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 have an abduction mission in Germany. For those who are new to XCOM, an abduction mission is simply one where your goal is to wipe out the aliens. Also, to collect Meld, a resource that we don't yet have much use for but will need a lot of shortly.
Our team today is:
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| our sniper, Rokhan Khalil |
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| rookie Miu Yamazaki |
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| rookie Gilberto Perea |
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| rookie Vitaly Kozlov |
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| rookie Carlos Miraflores |
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| medic Carlota "Scooby" Herrera |
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| rookie Diya Pawar |
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| and assault specialist Greta Basso |
Time to get this mission started!
Sniper Rokhan Khalil takes up a covering position behind the pallets. Being a Lone Wolf sniper, he's a better shot if he hangs back a ways from the rest of the squad.
Basso takes up a position behind the shipping container while Miraflores, Yamazaki, and Scooby make their way into the dockhouse.
Finally Kozlov, Perea, and Pawar move up to supporting positions, and then the squad overwatches, in case any aliens blunder into our line of sight.
Next turn! Scooby's team moves through the dockhouse...
...while Khalil's team takes the flank. No contact with the enemy yet.
Finally, another round of overwatches.
Next turn! Scooby's team prepares to breach out of the dockhouse...
While Khalil's team prepares to advance. Pawar takes a look around the stack of pallets...
...and contact! One pod of three Sectoids. Given that we outnumber them more than two-to-one, they shouldn't be a problem.
Kozlov hits the first Sectoid on a 54% chance to hit...
...and Yamazaki gets the kill!
Khalil misses his shot on the Sectoid in the back...
...and Miraflores misses the other one.
Basso goes in for the kill...
...and blows the Sectoid away with a 65% chance to hit.
Scooby, Perea, and Pawar finish off the turn by overwatching.
The last Sectoid pisses off back to the others, probably doing the Sectoid equivalent of the Ride of Paul Revere, yelling, "the humans are coming! The humans are coming!"
Next turn! Scooby's team advances with Basso on point...
...while Kozlov and Pawar come up the flank.
Khalil advances to a slightly better firing position and steadies his aim for the next turn.
Everyone else ends the turn by overwatching, in case that Sectoid decides to come back, perhaps with a half dozen of its little friends.
Basso moves up in the hope that she'll catch the Sectoid in a flanking shot, but instead makes contact with another pod of two Sectoids.
After which, Basso falls back to better cover and the support of the squad.
Kozlov and Pawar continue to advance up the flank, planning to join the rest of the squad behind the shipping containers.
And for good measure, we end the turn with more overwatching.
During the aliens' turn, Basso hears movement coming from behind where she encountered the other Sectoid pod.
One Sectoid, buffed by its comrade's Mind Merge, takes a shot at Basso and misses.
Next turn, Khalil lines up a shot on that Sectoid...
...and gives it a third eye socket, right between and just above the other two. The rest of the turn consisted of regrouping the squad and advancing up to the shipping containers.
On to the aliens' turn! The last Sectoid from the two-'toid pod takes cover behind a lightpost, a decision it will briefly come to regret in the future...
...while the little bastard from the first pod who ran off in previous turns comes back, presumably with unseen friends.
Next turn! Miraflores secures the Meld canister for us, adding a whopping 10 units of Meld to our supply...
...while Perea completely fails to hit his target. Don't worry, Gilberto, I'm sure revenge will be yours soon enough.
Speaking of completely failing to hit targets, Khalil misses his target, too. You're a sniper, Khalil! You're supposed to be good at hitting things!
Miraflores also misses...
...as does Yamazaki. You're only rookies, I shouldn't realistically expect you to hit half the time, but come on! Four misses in a row!? That's XCOM, where even the random number generator forsakes you.
At least Kozlov can land a hit or two.
And Pawar manages to kill the Sectoid that the sniper and two other rookies failed to hit at all!
The rest of the squad overwatches, just in case the Sectoids try anything...
...like bring in a couple of their friends. These ones just scurried into the dockmaster's office, where they couldn't be more annoying.
Kozlov and Yamazaki miss,
again.
That said, Perea managed to get the last surviving member of pod two in a flank.
Here, PFC Gilberto Perea demonstrates why flanking the enemy is good, and being flanked by them is very, very, bad. Remember when I said that Sectoid would regret its decision to take cover behind that lightpost? This is why. Fortunately, it didn't have to live with its regrets for long.
Basso sprints up to cover behind the alien abduction pod, preparing to breach the dockmaster's office and make those Sectoids take a ride on her disco stick.
The rest of the squad overwatches, to pin those Sectoids down for Basso's dynamic entry next turn.
However, the Sectoids clearly have other plans than to meet a nitrocellulose-fueled demise. They both go into overwatch, limiting my options for advancing on their position.
Incidentally, this is why I go on overwatch with whoever's left at the end of the turn. Overwatch allows a unit to take a shot at an enemy unit that moves into range and line of sight during their turn at an aim penalty - it's a good way to limit your opponent's maneuvering options, as well as set traps for them if they're not paying attention.
Khalil hits a Sectoid but fails to kill it, and Basso fails to follow it up with a kill, but also launches a promising post-war career as a creator of modern art. Not pictured: an impressive buckshot spread plastered on the wall her target is hiding behind.
Yamazaki takes a moment to reload, having squandered two turns' worth of ammunition by failing to hit anything.
Meanwhile, Scooby moves up in an effort to be relevant in this mission. Normally, I'm glad when I don't require the services of my medics, but she's one of the better shots in the squad, and her aim is largely wasted by the fact that she hasn't been able to shoot at anything all mission.
Kozlov also reloads, taking the same care with his ammo as Yamazaki did.
Finally, another round of overwatching. Those Sectoids are not leaving that building alive.
