Many Welps

If you’re new to the Xcom 2 Blogger Succession Game or want to catch up. check out the entire series on Time To Loot.

The Avatar Project pips have been reduced even further since my last turn. Our resources are looking well stocked too. I didn’t feel like there was an immediate need to do anything on the Geoscape this turn, probably the first time I’ve felt like this the whole game.

I got to spend time on the Avenger completing various research projects. The main mission would like us to complete research on the Psionic Chamber. This costs a good chunk of resources and I wanted to finish the power armor research first and spend resourses on that. While waiting for the research to finish I continued our effort to make contact with Australia. There’s an Avatar facility over there that will probably need delt with at some point.

I went over to Engineering once the Power Armor research was completed to look at our next armor upgrade. Warden Armor costs a pretty penny at 300 Supplies, 40 Alien Alloys, and 20 Elerium Crystals. The more defense the better though so I went ahead and purchased it.

In the process of making contact with Australia I completed the following research:

• Acid Grenades
• Chryssalid Autopsy – Unlocked Hellweave which adds bonus health, damage reflection, and a 100% chance to set the attacker on fire!
• Gatekeeper Autopsy – Unlocked Alien Psi Amp an upgrade for Psi Operatives. Do we even have Psi Operatives yet?
• Beserker Autopsy – Unlocked Over Drive Serum which boosts mobility and damage resistance.

Once contact with Australia was made I went to investigate an Alien Wreckage site. One day in to that we got a much needed supply drop. I collected those supplies over a 3 day period. At this point, I felt like I was long overdue for a mission and so did the game. Shortly after the supply drop pickup Advent launched an attack on one of the Resistance havens in New India.

Operation God Giant

Objectives:

• Rescue at least 6 civilians
• Neutralize the Alien Strike Force

The Team:

• Black Widow – Specialist
• Bookahnerk – Speacialist
• Mailman – Sharphooter
• Magi – Sharpshooter
• Silentdeath – Ranger
• Rakuno – Grenadier

Taking Naithin’s advice from the footnotes of his last turn, I took Ranger Silentdeath on a scouting mission moving one action point at a time. I have a tendency to get our Rangers in some real bad situations by overextending them. This worked out as Silentdeath spotted 3 Chryssalids right off the bat. The team was able to clear this group out in one round with no damage taken. On the enemy’s turn a Gatekeeper started to pick off civilians .

I haven’t done one of these missions before so I wasn’t quite sure how it worked. I needed to save 6 civilians to complete the mission and there were 13 civilians total on the map. On our squads next turn I had Bookahnerk walk over to a civilian to see how rescuing was going to work. I was relieved to find that’s all I had to do to “rescue” them. I was sure I was going to have to round them up, protect them, and get them to an extraction point. That would have ended poorly.

The Gatekeeper proceeded to take out one civilian per turn. At this point, I knew I was going to have to split the team up rescued everyone in time. The good news is the squad is spread out enough not to take an AOE hit. The bad news is everyone is so spread out they can’t cover each other with overwatch effectively. Even worse news, Black Widow goes to save a civilian but it turns into a Faceless. Yikes! Magi had that angle covered though and was able to take it out before it did too much damage.

In this mission I learned that I have no idea how to deal with Chryssalid poison. Both Bookahnerk and Rakuno got poisoned when a few emerged from the ground and then were constantly taking damage for the rest of the mission. Lucky for them, it wasn’t enough damage a round to worry about it taking them out but it wasn’t an ideal situation. Any tips on that would be greatly appetited!

The last pack of enemies containted one murderous Gatekeeper, two Advent solders, and one lone Chryssalid. Bookahnerk and Silentdeath were hunkered down by a pile of burning tires, great place for cover by the way, and were able to take down one of the Advent solders right away. Black Widow and Magi made quick work of the Chryssalid. That left the Gatekeeper and one solider.

I didn’t realize that Klaus “Mailman” Weiss had a rocket launcher strapped to his arm when I took him for this mission. When I found it I just had to try it out and fired it into the Gatekeeper and solider. It didn’t do that much damage but it looked awesome and blew up their cover.

On the enemy’s turn, the Gatekeeper floated right up to Silentdeath, fired point blank, and took her down to half health. Thanks to the Hellweave I equipped it took some damage back and was set on fire. Silentdeath retaliated with the machete. Not quite effective against a big armored ball…but it got some damage in. In preparation for another blast from the Gatekeeper, Bookahnerk sent the drone over to Silentdeath Aid Protocol style to add some extra defense. Rakuno laid down some suppression fire to inflict an aim penalty. Turns out, it wasn’t really necessary because the Mailman himself delivered a critical hit and took down that Gatekeeper no problem.

I apparently already forgot the lesson from my last Gatekeeper encounter. They explode on death. Sorry Easha….Silentdeath wasn’t downed after the explosion but health was looking rough. I was going to pull back to some cover on the next turn but that pesky Advent solider threw a frag grenade.

Silentdeath was down, bleeding out, but not dead yet. Mailman and Rakuno panicked.

Bookahnerk took down the solider on the next turn but the mission wasn’t over just yet. Another civilian turned in to a Faceless. The squad obliterated it completing the mission just in time. Silentdeath only had two turns left before bleeding out.

Aftermath

The only ones who made it out of this mission uninjured were our two snipers: Mailman and Magi. Everyone else was in various states of injury. Silentdeath was the worst at 14 days recovery time followed by Bookahnerk at 8. We probably won’t be seeing them for a while.

Rakuno and Klaus were promoted after the mission. I took Saturation Fire on Rakuno which fires a cone of bullets at enemies doing damage and destroying cover. For Mailman, I took Quickdraw since he already had Lightning hands.

Silentdeath is unfortunately shaken now with reduced will. I guess face-tanking a Gatekeeper will do that to a person.

There doesn’t appear to be an immediate threat in the Geoscape right now. The Psionic Chamber still needs to be completed to continue the main mission.

I leave the next command in the capable hands of UnwiseOwl. Good luck Commander! The save is here.