XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[Jowy]

Looking forward to the next mission ... in a couple of months' time?

Hey!  We're back in action!  I mean, at least briefly, but it's something!

[Jowy]

Mission preview:

[Jowy]

Base Management:

With Mardoc in the infirmary, we might as well have someone else train in the Psi Lab. Welcome to the team Molach!



Map was simple enough to return to.. Just two things to interact with: an Intel cache, and a story mission in an area we haven't unlocked yet.

There's also an UFO. We flew right by it, but nothing happened. I guess it needs to catch us while we're in the ground?

Next Alien Facility and the next Retaliation Strike are in 3 weeks.

We completed the Serpent Suit (from Viper King loot). I queued up an Exp Heavy Weapon.. The Flame Thrower was pretty meh, maybe this one'll be better.

We finished our research (Alien Data Cache Decryption) and ADVENT Turret Breakdown (it was instant). Next up we'll jump back to the Shadow Chamber for story (researching the suit we brought back).

Got 71 Intel from scanning a cache, then moved on to contact New Australia where our next story mission lies.

Molach learned Soulfire.



For his next ability, I chose Solace. It sounds interesting, I think it might be very valuable when disaster strikes.

I had supplies to spare, so I bought some tactics. The Ranger, Specialist and Grenadier ones. They're passive buffs for those classes. We already had the Sharpshooter one.

Also did some work in the base: Optimized our engineer use, upgraded our power, and started building a Defense Matrix, which we just got from the turret research. It's a building that'll give us turrets "in the case of a ground assault on the Avenger"  

Guerrilla Ops popped up!



I chose the hardest one coz the Dark Event could potentially be a pain, unlike the two that we knew about. Will we finally manage to recover an item successfully?

Before we head out, I upgraded our RAGE and Serpent Armors to more powerful versions.



Here's the new Serpent Armor, looks quite snazzy! Oh and it does things. +7 health, +2 movement, +40 dodge, and includes a grappling hook (free move to an elevated position) and a special Frostbite freezing ability!

I handed out our extra PCS' even though they might not be perfect fits. Brian Shanahan got the +4 mobility one, and someone got the dodge one.. DP maybe? I forgot. Anyway here's our squad for this mission:



Haphazard1 and Dp101 are the new arrivals for this mission. I want Haphazard to get some levels and be our third Specialist now that Rho's gone.
I've neglected investing into Rangers and will continue to do so, BUT I do still want to get some levels on Dp101 in case David gets injured or killed. A concealed scout in the front solves like half our problems.

Mission 30: Operation War Mother

Ah, back in action! Might be a little rusty after the break, but how bad can it be, really?



Spotted a pod by the minibus and a stationary turret, both on our way to the objective. We also know that there's an Archon right by the objective (vision bug).
I chose to chill out and not engage yet, BUT we only have 8 turns so can't take too long.



Equipped with Bluescreen Rounds, Brian Shanahan will almost 1-shot the turret. You know, if he didn't miss like he always does. It was a 80% shot.



While that attack did nothing to help us, it did draw in a second pod. Luckily they are in a juicy spot to be bombed.
Boom goes the minibus! The Andromedon takes critical damage!



I moved RefSteel closer to start getting shots in.. And she draws in another pod. It's getting silly.



Jkaen took out the turret with an EMP Bomb. Could have gone with that originally, but I wanted to save it for the Gatekeeper (big white ball we met once already).



David took the furthest away safe cover, but fell way short with the flash bang. I should have run & gunned with him to get em all in range.
Instead of that, he shot a rocket at the two far away enemies.



With their cover gone, RefSteel had the killing shot at the Officer, but she missed.



Great turn guys. Instead of adding more misses, I gave Brian Shanahan drone defense since he might get flanked, and threw out an emergency Mimic Beacon.



Mimic Beacon absorbed the first two enemy hits.

Next up, the Stun Lancer went for RefSteel, but she dodged! It still dealt 4 damage though.



The Andromedon Acid Bombed Brian Shanahan and Dp101. Coulda been worse I suppose.

Then the other Stun Lancer went for Jkaen, but it missed. Hey, not bad.

When our turn started, both Brian and Dp took 3 extra damage from their Acid Burns.



