There is one thing, we still haven't discussed the spark promo, either they get a melee attack or they get +2 aoe & +2 damage to heavy weapons. I think the second option is a no-brainier, rockets are a powerful tool.
Melee is reusable, while Rocket is a one-off (can't remember if there's a later promo that allows multiple heavy weapons uses), but I'm probably easy either way.
Ah, but rocket can completely change an engagement, so I prefer it as opposed to some single target damage. Promotion is still not taken yet, 3 days to scan for the rulers.
Well, I just failed my first attempt due to a couple of early stupid mistakes and then a crossmap snipe from the ruler. Will restart mission after dinner since that is a thing you can do in story missions.
First thing that happens is a rumour for alloys pops up. I also notice that research finishes in a day, so I start by flying to the black market to see if we can get any money to buy the new armour before rulers. I can get about $50 from selling corpses, but the armour will cost 150, so instead I go on to the rulers. We also have no intel and need to make a radio tower if we want the continent bonus, but that's not my problem. I start the 3 day ruler scanning process. Research finishes, and for whatever reason it unlocks an instant autopsy on the stun lancer, which will give new melee weapons if my memory is right. I go on to viper autopsy for the enhanced medkits. The scanning finishes, and I go on the mission. Squad:
Originally the game gave me 2 rangers 2 specialists, bradford, and WK, but I took lew out in order to put me in so he could get over his shaken status on an easier mission. I also remove Sareln, there is no time for healing when every action I take will just remove whatever health I added. I replace them with me and Dreylin, with my job being to light the alien on fire and dreylin there to never miss a shot. I skip the unique pistol, we will need all the damage we can get. I head out.
This is my first time running the mission. We are given an area to go to and a cave to enter, looks like this:
T1 is just spend moving up and marvelling at how OP bradford is. T2:
Knew I shouldn't have moved up that far, but at least they appear to be very weak enemies. I make the stupidest mistake of all time and forget about concealment, take a shot with Jkaen that kills 1 but causes the other 2 to reach cover unmolested. Bradford kills 1:
I get the other:
T3 more ominous dialogue and moving up. I have a bad habit of going too far:
2 regular vipers, one baby, all out of range of the squad. Dreylin takes a 77% on the weak one:
Only one he could get. I have some meh shots with half the squad, so instead of running forward I dash Bradford back and overwatch with everyone. I do take one final shot though:
Damn dodging, but 4 damage + on fire should leave them almost dead. The aliens move up, and overwatch does its usual thing
And then disaster
I only have one medkit. Then, adding injury to injury:
I check the wiki, and poison should only last 5 turns, so both will live even if I don't use the medkit, but I plan to use a charge anyway. At the start of T4 things look like this:
Hopefully I can exploit the decision of the AI to get closer. I lightning hands:
Dodging is starting to get really annoying. Regular shot fails too:
Fire will kill them though. At this point I remember that Jowy's gun cannot be dodged, and use it on the remaining viper:
Feels good. Dreylin moves up to heal WK, since even though Bradford is missing more health currently the acid and ice bombs are more important. Plus, and this is slightly gamey, I'm pretty sure the mission restarts if he dies, so if he dies all that happens is that I start over. I then notice that apparently poison does not stop Bradford from doing stuff, which is convenient. Everyone else reloads and WK hunkers. I then spend turns 5-8 waiting for the poison to wear off, and Bradford was left with 1 more health than I expected. Then:
Pod of 4 mini-vipers, shouldn't be an issue. Dreylin misses:
WK doesn't:
Jkaen fails me as well:
