XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen

[Dreylin]

What's the leading cause of Climate Change?

If you said ALIENS, you're dead right! Who else would do so much to screw up the Earth's atmosphere (bigly)? It's part of their sinister scheme I tell you!

So, as I watch the remains of 'ol Harvey move away and thank our neighbourhood's investment in drainage for keeping our home safe, it seems a perfect time to kill some Alien scum.

This is a blind run-through of War of the Chosen (or WotC as people with no familiarity of what else that acronym stands for insist on calling it). It will start out as a solo game, but if anyone else has interest in joining in then I'm open to turning it into an SG.

On to the setup and we've got a new starting image here with a coweled figure - ooooo:

Going to risk going in blind with Commander but not taking Ironman; I'll keep manual Ironman as best I can, but I want to guard against potential bugs and ill-explained/unfair new mechanics.

Tutorial on so we get the full intro to the new stuff. Speaking of:

Old DLC enabled, with new integration; I guess we'll see what that means.

And so we start with a new pre-Gatecrasher intro:



Cowled lady sneaks into the Advent medical facility to bust a few heads and scout out the Commander's presence.

The Gatecrasher Tutorial is still the same railroad with two redshirts, aged sweater-guy and Kelly:



Also Codex buns:


The Commander is safely extracted and Tygen rips out the chip:


There's a quick stop by the science department to start some research before we're off on our next whirlwind adventure:

Luke's old mission to get a Power Converter!

[Dreylin]

So we've got Ranger Kelly and 3 raw recruits here:

Couple of interesting things off the bat: only Frags available as Utility options, and that green line under the health bar - more on that later.

This is the same mission as the original tutorial, a straight shot up the map with a couple of pods between us and the objective and a third pod behind it.

Ambush on the first pod proceeds as expected:


But Kelly and a rookie take hits in the firefight with the second:


Package is secured (timer off) and we trigger the final pod:


A Sectoid, Yay!


Moreau is our hockey mask guy, but he gets his revenge:


One of the Troopers is shot / exploded, and then it's down to Kelly to finish off the last:



Our loot haul includes the dropped Elerium Core and the Power Converter, which Shen gets faaar too excited about:

I believe Bradford's phrase was "let's hope it fits..."

[Dreylin]

Well, after that we head down to Engineering to meet the lady herself:

We are tasked with buying a Medkit ... yes, a singular Medkit. A pickup from Long War 2, and I wonder how far it extends.

Then it's off to Tygan for a chip chat:

Next up Modular Weapons because we've already got some plug 'n play components.

A new mission pops up, but it's out of range of the Skyranger so....



Guess that part fit well enough then!

Gearing up with our new Sniper, Moreau the Specialist and a pair of Rookies:

Note the Will stat. At first I thought this was some sort of Offensive/Defensive split, but I eventually worked out / was notified that Will is reduced by Mission events - the Fatigue mechanic from LW1 reborn. Of course knowing that ahead of time might have helped...

[Dreylin]

Actually, it's not the only thing about this mission that's poorly explained:


We have to get to a big purple blob and ... blow it up before they disconnect it from something? And we have 4 turns to do it!? Time to motor across the map (a new one BTW) - oh, a Sectoid-Trooper pod.

Lots going on here; triggered the pod from the balcony, but Perry was in a perfect position to flank the Trooper (that's him at the bottom-left of the screenshot) and score the kill - I like the new notification style, BTW.

A grenade takes off half the Sectoid's health, but we can't land the kill shot through a combination of poor planning and positioning (I /really/ miss LW2's 45degree camera movements).

Oh, and another pod shows up:

Down to 2t, but what is this little purple bubble? Yep, it's the bomb disposal mission redux. Once we blow one up and delay the countdown, Tygen comments that "our theories have proven correct" and we'll be having words about sharing theories before mission deployment next time.

But first things first, Gonzalez lands a shot to kill the injured Sectoid:


And we land a grenade to kill the Trooper:


Scratch that 

Moreau is once again targeted for Mind Control and once again missed.

