XCOM: The Long War Part 11: Absolute Terror

In which I face the mission I am most afraid of in this game, and my heart tries to beat its way out of my chest.




We're starting with a Council Mission. A fishing village on the coat of Newfoundland has gone dark, probably due to aliens. We're dispatching a team to investigate.

If this is the mission I'm thinking of from the Let's Play I watched, this might be even more terrifying than the Terror Missions for me, but we'll see.

Just to be safe, let's bring our best people...

Sgt. Valdora Kacil will scout. Sgt. Amell will be our medic. Sgt. Belros can cover infantry. Sgt. Cold Run will bring a shotgun, and Sgt. Adaar has snapshot so he'll be mobile while still keeping his range. Corporal Stand Von Hats will bring some rockets to back us up, while Corporal Lavellan will bring a large gun. Finally, Bigg Nife will bring some grenades, since I suspect we may need them.

Ok, good luck team...

As the Skyranger approaches the drop zone, the briefing says the fishing village still shows no signs of life. We have no way of knowing the type and level of resistance we may face...

Ooh, it's snowing. Nice touch. We start out by some warehouses at a dock. Central updates me that a government response team was already sent to investigate the village, but all communications were lost with the ship, the village, and the rescue team. That's no ominous at all, thanks Central!

I'm super nervous, and move very cautiously on my first turn, leaving everyone on overwatch save Adaar, who steadies his rifle in case I make contact with hostiles next turn.

Annnnd there they are. A pod of Chryssalids rounds the corner on my people.

I knew they'd do that.

They take a lot of reaction fire but none of them drop.

STAY AWAY!

This is definitely the mission I'm afraid it is. Central points out that of all the aliens we've seen, these are the most dangerous for civilians, so if they are spreading in the area we need to find out how and stop them. Valdora and Von Hats take out the most wounded of the four Chryssalids drooling ominously over Lavellan's position. One of the remaining two is unwounded, and the other is at about half health. I think I can survive this... Adaar snipes the half health one, leaving only the unwounded monster remaining. I have Lavellan pull back, but she misses her shot. Cold Run then uses Run and Gun to dash to Lavellan's previous position, and he pulls off a critical hit on the remaining Chryssalid, leaving it on 1 HP of 10, and Belros is able to finish it off. Unfortunately that leaves only Bigg Nife and Smell able to overwatch this turn.

Another pod of Chryssalids moves in from the docks. I guess at least I don't have to move, and cover is pointless against these melee killers. I start this round with a HE grenade from Bigg Nife, which wounds all four Chryssalids and blows up some shacks near them. I suspect everyone in this village is dead at this point, so what's a little collateral damage? Belros uses his two attacks to take out the pod leader (the Chryssalid with more HP than the others). The rest of the squad is able to take out the remaining Chryssalids, leaving Cold Run and Smell on overwatch. But we're going to need a turn to reload here... Fortunately, nothing else comes in sight, so we reload. Valdora gets a sound ping from what has become our rear flank. I reposition people a bit, but I don't want to press forward too fast. And then on the alien turn, a zombie wanders towards us.

I'm going to have nightmares about this mission aren't I?

Cold Run and Valdora team up to take it down. A second zombie wanders into range next turn. Cold Run takes this one out solo, with an overwatch shot followed by a critical hit on his regular action. I move forward slightly and check the nearby shacks, but no more aliens spring out at me.

I start going through the large central building I initially thought was a warehouse, but seems to be more of an office area. However I realize there are no windows on the left side of the building, so if anything comes from the docks, I won't see it, and if I advance inside and outside, I will effectively split the team, so I pull back and move forward outside the building despite Valdora getting a sound ping from beyond. I do not want anyone getting caught unsupported on this mission. I'm also a little nervous about these sharks hanging from poles here...

I remember something bad about these sharks...

I move forward cautiously, which is the motif of this mission. We spot an oddly wriggling shark that Central points out looks wrong. You think?

