XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[RefSteel]

Hit a crit in the clutch, save the day with the kill - well, a part of the day at least - and then I can just kick back, let my drone heal my front-line buddies, and take down a giant soccer ball when it's already stunned. Yep: Nobody rests on their laurels like a Ref clone!

[haphazard1]

Giant evil soccer balls...what will the alien overlords think of next?

Nice touch with the alien leader armor causing panic. Had not seen that behavior before.

[Jowy]

Huh, the 'sees an XCOM op wearing the skin of their leader = panic' thing is surprisingly logical.  But I'd never have thought to include that feature.  Would you have found it if the mission went more controllably and Brick stayed in cover the whole time?

Nice save!  And nice report, again .

If it was mentioned in the armor description, I had already forgotten all about it until I saw it in action. Definitely wasn't my plan to lure in the Archon

Giant evil soccer balls...what will the alien overlords think of next?

Nice touch with the alien leader armor causing panic. Had not seen that behavior before.

First time I saw it I thought it was a Cyberdisc from the previous game. Those things really liked killing my campaigns.

[Jowy]

Next mission teaser:

[AdrienIer]

Aaaaaah finally

[Jowy]

Base Management: Taking over the world!

Note: I've started to resize the pics to reduce the stress on our internet connections when reading the thread.
Problem was that despite being hid inside the spoiler tags, all the pictures would be loaded regardless.

Sectopod Breakdown gave us a new and improved drone. We can't afford to build it yet though
Went for the Viper King autopsy next. Even if the armor is outdated by now, I believe they can all be upgraded.



Avatar Project is getting up there.

Battlefield Medicine finished, our medkits were upgraded to Nanomedkits, which heal a bit more.



Our final building, the Psi Lab, is complete! We've now unlocked the fifth class, but we need a fresh rookie to be one. Let's see who was up next..



Welcome to the team Mardoc! You are going to be stuck in the Psi Lab for a while, but hopefully you'll be ready for action before we end the game



We made contact with East Asia, built a radio tower there, then made contact with New Indonesia, where the next Alien Facility is located. We're assaulting it right away.



Pretty much the same setup as before. We're facing a Gatekeeper and a Sectopod, but we were already carrying our anti-mech arsenal. Wouldn't mind another EMP Bomb actually, but we can't even afford the 75 supply upgrade to our drone right now.

[Mardoc]

Welcome to the team Mardoc! You are going to be stuck in the Psi Lab for a while, but hopefully you'll be ready for action before we end the game

All right!    World's foremost expert on combat psionics, veteran's benefits, and I don't even have to get shot at?

[Jowy]

Mission 27: Operation War Wheel Part 1

Normal hill start. Found enemies outside the facility walls. It's a weak pod with a codex! Since there's no turn timer, this would be a great time to skulljack it.



We're doing it properly this time. No overwatches. Jkaen hits for max damage and sets the Shieldbearer on fire.



Rho was a few tiles too far to use the Skulljack this turn.



Instead, we'll kill the other two, throw down a Mimic Beacon to lure the Codex further in, and of course not have anyone on overwatch.



It ran away   That's one Mimic Beacon wasted.



We didn't find the Codex, but two ADVENT soldiers. We actually spotted them before they spotted us thanks to David still being concealed, but I messed up while setting up.
Jkaen got off an overwatch shot, but no-one else did. And that one missed, too. So we had to blow up the trees to get good shots on them.



Rho used Chain Shot at 92% odds, but only needed one shot as it crit for 11.
Brick killed the other one with a 97% sniper shot. She's still up on the hill for a height advantage.
We also have vision on a heavy turret on top of the building, but only David is in range of it and he's concealed.



The next pod appeared: A Gatekeeper (who gets an overwatch shot in the face by Brick for 13 damage), two Archons, and the Codex. Quite a tough group!
When the closest Archon ran in, it panicked and took a shot at their heavy turret. Maybe we should give the Icarus Armor to someone in the front lines, seems to trigger quite easily.



Our squad was fairly split in the targets we could go for from our full cover positions, so we started by attacking the panicked Archon with those who couldn't hit the other.
Jkaen hit it with a 66% shot and applied holo-targeting, RefSteel climbed up on the hill and hit on a 88%, but it only grazed the Archon.
Rho moved to another full cover spot behind a tree to get sight on the Archon, then killed it with perfect odds.



I wanted to get David involved in the fight, but he had to leave his position because when concealment wears off, the heavy turret would have a shot at him.
I moved him to another full cover, but well, my plan of throwing a flash bang at the remaining enemies had to be binned. He couldn't throw it past the tree he was hiding behind.



Brian took the first shot at 50% to apply holo-targeting, but he also won the coin flip! David followed up with a hit of his own, taking the Archon down to low HP.



Brick could finish off the Archon, but that would leave the Codex and the Gatekeeper to reign free. Instead, she threw down our second Mimic Beacon.



The Codex teleported closed and took a shot at the Mimic Beacon. It'll be in Skulljack range now!
Next up the Gatekeeper took a shot and we saw a rare MISS! The Archon also moved forward and killed the beacon.
Mimic Beacons before the nerfs must have been something else, cause they are still very much worth taking  



Before we tackle the Codex issue, let's take out the other enemies. RefSteel was able to kill the injured Archon.