Perry gets the flank on the Trooper to take it down:

And I get an intriguing notification for an Ability Point gained

The Sectoid kindly raises the first Trooper as a Zombie so we have some respite. A Sniper shot lands from the balcony and Moreau heads in for his revenge:

and missess.

But Perry cleans up:


Time to push on towards the Objective, taking out a few nodes until - Ugh, reinforcement drop behind us:


Team is split at this point with Perry & Moreau nearby and Sniper & Gonzalez further away - at least Buskirk has taken elevation:


We're running out of nodes (Tygen helpfully informs us) so Gonzalez makes a break for the purple blob while the others try to clean up the reinforcements:

Damnit, he was shaping up well!

I think Buskirk misses this one:

but Moreau moves back to flank and finish this last one off.

2t left, so Gonzalez has to take a risk and hope the blob is not guarded...

Sure, why not. <sigh>

Both Troopers miss though so he heads in to plant the charges:


And we hope it doesn't explode immediately since he used the second movement to take out the flanked Trooper. No explosion (I guess we don't need to blow it up /quite/ immediately!?), but it looks like his success could be shortlived...

It's a miss! 

Can anyone say Plot Armour?

This guy can't:



Take Mission Photo, you say?

Well it's a great way to mask / occupy the load times!

[Dreylin]

Back to base and we also get the opportunity to immortalise Mr. Perry:

We'll never know what he looked like behind his mask?

Spec. Moreau is promoted Combat Protocol:


And more to unpick here with "Combat Intelligence" (no idea) and "AP" (need a Training Center to learn about) as well as that reduced Will stat, which we see leading to this:



Our Engineer starts clearing some Debris and Sinister Bald Dude shows up to give us a pep talk:


We're in South Africa and the Blacksite is nice and close by in Egypt.

The railroad progresses through a free Scientist (nice!) to Modular Weapons completion:


OK, so we'll do that then.

And when our Debris is cleared we see more new stuff:


I start to build the GTC, since it's lower cost than the Training Center and I may need to add some extra Rookies or build a few additional items.

I build a Flashbang.

Cutscene!


So here's our intro to the new factions; that there was Volk of the Reapers whose agent confirmed the Commander's location, but apparently the intel originally came from Betos of the Skirmishers ... and they hate each other of course.


But we're going to oversee a rendevouz in South America that will try to pursuade them to work together with us:


Or in South Africa instead I guess.

Looks like we're only getting a 2-man squad for this so I gear up our two experienced guys and get going:

And since I'm off the rails, I can get go ahead and claim the first uninjured survivor; "Plot Armour" Gonzalez becomes Harvey Dreylin. I'm going to leave Kelly since she's plot-named, but Squaddies will get RB names going forward.

Oh, I guess I get a second 2-man squad then?

2 promising recruits are selected and we'll try out our Flashbang.

[Dp101]

A blind playthrough? You are very brave, there's a whole bunch of changes. If you are happy to turn this into an SG then I'd like to play, but I have spoiled myself with everything so I understand if you'ld rather I just answer specific questions on things rather than playing knowing what's coming up. Very excited to see how this mission goes for you.

[Dreylin]

So we have a creepy intro and ... I have no idea what this even is:


But I guess Reapers eat the heads maybe!?


And we get to hang out with a Reaper on this mission. They have some sort of super-stealth and can fire an environmental explosive (which then needs to be shot to detonate):


So remember those odd things from the first XCOM intro:


Yeah, so they make zombies:


Hordes & hordes of zombies, but we get a new mechanic to keep them under control:


After the first wave, we take high ground and don't encounter more until we reach the far side:


Expanded clips a must for Lost missions, I think.

Fairly straightforward introduction to The Lost, I think. Wait a sec, what's happening now?

Oh, of course the other Envoy. This is Mox, he's a Skirmisher who are a group of ex-Advent who (spontaneously?) broke their conditioning and now fight against Advent. Our friendly Reaper informs us that Mox himself was leader of a particularly feared death squad before turning. Yay.


Skirmishers come equipped with a Grapple, a Grapple-tug attack, and a LW2 Ranger's ability to fire as first action and then do anything with their second action. Neat.

So more Lost over here then I suppose?


