The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 35

This sounds foreboding.

Hubris!

Huh, I always get this mission super, super, super early on. This will be fun!

@vinny The confusion about the Alien Grenades and the Foundry arose from the fact that there's an Alien Grenade Foundry Project that becomes available once you receive your first Alien Grenade.

In order to do so, you need to capture one of the following (with the arc thrower) a Muton (big guy), elite muton (bigger, badder guy), a sectoid commander (the small ones with mind control powers) or a heavy floater (the fellas that jump around a bunch with the jetpacks, you're currently fighting a lot of 'em.)

After you've captured any one of these, you'll receive AN Alien grenade, emphasis on the quantity. Doing the foundry project gives you unlimited alien grenades. They're a MAJOR upgrade and you guys should really capture an alien at some point.

In Summary; capture an Alien, then do foundry project, get cool boom boom.

Exalt

More like stalled.

Series is almost over now. Any day now....

Alex absolutely killed it on this one. Great job. And I think we should also recognize the fact that George Smith is the only high level character to keep his own name. He did so well early on that he earned the right to maintain his birth name.

Worst things about this series:

a) Not researching the alien grenade

b) Not assaulting the Exalt base forever ago

Alex: "...is Xavier Woods still alive?"

Xavier had to go. His planet needed him... He died on the way back to his home planet

I think I was one of the people who mentioned the thing about the grenades. And I was wrong...

You don't need to interrogate to get the grenades, but you do need to get one from a capture. Then it's just a foundry project. They do more damage for sure.

So what is with the "not an English speaking country" intel?

Waypoint Xcom: "Let's learn something from these two"

GBeast Xcom: "oh boy oh boy oh boy"

@mavs: I guess it depends on how you define "English-speaking". There's no clear rule really.

English is the lingua franca of South Africa but few speak it natively. The overall number of speakers is not really known since the census doesn't record it. It's likely that most South Africans would have at least some ability with the language but there are huge numbers who are not fluent.

I mean, there's a pretty solid argument based on the numbers that Germany should be considered English speaking.

Just a reminder, your Mec can create high cover with her One for All ability. Not that it mattered too much, but you guys 'wasted' a turn moving people into positions where it might have been a great opportunity to hide behind the giant robot.

She couldn't shoot, but she should still be able to lob grenades in that position.

Also, you can always use smoke to help units that are not in good cover, especially since it gives bonuses if it's the pink kind.

I think the game is reaching a point where this can be finished off in a playdate or two, and I hope the team in the east is considering that. I feel like the final mission can take a couple hours on its own.

Here's hoping Jason is psionic. That would be fitting. That said...is it absolutely guaranteed that Zhang, the heavy you get from that grave-yard mission from the DLC, is psionic? I don't know that for a fact, only that in the play-throughs of this I remember him being the character I end up using in the final mission given he's was ususally the only member of my squad with anything approaching a back-story or personality and always filtered to the top when/if I had options.

I -know- you could have gotten a few 'for sure' psionics in a mission they didn't get (someone failed the start up or that one long ago). Wonder if it was just blind-luck on my part or not. What I do remember testing a dozen people before any of them turned out pisonic before though..so lets hope they get someone quickly.

I'm in awe that they haven't gotten alien grenades yet, but that's okay because Exalt is finally going down! Maybe!

Was finishing up the last episode of Deadly Sims, April 16th or something and they mentioned how they were probably very close to the end and would do an all commanders finish for the final mission....

Not sure how close they are to the end now 3 months later but boy they were way off.

Alex's end of term report should definitely be F for Fantastic.

Yeah, Dan will definitely take things seriously.

I pretty sure Zhang is guaranteed unless you use the Second Wave options "Not Created Equally" and "Hidden Potential" which randomizes the soldier's starting stats and how much they gain for leveling up.

I'm pretty sure Vinny mistook the overseer UFO for the Temple for quite a while. They're actually near the end at this point though, but they're not ready to play the final mission until they've got at least one PSI soldier and preferably level up its PSI skills a little first.

A really good Part 35.

The amount back seat gamers complaining about how they are doing things instead of just letting them do it is unreal.

