XCOM: Enemy Online

[Symphony D.]

MISSION 12: LAZY JESTER

Whoo.

Right out of the gate we trigger a Floater pod. LW seems to like putting them near the starts. I know there are three, but lose track of the third, so we use a Battle Scanner.

It turns out to be useful. EQandcivfanatic leads with a frag and Grandkhan follows suit, racking up 2 kills.

Popcornlord suppresses the last one and Grandkhan, apparently angry after his stint in Medbay, is hot to trot to kill it at the start of next turn after ChiefDesigner fails to do so. We push up and collect some meld and eventually trigger some Sectoids.

Popcornlord is definitely on a trickshot team.

EQandcivfanatic remains good with a gun. Never heard of "Sulzy" before...

Popcornlord is still a wallhacker. Aliens die horribly.

Go team British Empire and Italy.

 

[Symphony D.]

INTERMISSION 14

Popcornlord takes Holo-Targeting, Grandkhan becomes a Scout.

The OTS finishes and we buy Tactical Officers. We can commission 3 Lieutenants. I commission the only 3 eligible; myself, CivOasis, and Shadowbound. As likely team leaders, CivOasis and I both take Stay Frosty, which means "All units in the squad have post-mission fatigue reduced by one day." As you might be able to tell, that'll be important. Shadowbound receives Legio Patria Nostra, which means "Squad receives +1 Will per different nationality in the squad," since he'll likely be accompany other officers.

Officers get color-coded by specialty and get snazzy ODST helmets in my army.

Ha, I fooled you, you thought there'd be a reaction gif here! I fooled you, I got pig iron, I got pig iron!

My prior experience tells me want a second Sniper, so we pull ChiefDesigner off leave for this one.

 

[Symphony D.]

MISSION 13: DYING MOON

I'm sure we'll have a whale of a time!

We open some doors, miss a zombie, shoot it a bunch, and end with BILLSIF proving his dedication to the art of sniping. Some Chyrsalids appear between turns.

By some I mean 4 of them. There's also a Zombie back there.

Then 2 more appear, along with 2 more Zombies.

This is actually new, last I played this there were Sectoids/Seekers/Thin Men as the packs here and they didn't roam.

Look, sharks are bad, okay? Don't question it.

We move forward, killing some more zombies.

I told you, sharks are bad. Tuna are bad too.

Not. Ominous.

Do you see what I see?

I hate Chrysalids.

Sharks. ARE BAD!

So the actual gimmick of this mission is after you fight all the stuff at the beginning, it turns out there's a whale inside the ship that spawns a Chrysalid or two every turn (it apparently does eventually run out, after 40 or so). We need to push buttan to call in an airstrike, after which we have 8 turns to leave or die. Oh, yeah, all the shark and tuna carcasses inside and outside the boat also make them too.

pole475 run fast, have shotgun, pole475 push buttan

Normally I bring two snipers to cover our escape because they're very effective at it, but this time it was less than necessary. We shot up this zombie and then more or less just booked it and never saw them again.

ChiefDesigner earns a 10 day vacation. Did I mention we got neither pay nor salvage for this mission?

 

[Symphony D.]

INTERMISSION 15

justokre picks up Snap Shot, and BILLSIF and ChiefDesigner both get Low Profile, while ChiefDesigner gets a 10 day vacation.

Sellin' guns

Cuttin' xenos

PLOT! Livin' large

Doin' science

Makin' bank

Shocking.

Team #NES is on the case.

 

[Symphony D.]

MISSION 14: SILENT SHROUD

Yeah, whatever.

"How much do we get paid anyway?"

"You get paid?!"

The old grenade-invisible-enemies-to-reveal-them-then-grenade-them-again trick!

Doors ajar means danger's not far.

bestshot9 proves the third time's the charm.

Team Alien Diversity is no match for Team #NES. Also, that's a Muton, they're like the mainline alien soldiers.

bombshoo is really good at avoiding friendlies. tuxedohamm gets a little strangled but it's no big deal.

Some stuff explodes and gets shot.

Grandkhan shoots the Muton and is panicked by its Intimidate in response.

bombshoo hits it on overwatch (aliens freak out when flanked) and it runs straight into bestshot9's overwatch.

 

[Symphony D.]

INTERMISSION 16

bestshot9 gets Covering Fire, Grandkhan gets Battle Scanner, Owen Glyndwr becomes a Gunner, bombshoo becomes an Engineer, and tuxedohamm becomes an Assault.

We sell a bit of junk to buy Squad Size I, allowing us to take 7 people per mission.

Just XCOM Things

We finish Sectoid Autopsy and start Xenoneurology.

And that's the end of April!

We expand our base.