The shark was a worshiper of Nurgle? No, actually that's just as bad as what's about to happen.

And then Lavellan spots another zombie, so we finally have something to shoot. My heart is beating out of my chest (this is why I don't do horror movies, and especially don't do first person shooters with horror elements...) Lavellan and Belros are able to take out the zombie with no problems however. Adaar takes position on top of some market stalls for better line of sight.

And a Chryssalid pops out of the shark. Yeah, that's why I kept my distance. Amell and Von Hats immediately kill it with reaction fire.

KILL IT WITH BULLETS!

Moving people forward, Bigg Nife gets eyes on a Thin Man standing on a boat further ahead. Somehow, the alien does not notice us, but as Bigg Nife dashed to his position I can't get a free shot off... Let's see if I can't change that.. I move Valdora closer next turn, and she sees... 4 more Chryssalids eeeeep! And 4 Thin Men, both pods activate. Pull back dammit! We need range and maybe some rockets here!

Why do we keep seeing things?!

Rocket away, let's kill these things!

KILL THEM WITH FIRE!

And in short order, 4 Chryssalids are down. But I'm going to let the Thin Men come to me now that they're activated, I don't need to activate more Chryssalids trying to track those four down...

Also, this end of the docks is actively on fire, and there'a big ship with large holes in it at this end. I'm afraid that's the destination here.

I hope it's a Ghost Ship and that there is nobody on board and we can just go home.

The Thin Men start moving forward and taking pot shots at me, and another zombie also wanders into view. Wonderful. This one might hatch a Chryssalid, since I probably won't have a good shot on it.

I take out one of the Thin Men, but then the two who can see me manage to both hit Cold Run, and he goes down critically wounded. (But not killed outright, so I'll keep playing...) The zombie wanders towards my line and dies to reaction fire, thankfully. Adaar gets revenge for Cold Run by one shotting the offending Thin Man.

Dammit, Cold Run bleeds out because Amell had to dash to get to him. Alright, let's go back a turn to the autosave, because I didn't realize where I clicked would be a dash for Amell. (Sometimes it's hard to see when the boxes turn yellow for a double action.)

Yeah, much better. Part of the problem is Cold Run somehow fell off the platform he was on and Amell had to run down the stairs, but look, Amell runs down, stands in the open, REVIVES Cold Run, and because of Paramedic can still run back into cover! That's what I call medicine! Or magic.

Alright, so the last Thin Man ran away from me with 1 HP left, but I'd like him dead before I move on, because if I remember what's coming correctly, I really really don't want any enemies behind me in a few turns. And the Thin Man runs back towards us and directly into Belros's overwatch. Bye bye!

And yep, the big ship was overrun by Chryssalids based on what Central can see (presumably our teams are outfitted with Go-Pros for his viewing back at base). Let's get Lavellan up on top of the stalls as well, the height should help with her SAW. Actually, Von Hats get up there too, in case I need a long range rocket.

So probably not a ghost ship? Old Man Jenkins? No?

Oh shoot, I hear more movement from the direction the Thin Men came from... It's another zombie, wandering towards us along the dock by the ship. I spend a turn reloading, and when the alien turn is instantly over, I can tell there shouldn't be any more active aliens out there. Time to finish this thing...

Cold Run and Valdora move onto the ship.

And there it is. The Chryssalids are using a dead whale as a sort of "hive" to produce more and more of them. And the whale is in the ship. I need to set off a locator beacon on the far side of the ship, as Chryssalids spawn, and then evacuate the area for an airstrike to take this thing out.

There goes my lunch.

As BlueAnkylo said when he did this mission, "Anyone who wanted to watch me do this one blind is a sadist."

And this is why I inched Cold Run closer and closer and only ran such that he'd see into the hold when he could reach the bridge. I want this transponder activated ASAP and the whole team pulled back even faster.

