LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part VI

The final chapter in this series: Temple Ship!

This will be my first Temple Ship run in LWR, but I’ve run it several times in standard Long War, so I know the map well enough, and where the aliens will spawn. I’ve also read about it on discord, and so I know that many of the aliens are going to be gold tier leaders, and that I should bring an Electro Pulse for the sectopods.

In the loading screen I am a little disappointed to find that I only have one plasma rifle. I thought I had it planned out perfectly but somehow I forgot to build two more of them. Oh well.

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Temple Ship Squad

I get to bring 10 soldiers (Brutal Difficulty). I have chosen 3 MECs, and one soldier of each class, except gunner.

Marauder: 
HMEC-3 
Pulse Lance
KSM, Flamethrower, Electro Pulse
Alloy Carbide Plating, Thumper, Incinerator Module

Marauder #2: 
HMEC-3 
Pulse Lance
KSM, Flamethrower
Alloy Carbide Plating, Thumper, Incinerator Module

Goliath:
HMEC-3
Particle Cannon
Grenade Launcher, MiNE
Alloy Carbide Plating, Plasma Stellerator, Illuminator Gunsight

Support Medic Field Commander: 
Titan Armor
Pulse Rifle 
Smoke, Medikit, Concussion Grenade

DT Engineer Psi Volunteer: 
Vortex Armor
Plasma Rifle
Neural Gunlink Combat Stims, Reinforced Plating

Mayhem Sniper Genemods: 
Archangel Armor
Plasma Sniper Rifle
Plasma Stellerator, Scope

RnG Assault Genemods: 
Corsair Armor
Plasma Reflex Cannon
Combat Stims, Reinforced Plating, Targeting Module

Support Rocketeer Genemods:
Titan Armor
Plasma Carbine, Recoilless Rifle
Extra Rocket, Concussion Grenade, Acid Grenade

Grenadier Infantry Psi: 
Titan Armor
Pulse Rifle
Plasma Grenade, AP Grenade, HE Grenade

Utility Scout Genemods:
Archangel Armor
Plasma Strike Rifle
Marksman Scope, Reinforced Plating

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Temple Ship

So I split my squad into 3 groups with most of them in the middle and a couple on each side. On the next turn I move in and activate a sectoid commander with 2 sectoid leaders. The commander is flankable with my engineer so I move Annette in, planning to have her shred/holo, but forgetting that sectoid commanders have CCS. So she gets hit for 5. Then I have her take a shot and she is hit by countercharge. Stupid. How long have I been playing this game? These are some amateur mistakes.

I wound the 2 sectoids with grenades from my infantry and goliath after moving both of them in, then hit the sectoid command with another shot from Annette, and finish him with the Assault.

Then I make another mistake. I’ve heard that the cyberdiscs and drones appear on the turn after you activate the sectoid commander, and so wanting to be ready for them, I run my marauder up to the right archway where they should appear. This activates 2 more sectoids who move backward. This doesn’t seem too bad until the alien’s turn, during which one sectoid retreats through the doorway and activates a pod of floaters. Dammit. And the cyberdiscs don’t even show up on that turn, so I could’ve waited. The other 3 sectoids do nothing meaningful, and they are easy to kill on my turn.

The floaters are another matter entirely. There is a reaver lord flying somewhere between the two rooms. I get eyes on him with my Assault who uses the grapple to move up to the middle platform. I move my Rocketeer forward, but a concussion grenade won’t reach. Finally I decide to use Disabling Shot on the reaver lord, but that looks to be a low probability shot, and so first I want to mindfray him with a mind merged infantry, who is able to get in LOS by taking cover behind an OfA Goliath. Its a complicated maneuver that requires 3 soldiers to use their entire turn to execute and results in only a 77% chance of landing. But now that the Goliath has finished his turn in LOS of the reaver, I can see the chance of hitting the Disabling Shot. The Sniper was steadied and so its already 100%, and so is the Precision Shot crit chance which would be for massive damage, so I do that instead. Here is the result of that one shot:

My goodness. I follow up with mindfray which finishes him off. The sectoid is out of reach and there is nothing else I can do this turn.

On the next turn I get a gold cyberdisc and 2 omega drones on the left archway, and a leader cyberdisc with an omega drone on the right archway. Also an aircobra double moves into LOS.

