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[UXLZ]

I like that I'm not seeing my character constantly. It avoids the classic RPG dilemma of 'why the hell is that one group of six guys doing EVERYTHING?'. It also makes it more important when he *does* appear.

When my character gets promoted next, would I be able to change his name?

I'll put my vote in for the most versatile option when it comes to what we're building/doing next.

[Mephansteras]

South Africa puts in a request for Weapon Fragments, and we get another engineer in return


As excavations are completed in the second layer, we instruct Engineering to start construction of the Thermal Generator


Unfortunately, it is going to take 21 days to complete. The Satellite Uplink we had hoped to build requires more power than we have, so we'll have to wait until next month to build it.


In the Meantime, we receive an urgent message from the Council


It seems there has been a strange attack on a French Military Convoy. Details are scetchy, but it seems there is at least some Alien presence in the area.


A squad is assembled to investigate the situation. LCPL Rickenbacker will be leading this mission.


So begins, Operation Forgotten Hero



Oh, boy, Portent. It's much easier with 6 man squads, though, which is nice. It is probably my most failed mission in Vanilla, but it's gone pretty smoothly the two times I've tried it in Long War.

Sadly, we're not going to get the Satellite Uplink in time for this month. So we may want to do something else with our money for the remainder of the month.


@UXLZ - Sure. Hopefully that'll be after this mission.

[Toaster]

Oh God, PORTENT?  I'm going to dieeeeeeeeeee

[GiglameshDespair]

Title wise ^

That's another reason why you want to rush lasers. Laser cannons on your craft fire twice as fast and are more armour penetrating than avalanche missiles and are more damaging (again nearly by half) than stingray missiles (which are, themselves, around 60% as strong as a avalanche.)

 Lasers are slightly weaker at 85% of an avalanche missile, but vastly superior through rate of fire and armour piercing. And they're 15% more accurate as well.

Bottom line: laser cannons are good.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, I've never had any problems with Portent in Long War. Just hand everyone a medkit and bring along two assaults and an infantry (one to cover each rooftop with the infantry as a backup rooftopper) and it's a breeze, even on tougher difficulties. (Course with your limited ability to control equipment and classes in a Let's Play like this you might run into some problems ).

[UXLZ]

Well, hopefully no one ends up dying.

Would you say scouts have good survivability or bad survivability?

[IronyOwl]

Stormtrooper mission is go, clearly everyone will be fine.

[UXLZ]

Well, at least we have better aim than a stormtrooper...

[RedKing]

I never had much problem with this mish (only ever played it in LW though).

Now if we get a distress call from Newfoundland, I'm putting in for two weeks' leave to umm....see the family. Yeah that's it. You guys have fun without me, I'm sure it's nothing.

[RangerCado]

-snip-

Still catching up on this, but I would just like to point out that not only is that ship possible to take down with the amount of ships you had, it is well worth it to try and assault. I also literally mean TRY. You aren't going to win, your going to hide out in cover and kill dozens of guys then retreat before the Cyberdisks or Chrysallids overwhelm you (There is approximately 40-60 dudes on that ship, from Sectoids to Cyberdisks and everything in-between). You get a great boost to alien materials, a few corpses, and a ton of XP. The amount is smaller due to retreating, but Its well worth it early.

(Not blaming you for not engaging though, only reason I tried at all was because I was annoyed and stubborn and wanted to see it downed after my first interceptor hit it 4 times)

[i2amroy]

Would you say scouts have good survivability or bad survivability?

Scouts are simultaneously great at surviving and horrible at it. They are great because they basically never have problems with overwatch fire due to their lightning reflexes, which allows them to GTFO if they ever get pinned down or flanked (due to giving them like a 90% chance of dodging overwatch shots). On the other hand that same thing means that one of their more common uses is to draw overwatch fire so that other people who are pinned down or flanked can GTFO. Similarly another common use is as the point man, since they can trigger a group of aliens and then run back, dodging the handful of overwatch shots on the way back to safety. This means that though the chance of them failing a risk is very small, they end up taking a lot of risks in favor of their more vulnerable teammates, and after a while in-game a single failure can mean the end of a scout.

That said they are also rather valuable as arc thrower carriers, since they can dodge overwatch as well as pick up the sprinter ability that gives +4 mobility, allowing them to carry an arc thrower without much of a movement penalty.

[RedKing]

My scouts rarely die, but they are frequently in the hospital.

[Mephansteras]

Spoiler: Operation Forgotten Hero (click to show/hide)

The squad enters the area of interest and finds the area devastated. Half destroyed buildings, ruined cars, and the remains of the military convoy. Whatever went down here, it was big


The closest building is secured and the team prepares to face...whatever it is out there making noise.


Thin Men! Well, we know what to do with them.


Maelle introduces one of them to her sniper rifle. She thinks the meeting went pretty well.


Another group of Thin men move in to support their now lone comrade


Rickenbacker opens up on one of them, but can't quite manage to kill it.



Meanwhile, Agalia tries to take out the two aliens on our right flank with a grenade. They're badly damaged, but not killed.


