XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[Jowy]

Mission 10: Operation Defiant Stroke

We set out on another Protect the Device mission. New armor looks interesting.



We started on the bottom right corner of the map. The device is inside one of the houses.



Found our first enemies, but we made some orange moves to get there. We'll fight them next turn.



They patrolled a few steps without spotting us. We set up an ambush.
Everyone had a shot except Fenn. Old Harry had a crazy 99% chance to hit. He has a brand new +10 Aim upgrade in his sniper rifle.



Jkaen fragged them, then Adrien and Old Harry connected with their overwatch shots.



Fenn runs in and gets an epic action cam shot. By this point all the enemies were already dead though.



Old Harry got to use one of his shiny new battle scanners.



Found a full pod. Two Sectoids and a Viper. We are a bit far to engage them this turn, but now we know where to set up.



Sunrise checked out the tower hack. I was curious at what the Alien Facility Lead reward was about, but I didn't want to be swarmed by 2-3 pods at once if we failed the roll.



We checked the building and then moved two guys inside since there isn't much cover out in the street.



The device had taken a few shots already, but this time it revealed to us that there's a second pod just behind the building.



Sunrise took a peek from the window. It seems that the closer pod has moved inside the building.



There they are.



Jkaen and Adrien both launched grenades at them, hitting two at once. Didn't kill the one in the middle, but we did get rid of all their cover.
It might be a good idea to get Proving Grounds built soon so we can upgrade our frag grenades.



Old Harry killed the Viper with one very accurate shot.



Fenn was a tile or two too far to get a shot on the Sectoids. We might have went overboard with the grenades.
What we should have done is only shoot one to take down the cover from a Viper and a Sectoid, then kill those two, only leaving one Sectoid alive. Now there'll be two.
Sunrise sent in an Aid Protocol on Jkaen who's cover is at an awkward angle. Aid Protocol was also boosted by Gremlin Mark II, it's now 30 defense.



They were still standing in the open so Fenn had a great overwatch shot when they started running, but she missed.



Sunrise and his drone had Jkaen's back  



The other Sectoid took cover and raised the dead officer from our first fight.



One of them took cover behind a gas canister. Fenn made it go boom.



The explosion burned down the bench that the other Sectoid was using as cover. Jkaen had a clear shot and killed it. This broke the reanimation.
I'd like to say that was all planned, but I didn't think the explosion would be so large.. Jkaen may have burned an eyebrow or two himself.



We moved up the road carefully. There was no need to hurry: Whoever took that shot from behind the building never took a second one.



Fenn moved next to the window, giving us sight inside. No-one there.



Ah, there we go. They ended up patrolling into us. For a while there I was expecting our old friend to make his return, but it's just a Muton and two Sectoids.



We even got off some overwatches! Sunrise missed..



Jkaen missed..



Fenn missed..

Nevermind.



The Sectoids are easily flanked, but the Muton is taking cover behind the thing we're protecting, which worries me greatly.



Sunrise raised the bar with a critical hit and a solo kill!



Not wanting to be outdone, Jkaen killed the other one. Now that's some healthy competition  



If this destroy the wall, we're golden. If this destroys the objective, we're fucked.
Let's not take unnecessary risks when there's only one enemy left.



"Did someone say let's take unnecessary risks? Okay, got it boss!" - Fenn, probably.



THE OBJECTIVE IS NOW ON FIRE. And the Muton has invisible high cover. 



I guess we'll throw in the flash bang and hope for the best.



The Muton melee attacked the objective (I think?). It's no longer on fire though, which is nice.



This flank is too good not to take! We'll have a great chance to kill it outright, and even if we miss, we'll still have 4 other units to move and even a second flash bang to throw at it.



There's no way we won't kill it though, right? No need to be scared, at all, not even the slightest chance that it'd live through the turn and kill Fenn 



NEVER A DOUBT IN MY MIND.



Good recovery after we failed the last mission.



Everyone came back with a promotion.

Jkaen was given Shredder (attacks shred armor).
Sunrise was given Combat Protocol (drone attack with guaranteed damage)
Fenn was given Blademaster (sword attacks have +2 extra damage and +10 aim)



Old Harry now has the Death From Above perk. If we get him to high ground he'll be an absolute monster. Notice his AIM (the stat, not the messenger). That's a 95% hit chance before modifiers.



Adrien is our second (or third if we count Sareln..) lieutenant. She will now have an extra grenade to launch. That's three in total. We could probably run some missions with just her as a grenadier, if we wanted to or had to.



Muton dropped some loot when it died. I think the Elerium Core is something we can use in the Proving Grounds to create weapons and armor. Looking forward to discovering that part of the game.
As a reward for completing the mission, we also got our fourth Scientist. That should be about as many as we'll ever need.

