Special Ops

Avengers Alliance released the new Special Ops yesterday. A lot has happened. This Special Ops also has a group boss and lockboxes like the previous one. I'm going to have to make an Avengers Alliance Glossary for people to refer to. Anyway this one is actually a little different than previous ones. For instance usually you run into the group boss after you finish doing the task that requires you to research for 8 hours. The other big difference is that this is the first to require Special Ops heroes to unlock the epic boss. Normally it has been a 90 cp hero, the pvp reward hero from the previous season, and then another hero. There is also a new alternate form of Thor available. I'm not going to go into the exact task list here, but just some of the observations I've noticed from this and past Special Ops.
Plan out: Special ops requires unstable iso-8 which you get in a limited supply. You start off with 440 isos. You will need 260 isos for the 3 researches you have to do. Yes you can get more from visiting allies, drops in battles, gifts, and rewards from deploys and roulettes, but don't go around expecting to get a lot this way. As a result you want to be smart with the tasks. The current task list can be found here. There are also tasks you can do outside of SO like using Valkerie, Sif, and Thor's attacks. The only ones that are retroactive are the ones that require you to get a certain number of mastery stars.
Mastery the missions: Getting 3 star mastery is a requirement always. And if you are going to do the side quests 4 stars. Even though it seems like it will be a lot of iso up front do all the deploys and threats the first time through. This will ensure that you will get at least 2 stars. Also try to 3 bird (fight the main boss and 2 mini bosses) the final boss. This saves on iso and helps to get you a very high score. Don't forget to use those team up bonuses. This will help get you to 3 stars in about 2 runs. 1 if you do it really well.
Don't forget side quests: If you are wanting to get lock boxes to get the LB hero quickly don't forget about them. This goes along with the planning out. A lot of these can be done in conjunction with the main quests to get the SO hero.
Use the forums: If you haven't signed up for playdom's forums then I suggest you do so. They usually will have tips on how to get or do things before any other place. You can also get other player input. For instance someone may have found a way to really hinder a boss that you normally wouldn't have thought of. So now you can get a higher score against that boss.
Don't rush: There is no need to rush. Unless you want to spend real money the fastest you can possibly get the hero is after 80 hours. That's the time it takes to complete all the research required. You also are given 26 days. So of that 26 about 3 hours is carved out still leaving you with 23 days. Use research time to stock pile isos and study the upcoming tasks. Even level up some heroes and try to get new gear.
Lockboxes are frustrating: Recently playdom has come out and said that everyone is guaranteed to get the lock box hero. A person will only get so many duplicates before getting a new cover. They have said this before, but they have a new status bar to show it. Basically your chances of duplicates is based on how many unique covers you have. So if you have 4 different covers you can get 4 duplicates before you get a new one. Now without getting long winded basically open lockboxes 10 at a time since you get a 100% chance of getting a cover v.s. a 7% chance if you do them on at a time. So that means the highest amount of Lockboxes you have to open to get all 8 covers is 360. So you have been given a heads up.
Leave up your boss: Your group boss will respawn every 72 hours. No sooner. So if yours is beaten in 6 hours and you claim your lockboxes you now have 66 hours to wait. While your allies that didn't get a chance to attack your boss don't get a chance now. So leave it up. As stated before you could need 360 lockboxes before you get the hero. So be a pal and don't claim it until at least 24 hours are left.
These here are just generic pieces of advice. I haven't gone into specifics for doing this Special Ops. Mainly because I'm still in the middle of it. I can give you some advice about it now based off what I've seen.
Get Valkerie, Sif, and Thor if you don't already have them. Use their abilities outside of special ops. They will count towards the task. This will save on isos, but also ensure that you don't have to have your score suffer. You have to use their ability 4 or 5 times for the task. That means you have to stall which can sometimes mean your agent dies or needing to recharge which hurts your overall score. If you got to a season 2 mission or a season 1 mission that you've already 5 starred then you won't need to worry about your score. You only get 1 free Dark elf mask from the research. Purchase 4 more. When you use them make sure you use it on a hero that can attack a dark elf that has used his illusion ability for it to count. Try to do that task as quickly as possible since the side quest that unlocks after requires you to defeat 35 dark elves. That's pretty much all of mission 1, but luckily the dark elves you beat from the group boss count. Oh and on the first mission there are 3 mini bosses. Defeat 1 since there is no bonus higher than 3 bird. I suggest taking out Wrecker or Pildriver. Kurse is really no concern. He will flee if he loses like a third of his life. The team up I like to use is Iron Man's movie armor, The new Thor armor and my agent as a blaster. Makes for easy work. Granted I do have the cube and part of the Attilian set, but that's a story for another day.