Zinging the Blues Strategy Guide

Intro
Once Showdown has been defeated, the hub changes and the moaning first aid center is replaced with a musical kiosk with "Blue" and "Red". The Producer explains that he's set up an Augmented Reality simulation to create reality vids to entertain the quarantined survivors of Boston. These are the Challenge Mode missions. Red is shorter and easier, Blue has better weapons. To start the blue challenge mission, talk to Blue (you don't go to the taxi.)

Once inside the mission, players appear in the center of a blue "arena" with various numbered bays and cover spots.

Am I Ready?
With the right group and the right skills, you can defeat all three challenge waves fresh out of Chapter 1. However, it will be a lot more forgiving if you have 9 body (preferably evasion), and a health pool over 30. It is very hard for a runner's primary damage to be melee or tech (though they are fine as support skills; in fact having one hacker in the group is preferred.) Bring two good DocWagon cards.

Note that in order to get the weapon (and possibly armor) rewards from challenge mode, you MUST have completed Showdown.

Mechanics
The first wave is in two parts. Two enormous bears will be in one corner alcove at the start of the fight. In addition, there will be two stationary enemies at opposite ends of the room, either NeoNet Tac-Ops Station or Major Blood Guardian. The Tac-Ops Station functions as a hacker, casting Blackout (which stuns) or Overload (which does not) on a target in range 7 from the station. The Blood Guardian casts Haste II on an enemy (even the Tac-Ops Stations!) If there's nothing to haste, it will attack players in range with blood bolt.

The Armored Bear Spirits are very slow, having only 4 walk. However, every time they swing at something (even if it's a miss) they will stun it. They are not themselves stunnable (but are fearable.) Once killed, an Armored Bear Spirit will split into two Bear Spirits. Bear Spirits do not stun, are stunnable, but have 5 walk. When a Bear Spirit is defeated, it turns into four Baby Bear Spirits. The Baby Bears are even faster, with 7 walk.

After the third player round, six Powerful Wolf Spirits spawn. They will spawn either in bays 1-4 or in bays 5-8. For example, if they spawned in 5-8, then there would be one in bay 5, two in bay 6, two in bay 7, one in bay 8. These are fast, with 8 walk, and attack for 11 physical. They are not stunnable. Once killed, it turns into two Wolf Spirits. The Wolf Spirits have Fear as an attack, unlike the Powerful Wolf Spirits, and only hit half as hard. They are also stunnable.

"Turtle"
Another approach is to pack the party together and surround it with Wolf Spirits since the wolf spirits are both relatively weak offensively, and they don't even always attack for damage. In fact, the Wolf Spirits will favor Fear, but you won't have anywhere to run! Hopefully, the people exposed to the Wolf Spirits have 30% evasion to even further reduce the incoming damage. Packing together in a corner is the most common. Three of four runners are exposed to five wolves (as shown). Another option is to gather up against the monitors where the stationary objects spawn. Four people exposed to four wolves..

Due to the inability for the rest of the enemies to engage in melee, they will run away and take cover. If they're too far away, you can lure the rest back by either killing one of the wolves in the wall or summoning a pet for them to attack.

Once the group is in the corner, you want to go as few rounds as you can to limit the damage taken. Try to split things (especially when making baby bears) early in the turn so someone can follow up with aoe before they split off into cover again. For whatever reason, the damage will usually end up centered on one person, and they will usually need a doc wagon card before this phase is over.

Doing this with henchmen is tricky as the henchmen tend to be pretty squishy. Bring mages; armor can really help keep the henchmen going and mage henchmen get a decent weapon. If you can figure out who has the lowest evasion, stick them in the back.

Kiting

Since all the foes are either melee or stationary, the most obvious strategy is to keep moving, only taking a shot when you are farther from something than its walk. Pets are very useful to draw enemies away from players (or haste them) to get that extra distance. Done properly, no one gets hit at all and this phase will consume no resources. But this takes some practice, and people new to the fight will often end up with nowhere to run without taking some hits. Judging movement range to everything is tricky, and this strategy tends to take a very long time.

This strategy can be employed successfully with henchman, but most henchmen are 7 walk 14 sprint, making it much harder than with 9+ walk players.

Rewards
The rewards if you decide to leave after wave 1 are very underwhelming. It is equivalent to Destruction loot from a regular mission: grenades, tatoos, etc. None of the challenge-only rewards are available this way. You also get 5 Karma. People farming challenge modes just for karma will stop here, but talk with your team before pushing any buttons.

