Join the XCOM 2 character pool today!

Looking forward to finally getting into action!

I'm pretty sure abandoning a council mission causes you to lose control of that region, just like losing a retaliation mission. (Also like a retaliation mission, that doesn't happen if it's your home region.)

Heck yeah, starting to worry that I showed up briefly 20 updates ago and died immediately.

I’m gonna warm the crap out of that bench.

Niiice, Big Sexy with the Alien Ruler kill.

Mission 28: Like a Bolt from the Blue

Got a short one for you guys today, and hopefully a longer mission later this week. Let's do it!


Ok, it's GO TIME (Guerrilla Op That I Must Execute). We'll be choosing this one because it'll slow down the doomsday meter a bit - the intel we'll get is also a welcome bonus. It's a Difficult mission, which at this point is actually on the easier end of the scale. That's good, because I'm trying to keep most of our A-listers in reserve for an upcoming mission, so today we'll be fielding some younguns.


They kids won't be totally unsupervised, though. Heading up the crew will be Joan in his shiny new WAR suit! The WAR suit effectively trades an accessory slot for a heavy weapon and one extra point of armor. Most of the time that's a worthwhile exchange, but not always, especially with the poor selection of powered weapons we currently possess. Today he will be equipped with a garden variety rocket.


Eric and Aquadeo are both recovering from physical and/or psychological trauma, so we're sending whoever this is out into the fray to act as our healer. And since none of you guys seemed to want the sweet plasma crossbow, I'm taking it for myself! Two things I didn't notice at the time: I seem to be wearing huge ADVENT style shoulder pads and also my character is but a lowly squaddie. He won't be nearly as useful for healing duties as the senior specialists are.


Also on deck is our new Templar, Catharine Butler (AKA Scorch). I made her red so no-one would confuse her for our dearly departed pirate. I'm also fielding Flawgic despite the fact that she's tired and (very slightly) injured. Kurt and Joe bring a little bit of experience to round out the squad.


The first part of this mission is extremely by-the-numbers (see, it can happen!), so I'll be summarizing the most interesting bits. Here's Sensenic firing a rocket into a restaurant - don't try this at home, kids! The rocket isn't the best heavy weapon - not by a country mile, in fact - but it does have a pleasingly long range.


And this is the plasma crossbow! We're using the fully upgraded version of the bow - it comes with an aim bonus, it hits like a truck and aliens can't dodge it, which is great when facing annoying foes like vipers and specters. It also apparently has a bonus chance to stun "psionically-enhanced enemies", which apparently means Alien Rulers, which doesn't seem clear at all to me. Anyway, it usually hits in the 10-12 damage range, which puts it a step above our plasma rifles. Of course, you only get one shot before you have to reload and you can't equip it with any modifications, so I expect we won't actually be using it very often.


Here's Kurt making use of the Ranger class bonus that we bought at the GTS - it gives extra damage when flanking enemies, plus a critical chance on sword attacks.


Speaking of swords, Catharine swords this specter so hard that it destroys the wall behind it! I think she'll be a good fit for the team.


Despite being our lowest-level specialist, Banjo manages to pull off one of our only hack successes so far in the campaign in the process of completing the mission objective. If barely.

We've checked off our main objective, but we can't go home until we clean up all these aliens. And who do we find waiting behind the restaurant?


Oh, that's not good. This spherical thingy is a Gatekeeper, and it is possibly the most dangerous non-unique enemy in the game. Aside from having an absurd amount of armor and health, it possesses an array of psionic attacks, some of which are extremely deadly. But you're not going to get to see any of them today, because we've got this shit on lock.


Esha opens up with a psionic rift. It doesn't do huge damage, but it's enough to kill the wounded priest and it bypasses the gatekeeper's very sturdy armor.


I forget what the ability that allows this is called, but Flawgic also gets to roll for a bonus attack on each of the enemies damaged by the rift. Most of them escape unscathed, but this viper takes some extra damage and is panicked after resisting a mind-control attempt.


The viper takes a shot at the giant evil golf ball and misses, because - as it turns out - giant evil golf balls are surprisingly hard to hit. I'm not sure why this is, but it's apparently worse on the higher difficulty settings like Commander, which is the one we're playing on.


Scorch has Lightning Hands!


And a very relevant nickname! Like most psionic attacks, Volt ignore armor.


Now that's what you like to see. I also froze the gatekeeper because holy crap these things are dangerous, especially when you're up close like we are now.


Boom, crossbow to the face!


Joe finishes it off with a bluescreen-enhanced pistol shot...


...causing it to explode and injure my character. Thanks, Joe. Scorch is unharmed because she has Fortress, which she inherited from the psi operative skillset.


Nicely done, team! The only party injured is me (thanks Joe), but I get a promotion in exchange and use it to learn how to heal people at a distance. At least if we ever need to field Banjo again he'll be marginally useful.


We finish researching the plasma lance, which sounds totally awesome, but it's very possible that we'll never actually build one. Why?


Because Hunter weapons is why. Only 6 days to go! It's like waiting for Christmas.


Let's have a look at the map. We've almost finished building our East Asian radio tower! Meanwhile, ADVENT is building more facilities - but at least we can undo the red blocks if we take them out.


