XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[novice]

Great reports. Add me to the cannon fodder list.

[Krill]

You can add Son of Krill to the list if when you start running out of names again.

[Jowy]

Base Management: Starved For Supplies

Purchased Squad Size II. Now we can have 6 soldiers out on a mission. I recruited two new rookies.

New Rumor about supplies. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I opted to grab our monthly Supply Drop instead.



Resistance Goods shop had new goodies, including a Sergeant level Ranger.
We've had three of our Rangers die so I chose to recruit him, even though it did cost us half of our supplies.



With a nickname like Specter, I had to give him Phantom! However Shadowstrike seems fairly weak so I picked Shadowstep for his second perk.
Welcome to the squad David Corperial.



Power Relay is now built. It gives us +3 Power, but we can increase that by 5 more by staffing an Engineer, and there are some upgrades we can buy for supplies as well.



Awesome, we got fire ammo for the boss now. The way it works is that we don't need to build them separately, but only one soldier can have the specific ammo.



Experimental Ammo remains a project we can choose, so I guess it gives you a random type. Not sure if duplicates are possible.
Instead of ammo, I went for a grenade this time. Eventually we want to get the Skulljack, but it costs supplies, and right now I'm trying to scramble together enough in time to build Plasma Rifles when the research is finished.

Picked up 23 Alien Alloys from investigating a rumor. Only the supply rumor left, so I guess I'll have to go get it, but let's visit the Black Market first.



I sold one of our Advanced Expanded Magazines since that was the item the vendor wanted this month. The other I reserved for Old Harry, who's going to need the extra ammo for maximizing Kill Zone effectiveness.
Then I bought 133 supplies with 35 intel. This is not a deal you usually want to make, but it brings us just barely over 250 supplies, which is the number we need for the Plasma Rifles according to a wiki.

New Guerrilla Ops missions popped up. Once again three choices, and gotta keep in mind that the dark event in effect guarantees the enemies to get reinforcements in these missions.



Option 1.



Option 2.



Option 3.

I went with number two. We HAVE TO start contacting new regions ASAP to get at those Alien Facilities.

Two American rookies were trained to squaddies:



Rho is a new specialist, one of the two in our roster.



DaveV is our third ranger, the other two being Pindicator and David Corperial. None of them have seen combat yet.



Since we were lucky enough to get supplies as a reward, I spent some on a new medikit and a second Battle Scanner.
We still had some empty utility slots, but Nanoscale Vests and Mindshields both required corpses, so this would have to do for now.
Our new team composition is:
1 Specialist (Sunrise)
2 Snipers (Old Harry, Brick)
1 Ranger (David Corperial)
2 Grenadiers (Jkaen, Lewwyn)
The only one who's still injured is Brian Shanahan, though Sunrise is still SHAKEN. We have to take him because Combat Protocol is a must-have.
We might in fact start running a second Specialist in the new sixth slot, but I didn't think of it at the time.

[Jowy]

Mission 14: Operation Failing Breath (Part 1)

We need to destroy that thing. As a freebie we gain the knowledge that a Viper pod is guarding it.



Concealed start, 8 turns to get there. It's really close, but there'll be enemies of course.



After two moves by our new scout David Corperial, we can already see the building that contains our objective.



Old Harry threw a Battle Scanner to check our flank. It's all clear. I wanted to check the building too, but opening a door breaks concealment. Unlikely that a pod would be right there next to our start though.



A Muton and a Sectoid patrolled out of the fog on their turn.



While setting up the ambush, we also gained sight on this heavy turret. It's on ground so we can't cheese it. I think it's time to test if Battle Protocol does ignore armor.



Trying out Kill Zone. In addition our two Grenadiers are also on overwatch duty. They didn't have the range for a frag.



David Corperial starts off the engagement with a 65% shot against the Muton. For once our Phantom Ranger will do something productive
And so he did, with a hit and a crit on the Muton. Didn't quite kill it, but still an awesome way to start his legacy.



Old Harry misses the Muton.



But wait, there's more! His second shot hits the Sectoid and makes him burn.



Jkaen killed the Muton. Good to know that he can shred two armor with one attack. Lewwyn missed the Sectoid, but no matter, it burned to death when our turn ended  



Sunrise killed the Heavy Turret with one Combat Protocol use. Brick was on backup duty to kill the turret or flash bang the enemies, but neither action was needed.



Old Harry threw another Battle Scanner in the fog. No-one outside, but there is still that pod guarding the objective.



We encountered nothing that turn, but at the end of it we got warned about enemy reinforcements dropping on top of us next turn.
Anyway we can set up an overwatch trap for them. As long as we don't move forward and draw in another pod, we should be a-okay.



Oops. David moved a few tiles and that was enough to activate a pod from inside the building.



Let's forget about the overwatch trap and deal with the problem in hand. Lewwyn started us off with a frag.



Brick only had a 75% shot. Gotta level her up before she'll be a beast like Old Harry.



