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Holy shit I can't believe the situation I got you all into last night. On the bright side, Flawgic is going to get to start her psi training!

Update will probably take a few days to put together, sorry.

join me in death, comrades

That's either really good for my character or really bad.

Winning!

Missions 15 & 16: The Boy in the Bubble


So hey, it's time for another ADVENT retaliation mission. One thing I appreciate in XCOM 2 is the amount of worldbuilding that is achieved through the background scenery during the tactical missions. Here, for example, we have a resistance settlement that was apparently built around a downed UFO. Neat! They've got scaffolding around the edges and corrugated steel on the roof to make some sort of observation platform or something. You know, makes the place feel homey.


Aside from that detail, though, nothing very interesting happened on this mission. There were tons of mutons, the game crashed once, Joe got shot - no big deal. I'm going to try not to overwhelm this LP with screenshots of people shooting at random aliens, so lets fast-forward to the end of the mission.


Lookin' good, team. And don't worry about Joe, he'll be back in action before the next mission even comes up.


It's time to continue our pursuit of the Chosen. This mission against the Assassin is relatively safe for us to undertake, but there's still a chance of an ambush. I decided to send out a skilled party, just in case they have to fight their way out of a corner.


We completed some ammo research, netting us a set of talon rounds. These are really good for rangers, since they increase the already-high crit chance on shotguns at close range. Not that we have any shotguns at the moment.


The month is over, which means it's time for money and resistance orders! Also dark projects. None of these is terrible, but two of them are pretty annoying. We're perpetually short on supplies, so halving our monthly drop would be a bummer, and I don't feel quite comfortable enough yet to let ADVENT accelerate the Avatar project. I'm not quite sure which one poses the greater threat, but I have some time to mull it over before I'll need to decide.


I slotted in the resistance order that allows us to make contact instantly, and with that we quickly extend our network to New Chile. There's a big, juicy ADVENT base here, just waiting for us to destroy it!


Ooh, we've finished Elerium research. This opens up the top tier of weapons and armor, although we'll have to research each of them in turn. We also get an instant autopsy of the Muton, since we killed so many of them on that last mission. That opens up some improved grenades and grenade launchers for us to buy, and you know how much I love stuff that goes boom.


We could dive right into researching plasma weapons or powered armor, but I want to take a few days to unlock the Experimental Weapons first. It's a set of three ridiculous gadgets that comes with the Alien Rulers DLC, old-timey unique weapons that I've never had a chance to mess with before. It'll only take us three days to research and there's a possibility that we'll trigger some research inspiration once we're done, so let's go for it.


We just got our monthly supply drop, so let's go spend some of it! I finally upgrade Inquisitor's equipment to tier two like everyone else, and I pick up the advanced grenade launcher for funsies too. The upgrade increases the range that you can huck grenades, which is pretty useful - especially when you're trying to ambush enemies that haven't spotted you. I also start working on plasma grenades at the Proving Grounds, which will eventually replace our basic grenades squad-wide.

Unfortunately, that's most of our money spent. I really need to find a way to get us some more supplies, since we still don't have an infirmary or a training center. And that powered armor is going to cost a cool 300 supplies once I research it too.


No time to dwell on that, though, as Commander Riker has a mission for us. I'm getting to the point where I don't really need any more engineers, but that intel will be useful. Anyway, it's generally a bad idea to refuse missions in XCOM 2, although in this case I don't think there would be any consequences for chickening out.


A good chunk of our A-team is still out on that covert op, so I cobble together some experienced troops and some fresh faces to build a squad. Inquisitor is up, despite being tired, because there's a chance that we'll get a visit from the Warlock. And look, somebody finally let Spook out of his tank! He hasn't reached maximum readiness, but he has a few cool tricks up his sleeve and I'm kinda short on manpower right now. I load people up with as many mindshields as I can, but I think one of our covert operatives is wearing one, so we still don't have a full set.


Things look sketchy as soon as we touch down. We're in the underground tileset that was added with the War of the Chosen expansion, and that's a place where bad things tend to happen. I also recognize this mission from having done it a few times: we need to rescue a VIP and we can't leave until the mission is complete. With no option to turn back, we press on...


...right into the jaws of the lion. Once again, I moved a soldier up to the point where they entered the enemy's vision range despite being in cover. How bad is that for our squad?


well


uh


Pretty fucking bad, all things considered.

Now, you may recall that there was a screenshot not all that unlike this one in my last update. And that was a very bad situation, but this one is worse. Because this isn't a swarm or relatively inoffensive ADVENT soldiers, this is a mixed group of aliens with all kinds of nasty tricks up their sleeves. The mutons have grenades, tough armor and can't be melee'd. The robot also has grenades and is accompanied by a priest who can mind control my unshielded units. There's a spectre who can shadowbind one of our guys, turning the odds even further against us. And that weird looking flying dude with the spear is an archon, whose blazing pinions ability once definitively ended a campaign of mine. So we got problems, I guess is what I'm saying.


Well, one way of dealing with problems is the old divide-and-conquer. TBaum is pretty far up relative to the squad, so he's going to put this nearby muton into stasis in hopes that he'll live long enough to do something about it once it wakes up.


Meanwhile our biggest problem is that spectre, which can royally mess things up for us if it goes unchecked. Inquisitor uses Justice to yank it out of cover...


...and Sensenic puts it down. Hooray! Unfortunately, that's all that we manage to do before our turn runs out.