Mechanics
The instant next round is selected, NeoNet appear in all eight bays. One half the room will have one commando per bay and the other half will have two bays with two commandos and two bays with two Security Drones.

The NeoNet Commandos will haste themselves once they are in melee range of someone. They attack for 2 damage per claw, for a total possible of 8.

The Security Drones are the real threat. The have a ranged attack (for 11?) If there are two or more runners grouped up, they will instead throw an EMP grenade at the group. Since they both hit hard, punish grouping up, and are low health, they are the priority kill target.

Strategy
There are two basic approaches to this phase depending on what tools you have at your disposal. Naturally all pets should be out, mana recovered, reloaded, cooldowns available, etc before starting wave 2. Most of the incoming hits in this phase are pretty small, so if you have 20 health you are probably fine.

One approach is to start in a corner (suppose by bay 8.) The point of this strategy is to funnel the enemy in and cause them to arrive over several turns. Bays 7 and 8 should be cleared immediately before the enemy has a turn.) Then kill everything that gets close to the party. Keep cover with the drones and avoid stacking up if possible when drones are up to minimize the impact of a grenade, but stay in the same general area to keep the enemies converging on you for good aoe.

Another approach is to start in the middle of the room. The point of this strategy is twofold: first, you can identify and eliminate the first wave of drones on turn 1. Second, the remaining commandos will all converge on strategically placed pets, to be easily picked off the next round. This approach works best with a rigger and a hacker in the group, especially if you can keep the hacker hasted. (That's true of this phase in general, a hasted hacker does wonders.)

Mechanics
Boss wave! Four bosses spawn in random bays. Each boss has a buff, and when that boss is killed, the remaining bosses gain that buff. Thus, whichever boss you kill last will have all four buffs. Mantis looks like an Infected Cyborg. Each melee attack is base 14 damage (17 if Amoeba is dead). Because he will always close into melee range with someone, he is very likely to hit compared to the others. It is very easy to underestimate his move as he has around 15 walk. He can cross half the room (the short way) and still attack twice, making him extremely lethal. Thankfully, he also has the least health.

Amoeba looks like a Hive Controller, and attacks with Wide Burst. Because his Wide Burst always crits, if hasted and all six shots land on someone, it will kill all but the hardiest runners. Luckily, it has the same accuracy penalty as regular Wide Burst, so it can be completely avoided with cover. Be careful to keep your distance if Amoeba is hasted, as he will happily flank you first and then burst.

Bedbug looks like a NeoNet Commander, and he attacks with the same ranged technical attack. He is the only boss of the three which is immune to stuns at first. Once he is killed, the transfer of this ability does not clear an existing stun, so make sure your stuns are out first before killing Bedbug.

Roach looks like an Aztech Eagle Shaman, and he attacks with the same mana bolt. His ability regenerates 50 health during the enemy turn.

Strategy
If the party never has line of sight on a boss, it will not wake up and participate. This is hard to rely on, but can be very useful if your group doesn't have much stun. To easiest way to leverage this is to start this phase in a bay (typically bay 6) with only a few bays visible, and then move around such that you never have control of a character in a location that a boss can see it. They can see a bit more than half way across the room, but by sticking to the middle of the 1x3 cover, other bays, and judicious use of distance, you can generally get from where you are to where you want to be without waking things up. Take your time, it's worth it.

Many kill orders are possible. By starting the wave fully rested, the party should be able to drop the first boss almost immediately. Mantis and Amoeba are typically first because their damage output is high, Bedbug third, and Roach last because you really don't want his regen on everything else. If you don't have any stuns and you opt to kill Mantis first, you will have at least one (and usually two) rounds with Amoeba hasted: enough move to usually flank someone. If you have no stuns and kill Amoeba first, someone is likely to get hit for 28. This is where a large health pool is a big help, and can be the riskiest part of the whole encounter. But if you start in bay 6, it's very rare to have that many bosses engaged at once.

Keeping cover from the attacking bosses is very important in this phase Don't just take cover from where they are, consider where they can move to before they fire. If they can take cover and flank you, they will. If not, they seem to prefer taking cover to flanking. Amoeba will try to get as many as possible with his Wide Burst, and he can be pretty clever about flanking everyone when he's hasted.

Compared to the other two phases, this is the hardest to describe a typical or ideal flow. Communication helps a lot. Coordinate cool downs, what haste will be used for, what will be stunned, and so on. Order the actions so that any key misses (like a hacker blackout) go early and you can switch to a backup plan. Often the first two turns make or break this phase.