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[silencer_pl]

Hi there all.

I'm not sure how far will we go here, but I will try to make small AAR of my playtrough of Long War 2 mod for XCOM 2.

As we all probably know Long War 2 is total overhaul of the XCOM 2 campaign. It provides many changes, such as new units, new and modified soldier trees, new tech, new strategy layer, new tech tree etc. If you want to know more just go to Ufopaedia and read there.


Ok so let's begin. Our campaign starts traditionally with mission Gatecrasher, but instead of blowing up some statue, we are just tasked to kill all enemies. Let the ADVENT know that the Commander is back.



This mission takes places in outskirts of Delhi, which means our starting region will be New India. Our fist task is to find higher ground and look for enemy patrols. We see a gas station nearby with some kind of workshop addon. Nearby we find 2 pods of enemies. A pod of 3 with Officer, Trooper and Surveillance drone. This drones are very annoying they have very high spotting radius, their main gun is low damage disorienting beam, but if they get up close they can stun unit for 2 turns - nasty. The second pod is Trooper, Sentry, Machingunner, Engineer. The Sentry is tougher trooper who is focused on overwatches. Machingunner is self explanatory - carries a big gun and can lay suppressing fire. The engineer has a grenade launcher and can throw flashbangs.



In this mission there are 3 pods, so we are missing 1 more pod of enemies. So let's get the higher ground and wait for perfect moment to lay a trap.
After everything was set the first pod of victims came and we showed them that XCOM is back and we mean business.



We stayed in the same place because it was a good place and awaited new enemies. Once everyone was dead we've picked up the corpses and went back to our mobile HQ.



Avenger time. Of course we need to first talk with every talking head and then proceed to the geoscape. Our starting haven has 6 rebels which is good. More power to us. Our top priority is to get the first 3 out 5 region liberation missions, so we will be sticking all current rebels and new ones into Intel job and if we will have a scientist we will boost that job with him. Our initial scanning reveled two easy missions. A smash & grab mission which is to go and rob local Advent store house of valuable supplies and rescue an engineer. So 2 teams of 5 were sent to infiltrate those sites. Nothing later came so let's get to the battlefield.



Smash and grab missions have 12 turn timer. But it's not timer to escape, but after 12th turn reinforcments would be pouring every 2 turns, and in Long War each reinforcement is bigger and bigger, so technically we have 12 turns to get in and get out. Our starting point is directly in front of the storage house. We just need to dash to see the entrance. Unfortunately every pod is just either patrolling the outside of the building or are inside. So we will have to force our way in. Additionally there is one Snek. Good thing I brought 3 assaults. There is nothing more exciting as to blast enemy with shotgun to the face.



As we cleared the insides of the building the last pod guarding our exit path appeared. Had to throw everything at them, including kitchen sink, but anyway we've got out with precious supplies. Not much, but still better than nothing.



While we were waiting for the second mission to start a new one was presented. First liberation mission to find a lead with lots of time to spare. So new team was assembled including rookies. But in the meantime let's rescue that Engineer.



Now with Long War 2 patch 1.3 extraction missions have much much longer timers. Mostly dependent on map sizes. But even on smaller maps it's much longer than default 12 turns which gives more breathing space. But don't get too relaxed as reinforcements are on their way.
The path to the jail house was straight forward but it was blocked by a Sectoid and a drone, so we had to break concealment and waste those doofuses. Then it was straight to the jail room and killing 2 enemies that were inside the building. Nothing spectacular but a win is a win. And double points for doing it flawless right?



With the engineer in tow we can now start clearing Avenger to get some rooms for new buildings. Or wait for next mission is rewarded with another mission. Freeing some rebels and a rookie. But before that, we've got a train to catch.



A team of 6 should be more enough to handle this. However full stealth was not meant in this mission. Nearby our starting position, behind full covers that blocked our LOS a drone was hiding. A solo drone thankfully. Fortunately the right side path was clear up to the train. Double lucky for us that before the objective was big explody barrel and the game throws a hint to you. If you don't see enemies and you can shoot barrel that means there are enemies in blast radius. So we lured more enemies near it (it has blast radius of 3 tiles I think) and BOOM.