Story objective complete! This is the Shadow Chamber, which we will eventually use to research important key items like the codex brain we picked up a few missions ago. Unfortunately, doing this suspends your active research projects. We've got some real bangers to research right now, so I think the story progress is going to have to wait. On the bright side, the shadow chamber is going to give us some very useful intel whenever we launch a mission, so it's definitely nice to have.


Dang it, this is not the powered weapon I was looking for. We'll have to take another pull on the slot machine.


The radio tower is complete, and with that we can make contact with New India, completing the continent bonus for Asia! We immediately stick MetMan into the GTS and start training him as a ranger.


Well folks, Aqua is still recovering but the rest of the team is ready to go. I think it's time to put together a squad to go take out the Warlock. Eric is a decent healer, but he doesn't have the ultimate recovery skill yet. Instead, we're going to spend a few points to buy him Combat Protocol so that he has a few extra tricks up his sleeve. Remember folks, it's the best defense!


Another point toward the Avatar project, but this one isn't tied to a specific alien facility that we can raid. Instead, we get a shot of this spot in the middle of the ocean - that's kinda weird, huh?


Oh hell yes. The Hunter's rifle is incredibly useful, probably the best single weapon in the game. His pistol is no slouch either, actually. These guys are going to do some serious damage from here to the end of the game.


All right, I think we're as ready as we're gonna be. Let's put an end to this guy once and for all! Next time, that is - see you soon!

Despite appearances, Gatekeepers aren't robotic. The good news is that means you can dominate them (and fairly reliably, too).

Whether that's an acceptable trade for bluescreen vulnerability depends on your team composition.

Shh, you're spoiling the surprise! Also, according to the Fandom XCOM 2 Wiki, Gatekeepers take extra damage from Bluescreen rounds, presumably because of their robotic shells. Anyway, how else do you explain the 10 damage that Joe's pistol shot did to it?

I do not explain that because it wasn't actually in the screenshot!

Man, the game could really stand to be clearer on what is A) organic, B) bluescreen-vulnerable, and C) hackable. Like Codices, for example, are organic but IIRC still bluescreen-vulnerable, which doesn't make a lot of sense!

This is made even better by the fact that it's surface pattern is literally a targeting reticle in your screenshot.

It's almost like it's taunting the poor viper there.

Mission 29: I Choo-Choo-Choose You!


Warlock time! I've already posted this screenshot, but I didn't talk about the hot new ability that we have thanks to the Shadow Chamber. Check it out - a list of all the enemies that will appear during the mission! That knowledge can really help when it's time to plan your loadout. Speaking of which:


BAM, get a load of this A team. All top-tier soldiers, with the exception of Eric, who is maybe B-tier at this point. So I guess this is more of an A- team, but that's still pretty good IMO.

Now, since we're dealing with the hated Warlock, you'll notice a preponderance of mindshields taking up all that valuable space in our inventory. I didn't give one to Nightwalker, because they're supposed to be invisible and the Warlock can't mind control that which he can't see. That said, I did forget one very important thing; I'll give 10 XCOM points to anyone who can spot the glaring omission in our equipment loadout...



With the exception of the Chosen who awaits us at the end, this mission is effectively identical to the one we did when we took care of the Hunter. First we have to scour this facility for the teleporter room that will take us to the Warlock's bedroom. And yeah, there are badguys waiting for us...


...but unlike last time, we keep things firmly under control. Figured it was time to show you guys that I can actually play this game without constantly ending up in dire situations!


Gerad actually has a fairly productive Kill Zone for once, getting in two solid hits (and missing one shot because specters have Lightning Reflexes).


We mop up the first crew and move forward until we come across a second. Only our Reaper is in stealth now, so we can't be quite as proactive with our ambushes. Instead, we get set up in the room they're approaching and wait.


Ooh, I forgot that Eric has shredder! Maybe he's A-team material after all.


The second pod of enemies is smart enough to spread out a bit, but that doesn't save them from the enormous explosion radius of our gas bomb/void rift combo!


ViolentVixen recently picked up Hail of Bullets, which is a wonderful ability that uses up three ammo in order to get a guaranteed hit on any enemy that you have line of sight on. It's great for dealing with enemies who have a little health and a lot of cover, like this guy right here.


Of course, good old Combat Protocol will also do the trick in a pinch. For some reason, the camera in my copy of XCOM 2 no longer follows the gremlin as it zips over to zap our foes. Thankfully, we don't need to worry about it, because The Protocol Never Misses�. It does't have the same damage potential and it's got a limited number of uses per mission, though, so it'll never surpass Hail of Bullets in my heart.


Now this room here looks like the kind of place where a fellow might find an Ascension Gate. I stack the team up by the door to get ready for whatever is inside. But nothing could have prepared me for...


THE BERSERKER BARRAGE!!


I have never seen this many berserkers in one place before, they just come pouring out of the door like it was some kind of clown car. Coincidentally, we parked our resident Blademaster right by the entrance, so she gets a free swing at each of them as they pass through. Two hits and two misses - VV is batting .500 today.


