Last time ended with a Terror Mission in Perth. Terror Missions are generally terrible for several reasons; they tend to involve the loathed Chrysalids who can turn people into zombies when they kill them and those zombies then can spawn more Chrysalids; they are rescue missions, but the aliens will kill civilians even before I activate them, off screen from my line of sight; and even if I succeed at the mission, panic in the country will increase based on how many civilians I failed to save. The missions are probably meant to be a balance between trying to rush forward and save civilians, and moving cautiously to preserve my soldiers. They mostly just seem frustrating to me.
Anyway, we're doing this mission! Not doing it would definitely be bad so I'll do the best I can. I'll bring high ranking people as much as I can, and since I'll want to be mobile, I won't bring a sniper. Tech Sergeant Valdora Kacil will be my scout; Sergeant Stand Von Hats will bring the rocket launcher; Sergeant Bigg Nife will bring a bunch of grenades (I anticipate groups of Chrysalids I'll want to kill quickly), Corporal Be Lindaros brings the autolaser; Corporal Tanasia and Lieutenant Corporal Coras Valin will be my infantry; Sergeant Tevelyan can be my medic, and Lieutenant Corporal Tank Dun will be my assault with the shotgun. I particularly anticipate Take Dun being useful with Close Combat allowing free shots as enemies approach, and the two infantry being able to take two shots per turn. I make sure to outfit everyone with laser weapons except poor Tak Dun (we're still a day away from completing work on the laser shotgun, or scatter laser as they call it) and use my better armor where I can. I'll also try the motion scanner item on my scout and see how that helps.
Enough prattling about, Launch Mission!
I try moving cautiously, but activate three zombies right away, who are standing near four civilians. I move to get a shot at the zombies and immediately activate three Chrysalids. I'm already thinking I may need to restart the mission, none of my people are able to get in range and line of sight without dashing, so I can take no shots this turn. And the Chrysalids immediately rush my scout and nearly murder her. Yep, restarting.
Second attempt starts better. I do spawn five zombies immediately with my first move, but they're close enough that I'm able to get shots off with the whole squad right away. I'm able to take two of the zombies down (they have so much HP!) and on the alien turn one shambles towards the squad and takes a shotgun blast to the face from Tak Dun, while the other two shamble away and murder a civilian.
I start moving forward slowly, but still activate three Chrysalids and five more zombies. One of the Chrysalids rushes my people and claws Valdora badly, but she doesn't go down thankfully. The other Chrysalids scuttle into the fog of war and begin murdering civilians, so there are more zombies coming at me I'm sure. The two zombies from the first turn go and kill another civilian, while the second group of five swarms my position.
On my turn, Be Lindaros and Coras combine their fire to take out the Chrysalid, and the rest of the squad is able to kill two zombies, but now the initial zombies are coming back and the remaining zombies from the second activation square Valdora and knock her out. At least she's just critically wounded, and Tevelyan can stabilize her if I can get him to her in time. Of course I also hear the chrysalids out in the fog of war making more zombies.
I'm able to rush Tevelyan over and realize he has revive, so Valdora is up and ready to fight again, though she is still severely wounded. The two Chrysalids, apparently not seeing any more civilians to murder, rush back at us only to be gunned down in a panic of shooting.
So far, I've managed to save two Civilians when Valdora rushed into a building before she was knocked out. 12 Civilians are dead, at least four of which are among the zombies I've gunned down. At least I've figured out that the black shirt zombies are zombies that started the mission as zombies and don't spawn Chrysalids, it's only the colorful shirt zombies that used to be civilians that get to be priority killed. There are four remaining civilians, and the map is larger than I'd thought. I spot three more zombies on the next turn, all of whom promptly wander away to look for civilians.
I try to catch up to them, and activate another five zombies and three more chrysalids. At least one chrysalid dies to overwatch shooting, while the other two run off to kill the civilians I can just now see. (Why are all these civilians in the dock section of Perth in casual clothes?)
