Chryssalids get Lightning Reflexes. *sob*
OK, let me roll that back. Running along well, I suddenly hit a brick wall on the office courtyard map during an abduction mission that ends in an emergency evacuation, with the loss of two soldiers (one private, one gunner) and moderate-to-severe injuries to the rest of the team. Right after this, the first Terror Mission comes up in St. John's, Canada, railway station map. I think that's just dandy - long lines of sight, perfect for my squadsight sniper to set up while the rest move forward, and the buffs in range and detection to Battle Scanners means that Seekers aren't a major threat. The only major caveat is that, with all my medics fatigued, I need to pump one full of stims and send her into the fray. I roll up two squads of three Floaters each without a problem, rescue a few civilians, then accidentally trigger a squad of four Chryssalids. Now, it's important to remember that almost everything's been buffed in Long War, directly or indirectly - regular Sectoids get weak psionics straight off the bat, Drones turn from repairbots into light tanks, both they and Floaters benefit from the damage reduction mechanic from cover...and Chryssalids get Lightning Reflexes, as well as enough health boosts to necessitate concentrated fire from at least 3 soldiers to take them down, at least if they have regular assault rifles or, as I've been using so far, carbines. Clarification, to take
one of them down. Four...well...
Right off the bat, due to the early trigger, they tear my Assault to pieces, and my Infantry specialist panics. Soon after, she gets eaten as my medic books it, and my rocketeer panics instead of running. He ends up surrounded and eaten by the now-rapidly-growing swarm, and I now am in a headlong retreat back to the Skyranger. I just imagine my medic and gunner running past my sniper, her asking what the heck's going on because everything's happened too fast for anything coherent to come through the radio, and glancing forward to see this purple wall of chitin and glowing eyes come roaring out of the dark at them. My sniper and medic barely make it up the landing ramp ahead of the horde. My gunner can't quite run fast enough, and literally two steps away from the ramp, gets run down and eaten in front of the horrified eyes of her two surviving teammates, who are desperately laying down fire with an SMG and pistol to keep them off the Skyranger itself. The ramp literally closes right in the face of the oncoming horde, and the remains of the team reports back to home base in failure. The US and Canada are presumably forced to sterilize St. John's and surrounding environs via repeated application of heavy aerial ordinance to keep the infestation from spreading, at the cost of nearly the entire population of eastern Newfoundland, and as a direct consequence of the fiasco, Canada withdraws from the council in favour of their own domestic programme. This, along with the early traitor mechanic taking Russia (to the dismay of my significant Russian contingent), means I now have two of the most massive borders in the world to cover against alien infiltrators from an RP perspective.
But, on the bright side, the first lasers are coming off the assembly lines in less than a week. I look forward to avenging the last two missions in spades.
XCOM: Enemy Within, Long War mod
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Topic: How did you last die? (Read 2374601 times)