Now this is all very intimidating, because seriously that is A LOT of meat, but let's take a second to remember the XCOM rules of engagement before panicking. We activated this pod on our turn, so they do get a free move to reposition, but they can't attack us yet. And they won't get the chance. Every one of these ladies (berserkers are all female, doncha know) is standing in a tight little group, so we give them a bit of space and drop a frost bomb on 'em.


Say, have I ever told you folks about repeaters? I have? Even so, let's take a second to appreciate just how broken these things really are. A superior repeater normally has a 15% chance to instantly kill any enemy you manage to hit. Add in the resistance order we're using that boosts our weapon mod effectiveness and the success rate climbs to 20%, or one in five. I've been quietly amassing a supply of repeaters and something like 4 of our squad members have them equipped today.


As they are more than happy to demonstrate! Considering how incredibly long the HP bars on some enemies can be, the repeater increases your damage potential in a huge way. Add in a superior hair trigger and you have a 20% chance to take an extra shot in your turn, which also has a 20% chance of instantly killing your target. Repeaters are basically too good not to use.


Even without the repeaters, the frost bomb has turned this into a regular turkey shoot. We deal with the 'zerks before a single one of them gets to make a move. I'm almost starting to feel bad for ADVENT at this point.


Welcome to the Warlock's Lair! It is...exactly the same as the Hunter's lair was.


This is different, though. Man, if you thought one codex was a pain to deal with, two is pain squared.


Or it would be, if it wasn't for my good friend Mr. Repeater! We drop the first codex in a single shot and, miraculously, take out the second before it can start cloning itself. Everything is coming up Tyrant Squad today!


We move up a little farther and the Warlock makes his grand entrance. For those who have forgotten, our friend here is immune to melee attacks and has a (fairly high) chance to retaliate against any missed shots we make. On the bright side, he is Brittle, which means he takes extra damage any time we hit him 3 times or more in a single turn.


All right folks, time for a Big Play. Spoony is going to break out Chain Shot, which lets him shoot twice...assuming that the first shot connects. There's an aim penalty that comes along with that, too, but the damage potential here is too big to ignore. And since we're right up in the Warlock's grill, we still have a 75% chance to hit that first shot. A 75% chance for glory! A 75% change for triumph!


...a 25% chance to miss and get shot in the face by the Warlock for our hubris.


Spoony isn't the only one who gets hit after missing a shot. Looks like we'll have to keep the fighting close if we don't want to give the Warlock an all-you-can-eat buffet of reaction shots.


Our first turn ends and we've done a pretty dismal amount of damage to the Chosen, between our missed shots and his sturdy armor. Spoony is out in the open, so I throw an aid protocol down on him to keep him safe during the enemy turn.


I hope you aren't sick of berserkers, because the Warlock has the ability to summon beast-type allies!


Thankfully, Spoony gets an overwatch shot from the Aid Protocol and - you guessed it! - his repeater takes care of the rest.


Gerad and Nightwalker take out the other enemy, because it's generally a pretty bad idea to leave a chryssalid running around unchecked. I'm being careful to keep Nightwalker in stealth for now, but he can still take kill shots without any risk of being discovered.


Our next turn begins and things immediately start to turn around for us. Spoony lands a nice shot, removing that pesky armor...


...and gets a bonus move, which he uses to freeze the Warlock. Frost bombs don't completely immobilize a Chosen, but it will reduce the number of things he can do on his turn.


Because of his Brittle nature, it's worth using low-damage attacks that I might otherwise skip. Psionic attacks typically can't miss and have a nice, long range, so we might as well take the hit and use it to give the rest of the squad that sweet damage bonus.


Now we're talking!


We've got the Warlock on the ropes, but he's got one last trick to play on us before he goes under. You might remember Spectral Army from a mission we did a while back, but if not: the Warlock summons 3 psionic clones of our troops and then puts himself into stasis. You can't harm him until you deal with the clones, at which point the stasis drops and he'll be vulnerable again.


Thankfully, the clones don't have all that much health. We mop them up in short order...


...and Nightwalker immediately dispatches the Warlock. That's technically a kill shot, so he's still invisible!


With the Warlock out of commission, the team starts laying into the sarcophagus. Some enemy reinforcements show up, but for now I'm ignoring them in favor of piling on the damage.


Spoony finally makes good on his Chain Shot gambit, doing a respectable 17 damage in one turn. It's really a shame that you can't use Banish on the sarc', but this is the next best thing.


I don't want to deal with another berserker right now, so into the bubble you go!


VV puts the final nail in the Warlock's coffin, so now we just have to take him out again and we'll be done here.


Gerad doesn't have a good shot on the Warlock, so he decides to take a swing at the archon and...well, you know.


There's my boy Eric, taking care of that armor for us!


And with that, Nightwalker is finally free to break cover and give the crowd what they've been waiting to see. Consider yourself *sunglasses* Banished.


The Warlock gives us a farewell speech, which I will post here in its entirety.


Little known fact: before getting the role of a Chosen, the Warlock first auditioned to play Hamlet.






And with that, the Warlock turns to stone because mind powers.


Two down, one to go! Things went extremely well this time around, only two of our people are wounded and they'll be ready to go again in just 3 short days. Considering how long this mission is, that's pretty good!


