LW Rebalance - Blogging a Brutal Run part IV
All I want for Christmas is a successful Base Defense.
I’ve been playing a lot of LWR, but I have never been this far in a campaign, and I have never done the XCOM Base Defense mission. So this month should be fun! The Base Defense is usually the hardest mission in any standard Long War campaign; not sure about LWR. I am expecting the worst and preparing accordingly.
December
Tech: Muton Elite Autopsy, Interrogate Muton Elite, MEC Mark 3: Heavy
I chose to research the MEC-3 suits before plasma in part because they will prove useful sooner, but also because I don’t have any ethereal corpses and so I haven’t done that autopsy/interrogation to obtain the plasma research credits.
Engineering: Very happy to get the elerium I needed at the start of the month to build a 4th titan armor and a 2nd railgun. I feel as ready as I can be for the base defense.
I am perpetually low on resources, and this is a good reason to reflect on foundry projects. I am glad I skipped the following projects (so far): pistol projects, ballistic & beam enhancement, quench guns, beam strengthening, UFO tracking, ammo conservation, and jellied elerium.
I also skipped the trio of salvage projects and I am wondering if I could have fit them in somewhere during the summer months. I had the meld and probably could have found the money.
The only completed project that hasn’t delivered much value is supercapacitors. Raiders are rare, and so I have not needed laser cannon interceptors. I haven’t used the arc rifle or pistol much either.
December 1: Stun Rifle, Ammo - Shredder #2 December 3: Titan Armor #4, Gauss Railgun #2 December 7: Satellite (spare), Elerium Generator December 10: Titan Armor #5, Pulse Scattershot, Pulse Lance December 15: Fission Generator (temporary)
Base Buildout on December 31:
I tore down my 5th uplink, and will stick to 3 continents. I started 3 Elerium Generators in December, but in early January I canceled 2 of them. Its too early - won’t be able to start the gollop chamber until I do the ethereal research.
Tactical Notes: Detected an overseer on the 7th. I was not expecting to make an attempt at an overseer. But I find that my barracks is in great shape, and I have the armor and equipment that I need. If I’m ready for the base defense, am I not also ready for an overseer?
With that in mind, I down the overseer. There are 21 aliens; 12 nasty varieties. Its the stonewall map, which is not great. I take 2 MECs on the mission for the first time, along with a SHIV, medic, engineer, rocketeer, sniper, and infantry.
Downed Overseer:
On the first turn I use the motion tracker and see that I am surrounded, so I back the squad up and wait a turn, but nothing happens. I move forward with the SHIV, but the aliens have fallen back, and again nothing happens. I move the SHIV forward again on the 3rd turn, and 3 pods activate (cyberdisc, sectopod, mutons). Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes.
Overseer crew (in order of appearance, no leaders on the mission):
cyberdisc + 2 seekers
sectopod + 2 heavy. floaters
muton elite + 2 mutons
sectoid commander + 2 sectoids
3 heavy floaters
2 outsiders + 1 thin man
ethereal + 2 berserkersThis was the most dangerous part of the mission, but fortunately no additional pods activated during the first battle, and many of the aliens were wounded. The sectopod was completely out of range. The mutons were in an awkward position, on the other side of a hill, and the seekers had stealthed, leaving only the cyberdisc as a good target. My SHIV took an 85% shot at the open cyberdisc, and killed it!
The rest of my squad could not do very much. I took a few shots at the mutons, through cover, mind frayed one of the mutons, and maybe put a couple soldiers on overwatch.
During the enemy’s turn, the sectopod double moves into range. Awesome. One of the heavy floaters also flanks himself to my sniper. The mutons do very little, but the seekers decloak amid my squad (I hadn’t known they were so close) and one takes a flanking shot on my infantry doing 9 damage.
