The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 37

Do they finally get an alien grenade? Let's find out.

Edit: Thank god, they finally got one!

Another installment of this super great series, not a game you see many people play on video. Thanks everyone, it's been a great ride so far!

Weird audio skips.

Tricaster ominous problem begins....

See the Who is the Big Boss EP 03 for Ending

Just FYI - Using a psychic soldier in the Gollop Chamber you're building is THE POINT OF NO RETURN. After that, time stops. No more research, no more income, no more leveling up soldiers. All you can do is launch the final mission.

Also, the psychic soldier you use in the chamber must go with you on the final mission, and must make it through it alive. Using a fragile low-level soldier for this is not a good idea.

Finally, if you want to capture aliens you need to get their health down to 1-3 bars. The lower the better. Otherwise the Arc Thrower won't do much.

Abbi was so lucky the Dan didn't get annihilated. On the default difficulty the game gives you so much slack.

The Sectopods are just giving up on Abby and Dan. Are they playing on easy?

Alloy Cannon - I love you and I'm in love with you

In this case it was charging up for it's area of effect attack, since all her soldiers were bunched up in the same corridor. Had she not focused on killing it that turn it could've done some massive damage to the team, probably taken out the already damaged Letterman, so it wasn't quite as ridiculous as Dan's encounter where it just dashed across the map so it could be in range of two MEC's (didn't it even move within kinetic strike distance from one of them?).

I was more surprised by how that Cyberdisc apparently wasn't even on overwatch hiding below that wall, because I certainly lost a soldier on a supply ship mission where a muton was just hiding like that on overwatch and taking a point blank shot as I was looking for the single remaining alien on the map.

Wait, what difficulty are they playing on? Isn't ironman? I'm so confused.

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR @vinny

You were actually combining two phrases with "hide nor tail": "head or tail" and "hide nor hair", though only the latter refers to not being able to find something (the former, of course, refers to not understanding something).

This knowledge is essential for your success in XCOM.

@fullthrottle49: believe it's just normal, only additional difficulty Ironman adds is it doesn't allow you to save scum. You can only save when you exit the game then you pickup where you left off

They're so far into late game now that the have gotten all this good gear so you don't get punished as hard for making mistakes

I'm a bit disappointed that Alex is the only one using new recruits, but this mission was hard enough where it might have been a risk. I would've liked them to capture another alien, maybe the little grey one or the last psychic... but hey, I guess one is far more than we've had so far.

Dirt bike better survive the alien apocalypse and continue punching mind controllers off the map!

Skype Skype!

Ironman is a seperate option from the difficulty. It means they can't reload saves so if something bad happens, thats it, no save scumming. You can combine ironman with every difficulty mode (they are playing on normal)

Oh boy, a few dicey moves but overall well played Abby!

OMG I almost flipped the table and facepalmed so hard when Abomination enters the room with a dash. I was sure it was the end for him because stuff like what we saw doesnt happen (at least in my games)

Finally the gear is all up and running, although if you had completed those Improved pistols, Dave would be doing at least 7~8 dmg with a plasma pistol, so think about it instead of wasting your time on fuel for flight armor, that frankly is useless imo

@vinny You are nearly topped out on all gear, the particle cannons for the mechs got missed in a research rush, I think thats everything (excluding foundry upgrade projects) once those are built.

Oh man, watching this series is not good for my heart. I literally held my breath and covered my mouth in horror when Abomination made that fateful dash.

Yeah, though they're definitely playing the game different than I did, I never actually had to use all that much fuel - since it's only used when you move your flying soldiers, not when they hover in place. You can just get your sniper to hover around the starting location (or wherever they'd be able to reach the largest part of the map) and not move them around and thus having them fly the entire mission while maybe using 2-3 fuel at most.

That said, it's not only snipers that benefit from archangel armor, I found it pretty effective on Heavies as well, especially since they have fairly low base aim, while flying gives them both a height advantage bonus to aim and a smaller risk of getting hit. Fantastic for taking out Chryssalids on terror missions in particular.

The best part about Mondays.

Next time, please buy Particle Cannons for your mechs, and get some more soldiers genetically modified.

Its nice to have skipped the middle durum of this series (as the game really does lag in the middle post-struggling to survive and pre-We are over-powered and have become rambo". Looking forward too seeing it wrap up and the whole gang getting together.

Also, Vinny should be in control for the final fight, but let all the commanders bark-orders for 2 of the 6 people they bring.

Glad you set him on the straightened arrow. Its a doggy dog world out there.

@bezerker285: Hello? Yes, I'd like to report a targeted harassment campaign.

Great job Commander Russell!

