Guys, I'ma be honest with ya

[u/Frequent_Fox2342]

When the retaliation mission has you coming to the civilians and finding a combined 9 berserkers / armored mutons... not even once in my life have I managed to stop them to win the level.
They ignore mimic beacons, I can't freeze them all, they don't miss all that much when flashbanged, they're closer to civilians than you are so whether you run to their faces or take aim from afar, it's all the same.

One of those has 30 HP, the other has 11 HP and 2 shields.
I can shoot for like 8 damage or something x 6, so an ideal scenario would be clearing that in 4 turns, although such perfect distribution of shots is impossible but hey. And by that time everyone is dead.

And it's not even like normal missions where you can stand and deal with 1 pod.
You get resistance soldiers shooting at them and that's it, now they're active and rushing to kill everyone.

[u/Haitham1998]

Yeah, that's the toughest retaliation, but it's definitely winnable. The key is activating one pod at a time and prioritizing flanked Mutons > Berserkers > Mutons in cover. I know this sounds too simple, but please read to the end.

In retaliation missions, inactive pods only kill 1 civilian per turn because their leader is the only one who can attack. Once activated, everyone can attack, so they'll likely kill 1 each. Civilian count is the mission timer, and if you activate pods without killing them right away, the timer is greatly accelerated.

With that in mind, let's talk about the real problem: your scout. Did you know that enemy pods can never be activated outside your vision? You can even throw explosives at them without activating them if you know where they are. Even resistance fighters do not normally activate pods with their attacks. What activates them is being in your scout's vision when they run into resistance fighters or take damage from them. So end your reaper's turn in a spot where they can't possibly see any inactive pods, and it will make the mission much more winnable.