Against the Gatekeeper we could use the EMP Bomb, but I want to save it for the Sectopod. We should have the firepower to deal with this without the bomb.
Brian Shanahan started us off with an Acid Bomb, shredding 4 of its 6 armor.



Jkaen wins the coin flip, shreds the rest of the armor, applies holo-targeting, and rolls max damage.



Brick also gets a max damage roll for a massive 15 damage! She got a boost with the Bluescreen Rounds.



With the ball deflated, Rho ran in to Skulljack the Codex. 70% chance to work. She pulled it off! We even got some intel as a bonus reward.
Rho will be in range of the heavy turret next turn, but she will be in full cover and far away.



Oh boy. That's what the Rulers used to exit the stage. Now something is coming the other way?!  

Continued in Part 2.

[Jowy]

Mission 27: Operation War Wheel Part 2

It's a fucking supersaiyan, I knew it!

It's actually called an Avatar. Wait, I've heard that name before. Aren't we trying to stop the AVATAR PROJECT?

The plot thickens.  



We have ONE action left and it has all of us flanked. Fuck. I doubt we'd ever get a better opportunity to Skulljack a Codex, but even this one seems DANGEROUS.
Let's throw a flash bang at it. It worked! It's disoriented. Whew.



Rho gets hit by the heavy turret



And the Avatar finishes the job with a crit. RIP Rho21  
First death since Mission 13. Although we've had many disasters since then, we've always managed to live through them somehow.
Of course the death happens when I don't screw things up  



So yeah, we should really kill it before it gets off another shot, or whatever spells it might have. Start by blowing up the cover as usual.
We could maybe get some more accurate shots off by moving toward it, but I want to stay where we are to avoid activating a pod from the fog.



Only 15 defense, but it has a lot of HP. I hope Long War 2 has HP as a number, gets kinda stupid trying to count the HP pip by pip.
The Avatar dodges and the shot only deals 4 damage in a grazing shot, but also the armor gets shredded and holo-targeting is applied.



RefSteel with a clutch 13 damage crit! Not the first time she pulls it off.



Brick was out of sniper ammo, but jumped down to pistol range and finished off the Avatar



To complete Rho's revenge, we took down the heavy turret next turn. Could have used the rocket launcher, but it's better to save it if we don't need it.
We're going to retrieve Rho's body and take it with us. Mostly for the loot, but also to respect the dead, I guess.



Hearing sounds from inside the facility where our bomb site is at.



It's a Sectopod with some adds. We hit with two overwatch shots. Getting the holo-targeting in for free is nice!



Brian misses on a 75%, though we've had really good hit luck so far, so you can have this, aliens.



EMP Bomb goes off for 12 damage through the armor. No stun, we definitely need to kill it this turn.



It was worth it to save the Rocket Launcher use. Now RefSteel can deal guaranteed damage to the Sectopod (and some to the add).



That was enough to give Brick a 100% chance to take down the Sectopod! Biggest threat is dealt with.



David dropped Rho's dead body down to the river, then used Run & Gun and ran to the window to get off an attack.
He could use the flamethrower to get the kill (4 damage at least + burning), but that would block our way in. However a normal attack had a 81% chance to hit, so we took that instead.



That number did not include their inherent chance to dodge   Let's see if the two enemies can focus fire and cause us to suffer a second casualty.



The Trooper throws a freaking grenade! But it only dealt 3 damage each and even missed one of us



The Stun Lancer OTOH was very deadly with a 10 damage attack. Thankfully it chose to attack Brian Shanahan. RefSteel or Jkaen would have died from that hit.



Oh and RefSteel is currently burning alive. We have medkits though so it's fine-ish?



Wasn't hard to kill the last two. We also healed those who were hurt.



Reinforcements are dropping behind us. David is in blue move range of the bomb though, so he planted it and then escaped to the evac zone.



Everyone got out, including Rho's body which hadn't floated off by the time we got back there.



RIP. Looks like it's time for Sunrise to return and fill the specialist slot.
We got some promos. The Avatar kill probably gave a lot of XP.



David unlocked his hidden ability: Chain Shot. It's actually perfect as he is our close quarters specialist.
For his normal perk, I chose Implacable. Bladestorm isn't really worth it when we don't have Blademaster nor high tier blades built.

Brian Shanahan got Volatile Mix (nades deal +2 damage), RefSteel got Covering Fire (overwatch gets triggered by any enemy action).



Hail of Bullets (guaranteed damage that uses a lot of ammo) sounds fun, but Salvo (using explosives first doesn't end your turn) fits perfectly to my current play style, so I went with that for Jkaen.



This is what Rho died for. I guess we'll find out the implications of it once we've finished the autopsy.



Killing the Avatar reduced the progress of the Avatar Project by 3, as did destroying the base. We should be safe on that front. Now it's just a matter of finishing up all the story missions.

[AdrienIer]

MVP : the flashbang you threw at the avatar. You'd have been in trouble if it could have used its powers.