And the bad news keeps on coming!


Time for the aliens to have a go. The priest puts Inquisitor into stasis, which isn't great, but it's better than mind control.


Gerad gets in an overwatch shot on a lancer who makes a move on Sensenic. The lancer doesn't die, but thankfully they miss their melee attack.


No such luck with the archon, however, who hits Eric with a nasty blast of plasma...


...which is then followed up by the MEC's micro missiles. Sensenic has Blast Padding, which reduces the damage he takes from explosions, but he loses his one point of armor in the process. Eric takes two more damage and is now down to a single HP.


It's a darn good thing that we're back to our turn, then, isn't it? Eric heals up some.


Joe takes out the wounded lancer with a well-placed Lightning Hands pistol shot...


...before turning his sniper rifle on the archon and getting in a solid hit. Archons have like 20 HP, though, so this one is still kicking.


Spook uses Soulfire to do some guaranteed mind-damage to one of the mutons...


... and Gerad finishes the job. We've gotten a few lucky shots in here, although I've edited out some of the misses too.


Sensenic drops a grenade on the MEC to reduce its armor, but sadly can't manage to get any other baddies in the blast. This is followed by the priest mind-controlling Inquisitor, which hey, that's pretty bad?


Sensenic takes a shot from the MEC, but thanks to his high dodge stat the damage is reduced down to 2 HP. All his training in saving his own skin is paying off!


Archons can also use their spears (or staves?) for melee strikes, which this one demonstrates for us on poor Spook.


Not to be outdone, the remaining muton runs up and does the same thing. Geez, don't tell me we lost another soldier on their first mission?


But wait! Spook learned Sustain, which activates at the last instant to save his poor purple hide. He's alone and surrounded by bloodthirsty aliens, but he's still alive! For the time being, anyway.


Joe takes care of our MEC problem, leaving us with a priest, an archon, a muton. Oh, and a mind-controlled Skirmisher. Oh, and the Warlock summoned some phantasmal zombies. So, uh, no problem, right guys?


Spook comes out of stasis to find himself surrounded by an archon, a muton and a spectral zombie. I run him back a bit and kill the zombie, which detonates, damaging both of the other enemies. I didn't know that was going to happen, but I'll take it!


Baum is still at 1 HP, so Eric takes a second to heal him before taking a shot at the archon. Healing is nice because it doesn't end your turn, so you can heal twice in the same turn, or else heal and harm. Eric didn't take no Hippocratic oath.


Somewhere in there I killed the muton, so now we're down to the archon, one zombie and the priest. Things are looking up!


Gerad gets a lucky crit, which knocks out the archon. A regular shot wouldn't have been enough, so this is a rare bit of good fortune.


This, however, is bad news. Sensenic takes a nasty hit from the priest and is down to a sliver of health - plus he's standing right next to Inquisitor, who's still playing for the wrong team. Thankfully, our Skirmisher decides to toss a grenade at Eric rather than finish off our grenadier. That's not great, but it's way less damaging than some of the things he could have done.


I'm good and fed up with this priest by now, so Sensenic shows him the door. Somebody else takes out the last zombie, meaning that we've effectively cleared the map of any wandering pods. I am legit astounded that we didn't lose someone in that battle. That said, the mission is far from over - we still have a Chosen running around, plus a VIP to rescue.


The VIP is holed up in some sort of office up ahead, surrounded by the Warlock and the ADVENT troops that he just summoned. I know from experience that Bad Things are going to happen as soon as we tag the VIP, so we'd better clear the place out first.

The Warlock, thankfully, is kind of pulling his punches so far. Which is to say, he hasn't mind-controlled anybody yet. Here, he's using some kind of psi-attack that chains from one of my soldiers to another, seemingly without harming either of them. Maybe it has a chance to cause panic or something?


Sensenic tosses a gas grenade into the office, where one of the ADVENT soldiers has posted up. He very carefully manages to hit the enemy without poisoning our VIP.


Gerad begins the long process of whittling down the Chosen's HP. The Warlock is Brittle, which means we get bonus damage if we hit him multiple times in the same turn. That makes free attacks like Lightning Hands extra useful, since we can get a combo chain going even with weak attacks that don't pierce his armor.


Thank god for mind shields! It's way worse to be mind-controlled by the Warlock, since he has such a big HP pool. At least a priest or a sectoid can generally be killed within a round or two.


Since he's still new to the crew, here's an extra shot of Spook using his cool brain powers on the enemy.


Sensenic finishes the job, then runs over to loot the enemy corpse.


Gerad has a plan and he's sticking to it. Unfortunately, the Warlock has some decent cover, so his next shot misses. And that's bad, because...


...the Warlock has a chance to return fire on any missed shots. Gerad and Spook both fall victim to this ability, taking 3-4 damage each.


I'm getting tired of missing my shots, so I have Sensenic use Demolition to destroy the Warlock's cover.


Now we're getting somewhere. Joe and Gerad pile on the pistol shots (including both of their Lightning Hands), putting the Warlock into Bewildered state, where he takes more damage.


Then we grapple Inquisitor onto the roof, where he can use his Adversary status to finish the job. Consider this redemption for his earlier betrayal.


And with that, the area is clear! Phew. Still not done, however. We take a second to reload everyone and get into position, then Inquisitor goes to tag the VIP (who has probably spent the last 10 minutes wondering what all the ruckus was).


