Operation Severed Stranger

Gentlesophs, I am your host, the Kid With A Pen, and welcome to XCOM:  War Interminable - my playthrough of XCOM:  Enemy Unknown, with the Enemy Within expansion, the Operation Slingshot DLC, and most importantly the Long War mod.  Links to all of these can be found on the "What is XCOM:  War Interminable?" page below this post.

Today, we're taking the fight to the aliens on a highway overpass in Nice, France.  With any luck, we'll get some captures and make it through without any casualties.

So, on to the mission!  Today's squad is:

Our sniper, special contributor Brienne "Lady Grey" Frost

Our squad leader, medic and Patreon contributor Lynne "Vixen" Triplett

Our infantry, Trips

Our engineer, Chilong

Our Marauder, special contributor J.R. "Rhino" Klein

Our rocketeer, Boom Boom

Our other infantry, Patreon contributor Oliver "Rascal" Albright

And our other engineer, Anna "Vita" Ahonen

The squad advances, with Rhino offering himself as mobile cover to his squadmates.

Boom Boom and Lady Grey get to positions and steady aim.

The rest of the squad overwatches.

Contact!  Two Mutons and a Berserker!

Boom Boom, soften them up!

Trips hits the Berserker.

Rhino misses the Berserker with his CCS shot...

...but lands quite the blow with his regular shot.

 Lady Grey outright kills the Muton behind the taxi.

Vixen hits the Berserker...

...putting it in exactly the position I needed it for Chilong to cap-

No?  OK.

Vita, catch this crazy thing!

Nope, apparently you can't do it either.  Looks like we'll have to put it down.

...assuming we can even hit the damn thing...

Rhino needs to reload.

And Rascal is our sole overwatch with a Berserker in our lines.  Great.

The Berserker makes a break for it...

...and Rascal gets the kill!

Trips needs to reload.

Boom Boom steadies aim.

The rest of the squad advances and overwatches.

Contact!  A Muton and two Floaters!

See if you can't get rid of their cover, Chilong!

Rascal kills a Floater.

Rhino kills the Muton.

Lady Grey, on high ground, gets a bead on the last Floater's position and maims it nicely.

Boom Boom advances and steadies.

The rest of the squad overwatches.  The Floater books it.

Boom Boom advances and steadies aim.

Lady Grey steadies aim.

The rest of the squad overwatches.

Frost reloads.

Of course, the moment our sniper reloads is the moment we make contact with another pod, also consisting of one Muton and two Floaters.

Chilong accidentally runs a Floater's overwatch, with mixed results.

Thinking that the Floater from the previous pod was hiding behind the truck, Chilong grenades it.  No effect.

Vixen moves up and heals Chilong.

Boom Boom lets loose another rocket.  The rest of the squad overwatches.

Rhino misses the Muton on overwatch.

One of the Floaters dies to massed overwatch fire.

Also, a nearby car blows up.

Rhino runs a couple overwatches, taking damage that would have killed anyone else in the process.

However, he turned that Muton into swiss cheese, so it was probably worth it.

Rhino then falls back behind the truck so the other Floater can't see him.

Chilong gets a flank on a Muton that we missed.  Not enough to kill, but it's definitely in trouble.

Rascal nails another Floater.

Vita gets the last Muton with a grenade.

Boom Boom and Lady Grey steady aim.

The rest of the squad overwatches.

Next turn, Rhino moves up, uses One For All, and takes the opportunity to reload.

Vixen gets up behind him and patches him up as best she can.

Rascal advances and reloads.

Chilong moves up and makes contact with another Muton/Floater pod.

He takes a shot at one of the Floaters, to no avail.

Vita, however, manages to land a hit on one of the Floaters.

Lady Grey hits the Floater flying high.

Boom Boom steadies aim.

Trips nails another Floater.

 The Muton lands a nasty hit on Chilong.

The injured Floater misses him, thankfully.

However, the last Floater hits him, taking him down with a critical wound.

