The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 04

GAAAAAH-DUH!

Angry Abby cracks me up.

If this series ends shorty, which I have a feeling that it will, I hope they restart and try again because this is fun.

Abby did really well, but that mission might've just been too difficult for the squad she had. Love the series!

Mary and Brad are good additions.

They need to add: Jeff Bakalar, Jeff Gerstman, Jason A-Stryker, Rorie, Drew and the rest of them. As well as Dan Tack.

"Sq. Ryckert has panicked

*Sq. Ryckert makes crying and whimpering noises*"

Toe-to-tip, this is a Dan. Fantastic recreation.

Another major tip: Never Sell Alien Alloys or Weapon Fragments. You need them all the time for research, construction, and upgrades and can only get them from completing missions, making them scarce. There may be a time that you're drowning in resources and can sell off a couple to make a payment on a construction project, but you'll clearly know when you have an abundance of them.

They're not going to get that far

Damn, that grenade would have won the day if you just moved Dan to the edge of the movement zone. Oh well.

Haha Dan's role in the Intro Briefing reminded me a bit about a certain guy and his Twitter in the way he talked about it :)

Great series, and episode can't wait to see the next!

Why aren't they recreating themselves? It would be way more cool to have a full GBEast crew at all times in the mission than having Sandra Bullock :P

@philippegregoire1589: I agree. As much as I like Sandra and Ellen, I'd rather see Johnny V and Adam Boyes.

I'd be bummed if they give up on this series this quickly..

Dan's accent: ALL over the place.

Yup!

Picking the "very hard" mission was a great decision.

To Abby:

- It was a tough mission. And we saw clear improvement on your strategy. So don't be too hard on yourself for that.

- It's a game designed to make people anxious so the winning play is to stay calm and patient.

To All Commanders and The Ghost:

- This game is really about line-of-attack, your soldiers need to have clear lines of attack while avoiding any lines pointing at you. (eg. Think about enemy flanking moves beforehand.)

- But it's hard to get >50% accuracy while keeping yourself out of future line-of-attacks. So an alternative is to have a backup plan (eg. Can I somehow get 2 soldiers to shoot that enemy?)

- Since you want to have backups, dashing and ruining team composition is generally bad. But you need dashing to get away from enemies (eg. In scenarios where incoming enemies are designed to flank you).

- And lastly, only split the team where you can't be flanked (eg. If you don't see clear and protected passage, don't split the team).

I believe in you all, you can still turn it around: some patience should be enough.

David

(1 time Ironman + Classic survivor)

Abby would have done better if Vinny wasn't giving her advice :(

Reminder war of the chosen the first amaze balls expansion for xcom 2 comes out tomorrow

@philippegregoire1589:

Dan Would probably just kill them of again in his "strategy" :)

For a ghost, this ghost seems to be more hands on

I know you failed the mission, but you're already thinking more strategically and making better decisions than Dan.

"I guess I need a new sniper" Abby has been hardened to the horrors of war.

With most of the original squad down and a terror attack and base defense on the way, their only hope lies in one of the most baller hitmen of all time.

Additionally, with the finishing of beam weapons they can build beam rifles which trash sectoids and thin men on hit... if they can find the money to build them.The chryssalids they have to face will be another story.

The handwriting in Dan's intro is a pretty good burn.

When Dan hits his accent he reminds me of Dr. Loveless from Wild Wild West

@chogi: I believe that is also the name of one of her cats if I am not mistaken.

Vinny is the enemy within.

I really enjoyed this episode, look forward to the next one with Alex.

Heh, like I said last episode, Thin Men are the rookie killers of this game. Abby's play was much better this time, but like Dan I think she underestimated them. If only she threw that grenade, though, things could have been different. A few tips:

* Prioritize high cover over low cover as much as possible, especially in dangerous fights. Low cover provides only -20% to enemy aim, while high gives -40%. Hunker Down doubles that and negates crits, so use it to protect a squadmate who is in severe danger and can't retreat to a better position.

* Again on Thin Men, those guys have a +10% to aim. This means low cover will hardly protect you from them. Use high cover, but don't turtle too much or they will try poisoning you instead. Don't be afraid to "waste" grenades on them, until you get some armor they are a serious threat to XCOM.

* Don't underestimate the effectiveness of destroying cover with grenades and rockets. Even if the explosion won't hurt anyone, an exposed target is much easier to hit and crit. At the very least if they survive they will have to waste some movement on their turn to reposition themselves. Secondary explosions from cars and the like are also effective at killing soft targets nearby.

