The Chryssalids! They're everywhere! How do I survive the Site Recon mission?

It's been a few months, but here's how I recall beating this part on Classic difficulty.

I grouped all my units up at the pier and walked them down the long pier from the Chryssalids' ship to the rescue zone in the following manner:

• First, I split them into two groups of approximately equal strength.
• I walked one group half of their maximum walking distance down the pier, and attacked/overwatched with the other group.
• The next turn, I ran the full distance down the pier with the second group, while attacking/overwatch with the first.
• The next turn, I ran the full distance down the pier with the first group, while attacking/overwatch with the second.

etc.

All the enemies that came after us came down the pier, which was long and open, giving my squad plenty of time to attack them. It helps if you have two snipers with squad-sight, so you can always have a sniper watching your back every turn. It also helps to have an Assault with Tactical Sense and especially Close Combat Specialist, and always keep him in the rear in case any Chryssalids get close enough.

Doing it this way, rather than having each group use at least one action moving each turn, allows you to take advantage of snipers with squad-sight, as well as Heavy with Bullet Swarm. You average about 1/2 each unit's max movement length (rather than 3/4ths), which was still enough for me to make it to the rescue zone on time.

One further note about this scary mission: Once you trigger the airstrike and have only 8 turns to get back, certain objects in the middle of the map will burst into Chrysalids on each turn. However, they don't do this if they've been destroyed. So what you can do is, after killing the first few zombies and Chrysalids, don't approach the ship yet. Bring at least one MEC, and spend a while using Collateral Damage to blow up anything that might house a Chrysalid.

But indeed, as z- mentions, if the mission will be too tough for you (as it was for me) then you can just skip it. It's not like Canada actually gets overrun with a plague of thousands of Chrysalids like it really would if you left that village alone.

I typically do this mission for the experience. Have very rarely felt the need to skip it, even on I/I, but lasers and practice help.

My biggest piece of advice is to be careful when you activate the whale. If you are very cautious on approach (either a grapple from a ways outside the opening, or running along the outside rail on top of the ship) you can avoid activating the whale until you've basically turned on the transmitter. There should be only one soldier activating the transmitter, preferably either an Assault for Run-and-Gun, or Support with Sprinter. Or, alternatively, a rookie you don't care about...

The rest of the crew stays back a bit (the closest they should get is the hut on the docks), while your bait sets the transponder. Once that's done, he double-moves back toward the rest of the crew (can run-and-gun once if an assault). The rest of the crew either single-moves and shoots or double-move if no targets are in sight. You should be able to make it back relatively quickly.

It's also a great idea to put a squadsight sniper on the boat-facing corner of the initial roof, but that requires him/her to wear Skeleton Armor, which I often don't have for this mission. If you've got it, that's where you sniper is to stay. If you don't, you can put one in the "booths" (they have ladders) directly past that first building.

If you have 2-3 MEC troopers on your squad, I suggest using one to guard the front of the pack and using the other to support the rear. With the MECs to act as buffers, you could use human soldiers' full move and place the MECs on overwatch.