Not only that, but Nightwalker just made colonel! The choice between colonel-level Reaper skills is a pretty easy one. On one hand, there's an ability that lets you switch targets mid-Banish if you kill the first one. That's...fine, but you can only use Banish once per mission, so it's of pretty limited use. On the other, better, hand, we can opt to turn one of our claymores into a sticky mine that latches onto an enemy and explodes the next time they take damage. That's waaaaaaay better, if you ask me. I grab that and also pick up a Lt level skill that increases Nightwalker's crit chance during the mission for every kill he gets. Considering how often I use him to finish off weak enemies, that should add up pretty quickly.

Don't forget, folks: Reapers are good.


Seems like Eric is a bit distraught after all that killing and maiming. We're going to need to start training up some more specialists, because he'll be out of the action for a while with this. Thankfully, I already have someone in mind.


Spoony has developed some kind of weird aversion to being lit on fire. Come on, man, it's been like two weeks since the last time that happened! I do love the quote that comes along with this diagnosis, though.


Well would you look at that, another successful sabotage! This one would be a real pain if we had more people in the infirmary, but right now the squad is generally in pretty good shape.


The Warlock's disruptor rifle isn't quite god-tier the way the Hunter's weapons are, but it's still a really great gun. It replaces a standard plasma rifle, so it can be wielded by a pretty large number of our troops.


I was going to take Spook out of the psi chamber, but you know I just can't say no to Null Lance! We'll give Flawgic another turn after this.


Say hello to our newest recruit! MetMan is a spunky red robot with a love of sharp objects.


We immediately get the chance to upgrade him, so I send him down the Blademaster route. It wouldn't seem right to do otherwise. Shadowstep also feels like a good fit, since MetMan's namesake is pretty light on his feet.


Another month is over and we are just rolling in dough. But you gotta remember who your real friends are - the ones who would spot you 10 alien alloys when you needed to build a magnetic rifle, or lend you their dropship while yours was being repaired.


Hell yes, defeated! The Assassin isn't close to posing a threat to us at this point, but we'll probably deal with her soon just to be done with these missions. Well, and to get her custom weapons, of course.


Nothing too bad coming up in the next wave of Dark Events. That one on the left is worth a chuckle, at the very least.


It looks like we might be back in business when it comes to Covert Ops. Let's use this opportunity to bring the Avatar meter down a few notches. We're pretty safe at this point, but you can never be too careful - just ask Sensenic!


Another powered weapon, another disappointment. We still don't have the one that I really want. We'll keep trying, but Elerium cores don't grow on trees, you know?


Ooh, new toy! I wanted to move on to researching the alien ruler that we killed after this, but we got a breakthrough to increase the number of weapon mod slots on our Reaper rifles. Nightwalker is going to be a major player from here to the end of the game, so that's an avenue worth pursuing.


Speaking of weapon mods, we're somewhat flush with intel, so I decide to spend a little to pick up another top-tier repeater. At some point soon I'm going to have to start weighing the pros and cons of using the unique weapons versus having access to these things, but for now I'm gonna stock up.


Just because I have a lot of supplies, that doesn't mean I can buy whatever I want. Case in point, our psi operatives are still stuck using the default psi amplifiers, and we can't upgrade them to level two because we don't have any sectoid corpses. That sucks! Sectoids are a pretty rare sight these days, so we may have to leapfrog our way up to the top level psi amps, which require some more prestigious corpses to build.


I promised MetMan a custom weapon, so we get to work on that. It'll have to be upgraded, but hopefully we'll be able to swing that before long.

OK, we're just about finished for today, but before I go let's have a look at those Chosen weapons we've been collecting:


Chosen weapons all come with four top-level modifications equipped that can't be changed. That's one more than you can generally equip on a weapon, but the tradeoff is that you don't get to choose them (ie, no repeaters). The Darklance has a 20% aim bonus (very nice), a 20% chance to grant a free action (also very nice), it comes with four free reloads (decent) and it does 4 damage even on a miss (why not). It's also a bit more powerful than our magnetic rifles are, but the plasma lance matches it on that front. So on paper, that's a pretty good gun, but maybe not an exceptional one. The big thing that elevates the Darklance is that it only requires a single action to fire, which means you can move and shoot (or move and go into overwatch) on the same turn. That's huge! Stationary snipers are already great, but one who can reposition every turn is absolutely deadly. The only real downside is that we can't equip a repeater on it, but I'd say the pros outweigh the cons.

The Darkclaw is more powerful than the plasma pistol and pierces armor. The only tradeoff is that it doesn't use any custom ammunition that your sharpshooter has equipped, which means it won't be as effective against robots if you have Bluescreen rounds. Still, ignoring 5 points of armor is pretty darn good.


The Disruptor Rifle is no slouch either. Better damage than a stock plasma rifle, four superior weapon upgrades and it supposedly always crits against psionic enemies. The guaranteed 4 damage is nice, and I like giving this gun to a specialist because I typically leave their actions for the end of the turn. That way, if the rest of the squad manages to wound an alien, we can get the guaranteed kill with this gun. It also has ammo for days, which pairs well with the specialist ability that gives them a chance to take multiple overwatch shots in a single turn. I'll spend a few AP getting Aquadeo ready to really take advantage of the Disruptor Rifle, at which point he'll be pretty fearsome in his own right.