Oh, so these are one of the new Advent guys, the Purifier, I wonder what they d... holy crap, holy crap I'm on fire!!!

Again though, a new mechanic to help with that as Hunker Down now eliminates Fire.

OK, so she has to do that or die to burning. How to handle them; Mox grapples the full-health one, moving it adjacent to him and dealing 4 damage then follows up with a shot to kill it.


That leaves LeFevre to try and get a flank shot to kill the other. Fun fact though, these guys seem to have a tendency to explode when dying near vehicles sending the whole area to kingdom come (I had to restart the mission here once) so he goes for a less effective flank, misses, and then gets set on fire for his trouble on the Advent turn. <Sigh>

Cheng gets vengeance on the next turn.


We pause to reload before advancing and whaaaaaaaaa:


That's a lot of guys for a training mission and the extraction is on the other side! Do we have a plan for...


OK then, Mox helpfully explodes the whole thing ... good job the city's not filled to the brim with zombies that are attracted to sounds of combat, isn't it?

We're going to have to wait 4t before you can get us an alternative evac!? Central, we are having WORDS after this mission!

4t of waiting on a roof and then we make a run for the exit; Mox takes a few hits, but we make it without anyone dying (quite):





Note to self, Flashbangs do not work on The Lost.

Phew, now they've met this is over right...


Crap.

[Dreylin]

Yeah, so this bitch showed up to make trouble:

Pity I've used up almost all of my Grenades.

At least I have a medkit to heal up one of the injured party, and we hunker on this elevated highway and wait to see what she does:


Hmmm, appear at a random point, charge in and slash the nearest person to death ... who happens to be Mox. <Sigh> OK, let's try this again:

Better, I guess?

The "Dazed" effect can apparently be removed by an adjacent Ally, but that just downgrades to "Disoriented" which is only a bit better. Doubly poor planning because Kelly has our last grenade.

The Assassin has hidden herself in a corner below the tracks; I manage to land a hit from the Reaper for bonus damage, miss a couple of 30-40 percenters and position the rest for next turn.

Erm, well I hope that's temporary!

Despite her blindness she still gets a ~40%er for revenge, but it's a miss. A couple more pot shots fail to connect but they good ol' Harvey Dreylin lands a shot to take another health chunk and she decides to run away


Although she does leave us with a parting gift of a beating green beacon to summon The Lost.

Montage!





We make it to the evac point with no further losses (but lots of comments from Central and Tygen about the large "biomass" converging on us). Mox & Reaper-chick have a "trust" moment when he holds off the horde so she can evac first, but then at the last minute the Assassin pops up again and grabs him before he can escape with us.



"Plot Armour" make it through with a promo, and while I'd like to have him Gunsling, I think Long Watch is probably most useful this early. I assume the AWC functionality for retraining will be accessable later, although Return Fire is not a great loss.

Reaper chick takes promos in a different matrix:

I grab this one that lets her blow up the Claymore (or other explosive) without risking being revealed.



Volk is pleased, and we seem to have improved relations between the factions, but not without cost:


And that's quite enough for a first chunk. I'll probably take the rest in 1-mission chunks and will also start rolling out the RB recruits for more hilarious deaths...

[Dreylin]

A blind playthrough? You are very brave, there's a whole bunch of changes. If you are happy to turn this into an SG then I'd like to play, but I have spoiled myself with everything so I understand if you'ld rather I just answer specific questions on things rather than playing knowing what's coming up. Very excited to see how this mission goes for you.

Yeah, I had to restart the second & third parts of that mission a couple of times; losing one of the XCOM pair to the Purifier led to The Lost overrunning the other and Mox. And then the Assassin killed Mox first off, so I had to have another swing at the third part. The Lost themselves seemed mostly manageable and The Chosen didn't seem worse than the Rulers - albeit we wouldn't have met them so early.

As for blind vs. spoilers (solo vs. SG); I'm thinking let me get past / through all the new stuff and then we'll revisit SGing it when the mission pace slows.

[RefSteel]

I haven't the faintest idea what's going on here, so definitely include me in!

(That is definitely not a recipe for being gruesomely killed by aliens ... or ... whatever.)