Evac Zone is on a roof and we get a glimpse of what to expect when we get there.
We start on top of a gas pump! WTF! That's the last place we stand to be standing on. Not much cover in blue move range either.
Brick climbs up and activates the first pod. Just what I was afraid of.
Brian moves down to a sort-of-cover.. Let's just hope we kill all enemies or he'll probably get flanked. Starting with a brand new Plasma nade.
Codex clones itself and the new one moves to full cover. We won't have many shots on it, and any will take the -40 aim penalty.
Old Harry takes a shot at the trooper who lost his cover. Crit or high damage with Dragon Rounds applied would guarantee the kill, but he rolled low.
With two 4 health Codexi and one 3 health Trooper, Brick could use her faceoff to deal 3-6 damage to each.
However I kinda fucked that up, cause I used the "free" pistol shot on the hard to hit Codex, except it wasn't free cause she had already moved, so her turn ended before I could use Faceoff.
She did at least kill the Codex who was in high cover, so could be worse.
RefSteel and Sunrise climbed on the high roof and took down the two low health enemies. Only a Shieldbearer left, who was rushed down by Rho.
After the Rage Strike, she had a 100% chance to kill the Shieldbearer with a normal shot. Glad we handled that without having to see the gas tanks explode under Old Harry who had to stay stationary to take his shot.
Rho moves up to a nice full cover to check for the next group. She found what she was looking for, but maybe not what she was hoping for.
It's the Archon King making his return. He's at low health, but came with two buddies this time. Facing just two Archons is kinda scary, nevermind the King on top of it.
Old Harry has a chance to take it down before it gets a turn, but the shot only grazes it for 3 damage.
Rho tanks a direct hit for 8 damage. Another one of those and she's DEAD.
The pressure is on Brick. Gotta land this. Rho herself would have a similar % shot, but I really need her to throw down a Mimic Beacon so the normal Archons don't murder us.
Another grazing shot. Dammit! Now we pray for Rho
Heh nevermind, it died from status effects. Archon King down! That should be the last we see of the Rulers. Or is it....
Anyway, Rho threw down the Mimic Beacon. Brian and Sunrise went into overwatch.
Brian and Sunrise both missed. Sunrise's miss was unfortunate, he had +20% accuracy from height advantage and +15% from advanced scope.
Even against the Archon's defense, the chance to hit was probably around 80% or so, and with his perks he would have gotten more shots for every hit he landed.
Both Archons hit the Mimic Beacon. The picture should tell you just how dead Rho would be without that Mimic Beacon.
Old Harry started us off since he can only see one of them. He connected for 4 damage and applied a burning status effect.
Brick still doesn't get to use her Faceoff because the other Archon is too far. Instead, she takes her (this time free) pistol shot and lighting hands to get the Archon down to 1 HP.
We can let it be now. It will burn to death on alien turn.
I could get close with Rho for a nice chain shot, but I don't necessarily want to walk forward right now and draw in another pod.
Instead we take two coin flip shots with Brian and RefSteel, and the latter lands one for 8 damage.
Sunrise has a great shot from the roof. He lands it, taking the Archon down to 2 HP. Rho then finished it off with Combat Protocol.
After our turn ended, the other Archon did indeed burn to death. Engagement over!
We checked the roof and the courtyard with a battle scanner, it's all clear. We know that there is a pod at the Evac Zone though.
Unexpectedly another pod patrolled into us from the street side. A Codex and a nearly hidden Sectoid. We didn't get any overwatch shots on them.
RefSteel launched a rocket to take down their cover and injured the Sectoid too. I'm trying not to activate the other pod that is just around the Evac Zone.
Old Harry landed a crit on the Codex, who then cloned itself.
Brick took a free pistol shot at the new Codex and missed. Then she got to finally use Faceoff. She killed the original Codex, but again missed the new one.
Rho lands a low % shot on the Sectoid to kill it. If it lived, that wouldn't have been the end of the world, it'd probably have used some weak psi move.
Combat Protocol takes care of the last Codex.
The Sectoid dropped some loot. Next turn, we got vision on a MEC near it. It's part of the Evac Zone pod. We can now draw them out and fight them.
After doing so, Brian launched an Acid Grenade at two of them.
Rho and Sunrise went for a double team of Combat Protocol drones to take down the MEC.
RefSteel and Brick went for coin flips on the Trooper. RefSteel missed, Brick didn't. Trooper was taken down to 1 HP and died to Acid Burns when it was his time to move.
The Officer moved to a new cover and went into overwatch. You know what this means!
RefSteel makes a passing move to draw fire on herself, and the shot misses thanks to Lightning Reflexes.
This allowed Rho to move closer and land a rocket.
RefSteel then hit a 62% shot, and rolled high damage, and got the crit. That was enough to kill the Officer, which wasn't something I expected to happen!
First we threw out a Battle Scanner to check for more pods. None in sight, so Brick went to grab the loot.
I had to learn how to set up custom pathing in order to avoid walking through the acid. We got two Elerium Cores and an Alien Data Cache.
We got out without further trouble. Rho tanked a huge hit, but apart from that the mission went as well as it could.
Promotions for Brian Shanahan and RefSteel, who's now gotten two promotions in two missions.
Brian gets an awesome hidden perk! Synergizes well with Shredder and Holo Targeting.
RefSteel continued down the medic tree and received Revival Protocol.
Next time we get to find out what the Archon King corpse lets us build.
As a reward for completing the mission, we got the Engineer we were escorting out and 135 Intel, taking us up to somewhere in the 300-350 range.
Next will probably be a retaliation strike, but after that I might have some council missions or supply raids where I can train up less experienced soldiers.