To the surprise of nobody, grabbing the VIP triggers a bunch of ADVENT reinforcements. Well, to be fair, I absolutely was surprised the first time I played this mission. Things, ah, didn't go so well that time.


A purifier and a MEC drop down on top of us, and a sectoid and an ADVENT soldier show up farther ahead of where we're stationed. This group doesn't stand a chance, as they're completely surrounded by troops on overwatch. I did have a moment of panic when Spook gunned down the purifier from point-blank range, though, as they have a chance to explode on dying. Good thing it didn't, or else he'd be dead!


As for the MEC, well, there ain't no MEC no more.


Down the hall we have this Sectoid, who is far enough away that we just can't friggin' hit it. I don't know how many shots I wasted on him, but I will tell you this - we never killed him.


His ADVENT buddy doesn't fare so well, though. Inquisitor yanks him up onto the roof, slashes him and then finishes him with his upgraded rifle.


We have to survive for three turns before we'll be able to evac out of the mission zone. Another group of ADVENT drops right into the middle of us, but they don't survive long enough to make it to cover. The stupid Sectoid is harrying us from down the hall, but our mind-shields are doing their job and no-one else has had any traitorous impulses.


At long last, our evac zone appears! This is a relatively good place for it to be, all things considered, not too far from the squad.


I immediately evac Spook and Eric, both of whom are in really bad shape. I also post Gerad in the evac zone but opt to keep him around for another turn in case anyone needs a shootin'.


The pace of the reinforcements accelerates and suffice to say that we need to GO.


On our next turn we get everyone to the evac zone...except for Sensenic. You can see him at the top of the screen, pinned down by some suppressing fire. The enemy will take a shot if he either shoots or moves, but unfortunately for Joan, we don't have any other options for him. Nobody else can see the enemy targeting him and we don't have any tricks to make his retreat safer. And waiting around until next turn would be a very bad idea.. No, I'm afraid we're just going to have to sprint him to the evac zone and roll the dice. And with only 2 HP left, even his high evade stat probably won't help him, as even a grazing shot could take him out.

Fingers crossed, I hit the button and Sensenic makes a break for it.


The shot goes wide! Joan must have several rabbits' worth of lucky feet in his pack; he has endured, dodged or evaded everything that the aliens can throw at him and he still lives to tell the tale.


Hot damn, they all made it out. Team Swiss Cheese has miraculously survived to fight another day, although it'll be weeks before they're all back in fighting shape. Even so, I'm can't believe I managed to get them all out without losing anybody. In the future I'll have to be a bit more conservative while I'm scouting, I've had two bad breaks in a row and I'm not sure how much more of this my heart can take.


Time for more upgrades! Inquisitor gets a cool electric lash ability - it's a free action that does extra damage to robotic enemies, but you only get one per mission. I have a strong anti-robot bias (just ask DESTIL), so you know I'm gonna take that. Sensenic gets an ability that lets him carry an extra grenade, because more explosions is always better.


After a mission like that, Joan is understandably a bit shaken. Seems misplaced for him to develop a fear of vipers, though.


Victories are great and all, but overall the team is in pretty rough shape. We'd better hope no other missions come up before Aquadeo, Matchstick and Nightwalker get back from their covert op. If I wasn't so broke I would start building an infirmary right away...


But hey, at least one good thing will come out of this: the psi training pod is going to be free until Spook recovers from his injuries, so we can start training Esha in the ways of the purple force! Psi operatives are super useful and I'll be happy to have a spare backup for Torz.

Phew, OK, I'm all stressed out, time for a break. We'll reconvene next time, when I hope to put together a team to destroy the ADVENT facility in New Chile. Until then, vigilo confido!

"Experimental Weapons" is four things, in fact: a melee weapon, a crossbow, a pistol, and a grenade.

And if you're unfamiliar with the Alien Hunters DLC, then you should be very, very afraid of the Archon King. You thought regular archons' Blazing Pinions was bad? Archon King fires them after a single action.

Sheesh, that was one stressfull update to read!
Must've been a real blast to play!

Oh boy, another pic where it looks like I'm being shot at by my own team mates.

Haha, yesss!

Hey man, phobias are not rational. And I'm onto those snakes, I know they were behind all that somehow! They've got our number! We're all gonna die!
AAAAAAAAAAAHH! *runs away hands in the air, screaming*

Hey, could you be quiet? You're not the only one here who's ravely wounded.

What's a skulljack?

It's a knife-shaped USB port that we need to jam into an ADVENT commander's brain. Doing so has unpleasant consequences (for the victim, but more importantly for us too), so I've been putting it off for a while, but it's necessary for advancing the story. Unfortunately, for better or worse, the Chosen pretty much supersede the story when you play with the expansion. It's mostly for the better, since the campaign is much more interesting with them around, but in practice it means that you'll probably beat them all then do a victory lap of really easy story missions before your campaign wraps up.

Played a bit the other night and I had my first run-in with an Alien Ruler! They're...not so friendly.

Well, for better or worse, the thing you're afraid of triggering with the skulljack (and the psi portal down the line) will show up on their own, as I discovered on a recent campaign.

No kidding. Having played Alien Rulers prior to WotC, the Chosen feel incredibly tame in comparison.

