XCOM 2 - Ironman Again

[Jowy]

Base Management: Suit Up!

Been a while since I played. A new rumor for Resistance Contacts appeared. While very nice, I think we have to ignore it for now.
What we'll do first is grab the intel, build a radio tower, and contact West Asia to reach the next Alien Facility. Might lose out on the free contact cap increase

We did some work on armors. After Alien Encryption research (the second one so far) finished, I chose Powered Armor next. In the Proving Ground I completed an EXO Suit and a Spider Suit.
After those I chose Mechanized Warfare which will probably allow us to build our own MEC's. Doubt we can afford them, but we were down to 3 Cores and we'll need at least 2 for Plasma Grenade and Skullmining once we have the supplies for them. The MEC project costs us nothing but time.



Month ended. We failed one mission, the one where Sunrise got grabbed by the Viper.



Countering the breakthrough seems like a no-brainer. We're already hanging by a thread.



After building a radio tower in Eastern Europe, we could contact West Asia for only 40 intel. We have 175(!) after the rumor + research combo. And we're about to get more:



If we manage to rescue Dp, that is. He was captured back when the Berserker Queen first showed up (it knocked him unconscious), now we have a chance to get him back to our squad and he has info on the aliens!



Here's the Spider Suit. It has a grappling hook, and the wearer gets to dodge (like Vipers). Gave it to our sniper Brick (Old Harry is still injured).



And here's the EXO Suit. It's a lesser version of the RAGE Suit, but still pretty nice. I did end up switching it from Sunrise to Lewwyn, cause Sunrise could use the utility slots.



We're rolling out with 2 grenadiers, 2 specialists, 1 ranger and 1 sharpshooter. Sunrise is back on medikit duty, but also has the Dragon Rounds cause he has a high hit chance.
These Rocket Launchers came out at a good time. Our frags just aren't cutting it anymore. Now we'll have at least two strong AoE armor-shredding cover-wrecking explosions.
Time to head out and save Dp101  

[Jowy]

Mission 19: Operation Ghost Valley

We start with Dp101 already with us. All we need to do is get to the evac zone.
It's a very small map, the evac zone is just around the corner. However there's a huge risk of running into multiple pods at once.



David spotted a pod on the road with this move. They aren't active though since he's got Phantom.



Next I checked the out the hack with Sunrise. Seems like a good back-up plan if we're ever in trouble. I canceled out for now.



And that activated the f'n enemies. Why??? This has never happened before  



Well, we can handle this. Lewwyn launched a rocket at two of them. Unlike frag grenades, it seems that rockets will blow up a car immediately. The officer died in the explosion.
Next I played it safe and used Combat Protocol from Sunrise and Rho to finish off the advanced MEC.



For some reason the third unit never activated with the other two (maybe related to the bs activation in the first place?) and just stood there on its turn.
It's an officer so we could run out and Skulljack it, but we might draw one or two or even three pods to us by doing that, and David wouldn't even be in cover. Let's pass on that idea for now.



Instead I sent David to a safer cover to check for nearby pods. He saw nothing. Maybe next turn we're in a better position and he can Skulljack the officer, though that would mean we have to leave it alive this turn.



I ended up setting it on fire with a shot from Sunrise, and then had a few overwatches on to make him scared. Well, he ran away to the fog. Still preferable to him injuring one of us.



Instead of taking the streets and drawing half the town on us, we're taking the nice full cover offered by the building. We already had vision inside from the windows, however..



These guys were hiding on the second floor. Lewwyn is in quite a pickle.



David couldn't get a rocket on them from the window. It was hitting the outer wall.
I could blue move inside, but he'd get spotted, and after all these missions I'm still not completely sure if that ends your turn or not.



I managed to get a nade in through the window with Jkaen. It's never an easy thing to judge if you can or can't pull it off.. Once you make the blue move, you're committed, and there's no way to check if from that tile you can get the nade in.
Anyway that shredded 1 armor from each and dropped them on the floor. They took falling damage for.. 1. Not quite as effective as I had hoped for.