David used his free SMASH to kill the first guy without spending any actions.



Next up I had Brian Shanahan launch a nade since he absolutely cannot shoot. I positioned it so that it's guaranteed to kill one of the enemies.
It didn't hit the Andromedon directly, but it did blow up the car and dealt damage that way.



The Officer that RefSteel failed to kill was pretty far away, but I made use of David's extra mobility to flank him. He had a 75% shot, which he landed.



There was no way to have cover on fire from the west and reliably kill the lancer, so I just went for the flank. A crit (40% chance) would have been a 1-shot kill.



Haphazard couldn't get closer than this, but I went for it anyway. She got the kill! Good job.



We can't really kill both forms of the Andromedon this turn. I had a plan to use Frostbite on it, but turns out it's a roll.. And we had about 50% odds.
So instead RefSteel healed up both Brian and Dp back to full. Though Dp still ended up taking some extra damage walking through the Acid.



I had Dp throw out our second Mimic Beacon. We probably would have survived 1 shot from the Andromedon.. but not 1 crit. Let's not have a repeat of what happened to Rho.



Next turn we killed both Andromedon forms. It does NOT get a free turn if we kill the first form during our turn.



Haphazard used a Battle Scanner to check what's ahead. Just the one Archon we already spotted. There are 11 enemies total, we've now killed 6.
RefSteel hacked the tower for a small cache of intel (100% chance).



Next turn I used the grappling hook to get more vision and hopefully aggro a pod. No such luck. We tried again by moving towards the road with DP and David, still nothing.
Okay I'll just have RefSteel move to the full cover close by, that oughta do it!



Hello there every single enemy left on the map  

Well, we know we'll be done once we kill em. Don't think we can clear all, but we can probably get some AoE down on the Archons, maybe scare the Vipers with our new armor.



I moved Brian Shanahan to the corner for full cover, ready to let those Archons taste explosions! Then I realized what was going on.
This sweetie is peeking the wrong way and CAN'T ATTACK THE ALIENS



With that, I was donezo. Better cut our losses and get out of there.



Was it still possible to win? Of course. We would lose people though. Not worth it.





Three injuries. Dp101 got a rank up though! He unlocked a hidden skill: Death From Above. It's garbage. I gave him Conceal as his Lieutenant skill.

Failed to Counter Dark Event: ADVENT Alloy Padding. Enemies will have extra armor in missions. Eh, could be worse.

"Recover the Item" missions continue to be a pain.

[RefSteel]

Uhhh ... errrrrr ... sorry guys. I ... I mean, see, I was thinking about how I'm a medic, right? And not that intimidating? And so I wanted to practice like my best battle cries and roars and whatever, to be ... you know ... more impressive for the nice resistance people we're trying to help out, right?

Only...

So the Commander says I shouldn't practice my battle cries when we're trying to sneak around on a covert ops mission apparently? Er. Sorry for bringing all those Advent down on us and everything.

I think he meant my battle cries. He just called it "that infernal squeaking."

[haphazard1]

I get to go on missions? And shoot people? This is great! Wait, we failed the mission? But I shot that guy, like I was supposed to. Oh well...maybe next time we can complete a mission. We'll get 'em next time! And maybe I can shoot more people.

[Jowy]

XCOM 2 expansion pack was just announced, will be available in two months. I guess I should hurry up.

[Jowy]

Next time:

[Jowy]

Base Management:

Shadow Chamber research finished:



They are making Avatars and need psionically sensitive humans to do it. All's as expected. We might have sequence broke a bit at some point.

Going back to normal research now, gonna work through the shotgun tree.

Proving Ground project finished. We now have a Shredder Gun. I'll show it off next mission.
We're down to our last core, but I queued up a WAR suit since we're still using EXO's that are less advanced.

We made contact with New Australia and have access to the next story mission!



Let's go for it. I might be a little rusty, but there are no tough enemies to face on this mission.



Since a bunch of soldiers are on the infirmary, we're bringing in the A team! Sunrise, Old Harry and Brick are back in action.

Mission 31: Operation Gilded Tears

Sweet, a new map. Let's find out where little Codexi come from.