Missions 17 & 18: Big & Bigger


While the team recovers from that last mission, the propaganda department gets back to work spreading the good word of XCOM. We add Eastern Europe to our network, which happens instantaneously because of the resistance order we have equipped this month. Then I sell a few muton berserker carcasses (the Black Market was Very Interested in them) and use the money to upgrade our resistance comm center. This gets us one more contact slot, plus the ability to staff a second engineer in the room to add two more later.


Currently, though, I only have enough intel to add New Mexico, which is apparently now located in, uh, regular Mexico. Since I can't connect to any more regions, there's no point in staffing the comm center yet. My free engineers are currently digging out the last rooms in the Avenger, and their time is better spent on that until I acquire enough intel to keep expanding the network.


Hey hey, we've tracked down the Chosen Assassin! This adds a mission to the map where we'll be able to finally take her out permanently, although I doubt we'll get to it for a while. The Assassin hasn't been much of a thorn in our side - you may recall that she's only showed up once and was instantly atomized by an exploding truck. The Chosen takedown missions are long and fairly difficult, so I probably won't attempt one until we have powered armor and plasma weapons.

Our next covert op is a milk run to pick up some supplies, since we're still super broke. Not worth a screenshot TBH.


We finished researching the experimental weapons! That means we can build four different unique weapons:

• A frickin' crossbow (does very high damage and can stun enemies, but it only holds one round of ammo)
• A flintlock pistol (has a special shot that is guaranteed to hit and puts the shooter into stealth)
• A pair of axes (sword replacement, once per mission you can throw one of them as a free move)
• The frost grenade (freezes enemies for a few actions, basically custom-designed for killing alien rulers)

HEY FOLKS: Do you want one of these for your character? Speak up if you do, otherwise I'll just distribute them as I come into the funds to buy 'em (and then upgrade 'em, since they start as first-tier weapons). The crossbow can be used by a specialist, ranger or psi operative, the pistol is sharpshooter-only and the axes are ranger-only. The frost grenade will just go to whichever grenadier I have on the squad, because it's too useful to leave at home. Most of these toys will become obsolete as we start collecting the Chosen's weapons, so let's enjoy them while we can!


As a bonus, research for Plasma Weapons is now inspired. My bet from last time paid off! We obviously get right to work on that.


Our redshirts come back from their supply run with the much-needed supplies. There's a covert op to reduce the Avatar meter that I'd like to run, but it's quite risky and there's nothing I can do to lower the chance of ambush. For now, I'll just accumulate some more ability points, since you can't have too many of those.


Gear time! I buy an EMP grenade, which is the explodive equivalent to the Bluescreen rounds. Absolutely one of the best items in the game, IMO, especially once upgraded. We finish researching plasma grenades, adding some much needed damage and shredding to our basic ordinance. And to complete the explosive trifecta, we start the frost grenade project in the Proving Grounds, although it won't be ready for a few days.


Esha is now officially a psi operative! Not much of one with only one skill, though, so we'll leave her in the oven for a while longer. Spook's still recovering from his rave, so he's not using it anyway. Building that second psi chamber would be a nice luxury, but it's expensive enough that we probably won't do it any time soon. Flawgic and Spook will have to keep hotseating it for now.


Hachimachi, that's a lot of red squares. Looks like we'll need to assault that ADVENT facility sooner rather than later.


Before we can, though, it's guerrilla op time. I can't afford to let the aliens speed up their Avatar development, so we're basically railroaded into doing this particular mission. Note the Sitrep: we aren't allowed to send any high-ranking soldiers on this one. I've only done one mission with this restriction in the past and it went pretty badly, but there's no getting around it. On the bright side, between the reward for this mission and the room we just cleared in the Avenger, we'll actually have some supplies to spend once this is over.


Here's our crew of fresh faces! You can tell I ran out of custom characters to field because Ferguson is back in the squad. On the bright side, Big Sexy is finally hitting the big time! Let's hope he fares better in his debut than DESTIL did. One thing to note is that I don't have enough cool accessories to outfit everyone in a six-person squad now that they have two slots each. We don't really need mindshields for this mission, but I don't have anything better to give Kurt and Ted, so I'll leave them equipped in case we are accosted by some priests.


As it turns out, this mission was pretty easy. I won't spend a lot of time on it, so here are the highlights. First, shooting (snake) people from roofs!


Second, Matchstick's repeater proccing and killing an archon with a single shot!


Third, here's a shot of the dropship that brings in enemy reinforcements, since I've never actually shown it!


Fourth, it's our cool new EMP grenade! This version does good damage to robots and makes them easier to hack. Once it's upgraded, it will also shut them down for a turn, which is HUGE when you're dealing with a sectopod.


Fifth, I picked up this thing! The mission objective was to grab this out of an ADVENT van, but I got pretty confused for a second when this notification popped up, wondering if I could actually do anything with this doohickey. I cannot, unless you count completing the mission.


Sixth, Big Sexy gets a kill! Two, actually, he grenaded a MEC to death earlier in the mission.


Seventh, it's a plasma grenade! They shred two armor, which is totes magotes, and the extra damage is a nice bonus.


Good job, team! Way to not die, Big Sexy!

We get a lot of promotions out of this mission, but sadly Sexy is not among them. I give Ted and Ferguson Deadeye, which is the sharpshooter skill that isn't Lightning Hands. It gives you a damage buff at the expense of accuracy, which honestly isn't a tradeoff you want to make a lot of the time. Lightning Hands is deffo the better skill overall, but we might as well have a bit of variety between our endless snipers.


