LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run part II
In the summer months, things start getting dangerous.
At AL 3-4, it starts getting real. We are fighting squads of mutons and murderous cyberdiscs. With increased health everything is dangerous. Terror missions and bomb disposals are terrifying. It is time to start playing smart and cautious, because mistakes will be punished.
On the plus side, I have MECs, alien grenades, a few TSGTs, a well stocked barracks, a strong hangar, and every expectation of winning the summer months.
Officer Medics
Every class can work as an officer or psi soldier, or benefit from genemods. Its not terribly important which class you assign these other roles. But I prefer to use my support medics as officers. There are some good reasons to do it this way. First of all, you want a medic on almost every mission, a support on every mission, and an officer on every mission. Combining all three roles into a single soldier makes it much easier to organize your squads. Support builds also benefit from the bonus DR available to officers at captain rank because they do not like to carry vests, instead preferring to carry more support grenades or medikits. Support Medics rarely need to be commanded, and so it is better for them to do the commanding. They don’t benefit much from psi gear (only psi grenade or mimic beacon) and genemods are better on most other classes.
On the other hand, support builds that run out of grenades become far less effective on the battlefield, and psi powers can give them something else to do when that happens.
July
Tech: Gauss Weapons, Interrogate Floater, Advanced Gauss Weapons
Pretty straightforward tech path in this month. I am going gauss.
Engineering: Finally completing the Workshop 2x2 block in July. I delayed this because the upkeep on workshops is $120 - not worth building until you reach Gauss tier, which I will do this month. The Kinetic Strike Module is great, and so I am going to save money by not buying more secondary MEC weapons for now. I decided to quick build some weapon upgrades in preparation for ABA #2.
July 1: Interceptor (9 total), Laser Cannon x 2, Workshop #2 July 2: Satellite Uplink, UFO Countermeasures, 1 rookie recruit, Skeleton Key #2 July 9: Satellite x 2, MEC Warfare Systems July 12: Laser Lance July 23: Gauss Assault Rifle x 2 (quickly), Ammo - Armor Piercing (quickly), Acid Grenade, Phoenix Coilguns July 26: Gauss Alloy Cannon x 2 July 30: Majors, Psi Warfare Systems
Base Buildout on July 31:
Tactical Notes: Its getting harder on the battlefield. In the first pair of abductions I was unable to grab any meld for the first time in the campaign. Missed 5 meld cannisters on those 2 missions.
The second ABA was very tough with 47 enemies in pods of 7-8.
Campaign Notes: The 2nd Abduction of July offered me a good engineer reward (7). This was the first abduction that offered more than 1 eng/sci.
So far I have paid for additional scavenging at UFO sites 2-3 times. That seems about right. I’ve been able to buy most of the equipment that I want.
Chose not to build the second Skeleton Key quickly, and because of that I missed doing the ABA at AL 3 by a couple of days. Hit AL 4 on about Jul 28. I still chose to do the base assault this month in part because incursion was already at 130, and set to drop at the end of the month when the aliens take Egypt.
Shot down 2 Destroyers with ease this month. Sukhoi!
Egypt leaves XCOM.
47 engineers at end of July.
August
Tech: Elerium, Advanced Aerospace Concepts, Alien Power Systems, Alien Propulsion, Sectoid Commander Autopsy, EMP Weapons (delayed)
Engineering: Ran out of alloys soon after reaching Adv Gauss Weapons. The alloy deficit is significant. I could use up another 300+ alloys this month if I had them.
August 1: Gauss Strike Rifle, Recoilless Launcher, Fission Generator August 5: Interceptor x 2 (11 total) August 8: Armored Fighters August 12: Phoenix Cannon x 2 August 14: Satellite August 15: Interceptor x 2 (13 total)
Base Buildout on August 31: Only one Fission Generator in August.
Tactical Notes: Several missions featured large pods of Mutons. Even when things go well, their high HP means it takes a long time to beat them. A bomb disposal with 6 Mutons came down to the wire. I pulled out the win mostly because of my Marauder, which I now believe to be the best MEC class. The Kinetic Strike Module is fantastic now. With weaker aliens it hardly gets used, but in tougher fights it is a life saver. I use it frequently, even with the Goliath MECs.
Leader Chryssalids are no joke. Grit makes them extremely hard to kill, and so it is crucial to hit them with a concussion grenade so they will only do half damage.
Campaign Notes: The big issue at the strategic level was my alloy shortage. I was constantly changing my construction queue during the start of the month. Needed to make a lot of tough choices. Then I ran out of alloy and couldn’t build anything.
Regarding satellites, I left Asia unprotected, and expected the satellite in Japan to be shot down. But the aliens fumbled on their 2 hunt attempts. Now that Interceptors are half price (alien propulsion) I am trying to defend 3 continents, and am a bit thin everywhere.
