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 another Abduction mission, this time in Swindon, UK. As you know, I'm fond of using Abduction missions to train my rookies up, since this early on in the game they're still relatively easy.
I'm not much a fan of this map. It's really small, there's not much room for lateral maneuvering, and what cover there is has a nasty tendency to explode when shot. That said, a light Abduction mission on a small map should be over quickly.
Also, because it's a roadway map, snipers tend to dominate. This is why I brought two of them.
Anyways, our team for today is:
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| Our sniper, Checkmate |
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| our engineer, Chilong |
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| rookie Shearer |
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| our other sniper, Long Shot |
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| our infantry and Patreon contributor, Oliver Albright |
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| our other rookie, Olakitan |
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| our medic, squad leader, and Patreon contributor Lynne "Vixen" Triplett |
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| and our other infantry and Patreon contributor, Marshall "Bonzai" Reeves |
Long Shot moves to position and steadies her weapon.
The rest of the squad advances and overwatches.
Shearer's on point, and she makes it as far as the garbage can when she makes contact with the first pod - a Sectoid, a Floater, and a Muton.
Mutons are big, tough, and they pack a punch. They're also the earliest aliens in the game to get grenades. Mutons also have the Intimidate ability, which can cause a unit that hits them to panic, and the Blood Call ability, which gives all other nearby Mutons, Muton Elites, and Berserkers stat buffs.
They're a lot of fun.
Shearer whacks 'em with an AP grenade.
Checkmate checkmates the Muton...
...and Long Shot hits the Sectoid, but fails to kill it.
Chilong finishes the Floater off with another AP grenade.
Reeves misses the Sectoid...
...and the rest of the squad moves up and overwatches.
The last Sectoid runs off and gets itself flanked in the process...
...and Albright makes contact with a Drone pod while he moves up to flank and kill the Sectoid.
And kill it he does!
Checkmate snipes a Drone...
...and Long Shot puts the "dragon" in Long Shot by blasting another Drone out of the sky with a Precision Shot.
Get it?
Long shot?
As in "long" is Mandarin for "dragon?"
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Never mind. My jokes aren't all that funny, anyway.
The rest of the squad advances and overwatches.
Contact! A Floater pod swoops in as Shearer moves up.
Fortunately, Chilong has a high explosive remedy for this Floater. Not enough to kill, but the car it's hiding behind is now on fire. With luck, this Floater will be stuck in a dangerously hot situation.
Reeves, of course, misses the Floater.
Checkmate puts the far Floater in check...
...and Long Shot gets Mate! The rest of the squad overwatches.
Anyway, it's clear to me that this Floater...
...is just...
...too stupid...
...to live.
Yes, a Floater chose to
shoot back rather than get away from the car that was about to
explode. I think that Chilong deserves this kill.
Op success!
Promotions for some of you! Welcome back!
We got a pretty decent haul on this one, too.
Shen, we need another access lift!
Back to the Hologlobe!
Laser SMGs!
Laser carbines!
The UK wants weapon fragments!
Autolaser!
UFO contact over Germany! Get up there, Nosedive!
Nosedive engages the UFO...
...and has to break off due to damage.
Of course, we have another UFO inbound, this one looking for Germany's satellite.
On the other hand, Dr. Vahlen's finished her research on alien materials.
Let's analyze these Scout UFOs. Maybe it'll help with blowing them out of the sky a bit more.
...and there goes Germany's satellite.
On the other hand, this does free up a slot for a satellite over Mexico, which will give us North America's continental bonus.
Meanwhile, work on the access lift is finished.
Also, Germany wants weapon fragments! Take 'em!
Uncle Sam wants Elerium! Take it!
Dr. Vahlen's team finishes up their analysis on Scout UFOs...
...and let's start research on Xenogenetics. Maybe it'll lead to some really cool game-winning technologies (unconvincingly pretending that I don't know where this leads)
And we have a Council mission...
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...in Newfoundland.
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Goddammit, XCOM...
In the past month, we've had Portent, the first Terror mission, and Friends In Low Places, and now it's Newfoundland. This has been the Month From Hell.
The Newfoundland mission is one of the most dreaded Council missions in all of XCOM, for reasons that will become apparent once we actually go on it. So, we're going to take our best and hope for the best. If we lose everyone (which is actually a real possibility on this mission), our program will suffer greatly in the loss of personnel and equipment.
So, we'll have Scooby lead this mission. We'll give her a laser carbine instead of an assault carbine but otherwise her loadout is unchanged.
We'll definitely need Boom Boom's firepower on this one. I flirted with giving her a second rocket instead of a SCOPE, but I'd much rather that the rockets she has hit more frequently. If I could give her multiple additional Shredder rockets, I would.
We need our best shot, and that's Checkmate. His loadout is unchanged, but 100 Aim (with the SCOPE) will help ensure that his shots will hit.
Zilch and Trips fill our infantry positions, toting laser rifles for added accuracy and damage.
Caper and Geronimo are our assaults here. Geronimo is taking a flashbang instead of ceramic plates, but otherwise are going to be our close-in defense.
Kostopoulos carries a ton of explosives and a laser carbine. He should be able to finish off any packs that Boom Boom can't kill.
Strike One is in position to deploy.
And, that's where we'll leave this update for today! Join us tomorrow
for Operation
Doomsday Is Nigh Broken Daze! 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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