Back at the base, we complete work on the Frost Bomb. I had called it a grenade earlier, but it's actually a bomb, which is the term for upgraded grenades. I guess they consider this thing good enough that it doesn't need to be upgraded, which seems fair. We also start building a radio relay in Eastern Europe to decrease the intel costs as we move into Asia. I've never really figured out where the best places to put radio relays are, although I'm sure there's a reddit post somewhere out there that goes into it in excruciating detail.


Ha ha, Warlock messed up his sabotage. I think sabotage has a fairly high chance to fail, which is good, because it takes one of your rooms our of commission. Or maybe it straight up destroys it? I don't remember, because it usually fails.


So. Let's get down to business.


This is an important mission, so we're bringing along the heavy hitters. Also Inquisitor, in case the Warlock shows up. I spend the money to build the last of our mindshields and we now have a full set! It's really annoying to have to waste an accessory slot per soldier on a mindshield, but it's too big of a risk to run when the Warlock might show up on a mission. The exception to this is Nightwalker, who will be spending most of the mission invisible. Can't mind control you if they don't know you're there [guy tapping his forehead gif].


You want Alien Rulers? We got Alien Rulers! This charming gal is the Berserker Queen and she has a whopping 90 HP. That may sound ridiculous, but the thing about rulers is that they don't heal between missions. So our goal for today is to a) survive and b) deal as much damage to her as possible before she runs away. Now the good news is that she hasn't seen us yet...


...but the bad news is that she isn't our only problem right now. This group is just sitting here, waiting, completely unsuspecting. It would be so easy to take them out with a combination explosion. Of course, doing that would alert the Berserker Queen, who is slowly making her way over to where this hapless bunch are waiting. So the smart move here is to just set up camp out of sight until she either overlaps with them or else moves out of range.

But that other pod just looks...so...tempting...


Unfortunately for my squad, I have poor impulse control. When I see an opportunity to annihilate an enemy patrol in one fell swoop I just gotta take it. Spoony lobs a grenade in, setting off the claymore, and 2/3 of the enemies are gone. The advanced MEC is still standing, but it's on the ropes.


Also I think that BQ might have noticed us.


She starts to close the distance on the squad. And she keeps closing the distance, because every time one of us takes an action, she gets an action too. That includes overwatch shots like this one, but not free actions...


...like Lightning Hands. So because the alien rulers get a free move for every one you take, the name of the game is piling on damage efficiently. With all that armor, pistol shots can barely scratch her (and these are upgraded mag pistols, another purchase from our latest shopping spree). In retrospect, I should have saved this move for a later turn once we'd burned some armor off the queen. Also in retrospect, I SHOULD HAVE USED THE FROST GRENADE ON HER. Curse the overpowering allure of the double explosion!


Speaking of free moves, Inquisitor's Lash is another handy one that we have available. It can only be used once per mission and is custom-designed to take down robots, so we use it to finish off that straggling MEC without giving BQ another move.


Unfortunately, his next shot is a miss - and you know what that means!


BQ's first offensive move is a ground-pound � la Donkey Kong. It does a small amount of damage to everyone in range.


Her next move tests the willpower of everyone close to her; anyone who fails will panic. Miraculously, everyone passes the saving throw. That's very fortunate, because I imagine that panicking soldier moves trigger ruler reactions just like everything else.


Inquisitor has better luck with his second shot (thanks to Zero In, which gives him a bonus for firing at the same enemy twice in a row), but it also lays bare our biggest problem right now: dat armor. Because I was [i]so incredibly smart[i] as to use Spoony's turn on the other pod of enemies, we don't have anyone with shredder to bring that armor down right now. And because I kitted the squad out for mind control protection, nobody aside from Spoony has a grenade to toss either. Which means we're going to be stuck for this whole turn doing piddly damage to the Berserker Queen, who is going to return it several times over for every action we take. I'm a tactical genius!


Spoony is on the receiving end of BQ's next attack, which hurts about as much as it looks like it does.


Nightwalker, surprisingly, is in a good position to do some damage because his shots have two points of armor piercing. No point staying hidden right now!


We manage to survive into the next round, so I quickly heal of Spoony. The queen responds with another scary yell and again the squad keeps their cool. Nice work, guys! Now I can finally do something about all that armor. Shredder works its magic and suddenly we're in a much better spot.


One positive thing is that BQ keeps walking past Kirin. Kirin has Bladestorm, which means he gets a free melee attack on her every time she does this.


By now, we've put a serious dent into the Berserker Queen's life bar. One more slash from Kirin brings her below 2/3 of her max HP...


...at which point she tries to make a break for it. If you look at Tygan's dialogue here you'll glean a bit of the backstory on the Alien Rulers. Apparently doctor Vahlen, the science officer from XCOM:EW, has been tinkering with aliens. For some reason, she seems to think that making super-powered badguys is going to help the war effort? Unfortunately, she isn't present to explain her reasoning and we're the ones who have to clean up her mess. Dang theoreticians.


There's no way that we can kill BQ before she makes it to the warp gate that she summoned, but every point of damage we do now is one less that we'll have to worry about next time she shows up. Nightwalker gets in a parting shot, and then she's gone.

Phew, all things considered, I think my first encounter with an Alien Ruler...could have gone a lot better, honestly. If I had been a little more patient I could have at least gotten the Ruler in the blast along with the three other enemies, which would have reduced her armor before the squad opened fire. Oh well, at least I haven't gotten anyone killed...