Well kids, that's all the time we have for today. I'm about to leave for 3 weeks of work travel and vacation time, so there probably won't be another upgrade until August. Enjoy the summer, everyone!

After all those repeater procs, I was really hoping you'd get one on the Warlock!

Looking forward to Met's first mission when you get back! Really hope I don't get Octo'd.

For some reason I found the combination of the Berserker barrage and the clown car comment hilarious. XD

That dead archon reminded me: you haven't shown what happens to dead Alien rulers in the trophy room, yet.

And look at that Warlock, letting his otaku loose at death's door and anime-ing it up, "turn-to-stone death" included. Good for him to finally get some release, even if it was at the very end.

Aw yiss, I'm gonna be motherfuckin' Neo.

Irony or poetic justice?

I'm helping! (also, ow.)

Off to the penalty box bubble you go!

Why are you afraid of fire? It doesn't do anything (to me).

Or MC Hammer.

You and me both, buddy!

Oh, it doesn't happen in the trophy room...

*frantically googles 'xcom 2 hammer pants mod'*

Dammit.

Well folks, the summer is over, but I'm afraid we still have fascists to punch. And to get back into the swing of things, why not change it up a little? It's time for some video! I have the day off, so today at 10 AM Eastern I'm going to stream Tyrant Squad vs The Chosen Assassin over at my YouTube channel. If you've ever wanted to see your characters in action, this is your chance*! Of course, I will be writing the mission up here later on, but if you just can't wait to find out what happens, click that link in about an hour. See you then!

*Assuming I put them on the squad for this mission.

Oops wrong link, it's actually youtube.com/onthesticktv

EDIT: Finished! And, uh, I forgot to take screenshots, so it's gonna be video or nothin' for that mission. I actually have another mission to write up from a week or two ago that's chronologically set before the Assassin mission, that'll probably get written in the next few days or so. Please look forward to it.

Neat, I wasn't able to watch the stream live, but I'll get around to it probably on Friday.

Watched the first minutes, out of curiosity... I didn't have a pronounciation in mind when I came up with "Sensenic", and people've read it differently, so I say however you read it is correct. That's canon. XD

I had not appreciated just how ridiculous the glowy axes I have are until now. I love them.

Well Olli? How about one?

Don't get too attached, those don't belong to you! But we'll get you fixed up with something nice in short order.

Now let's take a step backwards in time to when the Chosen Assassin was a terrible threat looming over our every action. Before the mission to neutralize her, there was one other operation that has yet to be documented:

Mission 30: Sun's Out, Guns Out

Today we have a very special goal: show off some of Tyrant Squad's cool new toys! Let's get right to it.


Here we see Gerad (finally) rocking the Darklance, which is absolutely the gaming PC case of sniper rifles. Don't be fooled by that huge damage, he was shooting a robot with bluescreen rounds so it hit extra hard. The real draw of this gun, like I mentioned last time, is that it allows you to move and shoot on the same turn, which no other sniper rifle does. Gerad over here actually gets a bonus for not moving between turns, but it's pretty rare that +10 aim outweighs the usefulness of being able to reposition every turn.


Not to be outdone, Flawgic picks up the plasma crossbow and finishes off the unsuspecting spectre. No damage bonuses here, that's just the natural stopping power of the 'bow.


Perhaps a little less impressive is Aqua's showing with the Disruptor Rifle, but he's shooting at an archon and they're pretty squirrely. I don't have any other shots that show off the weapon itself, so just imagine that the damage number is higher and we'll all agree that it's a pretty nice gun.


Here's the Darkclaw, which ignores armor but doesn't benefit from the Bluescreen rounds we have equipped. Another miss, huh?


That's better.


Our new(ish) templar Scorch doesn't get to equip cool weapons, but she can shoot force lightning from her hands!


And speaking of neat tricks, Kurt knows Bladestorm now! He, uh, isn't quite as adept with it as VV is, though. He's using a sword that you unlock by playing the Tactical Legacy pack, I believe it's supposed to be inspired by the laser weapons of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (which didn't have swords, but whatever).


The penalty for missing turns out to be steep! Don't worry, though, I have Aqua heal him up and he's good to go again.


Just so he doesn't feel left out, here's Spoony exploding a turret with his regular old plasma cannon.


Well hello, sailor! This here is our first Sectopod, the last regular enemy type that we'll be seeing in this campaign. As you can tell by its large size and intimidating nature, the Sectopod means business. For example, where most enemies would go around that building to get a shot at us...


...the Sectopod is happy to just plow straight through it. Here's Johnny!


If the giant robot and his friends weren't bad enough, we also stumble onto this group of ADVENT at the same time. It's 6-on-6, time for a slugfest!


First things first, we can't leave that giant robot unchecked. Sectopods do big damage and have very little respect for cover, so we're either going to take this thing out of stick it in a stasis bubble - preferably the former. Spoony starts by hitting it with an EMP bomb, which does solid damage and (I think) shorts it out for a turn, buying us some time.


Since we have a bit of a breather from ED-209 over there, Esha uses stasis on this shieldbearer instead. The only thing worse than fighting six enemies at once is fighting six enemies with shields.


