XCOM: Enemy Unknown aka the one where Haphazard dies repeatedly

[uberfish]

Well in my current impossible game I had no heavies until the end of month 2 and it was fairly painful going, then I kept getting experienced heavies from mission rewards until I had more high level heavies than anything else. It can be pretty random.

[haphazard1]

Sorry for the delays, everyone. Some unexpected chores came up, and then I got occupied watching my Texas Aggies beat Alabama.

Will play shortly, sticking to the second level of the base. I think we do need another generator fairly soon -- we do not want to be stuck later needing to build a generator before we can build something we actually want. It is better to stay ahead on power. But unless a lot of time passes I will leave that for the next player.

[haphazard1]

OK, turnset played (finally). Sorry again for the delay.

With time passing in Mission Control our Arc-Thrower research completed, and I built 2 for use in the field. Next research was set to Carapace Armor.

More time passes, and I am concerned about our base setup. We do not have enough engineers for another sat uplink for month 3 -- we have 15 and need 20. So unless we get an engineer mission reward (and with panic at high levels we can not guarantee that) we will need a workshop in time for next month's uplink. That is 10 days (workshop) plus 14 days (uplink), doable within one month's time (if we have power ready ahead of time). But the best location for that workshop is on the second level, 1 right of the access lift so we get adjacency bonus. That means more excavations on both sides of the second level for power (on the right) and to open the path to the cavern at the far left (beneath the OTS) for the alien containment. This will delay the containment by 5 days (for the extra excavation) but I feel the adjacency is worth it. I begin the excavations as soon as the previous two complete.

Back to Mission Control, where only minutes after ordering the excavations terrible news comes in:

Well, this should help panic levels in South Africa (one of our two countries in the red)...assuming we survive. If we can do really well it will help all of Africa, especially Egypt (in the orange). To maximize chances I go with the all vets squad:

I gave Uberfish and Ug the scopes, medkit for my avatar of course, and then grenades for the two assaults. No containment yet for live prisoners, and terror missions have fewer aliens with weapons to capture. We will need every edge we can get.

We load up the skyranger and head out. What map will it be?

Operation Falling Pipe is that nasty broken bridge map. Our courageous soldiers deploy and start advancing, sticking carefully to cover -- which of course means always missing multiple civilians by one tile every time. It happens so often I don't think it is random chance...and I am not risking my troops in the open to save civilians.

We move forward for three rounds without seeing anything. Three civilians have died somewhere in the darkness (which is totally random, apparently, and has no connection to where aliens are). By the end of turn three we are approaching the broken sections:

Next turn dazed moves forward and spots something horrific: a pair of chrysalids. (Our first for this game, so Doctors Vahlen and Shen babble about them.) One scuttles out of sight below the drop off (drawing a reaction shot for 4 damage from haphazard), the other is threatening a civilian (hard to see, but right next to it):

Sareln shoots at the visible chrysalid at 83% and misses; dazed has an 86% chance and hits for 4 damage. (Both chrysalids are now damaged, rather than one being dead.)

IBT two more civilians die, one of them injected by the visible chrysalid -- that is 5 already gone, we are not going to get continent-wide panic reduction. We also see a zombie moving from one of the earlier kills. Finally, 2 floaters trigger with Uberfish blasting one out of the sky with a reaction shot critical.

We start the next round with two visible aliens, plus we know another wounded chyrsalid and a zombie are somewhere out of sight beneath the edge.

Uberfish has 100% on the floater and sends it to join its partner in the afterlife, then uses his bullet swarm second action to reload -- next round is likely to be nasty because I know those two hidden aliens will be coming for us. Sareln has 86% on the wounded chrysalid and scores, earning a promotion. I pull dazed back from the edge to put a little more space between him and the unseen aliens. He, Ug, and haphazard go on overwatch as preparation.

As expected the chrysalid and zombie come up from below and charge the squad. Dazed, Ug, and haphazard all miss their reaction shots, and then the civilian killed last round by the visible chrysalid rises as a zombie. Another civ dies in the darkness, and we find ourselves in trouble:

Note the chrysalid ran all the way over to Sareln; it would have been able to reach and attack dazed if he had not moved from last turn's position. Dazed, don't say I've never done anything for you.

Haphazard takes aim at the chrysalid, hoping to free up Sareln to shoot at the other aliens:

Wild miss off into the sky. Sareln cleans up the mess:

Dazed meanwhile is facing the zombie at close range:

Unfortunately zombies are tough...tougher than chrysalids in fact. Dazed scores a critical hit but for only 7 damage. Ug checks odds and has 100% with pistol...but for only 2 damage which is not enough. (I was missing Gunslinger badly here.) So he lines up the close shot with the sniper rifle:

That is with a scope, remember. Fortunately Ug doesn't let little things like close range bother him, and the zombie takes a critical hit and is blown apart.

This leaves Uberfish free to shoot at the zombie down below the edge. He has 100% odds and uses bullet swarm to full effect, hitting for 5 and (sadly) 3 damage leaving the zombie still alive.

IBT another civilian dies -- that is 9 now. The zombie shuffles forward. Ug begins the next round by blasting it a third time, finally killing it. He then reloads, followed by everyone else except Ug reloading as the whole squad is low on ammo. Ug takes Overwatch just in case. Nothing threatens us, but the 10th civilian dies offscreen.

