holoz0r plays XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - Part 6

The immersion breaking phone conversation ends as soon as it began. There's still four more civilians to rescue; and two more turns until one of my XCOM operatives bleeds out. According to the radar. It is all about survival, and saving the civilians that I can see in my periphery.

This is one of the civilians.

It is in fact, an abomination; that is able to take a significant amount of damage, and regenerate. Luckilly, it misses the XCOM operative that it takes a swipe at. She's very, very lucky to alive, as she only has two hit points remaining. Its all hands on deck to try and destroy this monster. Luckily, it goes down after three shots.

A new beserker, mech, and advent trooper pop up, and this makes me slightly edgy. Its all about obtaining cover in preparation of the incoming assault. The enemy misses their first shot, but then it is utter devastation once more, via missiles from the mech. I haven't learned my lesson yet.

Another squad member bleeding out. That's a high casualty rate for this mission, and as a result, I'm questioning my ability to actually finish the mission.

I move into the heaviest, closest cover I can find, and something happens.

Another abomination appears. This essentially means Central, the unit; is surrounded for a moment. I don't waste time thinking about strategy in this situation - I know that he's not going to safely be able to kill the abomination, so I go for the maximum amount of damage.

How do you do the maximum amount of damage? Explosives, of course! Now that I've had my dangerous, irresponsible outrage at the enemy, it is time to think more responsibly about the choices to make.

I slowly make a choice, and decide, well; that Advent Mec, just has to go.

Marquez better make the shot connect.

I get lucky. This is so much better in the video. Go watch it - its full of action and folly:

Its at that moment that Bradford "Central dies" - the Abomination misses another swing, I want to take ZERO chances on the Mutagen. In hindsight, I should have moved away, and then thrown the grenade, because that would have saved another trooper.

Marquez is the last one left standing. Its a game of cat and mouse at this point - runnaway, hope for cover; and fire - and hope that the abomination's next attack misses. If anything else comes out, I'm ruined. Central speaks to me, announcing the missions success - speaking from beyond the grave.

My final rating is "Poor", losing 4/5 soldiers, the other one wounded, and only 7/13 civilians rescued. You don't need to see the mission card, because Marquez has the body language to back up how the mission went. Remember, this was her first outing as a XCOM operative.

It is very somber as she returns to base, completely demoralised, and wounded. She has, however, become a sharpshooter. The mission isn't a monumental failure, meaning that the cost of the soldiers lost, versus the supplies I gained, will pay off after a little while, but I'm grasping at straws, trying to rationalize the loss of my contingent.

It is thoroughly depressing. Work continues on clearing out rooms among the alien debris, and I still have no idea what I am going to build around the power relays.

Mox and his crew return from a covert mission; and I meet a fella named "Geist" who is a new type of soldier, relying upon psionic powers, mind control, and manipulating strange fields of energy that are pretty esoteric compared to the conventional arms I'm used to using.

I finally obtain the additional power that is required, and at the same time, the Warlock cancels out the supply gain that I obtained by rescuing all the civilians. I build a new set of resistance comms satellites, extending out my influence - but it will take ages to build.

Luckily, there's a lot of micromanagement to complete; while I wait for things to build and my scan for an engineer; train new rookies in some specializations, and send off a few operatives on covert ops.

This is of course, accompanied with the need to purchase new equipment, and complete research. The combat is the most interesting part of the video, I'm sure, but the economics of the game are crucial enable the combat to be successful.

It is time for a new mission, and this one is again, a choice of three. Loadout is going to be important as well - I don't want to lose another soldier this time. Just as I'm about to go and embark on the mission, I get news of an engineer joining the ranks, so I put them to work.

The squad embarks. This is another mission where I must kill the field commander, and all the advent in the area. I have the cover of stealth to start the mission, and this is at about 38 minutes into the video. The video commentary describes the strategic thinking behind my choices, which again, gets me into combat pretty quickly.

I break stealth in the most boisterous way available, a grenade - hilariously, it does no damage, and half my squad miss their reaction shots. It doesn't take long to take out the enemies - and the advent commander is lit up on the map.

The combat with the enemy looks to be fair, based on the layout here, there's a mixture of cover, units, and weapons.

Grenades are popular to begin skirmishes on this map; with one lobbed into the middle of the group of enemies, damaging half of them - but not unleashing the utter devastation I had envisioned within my mind.

The turn ends, and as a result, there's only two enemy troopers left standing (that I can see - the commander, and a Muton) - the muton poses a significant threat, almost savaging the life of a poor XCOM Ranger. (leaving them with 1 HP) - as another advent soldier rocks up.

I attack the muton, and it counter attacks, killing the ranger, who happened to have a strong bond with a another solider. They go beserk, firing several shotgun rounds into the muton - it falls after the sniper show it a pistol. Another loss isn't a great outcome, especially for a tenured solider; but it has happened.

I have to focus on killing the advent commander. You can't bring back the dead in XCOM 2. That is the story of how the advent commander died, by the sword - there's one foe remaining, and they fall, by the pistol. Its a good result, losing only the one soldier, but not the result I had hoped for.

Promotions occur, and that's the end of that combat session. Until next time!