But in order to do any of this, I believe they need to rebuild the alien containment facility to house said specimens.

Great episode! Alex completely killed it! SO MANY PROMOTIONS!!!

Loved the delayed 'oh no' when they realised Dan was next!

This was a pretty good episode, didn't expect the Run from Alex to be as flawless but he did a great job

Also didn't know the emp field disabled weapons and some abilities

I was going to lose my mind if you put Phoenix Cannons on the Firestorms. But since that didn't happen, good episode and Alex did a mostly great job.

To clear one thing up you guys seemed confused by: soldiers carrying medkits are immune to poison, so they can run through clouds freely.

Idea for a post-series GBE Playdate:

Two vs Two X-COM multiplayer! - E.g. Dan and Vinny vs Alex and Abby!

Would love to see the team's Exquisite Corps skills and knowledge put to the test.

This is a long game!

This was my favorite episode of the series so far. Thanks for the entertainment!

It'd really help if the game gave you hard stats for upgrades instead of flavor text and vague wording, but I suppose already knowing ahead of time is the best solution...

Dan would absolutely have clicked extract on that prompt.

Great episode! Appreciate the progress with promotions and such, I'm excited for next week!

@duskulblaka said:

This is true, but the main reason that Vinny should stop worrying about Thin Man poison is that Titan armour makes you immune to poison (and fire, so units can walk through the fires on the ground created after explosions and flamethrowers). Technically there are other armour types they should be researching and using that don't give poison immunity, but since literally everybody on the squad is either wearing Titan armour or is a MEC (poison immune), no one can get poisoned.

Also Vinny just shouldn't be worrying that much about poison in the first place (except with the VIP or operative who are fragile). Poison is only really dangerous in the early game when your units have crappy HP, and 1 damage a turn actually matters. 1 damage a turn to any of the these late game soldiers doesn't really matter since they have so much extra HP from better armour and being leveled up.

Sure, it's sloppy to run through poison if you don't need to, but if it's the fastest route somewhere and there's an active fight happening, it would usually be an OK call to run through it and get poisoned if it meant swinging a fight in your favour and keeping soldiers alive.

@fedallah: I don't think so. Vinny is very good at pointing it out. Dan might have even gotten that prompt before, I know this isn't the first time they have seen it in the series.

Activating the relays disrupts Exalt comms and forces them to reload. That is what makes the Exalt missions great for leveling up rookies because you can control their reactions.

This doesn't matter anymore because you're about to dismantle their base. Nice work Alex. Capture some fucking aliens.

iirc suppression imposes like 30% aim penalty on any shots the target takes

i.e. you suppress the one last very dangerous enemy you can't kill so they don't kill you while you move in. its not really for the reaction shot, that's just really good to screw with the alien decision making in a complementary manner.

doesn't really matter, doubt you'll end up leveling another heavy... especially since you have good soldiers either way -- but fwiw suppression is super useful

more detailed info if curiosity strikes anyone:

http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Suppression

Alex did wonderful.

@vinny I'm sure you noticed it earlier, but each time you kill an alien, it either destroys his main weapon or it destroys it's alien grenade. To be able to "loot" that stuff you need to capture the aliens, i would recommend upgrading the "catcher" so you have a higher chance of success.

I'm excited to see the assault on the base cause in my playthroughs I finish the game before figuring out where the base is.

Hell of an episode. What a season. What a season.

PUT ARCHANGEL ARMOR ON RYCKERT AND DELGADO, GIVE DELGADO A PLASMA SNIPER

Congratulations you now have the most broken unit in the game. Enjoy.

Dan's going to destroy EXALT next week. It's Dan, but your (meaning GBeast's) soldiers are so powerful at this point that EXALT are basically punching bags.

Good job but you should have built & equipped the new armour. my guess is it'll be forgotten about and Abomonation will never get his wings

The base is not in an English speaking country. Good job game

Well played Alex!

Most likely, but who knows.

That's sort of half the fun of being a spectator, though.

Hyped for the next one. It will be beautiful in one way or another.

I can't believe Vinny still doesn't believe in Dan. He has proved himself time and time again that luck is a real thing in life.