Haul keeps the closest of them suppressed


Unable to get any clear shots on the team, the aliens decide that acid is the way to go, putting Rickenbacker and Delta 1 out of the fight for a bit.



Grey picks up the slack and takes out the one Rickenbacker was ripping up earlier


While Agalia uses his other AP grenade on the two he'd blasted earlier. One dies in the blast and the other is now nearly dead.


And Maelle injures the alien hanging back


As the rest of the squad repositions, reloads, or deals with acid, Agalia and Haul take on the last two aliens with relative ease




With the immediate threat taken care of, the squad regroups. More alien activity is detected further ahead


Moving up, the squad finds a Thin Man and two of those squid robots lurking in the back of the building.


Delta One puts a high caliber bullet right into the core of one of the robots.


While Rickenbacker and Agalia team up on the remaining robot



The Thin Man scampers off to find some better cover. Maelle lands a hit on it anyway


A Survivor is spotted hunkered down near some damaged cars! We'll need to bring whoever it is in for questioning. Maybe we can figure out what happened here.


Delta 1 draws fire from the Alien as he flanks around to the Right


Allowing Grey to move up and remove the threat


With the immediate threats gone, Delta 1 approaches the survivor. He's not very cooperative, but we're hauling him in anyway.


Incoming Aliens! We've got Thin Men dropping down from above!



The squad moves to engage, but Grey is pinned down behind a counter


Rickenbacker and Haul take out one of them as it moves in to assault the team



More alien reinforcements drop down from the sky. We're being surrounded!




Agalia and Maelle manage to wound some of the aliens, but we're still in a dangerous situation


Delta 1 moves to get eyes on the aliens. Only his amazing reflexes save him from getting cut down in the process



Rickenbacker gives the one on the roof something else to think about


But Grey gets a nasty hit from the one that has him pinned inside the building. Fortunately, his armor absorbed most of the blow.


One of the aliens moves around to try and flank us from behind. Agalia blows away his cover and Rickenbacker sends him back to hell


While Maelle finishes off one of the badly injured aliens


Under fire from multiple directions, but the squad manages to avoid being hit for the moment



Rickenbacker moves up and manages to get a hit on the Thin Man who's been causing Grey so much trouble


The squad repositions and regroups, while Grey patches himself up a bit


Unfortunately, the badly injured Sectoid that's been blasting away at Agalia manages a lucky hit. His armor takes the brunt of the blast, though


We've managed to injure all of the remaining aliens and push them back so that we're only fighting them on one front. However, the squad is running low on ammo which makes it difficult to follow up the attack


Low, but not out yet


And Agalia reminds the aliens that bullets are not his only weapon by using the last of his grenades to take out the last Thin Man


And Haul keeps the Sectoid pinned down while the team reloads


Maelle takes it out with a careful shot


Free from danger for now, Grey patches up Agalia and the team presses on towards the Extraction point



More Thin Men drop down to try and cut off our escape



But the squad is ready for them



And we get the Survivor back without further incident. An excellent job by the entire squad!

Spoiler: Soldiers (click to show/hide)

Toaster, as you requested I went ahead and gave you Sapper.


RedKing, you can chose between Covering Fire (overwatch triggers on alien attacks in addition to movement and +3 Aim), Steadfast (Ignore many panic effects and +5 Will), and Revive (Bring critically injured soldiers back into the fight instead of just stabilize them)


GUNINANRUNIN, you can choose between Covering Fire (overwatch triggers on alien attacks in addition to movement and +3 Aim), Flush (A low damage attack with a high chance to hit that forces aliens to move), and Holotargeting (Gives allies +10 to hit any enemy you attack or suppress).


Remalle, you can choose between Low Profile (Half cover counts as Full cover), Gunslinger (+1 Damage with pistols and removes pistol aim penalties), or Lone Wolf (+10 Aim and Critical if no allies are within 7 tiles)


UXLZ, you can choose between Rapid Reaction (Successful overwatch hits grant additional opportunities for overwatch, up to 3 and +3 Aim), Holotargeting (Gives allies +10 to hit any enemy you attack), and Damn Good Ground (+10 Aim and Defense when at a higher elevation than enemies).

Oh, and just let me know what you want your name to be and I can make that change as well.

@GiglameshDespair: Rickenbacker is just 10XP away from Corporal! Pity she didn't get one more kill on that mission. Still, she's our closest to Corporal. Everyone else is at least 200XP away.

That may be one of my better Portent missions yet, despite using a soldier loadout that's not what I would normally bring. As a side note, Maelle standing on top of an APC sniping aliens was pretty cool to watch.

@RangerCado - Yeah, I know it's possible to take them down, but I've done that before and had basically no interceptors left functioning afterwards, which makes dealing with any further UFOs a huge challenge. So I decided to play it safe.

[RedKing]

Is that even a question? Revive, all day every day. That's awesome to get that perk this early.

[Toaster]

Glad to see me working the carbine successfully as well as the grenades.  Was worried for a bit that I'd lack on the kills by dint of using grenades to prime aliens for others to kill- looks like that's not holding me back from the sweet, sweet XPs.