The beautiful thing about stasis is that not only is it extremely useful, but it doesn't even end your turn! Flawgic drops a void rift on these two...


...which has the knock-on effect of mind-controlling the purifier! Pretty sweet, she took two threats off the board in a single turn and gave us control over one of them.


Turns out we had two characters packing EMP bombs on this mission, probably because the Shadow Chamber alerted me to the possibility of Sectopods before the mission began. Or rather, it forecasted an ENEMY UNKNOWN, which at this point could only be one of these big fellas. Either way, we were ready for it.


With the robot on the ropes, Kurt takes the final shot...


...causing it to go up in flames. Remember, kids: never stand next to a Sectopod!


By my count, there are still three enemies who will get the chance to act this turn. Thankfully, we deployed the Virtual Tyrant, who graciously soaks up all the hits, leaving the squad unscathed.


Scorch cuts down one of the MECs for us.


And now it's time to try out our purifier! Purifiers have notoriously bad aim, but they also come equipped with 1 (ONE) incendiary grenade. I love using up enemy ordnance when I have control over them, since it removes the danger of them ever using it on me.


Situations like this are what Combat Protocol was made for! Of course, with the Disruptor Rifle, Aqua would be guaranteed to do enough damage to kill this guy even on a miss, but I must have forgotten about that at the time.


Kurt finishes off the last of them, demonstrating an alarming level of pelvic flexibility in the process.


We move the squad up toward the extraction zone (I think we're rescuing a VIP or something?) but run into another enemy patrol on the roof of this building. Kurt quickly dispatches an ADVENT soldier, but we still have this advanced MEC to deal with and half our squad is down on the ground, where they don't have line of sight. So what's a squad to do?

ACTIVATE QILLER QUAD QOMBO!!


First, Scorch uses Invert to swap places with the MEC, putting it closer to the edge of the rooftop.


This puts it within range of Spoony, who fires up the Shredstorm cannon and peels its armor away...


...like so. NEXT, Flawgic uses Inspire to grant an extra turn to Kurt, who is up on the roof.


Finally, Kurt brings the heat, melting our adversary down to slag before it can raise a metal finger against us. I love it when a plan comes together.


With that, we skedaddle on out and take the VIP with us. Success!


Back on the 'venger, it's time for another comms room. We still have four regions left to add, but the phone lines are all occupied!


We finish a Covert Op, bringing the Avatar project meter down to a comfortable 7 blocks. We should be fine on that front until the end of the game, but it never hurts to buy yourself some breathing room.


In other happy news, JPFriction has completed his training! With that, our entire roster of custom characters has been assembled. There's only one problem:


JP here trained so hard that his pelvis turned invisible! What exactly does specialist training involve, anyway?


We get his nethers patched up and ready for combat duty. Welcome aboard! We can always use another healer.


Gerad and Spoony head off for another round in the Friendship Chamber.


Esha picks up Domination and then starts learning Sustain. She's getting to be pretty useful! Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her...


In sadder news, we have once again failed to develop my most highly-coveted powered weapon. Gotta keep trying, this streak of bad luck can't last forever.


We finish researching modular Vektor rifles (ie extra weapon mods for Nightwalker) and I decide to take a crack at this huge list of autopsies. I start with the Gatekeeper because that will finally allow us to upgrade our psi amplifiers. I want to start controlling some minds, you know?


We also drop some bucks to upgrade our Resistance Ring. This will let us assign one more wild-card faction bonus per month, which is pretty nice.


The Hunter's Axe is complete, and I immediately upgrade it to plasma level. I lend it to ViolentVixen for a field test, but its true owner will be MetMan, who will take it up when I send him on his first mission.


Hey, that's a pretty good looking squad! We only have two colonels, but there are plenty of majors, captains and lieutenants; it's a pretty deep bench at this point. Also, people are in generally good shape right now, which means it's time for us to take on...


The Chosen Assassin! Which I already did yesterday! So let's roll right into that one.

Mission 31: More Asses Than an Ubisoft Annual Report


Here's our team! As usual, I spare no expenses when setting out on one of these missions. Although honestly, at this point it should be a piece of cake. Even the game isn't willing to assign this one a rating of Very Difficult.


We drop into the Chosen's base and quickly run afoul of this squad of ADVENT.


Joe is packing the Darklance and he starts us off with a very satisfying hit, causing the rest of the baddies to scatter.


But not to scatter very effectively. Sensenic manages to get all four of them in this gas grenade blast, killing the wounded MEC in the process. And that takes us to the start of our video!



Well now, that was exciting. Now you're all caught up on the happenings of Tyrant Squad. See you next time, when we start checking off the remaining story missions. The end is within sight!

Hey Mike, do you mind if I post a partial transcript / mission report on what happened in the video?

When I told you I’d train my ass off, I didn’t mean it literally.

Hey, knock yourself out! I was away for the weekend and haven't played any more, so it'll be a bit before my next update. Might as well fill up that dead air!

(I put this behind a spoiler in case you want to be surprised while watching the video.)


Oh no! Why did I choose to train with jpfriction?!

Thanks for the writeup, Total Bomb!