Cold Run hits the transponder, and now we have 8 turns to get back to the evacuation point before this whole place goes up in napalm.

AAAAAHHH A Chryssalid leaps up right next to Belros! I'm so glad I left most of us on overwatch and we could kill it immediately. But AAAAHHHH!

And the Chryssalids start popping out of the various sharks around the place too. Cold Run escapes the ship, and Valdora is close behind him. Amell and Von Hats, along with a snipe from Adaar, are able to take out the Chryssalid that spawned behind us. We're going to move quickly but with overwatch now back to the drop zone and get out of here.

Breathe, we can do this... Even knowing this was coming, it's getting to me.

We made it!

Burn! BURN! BURN IT ALL!

Oh my god I'm glad that's over.

32. THIRTY TWO. Of which four were Thin Men, and four were zombies. So. That's how many Chryssalids I dealt with.

Cold Run is out for 53 days, gravely injured from that one, but the three corporals who came along all got promotions to Sergeant.

And we were able to stop the immediate Chryssalid threat, now that we're aware of this possibility. Excellent.

Bigg Nife is our first Engineer sergeant I think. He can choose Suppression (attempts to pin an enemy in place), Will to Survive (bonus damage reduction when in cover and not flanked) or Repair (bonus Arc Thrower uses.) We don't have the Arc Throwers yet, but they'll be important to winning the game later, so I'm going with that. Also, it seems thematic for Bigg Nife to have the Repair ability.

Von Hats will take a free Shredder Rocket. Using one of those to get extra damage on that pod of Chryssalids was really useful last mission, and having a free extra rocket will be nice.

And Lavellan will take Executioner, extra hit chance and damage against enemies below half health. That should combine well with her machine guns.

I also notice I have an extra Corporal, probably from fulfilling a special request last session, so I rename him Satyr Jaro after another of my Wednesday D&D group people, and go ahead and make him a Rocketeer with HEAT Ammo and Fire in the Hole (his character is a sorcerer, so this seems fitting.)

I've also renamed some of the remaining rookies, and hopefully I'll get a small crashed UFO to train some of them a bit; Lil Mouse, Cleric Talna and Gnome Elle.

I use the cash from that mission to begin construction of a Foundry, which I think will let me do some additional more engineering based research, and I start excavating more of the base. I sell some damaged alien computers that are only worth money to get enough to order another interceptor, since all the interceptors in Europe are out of commission.

And then I get a cutscene.

Here come the EXALT.

This bit was added with the Enemy Within expansion. Basically, there are a group of alien sympathizers (or people who just want the alien technology or something) that are trying to sabotage us. I now need to remember to spend some money every month to counteract their sabotage, or else I can lose a lot of money and time on my research as they disrupt my operations. I'll also need to send out operatives on covert ops to try and track down the headquarters of this so called "EXALT" organization, and eliminate them for good. That last can take awhile, as if I accuse a country of harboring the base and I'm wrong, I can piss off half the world. Let's avoid that, shall we?

Gnife Gnife will be my first covert operative. He's only allowed a pistol for the mission, and he's going to disrupt an EXALT cell in Australia. Good luck Gnife Gnife! We'll see you when we need to extract you.

A few days go by with no alien activity I can see (although I get reports they bombed China, which increases panic there.) I finish researching Xenoneurology, part of the storyline, which allows me to build Arc Throwers designed to stun aliens for live capture. Now I just need to build that alien containment facility...

We're going to interrogate some aliens! But not Chryssalids, those things just need to die.

And then I finish my first batch of laser weapons! Five laser rifles, 2 laser carbines, and a large auto laser for the gunners I think (Oh, that won't be ready for another two days). I also built a Heater, a laser pistol for the covert operatives (sorry it wasn't ready in time Gnife Gnife).

I let time pass and Gnife Gnife completes his mission, but needs an extraction. Next time, retrieving our covert operative!

Here we go again!