Then it was time to mop the remnants and get back home.



And this concludes the first month of this new war. In new month we start with freeing up some rebels. Of course some of the rebels might be faceless, but we will deal with them later. Right now we need as much intel power as we can get.



In this mission Rookie Space Voyager will learn that you should stay away from fire. This mission takes place on a very large map. Fortunately evac point is not that much far away from the jail. But it will take a while to get up there and unfortunately our stealthy approach was blown by a lone drone (stupid things). But we moved on. However this set back got us in very prolonged combat inside the building where prisoners were held.



I don't know how we survived 3 pods at once and 1 reinforcement drop at the end. But when it was time to run to the evac, SV decided to be a Human torch. Don't know what he was thinking, but his strong will to survive allowed us to carry him bleeding out. Unfortunately A) we do not have hospital ward, B) we don't even have nurses, C) we will not heal you with booze. Anyway 1 rookie and 2 rebels joined our cause.



So currently we are out of new missions in the wait. With new rebels in the action we should get better ones soon. And we did find 3 missions, another find a lead, smash & grab and rescue a scientist. The scientist is low on timer only 3 days, but we need him to boost our intel operations so I will use intel to boost infiltration rating. But first let's do find a lead again mission. It's a 4 man mission with a 8 turn timer to get to the objective.



This mission will not be easy I think ADVENT strength was risen therefore enemy numbers in this mission also got up. I was not sure if this mission will be possible. I've packed a suppressor and AP rounds to our Ranger Stormtrooper. It payed of by silent killing a drone. However 1 pod was on alert state but they run away. The objective was in a small building and lucky we were able to hack it way out of the view of anyone and hide inside a guard tower. And here where it almost went to hell. First it was LOS bullshit, drone stunning through walls, enemies shooting through walls - This Is not XCOM Mr. Jake in true X-COM walls prevented from shooting!



Once the evac was ready we quickly moved out from our not so safe hiding spot. I did one mistake though. Fortunately game was kind this time. I've moved wounded soldier first into the overwatch ADVENT trooper instead of moving Assault with Lightning reflexes. But we got away somehow.



As we finished last mission, new one was almost ready to begin. What is started as extremely light mission it too moved up a notch to very light.



We were put a turn away from the building we were to raid and the evac point was far behind it. Since we had to run entire map to the evac point this mission turned into a massive shoot out in one big spot. It was just us 5 against all enemies on the map. It would be less bloody if Thorondor would actually shoot the rocket in the exact spot I was pointing at and instead of hitting 3 enemies he only hit one. Shame on you.



Also one would think enemy will not make a move to openly flank itself. But it looks like ADVENT doesn't care and will send their units just to kill XCOM soldier - not cool but we were lucky and it did not end in a kill. Anyway fighting entire map of enemies took us 7 turns. So we had plenty of time to get away.

[Thorondor]

Welcome back, Commander.

::

Rockets - since when were they meant to be precision weapons?

[silencer_pl]

Since 1994 where aimed shot was 115% ACC

[Space Voyager]

Niiiice, thanks for the AAR! I still haven't finished the vanilla...

[silencer_pl]

And we are back.

Soon after last mission, we are rescuing a scientist from the clutches of ADVENT. This is mission where we do not have concealment except Shinbois who have their individual concealment.



The map that was generated, was pretty small. Normally from 1.3 version this mostly will not happen, but in this rare occurance our scout managed to find a path that allowed us to sneak right pass the aliens, except for last turns where they did get a glimps on us. But it was too late.



This was the last mission from recent backlog. After it, we finally made contact with Eastern Europe. A heaven of 5 rebels will be under XCOM command now. We have to wait now and generate a new backlog of missions. And they came in big numbers. First is freeing some rebels and a new rookie to our squad.