I deal with the smaller pod of mechanicals first. I have chosen the wrong side for my Electro Pulse marauder, who is on the right, with the 2 unit enemy pod. I decide not to use the Electro Pulse, because I think I can kill these guys without it, and because that would leave my MEC vulnerable to the aircobra for 2 full turns. I start with an AP grenade from the infantry, then hit the rocket boots on the marauder. It is very hard to select the correct square for my marauder’s movement, and for awhile I am panicking, thinking he can’t get up there. But then I find that if I hover the mouse over an enemy unit, then slowly move the cursor to the square I wanted to select, it works. The marauder hops up there and punches the omega drone to death.

I kill the cyberdisc with both shots from my Goliath, after hitting it with another grenade from my infantry. Then I realize that the infantry is no longer in cover, as he was using the Goliath for cover. Okay, I guess I will use a command to clean that up. There is nothing to be done about the aircobra.

Moving to the other side I am hoping to disable two of them with the sniper and scout, and then kill the 3rd. I am doubtful that I will manage it. I double move my rocketeer into grenade range, then command her to throw an acid grenade. Targeting the top of the archway with a grenade again requires using the mouse cursor trick I described before.

Annette can use a psi power, then double tap, and so she rifts them for 8 damage, and then shoots twice, hitting once. Both my sniper and scout hit their disabling shots (97, 95) leaving an omega drone to deal with. All I have left is my medic, assault, and marauder, and so its not looking great. The medic hits. The assault hits and gets a bonus move, then crits on the 2nd shot. The MEC kills it with the last action of my turn.

The aircobra throws a grenade on my marauder for 7 damage and goes on sentry overwatch. The disabled cyberdisc reloads and is on sentinel overwatch at the start of my turn.

Using my 3rd smoke (!!!), I allow my rocketeer to fire a rocket without pulling the cyberdisc’s overwatch, which disorients both of the remaining mechanicals and breaks the overwatch. My sniper and scout are able to kill both of them with the last of their ammunition.

To deal with the aircobra, I grapple out to the archway with my Assault. It looks like he is in range for close encounters, but no. He hits his shot doing only a bit of damage, and is left wide open. So I have to run the overwatch with someone and choose the Marauder who is shot twice for 15 and 6, brawler activating on the second shot. He punches the aircobra once then uses the flamethrower to finish the aircobra and wound the sectoid, which I then finish off with my infantry. Its an ugly turn, but it puts an end to an ugly battle.

I spend the next few turns regrouping and healing. I need to use all of Annette’s mechanic charges, plus one medikit from the infantry, to heal the wounded marauder back up to full health. Then the squad moves slowly out along the central walkway, with my scout informing me that there is still another floater over on the left somewhere.

There are 3 more floaters actually, 2 of which are reaver lords. A marauder is able to use rocket boots to get close enough to punch kill one of the lords. The other one is flying. I fire a rocket and then use telekinetic strike to uncover the leader. The mind merged sniper knocks the leader down to 2 HP. With some good luck shots from my assault and scout they are both finished off. Then 3 chryssalid leaders warp in.

That’s one big chryssalid. I drop a concussion grenade on this pair, and then apply shred/holo on each with Annette. Then my marauder punches the big guy and torches them with the flamethrower, causing both to panic. Its worth noting that concussion grenades, which deal -50 will, are great in tandem with any will based attack.

On the other side, my other marauder punches the chryssalid twice, knocking it down to 5 HP. It takes several more attacks to kill it because of its high defense and grit.

So now I use my scout to look ahead and he finds a couple thin men in the center walkway. And this looks like maybe it will be an easy encounter. But when I activate them, they both run far away, and activate another thin man on the lower right, who also runs away, all the way back to the platform where the mutons usually are (somehow this doesn’t activate the mutons). Its just awful.

There is very little I can do. I move the squad forward with Annette at the center, and activate telekinetic field with my infantry psi.

I make a big mistake leaving my scout flying; he is killed by a single shot from one of the gold thin men... Its agonizing.

Looking a little closer I see why.

Those are some nasty stats. Typhon also has VPT.

Now my squad is down a man and in terrible position. I can break the cover of one Typhon on the lower left, but to deal with the other Typhon, I decide on a dangerous move. Check out this big risk flank.

I am hoping that the mutons will not be able to spot Zhang from this location, because if they do, he’s dead. It ends up not mattering because commanding officer triggers on the first shot, and after killing it with another shot, Zhang has one more move to retreat, which he does.

