How do you complete manors?

[BlorkTheOrk]

I simply can't figure out how to outgun so much hostiles. 50 men on map pretty much erase my dudes with explosives. Additional pain came from armored cars zipping around. So, what is your tactics/setup for such missions? What is enough/comfortable tech for it?

Second question is strategic: do I need to clear all of the manors? Do they generate much infamy?

[Mrvex]

By the time manors start spawning, you should have armoured vest already or be really close to getting one (which doesnt protect against explosives, despite what description says, no concussive resistance) and if you are lucky, carapace plate which does lower concussive damage caused by most explosives and probably a Dragonfly atleast if not Osprey so you can send in a sizeable attack force. Predeploy smoke in your loadout at turn 1 so you are covered the moment the game starts and spread out.

You should have BlackOps weapons by this time so some assault rifles, shotguns and if you have some mines from doing raids, minelay all exits from buildings. The armoured cars are (Red Dawn) bit of a problem, they also prevent surrender of living enemies as long as they are alive. Miniguns would chew through their armor eventually, otherwise, incendiary grenades should be used. Armoured Cars take abit more piercing damage done by balistic weapons, however rifles wont do it.... a sniper rifle hit from the back however... or even better, if you have Berret Sniper Rifle then use that to crack it in few hits.
If you happen to get an RPG from Red Dawns safehouses, then yeah, rocket launcher will bitchslap them x4.

You do want to get rid of the manors as they will evolve and eventually will be a staging ground for Migs that will give you quite the hell on geoscape and good luck trying to fight them with just a Humvee that can barely take one in 1v1. And i do need to remind you that most transport crafts are unarmed and Migs are well... jets and will catch Ospreys and other VTOL aircraft and they come in groups btw (3 ?). Like the first craft that can reliably take 3v1 is either Kitsune or Raven (Interceptor is risky and using your own Mig is a waste of money) and Migs arent even the worst thing that can spawn from cult bases, those are atleast man made aircraft  so they have paper thin armor and standard weapons.

One way to assault such manors is to send a fast decoy ahead, aggro the migs and return to base and the Migs will do a sweep before returning to base and refueling and in that time, your infantry transport can slip in.

[Moltenore]

Yeah, kinda strange stuff, some alien inspired gangsters build more protected and large mansions, than the Counsil.

The key strategy move I see is to avoid open spaces to not be hit by gillmen, vehicles, assassins, nor be a target for explosives and heavy fire. Get into the nearest building ASAP, and capture small building one by one. After you reduce enemy quantity enough, you can leave buildings and end remain. I would recomend to take proximity grenades since there is a lot of narrow spaces and sometimes tricky enemies which is dangerous to just engage and fire at (assassins and gillmen). Maybe it's a good idea to bring some explosives to break down the mansion's wall, since it's hard to assault the main intrance, but I didn't tried it yet. It would only allow to shoot into, not to get into, there is a one level high foundation.
If you have no weapon to deal with vehicles, you can pick a machine gun or a sniper rifle from your enemies (Red Dawn has a lot of PKMs for example, it will take long with them, but it would be better, than spend BO ammo). When I tried to pick a special gun for vehicle, I used light cannons, and they was not really good: extremely low fire rate, average accuracy and barely good enough damage for armor piercing made them just slightly better than PKM. And, BTW, vehichles are vulnarable for electricity, so you can beat them with electric clubs if you catch them close.

[mg2k22]

Funny, my approach is quite the opposite: I hurry to take the ground on the most open side of the manor and then let my experienced marksmen neutralize everything with reaction fire and aimed shots. Works quite well for me, just need to be careful not to offer too many opportunities for grenades, and against Assassins I need to trust in landmines/proximity grenades and good armour.

[Marrik]

Attack at night, use sniper rifles from maximum range (I like PSG1s, if your guys have high marksmanship skill you'll have +90% chance to hit even if you have 0 visibility on the target. PSG1s can damage vehicles too, it's best if you have a very skilled shooter hit them in the back or side). After you've thinned the enemies out, use explosives to crack the side of the building, hopefully exposing more targets for your snipers.

Bring at least one but preferably multiple dogs, and position them so that assassins will run into them first. Ideally, you can spot them with the dogs and your PSG1 guys can kill them with aimed shots. If one of your dogs gets taken out by throwing knives before the ninja is spotted, have the other dogs try to spot them, or if they're close to your shooters have one of them spot the ninja and blast them with a sawed-off shotgun.

[tarkalak]

Attack at night, use sniper rifles from maximum range (I like PSG1s, if your guys have high marksmanship skill you'll have +90% chance to hit even if you have 0 visibility on the target. PSG1s can damage vehicles too, it's best if you have a very skilled shooter hit them in the back or side). After you've thinned the enemies out, use explosives to crack the side of the building, hopefully exposing more targets for your snipers.

Bring at least one but preferably multiple dogs, and position them so that assassins will run into them first. Ideally, you can spot them with the dogs and your PSG1 guys can kill them with aimed shots. If one of your dogs gets taken out by throwing knives before the ninja is spotted, have the other dogs try to spot them, or if they're close to your shooters have one of them spot the ninja and blast them with a sawed-off shotgun.

Scout Drones have Anticamo of 5 (I think). They can spot assassins from 9 tiles away instead of 4.

[Rag]

I just did my first Manor which was Black Lotus. I found the Sniper tactic worked well (BlackOps Sniper is pretty much my tactic for most lethal force missions at the moment), I took out the initial threats then when it was safe moved everyone over to a courner and knelt down to shoot everything that my dog and drone could spot. Each turn would move my dog and drone out of cover to spot more things then hide again. I was fortunate to have a map where there was no building in the west courner which helped since I moved all my snipers there to have 1/4 - 1/2 of the map distance between anything coming out of / around buildings. If there was a building in that courer it might have been more problematic to stay safe.

I did get shot at occasionally but sure smoke would have stopped that which I forgot to equip, but luckily tritanium armour and misses kept the snipers safe. The main threat as always with Black Lotus was the jerk assassins targetting my dog and drone.

I had Shotguns in my backpack ready to try the systematic building clear approach too, but found the Sniper route for this specific map at least was much safer letting them come to me.

[BlorkTheOrk]

Scout Drones have Anticamo of 5 (I think). They can spot assassins from 9 tiles away instead of 4.

Actually, it makes black lotus pretty trivial, thanks! I never thought that they have just simple camo, I thought its something like psi-power checks or something(thanks to ordinary warriors)

What else has this Anticamo property?

[Juku121]

What else has this Anticamo property?

Rats, bats and Proteans. That's about it, unless you psi-capture something with anticamo.

Psi-vision also works as a sort of anticamo, and has its own anticamo.

[tarkalak]

Actually, it makes black lotus pretty trivial, thanks! I never thought that they have just simple camo, I thought its something like psi-power checks or something(thanks to ordinary warriors)

What else has this Anticamo property?

Well anti-camo is what the game calls the ability to see units from further away than usually allowed. It is game engine name.

In lore Black Lotus Assassins use some Psi skill to be invisible, I think.

You can look for such things in the Info button.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well anti-camo is what the game calls the ability to see units from further away than usually allowed.

Yes, but for clarity: not beyond your normal sight range.