In this mission we didn't keep concealment for long. Our path to the prison was blocked by small squad of 3 Advent soldiers. The main battle took place in the jail house. Here we met our first stun lancer of the game. Stun lancers are like spiders, kill if with everything you have and better yet, raise the house and build a new one.



Unfortunately freeing the prisoners was the first step. Our evac point was back on the other side of the map. With 1 wounded soldier limping back, we had to fight back 2 reinforcement drops. Things looked hairy, but we managed.



Our next mission is again to rescue a scientist. however this one is more important than the previous one, as he puts us 1 step closer in the region liberation chain.



It was again a small map. Only 16 turns to evac and our path was blocked. We had to fight entire map. Advent as usual used cheating from high cover. Not only that Larry The Scoutropper almost lost his life near the end. Stupid 21% hit behind full cover. Bloody cheats I tell you.



However we managed to get him back to safety.



Last mission from new backlog was to counter hidden dark event and before that we've started to research laser weapons.



This mission was quite easier than the first one. Our main battle with entire map took in one spot. Of course ADVENT wouldn't be itself if it didn't cheat constantly like shooting through walls and even that counted as flanked shot.



But eventually we cleaned house.



That concludes the last backlog of missions. So we wait for more. To speed up the process of finding 3rd liberation mission, we assigned a scientist as heaven adviser. This helped as we got our third liberation mission.



In this mission we encountered our first Muton and ADVENT mech. Nasty bunch. Thankfully they bunched up together and this time Thorondor landed perfect rocket killing few troopers in the process.



However this was only the beginning, we had to run fast to destroy alien relay and had to fight a reinforcement pod. But we put high pressure and got the objective right before second reinforcement pod was delivered.



Having done that mission we had open up to 2 final liberation missions, however it's not time to do it. Our aggressive operations spiked ADVENT vigilance very high and they are now bringing reinforcements like crazy. So we stop with intel operations and put most of the rebels into hiding except 3 elite ones who will be searching for new recruits with the help of a soldier. We should also sniff for faceless too. But we still have 2 more missions queued up in New India region.



First is yet another smash and grab. Nothing spectacular about this mission. Most of the fighting was done outside of the building. Of course few Advent <30% hits and when we were on our trip to evac point we were stopped by a pod of snek, 2 sectoids and a drone.



The drone made us stop, because he of course had to stun Horst for 2 turns. We killed the snek and drone and kept 2 sectoids from doing any mind control shenanigans. We managed to escape just narrowly.



Final mission for today and final mission in New India for now is ambush ADVENT troop column. This will reduce ADVENT strength in New India. Although they will reinforce it again later they will have to spend more resources on keeping up their forces and not doing AVATAR project (that we don't know of yet).



First we had to find best spot to setup and ambush. We had to run almost entire map. There we spot a squad of sneks and a Sentry. Having suppressors we managed to get a stealth kill on a sentry. This put the sneks on yellow alert mode, but thankfully their first action was to fall back and then using dashing moves to get to us blowing our cover but in the end they left themselves exposed. And this means new snake skinned boots for us. This also alerted another pod. Though small shenanigans were used, having 3 gunners we just sprayed the bullets and our assault was picking them up one by one.



The next pod that arrived after the second one also could not do much.

[Thorondor]

Practice makes perfect, as they say, silencer.

::

You've made some nice progress. And, thankfully, so have I, in the aiming department.

[Space Voyager]

Wait, no hospital, nurses or booze. Am I being healed at all?! When do I get to see more action?

[silencer_pl]

Your recuperation time was like 28 days. So you'll probably be out for a week more. Can't remember.

[Space Voyager]

Well, get me some nurses and I can stay in indefinitely for all I care.

[silencer_pl]

You'll get Mr. Nurse for 24h enema

[silencer_pl]

So we now start operating in Eastern Europe. We have already 1 infiltration mission in progress but new ones are coming in too. Our first mission here is to recover an item.



