XCOM: The Long War Part 12: EXALT

In which we deal with our first EXALT mission.




When we left off, Gnife Gnife had been investigating the new human faction, the EXALT, who were attempting to work with the invading aliens. Having learned valuable information, Gnife Gnife signaled for a pickup, and we are now dispatching a team to extract him from enemy territory.

I know from watching the Let's Play of the game that Gnife Gnife should have an ability to interact with certain things to disrupt the EXALT forces for a turn or two, meaning they can't use their guns (though they can still throw grenades). Gnife Gnife however will be in plain-clothes and only packing a pistol himself. And the extraction team will be smaller than usual. So let's see, I'll want some veterans, I'm not doing one of these for the first time with rookies.

Ok, turns out, at least for this mission, I get the same number of soldiers I have been using. That should help me.

I'm bringing Sgt. Hat Stand as our sniper, and everyone else who was available is a corporal. our gunner is Warlock Misty, Almaeron will be infantry, Aster Tevelyan is our medic, Titan Ephrael will be our engineer, Aproustian our rocketeer, Cereth Mahariel our assault and Chill Walk is our scout.

Let's do this!

Ah, so our objectives aren't so much extraction this time... we need to prevent the EXALT from hacking our encoder, and failing that we need to stop them from destroying our transmitter. So Gnife Gnife has uploaded his information, and we need to stop EXALT from finding out what we know, and failing that, prevent them from stopping us from recovering the data at least. Let's see how this goes.

Central further clarifies for me, the encoder is hiding the location of the transmitter from EXALT. Got it got it.

Sometimes the cinematic are too good not to try and capture.

Ok, let's get some positions. The encoder is in an open sewer pit, a laptop on some boxes. Looks to be in the middle of a construction site.

If any EXALT forces get inside the green box, I have 3 turns to remove them or move someone in to contest their control, otherwise they hack the encoder. Even if they shoot me every turn or aren't standing next to the laptop.

The transponder is in a nearby trailer, with Gnife Gnife standing by.

Hi Gnife Gnife! Good to see you again.

I think my initial plan is to move cautiously with my ranged people, trying to find good locations to cover the encoder, while Mahariel rushes forward to shotgun anyone who gets too close to it.

The first three EXALT show up, immediately moving to the encoder's location. Dr. Vahlen observes that the EXALT are using alien genetics to enhance their soldiers, and advises we use extreme caution until we better understand their abilities.

Gnife Gnife disrupts the communications at the first enemy comm tower, and runs to the second, in case things go poorly, but I'm able to eliminate all three of the initial soldiers.  Mahariel has to run and gun to get the third enemy, and hears a sound ping of more EXALT troops, but none show up on their next turn. They're probably waiting for their comms to come back online. A battle scanner from Chill Walk reveals a pair of EXALT hiding in the back corner of the map, probably out of my range for now. I'm going to try and get better positions while I have this break.

On their turn, the EXALT make their move, though they seem to still be on the comms lockdown as none of them take a shot. Two new foes appear on either flank, each taking overwatch fire from my people, and a second and third squad, each with three members moves towards the encoder (the second squad are the ones I saw with the battle scanner). I take three of them out on my turn, and on the EXALT turn, two of them run for the encoder only to die to overwatch (my favorite being the one who took both a SAW barrage from Misty and a shotgun blast from Mahariel's close quarters fighting ability. Yeah! I may have cackled maniacally at that...)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA TAKE THAT!

The other four EXALT agents reload, which means their comms must be operational again. Too bad Gnife Gnife is standing by one of their comms towers... He proceeds to hack their comms again. Two more towers, but if I can kill all the enemies without them firing a shot... isn't that in Sun Tzu?

The yellow swirly thing is their communications tower which Gnife Gnife can hack.

One EXALT goes down to overwatch when he attempts to rush the encoder, then three more show up, two run in from the flanks and a third drops on top of Gnife Gnife's position inside a storage container from a helicopter. The helicopter drop guy goes on overwatch, just like Thin Men do, but his position leaves him flanked. Aster promptly obliges me by gunning him down.

Hello and goodbye.