[Jowy]

Base Management: Preparing for the Blacksite

This event popped up. It would be great if we had Resistance Comms built and could actually contact more regions.
Next month the Dark Event we didn't counter will double all Intel costs..



I went to the Black Market and picked up some Elerium Crystals. We needed more to start researching them.
They will presumably lead to the next level of weapon tech.



I also sold some corpses. Found a useful chart here on what you can sell safely.



Discovered that the amount shown when hovering over radio towers isn't what it costs to build one, but how much a radio tower will increase monthly supplies from the region.
They pay themselves with the first supply drop so we should have built them ages ago. I built one in New Mexico and Eastern US.



Psionics finished. Going for the Elerium next, and who knows what after that.



After clearing a room, I set one Engineer aside to work on a Proving Grounds.



A Supply Raid mission popped up before we could make it to the Blacksite.



I built the Arc Blade for our Assaults. Kind of a waste TBH, only increased damage by 1. I'll be surprised if the stun chance is ever relevant.



What I wanted to do was use our B team, but the mission is marked as "Difficult" so I felt I had no choice but to bring our best soldiers.
Let's hope we can avoid injuries so that we can do the Blacksite right after, before the month ends.

[WarriorKnight]

Discovered that the amount shown when hovering over radio towers isn't what it costs to build one, but how much a radio tower will increase monthly supplies from the region.
They pay themselves with the first supply drop so we should have built them ages ago. I built one in New Mexico and Eastern US.

While you did need 1 more radio tower in North America to get the continent bonus, building 2 is a mistake. The supply bonus from building a radio tower is minimal compared to cutting the costs of contacting new regions, and each radio tower costs 50 more supplies then the last. My general guideline for building radio towers is to follow the required amount for continent bonuses and no more (2 in Asia, North America and Africa; 1 everywhere else) but even that gets pretty expensive near the end.

Still, maybe if built early enough it could pay for the last radio tower so idk...

[Jowy]

Discovered that the amount shown when hovering over radio towers isn't what it costs to build one, but how much a radio tower will increase monthly supplies from the region.
They pay themselves with the first supply drop so we should have built them ages ago. I built one in New Mexico and Eastern US.

While you did need 1 more radio tower in North America to get the continent bonus, building 2 is a mistake. The supply bonus from building a radio tower is minimal compared to cutting the costs of contacting new regions, and each radio tower costs 50 more supplies then the last. My general guideline for building radio towers is to follow the required amount for continent bonuses and no more (2 in Asia, North America and Africa; 1 everywhere else) but even that gets pretty expensive near the end.

Still, maybe if built early enough it could pay for the last radio tower so idk...

Ah, I didn't realize that they would scale up. That also explains why the wiki writer thought that losing a region is disastrous: If you also lose the radio tower (and keep the scaling!) then it could be real bad for you. Luckily we hadn't built one when we lost Eastern US.

[Jowy]

Mission 11: Operation Pungent Dream (Part 1)

We start concealed on a hill, with a road ahead of us. It leads into alien buildings.



With our first move we found enemies, but couldn't get close enough to them. On their turn, they patrolled to the left.



There's a new enemy type: An ADVENT Shieldbearer. It starts with 2 armor and probably has some new tricks up its sleeve (wild guess: shields!).



Everyone had a shot now. I set them on overwatch except Jkaen who would start off the fight, and Old Harry who would either kill the stragglers with his two shots or flash bang them.



Jkaen hit all three with his frag grenade.



Adrien missed, Fenn hit one for 5, then Sunrise followed up with a 7. We only managed to kill one of them  



The two survivors ran straight for us. A Stun Lancer and a Shieldbearer.



Old Harry had good shots though. Not quite the 100% he had when they were in the open, but in the 75-85% range.
With Lightning Hands and two sniper shots (an extra one from Death From Above), he can reliably kill them both.



Okay he missed the pistol shot. But not all is lost: Could still roll high on damage to kill the Shieldbearer too. But let's first take the easier kill on the Stun Lancer.



All is lost 



The Shieldbearer created shields for the two of them. Those will absord the first 3 damage against them. Not a problem at all, in fact I highly prefer the shields over him shooting us in the face.



The Stun Lancer wasn't as kind, it climbed up and hit Old Harry in the face. No crit! Only 2 damage and disorientation. Let's be happy that wasn't a Muton.



Needless to say we had pretty good odds to kill it on our turn. I didn't dare melee another melee unit after the Muton incident, but Fenn still got the honors and shot him dead.