The mission is on 8 turn timer, so we are in a hurry. The majority of the battle took place at this crossing where we battled 3 pods of enemies and soon joined by the forth one guarding the objective.



It all went well with only 1 injury. We probably could do better though.



Our next mission is to free lots of rebels.



Our initial path was blocked by a pod of 2 Sectoids and a Viper. They weren't that much of a threat, we can same say about the jail guardians.



However during escape we were caught by surprise by final pod and only by miracle we managed to win this flawlessly.



Our third mission from the first batch was to rescue another scientist.



We pretty much went loud this time. With 3 rangers it was very close and personal. Few of the enemies got a shotgun straight to the face.



Then we run straight into the jail room and killed few snakes with ease.



So right now we are out of new missions. Having 10 rebels I decided to put a scientist to boost our inteligencie efforts. We already detected liberation #2 mission for this region but it was 1 day to finish. Not enough time to do anything. Our next mission was again a rescue mission. But this time we are rescuing a seasoned soldier.



The missions itself was already foreboding. That red shine all over the place and the aliens they don't have red blood.



The aliens did manage to get few lucky shots but in the end it was straight line to the target and double back to the evac. We did run into few reinforcements. But everything went well and we have new experienced soldier.



Next we have prepared and ambush for region reinforcements.



With additional intel spending we've changed this mission from hard to easy. So many explosives were flying that ADVENT just vanished from the map.



And additionally we got some supplies from this raid.



While next missions were in progress, back in New India, Ristay Kay who was the overseer there managed with group of rebels ambushed few faceless spies who we did manage to rescue in one of the jailbrake missions.



Our rebels are not true soldiers so it wasn't easy, but with the right approach they can hold on their own, just don't throw them in stupid places.



With a bit of luck ADVENT is down by 2 spies in our midst. How many more are there? Who knows.



Our last mission for today is to rescue that VIP we couldn't get earlier. An Engineer would come in handy right now.



It was a small map, only 16 turns to get out. The main problem of this rescue was 2 pods of sectoids and vipers guarding the evac point.



Getting past them was not an easy feat, we almost lost Doomguy due to poison, but he managed to get to the evac point.

[Thorondor]

Poor rebels facing Faceless...

You've still blazed a quite successful trail through this set of missions.

::

By the way, silencer, didn't know you had recruited Lara Croft.

[silencer_pl]

Don't worry, you will see even more famous character too

Back to the resistance. This week we start with Heaven defence. We've spiked vigilance so high that ADVENT is all out for our main outpost.



This mission is also return of SV. He and another sniper RistyKay will be providing sniper cover for other members. In Long War 2, we have 2 types of defense. Standard like in vanilla and a better version where at start there are no enemies but every turn a bigger reinforcment pod drops and we have 5 turns awaiting for evac and of course we need to gather the rebels. The second version is better because played right you might not lose any rebels (except the obvious faceless), while in the vanilla one, you will always lose some. The map we have been given was fair and most of the rebels were in one big spot, with few others scattered farther away but within visual range.



The team split in sort of half. One half went for rebels, the other guarded evac point. Generally everything went smooth, and when the evac point was ready we were almost literally surrounded.



We've got almost all the rebels, and this means that the faceless was at the super edge hiding so I'm not sorry to missed someone, as this means our main heaven is faceless free.



Our next mission was yet another smash and grab in Eastern Europe.



Our initial approach was halted by a group of sectoids. But sectoids ain't that scary so they were down rather quickly. Unfortunately the main building was guarded by a group of snakes and a pod of Oficer and Rocketeer. Rocketeers are very dangerous because of obvious rockets.



A little focus fire and a bit of luck and he was down fast. However the snakes are not that easy to deal with. A couple of risky moves (too risky I might say so) and the map was ours.



Next mission we had prepared was jailbreak. Two more rebels and a soldier Jane Kelly (the hero from tutorial Gatecrasher mission).



Our stealthy approach was quickly thwarted by a stealthy drone hiding around the corner. Though going in quietly was not an option I would prefer to have the final word when to break concealment not the aliens. Anyway we made a decent push, but the ADVENT had few lucky hits.