Speaking of which, Khalil lines up another kill shot. Finally, I remember why I keep you around.
Basso leaps into the fray once more, and breaches the dockmaster's office with mercurial speed!
Listen up, you alien screwhead...
...THIS is my BOOMSTICK!
Op success!
And now, back to XCOM HQ for margaritas and Beaker impersonations.
Promotions for everyone except for Scooby! Welcome back!
Basso got promoted to Lance Corporal, and gained the Close Combat Specialist perk. CCS is vital for assault specialists, as it allows them to deny the enemy movement through an 8-tile diameter area. This is especially good against melee attackers like Chryssalids, Zombies, Muton Berserkers, and Wraiths.
Gilberto Perea made it to Specialist, and wanted to focus on heavy weapons. Sorry, with your aim, you're not going to be a rocketeer. Welcome to gunnery!
Khalil got promoted to Corporal, our first Corporal outside our starting Cadre (one of the bonuses you can get from starting in Canada in Long War is that four of the rookies you bring on the first mission get promoted to Corporal if they survive), and gets a nickname: "Checkmate." With a nickname like that, he really needs to be an In The Zone sniper, so I'm giving him Snap Shot. Congratulations, Checkmate!
Miraflores, like Perea, wanted to focus on heavy weapons. Also like Perea, his aim isn't good enough to merit a rocket launcher, so I made him a gunner as well. After we lost Blomqvist in Operation Empty Moon, we'll need more gunners.
Finally, Kozlov got made an engineer. His move is good enough that I don't want to make him a medic, and we could really use some engineers.
As for Pawar and Yamazaki, we'll work out their promotions later.
And here's our haul from Operation Fading Dream: 7 Sectoid corpses, 7 weapon fragments (alien weapons break when they die, so that's all we can get for now), and 22 Meld. Not bad for a light abduction mission.
Also, Germany is grateful for our work in Hannover. We got 160 megabucks and a panic decrease in Germany for our efforts.
Also, because I haven't done this yet, here's a look at our memorial wall. We lost Stacker, Blomqvist and Hashimoto conquering a landed Supply Barge (a mission that we're not supposed to win this early in the game, but the reward was worth the risk and the cost. Andrews bought it in our first UFO crash mission, sniped out of full cover by the Outsider, and Scott was flanked and killed by a Sectoid in the Contact mission in Mexico City. This list will, of course, be updated as we suffer more casualties.
And here, we take a look at the timetable for events of note. The Council report is in 8 days, so we have that long to make them as happy as possible. Two days after that, we'll get our first satellite in, which is going over the United States for the money and to put us one step closer to getting the continental bonus for North America. There are some Council requests that I couldn't care less about, we'll have our first geothermal power plant and a second satellite uplink running in
a couple weeks, and about the same time the Research department promises a breakthrough in xenobiology. All in all, we have our work cut out for us.
In the meantime, we need some SCOPEs.
While we're waiting for the boffins in Engineering to do their jobs, let's go back to the Hologlobe.
And, we have a contact on our air defense screens! UFO detected! Scramble interceptors!
Peanut, you're up first! Turn that UFO into a UBW (Unidentifiable Burning Wreck)!
No, Peanut was unsuccessful in bringing it down.
Judge, you're up next! Engage! Engage! Engage!
Good kill, Judge! Head back to the barn, Strike One will clear this up.
Here's our loadout for this mission: Leading the squad is Corporal Kaori "Crash" Yamazaki. She has a vest and SAW for mobility, ceramic plate inserts for protection, and a laser sight for improved aim. Shredder ammo will help secure kills for the other members of the squad, and Flush is good for getting enemies out of cover.
Up next, we have our medic, Lance Corporal Miranda Lawson. Tac armor for survivability, a carbine for improved aim and mobility, and as many medkits as she can carry. Field Surgeon will reduce fatigue and wound recovery time for everyone in the squad.
Our engineer, Lance Corporal Barbara Ulrich, has much the same loadout as Lawson, except instead of medkits she packs grenades. Anti-personnel grenades for killing things, and high explosive grenades for blowing up cover (and killing things).
Our scout, Specialist Georgiy Vorobyov, packs tac armor and ceramic inserts for survivability (his main role is to run in front of bullets, after all), a carbine for mobility (although with a 16 base Move, I could give him a rifle), and a battle scanner so that we can get a better idea of what's going on. Lightning Reflexes reduces the chance of an overwatch shot hitting him (by 90% for the first one, decreasing for every other one after it), which makes it much easier for him to run enemy overwatches and not die horribly in the process.
Next is our sniper, Lance Corporal Hulan Tong. With a vest for mobility (also, I don't plan for her to be in the enemy's line of fire), ceramic inserts for increased survivability, and a medkit for when the medic isn't available/alive, she's our long-range support for this one. Low Profile makes her hard to hit, while Squadsight allows her to shoot at targets beyond visual range that her squadmates can see.
Marshal Reeves is our first Patreon rookie! With the vest+insert combo for improved mobility over tac armor, Reeves' aim is at my minimum for rookies who get to carry rifles, and the laser sights will help him land his hits.
Next up is Patreon rookie #2, Colin Wells! Wells' aim is below the threshold for carrying a rifle, so he gets a carbine instead. The carbine affords him enough mobility to rate tac armor, and he can also carry an AP grenade for added firepower. Laser sights buff his Aim to an acceptable 76.
And lastly, Patreon rookie #3 is Lynne Triplett! Triplett's loadout is identical to Wells', except she packs an HE grenade for cover destruction.
Right, on to the mission!
Big Sky has reached the mission site. Strike One is ready to engage.
And with that, I'll leave you until the next update, Operation Fading Sleep! 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! With that, I hope to see you next time!
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