...yet. The team reloads and heals up, and then I immediately stumble into another pod consisting of a Muton, a Sectoid and this ultra-heavy turret. Man, my commanding game has been really off-kilter for the last few missions.


Ultra-heavy turrets have few HP, but they come equipped with a ton or armor. Gerad can't punch through it alone.


On the bright side, I at least remembered to use the frost grenade. That muton is now frozen and will lose his next turn or two.


Encased in ice, he makes for easy pickings.


Nightwalker's combination of bluescreen rounds and armor piercing makes short work of the turret, and Kirin dices up the sectoid for us. Once again, the situation is under control.



The rest of the mission is pretty uneventful. There's a squad of enemies guarding the heart of the facility, but none of them manages to lay a finger on us.


Kirin plants the charges to bring down the facility and then it's time to go. This time we have control over where the evac zone will appear, so I put it just outside the base and manage to get everyone into position to leave in the same turn.


Battered, but victorious, the team limps home. The mission honestly wasn't so bad, and if I'd been smarter about engaging the Berseker Queen we would have even fewer casualties. Oh well, it was a learning experience if nothing else - and we'll have many more opportunities to put these lessons into practice.


With the ADVENT base destroyed, a healthy three ticks are removed from our doomsday clock. Sweet, sweet breathing room! We have another base mission that we can undertake whenever we're ready, plus we can bring the clock down a tick or two each time we complete a story mission. So we'll need to keep an eye on it, but for now we're out of the danger zone. What should we do next? We'll figure it out next time on JTX2CPT!!

I'm pretty sure sabotage just steals a piece of loot. That's incredibly tame, given how infrequently it actually works!

Also, you just made the Berserker Queen a potential random spawn on every mission until you manage to kill it. Have fun!

Whenever DWN-009 joins the character pool I want him to be a crazy dual axes man.

I am kind of tempted by the axes, but I think I have to stick with my awesome sword.

I think.

Hooray, I got some kills!

Good times ahead!

That makes sense, consider it a deal. I'm going to have to unlock Asia's continent bonus before I train any other soldiers, but I'm headed that way now anyway.

Don't worry, there's another unique sword farther down the line that I already have earmarked for you.

Oh man now I absolutely can't die.

Oh geez you just...don't say things like that, you know?

No no, not THAT reading. The "I must will myself to stay alive to get an awesome sword" reading of that line.

Easy for you to say, I'm the one who actually has to do it!

Missions 19 & 20: Am small, leafy tree-like plant. What am?

Here's a riddle for you! Mull it over while I present...


...the totally sweet infirmary that I'm (finally) building! All those 20-day recoveries are starting to become a nuisance, so let's put a stop to them. We also have some PTSD to cure, thanks to the magic of future science!


Bah, I knew this was coming, but I'm still not happy about it. There's so much stuff I could spend supplies on right now, but I guess we'll have to make do with what we've got.


Esha learned stasis! Next up is Fuse, which is a delightful ability that explodes any grenades an enemy has on their person. It's fun to use and I think it fits her personality pretty well.


Time for a supply raid. This one is a Lost mission, which means it'll be easier than usual since there won't be as many aliens on the map.


Lost missions are a great way to power-level characters, so I stick Big Sexy on the roster in hopes that he'll make corporal (and ideally build up a chunk of experience toward sergeant, when he'll really start to be useful). Note that we have the continent bonus that allows us to field lightly-wounded soldiers, that's why we have a few people here who aren't at full health.


We start with a group of two vipers and a single spectre. I set up an ambush down a long alleyway and we engage.


We clear out one of the vipers and seriously damage the spectre, but it survives long enough to grab Aquadeo.


Thankfully, Aqua and Vixen are on the buddy system, so she kills the 'bot, which frees Denton and disappears his evil clone.


Here's something I've never seen before - a viper constricting a Lost! As you can imagine, that makes them both pretty easy pickings for the squad.


We get through the first encounter unscathed, but we're losing the race to secure the supply crates. Unlike in retaliation missions, there's no minimum number of crates that we need to collect in order to "win" the mission. We'll get less of a reward if ADVENT hauls their supplies away, but I'd rather that than make a stupid mistake in an attempt to grab as many as I can.


Here's a cool shot of Big Sexy annihilating a plate glass window, along with a troublesome zombie. I won't be showing every kill in the mission, but rest assured he gets his share. Gotta get that XP!


Farther up, we come across a trio of ADVENT hiding inside a warehouse. Spook proves the worth of the psi operative by putting the advanced MEC into stasis and then zapping the shieldbearer in the same turn. Psi ops are pretty sweet!


There are a LOT of zombies on this mission (check out the number of icons at the bottom of the screen), in part because I keep making things explode, which attracts more zombies. The Lost never were A Thing and they still aren't, although by now they're starting to have a lot more HP. That's mostly annoying because I can no longer count on endless, reload-free pistol killing streaks to clear them out.


VV slices her way through the rest of the ADVENT pod. I had forgotten that the upgraded sword she's using can stun robots - pretty handy! Not something you'd want to try on a big one, though.


I never get tired of the squad reactions when their teammates shoot over their shoulders.


I said I wasn't going to get greedy for crates and then I did it anyway. I stepped out just a little too far and triggered the last group of enemies in the level. The person in the worst situation is Spook, who is flanked by this new group. With only a few moves left in my turn, I have Aquadeo stick an Aid Protocol on him and hope for the best.