So, I had thought I was almost done before those last two pods of enemies activated, and Tak Dun is out of position. The zombies shuffle up to him, one gets shot but Tak runs out of ammunition. He gets clawed by a zombie and panics, and the zombies surround him. This is bad. Tak gets clawed by another zombie or two and goes down, critically wounded.
Over the next turn or two I'm able to take out six of the seven zombies as I try to get Tevelyan close enough to save Tak's life, but the Chrysalids are sending two more newly minted zombies at me from the civilians they killed. I get slowed down enough killing the new zombies and the Chrysalids that Tak dies from his wounds.
After that it's just mop up, and I managed to save four of 18 civilians. Operation Banished Night indeed. I'm sorry Tak Dun, you will be avenged. But I don't think I could have done that much better than I did.
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| 32 aliens killed. Of which at least 6 were former civilians. I hate terror missions. |
Belindaros is out for 37 days with wounds he took when the zombies swarmed us the first time, and Valdora is out for 56 days from her critical wound. Seriously lucky they survived at all.
Oh god Australia is at maximum panic, if they get any more panic at all they'll leave XCOM and I'll have a third alien base to worry about. And there's nothing I can do proactively about it, I have no special requests from Australia to reduce panic.
But enough negatives, did I get anything good out of this? Be Lindaros was promoted to Sergeant, and I give him Ranger for the extra point of damage with his guns. Coras promotes to full Corporal, and takes Aggression for extra critical chance per enemy in sight.
I still have two more officer promotions as well. Belros is my first Lieutenant, who else should become an officer? I think I'll leave off the scouts and assaults, I feel like a lieutenant who stays out of the most dangerous situations is better, since I'm sure the benefits of their leadership skills will go away if they're incapacitated. I'm not sure how many officer perks are range dependent either, so I'm reluctant to have snipers who like to be stationary or gunners and rocketeers take the promotions since they tend to lag behind a bit. So that leaves medics, infantry and engineers. For now I'll promote Bigg Nife and Almaeron. Bigg Nife takes Stay Frosty, which reduces fatigue by one day when he leads a team. That makes him especially useful with higher ranked people, since I'll get them back ready to go faster. Almaeron takes the same perk as Belros, which gives the squad +1 will per nationality on the team. Less panic is always good. There's only the two options for lieutenants.
I let a little time go by and I get a council mission! In Australia! This will help reduce their panic, thank goodness. My mission is to rescue a UN official who has been attacked by the aliens.
I wanted another hopefully easier mission in any case, ending on the sour note of the terror mission is probably not the best.
Alright, council missions shouldn't be as hard as Terror Missions, but I'm wary of assuming they'll be small crashed UFO scale easy. Let's take a good mix of ranks.
Sgt. Gnife Gnife will be my scout out front, while Lieutenant Belros takes command as my infantry. Sgt. Aproustian will bring rockets just in case, and Sgt. Misty brings the big guns. Lieutenant corporal Seesil is our medic, and corporal Baioine brings grenades. Rounding the squad out is lieutenant corporal Belarius, sniper, and private first class Squall Leonhart. I'm taking a gamble with Squall. I don't have that many PFCs left, and they're the weakest link. But I also am running low on assault soldiers, and Squall fits the bill for one. At least this time I finally have my laser sniper rifle and my scatter laser.
Operation Forgotten Prophet begins. It's a VIP rescue mission. Please let there not be chrysalids.
The map is I think the same broken highway bridge from last session. Lots of burning cars and debris, with the middle section broken and dropped lower than the front and back sides of the bridge. Long narrow map, I'm actually generally alright with that, less likely to get flanked.
I move forward a little bit, to get to an NPC soldier by a broken car. He was with the UN general's squad, the general ran back into the fray to try and save another soldier. The NPC puts an Arrow in the fog of war for the general's position, and promises to retreat back to our squad's Skyranger aircraft.
