XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[Jowy]

[Dreylin]

Well that looks promising ... not.

I picked the game up in the sale and went in on Veteran playing self-enforced Iron Man so I get the Tutorial & story missions (full DLC enabled). Waltzed through the first 3 missions OK - couple of injuries but no deaths, which seems like the difference between Veteran & Commander difficulty - then the Shen's Gift mission pops up and I think: well Jowy turned it off because he'd seen it was bad, but it says Easy and surely it wouldn't trigger this early if it was going to be unmanageable... 

Well I suppose it must be manageable, because I haven't lost anyone yet (couple of bad injuries though), but it's ... tense might be the best word. 2/3 of the way through and judging by the first 2 floors I'm kind-of dreading going back to finish it out. I see why you'd want to disable it, but one thing to bear in mind though is that Shen herself is a Beast and does the work of a couple of troopers on her own ... I suspect it was designed at a level so that only she is expected to make it out while the rest of the troopers you take along are cannon fodder and will gradually fall. Fingers firmly crossed that I'll get them all out some of them out with her...

[Jowy]

Base Management: Race Against Time

After a minor breakthrough and the construction of a new alien facility in Indonesia the counter reached its end.



We only have 13 days to do something about it. Gonna cut it real fucking close, if we even make it.



Research on Plasma Rifles finished. We have the highest tier weapons unlocked before building Resistance Comms



We had enough to afford the Rifles but not the Pistols. Getting the tech for Sniper Rifles next.



We received a Gas Grenade from our Proving Ground project. I went for a second experimental ammo next.



Resistance Comms is finally up and running.



The dark event had ended so we only had to spend 20 intel to contact them, but it's the TIME that worries me.
We should have 5 days to spare IF we don't have to scan at the facility before assaulting it.



Retaliation strike comes in at the worst possible moment. I thought about ignoring it, but it should take less than a day to fly there and back.



I spent the rest of our supplies on two Mindshields and a third Battle Scanner.



This is it. Our first VERY DIFFICULT mission. That's two steps up from the mission with the Berserker Queen.
Brian Shanahan returns from the infirmary. He's a man of big missions: First the Blacksite and now this. I gave him one of the Mindshields to negate his SHAKEN status.

[Jowy]

Mission 15: Operation Blessed Cavern (part 1)

It's good to start in the corner. Don't have to watch our backs.



David ran in first to scout, he's the only one who starts concealed. Found enemies right away.



Jkaen activated the pod when he took cover behind the rocks. Oops.
Okay, so Berserkers, what are they? They are strong melee units that will run toward you every time you shoot at them.
That's why I started with a flash bang, so it'll only move a little bit. I was worried that it would melee attack if we shoot it while it's next to us, so the plan is to kite it around.



I set up the Kill Zone for Old Harry. It's a little risky to not move him to cover, but we're in a rough situation. He will hopefully get a shot every time the Berserker moves.



Brick made the first shot because snipers will lose accuracy the closer the target is. She missed though, not a great start.



Sunrise couldn't make the same mistake. He damaged it for 8 and... It didn't move. They've changed how Berserkers work. There goes that plan.



New plan: Kill the creature that's probably melee but we have no idea what abilities it has in XCOM 2. Hope that the other two don't murder our snipers who are standing out in the open.



Jkaen had a 97% chance to hit the Berserker, but can't kill it, so he launched a frag instead. It'll hurt the Berserker enough that Old Harry can kill it with Kill Zone when it moves, and he'll also get to fire at the Shieldbearer when it moves to find new cover.



Shit  



Uhh, see the Berserker on the background? It parked up next to David and.. Did nothing. Praise be to Flash Bangs!
Old Harry got to take a shot at the Stun Lancer, but that also meant that..



He took a shot at Old Harry. Again, praise be to Flash Bangs! This one was real lucky.



The Shieldbearer didn't actually move, just used his shielding spell on the three of them. Looks like he still had low cover from the trunk of the tree we tried to blow up.



Old Harry took a free Lightning Hands shot.



David stuck his gun through its skull and still had a 4% chance to miss.



That's a Berserker down. We never found out what it can do. Not that I'm complaining.



We could move him, but then we can't use the sniper rifle. I took the 67% shot which would lead us to a decisive victory if it hits. It did not.



I doubled down on the "end the encounter this turn" plan with a coin flip from Brick. She didn't let me down.



Brian Shanahan and Jkaen managed to flank the Shieldbearer and killed it without needing help from Sunrise. What a shaky start, but we're still in this!



Next turn Brick threw out a Battle Scanner. We found no enemies, but confirmed those civs to not be Faceless.



Jkaen threw one to the other direction and OH NO  



Even the civilian was an enemy. He transformed when we scanned him.



We have good odds to hit, hopefully it won't activate the pod near it though.



Old Harry and David took it down. Didn't activate the pod, thank god. Now we need to set up for the Queen fight, get reloads done and overwatches up.



Spent a turn to set up. Tried to keep people split to avoid the AoE smash attack. Only problem was that we lost sight on it.
Jkaen went in to check. If we can see it and attack it, then we can set up an overwatch trap and draw it in with Jkaen.



They saw him. We don't have anyone on overwatch. Wonderful.

Continued in Part 2.