Annette also triggers commanding officer when using Psychokinetic Strike to break the cover of the other Typhon, then she triggers extra conditioning on her first shot, then shoots twice more with double tap, killing it all by herself. Amazing. I still have 2 active muton centurions and no good way to deal with them. I leave my soldiers hunkered or out of LOS except for my marauder who I put in OfA.

One muton comes forward and hits the marauder for only 5 damage but also shreds him. I light him up with my shooters then use a mind merged Annette to psi panic him. The other muton comes forward and hits the same marauder for 10 more (he will now take +50% damage for the remainder of the mission). After blowing up their cover with a plasma grenade, they are easy to kill.

I do a bit of healing and then I am able to move most of my troops out to the platform without activating any enemies. I also move my marauder on the lower left side into the next room. When I do activate it looks like I am in good positions - both marauders are in striking range. That is one huge berserker. Looking closer I see that its Mongo! Now its a campaign.

I use a concussion grenade on the pair of mutons, then a punch and flamethrower combo panics the gold leader, but not the other muton, and so I use my assault to finish him.

I shred Mongo and punch him a couple times, but he has grit and brawler and he is not going to die this round. I am forced to use another concussion grenade, so that my mind merged infantry can get psi panic to 100%. Mongo goes down on the next turn, along with the remaining muton.

I reload my squad then move them 5 squares back from the ledge that overlooks the sectopods. (For future reference, it seems safe to move up to the 3rd square from the ledge). Then I launch my sniper.

After activating the sectopods I find that my sniper does not have line of sight to either of them! What the hell is this?

So I hate doing this, but I am going to reload from an autosave. My sniper does not have a strike rifle, otherwise I would just play it through. I usually put strike rifles on my snipers, which is probably why I’ve never given this glitch due notice. It will be the 2nd time this campaign that I’ve resorted to the extreme measure of reloading from an autosave.¹

After hunting around I find a spot where my sniper can get line of sight to the sectopods from squadsight range, and I restart the encounter with him here. This all feels greasy, and makes me want to never equip the sniper rifle again.

I start by running my marauder out in front of them, and then commanding him to use the electro pulse, disabling both sectopods. Then the rocketeer tosses acid on them. The rest of my soldiers start shooting but it’s doing almost nothing. The combination of hardened, absorption fields, damage control, fortified and grit is just too much. My goliath with a particle cannon is doing 2-3 damage. My sniper used precision shot to do only 8 points of damage.

And now I see another mistake with my equipment; none of my soldiers can shred mechanical units. Typically I’ve been equipping shredder ammo on the engineer, but didn’t do that for this mission, thinking the bio shredding plasma rifle was sufficient.

On the next turn, I start off with my marauder who punches the wounded sectopod for 20, then 16 damage. Okay, this is working. My other marauder KOs it. Next, I lead off on the other sectopod with disabling shot, allowing the rest of my squad to shoot it without triggering RTS. They do a little over 20 points of damage total, which is crazy. A shot from my infantry, who has CST, did a single point of damage; 24 points of damage are ignored! Everything other than penetration is meaningless; Critical System Targeting, bonus damage on mechanicals, bonus crit, all completely worthless.

But my two marauders have no problem punching it to death.

Immediately afterwards 2 enormous muton elites warp in at the top of the stairs. Both are Bashars. I’ve already killed Bashar twice in this campaign.

I can’t move either marauder to safety, so I drop my last smoke grenade on them, and use my psi soldiers to mind merge both of them. I move my goliath into the smoke, and all my bio soldiers to high cover. My rocketeer is taking cover behind an OfA marauder.

Both Bashars stand right out in the open at the top of the stairs, like the twin bosses that they are. One hits my goliath for 12 and the other goes on overwatch. My rocketeer can just reach both of them with a concussion grenade; my second to last. Even so, they both still have 77 aim and CCS, so I can’t run in there and punch them to death.

My assault does nearly 50 damage to one of them with rapid fire, and the rest of my squad is able to finish him off and take the other Bashar down to half health. A couple of my shots grazed due to advanced perception, and grit helped the Bashars as well. I probably should have gone for a panic using a psi soldier or with a flamethrower but I thought I could kill them. The wounded Bashar hit a lucky 41% shot doing 13 damage to Zhang then goes on sentinel overwatch. Zhang pops run & gun and uses rapid fire to finish him off.

