So, last time we were at the brink of annihilation! This time we pretty much are too! Once the doomsday tracker clocks up to maximum, the timer starts to count down. There are some missions that will take the tracker back a step, I'll have to do a lot of these types of missions (some of which require research) to stay in the game.
There's just one problem, the research takes time. Oh, and the missions are hard, so there are two problems. Oh, and because the missions are hard your troops will need healing, so I guess there are three problems... you can see where this is going!
Best foot forward, hup hup and all that then!
First thing, I need to hack into an Advent leader. I do this on a "blacksite" mission. This hits two milestones in one mission. The blacksite missions are all plot advancing, uncovering new information on the secret alien plan or setting back said plan in a subtle manner. Hacking into the Advent network with my newly researched hackertron-5000 (or whatever) causes a codex to appear.
The Codex is a sort of computer generated being. It has a sort of metal skull thing and an electronicy, glitchy sort of body that doesn't move so much as teleport around. It also has really truly annoying skills that, fortunately, I'm kinda ready for in this playthrough. One ability creates a sort of mini storm that covers an area and somehow jams all your weapons. You have to reload (which takes an action) to get your gun back in operation, but wait, there's more, the mini storm explodes a turn later, so you also need to move away from the area!
That sound annoying, right? But wait - there's more! When you damage the Codex it clones itself and the new clone teleports somewhere random. They'll just keep on cloning, so if you do small amounts of damage you'll end up with lots of them all casting annoying storms, shooting you in the back and generally causing mayhem and mischief.
In other words, send the good Doc to do a ton of damage in one hit after throwing a flashbang grenade to disable it's other skills!
Well this room hardly looks sinister at all, it's got a body on some sort of rack and others in tubes. Upon closer investigation it seems as though different mixtures of herbs and spices were being directly pumped into the body on the table. Monitoring devices were keeping tabs on the responses to the various mixtures!
Nothing could be done for the poor souls, so we set some X-4 charges and...
... that'll take care of that "secret" facility! This also sets the doomsday clock timer back a few ticks, giving me a little precious time to keep in the game!
The next mission saw us extracting a VIP. We started on top of this building, which very soon had holes all through it and fires spreading!
This was once a stylish lobby and now is more, well, a "renovator's delight".
We succeeded in our mission only with the use of a decoy (you can see the blue hologram in the bottom left of the picture). Fortunately the Advent troops seem to want to hit the shiny, bright blue hologram that is just standing still rather than the rest of the squad running past to the evacuation point!
Eeesh. Remember that building I showed you, with the roof all collapsed and parts of it on fire. Well, I started at the top of the building, an enemy grenade blew up the floor and we all dropped downstairs! Hence everybody took falling damage and we all had to try and limp to the extraction zone! Not my finest work, and done with (as you can see) mostly squaddies and lower level troopers because the blacksite mission may have been a success, but my A-Team were pretty much all injured in that battle too!
Hence I get a charming message - so many of my troops are injured now that I don't even have enough to field a full squad! Yikes!
The next mission was a hodge-podge of guys who had only been lightly wounded and recovered in time for it. A lovely suburban area that we well and truly demolished!
Oh, yeah, my pistolier skills continue to improve. Taco here can now fire his pistol a LOT. With all skills recharged he can fire once for free, fire once more and then choose to either shoot once at each enemy in range or shoot three times at a single enemy!
Ahh, power armour! Now my team will look all futuristic and stuff. I can now worry less about one shot kills, even with rookies.
On our next mission we encounter these Andromedon type aliens. Another nasty shock. They're some sort of alien in a big suit as they can't survive in Earth-like conditions. They have a lot of health, a lot of armour, lob grenades and melee really hard. The fun surprise is that when you kill them the containment suit fails, leaving a trail of acid behind as it keeps on going! The alien slumps out dead, but the suit is robotically controlled and continues attacking! They're super damage sponges and a priority target when I see them.
Having taken out so many aliens, though, I now have a good handle on their technology and good young Shen has developed my very own plasma guns! Take that bad guys! I now have top tier armour and weapons! I still have to afford to upgrade my squads with new weapons, but hopefully that won't take tooooo long.
"Smoko" is modelling the new WAR Suit, the top tier version of the EXO Suit. Looks funky, huh =) I haven't managed to research any new heavy weapons, but the inbuilt rocket launcher will add one more explosion to each battle!
Just what is that skittering sound? Ahhh, chrysalids are back in town. Fast, zippy, armoured little creepy crawlies. They can tunnel under the ground and pop back up when you least expect it. If they get a successful melee hit in, your troop is poisoned. If you die while poisoned the baby chrysalids that you were impregnated with pop out. Gross, nasty, effective and highly dangerous. These things drain my medkits like crazy so that I don't have to put any of my guys through that!
Oh yeah, slo-mo death-cam of an Advent trooper...
And another new alien type, the Archon. These look fancy schmancy, and can fly. This picture is of one launching rockets from it's jetpack thing. The rockets will fall next turn, giving you one turn to quickly get all your guys out of the way! They're slippery suckers too, very hard to hit, with plenty of health and have a nasty melee attack as well!
At the end of the day, however, good old Doc Tygan gets to autopsy all the new alien types.
I've managed to make it through another few missions without any casualties, I've discovered a facility that seems to be trying to perfect a secret blend of herbs and spices, but the doom tracker is ticking back up again rapidly, so I'm still right on the edge here!
On the plus side I have got better equipment now. On the negative side, the aliens are getting tougher and nastier!