We buy LOUDBOT some toys and get the next Officer tier. justokre also becomes an LT with Legio Patria Nostra.

The Roster. If you're on it and want to die horribly more action, pipe up.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Alright, I have mediocre stats!

 

[Kozmos]

You seem to have things well in hand. I usually lose people on that Newfoundland mission because of tedium and impatience.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Daftpanzer is our first gravely wounded soldier. JUMP ON IT!

Je suis pas un héros ... Mais j'ai servi avec des hommes qui étaient des héros.

 

[ork75]

I may be a coward, but I can shoot..?

 

[Everblack]

This is very enjoyable to watch but the only thing that bug me about the new x-com was that Chrysalid weren't as scary as they were in X-COM: UFO Defense.

 

[Omega124]

I'm not in the roster

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I never played older XCOM games, but Chrysalids are freakin' scary in Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within.

 

[tuxedohamm]

I saw myself recruited way back, and then slowly started to worry that I was generated with terrible stats. Nice to finally see me get strangled.

 

[Symphony D.]

I never played older XCOM games, but Chrysalids are freakin' scary in Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within.

Chrysalids were apparently much scarier. They could essentially traverse the entire map in a turn. When you didn't die to them, it was because they chose not to kill you.

My issue with them is that one at a time they're a joke, but LW's changes basically make them into bullet sponges where if you don't have a whole lot of explosives, hang it up. Not even a rocket will take them all out anymore, and they tend to have Lightning Reflexes now too! I feel like maybe they're built to encourage Shredder Rocket use instead of normal rocket use, coupled with a few AP grenades...

I'm not in the roster

 

[ChiefDesigner]

In terror missions in old XCom with Chrysalids, I would either savescum or just accept that the map was going to be filled with zombies, level the block with explosives, and save the one or two civilians I could...

 

[Everblack]

In terror missions in old XCom with Chrysalids, I would either savescum or just accept that the map was going to be filled with zombies, level the block with explosives, and save the one or two civilians I could...

 

[Symphony D.]

INTERMISSION 17

We sell some alloys and some Meld.

Welcome to May.

bestrfcplayer is also on the mission with an AP and HE grenade, but he's off to the left.

 

[Symphony D.]

MISSION 15: LOST DAWN

¡Bienvenidos a México!

So we're on a shot up highway and I'm just gonna tell you outright that this is a repurposed Council Mission map so I know all the enemies are gonna be in the back.

Sure enough, bestrfcplayer shows what we already know. There will also eventually turn out to be a Sectoid pack down to the bottom-left.

He lobs an AP grenade and takes out one Thin Man, seriously injuring another.

m.t.cicero puts the hurt on a Floater, and also activates the Sectoid pack with the splash. One of them runs over to to the injured Thin Man.

bombshoo takes out both.

Iggy puts some new holes in one of the Sectoids, to little gain.

The injured Floater jets up and lands down behind our firing line meant to keep them from coming up top.

bestrfcplayer gets hit with acid and then panicked on a psi attack, hunkering down. This is just as well because acid does damage with every action except hunker down, so he's not doing anything he wouldn't be already. If anything the Sectoid did us a favor by wasting its turn. Hunkering down improves defense and as the farthest forward soldier with an elevation bonus, bestrfcplayer is actually pretty secure here and will draw almost all enemy fire for the rest of the level. I frankly prefer this to Thin Man poison in vanilla EU/EW.

andis-1 takes two shots to kill the Floater, but as Infantry, he can afford to.

bombshoo grenades the car, setting it on fire, m.t.cicero kills the mind-merger, weakening the merged one, and the car explodes, finishing it off.

The last Thin Man gets double-grenaded by bombshoo and m.t.cicero.

I ping the Floater on overwatch and Iggy runs up and shotguns it from medium range.

 

[Symphony D.]

INTERMISSION 18

I pick up Lock N' Load because the other two are smoke grenade perks and I don't smoke. My lowish kill rate is actually sort of a benefit because it means I can probably actually rank up every level and actually become Commander of XCOM for realsies.

Unlike EQandcivfanatic, bombshoo gets speced for Smoke instead of damage, making him more of a support Engineer. m.t.cicero becomes a Rocketeer and bestrfcplayer becomes an Engineer.

LOUDBOT is fully kitted out and ready to rumble when we need to call on him. "Why did you build a SHIV with 50 soldiers?" Well, partly as an insurance policy and partly as a possible scout. I don't actually like using people as meatshields. Our first Workshop completes.

We've oversold our artifacts a bit and so we're left with limited research options. I pick Xenogenetics, but we really need to start saving. Or a miracle.

Also Starring: EQandcivfanatic. Not sure why justokre gets command priority over CivOasis here either.