Brick first took her free Lightning Hands shot at 69% against a Muton and hit. After some consideration, I chose to go all out, expecting to be able to kill the entire pod this turn.
Sunrise had a 98% flank and killed one of the Mutons.



David can get in a free Rage Strike, then shoot at point blank range. Maybe I should get those Shotguns built one day.



Take that!



The Archon went in a Battle Frenzy, whatever that means. Nothing good for us, I'm sure.
They seem to have a natural 25 Defense which is pretty damn good.. Took our shot down from 98% to 73%. We still landed it though.



Brick finished off the Archon with a 60% shot. Only a 2 HP Muton left. Lewwyn missed it on a 71% shot, so I had Rho kill it with Battle Protocol.
In case things had gone south, I did have a Mimic Beacon ready to be used by Rho. Didn't need it this time. When the turn ended, the officer from before burned to death in the fog



Lewwyn checked the other side of the building. All clear.



David checked toward the evac zone. He activated a pod. This time it's two Vipers accompanying an Archon.



He fired a rocket at them. The Viper died in the truck explosion. Loving the Rocket Launchers so far!



Brick was ways back, but had squadsight on the other Viper. She killed it. Just the Archon left, who's Battle Frenzied btw.



Sunrise tried to set it on fire, but missed his shot.



Plan B: Mimic Beacon. Kinda wanted to put it in Full Cover by the window, but I was slightly worried that for some reason it wouldn't be seen by the Archon (though it should be). Better safe than sorry!



The Archon ran away in spectacular fashion: Straight through multiple windows   Next turn I threw a Battle Scanner after it, but it ran so far that even the Battle Scanner couldn't catch a glimpse at it.



We spent one turn moving. On the next one I used the other Battle Scanner to check our escape route. All clear.



Heard em. Well, we knew that there was at least one more pod along with the injured Archon.



I moved everyone in range of the evac zone. Heard enemies again, but they didn't patrol into us.



Now it's simple. We all run to the evac zone and get the hell out of here. There ain't shit they can do no more.
Except if we run into the Archon King when we climb on top of the building. In that case we're in HUGE TROUBLE. What are the chances?



A normal MEC? They still make those things?



Everyone evac'd out. Flawless victory.



Sunrise, Lewwyn and Rho had promotions. Sunrise was given Guardian. I think it's a pretty close call. Both abilities sound very good. I took higher firepower over increased mobility.
Lewwyn was given Shredder (really the only choice) and Rho was given Revival Protocol (one Haywire in the squad should be more than enough).



Welcome back to the squad Dp101! He even had a pending level up from the mission where he got captured    I gave him Shadowstrike.
Also he's injured for 11 days for who knows why.

[Dp101]

Yay, I can go back to being a terrorist now!

[Molach]

"One haywire should be enough" = famous last words.

Loving the updates and story so far. Semper fi.

[WarriorKnight]

Next I checked the out the hack with Sunrise. Seems like a good back-up plan if we're ever in trouble. I canceled out for now.

And that activated the f'n enemies. Why??? This has never happened before  

It activated because sunrise was not in concealment, despite David (the soldier who could see the pod and presumably the tower to be hacked) being in concealment. This is only a guess, but I presume that in order to hack the tower, sunrise shares vision with David in order to gain LOS before engaging which is enough to trigger the pod.

I'll admit, it isn't intuitive at all and it took me a while to figure out. Very annoying too.

[Sareln]

Next I checked the out the hack with Sunrise. Seems like a good back-up plan if we're ever in trouble. I canceled out for now.

And that activated the f'n enemies. Why??? This has never happened before  

It activated because sunrise was not in concealment, despite David (the soldier who could see the pod and presumably the tower to be hacked) being in concealment. This is only a guess, but I presume that in order to hack the tower, sunrise shares vision with David in order to gain LOS before engaging which is enough to trigger the pod.

I'll admit, it isn't intuitive at all and it took me a while to figure out. Very annoying too.

Based on the youtube videos I've watched, pods can be triggered by the gremlin/drone/whatever it's called.  Both hacking and the damage ability.

[Jowy]

Next time: The most BS we've seen so far!

[Dreylin]

Oh you are a tease!