I lightning hands one:
Then miss. Bradford fixes my mistake:
At this point I will stop taking pictures of every shot, given how many aliens there are to kill. IBT the alien runs away
T9 I do nothing but overwatch, and nothing. T10 I move up again, still nothing. I must have miscounted, but I could have sworn seeing 2 aliens left before my final shot. IBT plot happens, apparently I got close enough to the objective. I again spend the turn doing nothing but moving, feels like EW all over again. IBT MORE STUFF
Viper drops down from above:
Jowy is not having that, takes him out. Another one pops in, and Bradford doesn't want to play either:
Third one my pistol misses. Then:
5 babies and 1 regular show up, Jkaen misses, WK does not:
T12 I have to get rid of the one that dropped behind my lines and then deal with the big squad. I kill the backlines one, Jowy runs up and reloads since he can't see the main pod. Dreylin lightning hands one of them:
WK suppresses 1 of the regulars, I only just realised that there were 2. Bradford's gun is 1 damage short of oneshotting any of the vipers, but he tries anyway and hits them for 3. Jkaen crits one of the small ones. IBT 7 new aliens show up:
All smalls. I am informed that that is the last of them, and everyone misses Bradford. I kill 2 for a promotion, WK reloads and then kills one, my lack of AOE becomes apparent, Jowy moves up and kills a small for a promo, and it was at this point that I remembered that reaper exists on bradford. The first:
Yay for no dodge (it was a regular). The second:
The third:
All of these are at 100% chance to hit, but the damage has dropped so I don't want to try and get the last real viper. The 4th:
The 5th:
Rolled a 1 on a 1-3, damn. He might be dead. Jkaen runs in to try and help, uses the axe I was attempting to save and his regular attack to kill 2 and get a promo. IBT THE ALIENS SCREW UP:
YOUR TOUGUE CAN'T TOUCH A GOD! UNTOUCHABLE OP
DON'T RUN AT HIM EITHER
WK gets bound by the third alien:
T13 I catch my breath and recover. Dreylin kills the baby constricting, Jowy misses, I miss, and Bradford crits on a 70% (to crit, 100% to hit):
If that had failed I would only have had a 46 from Jkaen left to save him.
T14 I move up to get the loot the last alien dropped, and apparently the area is cold. I get 2 elerium cores.
T15 more moving, T16 more moving, T 17 more moving, finally activate the plot device T20. Viper king spawns:
He runs to the left, 2 tiny snakes drop in from the right. I start by using RnG to get Bradford back, Viper responds by frost bombing Jkaen and WK. Me and Dreylin miss our lightning hands, and then I miss another pistol shot, getting bound for my trouble. However, the shot took away the king's cover, so I take Dreylin's 100%. Crit for 7, the ruler runs away a bit. I take my own 100%, and then the ruler runs away and shoots bradford from across the map, killing him and ending the mission. I restart
Pictures will come later, as well as the second attempt report. Edit: Pictures are done.
Attempt 2. Things to do this time include never clumping and remembering that I have concealment. Turns 1-3 were spent moving up and observing the two alien pods, the one I activated initially is stationary, the one with 2 regular vipers moves back and forth. I overwatch with everyone except Jkaen and Jowy, then the latter tries out his lovely gun:
Of course, I screwed up and accidently aimed for the small guy, but a 10 damage crit is never bad. Dreylin has his turn, hits for 7 I oneshot one:
Must be the good ammo. Bradford finishes off Dreylin's.
The other pod activates, one of them dies to WK's OW. The second I take out with Jkaen, and the last one runs away on the alien turn. Infinitely better than my first try.
T4 I move up, Jkaen finds the last alien and crits it for 12. T5 I dash up to where I think is just before the ambush happens. I was wrong though, and Dreylin didn't get to OW the ambush as a result. Everyone but WK hit their overwatch, only taking out small snakes though. All the flankers died, as well as one in front.