Of course I immediately activate an alien pod, two Seekers and a Thin Man. I'll take it! And then I activate a second identical Pod. Yay? I at least manage to kill one Seeker pretty quickly.
I eliminate one Seeker with overwatch fire, but two of them activate stealth mode. The Thin Men run for cover; they're on the lower section of the bridge. On my turn I move forward and try to eliminate one of the Thin Men's cover with a grenade from Baioine, and the explosion shorts out the Seeker's stealth. Excellent, I have clear shots and eliminate them quickly. I spend another turn or two rooting out the Thin Men, but have no real problems. To be safe, Gnife Gnife tosses a battlescanner at the general's location, and I see a few more Thin Men in the area, inactivates yet. I move forward cautiously, and the general yells at me every turn to get to his position quickly. Sorry sir, we do things my way here.
I manage to eliminate the Thin Men and rescue the general with Gnife Gnife. Next up is to escort him back to the evacuation zone. Thin Men begin dropping out of the air behind my lines, and I know there are a few more on the far side of the collapsed section of bridge. So I dash the general from cover to cover and set overwatch traps with half my squad, while the others cover the rear. Four dead Thin Men later and the general is safe. Final goal is to eliminate any remaining aliens. Well, I get a Battlescanner up on the far side of the bridge and there are only three Thin Men left. I activate their pod finally when Belarius snipes one from across the map. Hurray squad sight working with battle scanners! Belarius almost single handedly takes the remaining Thin Men out, as I can't find decent enough cover to get my people up there, although Baioine takes the final shot, charging up the rubble and flanking the final alien.
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| So much better than last time. |
We also get extra rewards. Peter Van Doorn, nicknamed "the General", joins XCOM as a corporal. I guess being a UN general wasn't as fun as being a corporal with a secret extra governmental organization that shoots aliens. Anyway, congratulations sir, you are an Assault now. He gets Steadfast automatically (that might have helped Tak Dun, but it does mean Van Doorn loses out on Close Combat), so I decide to give him Ranger for his third level. The extra point of damage coupled with the high critical chance of a shotgun should make up for the loss of Close Combat.
Oh, we also get that first soldier we saved, Glenn Friendly. He joins as a specialist, and I make him an Engineer. Welcome aboard mister Friendly.
Belros gets promoted, he is now Lieutenant grade 3, and I give him Lock'N'Load (I believe the skills remain the same from the non-officer ranks, he just gets the bonus officer stuff). Lock'N'Load means that if he takes the reload action as the first action on his turn, it does not end his turn like it otherwise would. So he can reload and shoot in one turn. That's almost as good as two shots in a turn, and a very nice supplement.
Gnife Gnife reaches Tech Sergeant, and I give him Hit and Run for the free first shot of the turn. Baioine takes Repair at Sergeant, which lets him heal Shivs (if I ever build any) and Mechs (if I ever get that technology and start attacking robotic exosuits to my people). Belarius takes Precision Shot as a corporal, I think it's a special action that gives him an extra accurate sniper shot. Squall promotes to an Assault specialist. Finally, Seesil promotes to Corporal and takes revive. It was so helpful for Valdora to get up and keep shooting last mission I really like this option.
Let's let time pass until I get another mission, then I'll call it a day. The autopsy of the Muton completes first.
I'll go ahead and start the Chrysalid autopsy; it should finish quickly and I really want all the extra damage I can muster against those monsters.
More time passes and I finish the Chrysalid autopsy. I start work on a laser cannon for one of my aircraft; another medium UFO appears and gets away because my air game is not strong enough to deal with those yet. It lands outside my satellite range too, so I can't even go attack them with a squad. I need more satellite coverage. Next month that's my goal; satellites and laser cannons.
And three days from the end of the month we get another Council Mission! They must like me, it's unusual to get two in one month. This one is a followup on the information Zhang brought us when he joined in a previous Council Mission.
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| Operation Confounding Light huh? |
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