8:29 "Alex got an F." Wow, Vinny. Rude.

this mission was absolutely chock-full of XCOM: Enemy Unknown bullshit, but abby held it together regardless! well done







VIDEO HACKED BY SKYPESEC

I was eating cajun chicken during this, and Abby's spiciness made that chicken seem like the mildest thing I've ever had.

Squad wipe. I mean video error.

To be honest, Vinny, you have so much money after doing that last Council request that you may as well tell the next Commander to just do every single Foundry project that has anything to do with combat. You don't really need stuff like the SHIVs and Advanced Construction and Stealth Satellites, but get every project that upgrades pistols, MECs (Jellied Elerium, Servomotors, etc.), because you have almost no other use for money at this point in the game. I guess you could build more satellites, or build 1 more Firestorm since one continent is lacking one, but it's barely worth it at this point.

Also, you've had the final tier of MEC weapon (Particle Cannon) available since you finished the Heavy Plasma research but it got lost in the shuffle and you haven't bought it yet. I think you and the commanders should decide soon whether you definitely intend to bring 2 MECs into the final mission.

• If you want 2 MECs in your final squad, then spend the money on 2 Particle Cannons and save up the Meld to get David Letterman's MEC suit to tier 3. It may take you a while to get Letterman to max rank, because MEC soldiers need twice as much XP to level up for balance reasons.
• If you think you only want 1 MEC (Dirtbike) in your final squad, just buy 1 Particle cannon, and spend your other money and Meld giving your max level soldiers some gene mods. Now that you've done all the alien autopsies, you have the full selection of all the possible gene mods and can pick and choose 1-2 gene mods that suit each soldier on your squad.

Is it bad that I kind of want them to fail horribly sometime soon? Like just get completely wiped? Things were dicey in the beginning of the series but it really feels like a long time since they've had any really tough missions or had to deal with some nasty RNG nonsense- just a lot of slow and methodical missions punctuated with some lucky Dan moves here and there.

They need to face some adversity to keep things interesting!

Mind control... meet fist!

Is it weird that when Abby has a stranded soldier in the middle of 4 enemies, I'm a LOT less worried than when it's Dan at the helm?

@jibbajabbawocky: I wanted Abomination to die.

I think I love you now Berzerker.

I also wish Abomination had eaten it when he rushed into that room. He deserved to die. Put him out of his misery.

Although I have the feeling Norm McDonald would have been in for a name change, had it happened.

Damn, I skipped out on 10 episodes and they're just demigods now eh?

Didn't really used the Archangel armor much because of some of the issues Abby had here. That and I hated ever having anyone out of cover. However, sounds like from some of the comments here it can be pretty awesome if you use it right.

Oh, for the love of... YOU CAN SKIP THE DROPSHIP TAKE-OFF AND LANDING CUTSCENES! 37 episodes in and not once has any of you skipped those cutscenes. You could have completed this series by now if it wasn't for all the cumulative time watching those damn cutscenes! When do you people finally learn how to play this game!?

;-)

This is going to be the best 50 part series Giant Bomb ever does.

To make an omelette you've got to use a hammer to break a few eggs

@oueddy: I never knew the human heart was capable of such cruelty.

Yeah, assault class seems to be the only one where using archangel armor is straight up counter-productive, where a lot of abilities - like the free reacion shot within four tiles - don't trigger when flying, and the shotgun gets additional range penalties when flying (unlike the crew I preferred to give my assaults rifles though).

According to the XCOM wiki the support class works best with the archangel armor though, and I never really tried that combination, but apparently their sprinter, sentinel, covering fire and suppression abilities match really well with flying.

@jibbajabbawocky: Yeah, it feels like even when they screw up the game never punishes them, so all the missions feel routine at this point.

It would of been hilarious if Abomination ate it there.

Im late to commenting on this but:

For some reason it bothers me that dan and abby never ever zoom out and look around where they are even going in, just head to a direction and hope for the best.

also amazing to me that they dont use any keyboard shortcuts, or even the ui shortcuts, clicking anything twice does it, you do not have to go and click the big OK button. Y is overwatch on keyboard

holding the right mouse button when moving brings up a grid when moving so there is zero doubt where you are going, and the grid is colored, so you wont ever accidentally do a dash.

also don't get the constant need to move forward, when there is no time limit abby has kind of gotten it in this but still moves forward when half the team has made their moves.

edit: (at 52:00) oh gonna just walk up to that thing you have never seen that has health in six rows and not even gonna worry about it, ok, amazing vinny does not even mention that its not a normal one.

... and then it just stands there, does nothing, wtf. i thought they were going to lose some people.

episode should be titled, abby walks over the most powerful enemy in the game, does not notice.