When we reached the evac zone, we had one pod on our tail and a reinforcement arrived just in time for our tactical retreat.



Soon after this one, we had our third liberation prepared. Our first capture enemy VIP.



Oh boy this mission. Large map, 22 turns to get the job done, but we had to make mad dashes and hope to take out enemy pods pretty quick. The main battle took place near our target. Unfortunately it wasn't that fast as I would like and I was thinking to just kill the VIP, but we eventually managed to clear all the pods on the map. However this was just the beginning. Now we had to face ever increasing reinforcements dropping supper fast. I was starting to think, that this is it and no one will made it. Once we were half-way there, we had like 8 enemies on our tail.



Fortunately no one had to be left behind, but that was too close from comfort.



With that mission done, we have now access to alien tower, a penultimate mission in the region liberation tree and luckily enough we are still at Strength 2 region. However before we will be doing this mission we have yet another rescue attempt. Another engineer.



In theory this would have been yet another total stealth mission, but alas near our endpoint we were spotted by a pod of snakes, and as snakes do their snake things and spitting poison through walls, we had to fight them and other ADVENT pod. We almost lost Garry The Stormtrooper.



Fortunately Garry being Garry did not die, and everyone was safely extracted.



Next on the radar was another Advent assault, but this time it was not heaven defense, but our intel gathering operation.



Since RistyKay is our adviser in Eastern Europe heaven, she will be defending with bunch of rebels our data tap. Meanwhile our main team will be trying to support them. Trying is the key word here, as ADVENT is on full alert advancing straight to us. There is one pod that is nearby datatap and there are 2 pods that are sort of in a crossfire position to our main team. So the main team will be fighting against two pods while the rebels will be defending against their one. And things did not look good. as enemy had more high cover than we did. Not to mention that pod A had a Muton and a Shieldbeared and the second one had a mech. To top that the third pod had a Cryssalid.



Fortunately our defense was organised. We mostly made sure that aliens could not advance and both snipers (SV and RistyKay) picked one enemy after another. It looked like a competition of some sorts, which I might say that SV lost, due to missing an important shot, which Risty did not. Once the Cryssalid was dead and the snakes that were accompanying him, the rebels start pushing to our main team. The final turns of this mission was sort of like DDay. A Muton and an advent trooper hold up in a "bunker". Jax used his laser cannon to suppress them constantly while the others were advancing behind them. After few turns it was like "boo" and they died.



Operation Foolish justice indeed. It was foolish for Advent to make such a bold move.



Our last mission for this update is another smash and grab.



It was very quick and almost smooth mission. Our initial approach was greeted by a pair of sectoids who only managed to make our assault panic once. This combat alerted nearby officer and his lackey. However they were dealt as fast as they came.



Then it was just to clear the inside and get out. One minor detail. We had a snake that spit poison through solid walls. Not one, not two, but three freaking walls. Someone should grap Jake and force him to fix those damn LOS bugs. That's not XCOM!

[Thorondor]

Muton, shieldbearer, mech, chryssalid. Wow, that was a mission with a pretty hot mix, silencer.

They really want us.

::

As for SV, take good care of him (and I don't mean nurse time ) - training: Dead Shot.

[Space Voyager]

Quote

which I might say that SV lost, due to missing an important shot, which Risty did not

One shot and I'm a loser? I'm sorry, but please give me better odds next time!

[silencer_pl]

You have to live with what you are given. The odds were good enough.

::

Let's continue. We've got many activities running in the Eastern Europe. We are preparing to assault the network tower, but first we've managed to intercept any reinforcement to this region.



