, he does not monitor the "improbable" path

Take the enemy by being even in monitoring.

[Yian Yan]

You have a couple options and depends on your situation. Understanding reaction fire helps. It's a contest of %Remaining TUs*Reactions. So if the enemy hasn't moved it's 1.0*Reaction stat that is being checked against any of your soldiers that acts within its cone of vision. If that value is ever greater than your soldier's %TU*Reactions they can fire when you take an action. This makes the first turn very dangerous (as aliens haven't moved and have full reactions) and any aliens that camp or move very little similarly dangerous.


If you know where the enemy is and the terrain permits you can flashbang it before it acts or, if you're feeling lucky, fire at it with an LMG from a different angle to suppress it. If you can't act against it you could deploy a smoke grenade to cover your advance. If there are 5 tiles of smoke between you and the enemy shooting at you, they will not be able to hit you if they bother to react at all (I think there is a minimum % chance to hit before reaction fire is attempted).

If you have no smoke grenades nor flashbangs and you don't know where the alien is your best bet is moving forward with your most durable/most reflexive unit and hope.

[Glamredhel]

Noobs with M16s.

[LilyanaKabal]

Taa-Taas are and always will be an option.

[Peter34]

Use the green Flashbang Grenades to Suppress, or auto-fire from weapons. The Machine Gun firing x10 bursts works best, but a x3 burst from an Assault Rifle might also add to th totel. The more bursts or general being-hit or nearly-hit a target gets, the more likely it is tob become Suppressed.

[Inforiel]

Like others have pointed out - the green grenade, flashbang offers suppression which blocks overwatch (and also cuts enemy TU's in half for next turn) - non-stackable.

Lacking that, enough dakka fired in proximity to a target will cause them to roll against bravery to see if they duck behind cover - the effectiveness of this depends on what you are facing as some enemies that are suicidial or straight up immune to supression.

Smoke is also an option, but I prefer using them both in combination for prolonged engagement myself - Each square of smoke gives both you and the enemy a malus (yours in -20% per smoke square fired through, I presume similar for enemy though they have higher base at least early on)

Smoke also adds KO points which often makes it easier to knock enemies unconcious in the early game than to engage them in actual combat. Try tossing a smoke nade on the grays followed by a explosive nade and watch them go for a snooze, for example.

Works best with LOS work-arounds. Have fun and good luck! :)

[Black Ram]

It tells you in tutorial, things like flash bangs supress enemies and the turn a character gets supressed it loses all its TU and can't overwatch.

[Sunday Driver]

As well as what others have mentioned here the heavy machine gun has the ability to dump suppressive fire into areas even where you can't see the enemy just by targeting the squares where you believe them to be (or know from peeping them before). As long as you know the area where they are meant to be you can dump a few blasts that direction too.

[salzlaender]

Always have at least 2 shield carriers. Use them to scout and to open UFO doors.

[Robrecht]

In addition to the other fine suggestions, I'm going to second salzländer's suggestion of soldiers with shields. Not only are they great for baiting out reaction shots without getting hurt, but they're also the only semi-reliable way of dealing with reaction shots from enemies you can't see (yet) other than peppering every open space with smoke grenades that obscure your own vision as much as the enemies'.

[baddoggs]

Smoke is your friend here, it has the added bonus of "stunning"
some of the lower grade/injured Aliens.

[Sir Younger]

Even with all this, you WILL still get sniped from offscreen through smoke, though. So it comes down to "Are you having enough fun to overcome the occasional (and sometimes often) amount of BS that will thrown at you."

[Ancient Relic]

Suppression is good as others mentioned before: Flashbangs or lots of bullets. Smoke works too if you want only move (smoke may block your attack as well as enemys) But most important thing is to spot aliens and know their positions. Poke around corners etc. Understanding reaction mechanic helps. Never just shoot alien from the front if the shot is not supposed to kill it (And it rarely is due to chance to miss) or you know that alien has low TU:s and cant react. Instead shoot from flank or behind. Shoot with one guy from behind, but only once. Alien will turn to attacker but wont shoot yet. Then shoot it by different soldier from different angle. Shoot far using sniper, beyond enemy's weapons range. That kind of things.