The protocol does its work, protecting him as an ADVENT soldier tries to take a shot. The archon finally does what I expect all archons to do and we get our first Blazing Pinions of the campaign! This is a move where the archon flies up high and releases a swarm of rockets into the air. We have one turn to move everyone before they slam into the ground, leveling whatever is in their path. In this case, it's actually a good thing for us; the archon didn't attack Spook while he was exposed and the pinions aren't going to cause us too much trouble.


The pinion targets are marked on the map by these columns of laser light. Normally they'd be sitting square on top of a number of our troops, but for some reason a lot of them are in pretty random spots this time. We'll need to move a few people to safety, but for the most part they can just stay put. Note that you want to get a few tiles away from the marked squares, as the pinions do explode on landing. I underestimated this in a previous campaign and basically lost my whole squad to this attack. That was the end of that campaign, so it's been engraved in my memory ever since. But hey, live and learn, right?

I mean...I lived and learned. No-one on my squad did.


The third enemy in the final pod is a purifier, but he's too busy doing his job (burning zombies) to bother with us.


I should really stop exploding cars on zombie levels, but you know I'm not gonna.


Really should, tho.


Because of my gung-ho attitude, the squad gets overrun by the endless horde of Lost. Vixen takes a couples hits and Aquadeo gets dinged too. Still, it's more of an annoyance than anything else at this point. I don't think I've ever lost a soldier to damage taken from a Lost attack.


Archons are naturally hard to hit because they are considered flying enemies, which gives them a defensive bonus. There actually aren't very many flying enemies in XCOM 2; there were a lot more in the previous game. The defense buff makes it hard to burn through their generous supply of health, so we use every means we have available to us. In the end, a steady stream of pistol shots does the trick.


Vixen pops the purifier, who never even raised his weapon against us, and the mission is over. Thankfully, we aren't expected to deal with all the ensuing zombies.


Decent round of promotions, there! I think Sexy clocked in over 10 kills on that mission. He has earned Shredder, the mark of a true grenadier.


Hey, one of my pet projects just completed! The Bolt Caster is going to need an upgrade before it sees any action in the field, however. Who wants to take this thing for a spin once it's ready?


We finish our radio tower in Eastern Europe, which gets us this handy bonus. It also gives us cheap access...


...to West Asia, who now join the fold. If I can get all four regions of Asia then I'll earn 7 bonus armies per turn be able to unlock the bonus that lets us train rookies into sergeants at the Guerrilla Tactics School. That would be a very good way of getting our last few custom characters into rotation.


We complete the first leg of the Hunt for the Hunter and then immediately start into the second part of the Warlock's chain. I typically dispatch the Warlock first, since he's so much more annoying than his siblings.


All right, we've been putting this whole story thing off for long enough. Time to build the skulljack and accomplish one of our main objectives.


HELL YES, plasma weapons! I pay the 175 supplies to unlock plasma rifles squad-wide. Of course, that's no help to our snipers, grenadiers, templars, reapers and skirmishers, none of whom can use that weapon. But hey, it's a start.


I definitely can't turn down a chance for increased pistol damage. Think of all the lightning hands yet to come!


An instant shieldbearer autopsy gets us this, which is the random-gacha-item equivalent for vests. Some of the special vests you can get this way are actually pretty good, so I'll probably invest in a few later. As with the special ammo and grenades, these are unlocked at the Proving Grounds and cost Elerium Cores, which are in short supply right now. Or, come to think of it, pretty much all the time.


Time for our report card. The Spokesman is happy with our progress, but I'm still smarting over losing half our money. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have 500 supplies in the bank...


Here's where we're at with the Chosen. Despite my earlier statement, I may have to prioritize the Hunter, as he seems to be closest to filling up his bar. If that happens, we'll have to deal with a special mission that I'd rather avoid if possible. The Hunter is a chump, but he's got my favorite weapon in the game, so I can't say I'd be all that broken up about dealing with him first. Of course we're a good two covert ops away from that being an option...


Let the healing begin! Our shiny new infirmary is ready and I immediately staff it with an engineer to shorten our recovery times by half. I also slot Sensenic into the...trauma chamber?...so he can start getting over his fear of snakes. It'll take him 5 days to reconcile with our scaly friends, during which time he will be unavailable for deployment.


Esha learns how to make enemy ordnance explode with her mind, so obviously her next ability has to be Void Rift. It isn't actually that great in XCOM 2, but it suits her personality to a T.


So, who here figured out my riddle from earlier? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, it's ambush time. Had to happen eventually, I guess.


So here's the thing with ambush missions: they aren't actually that hard. The reason why I thought they were hard for so long was...Central Officer Bradford. Bradford was the goody-two-shoes operative in the XCOM vest from Enemy Unknown. In between EU and XCOM 2, he became a hardened, cynical veteran alien killer. He's also the guy who gives you the most radio chatter while you're out on missions.

When you drop into an ambush mission, Central has one piece of advice for you. Forget about cover, just run for the evac zone before you are overrun by ADVENT and zombies! Great advice, Bradford...if you're trying to get us all killed. Because shortly after you start making your escape, a signal flare drops and reinforcements arrive...behind you. If you follow Central's advice, you'll find yourself caught in a pincer attack as you try to sneak forward to the exit while being pursued from behind. It's a bad time!