So a team of 5 is up against up to 18 enemies. It won't be easy, specially that in such missions there is a command pod of 6-8. Scary stuff. Unfortunately here we cannot use elevation to our advantage. Though thanks to suppressors we can try (or SV  can try) to silently pick weaker enemies. First we had 2 turrets on the front of the train. This alerted 2 nearby pods but they weren't too difficult to clear, a lots of suppression between Grizzly and Jax. We've almost lost Grizzly due to AI aiming shenanigans, because you know AI can hit 7/10 times 30 or lower % hits, while XCOM 7/10 times will miss 75%+ shots. Once those initial pods were taken care of it was time to slow hunt for more. And we found a Berserker and two snakes. The berserker went down pretty fast and the snakes sort of went crazy and didn't really pose a threat. One even gave up and just stood in place just for us to kill it. And then it was the command pod.



Heavy mech, Longbow Mech, 2 muton centurions and a shieldbearer. Damn nasty stuff. And on top of that our sharpshooter turned into bluntshooter. Mecs were a priority, didn't want those missiles to land on our faces while also keeping those Mutons at bay. If they throw that grenade it's game over. And it almost went game over to Lara. Bad move but she lives.



Next on our list was that Network Tower mission. It's the same mission as the penultimate mission in the Vanilla, except that when you are spotted, ADVENT will drop constant reinforcements on your rear. So it needs a little more sneakiness.



How to safely approach this mission. Well best bet would be to bring a Shinobi specialized in passing by enemy patrols. That way you minimize the risk of early detection, though at later stages, You probably want one specialized in locking down melee oriented aliens like Mutons and Archons. So you take your shinobi up to the command center and park him right besides the console. A specialist would be even better but that's super risky. With the other 4 in your team you try to find a spot where you can prepare an ambush for 2-3 pods that are patrolling outside of the command zone. Once you hack the console you have 3 turns of complete enemy domination, as they are stunned for a long time. It also prevents any reinforcements. Once executed properly, you go super loud.



If everything was set up perfectly, all 3 pods should be dealt with and only the command pod should remain. It either patrols on the roof or just stands in the room behind the console. If your shinobi still has concealment he can scout and provide a safe path for the team to ambush the command pod. And then you just kill them. Succeeding this mission grants you the access to region HQ, and provides a relay tower in the region. Unfortunately this also acts as if new tower was built so it also increases the cost of next tower, and the costs are super high.



Also our first network tower mission reveals the location of the black site. It's always on the farthest end of the planet. So we started in Asia, now we should try to contact Chile. The fastest way will be through Europe and then Brasil. We won't be assigning team for the HQ now, because there is one more mission to do, and I want to have more options in soldier selection. If you invade Lion's lair, you need to be prepared.



A simple mission, intel collecting mission, but it almost cost a life of 2 soldiers. Thankfully not the candidates for the upcoming HQ assault.



Oh and I forgot, that we are also waiting for Slaughterer to return from his Smash and Grab mission.



Approaching the storage building was not easy. Enemy had better covering position, but Slaughterer is talented leader.



A good positioning here and there, a little suppression, a little covering fire and we are inside. There also looked pretty hairy thanks to the snakes, but we've managed, more supplies for the main assault.



And with that we can now assemble the team for the HQ assault. All armed with laser weapons and 2 experimental magnetic weapons.



Infiltration will take a long time, so we will need to boost it. The vigilance in this sector is very high and enemies will be reinforcing this sector fast. And as I said that, we found another reinforcement train, but it was too late to make use of that. Fortunately a moment later we've got a tip for a Troop column that we can take out to reduce enemy strength in this region.



Doom shield indeed, protecting our troops that will openly fight against the Doom aliens are planing. Anyway, our start was not in a good position, had to run around the map to find a good place. We found a good place and there was a small pod of snakes. We initiated ambush on them and waited for other pods to come running. Majorly it was a very static combat. It was mostly up to 2 soldiers to keep hurting the enemies, while our gunner keep them suppressed all the times.



There were few incidents, but overall we came victorious.



This mission helped a little, but soon after another reinforcement train was spotted, again to late and to make things worse, we've also found plans on ADVENT attacking our Haven in Eastern Europe. Fortunately once they begun the assault we were ready to storm their HQ. And destroying their HQ means all ongoing operations are aborted. And the ones we are infiltrating will receive massive infiltration boost. Anyways here is the grand mission of the liberation chain.