Mission what are we up to now 32: The Kids Are TBD

Well folks, the Chosen are all gone and honestly it feels a little quiet out there in the world. All sense of urgency has dissipiated, as we now have the means to keep the Avatar meter from rising too quickly and ADVENT has thrown every trick they have at us. We've got pretty much all of the best equipment and a whole heap of soldiers who are Colonels or at least pretty dang close.

We have entered the XCOM Doldrums.

This is not a new problem; it's been happening at least as far back as XCOM: Enemy Within. Once you get to the end of the game, your nigh-unstoppable army of super agents can fend off the aliens at will and you're stuck running pointless missions until you clear a path to the final confrontation. War of the Chosen does a great job of stringing out the interesting part of the campaign for a longer period of time, but once our three talkative friends are out of the picture, we're left without a clear and present threat. Which means it must be time to finish this.


The first thing we have to do is start researching our collection of plot-critical items in the Shadow Chamber. Unfortunately, this suspends our active research, which means we aren't going to be using those shiny Assassin weapons for a little while yet. It will only take us 5 days to finish researching the vial of goop from the ADVENT blacksite (in case you forgot: it's people), but in that short span we're going to have to take care of two (TWO!) filler missions.


Before we get to that, though, a little housekeeping. We have a ton of alien cadavers left to autopsy and not enough people to hold the forceps. Let's rustle us up another scientist!


Ok, guerilla ops. Looks like we'll be facing a gatekeeper on this mission. I'm expecting that or a sectopod on every outing from here 'til the end of the game, but it's nice to know which one it'll be ahead of time. Note that we have a special Sitrep for this mission, which I'll get to shortly.


Lookin' pretty colorful there, squad! This mission shouldn't be too hard, so it's time to push a few of the young folks out of the nest. Our featured rookies today are DWN009 and JPFriction - let's hope their first mission isn't also their last! I send along Sensenic to keep an eye on the kids.


So here's a Sitrep I've never seen before: it shows us where every enemy in the level is and we can see their positions at all times. Man, I could get used to that! It's also the reason why I didn't bring Nightwalker or Matchstick on this mission - they're both tired and I won't be needing their help for scouting today.


Knowing where everyone is, I can safely stack the team up by the doorway nearest to the pod of enemies guarding our mission objective. Closest to us right now are a couple of specters and an archon.


Ted opens things up by one-shotting one of the specters. And then...


...all hell breaks loose! Don't worry, the hell is entirely directed toward the badguys.


MetMan climbs up to the overlook and gets his first kill, executing the weakened archon.


Not to be outdone by the whippersnappers, Sensenic clears out the last of the group of enemies.


That leaves Flawgic free to crossbow the enemy transmitter, which she does with enthusiasm. Dang, we've already cleared our main mission objective, nice work kids! But we can't go home until all the baddies are dead, so it's time to poke that hornet's nest.


Poke poke!


Uh, poke? Looks like we got two groups for the price of one, which isn't what I was hoping for, but that's life.


The gatekeeper and its muton guards line up perfectly for Sensenic to catch them all with the shredstorm cannon. One of the mutons manages to evade, but the other is immediately dismantled and the orb o' death loses most of its shields.


Ted has a thing about robots - he don't like 'em.


Big Sexy softens up the orb and the muton...


...and MetMan shows us all his special power: AXE THROW. That muton is toast!


We don't have enough actions left to kill the gatekeeper, though, so we stick it in stasis for now. I also toss out our hologram decoy to buy a little time, because there's still a full trio of healthy enemies approaching from the other side that we haven't dealt with.


One of the ADVENT soldiers hits us with a grenade, but that's small beer in the grand scheme of things.


Flawgic finishes off a wounded soldier using her Boy Drift...


...and MetMan axes the other a very difficult question. That leaves him a little too close to the gatekeeper for my liking, however.


I knew that gatekeepers were both robots and also not robots, but I didn't think you could poison them when they were inside their shells! Somebody needs to hit that thing with some caulking, make it nice and airtight.


Olli takes care of our big, spherical problem for us.


There are two enemies left, a soldier and a specter. But why settle for 6-on-2 when we can make it 7-on-1? Flawgic busts out Domination and permanently mind controls the soldier. Welcome to Tyrant Squad!


The specter doesn't take this betrayal very well, immediately blasting its erstwhile compatriot. Better him than us!


Enjoy this very nice screenshot of an EMP bomb.


JPFriction tries to finish off the specter, but they're slipperly little devils. He actually gets to take two shots, thanks to a weapon mod proc, but the specter dodges both of them and takes reduced damage.


Unfortunately for it, Ted really doesn't like robots.


Mission accomplished! Sensenic gets promoted, so of course I grab Hail of Bullets for him. I also spend a few AP to buy him Run and Gun, which is a bargain at only 12 points.


Back on the Avenger, we finish building our second comms station. Then we immediately use it to make contact with...


Indonesia!


The USA!


And Australia! At this point we have every region on the globe except for one, but to add the last one we'll need...


...to upgrade our comm station. Which we do! Oh, and we'll also need some intel, because I just spent everything we had, oops. So for the time being, our map is still only 15/16 complete.