Haphazrd moves up and finds two floaters lurking just beneath the edge:

A nasty trap, and one of the reasons I really dislike this map. Haphazard has 81% and kills one floater; dazed moves up and gets the other at 83% to finish the battle.

Too many dead civilians for a truly good result. But no one died, no one wounded, and we get promotions for everyone but Ug.

Including Uberfish gaining the critical Captain rank to unlock the second Squad Size upgrade.

This will take most of our available cash but is well worth it. And we can sell corpses if we get truly desperate for cash before the end of the month funding comes through.

Speaking of end of the month, here are the upcoming events:

It is still almost half a month before we get our report card. Maybe we will get lucky with a cash mission.

Here is the current panic situation, after the terror mission reduced South Africa by 2:

Asia is definitely the roughest area right now, although Europe is having issues as well. Our next abduction choice is likely to be critical.

Finally here is the current base layout:

As discussed earlier in the report, I think the Containment should go at second level farthest left, below the OTS. Power generator can go on the right for adjacency, with the tile under the workshop reserved for a second workshop if we don't get an engineer mission reward before the start of month 3 to unlock the third sat uplink.

On available promotions:

Uberfish has a choice of grenadier or danger zone. I like danger zone as I tend to prefer a scope on my heavies for better accuracy. Grenadier can be nice, especially if you go for the Foundry project to allow unlimited alien grenades.

Haphazrd has a choice of revive or rifle suppression. I generally go with rifle suppression. Just how big is the permanent will penalty for a critical wound, anyway? Anyone know for certain?

Dazedroyalty has a choice of flush and rapid fire. I feel this has to be rapid fire, which is an awesome ability. Flush usually just drives an alien from one cover to another, and although you can do things with overwatch it is rarely worthwhile compared to getting two shots.

Sareln gets the nickname "Mustang" and has a choice of lightning reflexes or close and personal. As noted when we discussed dazed, I much prefer lightning reflexes.

The Save

Dazedroyalty is UP!
Ug is on deck.

Good luck!

[Ug the Barbarian]

Well played - terror missions are always tricky and its better to win without losses.

Agree with the selling items as we're likely to need cash desperately, especially if we actually want to build any carapace armour as well.

Base layout suggestions are all fine with workshop, containment and power all needed soon.

[uberfish]

Nicely handled on that terror mission Haphazard.

Agree on Danger Zone (to be honest I have one standard build for heavies, which is bullet swarm - shredder rocket - HEAT - danger zone - rocketeer, and seldom use anything else)

Should we skip to skeleton armour? It's noticably better than carapace but probably means a couple more missions without armour if we do.

[Sareln]

Well done. We're all alive still!

Lightning Reflexes please

[pling]

Brackard, Mardoc, Pling and Amelia: welcome to Xcom!

Unfortunately they decide they ALL want to be medics.

Would that mean no rocket launcher?

I suppose we can let pling reroll ;p

Well done. We're all alive still!

As a lurker I'm a little disappointed by the low death toll

[uberfish]

Yeah only Heavy troops can get rocket launchers in this game.

Sorry about the low (nonexistent) death toll. Suicide missions can be arranged once we have arc throwers

[haphazard1]

Agree on Danger Zone (to be honest I have one standard build for heavies, which is bullet swarm - shredder rocket - HEAT - danger zone - rocketeer, and seldom use anything else)

In my games I have gone a bit different path, which has turned out to be pretty good: bullet swarm - suppression - HEAT ammo - danger zone - mayhem. Less explosives (1 rocket rather than 2 + shredder) but gaining suppression, which later becomes danger zone area suppression, and if you can get to colonel extra automatic damage for the area effect. And HEAT ammo bonus applies to the mayhem, so you can area suppress mech enemies with guaranteed double mayhem damage. Often you can suppress the cyberdisk or sectopod for some automatic damage and take out any drones for free. But the big benefit is the automatic mayhem damage on suppression -- wounded enemies of any kind can be finished off with 100% certainty even behind full cover, or you can suppress and get some automatic damage to weaken them for other members of the squad to capture or kill.

I am interested to see how your build compares. Much more BOOM! power, which certainly has a lot of appeal.

Should we skip to skeleton armour? It's noticably better than carapace but probably means a couple more missions without armour if we do.

Well, we are not losing anyone so far so delaying armor a bit longer could work. And I agree that we probably do not want to spend the money/alloys on two sets of early armor. A middle way would be some carapace and some skeleton, which would get us some protection sooner. I am undecided. Part of me wants carapace ASAP as our current streak can not continue forever especially once mutons start showing up. But the other part is feeling pretty cocky and thinks we can wait for the skeleton armor for better movement and the 10% defense bonus. The improved movement is pretty nice, and would have helped on this last mission quite a bit -- part of the reason for so many civilians dying is the time it took to move forward and engage the enemy. I did not expect it to take 4 turns to trigger some opposition -- I could have dashed twice. Of course if you try that from the start, you will trigger multiple enemy groups when you have no movement left.

Sorry about the low (nonexistent) death toll. Suicide missions can be arranged once we have arc throwers

Although we now have a sniper with disabling shot, so captures can be slightly less suicidal.

[pling]

Yeah only Heavy troops can get rocket launchers in this game.

Sorry about the low (nonexistent) death toll. Suicide missions can be arranged once we have arc throwers

So I get to look forward to a "glorious" death in battle? Perhaps prior to reincarnation if I'm lucky