The map is huge with a lot of buildings. A lot of turrets can be heard, so it will be hard to find a good sniping position. Our initial spot was in the middle of the map. We found 3 pods wandering there, so it was not a good place to start a firefight, specially that if we go loud we will activate the command pod, and that would mean total failure of this mission.



So I had another idea, a little risky, too risky, but it might pay off. The idea is to use our two sniper and clear some turrets above the building were possible the command pod is located. It will not active it, because suppressor limit the sound area, and they will not spot and corpses / wrecks to investigate. However it will put on alert those 3 other pods. Once the turrets are destroyed we high tail to other well defended position, and snipers move even further back to protect the team from flanking moves and to kill anyone foolish enough to stand in the open (at least from their side). I've sort of couldn't believe that it worked, but here we are, two pods clumped all together, so Mr. T gets the call and fires that rocket and after that another one goes, blasting almost two entire pods to hell.



Unfortunately this did not reach that muton with snakes pods, but they did not make any impact in that firefight. However a pod of drones came and they almost wasted Horst. And here is Mr. T wasting that Muton.



Next on the agenda was to fallback and deal with the turrets overwatching our starting location. We need them removed so our snipers would have safe position when assaulting the command pod. Once the turrets were down, we've moved back forward again only to discover another Muton pod with Berserker.



This encounter went easier then it would look like, thanks to Ristykay that suddenly headshoting Muton hiding behind high cover. Once they were dead, it was time to move the snipers and prepare the assault for the command pod. Our journey back was halted by another pod with Berserker.



Was a little dicey, but we move forward. So now we are set, there was another 2 drone pod in front of the main building, but against 10 soldiers it was just free XP. Once ready, we say hello to the General.



And his merry band.



A little fire here, a little sniper trickshots there, a concussion missile to the face and we've got that pod under control, and then last pod of 2 snakes and a drone pops in.



Pretty dicey moment there but I saved that one command action for Doomguy to finish the mission.



And that's done, we've liberated the Eastern Europe for now. The assault on our Heaven was aborted and we are mopping up the rest of the Advent in this region. Upon clearing our first ADVENT HQ, we unlock the doom tracker. Removing HQ reduces 1 point from it, so we are currently at 5 pips, but that will raise super fast.



One of the last missions in Easter Europe is to counter one of the Dark Events.



With ADVENT forces on the retreat from this region, the enemy strength for this mission is reduced to minimum. This allows us to easy finish it without any problems.




Unfortunately this is the end of this campaign. I've been busy advancing it way way ahead, and around half of the game I was too hard pressed with bad luck. On one side Aliens were very close to finishing the Avatar project. Our only hope was to assault their facility. However here is the catch. Alien activity in this facility is swarming, unless the region is liberated, and when you start fight aliens will constantly be dropping reinforcments. Not to mention there is huqe pod patroling the place where you need to put the bomb and in addition I was seeing Sectopods with 102 HP, without barely having access to coil guns and no means of dealing with that kind of threat. On the other front, Advent made retaliation mission on one of the liberated regions - the one that I had no faceless and could scavenge safely for supplies. Those missions are also brutal, because first you have to destroy reinforcement obelisk (the same thing you need to destroy in Avenger defense), while fighting massive amounts of troops on the map, rescuing your rebels and fighting ever increasing reinforcements (that can also include a Sectopod). Just simply over the top unbalanced stuff. So yeah I will be starting new campaign hopefully this time it will be better.

[Thorondor]

Always wear shades when lighting up a Muton!

::

Well, it was a good run, silencer. XCOM will be back to kick some more alien behind!

[Space Voyager]

Incredible missions, Silencer. No casualties, not even me.

[silencer_pl]

Considering that you managed to put yourself on fire on your fist mission and had strong will to survive as a Rookie, I'm also amazed you did not die. I've also made you as a sharpshooter for that reason too.

