XCOM 2 - Till The Last Man Standing

[WarriorKnight]

This move is safe, says the game. Except it was not, we were spotted. Was that a bug or working as intended? I don't know.

Not a bug, you can only see the spotting range of units you have LOS on. It's an issue being on a different elevation, if concealed I try and keep 1-2 units on the floor at all times to maintain max visibility.

AND THE TURRET KILLED LEWWYN. It attacked last turn. It shouldn't be on overwatch. What a cheater.
Okay, now I know that they can attack and also overwatch. There was never an overwatch text pop-up. That's a bug I swear to god I didn't miss it.
However I did learn something new while looking for that text in my screenshots. There's an eye icon on a unit if they are on overwatch. That would have been handy to know a minute ago.

If we see turrets in future maps, I have a plan for them now. We've got something they don't: Legs.

Turrets are super cheap early on since they can fire twice in a turn and have so much armor that's it's difficult to punch through in the early game. They are rare in random missions though, kinda unlucky you had to deal with it this early.

Pro-tip: There are 2 risk-free ways of dealing with turrets if the conditions are right:

1. If you have a sharpshooter and a lot of time, keep everyone out of range of the turret. Move 1 unit in, shoot at it with the Sniper (squadsight allows them to fire at enemies anyone on the team can see), then move the original unit out of range and repeat. Enemies can only fire at you if you can see them, and turrets can't move. This strategy is useful for 1 mission in particular (cough*blacksite*cough).

2. If they are on top of a building, just chuck a nade at it as they instantly die if they fall any height. That didn't happen in this case because train carriages can't be destroyed IIRC, but it's worth keeping in mind.

[Jowy]

2. If they are on top of a building, just chuck a nade at it as they instantly die if they fall any height. That didn't happen in this case because train carriages can't be destroyed IIRC, but it's worth keeping in mind.

I very carefully aimed the grenade so that it would not destroy the train   The objective was directly underneath and I was scared I'd destroy it. Not sure if the train was really destructible (or if the objective is), but parts of the train were highlighted at least.

[WarriorKnight]

2. If they are on top of a building, just chuck a nade at it as they instantly die if they fall any height. That didn't happen in this case because train carriages can't be destroyed IIRC, but it's worth keeping in mind.

I very carefully aimed the grenade so that it would not destroy the train   The objective was directly underneath and I was scared I'd destroy it. Not sure if the train was really destructible (or if the objective is), but parts of the train were highlighted at least.

That reminds me. For missions where you need to collect/hack something, bring a specialist. They don't need to be standing next to the objective in order to complete it, they only need LOS on it (thanks to the GREMLIN). That has saved me many times from a failed mission.

The objective can definitely be destroyed. Parts of the train can probably be destroyed, but not the whole train.

[Jowy]

Base Management: Anything but the rookies!

Welcome to the team Jkaen and WarriorKnight. Before exiting to the world map I bought 3 rookies. The dark event kicked in immediately after.
I thought I read somewhere that the Dark Event wouldn't start until the next month, otherwise I would have spent all our supplies on rookies.

We made contact with West Asia for 40 intel.

One of our rookies completed his training and became a Sharpshooter. His new name is Fenn. I set the next one to be a Grenadier.

It's terror time again. A retaliation mission popped up as expected.

[Krill]

Kill me Jowy.

[sunrise089]

I'd also like to be a trooper.

I've never played any XCOM. Should I buy the remake from a few years ago or this newer sequel?

[Jowy]

Mission 9: Operation Winter Hound

We rolled out with our Grenadier RefSteel, our two new Sharpshooters WarriorKnight and Fenn, and a rookie to make up the numbers.
I built a battle scanner and a flash bang and gave them to our snipers. This is the fourth flash bang I have had to build, will Fenn be the one to break the curse?
We have a new uniform in RB colors for the named characters. I also gave Jkaen a mustache as requested, but he's still in the infirmary so you'll have to wait to see it!



We were dropped off next to a water fall. I sent the rookie to facecheck and we activated a pod on our first move.



It's a new enemy: a MEC Trooper. Can I have the Chrysalids instead?
This guy has 8 health and 2 armor that will reduce all our attacks by 2 if we don't shred it.



We have two snipers. Snipers can't move and shoot. We could stay out of cover and hope we kill both enemies, or go to full cover and use our pistols this turn.
I chose to take cover this turn and flash bang the enemies. In hindsight that was a mistake, I should have gone all out and tried to kill them. Though with our luck maybe our snipers would have missed and died, you never know.



RefSteel launched a grenade to hit both and take down their cover. He shredded 1 armor from the MEC.
The rookie threw a frag at the MEC to shred the remaining armor.



WarriorKnight took a pistol shot at the Advent Officer and missed. Fenn then threw the flash bang at them.
Btw, flash bangs don't work on MEC's 



The MEC shot a grenade of his own at us. Two of our soldiers are injured and will burn alive if they don't move, but that was a relatively good outcome.



Fenn killed the MEC with one shot. It's nice to sometimes hit the target and roll high on damage too!



We return to our regularly scheduled programming with this rookie miss.
The MEC dropped an Advanced Hair Trigger which we looted.

WarriorKnight managed to hit the Officer and killed it.



We moved forward, two units taking the hill. Our second battle scanner located a pod ahead.