There were 4 countries with 5-25% chance of leaving XCOM but all stayed. They all gained 10+ panic at the end of the month; 92+ panic. I am expecting a mass defection next month.
59 Engineers at the end of August.
September
Tech: Cyberdisc Autopsy (switch), Pulse Lasers, Advanced Pulse Lasers, EMP Weapons (delayed), Mobile Power Armor (switch), Mechtoid Autopsy, EMP Weapons, MEC Mark 2, UFO Analysis: Destroyer
I switched away from EMP Weapons twice. I am running low on elerium, and so I am using EMP tech to store research time so that I won’t waste it. By the end of September I took EMP Weapons till it was a few hours away from completion then switched to Mobile Power Armor so as not to consume the resources.
Engineering: I wanted to start constructing 2 Workshops so that they would be completed at the start of the next month, but I forgot and messed it up. Also just realized that workshop discounts apply to foundry projects in LWR. This is different from standard LW.
I canceled a few gauss gun projects after obtaining a cyberdisc wreck as that will enable pulse research. Going to skip the gauss tier for carbines, and SHIV weapons. Unfortunately I chose to cancel the Gauss Railgun, in favor of the Pulse Lance, then switched back to building the Railgun after all. The reason is that armor piercing ammo only works with ballistic weapons, and I want my MEC to use armor piercing ammo.
After completing Pulse Lasers, elerium started running low. I used 70 elerium to build the nexus quickly, and that depleted my elerium reserves. A couple weeks later the gangplank mission provided all the resources I needed.
Gangplank is crucial for resources. Can’t imagine playing without the Slingshot mission pack.
September 1: Phoenix Cannon x 2 September 5: Pulse Autocannon, SHIV Advancements II September 10: Satellite Nexus (quickly) September 22: Workshop x 2 September 23: Gauss Railgun September 24: Arc Rifle September 25: Firestorm September 29: Pulse Carbine (quickly)
Base Buildout on Sept 30:
Tactical Notes: Augmented my 5th MEC at start of September. MECs are super important at this point in the campaign and you really want one of every mission (except extractions).
I lost an officer engineer to a flanking cyberdisc, killed by a single shot. Then on the first downed raider mission I lost a high ranking psi soldier, again flanking shots, this time from an outsider. Its very important to not let them flank you.
Confounding Light seemed to have an active pod on the map, which got a free turn when it patrolled into my squad. None of them took a shot though, instead choosing to overwatch or double move. Not really sure what happened there.
Used meld recovery on 2 soldiers in preparation for Gangplank. 36 enemies; 1 cyberdisc pod, 2 mechtoid pods, 1 floater pod, the notorious loose cyberdisc, and assorted drop-ins. I brought an assault and used it to guard my rear, and that worked extremely well. The first few drop-ins occur at the landing zone, and can be easily dispatched by an assault with rapid fire. At the double doors I used smoke (with combat drugs) to protect my squishy soldiers, and mind merge on the MEC, helping it tank the mechtoids. My Sniper, equipped with Gauss Strike Rifle, was also great on this mission and did incredible damage on an loose cyberdisc when it was open. My scout used disabling shot on a mind merged Mechtoid - very helpful. My engineer and scout both used Bullseye to great effect on floaters and drones. Taking an overwatch psi Infantryman, rather than a grenadier, seemed like the right call. Should have equipped an arc rifle on the medic or rocketeer. Would have really liked a SHIV on this mission but couldn’t fit one in the squad.
Campaign Notes: I chose to build a Nexus as the 4th uplink in the 2x2 block. This will give me 9 satellites so that I can hopefully cover Europe, North America, and South America.
Aliens hit AL5 at some time in the middle of September.
I ignored a raider on a recon mission when my barracks was somewhat depleted. Raiders can be completely ignored it seems. Even if they trigger a hunting mission, that would probably be a fighter or a destroyer which is easier to tackle if you are heavy on phoenix cannons.
Used 2 combat patrols to reduce panic in Mexico at the end of the month.
Confounding Light on September 13.
Deluge on September 24.
Gankplank on September 25.
Here is the map on Sept 30:
Lost all of Africa as expected. Mexico and Japan held on.
76 Engineers at the end of September.
Some Thoughts
The campaign is going great so far. I expect things to get bumpy from here on out.
I only lost 2 soldiers over these 3 months (July - Sept), as opposed to 1 soldier during the first 4 months.
I was very slow to upgrade my MEC weapon because I couldn’t decide between the gauss or pulse tier. Pulse is not always an upgrade over gauss because it is not compatible with ammunition upgrades. Instead of deciding between gauss or pulse for every weapon type, I may just spend the money to build both and use whichever seems better, and then I’ll have backup gear if something is damaged.
Related Posts:
LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part I
LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part II
LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part III
LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part IV
LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part V