* Oh, and this is a CRUCIAL thing you guys have been missing. You have a satellite in Asia, but you did not station any Interceptors there! That's why you couldn't shootdown the UFO. You have two Interceptors stationed in North America right now, go to the Hangar and move one of them to Asia as soon as possible!

only seen the intro so far and perfect already the WWF scribble at the top classic

I love this series, it's probably my favorite thing on the site right now. I feel like if I was this bad (Not just Abby, all of them :P) at the game I'd be compelled to practice and play some at home though, haha. Maybe that's against the spirit of the feature, idk. Keep it up Beasters.

Thin Men got nothing on Vipers in XCOM 2, especially Long War 2 mod.

I've never yelled at a series so much! So intense and I'm loving it!

Abby:

1. Great demonstration of the power of overwatch! Those squids would have done a lesser player in right away!

2. Taking a shot often has a better chance to hit than overwatch. Look for the alien head icons at the top-left (tip: yellow means the alien has no cover bonus).

3. Don't pay for new soldiers unless you absolutely have to, you had plenty of peeps but spent extra on new recruits.

4. Don't let Vinny or the comments make you second guess yourself! Some situations call for spice!

Vinny:

1. Stop making everyone second guess themselves :-p

2. Your help is greatly appreciated.

General tip: toggle between each squad member so they can take their first moves so you can reveal possible enemies before using up the second moves.

Good luck, Commander(s)!

My throat is sore from screaming the entire mission. OH LORD. We did our best. Exquisite Corpses.

This goes to show how easy people forgive Abby, but not Dan. Lame.

People forget how hard this game is.

@vickykillz said:

But we have that context......

Also, why capitalise "Black"? That isn't something I've seen before.

By the time Abby gets her next turn the enemies will have gotten even tougher and the same thing will happen.

I hate to be defeatist here but all the strategic decisions in the world won't help when they can't pull off a mission. This is going to be a very classic x-com ufo defense run where everyone dies.

I hope they try again soon.

not your fault abby, all the soldiers were shitty rookies bc of dan :)

RIP to the hero, Vinsenzo.

I'm currently watching Abbys first mission in this episode, and you doing great! High quality moving and overwatching.

Edit:

Okay, that mission didn't end up so well. You did it by the book though. That meld tank was about to expire. I would have gone for the meld too, and accidentally activated the second pack of aliens. Chalk it up to bad luck.

Man, they are going to need to do some serious triage if they want to keep this going. Asia is nearly gone at this rate.

So a few things:

1) Don't split your satellites! It's better to completely try and completely cover continents than spread them all out. Not only will that net you a continental bonus, but a country with a satellite can still gain panic if the aliens launch a mission on the same continent. For example, China is probably still screwed at this point because even though it has a satellite, the rest of the continent is in serious trouble and the panic will just spread unless you cover all of Asia.

2) I wouldn't even bother moving interceptors to Asia at this point. You're all but guaranteed to lose at least one of Japan or Australia, so the continental bonus is gone, and the both China and India are at 4 panic. Asia is pretty much toast at this point. I think the best bet is to try to use Asia as a buffer to play for time. All those countries are probably going to leave, but you can make the aliens spend time working for it, which will give you time to put up satellites over other countries.

The exception would be if you've got a satellite immediately on the way and BOTH Japan and Australia leave. Then you could launch over India and at least lock down those two countries.

Dan's cowardice got the team killed last episode, gets him killed this episode. Justice. Entertaining to watch even if it went south.

The biggest mistake here I think was doing a Very Difficult mission with three rookies. Even then they were one grenade throw from winning which is pretty good.

@xeirus: That's pretty presumptuous. I don't begrudge Dan for his performance, his first foray was on the hardest mission yet by a decent margin. I do think he would've done better if he'd slown down a bit and maybe 'taken it a little more seriously', but overall it was fine (also, that's part of the fun). I definitely don't blame him for Vinny being lost after stabilization, no one ever assumes that's how it'll go on extraction missions.

The result though, was that Abby had three rookies to do this mission with, which is a reasonably difficult task for her second mission. This game snowballs, and hard. Alex is going to have a tough time next week too, though he at least has a beam weapon to help.

Of course Coward Dan panicks!

Abby you were doing ok given the circumstances