XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen

[haphazard1]

An evil cliffhanger!

[Dreylin]

An evil cliffhanger!

Yep, you'll have to wait and see whether I follow in the LW SG footsteps and get all my Medics killed. 

[yuris125]

Oh yeah, Lightnings Hands is exactly what I needed! Hope I'm still alive (although snipers sharpshooters do tend to stay out of trouble

Not sure if you missed it, but didn't see you mentioning that there was a covert op with promotion reward amongst those spoilered screenshots

[Dreylin]

Not sure if you missed it, but didn't see you mentioning that there was a covert op with promotion reward amongst those spoilered screenshots

Oooooohhhhh. When you said that there were Promotions available from Ops, I assumed that they were the whole purpose like the Bond or Combat Intelligence upgrades, not that they were the added Soldier Perk!

Y'know I've been thinking ... what we really need are better Pistols. Oh yeah they'd be so good on our snipers sharpshooters! Especially if you happened to have a Gunslinger avatar...

OTOH, it's still going to be best to do for the Captain -> Major upgrade as you suggested. Mission Spoiler - no Captain. 

[Dreylin]

Here's the mission, and this seems like a good place to start, nice sight lines and good cover; even better if we can make it to that next rock:


There's no timer on this so we can take things cautiously and hopefully only have to deal with one pod / Ruler at a time. I don't know whether the Rulers still run away when injured to a certain point; it would seem less likely since they are supposed to be guarding the facilities, but I can hope.

Creeping forward we spot two pods on patrol:


Very quickly I thank all sorts of providence that Dragunova is on this mission. With the Reaper unit tagging ability, I can watch these guys on their patrols from a distance and look for the perfect opportunity to strike!

Then this lady shows up:


Gulp.  I'd really been hoping for the Viper Daddy to start us off easy!

Ah well, let's see how the patrols go:


Super Stealth FTW!


She pulls back and we shuffle some units to get a better setup:


The target pod is a Priest, Shieldbearer and Mech; Sectoid & Viper pod just visible in the top left and ol' BQ in the top right. Oh, and there's a Turret on top of the Facility as well.

Fenn leads with the Rocket to get rid of the armour:


Yuris is on overwatch and lands the shot to take out the Priest:


hap & Storm take down the Mech and Shieldbearer:



1 pod down and everyone's back in full cover without attracting attention from the other pods:

[Dreylin]

Turn rolls and the BQ patrols towards us:


Dragunova advances back to the forward spot and the rest of the squad Overwatches:




An excellent start! Just Storm missed her shot there and the Queen is burning (long burn the Queen!).

Pity the Armour soaked up so much of the damage, we'd better do something about that:



2/3 removed and all done from concealment, so no reaction.

Next up, the Acid:



Sniper Sharpshooter time:



Took the risk on the Deadeye shot at 80% rather that the 100% regular shot.

Storm takes her shot:


/That/ gets a reaction...


Ground Pound knocks out Yuris and disorients Fenn.

I make a mistake and retreat Lopez next, but all's not lost:


Yep, she's on her way out of there. haphazard gets in a last shot before she's gone:


Well that went about as well as I could have hoped for. I guess we'll need to let a few Facilities complete if we want to collect all of these guys.

OK, with the other pod not back yet, we take advantage of our Medic and get Yuris up and about again:


The pod is on its way back so we shuffle and overwatch in their direction. Yuris had to reload so he lays down smoke just in case:




The Viper takes a hit, but the Sectoid is still at large. Storm deals with the Viper:


Yuris lands the shot on the Sectoid:


Which dies to the fire IBT.


OK, next there's these two guys to deal with:


No timer, so we can take the easy way:


<Yawn> Anyone fancy advancing to speed this up?


Nope? Any other options?

Well I suppose haphazard /could/ put that new Combat Protocol to good use:




Tie to move in on the facility:


Well that's the line of retreat, we're sending the Reaper in to do the deed:


Another pod lying in wait. Dragunova lays the charges and pegs it out of there. I briefly consider letting them come at the firing line and getting some extra XP, but decide not to risk taking any injuries:



Mission Complete:




Minor injuries only:



Yuris take Death from Above and haphazard and Storm start to upgrade their bond:



A lovely, casual bar shot where they ... really don't seem to be talking to each other! (Maybe Bond Upgrading is like Marriage counselling )

[haphazard1]

Nice work on the mission. That queen is a big, tough brute.

I got to shoot some enemies, and medic some squad mates, and attack stuff with my new dombat protocol. And now some upgraded bond thing. I might even be willing to loan Storm my awesome hat, now that we are such good friends.

[yuris125]

Nice one! Love to see the first facility raid of the campaign to see without casualties and with just flesh wounds

Also made most attacks and dealt most damage, you keep giving me reasons to be proud of myself

Note on rulers (spoilered in case you would prefer to find out for yourself)

You usually face them for the first time in a facility raid, but once activated, they can appear in any mission

[Dreylin]

Note on rulers (spoilered in case you would prefer to find out for yourself)

Nope, quite happy to find out about that one before it happens!

[Dreylin]

New POI is another Engineer:


Other options are Facility Lead & Supplies. The Lead is tempting, but with the Brasil Facility out of the way the Avatar Project is under control again for a while (and there's still the Blacksite) so another Engineer it is.

Soon after, the Warlock continues his campaign of knocking down XCOM's potential future income by targeting another region we haven't contacted yet:


Not the last of his dubious decisions this update, as you'll see.

And then the Guerilla Ops pop up:




Hmmmm. I think the Engineer may be the best reward, but the Alien Cypher might be the Dark Event I want to counter most - except maybe for the hidden one, which would be the easiest mission. I have lots of Intel right now, so let's take a look at it:


Well that's not a nice one certainly, but I'll be putting in new Resistance Comms shortly and I don't want to be stuck waiting a month before making contacts so I'm going to Brasil again!

Lost are on the menu, so I build a Lure:


Here's the best squad I can put together:


Not ideal taking Adrien & Dragunova with a Will hit, but not much I can do about it without fielding a bunch of raw recruits.

There will be consequences of this....