Well, at least he's not dead.  Still, we need to get Vixen up here, stat!

We also need to be able to hit the aliens so it's safe to revive him.  Can you manage that, Rascal?

Thank you!

Rhino marches up and uses One For All so that Vita can advance under cover.

She grenades the Muton, and while she didn't kill it, she was more interested in blowing up the car it was hiding behind.

 At least Lady Grey can hit things reliably.  I'm pretty sure she's loving this new laser sniper rifle.

Boom Boom steadies aim again.

Trips misses the Muton.

Vixen orders Rascal to take another shot.

Predictably, he misses it.  The rest of the squad overwatches.

The Muton makes a run for it...

...and crosses into Trips' sights, where he kills it with a critical hit.  Now, there's just the one Floater left.  Hopefully we can take it out before Chilong bleeds out.

The Floater takes a shot at Vixen, and misses.

Lady Grey softens up the Floater with some dulcet tones from her laser gun.

Rhino gets up close and personal with the Floater...

...and gets the kill!

Op Success!

Hey, and everyone survived!  Most of you got promotions!

Chilong made Gunnery Sergeant, and gained HEAT Ammo, but given that most of his face is missing (he'll be out for a couple months), we'll have to MEC him if we're to get him back into the fight.  We haven't been able to locate his next-of-kin, so Vahlen and Shen are going to proceed anyway.  It's what he would have wanted, after all.

Rascal made Gunnery Sergeant and gained Sentinel.  That'll be useful.

Rhino made Sergeant and gained Ranger.

Vixen made Captain 4 and gained Sprinter.  Once better armor becomes available, I'll be able to put her in it without reservation.

Vita made Sergeant and gained Repair.

We got an okayish haul.  I wish we had gotten more Meld and a couple captures, but you can't have everything.

France is grateful for our efforts.

Chilong's Phalanx armor will need some time in the shop.

Boom Boom also got promoted, this time to Master Sergeant, and I waited on promoting her because it was difficult to choose between the three Rocketeer perks at Master Sergeant level.

You have Tandem Warheads, which spreads her rockets' damage evenly across the blast area.  It's a pretty nice ability.

Next is Javelin Rockets, which allows her to shoot rockets from beyond visual range.  I'm a fan of this one.

The last is Danger Zone, which increases her rockets' blast radius.  Fun, but there's too much risk of collateral damage.  I went with Javelin Rockets.

I think we've tested the MEC Suit's capabilities sufficiently to get to work on some upgrades.  I like your ideas on a flamethrower.

Also, something on our troops' Christmas list is better medkits, so you might want to get to work on that.

Meanwhile, Dr. Vahlen's team has finished taking that Drone apart.

Next up, a Berserker autopsy.

Thank you, Dr. Vahlen.

Back to the Hologlobe!

The Council has a mission for us, and it's the Van Doorn mission!  This one is definitely worth taking, especially in Long War, for reasons that will be made clear later.  For now, we need to put our team together.

Leading this mission will be our medic, Scooby.

Checkmate's coming along as our sniper.

This is a roadway map, so we're bringing two snipers on this one.  Lady Grey's the gal for us.

I'm pretty sure that she hasn't let go of that laser sniper rifle since the last mission.  I may have to make another one.

Plunder and Zilch are our infantry on this op.

Stalker's coming along as our scout.

We need a rocketeer, and Prototype's the best available.

Finally, we need to bring a MEC on this mission, and Bull's the one for us.

Strike One has reached the mission site.

And that's where we'll leave this update for today!  Join us Wednesday for Operation Enduring Chant!  Remember, you too can join the fight by going to https://www.patreon.com/user?u=177434 and subscribe today!  Every subscriber gets to have a rookie named after them!

Can't subscribe to my Patreon campaign, but still want in on the program? Go here to see how you can get in: http://xcomwarinterminable.blogspot.com/p/join-fight.html  With that, I hope to see you next time!