Last time I faced a frustrating and difficult EXALT mission, and the session ended with a landed medium sized UFO. Picking up where I left off, it's time to choose a team to attack the landing site. Since I was unable to shoot the UFO down, I'm worried about the number of aliens I'm going to be facing; a crashed UFO has a decreased number of enemies. And this is my first time against a medium UFO as well, so there will already be more than the small scouts I've been dealing with so far.
So with that in mind, I want to bring some people to level up, but I don't want to bring too few high ranking people with decent skills. My final team is as follows: Sergeant Almaeron, infantry. He can shoot twice if he doesn't move, and has some good overwatch abilities. Corporal Aproustian, rocketeer. She can earn a promotion, hopefully, but can still provide good covering fire. Corporal Chill Walk, Scout. Mobile and carries a battle scanner so I can maybe get the drop on the aliens for a change. Sergeant Enhara Lavellan, gunner. More heavy support. Corporal Zhang, medic. This is actually a special unit I got from one of the council missions. Needless to say, I need a medic in case things go wrong. Lieutenant Corporal Merckie Baioine, Engineer. Lowest ranked soldier on the mission, but he can sit back and toss grenades if need be. Rounding things out are Sergeant Adaar, my sniper and Sergeant Mahariel, my Assault. I give Mahariel a laser rifle instead of a shotgun, I have a feeling I'm not going to do much running up and shooting people in the face, so she will work better with the added range of the rifle.
Hopefully this leaves enough sergeants in reserve for future missions while this team recovers from their fatigue, while also giving me enough good options for whatever I'm going to face.
I remember to give everyone laser weapons! Well, except Adaar, I don't have a laser sniper rifle yet. I also kit out the fast moving elements with the Phalanx armor and Alloy plating for extra defense in case I end up surrounded or surprised.
Alright, I'm nervous about this, but I think I've prepared as best as I can. Here we go!
The mission starts me in the corner of the map. We are in the woods, so there are plenty of cover options. Sadly most of them aren't within walking range. The squad moves forward with care and I toss Chill Walk's battle scanner at the wall of the UFO (it was close to my starting position). The scanner reveals a pod of sectoids, who have not seen me yet so they're not active. Hehehe, this is actually great. Adaar gets a long range sniper shot on one of the sectoids, killing it before it can move. The rest of the sectoids scurry for cover, as does a single alien drone.
First blood to me. Everyone moves into cover and goes on overwatch. The sectoids proceed to walk directly into my guns and we kill the survivors with reaction fire. The game is giving me worrying audio signals as the unknown aliens move around though. Lots of growling. Is that chrysalids? I don't know the audio queues at all so I'm not sure, but I am concerned.
And then I see something I really did not want to see yet.
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| The first Mutons of the game. |
It is a pod of Mutons! Mutons are the next level up of aliens, they tend to be accurate, aggressive, and throw grenades. I know this from BlueAnkylo's Let's Play. I really did not want to deal with these guys yet. They have a fair amount of hit points as well. Fortunately my overwatch wounds two or three of them. Mahariel and Adaar each get kill shots on the Mutons, thanks in part to the aliens leaving themselves with exposed flanks. I'm not sure if the AI had trouble finding cover or just played this pod poorly. Either way, I'm fine with it. Merckie pops a smoke grenade over my forward element for additional cover, although I'm concerned that may attract enemy grenades.
To my intense surprise and relief, the pod leader and surviving Muton (yes there were four!) retreat into the UFO. At the same time, to my dismay, four Thin Men emerge from the other entrance to the UFO, behind my lines. I have to quickly shift positions to keep cover against the new threat. As I do so, a pod of floaters activates where the Mutons were, forcing me to split my attention.
Almaeron manages to kill the first floater as it comes into range with overwatch. I'm really happy I brought him, he's doing great. The Thin Men spit acid clouds on Aproustian and Lavellan. This takes them out of the action for several turns to avoid taking acid damage, but even without them it doesn't take me long to take out the Thin Men and two more floaters. There are still the two Mutons and an unknown number of Outsiders to worry about though.
The last floater shows up, and to spite me for the ease of my previous turns, it takes three people shooting to take it out. And then, I watch in horror as four Chrysalids come out of the UFO. I fear them more than others for the method and results of them killing one of my people. I don't like zombies.
unfortunately for the Chrysalids, they group up. And that lost drone comes out with them. Aproustian fires a rocket at them!
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| Got them! |
The rocket kills one Chrysalid and the drone outright and leaves the others shredded and wounded. I concentrate fire and take the rest of them out.
The two Mutons seem confused, they wander out of the ship, but don't stand in cover. I'm able to flank and kill them pretty easily. Immediately behind them come four Seekers. For the love of... how many aliens are there here?! I manage to kill three Seekers quickly, but the fourth is able to activate its stealth mode. I've barely moved all mission so far, just shifting from one log to a rock and back again. It's kind of nice when the aliens come to me.
The last seeker gets killed when it tries to strangle Adaar. I guess seekers tend to go for your snipers, as they tend to be isolated, but in this case it de cloaked and immediately got shot by all the overwatch I'd left waiting for it.
Finally, I start moving into the UFO itself. It's hard to tell where my cursor is in there, the walls are really close to each other. Two Outsiders show up, running past the doorway. One of them takes Almaeron's reaction fire. I'm really liking this particular infantry build, I just get a good position and overwatch every turn and keep killing stuff. The outsiders go down quickly as my team breaks in and shoots them up.
And success!
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| Operation Cold Crone was a surprisingly easy success! |
For having faced 26 aliens in that mission, it went surprisingly well. Staying to cover and the aliens wandering to where I was helped a lot.
