Moving on to some geoscape stuff, our first popup is about a supplies reward. We head for it of course. We've started in Asia.
Two days later, Hybrid materials is finished. Modular Weapons next.
Two more days later, we've secured 48 supplies from an old, abandoned stadium and finished Modular Weapons. Alien Biotech is next, to finish off the quick researches. We also get told about an engineer reward spot, huzzah!
A day later, the topmost-mid spot has been cleared. We begin the dig down towards the exposed power coil some more, but its going to take 20 days without a second engineer on the job.
Before we get anything else done however, a Guerilla Op. Which
also is rewarding an engineer, damn.
Not shown on screen: Darkening Kaos, Kaladin, and a rookie.
Spec. Imiknorris is given the Adv. Stock, Sniper Ann is given the Adv. Scope. The random squad name generator of Squad Cohesion has given you 10 the name of 'Laser Squad'.
Laser Squad's first real mission means A Better ADVENT can now influence pods, for better or worse.
Starting area. Also, theres a Sectoid hiding right in front of the objective's door.
The hack is interesting but not all that useful to us this early.
An overview of our position while the first pod casually walks into view: Advent Warden, a Striker, and two Troopers. The Warden is a Captain with a stun baton, while the Striker has a shotgun and better mobility than the others.
Troopers with a defensive or utility role have increasing amounts of grey on their armor. Troopers that focus on offense wear red.
Caroline spots the group that Sectoid is part of while getting into position to strike; theres a Striker in this group as well. Aid protocol is dished out to her, being the closest to the enemies, and a whole bunch of overwatch is set. Ann gets into a better position on the roof, and Jopax throws out the welcome grenade.
The result? Three overwatch kills, who I think belong to Kaladin, Kaos, and Storm. Kaladin got her promotion, so she's the one I'm most sure of. Ann halves the Sectoid's health afterwards, while the remaining 1 health trooper gets picked off by Furtukan's Soulfire. He had loot too!
Full cover will not save you, Trooper! I have two Psiblades!
Only 55% chance to kill the loot-carrying Sectoid? Kaos can deal with that just fine, he's a fine Sniper. Markus Ulrich takes a similar chance with his shotgun vs the Striker, but he misses, and Kaladin takes the chance to get a second kill on a coin-flip chance. The surviving trooper retreats like a smart person/alien hybrid would.
On the next turn, Caroline picks up another Lockbox, a Datapad, and a new Adv. Scope! That'll probably go to Kaos. Moving a bit more forward, she also spots the objective and the survivor trooper. Kaos tries again at sniping troopers while Ann moves into a better spot to see enemies from, but this time the coin is against him. Ulrich, Storm, and Kaladin reload due to not being able to see the objective yet.
Next turn, Caroline retrieves the other loot drop, since they're the closest: Elerium Core, Alien Data Cache, Advent Lockbox...and accidentally triggers another pod while getting into better cover afterwards.
Sectoid, a Striker, and two troopers, along with the other trooper now hiding right on behind the objective. the Striker is wiped out with Soulfire, being the furthest back and least likely to be seen by anyone else. Furtukan's spirit cries out for blood (thats literally what he shouted here, hah) and eats the trooper behind the objective! Caroline gets Aid protocol again since its available again, just in case.
Owch. You survived though! Also, the car Furtukan and Rk. Konstantine Golubev are hiding behind is on fire, time to move! Our purple psiblade puffs healing onto Ann while the rookie moves over to the t-shaped vehicle with a plan!
A plan that gets him a promotion for his excellent use of grenade! Trooper down, Sectoid harmed, objective damaged all in one blast!
Caroline also gets some use out of her sword to smite the
heathen alien and pick up a second Elerium core and additional lockbox. This also gets rid of the Striker-turned-psi-zombie as a bonus. Urist takes out the relay...only for the reinforcements to be marked from behind us! Some hasty rearranging of people is in order, and Kaladin, who'd been moving to flank, does indeed get a flank shot off on the surviving trooper. It even crits! For some reason she's given the loot without having picked it up, maybe because it was the last enemy on the map before the reinforcements arrived? We got yet another lockbox, a stock, and a grenade launcher trigger. Not sure what the last one does, but I'm sure its from Mod Everything.
The reinforcements manage to survive our overwatch-laden attempt to keep then from flanking us with only a single casualty, leaving us with still a pretty jerk sort of squad: 3 stun lancers and a normal officer. Heres what the place looks like now:
First of course, is to get Jopax out of this horrible doom position in the middle he's in. Next, Rince Storm brings down the hammer on the lancer flanking him (the slash animation for junkrat uses the shotgun, so it was pretty hammer-like as opposed to slicey. It also apparently gives him a melee fatigue effect for a turn I'd forgotten about, which slows.), Caroline takes out the weakened lancer, and Jopax smashes up most of the cover the officer and the last lancer are using. Urist gets the kill on the now-exposed and flanked officer, and Kaos continues to turn low-chance shots into actual successes, taking out a lancer in one shot from behind good cover and ending the first mission as a particularly good success.
If you really want a particular mod, I'll see if I can get you one without needing to use Ultimate Workshop (Just because it lets you craft all sorts of things does not mean the nice things are cheap!). If you don't care I'll just give you whatever weapon mods I think would help me.
Rookie Promotions:
Kaladin, you are now a Ranger!
Konstatine Golubev is now a Grenadier!
I would've preferred to have a second specialist, honestly...
People with available promotions: Markus Ulrich and Rince Storm (Junkrats), Jopax (Grenadier), Urist Imiknorris (Specialist), Caroline and Furtukan (Psiblades, though I don't see how conceal would be better than a second ranged attack...), Kaos (Sniper).
Fatima Ann avoided being shaken, but is still out for 11 days due to that grave injury. The excavation time on second row mid slot has been reduced to 10 days thanks to our new engineer.
I tried to use less pictures but I don't think I actually succeeded in doing so that much. I did throw all of these through pnggauntlet though, to shrink the filesize a couple mb.
@Burnt Pies There actually
is a seperate voice pack for Nepnep, last I'd seen on the workshop. Did you mean the one I have, or that one?