Adrien blew up the shield and the cover from the Shieldbearer (who ran away after creating the shields). Jkaen had a 95% shot and he missed with it  



Only Sunrise and Old Harry still had actions left. Sunrise could hit it with 97% odds, but he won't ever have enough damage to kill it. So we had to rely on Old Harry even though he was disoriented.



The two of them landed their shots. First pod down!



One move later, we discovered more enemies. It's a turret. Correction: It's a super-turret.
We never met the basic one on this playthrough, the first one we run into is an upgraded version.
Unfortunately I think this means we'll also face upgraded turrets in the Blacksite mission



Jkaen fragged it.



And it's gone

For real though. I'm not kidding. It's rubble now.



A Battle Scanner located more enemies. We'll set up on the hill and wait for them to walk in.



There they are. Two Vipers and a Sectoid.



We hit three times and missed twice.



That got us two kills, leaving us with one Viper left. It took cover inside the building.



Adrien had enough movement to flank it. Fenn could also melee it, but I'm so scared of meleeing things now. I bet it would just bind her.



Vipers and their damned dodge chance.



Sunrise sent in the drone to finish it off.



The Viper dropped some loot and Fenn went to pick it up.



Old Harry threw his second Battle Scanner trying to locate the last group.



It's the Viper King and two normal Vipers. Let's avenge Krill, shall we?

Continued in Part 2.

[Jowy]

Mission 11: Operation Pungent Dream (Part 2)

Continuation from Part 1.



Of course we are not in any particular hurry to avenge Krill, let's retreat to the hill and wait for them to come to us.



When they found us, we only got off two overwatches, but that was enough to kill one of the small ones.



He's back and he's pissed off!



I wanted to kill the "adds" first. Old Harry took a 95% shot at the small Viper and rolled high on damage to kill it in one shot.



And so begins the pandemonium. On its first turn, it only moved closer.



Adrien took the first shot, she grazed it for 3.



Fenn and Sunrise were frozen by the boss.



Jkaen hit it hard for max damage.



The boss did not like that.



Not one bit.



Jkaen was grabbed, bound, and took 4 damage. If that number ramps up he's in real trouble.
Btw we have no shots on the Viper this turn  



Let's hope this breaks it.



It worked! Jkaen was freed and the boss used its turn to move to cover.



We still had the problem of not having shots on it, so I opted to destroy its cover again, hoping that it moves to a more visible tile.



We did force it to move, but it was still hidden to most of us.



Jkaen was the exception and he hit it for max damage again.



That was enough to make the boss flee. We reloaded someone's gun, then the boss took the portal out of here.
Interesting to note is that the disorientation lasted for 3 turns. Status effects might be the way to go.



Mission complete. The Viper King got away, but we'll get it next time.



Jkaen and Old Harry were wounded during the mission. Jkaen can't make it to the Blacksite, but I think we can staff an Engineer in the AWC to cut Old Harry's recovery time to 2 days and then go for the Blacksite when he's ready to fight.
Lian "Shifter" Sunrise earned a nickname and a promotion. I gave him Haywire Protocol (chance to control mechanic enemies).

[Dp101]

Don't worry about the melee countererattack thing, at this stage the Mutons are the only guys who can do it. Melee away.

[Jkaen]

Well at least it seems somebody is man enough to give the king a good kicking! was it not possible to damage it again rather than reload with your last action?

[Jowy]

Well at least it seems somebody is man enough to give the king a good kicking! was it not possible to damage it again rather than reload with your last action?

Nope, we only had a shot with your character. The others would need to move down, but that would also let the boss make a move and escape.

[Jowy]

Base Management: Killing Time

New rumor. We have an abundance of alien alloys after the raid. We'll probably investigate the Reduce Contact Cost rumor next. It will at least negate the Dark Event on that area.



Old Harry got better after 2 days. I also recruited two new rookies, and named two trained squaddies.



Welcome back to the team Pindicator.



Same to you Lewwyn. Although you are our 5th Grenadier (4th of those still alive).
Then again, we're sending two of those Grenadiers to a Blacksite, so you might not need to sit on the bench too long



We used the rest of our supplies on a tactic. I had faith and chose Wet Work (increased exp) over Vengeance (random boosts if someone is critically injured or dies).
Maybe we can get someone up to a Captain and increase our squad size to six.



Time to go for it. I've heard so many rumors from other players about this place. None of them good.



With Krill dead and Jkaen in the infirmary, Brian Shanahan takes the second Grenadier spot. We absolutely need two so we have enough frags to take down cover AND hopefully 1-shot kill all the turrets we can't pass safely.



Apart from that, we rolled out with an identical setup.

Mission will be posted later, I haven't played it yet.