XCOM: Enemy Unknown Soldier Guide: Assault Class

XCOM Enemy Unknown was released in 2012.  It is a remake of the popular 1994 game.  XCOM is a turn based strategy game in which you try to halt an alien invasion.  You choose what you want to research and what you want your engineers to build, as well as managing your troops and relations with all of the countries in the XCOM project until a mission comes up.  Once you accept the mission you get a taste of the real gameplay.

You will drop 4-6 soldiers into an area where they will have one of several objectives, though you will always have to fight aliens, which will develop and you will end up fighting stronger enemies the farther into the game you progress.  Each turn your soldiers get two actions.  One is to move, and then you can move again or fire your weapon, reload, etc.  You will need to move your troops into cover, hopefully flanking the enemy’s position in order to get bonuses to aim and  critical hit chance.

There are four different soldier classes.  Once a soldier earns a promotion to squaddie, they will become one of the four.  The assault class is a staple of any balanced force.  They become invaluable in the later stages of the game.  Equipped with shotguns, they don’t have much capability from longer ranges.  They are able to activate the “Run and Gun” ability which will allow them to move twice and shoot in the same turn.  This is perfect for flanking far away targets.  Promoted assault troops are some of the best you will ever have.

I suggest making your assault troops a lot harder to kill.  I suggest taking the resilience perk for being promoted to colonel.  This will make the soldier immune to critical hits, making them much more difficult to kill.  The other important perks to choose are lightning reflexes and burst fire.  Lightning reflexes allows the soldier to automatically dodge an enemy overwatch attack, allowing them to draw enemy fire and then move your soldiers.  Burst fire allows a second attack at the cost of 15 aim.  It can lead to incredible damage output though.  The other choice, flush, is pretty much useless.  It destroys cover, but it doesn’t do much damage and the enemy just runs to new cover.

Assault troops should be used to tank damage, spearhead advances, and dash over to kill enemies that you couldn’t take down otherwise.  Be careful when you use “Run and Gun” though.  You can reveal enemies and end up a sitting duck, with no way to move or counter their appearance.  Assault troops are perfect when paired with snipers.

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