XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen

[yuris125]

Nice mission!

I'm still not certain whether the percentage chance is to land the grapple or the subsequent hit (it connected here), I suspect it's the former since the pull out of cover is a lot of the power in the move.

It is to land the grapple. I've been following Marbozir's videos, and he's deep into midgame by now, so I can answer some questions on the mechanics, even if I don't have the game myself. So do tell when you want an answer, and when you'd rather find out for yourself

[Dreylin]

Thanks Yuris. I'd assumed that was the case since IMO a "pull enemy out of cover" power is damn good without adding the damage on top.

Haphazard, will definitely sign you up for duty - after all it's your fault we're in this mess since you didn't finish the aliens off in the original invasion...

[haphazard1]

Always getting the blame....

Nice mission! I am curious to see how this bonding mechanic works out over time.

[AdrienIer]

Spikes on your shoulder, sunglasses, an advent rogue best friend, can't get more badass than that

[Kaiser]

I am up for the team as well when you will need some more cannon fodder for the resistance

[Dreylin]

Yep, we get a new POI, now up to 4!



And it turns out we've got a bit of time out of mission for things to complete:




Resistance Ring completes and we get to choose a new Covert Op - but this time with potential consequences.

Contacting the Templars seems like a no brainer for the added card options as well as the boots on the ground:


Although if there had been an option for an additional Engineer, I probably would have taken that instead. I'm feeling short on that front.

Contact with East Africa is finally complete, opening up access to the Advent Blacksite, and we start chasing a new contact:




Time for a tech montage:





There's also an inspiration to consider:


The Digital Network Construction reduces the cost of the Upgrade to the Resistance Ring by 50%. I'd checked that earlier and it typically costs 100Supplies & 2Power - given the current apparent surplus of supplies, 4days of research to save 50s doesn't seem worthwhile. I blow the Inspiration off and go for Resistance Radio instead.

As for the new weapons:


It seems that unlike the items, these are squad upgrades ... and seem relatively cheap. Maybe I've been playing LW2 for too long, but 75 Supplies would only buy 2-3 Rifles! Of course now I need some Alloys.

Here's that Chosen activity coming to fruition, and I see why the Retaliations now award extra income:


But maybe we'll pick up some Alloys here:

[Dreylin]

5man squad for this, with Advent and Lost on the ground and potential for a visit from The Assassin. I settle on this squad:


Dragunova & Fenn for sneak & boom. Apparently Ref & Dreylin will make beautiful music together, so slash & snipe, and we round things out with a fresh Specialist in Haphazard:



Got a bit of a Lincoln look going on there haphazard, but only the best agents get the spiffy Voodoo hat!

OK, so 10 crates to tag; the first is on the other side of this building:



No timer, so I can take the approach slowly. I also take the opportunity to review the options for sneaky detonation:


Slowly advance through the building; 2 on the ground and the other 3 on the second floor:




An Advent pair and two Lost; I guess they trigger now that we have LoS:


No timer, so we can wait this out for a turn in position. The Viper & Lancer take out the nearby two; we wait another turn and they head off to take out some more:


Dragunova's "tagging" ability is fun here and - oh dear:


Well she seems to be on the other side of the map for now. The Advent pod have moved out of range of the first crate so Fenn sneaks over a tags it:


Which breaks concealment.

Oh well, with that gone, we might as well take out this guy:


I can't land a decent hit on the Lancer though and he runs in (note to self - again - a Phantom won't fire an overwatch shot):

Phew.

Additional note to self - tagged crates are ballooned out in between turns, taking the cover with them....

Fenn advances to get eyes on the Assassin and make a big boom:



Unfortunately the truck doesn't explode immediately, but the Lost do:


They come up behind the second Advent pod (Viper/Trooper) which had shown up from the West. Dragunova flanks the Trooper for the kill, revealing herself, then Dreylin uses Lightning Hands to take out the original Lancer, takes out a couple of The Lost and then misses the Viper:


Interturn could have been better, but probably also much worse:




The Viper poisons Fenn, takes out 2 Lost and then hits Dreylin. But the Assassin uses this wave attack on the Lost instead of us.

RefSteel came out of cover last turn to try to blast this "Brute", but it survived.


A couple more converge on Fenn but don't have the movement to attack.

Here's an interesting visual glitch; Dragunova is actually standing in the corner of this room, rather than in the adjacent:


There's no-one in range anyway, so she repositions to get a shot at the Viper:


RefSteel moves up and takes out two Lost, then uses her last round to try and nail the Chosen:


Then Fenn moves up to try and get a Flank on her, but this nifty plastic cone is making it hard for him to get a good shot:


So he explodes her again instead.

Then things go wrong:




Yeah, those Lost just hit Fenn instead of the giant snake that's wrapped around him. :rolleyes: At least he's not poisoned anymore, I guess...


Cliffhanger!

[haphazard1]

Hmmm, now I am a specialist in the resistance. With an...interesting...hat.

Tricky situation, lots of trouble incoming. And, cliffhanger time!

[yuris125]

Cliffhanger!

Nooooooooo!!!!

Good luck

[Dreylin]

OK, when last we left our heroes, Agent Fenn had been poisoned and bound by a sinister Viper and then beaten down to his last HP by the former inhabitants of the city:


Meanwhile a horde of Lost lurked behind the scenes and the Elder's Chosen Assassin was lurking in the wings waiting to strike:


First priority - save Fenn. Dragunova needs to reload so can't move to a better position; she takes out a pair of Lost and then shoots for the prize:


Dreylin does the same:


The Viper is down & Fenn is freed! He & haphazard then clear out most of the rest of the visible Lost on this side of the map and then haphazard lays down some Aid Protocol just incase:



Yes, that trooper corpse is behaving strangely since the load.

Just RefSteel left to go and here I make a mistake and misjudge the Chosen. I figured that she was just a few HP from running away like the first time we met. Ref's gun is empty and she'll get poor odds shooting from where she is, but she can reload and then go in for an 84% slash. (I admit that here I googled whether the Assassin has the same melee counter as Mutons)


It connects bringing the Assassin down to 3HP, but instead of running away and disappearing:



Ooops.

And then she does her slash move to leave Ref Dazed and /then/ she runs away. Except I don't think she exited the map because I then see an "Overwatch" notification from a hidden corner.

Ref is in pretty dire straights:


And there's not much we can do about it, certainly not get to her to remove the Daze, nor take out the Trooper. 3/4 Lost fall and we reposition for next turn, but then it's time to hold our breaths and hope for a swift and merciful ending the best.




Well we may have got lucky on the Trooper's damage roll to stall on that Lost (who even chases after the Trooper not Ref), and I guess we'll see whether Ref's life is worth more than the information she extracted.

It was nice of her to clear Ref's status debuff as she went though:


And suddenly it's over!




I'm going to assume that this is full loot from the crates because it seems a bit much for just the 4 I'd tagged:

And the pile of Lost corpses opens up an Autopsy as well.

The squad are a beaten up, but they've all survived which is more than I thought they'd do at several moments:


Ref gets Shadowstep and I decide that maybe I do need a Medic after all:



And Dreylin & RefSteel spend their time in the Infirmary getting to know each other better:



Time for a break to let the adrenaline wear of!