Anyway it's reset time and traditionally we start with Operation Gatecrasher.



We start on the map with bridge overpass. We line up at the edge and await patrol. Once it came, we unleashed volley of fire. After brief exchange we kill them all and move forward. Our final battle is between this old cargo container and bridge pillars and fence.



This position was a little not perfect, we had to brute force our way in. It succeeded in the end but almost at the cost of my avatar, getting grazed from 1% shot and gravely wounded from 27% overwatch shot.



As previous campaign in this one we again start in Asian region, but instead of starting in New India, we start in West Asia (which is technically middle Russia). This means that we will probably have to move to Chile again to find the blacksite. Of course it would be cool if we would found some facilities along the way. Anyway the first mission that popped up is to grab an item from a car.



Small peaceful area. Our approach was quickly discovered by a sneaky drone. The distance to the van where the item was, wasn't that far, but we had to fight like 4 drones to get to it and a sectoid. Now drones aren't that easy to destroy, but we somewhat managed, the sectoid was bigger threat, but once the drones were out, he buggered off to his friends. But that left us without much time to grab the loot and we also had to fight additional reinforcements.



However we had professional team of mercs from AIM.



Our second mission, was smash and grab. This mission was tasked to Delta Squad with addition of some of the best clone troopers.



The initial approach was solid, but then we met this sectoid. All bunkered on the battlements. He was a literal pain in the ass to get him.



But he was only one, and there were like 5-6 soldiers, so eventually some shots connected. Inside we were stopped by an officer and a sentry. Both easy to kill but we had bad damage rolls. Sentry should have died in one shot, but our flank attack was minimal damage, and the officer used a cheat called, I can shoot through walls and almost killed one trooper. Our return home was also late and we had to fight a reinforcement pod.



Our next assignment was to rescue our first engineer. This task was passed to team Strategy Core, lead by Slaughterer.



We start on a building and the prisoner is right inside the other, and the evac zone is on the roof of that building. So this will be rooftop fighting. Our path to the building proper is blocked by a squad of drone and troopers. They are bunched up in close proximity that Nox can blast them with grenade. One died from the explosion, drone got killed from overwatch and for the second trooper we had to come personally. However this also altered patrols from the other building. And as usual defenders had better positioning.



Due to this we almost lost Nox, and also had prolonged battle so few reinforcements arrived. But we managed anyway.



This time I will try to expand more quickly at least in our starting region. We have connection to all sectors in Asia so there is no need to wait for Tower assault. Our first destination is New Arctic Region. It doesn't have connection to North America so it's good region for first liberation as we will have only 2 sectors to worry in case ADVENT will want to take it back. But meanwhile we have another mission to attend to.



We have 3 people to rescue including a Rookie. Unfortunately the evac zone is at the second corner of the map. Unfortuantely we had to blow our concealment fast because of the drones, however that did not stop the advance, and the team managed to quickly get inside. Inside the AI used another cheat called "I know where you are without seeing you moving there". I hate those cheats.



Thank you RNG for not killing my soldier, now I will kill your troops in return. Yeah that's a good trade.



With two regions we have more missions than we can send troops to, so we must prioritize them well. In such case we have first liberation mission in our starting region. A little undermanned mission to get an object, but 3 experienced soldiers and a rookie should handle it.



All alien patrols were very close to the objective, but we found a safe spot to get the object from safe distance. Then it was survive until eveac.



Since now they had to come to us, we had some form of advantage, though enemies such as an officer were very high priority to take down, because when we are bunched up, he will throw a grenade ruining everything. Thankfully it did not happen.



Last mission for today is another smash and grab.



Our cover was quickly blown by a random patrol out of nowhere, but the sniper I took for this mission was perfect accurate. The mission would be a textbook hit and run mission if not that stupid lower percent hits the cheating AI gets all to often.



With some wounds we continue to fund our small rebellion.

[Thorondor]

And so the uprising begins anew!

::

May the RNG gods remain with you, silencer.