Good ol Kill Zone! I'll also have Jkaen on OW since he's got Guardian. Brick starts off the engagement with a sniper shot at a Codex for a guaranteed kill if it hits.



Brick got the kill, but Jkaen's shot only grazed, and OH missed the Archon and couldn't kill off the other Codex. When hit, it cloned itself and the new copy has us badly flanked.



We only have 3 soldiers left to move. Let's try out the Shredder Gun for some guaranteed damage.



Holy crap!   Somehow it destroyed BOTH trees to its right, way out of the cone range.



Sunrise had a great chance to kill the Archon, but it's another grazing shot.



Just David left to move, two enemies left. We have a free strike to work with, but there's a problem.
In XCOM, if you want to zoom out, you'll also hide the lower levels of a building. So it was actually impossible to see if we'd have line of sight and be in range after moving.



In any case, David crushed the Codex. Now to find out whether we have a shot..



He's done it!!   Was actually another grazing shot, but it was enough damage to get the kill.



Took a while to find the next pod. We kept hearing em, but they wouldn't walk into our ambush. We kept moving forward bit by bit.
Finally, they arrived:



I think he's about to fall over.

Haphazard missed. Old Harry missed. Brick missed. David missed.  



Sunrise hits!



Sunrise hits!



Sunrise hits!



Sunrise hits! Now there's your goddamn MVP!

Oh, and Jkaen also missed.



Taking down the last two enemies was simple enough. Haphazard got the last kill for XP.

They dropped some loot, we grabbed it: An Advanced Laser Sight and a PCS: Superior Agility (+ dodge chance!).



The screen kept panning out to Chrysalids burrowing. If you recall, I didn't really get much of a chance to fight em the last time we saw some. They're definitely different in XCOM 2, and I don't know what they do.



Finally got my sight on one. Old Harry killed it in one shot with a little help from dragon rounds.



Didn't know what to think of the burrowing, so we kept creeping on towards the objective. One of the Chrysalids was trying to flank us!  



Brick and David both missed it, but Sunrise had their backs.



But wait! It's a two-pronged attack! Sunrise hit this one too, and Haphazard finished it off!



But wait! It's a three-pronged attack! The third one broke Sunrise's combo.



Jkaen and Old Harry had no luck either.



The one that lived rushed straight for Haphazard.. And didn't do a thing. It had to use two moves to get there.
Jkaen got the kill. Now onward to the ominous purple gate!



What is behind door number one?



Oh crap. I moved Sunrise to a new cover, and a Chrysalid popped out and got a free turn. So that's what the burrowing does.
It attacked Sunrise. Dealt some damage and poisoned him.



"Hey Sunrise, thanks for having our backs!" - Jkaen, probably.



That's better. Once the Chrysalid was down, Sunrise healed himself back up to full.



When I moved closer to the gate, things started going down. First a Chrysalid unburrowed, but Old Harry killed it in one shot.



Next, a Gatekeeper appears from the gate (heh). Uhh, I left my EMP Bomb in my other pants.



Oh and these three spawned out of nowhere.








Oh, still standing? Let's see how many you can take.



Salvo is a nice skill. All the Chrysalids are dead.



Brick managed a rare triple-miss on the Gatekeeper. Maybe this semi-retirement thing wasn't such a good idea?



David's crit made up for it. Mission complete! Apparently, we're taking the whole purple gate back with us.



Sunrise got a little beat up. I suppose it's because he got poisoned? I think injuries are only supposed to happen if they pierce your original non-buffed HP, which didn't happen.
Haphazard got Medical Protocol for her rank up. Will be going down the medic tree for the most part. With Bluescreen Rounds and EMP Bombs we don't have much need for anti-mech abilities.
David Corperial got Untouchable. If he scores a kill, the next attack against him will miss. Very nice for a soldier we're sending to rush in deep.

[naufragar]

I think injuries are only supposed to happen if they pierce your original non-buffed HP

I seem to remember that this is the rule for XCOM 2012 (and maybe only Long War, at that) and any damage in 2 gives wound time.

[haphazard1]

It is good to see this game and thread active again. Another exciting mission, plus I got to shoot some things and even got a promotion. Good stuff.