I left Fenn on top of the hill, she will hopefully be in range. Plus she's overwatching so if the pod bumps into us we'll get 3 free shots at them.



Suddenly one of the civs transforms to a Faceless. Apparently they can transform even if we don't trigger it.



The rookie hit her shot and rolled high on damage. Fenn will finish it off no problem.



Well then. That's a rookie down.



She clearly has a shot and she was overwatching. Maybe Fenn hates rookies because she never got to go on a mission as a rookie?
Whatever the case, late is better than never and she did manage to kill it.



We activated the pod on enemy turn. WarriorKnight and RefSteel had to do some re-positioning to get everyone in good full cover for the fight, so they were not overwatching. Neither was Fenn because she had to kill the Faceless.
Our second new enemy type this mission is the Muton. They have 9 HP and 2 armor. They are an old enemy from the last game. They use plasma weapons and have high accuracy. An enemy you'll learn to hate quickly.



RefSteel shot her second frag grenade at the Muton and the Stun Lancer. She destroyed their cover, dealt 3 to the Stun Lancer, shredded 1 armor from the Muton and dealt 2 damage to it.
We had two more shots. WarriorKnight had a 65% on the Muton and a 75% on the Stun Lancer. Fenn had a 85% on the Muton and a 95% on the Stun Lancer.
Both had a 50% chance to crit. We might be able to kill both enemies this turn if we get a crit on the Muton.



WarriorKnight missed her 75%. To make sure that we kill at least one of them, Fenn took the 95% on the Stun Lancer and killed it.



The Muton rushed WarriorKnight and melee'd her to death. They've learned new tricks between games!



RefSteel panicked and ran to the civilian.



Oh and a second pod activated. We were also down to 3 civilians left and we needed 3 more to complete the mission.
The enemies were going through them very quickly in the beginning, and we started pretty far away. One even died from a random car explosion.



I called in Evac for Fenn and got her out alive.



WarriorKnight didn't even get a chance to run for the evac zone.



We failed the mission and lost contact with East Asia. That will decrease our income by 77 supplies and we won't have enough time to re-contact them before the next supply drop.
Things are looking GRIM and with the difficulty ramping up, we are in for a world of hurt.

[Fenn]

I can't believe I survived. Go team!

I wonder if you can unlock the squad size expansion by just recruiting/rescuing a Sergeant. It seems like having just four people on a sqaud is starting to hurt now that the missions are ramping up.

[Jowy]

I can't believe I survived. Go team!

I wonder if you can unlock the squad size expansion by just recruiting/rescuing a Sergeant. It seems like having just four people on a sqaud is starting to hurt now that the missions are ramping up.

It would work yeah. Buying soldiers is expensive tho, worth about 7-8 rookies. Rescuing one would be sweet, and at this point just having a soldier with some promotions is a reward in its own right.

[Jowy]

Base Management: Megan Holmes to the rescue!

We sold our Sectoid Corpses and Elerium Cores on the black market. They were "Wanted" by the black market, which I guess means we got more cash for them than we would otherwise.



I wish we had this for sale last month. We would already have Magnetic Weapons by now!
We bought some ovepriced rookies so we can field a team. We were down to 2 healthy soldiers.



We cleared two more rooms and got supplies from them. On to the next ones.
We probably could have staffed two Engineers in one room to clear it faster, but we also have a supply drop incoming so we are (rather surprisingly) OK on supplies atm.



Zero completed missions this month. That's sub-optimal.



New dark events for the month. I didn't spend the intel to see the third one. We need to contact more regions asap.



Shops refreshed their stocks and we found ourselves a Sergeant. Even with our penalties she costs as much as 4 rookies would, but..



We finally get access to Squad Size 1.



For the first perk I gave her Combat Protocol. Guaranteed damage? Sign me up!!



For the second perk I gave her Haywire Protocol. Removing panic would be useful, but maybe we should work towards not being panicked in the first place?
Haywire Protocol sounds so good right now.. Turning a MEC against his own allies is just the kind of borderline unfair move we are in need of.



We had to re-contact East Asia after the retaliation mission failed.



The Avatar Project is chugging along. We're two pips away from entering the timer of total annihilation stage. I've read that at that point we'll have 3 weeks to push it back.
I want us to at least get Magnetic Weapons for the Blacksite mission. There's also a new Alien Facility in Indonesia. Now that we have East Asia again we can make contact with Indonesia when we have 80 Intel.



A Guerrilla Ops mission popped up. We have three choices:

East Asia. Moderate. Reward: Scientist. Counters: Faceless on every mission.
New Arctic. Difficult. Reward: 177 supplies. Counters: Reduction of the retaliation counter by 2 weeks.
West Asia. Moderate. Reward: 80 Intel. Counters: ???

I'm liking the East Asia one. Definitely not picking New Arctic. West Asia would allow us to contact Indonesia immediately, in case the Alien Facility mission is easier than the Blacksite mission? I have no experience with either.



Here's the team that we'll roll out with. This mission will be make or break for the campaign.
We trained two rookies into Grenadiers during this base management section. Their new names are Dantski and Haphazard1.
I'm keeping Megan Holmes as she is, because she's our savior and too badass to be any of us.

It's too late tonight for me to play the mission, expect to see it sometime tomorrow. We can still change the Guerrilla Ops mission to the West Asia one if you guys think I should.