XCOM: Chimera Squad Early Game Tips & Tricks

Your squad is tasked with keeping City 31 safe from sedition and anarchy. Chimera Squad is in honest terms, out-manned, outgunned, and very underfunded; but not outsmarted.

This guide will lay the foundations for a successful start into your campaign, starting with the initial agents in your squad.

Get to know your squad

Regardless of who you recruit later on, you will start with Godmother, Terminal, Cherub, and Verge. They might not seem like much at first, but they can cover your basis and allow you to branch out into your own style.

Godmother

She is an assault specialist with a shotgun, great at flanking and destroying targets quickly. Godmother’s first ability can manipulate turn priorities during the breaching phase, making her move first with an extra action point. 

Shotguns are able to take out enemies in a single shot during encounters, so Godmother should always be moving around to flank enemies and close in for increased accuracy and critical chance. 

Godmother is a high risk high reward agent, but you can use Cherub’s KINETIC SHIELD to negate this risk.

Snake people can bind Godmother up close, so you have to be careful about getting too close to them. Stuns from Verge and flashbangs from any agent can prevent the enemies from using any abilities.

Godmother benefits greatly from early shotgun upgrades in the assembly, allowing her to reliably take down a bad guy or two every turn.

Anything that makes shotguns more reliable makes Godmother that much better. Mods such as auto-loaders are an excellent mod for shotguns as running out of ammo or having weapons disabled can leave you in a world of hurt.

Terminal

Terminal is a support medic who can hack doors for alternative breaching points. Her synergy is great with aggressive fighters like Godmother, allowing others to keep up the assault without being taken down.

Terminal can heal and shoot in the same turn, but shooting first ends your turn.

Terminal can use PIN DOWN to push one enemy down the turn order. A good situation is when Godmother or Cherub is about to get attacked by more than one enemy back-to-back, making pushing one of them down the turn order a matter of life and death.

She is optimal for supporting teammates as she can give them extra turns as well as support help them out by throwing grenades.

Cherub

Cherub is a support tank who can protect a squad-mate from a single attack, converting that attack into a charge that allows him to smash perps with his shield. He is able to fulfill his tank role when breaching with PHALANX, drawing all enemy fire during the breach.

Cherub gains power from shield charges that can be gained from successful use of KINETIC SHIELD.

Cherub can use KINETIC SHIELD on anyone in his team to block one attack, regardless of the damage. This will give him one charge

You can use KINETIC SHIELD as his first action, and use CHARGED BASH to move up on an enemy near an objective.

Cherub does not always have to be in cover to be effective if you pick GUARD as an ability, as it provides armor and cover.

Only use PHALANX when there are many aggressive enemies during a breach. It is pointless to use it if all the enemies are surprised or alert as they will not attack the team.

Verge

Verge can be described as psionic crowd control, being able to stun and make enemies get mad and shoot each other, providing your squad some extra time to do work.

Verge cannot use psionic powers on mechanical enemies, such as Androids.

Avoid throwing flashbangs on Verge, it causes disorientation and that prevents him from using his psi powers.

Verge has access to two Psionic skills that only takes one action point, allowing Verge to shoot or move after using a psi attack.

STUPOR stuns an enemy for a turn, sometimes two depending on your luck. Use this on high-threat enemies or ones that have a turn after Verge.

BATTLE MADNESS turns one enemy insane, causing him to shoot someone near him immediately, regardless of turn order. This technically makes Verge able to shoot twice in a turn.

For each enemy Verge uses psi powers on, the more accurate Verge can shoot his gun.

Verge is fragile, with no abilities that increase his health or armor, so you must move around taking cover accordingly.

Campaign setup

At the start you will have virtually nothing, so you will need more equipment and upgrades if you wish to have an edge. This means that it is vital to start securing additional resources as soon as you can.  

You get additional funding every week (which is about 7 missions). Your funding will comprise of three resources:

• Credits
• Intel
• Elerium

Credits are used to buy new gadgets you have researched. These include everything from flashbangs to spare combat androids.

Elerium is required for starting projects in the ASSEMBLY, which unlocks better weapons and armor for purchase.

Intel is used to deploy Field Teams and to purchase high-grade weapons and mods. Military grade stuff such as plasma grenades are often traded with intel.

Because of Field Teams, intel is the most important resource in your first few weeks of the campaign. Field Teams give you additional weekly funding and unlock abilities for you to use on the city map. Field teams are vital in maintaining control over the city, being the only way to directly reduce unrest and anarchy.

Field teams can be deployed in the city map, right under the unrest bar.

Credits come second in priority. Any finished assembly project often needs credits to buy the items and upgrades. The first weapons upgrade of your choice is usually 130-200 credits at the start.

Elerium is needed to start assembly projects, while important, it should not be at the complete cost of intel or credits early on.

Pay attention to turn orders

Will my agent survive an attack from this enemy? Can I make it to the objective before it expires? These questions can be solved by looking at who is going to move next turn.

This allows you to judge if you can risk leaving an agent exposed for a better shot or making a run for the exit.

Bring flashbangs

Flashbangs are excellent utility tools in any firefight, as they reduce shooting accuracy and disable most abilities. They also disrupt any psionic links, such as breaking mind control off your squad by tossing one on the psionic offender. Flashbangs can be brought in the supply market and Chimera Squad should carry a flashbang or two on every mission they go on.

Check objectives and keep moving

Some objectives are limited by time, forcing you to decide between taking out enemies or rushing an objective. This makes abilities and grenades that only cost one action point invaluable in these types of missions, allowing you to do something in offence, but also closing in on objectives.

It is important to know that extracting, opening containers, picking up items does not take an action. It does not matter if he has to spend all his action points to get there, if he gets there he will go home.

Breach properly

Agents can be equipped with breaching tools such as holo-scanners and smoke bombs to give your agents an edge. This only works if they are the 2nd agent in the breaching order.

While breaching, targets to prioritize can be different from situation to situation. Sometimes it is better to take out a larger threat like psionic enemies or someone with a big gun, rather than a grunt who will just shoot at you.

Pay attention to the penalties you will take. Some penalties only apply to the first agent in, or the last, while some apply effects to everyone. 

Accepting casualties

Sometimes casualties are unavoidable; your agents may miss multiple shots, an objective is hard to get, a civilian gets in the way, and many other unlucky things can happen, which may result in your agents becoming severely injured.

Imagine a situation where one of your agents is surrounded by two melee enemies and you have two agents who are already hurt. In a situation like this it may be necessary to dump a grenade on the enemies even if hitting and sacrificing your agent, as it will limit your casualties to just 1 agent.

Dealing with scars

Your agents can get debilitating injuries if you take too much damage or get knocked out. Injury scars can be removed in the training center, but it will take that agent out of action for a few days.

Fortunately for you, agents who have scars can still join on other missions, albeit with a permanent stat debuff.

With that, you are armed with additional knowledge to help you protect City 31 from itself. As your enemy evolves in arms and tactics, so will your plans as well if you wish to stay on top of things.