XCOM: The Long War Part 10: Once More With Feeling

In which we take on a small UFO shot down in the last session.




I was able to wait a few extra hours and get most of a team put together. We will be bringing one rookie, Kosher Pickles after a nickname my mom mentioned. So welcome Kosher Pickles!

The rest of the team includes Hat Stand our sniper, Valdora Kacil our scout, Kelvas Amell our medic, Bigg Nife our engineer, Gifted Matryoshka our assault, Be Lindaros our gunner, and Valris Kacil our infantry. Rocketeer is all we're missing, but hopefully I don't need to blow anything up.

We start the mission outside a gas station. I don't think I've done a crashed UFO in an actual city environment before, so this will be new. And if it's new, it's undoubtedly dangerous. Let's proceed cautiously.

I've been to A gas station in this game, but not THIS gas station... they are right! We have many varieties of gas station!

I start moving people into cover, but Gifted sees a pod of drones as he dashes for cover by the gas station wall. Pickles gets her first hit shooting overwatch at the drones as they approach, though it doesn't do enough damage to destroy the drone. I only manage to kill one drone on my turn, finding it difficult to get both cover and line of sight, but I get lucky when one drone moves back then forward again, and the second drone goes down to Bigg Nife's overwatch. The double moving drone landed right in Hat Stand's sights, and she quickly dispatches it, which clears us to move on. Valdora scouts the gas station and attached billiards hall while Gifted climbs to the roof. I have a roof, I may as well get someone up there. Gifted goes up first in case there were aliens up there, but my real goal is to get Hat Stand up there for better line of sight further down the field (I hope). Finding the roof clear, Hat Stand dashes up as well.

I think this will be a good vantage point.

The next lot over is on fire, with broken pillars, so whatever was there is probably just the UFO landing sight now. Hat Stand gets a sound ping from that way, so I expect the next pod to be there. We take up positions along the fence, but nothing comes into view. Cover is going to be more sporadic near the crash site, so this could get sketchy.

I guess it's like a tornado. A crashing UFO can skip your gas station and just demolish the gas station next door.

Gifted and Valdora spot a meld canister. Valdora tosses a battle scanner to it, but again no aliens show up. On my left flank, Valris advances the furthers, and gets another sound ping. Seems like there is a patrolling group of aliens making a loop around the crashed spacecraft (the UFO itself was revealed just past the meld canister by the battle scanner).

And then they patrol into Valris's line of sight and go active; a pair of Thin Men. Always best when it happens on the alien turn so I have the most actions available to counter their moves. Annoying when its Thin Men though, they're vexingly good at using cover. Valris is able to get to full cover and flank one of the Thin Men, but fails to get the kill (he has too much defense, absorbed 2 damage and only lost 3 HP). Fortunately, Hat Stand is able to use her squad sight to draw a bead on the flanked Thin Man and finish it off.

I knew this would be a good spot!

The second Thin Man goes down to reaction fire when it tries to reposition.

You'll get caught up in the, CROSS FIRE, CROSS FIRE, CROSS FIIIIIRRRRRE!

A few misclicks on my turn make me glad that there are no active aliens in sight; I accidentally clicked one square off of the cover twice and had to use the second action to move into cover instead of overmatching. Bleh.

I had to rotate the camera to see why she couldn't get the meld. One square at lower elevation. Yikes.

Valdora spots the Outside waiting inside the UFO as she approaches the craft. I pull her back to full cover rather than face the alien's wrath alone, as the rest of the squad was approaching from the opposite end of the UFO. Squadsight continues to be great in this mission; Hat Stand from across the map has a shot, although she misses.

It was such a good position.

The Outsider moves closer to us and misses its shot. Be Lindaros takes a shot in return, missing but applying Holo-Targeting. The rest of the team shoots, hitting it three times and leaving it on 2 HP. Gifted then runs up and shotguns its face, and its Outsider down.

In your face.

A little late to save their leader, three Sectoids run out from behind the UFO.

We'll save you boss! Boss?

Hat Stand, from across the map on the gas station roof, gets a 100% shot and takes one out immediately.

I've no idea how she takes this shot. Maybe she bends the bullet's trajectory with her mind?

Be Lindaros takes out a second. Gifted kills the last one by running up to its Full Cover and shooting it point blank.

Victory! Promotions for everyone except Bigg Nife this time (and to be fair, Bigg Nife stayed back with Hat Stand just in case she got flanked by aliens I might have missed on my initial sweep. it never does to leave the sniper entirely isolated...)

Hat Stand takes Sharpshooter, bonus critical chances and better aim against enemies in full cover.

Valdora has Lone Wolf, so operated best further from the squad, so I think I'll give her Aggression for bonus critical chance based on how many enemies she can see. If she gets isolated I want her to kill the foes fast.

Amell, my first Sergeant ranked medic. His options are Ready for Anything (if he shoots without doing anything else he gets a free overwatch), Smoke Grenade (a free Smoke Grenade) or Paramedic, which lets him use a medkit once per turn without using an action to do it. Guess what I took? If you guessed Paramedic, you win the guessing game.

Gifted takes Ranger, because it's always good to have an extra point of damage. He is also gifted the nickname "Android".

Be Lindaros gets a nickname; Kingpin. Sure, I'll go with it. He takes Shredder ammo. He now has Holo-targeting (bonuses to the Aim of allied shots following his own) and Shredder ammo (bonus damage to allied shots following his own), so he's a default first shot on any squad he's part of.

Valris takes Executioner, bonus aim and critical chance against enemies below 50% HP.

Pickles will become my fifth sniper.

And we finally get a break from missions long enough for a bunch of people to recover from their fatigue, finish the second Phalanx armor, and finish research on Beam Weapons! Yay lasers! Now I just have to build them...

I sell a bunch of damaged alien computers and Thin Man corpses on the grey market to get some more cash. I want to upgrade our weapons ASAP. I order one Autolaser for my gunners, 2 Laser Carbines for people who need help hitting things, 5 Laser Rifles for regular use, and one Heater, a pistol substitute because I know I'll need it for something later on. Probably, if things haven't changed significantly since the Let's Play I watched... That all leaves me with 8 monies. And the lasers won't be ready to go for 10 days, so I may have one or two more missions before I get access to them.

China asks for some Thin Man corpses and sends me a Corporal in exchange. That's nice!

I also have enough of a break that my four new recruits show up, bringing my total soldiers to 49. Hopefully, that's all I need... we'll see how we do.

A medium Raider class UFO shows up, but I only have one interceptor available, and I fail to shoot it down.

And then I get a council mission to go investigate a fishing village in Newfoundland that recently went silent. Great, if it's the mission I think it is, it's the only one ore terrifying for me than a Terror Mission...

Uh oh

Next time! Fear Itself!