On my turn I plan to kill the crash-wounded sectopod, and to that end I decide to drop acid on it with my rocketeer, then fire a rocket at the muton pod to break a suppression. I position the acid so that my marauder can get right up next to the sectopod without getting corroded. Extra range is a good reason to throw acid with the rocketeer, but with only one action to fire the rocket, it went wide, doing nothing, and so my marauder had to run the suppression (wasn’t hit). The engineer applied holo/shred the sectopod, the SHIV shredded it some more, and the marauder knocked the sectopod down to 3 HP with one punch, and used his second action to shoot a flanked muton, cutting his HP in half. My sniper would have killed the heavy floater but for indomitable. The rest of the squad finished off the sectopod and the 2 seekers. The wounded soldier was healed as well. Great turn.
The mutons do some damage to my exposed mechanicals, while the heavy floaters, both at 1 HP, bug out. I assume they are going to activate the whole map, but that doesn’t happen. Instead I am able to finish off the mutons without interruption. For the remainder of the mission I will fight pods one at a time, without activating the command pod until the very end, and this allows me to make easy captures. XCOM players tend to notice good/bad dice rolls when shooting, but luck is far more significant in pod distribution and movement, and I had all the luck in that regard for the remainder of the mission.
The door to the command room was open, but because the command pod was all the way in the back of the room my squad could safely move up to the door, and into the room itself right behind the heavy cover of the large console. I activated the command pod with my SHIV, and the ethereal behaved unexpectedly, charging forward. That’s not what they do in any other versions of this game. Because it charged forward, I was able to target the ethereal with my sniper for a disabling shot, which was at 100% after applying holo and disorient. My squad was able to kill one of his berserker guards and disorient the other. I was mindful to use acid to keep the ethereal from healing.
And that’s how I got my first ethereal capture in LWR! Feels pretty good.
Oh my goodness, look at all that elerium!
After that mission, I deserved a break but didn’t get one. Dec 11th: Assault Carrier vectoring on XCOM HQ.
Base Defense:
Veteran pool: (asterisk on those selected)
TSGT Marauder: MEC-1, railgun, KSM, AC plating, AP ammo
* SGT Marauder: MEC-1, laser lance, KSM, AC plating, scope
* TSGT Goliath: MEC-1, Railgun, G. Launcher, AC plating, AP ammo
* TSGT RnG Assault: Titan, alloy cannon, rnf. plate, breach ammo, prox. sens.
* GSGT Support Medic Maj.: Titan, pulse rifle, smoke, cnc. nade, medikit
* GSGT Mayhem Sniper: Corsair, pulse snipe, rnf. plate, alien trophies, stims
* GSGT DT Engineer Lt.: Carapace, gauss rifle, rnf. plate, shred ammo, cnc. nade
GSGT Psi-4 Infantry: Titan, pulse rifle, alien grenade, AP grenade, stimsMy soldier draw is great, and the first set of alien drop-ins are weak: sectoid, sectoid leader, muton, sectoid Commander, chryssalid leader, chryssalid (6 total). I took care of all of them with a only a couple scratches. Feeling pretty strong I charge into the rear guard station. Grapple came in handy allowing my sniper to get into position. Only my slow engineer, who needed to reload, is out of position. Later I realize that the engineer had lock & load and should have just dashed.
There are 4 flyers: 2 cyberdiscs and 2 drones - not too dangerous, but both the cyberdiscs are on overwatch. I need to move my marauder, and so I pull both overwatches with the goliath, who is shot once for 9 damage. The marauder kills one of the discs, the other is handled by the goliath and the assault, who does weak damage even with breaching ammo. I think breaching ammo should come with +1 penetration. I heal the goliath and kill the remaining drone on the next turn and start moving toward the MEC bay.
I can’t see where the dirt is falling and so dash the marauder blindly forward, the rest of the squad following and taking better positions.
Only 2 enemies in this drop: mechtoid, chryssalid. They drop in the MEC bay and near to the command center. They are easy, and I dispatch them without using any consumables.
