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 going to ambush a landed UFO somewhere in Mexico. UFO Landing Site missions are just like UFO Crash Site missions, except nothing's broken and there are more aliens. We did a mission like this one once before, Operation Empty Moon, but I didn't document that one because it was before I started documenting missions, beginning with Operation Fading Dream. We lost three people in that mission, including my Cadre scout (one of the options Long War can give you for starting in Canada is the Cadre bonus, which makes 4 of the rookies you send on the first mission Corporals if they survive the mission, one of each supra-class: Scout-Sniper, Infantry-Assault, Gunner-Rocketeer, and Engineer-Medic), but we have better equipment now (when we assaulted that other ship, we only had ballistic weapons and armor. We have since developed SCOPEs and laser guns), so we shouldn't take too many casualties.
Why are we going on this mission again? Because of the treasure trove of alien artifacts and resources we can get off this thing if we succeed.
With that in mind, our team this mission is:
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| Our infantry and Patreon contributor, Albright |
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| Our engineer, Chilong |
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| Our gunner, Schuster |
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| Our scout, Tat |
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| Our other infantry and Patreon contributor, Banzai |
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| Our other engineer, Kozlov |
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| Our squad leader, medic, and Patreon contributor, Vixen |
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| And our sniper of sorts, Long Shot. |
The first thing Long Shot does is steady her weapon.
The rest of the squad lines up and overwatches.
Why are they standing out in the open where they could be easily flanked and killed? Well for starters, the cover available is terrible for advancing, but more importantly, Tat has already secured the furthest point for us. As long as we follow his footsteps exactly, we won't trigger anything that he doesn't. It's a little trick I picked up from watching nearly a hundred hours of Beaglerush's XCOM Live & Impossible Let's Plays - I mean let's face it, if you're going to learn from someone, you might as well learn from the best, and Commander Beags is practically an XCOM god.
Seriously. If you want to learn to play XCOM better, learn from the guy who plays Long War in Ironman mode on Impossible difficulty because he thinks the game isn't
challenging enough.
Anyway, next turn! The squad advances...
...and Kozlov has eyes on the UFO. No aliens yet.
The rest of the squad moves up and overwatches for good measure.
Tat hears movement from up ahead...
...and his hearing does not disappoint. Contact Right! Four Thin Men!
Albright liquefies a Thin Man's head with a burst from his laser rifle.
Long Shot takes aim at a Thin Man...
...and gets the kill! Hey, Long Shot? Sorry about the "alleged sniper" thing, okay? Keep up the good work!
Kozlov pops smoke on the rest of the squad. Anything to keep Thin Men from hitting us in full cover.
The rest of the squad overwatches.
The Thin Men hunkered and fled.
Tat was able to get a hit on the hunkered Thin Man...
...and after a miss, Banzai gets the kill!
Long Shot steadies her aim.
The rest of the squad overwatches.
The last Thin Man keeps on running.
The squad advances, steadies, reloads, and overwatches.
Tat misses the Thin Man on overwatch...
...but Kozlov manages to land a hit.
Albright, on the other hand, fails to his his overwatch.
That said...
...Albright's deadliest on the offensive.
And Albright takes a well-deserved reload.
Tat makes contact with another pod, this one mainly of Sectoids with a supporting Drone.
Kozlov takes a 59%...
...and gets the kill! Nice shooting!
Long Shot steadies her weapon
again (it seems to be her favorite thing to do)...
...and the squad overwatches again.
Tat and Albright miss the Sectoid...
...but that's okay. The Sectoid missed Tat, too.
Chilong hits a different Sectoid on overwatch, but fails to kill.
It misses Chilong pretty dramatically.
However, a Sectoid manages to land a nasty hit on Kozlov.
Schuster kills one Sectoid (kill not shown due to unresponsive screenshot key)...
...and Chilong sees to it that another Sectoid transitions from chemistry to physics.
Banzai kills the Sectoid hiding in the ship.
He then takes a well-deserved reload.
Tat also makes his gun go rat-tat-bang (apparently, it's the sound of the reloading process - rat for locking the magazine in place, tat for the bolt to cycle and feed the first round into the chamber, and bang for hitting the gun on the side to ensure that the bullet is securely in the chamber so it doesn't misfire. I'm not convinced that the same would hold for laser guns, but then again we still talk about filming or taping something with a digital camera, which requires neither film nor videotape).
Vixen gets up to Kozlov and patches him up with a medkit. For how frequently he gets himself shot, you'd think he was a scout instead of an engineer.
Long Shot steadies aim again, this time because she literally has nothing better to do.
Finally, Kozlov has the sole overwatch.
Contact! One pod, four Floaters, coming from the right rear flank!
Banzai drops one!
Chilong grenades two, but does not kill either.
Schuster misses a Floater, but at least got holo-targeting up on it.
The rest of the squad falls back to engage the Floaters, and overwatches.
First overwatch: Kozlov kills a Floater!
Second overwatch: Vixen wounds a Floater.
The last Floater jets away...
...and it never rains, but it pours. Contact Left! One pod, three Thin Men, one Sectoid! Long Shot misses an overwatch on them.
The pod on our other flank scatters to the four winds.
Banzai bags another Floater...
Kozlov reloads...
Vixen corners the last Floater...
...and gets the kill!
Chilong moves up to engage the Thin Men, and reloads.
Long Shot steadies aim,
again...
On the aliens' turn, the Thin Men advance. Albright kills one on overwatch....
Tat hits one on overwatch, but does not kill...
...and contact! One pod, three Floaters on the right flank!
Kozlov deprives the Thin Men of their cover with an HE grenade.
Vixen hits a Floater, but does not kill.
Albright misses a Floater...
...and switches targets to the one right next to it...
...and gets the kill!
Tat finishes the other Thin Man off...
...and Long Shot finally hits something for the first time in about 10 turns.
The squad overwatches in preparation for the Floaters' assault on our position.
The enemy does not disappoint, but Banzai misses his overwatch shot.
However, the Floaters are curiously not advancing any more than just that. Albright reloads.
Tat demonstrates the utility of battle scanners by getting one onto the top side of the UFO, revealing the Floaters' location.
Banzai and Vixen reload, in preparation for what's about to come next.
Long Shot steadies aim...
The rest of the squad overwatches...
...and the Floaters make their grand appearance.
Wow, this is another long mission. I'm looking at 184 screenshots total for this one, after the 67 I cut for various reasons. We're only halfway through the mission, and we've barely set foot inside the UFO, so I'm going to leave this update here for today. Join us tomorrow
for Operation Rotting Sleep, part 2! 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!
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