XCOM: Enemy Unknown aka the one where Haphazard dies repeatedly

[dazedroyalty]

I think Ug has the Plasma Sniper Rifle (but I could be wrong) and he's in Psi Training. Didn't make a lot of difference as neither of the 'junior' snipers (Tasunke or Brian S) have Squad sight yet so I used the Plasma Pistol for move & shoot.

I forgot about that! It's so dumb that you can't access their equipment.

Who's up next?

[uberfish]

Sareln?

[Sareln]

Got it.

For future reference, you can strip soldiers who are in Psi Training at the Barracks. You can also cancel psi training early if disaster strikes and you need your vets.

[Sareln]

Headed out for a walk, but then I'll be able to play this. WRT upgrades, I concur that Squadsight for Tasunke is pretty much the right choice. I'll look at pindicator's abilities, but being able to rapid fire is pretty damn gamebreaking for assaults. Keep in mind that you can even use it with pistols, and as we're entering the era of plasma pistols and pistol I - pistol III upgrades, that's not a small thing.

[Sareln]

That was freaking intense. Brian, good news! You're back in the sniper rotation... sorry Tasunke (blame Mardoc)

(and with that teaser, time to commence writing the report).

[Sareln]

Did you know we're only allowed 50 images in a post? I didn't...

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Operations Report (1/2):
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Another round of tests are completed, and Dazed Royalty is Psychic! Excellent.




New tests are ordered on our remaining veteran and our highest-willed newbies.




A few events proc.







Before we detect a landed UFO in Argentina.




I order a pair of plasma pistols, and set up with the following squad:

[Sareln]

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Operations Report (2/2):
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We deploy and make the initial breach without too much trouble, spotting a drone which Xenin and Dazed drop.










We hear movement and move in, preparing ourselves for the onslaught.

Oh BULLSHIT, how does it even fit through the door!







Okay, we're in a pretty bad way with 2 heavy floaters behind that Sectopod and a Muton Berzerker charging us on the alien turn. So for those of you keeping track at home, we've been stumbeled upon by:

1 Sectopod.
2 Heavy Floaters.
1 Muton Berzerker.
1 Muton.




Xenin and Mardoc bring the pain.







Though Xenin isn't able to finish off the Berzerker, so Dazed picks up another kill. With the cover been terrible, DaveV throws a smoke grenade and Haphazard suppresses it.




BULLSHIT.




That's a cyberdisk and 2 drones wandering into our firefight. Oh, and one of the heavy floaters decided he didn't like his part of the map, so he chose another.




The Cyberdisk (Green) has nestled itself out of LOS underneath us and the beam drones (yellow) have dived right in. Well, let's see if we can clear that out with an alloy cannon and get this thing under control.




Oh no, that's not how XCOM rolls. By the way, CHRYSSALIDS!







So... yeah. This has gone kind of pear-shaped, time to get the hell out. We're facing:

1 Sectopod
1 Cyberdisk
2 Drones
3 Chryssalids
2 Heavy Floaters
1 Muton

and a partridge in a ******* pear tree.

This is the point where I misclick and dash Dazed out of the battle without triggering run and gun, so he can't fire on that floater.




And Xenin does the most sensible thing in the world.




After some pure raw unadulterated luck, here's how things stand at the start of my turn. No-one is dead, though Tasunke nearly is having taken a 12 pt hit from the heavy floater he missed last turn.




The drones and Cyberdisk have clumped up, so DaveV drops a grenade on it after Haphazard moves out of the way dodging the Sectopod overwatch. Mardoc follows up:




And I breathe just a little easier.




Xenin drops a hit and a miss on the Heavy Floater.




And Dazed fries its mind (well, what it has left for a mind anyways)




Next turn the Sectopod fires at Haphazard and misses again (as Haphazard has been supressing it pretty much every turn) and Mardoc gets his chance to duel a Sectopod. Here's your chance buddy! Make it count.




Clutch.




The Sectopod misses Mardoc on the interturn.




And Mardoc lands another clutch hit to finish the job.




Dazed and Xenin move to sweep the rest of the area to find the missing Muton (the Chryssalids have moved forward in the ship based on the alien activity cameras. Dazed finds the Muton after everyone else has moved, so I decide not to take a chance for XP farming and just murder it straight up.







In the meantime, DaveV has used medikits on himself, Haphazard, and Tasunke. That's all she wrote folks, no-one get hurt, cause we're all out of medkits.

The Chryssalids comes out of the fog and Mardoc makes another solid shot, earning him a promotion.




We move forward and Xenin blasts a Chryssalid as it comes around the corner. I think it triggered 4 overwatch shots when it jumped up that ledge...




And we get the last Chryssalid at range with an alloy cannon, because Dazed is bad-ass that way.




We advance and spot some thin men. No problem for us here in T3 armor. Xenin rapid-fires his plasma pistol and gets one.




On the interturn, two Muton Elites join the party.




Dazed moves to flank and finds our missing heavy floater as well.







And Xenin cleans up.




By the way, pro-tip. If you're an alien, don't walk around blind corners.




Unfortunately he survives and drops the hurt on Dazed.




Since I know there's a thin man out there with a mind that needs frying, I have Xenin clean up the Muton Elite.




And Dazed runs out with lightning reflexes and does the mindfry.




The Heavy floater relocates.




And Tasunke gets to live the high-ground dream.




We advance to the control room, and I misclick and open the door early with Mardoc, taking a routine situation and turning it into a recklessly dangerous one.




I do my best and have Mardoc suppress one of the Sectoid commanders. On their turn they'll probably mind control someone, but my rapid-fire run & gun alloy cannon assaults are out of sight and about to come through another door, so we'll be fine either way.




Tasunke draws the short straw and gets both mind-fried and mind-controlled, surviving the ordeal with 1 HP.







Whereupon Mardoc panics and guns him down... dammit.




No longer in a very good mood, Dazed and Xenin bust down the door and rapid-fire both sectoid commanders dead.




Congratulations Mardoc, you've made Captain with a banner mission where you killed:

1 Cyberdisk
1 Sectopod
1 Chryssalid
1 XCOM Sniper (Tasunke)

Despite all the damage we took this mission, our armor is great and no-one has to spend any time in the hospital (since Tasunke goes straight to the morgue).




On a brighter side, we stripped enough Elerium and Alloy off that UFO that we should be able to afford pretty much everything we could ever want.




Next guy probably gets the Overseer UFO. Good luck!

The_Save

[Jkaen]

Toguh mission

[uberfish]

Nice mission sareln, that looked way harder than the one I got on that map.

[Sareln]

Hehe, the most crushing thing was getting through the trap at the beginning of the level, and then losing Tasunke on the "easy" part... :P