We get a rumor for intel, excellent. 11 hours later the proving grounds is complete, and we'll have a skulljack in 7 days or so. The engineer in charge of the construction is put in charge of the production. The workshop is also begun construction in second row mid, with the new engineer getting it done in 10 days. Two days later the rest of second row has been excavated (gaining us 100 more supplies or so), a resistance comms is started construction in second row left (and should complete around the same time as the workshop), and we go to pick up that rumored intel. The fourth engineer is sent to start shielding the other power coil so that we eventually have a spot to put something high-power for free.
20 hours later we have mag weapons! Gauss is next, for mag snipers and mag cannons. I pick up the shard gun and the mag pistol, and plan to get mag rifles from some black market supply looting soonafter picking up that intel.
Sadly, we're 44 hours away from the skulljack. I don't think it'll wait that long for us, so instead we'll pick up a scientist, and I'll go to the black market early. 110 supplies purchased, plus 125 from selling 5 lockboxes later, and we now have mag rifles and arc blades (but not mainhand arc blades, because of the problem mentioned in the previous-previous post. I adjusted the normal-sword damage to work like in the workaround however.)
As for promtions, Athing gets Covering fire, Furtukan gets Schism, Kaladin gets Bladestorm, Sirus gets holo-targeting, and Drake gets Combat protocol.
For new weapon mods, Athing and Cypher get repeaters, Storm, Kaladin, Snow, and Kaos' pistol get laser sights (we had a lot of laser sights), Kaos' and Ann's pistols also get hair triggers. Pies and Drake get an auto-loader each.
Not on screen: Furtukan, Kaladin, Ann, Big Bird
Off we go. Ann climbs up and spots two turrets, which pretty clearly are going to be in our way.
Jopax spots some not too threatening enemies, tbh. I don't get any camera swerving towards the objective, so I'd assume nothing shot at it yet. As it turns out, Caroline finds a way around that doesn't involve running through the turrets, so I get people moving in that direction. The snipers stay on their roof. The objective gets damaged the next alien turn though, so they've clearly found it and we're heading the right way.
Not the enemies that shot it, but still up to no good. The hack turns out to have Distraction as an option, which would be
very nice.
These guys are in about the right position. I have Caroline backup into better cover and bring up the Big flockin bird. The objective got banged up a little more, but now I've got a decent position. The enemy is mostly advent breakers, heavies, and vipers.
Rince Storm, obliterator of xenos! He got
at least 4 kills out of one grenade, he is awesome. Unsurprisingly, Vipers are immune to poison.
Vipers are
not immune to sniper bullets, however. Kaos gets himself a promotion from that shot.
Not to be outdone, Ann
also snipes the first advent she sees.
The resulting situation. I move some people around, and then see if Cypher can pull of getting us Distraction so I have some real ap to work with.
Damn. Well, the enemy turn is full of overwatches.
Ann pulls off an impressively not-missing deadeye, smashing one of the turrets for 4 damage despite the thick armor...and then Jopax misses a 94% shot to finish it off. Bah.
Kaos, I'm not gonna say this is a bad thing, because its pretty awesome. But 88% crit chance is an obscene amount for an xcom shot!
He then crits it for
exactly the damage needed to kill a viper in one shot, because he wanted to show off. Pies fries one of the turrets next (Kaos had shot it with lightning hands, but didn't do all that much to it)
Kaladin, showing off how good she is with the new shard guns. Furtukan picks up a whole bunch of loot from two drops: Advent lockbox x2, triage protocol, auto-loader, expanded magazine, liquid explosives, elerium core, adv. expanded mag, alien data cache.
Stun lancers, you will not get very far running into overwatches instead of just staying back and shooting.
This one is smarter, sadly.
Turret is of jerk!
Urist heals Ann, and Pies heals herself, while Jopax, whose been hanging back to support the snipers, gets a kill (and find loot on) the smarter lancer, but Furtukan (after grenading the turret) picks it up via the power of unexplained psi powers!
And this loot has a
scrollbar: Advent lockbox, hair trigger, adv. scope, adv. HEAT munitions, advent datapad, repeater, serrated edge. Our mec goes and picks up the loot in the gas (elerium core 2x, advent lockbox), but there is reinforcements incoming from behind us!
...Well, there was. Now its just two stun lancers. Overwatch kills go to the snipers and Storm. Storm then crits for 12,
entirely overkilling a stun lancer, and Athing...doesn't crit. Which is odd, for Athing, but it kills the stun lancer anyway.
Liquid explosives: 10% more crit chance and +2 crit damage on grenades. Grenade launcher mod.
Adv. HEAT munitions: +2 grenade armor pierce. Grenade launcher mod.
Serrated edge: 10% more crit chance and +1 crit damage on swords.
Promotions: Maj. Storm, Maj. Caroline, Cpt. Pies, Cpt. Jopax, Lt. Kaos.
Injuries (after pulling an engineer into the AWC): Lightly wounded, the both of you. 3 days.
I've been wanting to say 'And then we fought something more difficult!', but we keep not doing so. Good and bad, I suppose.