Or maybe she already is  



Sunrise won a coin flip to kill the Stun Lancer hiding behind the car. I'm saving Combat Protocol in case we find a MEC.



Jkaen and Old Harry failed their coin flips against the Viper. Old Harry's shot actually hit the car on the way and it exploded. I guess we wouldn't have had to shoot the Stun Lancer.
David Corperial threw a flash bang at the Viper. Couldn't clear them all and won't get any overwatch shots on the reinforcements. Next turn will be interesting.



A MEC, a Stun Lancer and an Officer.



They took cover behind us. Needless to say, this is a turn where missing shots will be extremely deadly to us.
The Viper did nothing. I guess it had no-one in range. Strangely enough, it didn't overwatch either. Maybe a flash bang blocks that too?



Lewwyn fragged them, weakening the MEC enough for Sunrise to kill it, and removing the cover from the Stun Lancer.



Old Harry had 100% odds to kill it with Lightning Hands.



Sunrise used Combat Protocol to kill the MEC. Two down, two to go, with the officer being the bigger threat due to flanking.



Jkaen fragged the Officer, then David ran in to slash it for the kill. Three down, one to go, and our snipers still had their moves. Old Harry killed the Viper in one shot.
That could have gone worse I'd say. Anyway time to move on and destroy the objective.



Brick threw a Battle Scanner out. No enemies in sight, but there should be another pod hiding somewhere.



From the exploded car wreck, we had shots on the objective. Jkaen and David teamed up to destroy it. Woot! Now we just have to clear all remaining enemies.



Brick ran in to get the loot before it disappears. Only one item, an Elerium Core, but we can turn that to experimental ammo or something else, so not bad.



Sunrise hacked one of the towers. I've been a big coward so far and never tried to hack one. I wanted to find out if it's true that you can increase their tech score by hacking.
When the chance to fail is only 3%, this is the perfect time to give it a try.

Continued in Part 2.

[Jowy]

Mission 14: Operation Failing Breath (Part 2)

Continuation from Part 1.






Maybe we can wait it ou-



Awesome. They have boosted stats and we had no-one on overwatch.



Two of them took cover by the building. The MEC stayed back.



Jkaen can get them both with a frag. Then we can kill em while they're on the open, and hack the MEC.



This isn't your average everyday Officer. This is.. Advanced Officer. They can dodge.



Sometimes they don't have to.



Alright, let's just flash bang them and try again next turn.



If they make it to next turn. Old Harry sets up the Kill Zone.
Notice how there is no MEC in the picture. We lost sight on it when Jkaen blew up the wall. Fucking fantastic.



I had to send Sunrise into a shitty low cover to hopefully get vision back on the MEC.



Whew. Though it's not over yet.



More than 7 times as likely to fail as the one that DID fail  



We did it boys. I noticed there was a quick pop-up with a number shown for how long it'd be shut down for. Of course we know this to be a big fat lie.



Old Harry kills one!



And the other! That's how it's fucking done. Take notes newbies.
Now we have ONE turn to kill the MEC. Not two, as we've learned the hard way.



Sunrise starts us off with a miss.



David fails again. Probably a good thing he has the weapon attachment that deals damage on misses.



Thank you Brick. Wasn't enough to kill it, but it's down to 1 HP now. And btw dealing damage did not break the shut down state.



Lewwyn took down a wall but not a scratch on the MEC.



Guess who had to save the day again. Old Harry gets the kill and its his 30th! Good luck catching up.



Mission complete. If that last pod had been the Berserker I wouldn't have even been mad. No such luck though. Hopefully when we meet it, it'll be in a situation we can control.



Jkaen and Lewwyn got promotions. Jkaen got Suppression (pins down an enemy, lowering their aim and taking a shot at them if they move).
Brick got Long Watch (allows overwatch with squadsight) because Return Fire (shoots back with a pistol once per turn if targeted) seems real bad even if I end up making Brick a gunslinger.



Sunrise makes a recovery.



Roster is looking better, and we'll need everyone we can get. It'll be a busy month with a Retaliation strike coming up and hopefully an assault on an Alien Facility.

[pindicator]

If anyone is interested, XCOM2 is currently 45% off on Steam's Halloween sale

[Mardoc]

Wow, the variation in difficulty here is extreme. Several rounds with extra soldiers not doing anything, vs. several soldiers being slaughtered, in back to back missions?

[Jkaen]

I think having the alien boss DLC isnt helping smooth the difficulty curve

[Jowy]

I think having the alien boss DLC isnt helping smooth the difficulty curve

Yeah, we actually had a 100% average shot accuracy on that mission and still got completely destroyed by the boss + reinforcements combo.

Honestly I think the bosses could be fun, a mix of hard and easy missions is ideal to make the game feel challenging but not impossible. The problem I have with the DLC is that they gave you no option to disable the bosses, in fact the only way to not have them is to ENABLE the story missions and ignore them on your map. It's making this campaign much harder than normal Commander+Ironman, which is already very hard when playing blind.

[Jowy]

Holy hell. If you thought the previous missions were hard, wait till you hear about the next one.