[BRickAstley]

[Jowy]

Mission 15: Operation Blessed Cavern (part 2)

Time for round two, and with a Muton in full cover as well. I started by setting up the Kill Zone for Old Harry.



First shot is a miss. It parked next to Jkaen, but couldn't attack him. Yet.



Was nice knowing you Jkaen.



Only did 3 damage and stunned him for 2 turns.



Brian Shanahan took the next shot to shred its armor.



Then gets hit for 7. Old Harry isn't firing for some odd reason, I guess Kill Zone is limited to one attack per opponent? That sucks.



Nothing to do but keep on shooting. Jkaen had the Gas Grenade but he's stunned, and Old Harry had the Dragon Rounds but missed his shot.



Sunrise gets hit for 5. That flash bang isn't doing much work for us.. Through disorientation it's still connecting every time.
It's probably better that it's attacking a new target every time though.



David takes the next shot and we're 1/3 through its health bar. How about taking a hike now?



It yelled back at us and tried to put people into panic. Glad I built those mindshields. Sunrise was the only one to panic.



He ran away and took a shot at the boss.  



Turn ends and we're reminded that there's still plenty more to come, including a MEC and a second Berserker.



Kill Zone worked on the Muton, who ran behind the car and shot a civilian. Oh right, we're supposed to save those?



Jkaen was no longer stunned because 2 turns means 1 in this game. He used the poison grenade on the boss.
On its turn, the boss did nothing. Did we find the way?!  



Old Harry shot at it. It's now also burning alive!
Again the boss did nothing, and both the poison and the burn kept ticking.



David managed to miss this shot, but we still did 5 damage: 1 from his weapon attachment, 1 from poison, 3 from the burning.



Now the boss did something, it used the AoE smash and almost killed Brian Shanahan.



Yeah okay Brian Shanahan, you are one hardcore dude.



It yelled at us again. Everyone resisted the panic. Way to go guys.
Only Brick had an action left: a 60% shot, certainly our worst odds. She missed.



Remember that Muton? It burned to death before it could do anything more. The boss is still burning and poisoned, and did nothing on enemy turn.



We're actually fucking doing this. I started with our best shot. Sunrise hit it for 9.
One last tick of burning, then it was gone. Boss did nothing. Well, I know what to do next.



Did someone order a second Dragon Round?  



Go for it David, don't let your dreams be dreams!



That'll do, that'll do..



And so it burns to death in a cloud of poison gas.  

Of course, we've still got work to do.

Continued in Part 2.

[AdrienIer]

Hurray !

And good job 

[Jowy]

Mission 15: Operation Blessed Cavern (part 3)

Brian Shanahan was down to 1 HP. We can heal him, but need to be careful not to step in the poison.
We've saved 1 civilian so far. There are 7 more left alive, and we need to save 5 of them. Can't take much of a breather.



Jkaen threw a Battle Scanner trying to locate the enemies. We've seen at least two pods killing civs.



What he found was not the pods, but a Faceless.



The Faceless are more agile than they look. It ran all the way into our sight, but luckily I had set two guys up on overwatch.



They were enough to kill it.



Brick threw a Battle Scanner and located one of the pods, plus two civs near them.



We spent two turns healing, reloading, and relocating to new cover.


¨
It was not the pod we scanned that bumped into us, but one from the other direction.
Brick and Jkaen were close enough to pull off overwatch shots, but both missed the MEC.



Sunrise could attack it with a drone from WAY back. That was enough to kill it outright.



Jkaen somehow had vision on the other enemy who was hiding inside. I took the shot hoping to destroy the wall.
The wall was unscratched, but the enemy behind the wall did take 7 damage



To my surprise, Brian Shanahan actually had enough range to reach the wall, so he did what Jkaen couldn't.



Brick caught him with overwatch when he ran for cover.



Next turn, Old Harry scanned the last pod. We've been lucky that they haven't been killing more civs.



We did one turn of setup in preparation for the last(?) fight.



They patrolled and saw Brian. We got off FOUR successful overwatch shots on them.



This "enraged" the Berserker. Probably a good idea to finish this fast.



Old Harry killed it with Lightning Hands.



Sunrise used the second Combat Protocol to kill the second MEC.



We blew up the cover from the last guy and easily killed him too. Was hoping for a loot drop from this pod seeing as we hadn't had any yet, but nothing here either.



That's a wrap. No casualties. We got lucky that the Berserker Queen didn't focus on one target, or that might be intended behavior. The Berserkers from EU would run towards whoever shot at them, maybe the Queen inherited that trait.
My plan with the status effects worked better than expected. Not only did we do ticking damage after every shot, it also served as crowd control (though sometimes the boss would still do moves, so idk what exactly happened).



Long break for Brian Shanahan again. He has been promoted after both of his missions
Brick picked up Lightning Hands (free pistol shot), Brian Shanahan picked up Suppression. Btw his nickname is awesome, it's "Big Money" Brian Shanahan.



Interesting, we can use the corpse to create something new. That reminds me.. The Viper King is still out there.



That went great. Of course, it's all for naught if we can't make it to the Alien Facility in time, or if we fail that mission.

[Dp101]

Oh god, when I read the first update and sat waiting for the second I thought there had been a squadwipe or something, glad to see I was wrong.

[Dreylin]

Nicely done! 

I believe that once you kill a Ruler you get to wear them as a hat...