Spook is still fogging up the psi chamber, but it looks like he's almost finished paying his dues. Instead of choosing from three abilities, he only has two to choose from - which is because there are only two left! Soon he'll be a psionic master and Flawgic will have the tube to herself (hopefully they disinfect it between users).


We've completed researching our vial of Blacksite goo! This unlocks our next mission: a trip to the ADVENT Forge. Uh oh, sounds like ADVENT is about to start building some photon cannons! We'd better build a few firebats and go deal with this forge.


But as much as I'd like to do that, we immediately get interrupted by a Council Mission. This sort of thing is mostly an annoyance at this point in the game, but at least it'll pay off with some intel. You can never have too much intel.


Uh, except for when the Black Market is closed and you have nowhere to spend it.

Mission 33: Keep Moving or Get Out of the Way


Our team from last mission did some great work, so let's field them again! This time, though, I'm swapping out Sensenic for Matchstick because I need someone on scouting duty. No free radar sweeps for us this time, sadly.


Things start out according to protocol: we sneak up on a group of ADVENT and explode them. Pretty by the book stuff.


Here's JPFriction getting his first kill! Nice shot with the Disruptor Rifle, ace.


The first group drops like a sack of potatoes, so I start scouting ahead with Matchstick. A little farther up he spies a heavy turret on the roof. Ted is coincidentally also on a roof, so he lights it up for us. Because a turret is just a shitty robot, after all.


Unfortunately, this is a particularly generous roof, and it also has a gatekeeper and two specters to share with us. Gatekeepers are, pound for pound, the scariest enemies in the game, but they have to get close before they can really do much damage. Instead, we first turn our attention to the specters, since their shadowbinding can swing the balance of the fight against our favor and that's not something we need right now.


Ted wings the first specter and MetMan hits it with his free action axe-throw (free axeion? I'll workshop that a bit), but it still has a handful of HP to its name.


The injured specter hops down and shadowbinds JP...


...but the effects are short-lived.


Despite the awful 50% chance to hit, I let myself be swayed by the huge damage potential and tried to pull off this Chain Shot with Olli. As you can see, it went about as well as expected.


The gatekeeper is only half-robot, but that won't save it from Ted's wrath.


Kurt is packing an EMP bomb, which he puts to good use here. The gatekeeper is stunned for two turns, which means it can still act but it probably can't pull out its nastiest tricks.


Not that it even gets the chance to try! Flawgic inspires Ted, who takes a second shot and seals the deal. Beep boop, motherfucker.


Of course, that still leaves this second specter, who once again opts to shadowbind one of our team members.


I employ a proven remedy that solves the problem in short order.


Right, time is ticking and we've got a VIP to kill/abduct. Of course, you don't get the intel if you kill him, so we're going to bring him home. Olli here sends the poor sod to dreamtown.


Bad news, though - we've got an Andromedon and some ADVENT waiting for us at the extraction point. There's also a group of reinforcements about to drop in to the side, and the squad isn't positioned very well to deal with any of this.


When you've got a problem you don't want to deal with, try putting it on ice for a while.


And then, uh, shooting it through a window. That's...that's what my grandma always used to tell me? She was a little on the ornery side, though. Anyway, a bunch of folks take crappy shots through the window, wounding the Andromedon and one of the soldiers...


...which Flawgic manages to kill with a righteous drift. As a bonus, she mind-controls the other ADVENT soldier! This isn't a permanent effect, but it alleviates the pressure for a turn or two.


Kurt kills the Andromedon's pilot and then someone (probably Ted?) takes out the robot suit.


JP grabs our enemy VIP and come on dude, he can't be that heavy. Unless he's wearing some kind of prototype lead suit? Maybe that's why XCOM wants him?


I don't remember what was happening here, but look at this pair of badasses! Just look at them!


The ADVENT reinforcements are creeping up on our flank and we're starting to be really short on time to finish this mission. Very bad things happen if we don't evac the squad in time, so it's time once again to chill these guys out while we hoof it.


Unfortunately, we only freeze 2/3 of the reinforcements and the remaining soldier gets a solid hit on Big Sexy. Nobody hits on Big Sexy on my watch!


Note to self: when you're running out of time to evac, DON'T BLOCK THE ONLY DOOR TO EXIT THE BUILDING THAT EVERYONE IS IN. With Flawgic clogging up the way out, I was legitimately worried at this point that some squad members wouldn't be able to clear the distance to the extraction zone with only one turn left.


It's a dramatic escape as ADVENT fires on the squad...


...but in the end, everyone makes it to safety! Except for the enemy VIP, who makes it to what is surely a very dangerous situation for him.


Lookin' pretty cool there, team. Even Olli is limping in a cool fashion.


Kurt makes major and becomes Untouchable, which is just as good as it sounds. Sadly, his list of bonus XCOM skills isn't very interesting to me, so he might not make it on to the A-team for the final mission. Serial is definitely a good one, but at 25 AP it's a really spendy skill to pick up.


Look at all these possible friendships! Who do you think we should hook up, dear readers? Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to like and subscribe!

Olli x JPFriction, Ted x MetManMas

So happy to see XCOM Met finally in action chucking axes at aliens. I am also happy that I didn't die on my first two missions.

Ted and Met are gonna make a kickass duo.