Big Flocking Bird has a 37 relationship score with mostly everyone. Snow and drake are the only two significantly far away from that number.
Caroline has 40s-70s with the squad, but an 80 with Rince Storm and an 87 with Kaladin. This is not high enough though.
In a close second is Athing/Kaladin at 77.
In thirdish is the Urist/Storm pair, at 70.
Promotions: Fortress for Caroline, Rapid fire for Storm, Chain Shot for Jopax, Covering Fire for Pies, DFA for Kaos. Storm gets the Adv. Agility PCS, Pies gets the Speed PCS. Caroline is given the Serrated Edge, Storm is given the Adv. HEAT munitions
Supplies rumor! Good for after we finish the intel rumor.
Sometime later, we have obtained the skulljack. Progress! Also you two have healed, and we lack supplies for skullmining upgrade, so I put both engineers on power coil shielding. We also have gauss weapons. Still lack supplies, but the advent turret breakdown is now instant, so hey, free research. The Defense Matrix is now available to build. Next up: Elerium research, since its slightly quicker than psionics.
As much as I'd like to upgrade the rest of our weapons, I'd rather hold onto as many lockboxes as we can. It'll give us more chances for interesting loot once we get the african continent bonus. Fitting in with their nickname and combat hacking, Pies picks up the skulljack.
Not on screen: Preacher, Dervish, Cowboy, Flockin
We're going to get ambushed by evil meanies, aren't we. Look at all those easily reached civs!
You are neither evil nor meanies, you're just a bunch of cannon fodder. However, that officer technically
is our target...tempting. A codex in a terror mission could be almost as bad a a gatekeeper though...
...ah. Enter the muton! And its team of armed distractions. Caroline picks off one of the strikers with soulfire. I
miiiight have been a little too eager to collect us some civvies. Jopax moves up a bit and blows up the gas tank one of the advent are hiding behind, killing it from the explosion and grenade and injuring another advent. Big Bird moves up and misses a different advent.
Furtukan gets off an incredibly helpful insanity, doing 5 damage, rupturing the muton, and disorienting it. Its still got 4 health and 2 armor though. Kaos misses his 55% chance lightning hands shot, but after getting into cover, does pull off his normal pistol shot, cleaning up the stun lancer Jopax had left injured.
Great shot, Cypher.
So, we're now down to 5 people of actions. Athing moves up and overwatches, I send Kaladin to get that last civilian that isn't too close to the enemies (he'll survive, we can heal them up later), and that leaves Sirus, Storm, and Pies left with actions. Pies is clear to go on the skulljack, but before we do that, it'd help if I setup the others in cover.
A bit awkward animation-wise, but success is success. Bring it on, Codex!
...I was not expecting it would have support. Also, that officer dropped loot: Advent Lockbox x2, expanded mag, hair trigger.
Rince Storm with the long range shard gun overwatch kill. And we did indeed get (not-really)-ambushed by evil meanies: A faceless showed up.
Caroline has better cover than Kaladin, but is still rather far up front. She also got a bladestorm swipe in on the faceless.
Kaladin, I did not expect you to get crit
twice! I hope you've still got some luck left, we ain't in a great position here!
Our most sucky of current positions. Maybe I was a little too confident with the earlier descriptions.
So, first things first: Caroline takes out the faceless and then moves to new cover and slices up an advent. Furtukan takes out the muton with soulfire, so we have one less priority target. By the power of shenanigans, Pies picks up the loot instead, and finds our first Alien lockbox (along with a couple of advent lockboxes, adv. repeater, adv. expanded mag, and an elerium core). Our tanky, bright yellow MEC tanks an overwatch shot for 1 damage and micromissiles the codex for 3+2 fall damage, leaving us with a 3 health codex and a 4 health codex. This also scatters the civilians a bit, letting Athing save one as he gets out of the psi blast area and grenades the closer codex. Sirus also gets out of the purple, reloads, and takes a shot at an advent. Kaos gets out of the purple and reloads.
Thank you, Sirus of the autoloader! Pies takes out a trooper right around the corner from them.
Damnit, Kaladin! If I knew you were going to crit for 12 I would've started with you! That would've one shot the
first codex.
Owch. But on our turn, Athing gets into new cover and saves our fifth civilian before reloading.
Caroline saves our last necessary civilian, but also runs into trouble of the muton kind.
Oh god, Caroline,
what did you do? I was just hoping to hit it with on of insanity's effects, not bring it closer to you! Buuuut, it did give us one less advent to deal with, I guess.
Boom, advent headshot. Storm gets a kill with his gas grenade too, hopefully the muton runs into the bad gas. Urist heals Kaladin again, who is now back up to 10hp, and Athing, who is fully healed. Pies pings one of the remaining advent on a miss.
Damnit Athing, stop getting flanked. You're supposed to
give the crits, not take them! Pies and their time-consuming non-gremlin heal does not quite heal him all the way up, and Urist's last heal goes to almost finishing healing Kaladin back up.
Rince Storm, that...that is not how you rapid fire. Like, at all. I used rapid fire so you could have more chances to get through the armor, not so you could somehow crit on the first shot, at
16% chance to bloody hit!
Caroline picks up the loot after I've gotten over that, since they were literally on the other side of the door: Elerium core, Adv. stock, Adv. expanded mag, Adv. corrosive shrapnel, advent lockbox.
Even Athing's voice clip is disappointed at this (good, but) less impressive shot, compared to Storm's...thing. Theres at least one more advent on the map. Caroline heals herself and heads downstairs, immune to the gas cloud and spotting the stun lancer.
Big Bird storms in and gives them what for, but it turns out we've still got a faceless to deal with here. Also, promotion for big bird! On the enemy turn the faceless charges in, gets hurt by Sirus on overwatch, and then cut down by Bladestorm Caroline.
I have no idea who that rookie is, but I'd assume its the civilian who the second muton managed to somehow
miss turning into a plasma-burned corpse. Personally I'd give that award to Kaladin instead, for taking 2 crits and not even bleeding out.
We also got the Codex Brain of course, but thats not worth merging two images for. Adv. Corrosive Shrapnel increases grenade armor shredding, instead of armor piercing.
Promotions get: Cpt. Big Bird (gave them Ever Vigilant so we can also use them to scout, we don't need another suppressor), Maj. Cypher, Maj. Furtukan (AWC ability: Run & Gun!)
Injuries (w/awc heal boost): Big Bird is a big bot who don't need no repairs, he did them in battle! (plus, it was only 1 hp really) Caroline and Athing, lightly wounded. 44/40 hours. Kaladin, gravely wounded. 9 days.