I get 2 turns off, and then 6 enemies drop in the middle of the MEC bay: sectoid leader, 2 sectoids, 2 mechtoids, chryssalid leader. I have some soldiers hidden in the little rooms on the sides, so I am able to bring them out and get eyes on the overwatching mechtoid so that I can holo and disable it. Marauder punch kills the chryssalid leader, and the squad kills one sectoid and wounds the others in order to disable countercharge. But I can’t kill the other mechtoid. My Assault gets 3 shots at it, with breaching ammo, and does 7 damage total. Breaching ammo is a sick joke. The mechtoid kills a blueshirt, and 2 other soldiers are wounded. I clean it all up on the next turn.
3 enemies drop between the MEC bay and storage bay: muton leader, mechtoid, sectoid leader. The muton leader, a centurion, is a beast, but my assault can flank him. 3 shots from the assault and one punch from the marauder and he’s toast. I also kill the mechtoid, and then the sectoid leader on the following turn.
At this point, I could charge into the storage bay and ambush the last group of aliens when they emerge, but I choose not to. My sniper is too far back, and I am worried about what might come out of the tunnels. But I shouldn’t be. The last set of aliens is not too tough: sectoid commander, drone, mechtoid, cyberdisc, sectoid.
I pull back and wait for them to come forward. They oblige. My marauder punch-kills the mechtoid, and my goliath breaks the sectoid commander’s cover with a grenade, allowing the sniper and assault to finish it off. I also kill the sectoid. The drone KO’s a blueshirt, and the cyberdisc misses its shot. I finish them off the next turn.
Cool mission. I see how it could be very challenging with nastier enemies. Charging the flyers in the rear guard station was maybe the key to winning easy. It allowed me to get ahead of things, and camp the drop-in sights. My guess is that if I had waited for the flyers to emerge, the rest of the mission would have been much harder.
Last mission of the month was Carlock, which was wild. I activated 2 pods of Heavy Floaters on the 2nd turn, and with thin men dropping in every turn it was just as intense as both of the marquee missions this month. My SHIV tanked 10+ heavy floater shots, absorbing around 40 HP in damage and requiring my TSGT engineer to heal it up for 3 turns in a row. TSGT engineer + SHIV = fantastic duo.1
Campaign Notes: Assault Carrier tried to shoot down my home country satellite on the 5th. The Base Defense was on the 11th. A few hours before the Base Defense the aliens were at AL 6, but a large UFO finished its research mission and lifted off right as the Assault Carrier arrived at XCOM HQ. Not sure if the Base Defense was done at AL 6 or 7 or if that even matters. The mission went fine, so whatever.
I have not attempted the Exalt HQ, because I’ve heard that mission is really tough, and I want to be even better prepared. Also, Exalt missions are pretty easy now, and so I don’t mind running them awhile longer.
Chose to pay $450 for extra salvage on a downed scout. Resources are still tight.
At the end of the month I lose China and Australia, and now the world is divided roughly in half. I have satellite coverage of the Americas and Europe. The aliens have Asia and Africa.
I still need an ethereal corpse, and so I may down one more overseer, just for that corpse.
Some Thoughts
Overseers are easier to bring down than destroyers. Feels odd.
If you are running low on alloys, you can stick with normal SHIVs throughout the campaign. They are cheap enough to be disposable and tough enough when equipped with a shielding pod and alloy carbide plating. I have been using them to tank against late game enemies, and they do well against all of them except ethereals, and that is because of Insentient Crush, which is just as punishing to Alloy SHIVs. Insentient Crush seems a bit too high at 40% HP damage.
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
Some details about the SHIV tanking I described. This was at alien level 7. My SHIV was definitely in smoke for much of the battle. I had SHIV Advancement II, and so the SHIV had Damage Control. When I said tanked 10+ shots, I meant they shot at the SHIV well over 10 times. I don't know how many times they hit the SHIV but it was a lot. Some of the shots were from thin men, rather than heavy floaters. They weren't hitting every shot because I was tossing out rockets, acid and concussion grenades. So the 10+ shots were spread out over 3-4 turns.