T6 Dreylin lightning hands a close small snake, and I get annoyed because I can't see either of the big snakes from Jowy's position:
Note to self, if I have to play this a third time, never OW with Jowy, he will waste the shot on something weak and then need to reload, meaning he won't be able to both move and shoot. I lightning hands one, Dreylin misses one of the actually dangerous targets, and I attempt the same shot:
Stupid box got in the way, but half the threats are gone (the small guys will suicide on bradford's bladestorm). Of course, me moving him up activates the second ambush pod, so now there are more baby snakes. Jowy kills a small snake, WK suppresses one (he had a 49%) and Jkaen takes out another small one. I decide to go for reaper, the first one I failed to get a shot of, but the second:
For some reason this time he couldn't deal enough damage to kill the viper, so I was going for babies. Third:
4th:
5th:
RNG was better this time, and I rolled a 2 on a 1-3. I could close the door and then shoot instead of just shooting, but I'm worried I will lose the flank:
As you can see, if he shoots the door he flanks, if he shoots through the window he doesn't (since I'm pretty sure shooting is calculated from the tile they step to). I take the shot:
IBT more sneks show up, the suppressed one shoots at WK and misses, while the other two don't understand bladestorm:
Should be easy from here. T7 I grab the loot with Bradford, same as last time. Jowy uses combat protocol to kill a snake, I pistol another, so does Dreylin, Jkaen axes one and Bradford swords the last.
T8 I start moving up, and continue in T9, T10. Here is my setup as I prepare to activate on T11:
This is the western half, you can see Dreylin up high, Jowy back, Jkaen even further back, and Bradford up front. The east:
Yes half cover is bad, but getting frozen is worse. I'm going for maximum spacing. T12 I trigger it with Jkaen. Unfortunately it ran to the same place as last time, so both my status effects are out of range. I start with Dreylin's lightning hands for 1, no reaction because it's free. I then use my own lightning hands on the ruler, only a 30% but the other option is a baby right next to me who honestly does not matter, and if it works it will be worth it:
IT HIT. Sure he dodged, but whatever, wasn't going to do much anyway and the fire still applies. Now, if I can get the frost on them to lock them down and the acid to remove armour, things will be good. Max range:
Still undecided on acid vs frost here, acid will do huge amounts of damage but frost will hopefully stop all future damage. I have no other shredding aside from a random grenade Jkaen is carrying. If this were not ironman I would acid every time, and I do so here. Armour removed:
On the reaction it grabs Jkaen, who is affected by the acid for the first damage I have taken this mission. Then, a second dilemma. Do I disorientate using Jowy or use the amazing gun? He has a 50% to hit, so I go for the disorientate. For some reason it doesn't effect Jkaen, who then gets frozen. I then take a 65% with Dreylin, who missed, but the status effects are too much!
That was the whole reaction, 1 tile of movement out of cover. For whatever reason Bradford can't see him now, so I take the shot:
AND THEN THIS:
GOODBYE! If I had used the frost bomb maybe it wouldn't have gotten away, but I say getting it down to 50% is pretty damn good. Bradford has no shot, but he does have 1 route he can take to use his sword without running into the acid. I take it:
Yes. On the ruler's reaction, it takes the 4 damage/move burning + acid deals, and then runs for the portal, past Bradford:
Definitely below half now. IBT the aliens reveal their true purpose, bondage:
That's WK, they also got me but no picture. Reaper is back off of cooldown, so I don't think I need to show what happened.
16 turns taken, must have miscounted some of the slow moving up. The 3 wounded I take issue with, 2 of them were only wounded on the last turn by the two sneks I didn't shoot, and at that point the mission was already won. All the injuries in total only occurred on that turn.
The cut-off digit in kills/turn is a 1.
Fewer promos than the last attempt, and looks like we need to put an engineer back into the healing slot. Our first colonel!
I actually kind of like restoration, since it doesn't really require the rest of the healing tree, but discharge is probably better. Jkaen is bladestorm vs implacable (free move if you get a kill, but only a move not an action). Favour bladestorm. I get my AWC:
One day someone will get a good result from this. Obviously faceoff for me. Baby vipers don't have corpses so loot is crap, only 2 e-cores.
Looks good. A little surprised you didn't have anyone on Overwatch when you triggered the King; that would have got a bunch of shots off free of the Ruler Reactions, but of course wouldn't let you throw the status Grenades.
So yeah, next player needs to take the SPARK promotion, staff an engineer into the faster healing slot, and find the money for a mindshield, tower, and new armour.