On my turn, I take out every last EXALT, but we're not done yet. Five more show up, Central says they seem to be the last wave. One of the reinforcements dies immediately when 5 of my people get overwatch shots on them, and a second new enemy is left on one HP and shredded from Misty's SAW overwatch. The last EXALT again drops in from a helicopter, on top of the trailer housing the transponder, and goes on overwatch. He'll be the first to die.

Hat Stand showing why she's the coolest sniper around (I think I get these shots when a soldier makes a one-shot kill...)

Aproustian is flanking one of the reinforcements but she's out of bullets. Rather than reload, I decide she should kill him with a rocket. Yes he only has one HP but I haven't blown anything up yet this mission!

I know I shouldn't but I can't help it, and it is entirely within Aproustian's character anyway...

BOOM! HAHAHAHAHA! I just couldn't resist!

The remaining EXALT are no match for my weight of firepower, even without jamming their comms a third time, and we succeed at Operation Banished Hymn!

About halfway through that mission I thought "Don't I have laser rifles? I forgot to equip the laser rifles, didn't I?" This is what I get for not playing in almost a month...

Aproustian, Hat Stand, and Chill Walk don't get promotions but everyone else does. Aproustian because I left her in the back guarding the transponder in case of emergency, so she didn't get many kills until that last ridiculous overkill rocket, and Chill Walk because he kept missing. He needs a laser rifle. And Hat Stand was the only Sergeant, so it will be awhile before she gets another promotion.

And we have eliminated the EXALT cell in Australia. We got bonus money for retrieving both the transponder and the encoder, though I can't imagine future missions will be as easy as that one was. Hopefully with more clues we can figure out where EXALT's HQ is... I use 50 of the monies I just earned to do an intel sweep, which I think should stop EXALT from attempting to sabotage me this month at least. And we know for sure they're not based in the UK, good good.

Ok, promotions. Mahariel gets one, and a nickname: "Cobra". I like it, she did a great job of hiding by the enemy objective and ambushing repeated attempts by the EXALT agents with a swift shotgun blast. Much like a cobra would do if I cobra could use a shotgun. I give her Close Encounters, which means the first shot she makes at a target within four squares does not cost her an action. I just like that ability for how I expect to play assaults.

Misty will take Ranger. She has shredder ammo already, but I notice her next promotion lets her take Double Tap, an ability that lets her take two shots every other turn. That means if her first shot isn't enough to kill the target, the second one against the now shredded foe probably will. And if the extra damage from Ranger is enough to tip her into killing her first target outright, maybe she can get two kills per turn, or at least leave two very shredded enemies for the rest of the squad to pick off.

Aster gets paramedic, because why would I not take paramedic? I didn't even look at the other two options, just, you're a medic, so you get paramedic, so when you use your medkits you can still do other things. Done.

Almaeron is going to take Ranger as well. He's shaping up as an overwatch infantry but the extra damage will always be handy. Deadeye, to hit flying targets better, would also have worked. Next infantry should get deadeye. I'll try to remember that.

Ephrael will take repair. She has Holo-targeting, so I think I often want her shooting first, but the other options were damage reduction in cover or suppression. Right now my strategy has been if I kill the enemy before they shoot me I don't need damage reduction. Maybe I'll regret that later. But repair both lets Ephrael repair my mechanized units with Arc Throwers, and grants +2 Arc Thrower uses, which will be helpful when I'm ready to capture aliens finally.

And those are promotions! I apparently got a new corporal from a request, she's currently Lauren "Cleopatra" Hawkins, but if anyone wants to jump in as a corporal let me know and I'll rename her. I haven't picked her promotions yet so she can still be anything you'd like.

I use the money to order construction of a 6th laser rifle and a Gatling Laser for my gunners. That will bring me up to 6 laser rifles, 2 laser carbines, and a gatling laser, enough to outfit a whole squad, though I don't think I have the technology for a laser sniper rifle or laser shotgun yet. I also order a pair of laser pistols, in case I ever need them, and a motion tracker because I don't know what it does but it looks like it might help me locate aliens and civilians in the fog of war? I'll try it sometime.

We finish research into the Raider class UFO, and I start my people on researching Advanced Beam Weapons, because that sounds like fun.

I advance time enough that my new Satellite is ready, and I start shipping it to the UK. I think I'm going for total coverage in Europe right now... and of course right when it finishes, we get news of alien abductions happening in Japan.

Next time, stopping those abductions!