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Beat a game on Iron Man. Squad sighted snipers with Arch Angel armour are indeed as deadly as advertised. I thought I'd never beat the final mission without the crutch of reloads but it actually went pretty smoothly. Those upgraded rocket launchers you can get are the best thing ever! Not sure if that's a DLC thing or not. Speaking of which Slingshot is basically just 3 council missions and a guy with a Chinese accent. Not much to write home about.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
In the zone isn't so bad of an ability even if you do have squad sight. You see if you blow away enemy cover and damage them while doing so you usually have just enough health per guy and each one of them after losing cover counts as being in the open. Basically at that point the sniper just sort of shoots all the currently 'in the open' enemies with a super high hit rate and possibly critical hit % and lots of them will die. Even better is having 'in the zone' esp. with a plasma sniper vs chrysallids as they are always considered in the open and each one can be one shot'ed to death so you can see yourself racking up 4 chrysallid kills with one dude and then changing position with said guy and either reloading or going into overwatch. It's pretty freaking ridiculous.

That sounds pretty crazy. Do you have to kill the target to get the next free shot though?

I decided to do this game with "Damage Roulette". So far it makes all my snipers and heavies do 1 damage and Mutons do like 12. Fantastic!

Sadly yes you do seem to have to kill them with each shot and you have to hit as well which means having a really insane hit percentage is usually for the best (give your sniper high ground and destroy enemy cover for this to have the best effect). Each dude you kill has to be considered flanked or out in the open for it to not cost an action.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Beat a game on Iron Man. Squad sighted snipers with Arch Angel armour are indeed as deadly as advertised. I thought I'd never beat the final mission without the crutch of reloads but it actually went pretty smoothly. Those upgraded rocket launchers you can get are the best thing ever! Not sure if that's a DLC thing or not. Speaking of which Slingshot is basically just 3 council missions and a guy with a Chinese accent. Not much to write home about.

The last mission is a bit of a let down, isn't it? I've had much more tense fights in the alien bases, battleships, terror missions, and even some supply ships.

Oh, and some bomb missions have been really tough. In fact, the last mission just straight up sucks.

Well I just did well this time because I knew what to expect. That last door is tough as hell. No cover and 3 mind controllers on the other side.

The last mission's only real hard part is the final fight with the 3 ethereals (2 regular and one uber ethereal and yes he/she is called that).

Battleships i'm unsure about scoring a difficulty on. They're not easy to take down with your own ships and you at least need abilities and a firestorm armed with a plasma cannon at the very least to take one down (and it may even get shot down). The actual fight with your troops in a battleship is hard to score. It's hard yes but generally there are some insanely good sniping positions in the battleship and lots of good high ground and whatever. I've never seen a battleship land which makes sense as that'd be pretty ridiculous but when a ship lands you generally have to fight double the amount of enemies in comparison to a ship you had to shoot down.

Terror missions are actually pretty easy esp. since it's chrysallid heavy (if you have 'in the zone') and enemies tend to target civilians and kill them instead of killing your soldiers. Generally losing most of the civilians isn't even a big deal as completing a terror mission successfully can only help you whereas with abduction missions you have to choose which of 3 countries you can help and the other 2 you don't usually rise in panic level. If you fail the mission you choose to undertake then all countries rise in panic and even worse you may lose your vets if you lose a fight.

The alien base is a weird fight that is pretty tense at times. It doesn't help that the fight gets harder as each month goes by and there's a very real chance you can face sectopods in the freaking thing.

If a supply ship lands it can actually be really hard esp. if you're unprepared. I've faced like 19 enemies in one of em because it landed and didn't need to be shot down. In fact i think you can sometimes face more than that.

Bomb missions usually aren't too terrible as you just have to fight thin men. Problem is that there's just so many of them (18 or 19 i think in later missions) and that they're extremely mobile and so accurate not to mention poisoning is annoying. All that said they die in like one hit from pretty much anything even plasma pistols sometimes.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Well I just did well this time because I knew what to expect. That last door is tough as hell. No cover and 3 mind controllers on the other side.

Ghost Armor. Infiltrate 4 of your dudes into the room with ghost armor. End turn.
Have the last two walk in and get seen (generally snipers)
Bad guys move forward.
Assault dude ghosts and runs and guns next to uber.
Rapid Fire from Ghost with Alloy Cannon.
Watch the cinematic.

Alternatively, ghost in a single sniper. Ghost again and double tap the uber.

That last room is crazy easy since you only have to kill one guy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an aside, I finished my second Classic game (started in South America!) and just started my first Impossible (Europe).

Should be entertaining. So far it isn't so bad but injuries are getting annoying. I need my dudes to be avaialble. :(

I've played a lot of classic ironman games and yet no impossible ironman games. I value my sanity. I think i've done classic ironman on every starting location and my previous game i played it with south america the hardest one. I find that pretty ridiculous after your 2nd classic game you're doing your first impossible. Honestly the thought of playing on impossible scares me and i've played classic ironman a good 4-5 times and beaten it. In fact i've had a steady success rate with it and my current game has been super easy.

I haven't done a successful Ironman yet. I started a classic Ironman and got middling far before starting over with a normal Classic.