[Jowy]

Base Management: Crappy MEC's

New rumor was Alien Wreckage (Alloys and crystals). We have two nice rumors to investigate if they don't disappear, but first:



We can now assault the Alien Facility when needed.



MEC project finished. It turns out you have to upgrade their weapons and armor too, so I'm going to just ignore MEC's for now.
Started a project to improve our grenades.

Got 30 crystals from clearing a room (second to last). The layout is kind of a mess, though I think I'll still put a Workshop in there somewhere.
There's a room that either gives power to a building or enhances a power relay if built there. What should I do with it?



Guerilla Ops popped up, I chose this mission. It's the hardest one, and I would have preferred an Engineer reward (we need a 4th to build better weapons), but the Avatar Project worries me.
We're 1 pip from it being full. I've only read theories on how it works, but one theory was that the timer you get is only as long as you have until the next pip completes.
Which would mean that we lose the campaign if we don't do this mission or if we fail it.



Went with the same team as last mission. Upgraded our pistols to Beam Pistols. Kept Brick over Old Harry because of that, though now that I think about it, I completely forgot to make use of her free pistol shot from Quickdraw.

[Jowy]

Mission 20: Operation Pungent Terror (Part 1)

Concealed start as usual. Beyond the building you see, there is another building, and that's where the device is. Cramped map for sure.
With this opening move, we already spotted a pod.



I set everyone up in nice full cover for the ambush. We'll go for it right away.



The enemies are 2 vipers and an archon. The other viper is by the gate. I saw it when the animation played for them.
I tried to get all three enemies and the explosive tank with the rocket.



You saw it glow red, right? Yet the tank didn't explode. It has 3 HP, the rocket does 4-7. Okay, maybe my mouse slipped or something.



Sunrise missed, Brick missed, Jkaen's shot was dodged, Lewwyn hit, Rho hit, Jkaen's 2nd shot hit (dodges seem to count as hits for Guardian), and his third hit was dodged.
Whoops, David has Phantom and did nothing. I'll never remember  



We managed to kill the Archon and one of the Vipers, so not too bad. The viper dropped some loot too. We haven't had any for a while.



While Protect the Device missions used to be a breeze, now the alien weaponry is much stronger but the device HP remains the same. We'll need to hustle.



David got grabbed and bound. When was he spotted? Oh well.
A grazing shot freed David, then Sunrise used Combat Protocol to kill the Viper.



The explosive tank is ON FIRE We grabbed the loot (2 cores and an advanced scope), then moved to full cover.
Everyone moved towards the device. A few guys took the roof, including Brick who tried out her spider suit. It's nice. Brings you up and you still have your full move after that.



Device got hit again on alien turn. It's going down fast. We need to aggro those enemies and have them shoot at us instead.



Uhh, I think we'll take the left side. Kill the device group without aggroing the Ruler. It's the best plan we've got, but they can always patrol right into us and ruin our day.



Device got hit for another 6 on their turn. We'll have to aggro them now.



The downside of rockets are that they only go straight and will hit the first thing on the way.



Grenade launchers, on the other hand, can bank their shots. With this we're hitting almost everything.
I'm saving the Acid Grenade since we saw the Ruler out there.



Fucking invincible explosive tanks!! Clearly they are bugged.



I had to spend a shot at the tank so we can see the enemies. Naturally, it just had to also blow up David's entire full cover!



AND WE STILL CAN'T SHOOT THROUGH IT  



Sarah gets a crit and kills one of the Advanced Troopers. Lowest possible damage roll would have done the trick too, but it's good to send a message to the aliens.



David retreated to full cover and Sunrise gave him Aid Protocol, which will put him in overwatch. We couldn't do much this turn, but we're all in full cover at least.



Device is getting low. There's ANOTHER pod outside the station.



David missed his overwatch on the charging Archon, and so did Lewwyn. It whacked David in the head for 6 damage.



The other guy shot at the objective. Fuck. Maybe it would have been better to not all be in full cover.



We had pretty good odds on the Archon now. Jkaen and David teamed up to kill it.



Brick tried a trick shot   She missed. Rho got the kill a few attacks later.

Continued in Part 2.