My severely banged up squad has reached the final room, and it is time to take inventory. I use the remainder of my medikits (the medic had two left, infantry one) to heal up the non-shredded marauder and bring Zhang almost to full health. I am now certain that I made another mistake in not building and bringing a restorative mist. Hell I could have brought 2 given that I still haven’t used any MiNEs (and won’t use them in the final room either).

I have 2 command charges on my medic officer, which is very fortunate. She has used command 3 times this mission, but tactical brilliance triggered twice. Annette has stims. The infantry has one plasma and one HE grenade. The rocketeer has a rocket, an acid, and a concussion grenade. Both marauders have a single use of their flamethrower, and the goliath has 2 MiNEs.

I don’t know the ideal way to enter the final room, so I set up like I do in standard Long War, with everyone just past the narrow hallway, 3 squares into the main chamber. I want to try to get further in, and I see that I can grapple Zhang over to the top of the stairs, so I give that a try and it doesn’t trigger the room. I fly my sniper over to right and spread out the remainder of the squad.

I move Annette up to low cover activating the room. She then shoots each of the Bashars, holo/shredding them. My sniper then hits one for 52 damage, and he is finished off by my goliath and medic. I move up my full health, non shredded marauder to just below the other side of the platform opposite me. No enemies can see him and I am hoping he can get close enough to use KSM on the next turn. I move up my other marauder on the left side, and my assault on the right, using run and gun, but Zhang fails to hit either rapid shot because the ethereal’s defense is crazy high. I should have used Zhang to finish off the other Bashar.

The ethereal on the right hits the shredded marauder for 13 then fails to mind control him. The uber ethereal KOs that marauder, and then rifts my goliath. The other ethereal hits Zhang for 10 then mind controls him, which is broken by neural damping. The remaining Bashar flanks and kills Zhang.

On my next turn I break the cover on the remaining Bashar, and kill him with my sniper and a few other shots. Then I move my 2 remaining MECs to the foot of the stairs. I wanted to use KSM, but none of the ethereals moved forward, and so I can’t reach them, due to overpower. I am thinking that they will be out of sight of the ethereals for the next round, but this is not the case. The uber ethereal somehow has line of sight to my marauder, and mind controls him. Its a huge blow. There is no way to break it, and all I can do is ignore it until it ends 3 turns later.

Things go downhill fast at this point. I put up a good fight, and manage to kill everything other than the uber ethereal. The goliath finishes one ethereal before he is killed. The infantry and sniper do most of the damage on the other ethereal before they are killed.

At one point I have a 79% chance to hit and crit with my sniper but I miss that shot; it is probably the turning point which takes it from bad to hopeless.

Eventually I regain control of my marauder and he is able to punch the uber ethereal down to half health before the uber kills him. Shortly afterwards, Annette is killed, ending the campaign. Sigh.

Well its the first time I’ve seen this screen. I guess that’s something.

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Some Thoughts

Despite losing in the final room, this was a super fun campaign. No hard feelings towards the uber ethereal. I’ve killed him like 7 or 8 times, so its only fair.

What to say about the Temple Ship? Several encounters require a good deal of foreknowledge in order to handle them gracefully. The sectopods are the prime example. I took no damage from that nasty duo but had to use a very specific plan to make it happen: Electro Pulse, KSM, Disabling Shot, KSM. Nothing else really helped, and missing any one of those components probably would have been deadly.

The final room is just madness. It would have been cruelly hard even if I hadn’t made a huge mistake with my opening. I lost 2 soldiers in the first turn, which is dreadful, but if I hadn’t made those moves, I think the ethereals would have moved forward and killed my sniper. The sniper had to remain flying and wide open to attack because he was using a sniper rifle. Next time I will take the strike rifles so that I have more flexibility against the ethereals.

Perhaps there is an effective opening gambit that uses line of sight hacking, but these ethereals have very high mobility. Any place close enough to get in melee range on the next turn is not safe. Perhaps you can hide your whole squad far enough away that the ethereals will need to double move in order to get into LOS. But does that mean ignoring the Bashars for a turn?

I still have a save from the start of the last room, and I am planning to replay the encounter, hoping to find the best approach.

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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

LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part VI

LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run Part VI-B

1. The other time I reloaded from an autosave was on the deluge mission. I misclicked using the KSM and punched a car rather than the enemy I wanted to hit. In retrospect it really wasn’t such a big deal, only resulting in a small injury, but I was annoyed.