XCOM: Enemy Unknown aka the one where Haphazard dies repeatedly

[DaveV]

Therefore, consider this as a call to all Lurkers to post in the thread to make sure you get included.

[Brackard]

Misc marine meat shield #235 reporting for duty!

[Amelia]

Marine reporting for duty!

Requirements: Support, with red armor!

[Kagami]

Ready to roll sir!

[Ug the Barbarian]

I was thinking about the game last night and realized one sad fact: smaller squad size means less deaths. That is to say, I don't think we'll get to have Haphazard die quite as many times as in the previous games. It also means that, if we play well, we won't go through as many names. Therefore, consider this as a call to all Lurkers to post in the thread to make sure you get included. So far names we have for the game (in order of current post count in this thread):

I think you underestimate the number of rookies/squadies I can kill in my turns

Does anyone has a preference for colour coding soldiers?- I tend to have a colour for each type so they're easy to recognise in action (red for Assault, white for support etc)

Agree on Africa as start. Do we have a preferred turn order after Uberfish ? (I'm free now)

[uberfish]

MISSION 1

XCOM decided to build its base in Africa to avoid media attention in the developed world. Also the local governments could easily be bribed to look the other way if XCOM carried out any... illegal activities to raise more cash:



Immediately we received reports of suspicious activity on a major highway in Nigeria.



I decided to slowly advance the squad up to the huge truck



Our point man spotted some aliens, although curiously enough they didn't see him in return. The rest of the squad followed closely to try and sneak up on the aliens and shoot them if they moved next turn:



but as it turned out I was able to approach even closer without being spotted,



resulting in...



a triple kill.

As the squad reorganized another group of 3 aliens came into view and spread out behind cover



I was actually going to reposition my troops because a 4 on 3 firefight when only two of my troops were able shoot from full cover isn't particularly great, but accidentally shot at one of the aliens with the guy at the edge of the truck cab so I moved one guy around the full cover of the back of the truck to fire too. Both my shots missed and I moved the other two into potential flanking positions, hunkering down the one stuck with the low cover.



Sectoids did their typical mind merge. The merged sectoid fired at my hunkered down guy and missed, and the 3rd alien moved up to the concrete pillar and decided to overwatch to stop me flanking.

Now a mind merge makes the target of the merge stronger, but if you kill the alien which initiated the merge, the backlash will kill the second sectoid too. (It doesn't work the other way around.) I therefore took two 45% potshots at the sectoid, but only scored 1 hit for 2 damage. This meant I had to resort to plan B which was moving my trooper behind the toilet up to the pillar to throw a grenade from there and assure two alien kills, while my 4th man took her previous position and overwatched to try to cover her from flanking.

Grenade killed both sectoids as expected. On the alien turn, the last sectoid did indeed go for walking round the pillar and flank and I got to reaction fire at it, but missed. Luckily, it only did 2 damage from its flank, and on my turn I just counter-flanked and killed it.



I got the following promotions and assigned some names:

Uberfish - Heavy (obviously I had to claim the guy who got the triple kill)
Haphazard - Support
Unnamed female trooper #1 - Assault (in med bay for a few days for someone to claim her)

Our resident science chief Dr Vahlen was not pleased that 4/6 the aliens in the mission had been blown up by grenades:



I had no option but to start research on Xeno-Biology.



Here's our base. I started excavating to the right to make space. Note we have steam next to the lift on the 3rd level. This is a nice find for later on, but we shouldn't spend C140 in lift and excavation costs to rush there early.

And there's the pesky aliens again.



Seeing as we are playing an African start which encourages us to build satellites, I will take the engineers in Canada.

[dazedroyalty]

Good job beating the mission without any losses! The lack of weapon fragments hurt but we'll make up for that quickly in future missions.

Your last pic didn't come through, btw.

Also, I took a quick 30 second stab at base layout. Having a good idea what we want to build where will help us get the most of our adjacency bonuses. So here's a quick stab:



I'm pretty sure already it's too low on power but I just wanted to get the discussion going.

[dazedroyalty]

P.S. Did you use Steam's screenshot tool (F12)? Or regular print screen?

Also, here's the updated canon fodder list (With # of times used):

Dazedroyalty
Uberfish (1)
Haphazard (1)
Ug the Barbarian
Sareln
xenin
Tasunke
Mardoc
Brian Shanahan
Kagami
Brackard
Amelia
DaveV

[uberfish]

I made everyone look very silly. The turn players got helmets so they can pick their own face and hair.



The squad gets dropped off near some kind of office with a fountain outside.



Advancing cautiously we spot two sectoids, which run off and hide behind the van in the top left of the screen.

There's no good cover to approach them, so I elect to set an overwatch ambush behind low cover in their general direction of approach. Note that most of this cover except the alien pod Uberfish is hiding behind is low cover. The reason Uberfish gets this spot isn't just because he's my avatar but because he's a Heavy trooper, and Heavies are the guys you don't want to have to move if a fight breaks out; you can't move and fire a rocket in the same turn, and they are also able to use both turns to shoot. So this position behind high cover with a good view of the building to fire a rocket at it if necessary is ideal.



One of the sectoids behind the van immediately decide to change position and run straight into my trap. Dazed misses and Ug scores a kill



the second sectoid runs into line of sight too and eats 5 damage from Uberfish's LMG and dies

resuming the cautious advance another 2-sectoid patrol comes into sight on alien turn and triggers some overwatch fire:



Uberfish picks up another kill, a couple of turns later as I'm slowly advancing towards the side of the building the second sectoid suicides into overwatch too. Hmm this mission is easy.

This was the 3rd group of two sectoids that showed up. They managed to get decent cover on us.



Now, at this point I can just rocket them with Uberfish. But 1) I'm being nice and don't want to steal all the kills, so that people can promote, and 2) after the last mission, I want to try and recover more weapon frags this mission by NOT using explosives if I don't have to, 3) The risk of taking casualties from these guys is fairly low if I manage the situation correctly.

If I just shoot from here I can probably kill the front alien in Low cover. But the guy in the back is in high cover which means I'll miss it a lot and he might get some good shots off on my troops. I decide to reposition set up a flank.



Everyone's back in high cover. Haphazard is holding down the outside. The other three will flank through the building and aren't too worried about running into another 2 sectoid patrol.

Sectoids mind merge, take a pot shot at Ug and miss. the assault team enters the building and moves through a side room.

Alien response:



apparently thinking the coast was clear, this sectoid decided to use its full turn to dash towards Haphazard, allowing Hap to move back to the nearby car and flank. If he misses, I'll just move the assault team to the front room and have them shoot it through the window since it's not in cover



Hap gets the kill though.

the rest of the team sweeps the building and the other sectoid runs into them



Reaction fire misses, alien misses too, but it's easily cleaned up



This has been another easy mission, with aliens only getting to take 2 shots at XCOM, and missing. We get promotions:

We now have 1 of each class + an extra assault in the medbay. Uberfish took the double shot ability. (I want the following build on him please: shredder rockets + danger zone + rocketeer)

Global view. Japan and South Africa are annoyed at us. I don't care.

[dazedroyalty]

Were all the groups of aliens in sets of 2? That's really unusual for Classic difficulty.