Time for promotions. Adaar reaches Tech Sergeant, and I give him Vital Point Targeting. This ability will add two damage to his primary weapon, or one damage to his pistol, against human enemies and aliens I have autopsied. I should really get to work on those autopsies...
Mahariel also attains Tech Sergeant, and as an assault I decide to give her Resilience, which makes her immune to critical hits. Since running ahead of my people is likely to get her flanked, this will I think protect her from the automatic critical from flanking.
Aproustian becomes a Sergeant, and I give her Shredder ammo for the free Shredder rocket. The one I used on those Chrysalids was fantastic, I want more of that.
Chill Walk gets to Sergeant, and I decide to give him Aggression. With this he gets +10% critical chances for each enemy he can see, to a maximum of +30%. Similar to Mahariel, I plan to have my scouts run ahead, so they're likely to see more enemies at a time. This may help him kill them off faster while the rest of the squad catches up.
Zhang becomes a Sergeant, and as a medic my choice is easy. He takes Paramedic for the free healing action.
Finally, Merckie Baioine reaches corporal, and I give him Smoke and Mirrors for +1 support grenades. I used Smoke Grenades for the first time this mission, so it seems like a good thing for him to have extras.
I barely get a day to pass when I get Alien Abductions occurring in the UK. They're pretty high on panic, so I need to do this mission to calm the populace down. I'm still in the mood to play, so let's go ahead and do this one too. Abduction missions should be easier than the UFO, I think, so I'll take a less promoted squad, though I'll bring a few higher ranked people just to be safe.
Corporal Gifted Matryoshka will come along as my assault. I still don't have laser shotguns, so I think it's a good idea to give him a laser rifle. Or a laser carbine, that has better aim for less damage. No, let's go rifle. I like the extra damage. Corporal Ezri Blackmoon will bring our rockets, and Sergeant Ephrael will be our engineer. Sergeant Amell is our medic, and Corporal Valris Kacil is infantry. Corporal Ciyin brings the gatling laser, and Sergeant Hat Stand will snipe. Finally, I'll bring private Lil Mouse, and try to get her promoted. Preferably without getting killed.
Begin Operation Lazy Rain! Oh dear, we're on a burning and collapsed highway overpass.
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| This will be interesting. |
I'm really not happy with our cover situation. I have to dash down from the upper elevation area if I'm to get cover on the lower area, otherwise I'll be standing in the open. There's another raised section of road across the collapsed middle bit. I do the best I can with what cover is available.
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| Don't worry, my people sort of climb down those concrete supports. We don't go by OSHA rules in this workplace. |
Fortunately, nobody shows up until I get to the middle section. Four seekers fly out of the fog and immediately cloak. Time to go on overwatch everyone! As I'm trying to find good cover, I get a pod of three sectoids, but I'm not too concerned about them, especially when Hat Stand immediately snipes one of them, and Ciyin kills a second on overwatch.
The first Seeker dies immediately upon decloaking near Hat Stand as most of my overwatch is still up on the first section. The other three seekers however go after my forward element, decloaking and strangling Valris, Ephrael and Ciyin. Amell, my only forward soldier not being strangled, turns and shoots the seeker off of Valris, who shoots the second seeker off of Ephrael, who then shoots the final Seeker off of Ciyin. Hat Stand tries to repeat her first Sectoid kill but leaves the thing on 1 HP. Ciyin finishes it on overwatch.
Time to move to the raised section of freeway beyond the collapsed area. I move cautiously, but Gifted triggers a new pod as he finds cover on the raised section. And f*&k all if it's not three Mutons. What the actual hell? Oh, never mind, we're fine. Hat Stand gets a head shot and kills one Muton outright. Gifted manages to kill the second Muton with a lucky shot, but then I have no more guns in range. The remaining Muton moves and fires, wounding Gifted. Fortunately, he keeps his cool, and the damage is entirely to his armor. And then three Thin Men show up. Yay?
It takes every shot I can bring to bear to kill the last Muton, so the Thin Men have free reign to get into cover and shoot at me. I get lucky though, and they fail to land any more hits. I begin the next turn with Ephrael hurling a grenade that destroys one of the Thin Men's cover, which allows Lil Mouse to get a kill! Yes! The other Thin Men die shortly thereafter.
Success again! Thirteen aliens this time, but no wounded soldiers, no dead soldiers, I managed it pretty well!
Promotion party! Hat Stand takes Platform Stability upon reaching Tech Sergeant, which gives her +10% aim AND critical chance if she fires before moving. Since that's how I play her, this should be perfect. Amell also promotes to Tech Sergeant, and I don't like tech sergeant options for medics, since two are based on smoke grenades. I don't think I've taken a single medic through the smoke grenade path so far. So Amell gets Opportunist, which will help his overwatch shots. Gifted takes Hit and Run at Sergeant, which gives a free shot agains flanked or uncovered enemies. I have actually had a fair number of flank shots this session, so this seems reasonable.
Ezri also takes Platform Stability at sergeant, which helps with rocket scatter, while Lil Mouse promotes to be our sixth scout!
A UFO immediately shows up on the scanner. It's a small scout, so I'm not super worried... but I have no interceptors to try and shoot it down. Damn. The UFO is free to fly around a bit. And then China leaves XCOM, joining India. That means the aliens now have two bases. Lovely.
I finish construction of the alien containment facility, so I can build an arc thrower and start trying to capture aliens. That will be stressful...
I finished research on Meld! Meld is nano machines that combines different organic and mechanical parts, so we could either try using it to modify our soldier's genetics to make them better, or build cybersuits that interface with the human body. Who wants to become a mech soldier?
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| Xenogenetics finished! |
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| Time to start autopsy on a Muton! |
Anyway, next time, Terror Mission!
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