It turns out there's a much, much better way to deal with this situation: set an ambush for the ambushers. All you have to do is clear out the (fairly small) group of reinforcements as soon as they touch down. Once that's done, you can take your sweet time making your way to the evac zone. It's almost like they give you bad advice on purpose just to amp up the stress of these missions.


A measly two ADVENT soldiers drop out of their ship and are immediately dealt with. Now we can use our Reaper to stealth our way to the exit in complete safety.


We run into a smattering of ADVENT and zombies as we make our way forward, but it's really nothing to worry about. I did make a point of putting a capable squad together for this mission, which definitely helps. It's also good to send along a full complement of three troops, even though it only technically takes two to run the mission.


Most of the time, the Lost seem to exclusively focus on your squad, no matter how many ADVENT are around. Every once in a while they'll fight with each other, which is nice. This ADVENT soldier wastes his turn shooting at a zombie, which is good news for us.


Or it would be, if he didn't blow up a dang car in the process.


VV and Kirin tend to get most of the slashing action, but here's a shot of Matchstick showing that he knows his way around a blade too.


The last enemy between us and sweet freedom is this purifier. And wouldn't you know it, he's standing right next to a car...


I can't deny who I am, there's no point in trying.


And so, by completely ignoring Central's advice, we make our exit without taking a scratch. I've always been stressed out by these missions because of the small squad size, but if you keep a cool head then they're pretty easy. If all else fails, stick a Reaper on the team and you can probably just run them right to the exit without being spotted.


Nuff said.


Oh dang, Nightwalker just made Major. Reaper Majors are goooooood - both of these abilities are must-buy (in contrast to captiain-level upgrades, neither of which is great). Not only do we get to bring a second claymore with us now, but we also get Banish. Banish allows your Reaper to shoot at a single target until they run out of ammo. Augment their carbine with an expanded magazine and you can get up to seven shots in a single turn! That makes them exceptional boss-killers, especially if their target is a chosen who takes extra damage from Reaper attacks. You can only use Banish once per mission, and it does reveal the Reaper on use, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons.


Every time you finish a Chosen covert op, you become better friends with the faction opposed to them. That earns you new Resistance Orders, plus extra slots in order to assign them at the end of the month. This one is among my favorites in the game, it boosts the effectiveness of all our gun addons. That means something like a Superior Repeater, which already had a 15% chance of insta-killing any (any!) target, gets upgraded to a 20% chance. It's absolutely one of the best bonuses in the game to have, especially in the late-game once you have the modifications to really make use of it.


We immediately turn around and start the third segment of the hunt for the Warlock. For some reason, there's no chance of ambush on this one? Maybe they're too scared to try that sort of thing on us again...


We finish today's update by completing our Improved Pistols research. That's great by itself, but we also get inspiration for Powered Armor in the process! That means I have 13 days to scrape together the 300 supplies that I'll need to build the top tier of armor once the research is done. Challenge accepted.

Boy, XCOM is starting to become a force to be reckoned with. Once we have plasma weapons and powered armor, we'll be nearly unstoppable. It won't be long before we're knocking on the Chosens' doors! Will that happen next time? I haven't decided yet! Exciting times, folks, exciting times.

Disagree, love me some Void Rift. But then I always forget Stasis exists, so maybe I'm not the top authority on how to use psi units.

(See also: doesn't it seem like Stasis Shield is worse than basic Stasis? If you need to Stasis one of your own guys, you probably goofed up somewhere.)

Who is Esha? Is Esha me?

When I first read about the Psi Op class Void Rift was a skill that sounded really cool and that I hoped my character could get.

I'm not sure if this really fits Spook's personality but I would have been interested. (Are those blades so it can be used as a melee weapon?)

If this hadn't happened. I think I'll take one of these instead.

We sure are.

So maybe you could try to be more careful about doing stuff like this to us (well, mostly to me).

Does that also do extra damage to bosses that take extra damage from sequential attacks?

I don't know. It seems like a good thing to have for those "Oh shit!" moments - which seem like they could happen at any time in this game.

Does MC stand for Molotov Carktail?

Aw yeah, I be like

I'm not denying it has its uses, but it's odd that Stasis Shield has Stasis as a prereq when Stasis is (at least to me) the clearly superior skill.

Just like in the hit game Baba is You! Only it's Esha that's you! Not Baba! I actually really like the name Esha, it's so simple that I'm surprised it didn't catch on in any Western cultures.

It's like you aren't even reading this thread.

Yes, using stasis on an enemy is definitely preferable and it's what I do most of the time. But it sure it nice when you accidentally strand one of your soldiers out in the open to be able to shield them for a turn.

The bolt caster, once upgraded, will also be a plasma weapon. I just need to liberate the funds first. I don't think you can melee with it, though. It would actually be a pretty good choice for a psi operative, given how flexible they are - if you ever found yourself low on rounds, you could use powers instead.

As for learning Void Rift, it'll happen eventually (assuming you don't die). Another great thing about psi ops is that they can learn every skill available to them for free, given enough time. It more than makes up for the high initial cost of building the psi lab.

Snakes are cute. Snakes are our friends. Snakes mean us no harm.

It's like that but instead of magic water I'm submerged in a vat of snakes. Shock therapy! It works!

A plasma crossbow does sound pretty sweet but I think Spook would rather have more ammo (or at least the same amount as he currently has). So I'm not calling dibs on it.