I figure try Impossible and then go back to Classic Ironman.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Battleships i'm unsure about scoring a difficulty on. They're not easy to take down with your own ships and you at least need abilities and a firestorm armed with a plasma cannon at the very least to take one down (and it may even get shot down). The actual fight with your troops in a battleship is hard to score. It's hard yes but generally there are some insanely good sniping positions in the battleship and lots of good high ground and whatever. I've never seen a battleship land which makes sense as that'd be pretty ridiculous but when a ship lands you generally have to fight double the amount of enemies in comparison to a ship you had to shoot down.

Battleships . They're by no means impossible, and a hardened team should be confident of taking them down, but they're still a long grind, with normally a couple of fights that can turn pear shaped if you screw up/get some terrible luck. By my reckoning that's one more fight that presents a real thread than the final mission.

Terror missions are actually pretty easy esp. since it's chrysallid heavy (if you have 'in the zone') and enemies tend to target civilians and kill them instead of killing your soldiers.

Terror missions become easy, once you get better guns and more elite troops Chrysalids start looking pretty tame. But early on there's a good chance that you'll face a terror mission with standard rifles and few troop promotions. Chrysalids can be tough like that, especially when there's other aliens coming at you at the same time. And the terror missions are often the first place to face a cyberdisc - which can be really tough if you haven't got anyone with HEAT.

The alien base is a weird fight that is pretty tense at times. It doesn't help that the fight gets harder as each month goes by and there's a very real chance you can face sectopods in the freaking thing.

Yeah, it's the first long mission you'll face, with several fights that you can get hammered in. Like the battleship, that makes it a tougher challenge than the last mission.

Bomb missions usually aren't too terrible as you just have to fight thin men. Problem is that there's just so many of them (18 or 19 i think in later missions) and that they're extremely mobile and so accurate not to mention poisoning is annoying. All that said they die in like one hit from pretty much anything even plasma pistols sometimes.

Thin Men are a tough challenge early on. While they die to a single hit, early on there's no guarantee that you'll be able to hit, even with three or four shots. And they hit all the damn time because they're using carbines. They don't do scary damage, but early on against troops in little armour it's more than enough damage. And once your attack stalls because you've lost a guy or two that countdown can get pretty bad.

I can play again!
A ppatch and file check fixed the report problem I had.
After 3 patches though :(

After people saying how tough the Sectopods are, I took HEAT ammo on all my Heavy people.
I've left the base attack until I get hover Shivs.

Actually had to go back two missions on my impossible game. Hadn't researched a foundry yet and ran into the big square ship. 4 Interceptors with Avalanche couldn't take it down. lol

Still only hate chyrisilids. There's a portion of the game when they appear and your weapons and armour aren't up to calibre. That passes but I think the game incorrectly obsoletes them after a while. They would still be difficult enemies near the end game if used in conjunction with other troops. Muton Beserkers are pretty easy actually because you can "pull" them around.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Still only hate chyrisilids. There's a portion of the game when they appear and your weapons and armour aren't up to calibre.

I think this carried over well from the original game. Chrysalids are the big 'Oh Feth' that happens early in the game, right when you are starting to feel okay about things. That said, I love chrysalids because you just move back and fire on them / overwatch and win. They get easier the harder the difficulty (comparatively) since the added crit/health/accuracy doesn't really benefit them at all.

Hey sorry for what may be threadcromancy, but I have something I'd like to contribute that bridges the video game world with the tabletop world. I recently read the rules for Wild West Exodus, and it seemed like it plays a lot like a tabletop version of XCOM. Granted the settings are very different, but the mechanics to me are very similar. I'd honestly recommend this game to any fan of XCOM and recommend XCOM to any fans of Wild West Exodus. Just my two alloy for anyone who would be interested.

I'm still playing this game. I keep meaning to stop playing...then I don't. I think the acheivement for beating it from every continent is spuring me on.

I took a break for a while since I've been busy, but yeah, working on that achievement. Almost done in Impossible.

I'm actually considering getting rid of all my miniature wargame stuff because the Multiplayer... even the campaign mode... has the type of mechanics I look for in a skirmish.

That might be a bit extreme. At least put them in storage. Chances of playing the multiplayer forever?

 djphranq wrote:
I'm actually considering getting rid of all my miniature wargame stuff because the Multiplayer... even the campaign mode... has the type of mechanics I look for in a skirmish.

Then look at Infinity, its almost exactly this but with more guys on the table, big armoured suits (TAGs) and you get to 'overwatch' as many times as you want (plus, its pretty...... and the rules are free!)

 Revenent Reiko wrote:

 djphranq wrote:
I'm actually considering getting rid of all my miniature wargame stuff because the Multiplayer... even the campaign mode... has the type of mechanics I look for in a skirmish.

Then look at Infinity, its almost exactly this but with more guys on the table, big armoured suits (TAGs) and you get to 'overwatch' as many times as you want (plus, its pretty...... and the rules are free!)

Infinity kind of interested me but it'd just be more miniature war-games to buy and it'd be harder to find people who'd play it somewhere. Not only that but nobody knows if any of the companies smaller than GW and possibly the warmachine stuff will even stay afloat. I'd rather not play a game that eventually goes under like how i wanted to play AT-43 before it went under :(.

Well Corvus Belli is pretty well known these days, and Infinity is growing in leaps and bounds all over the globe (especially in North America at the moment), they have also been going to about 6 years and are expanding everything almost monthly.

Yes its more minis to buy, but (and this could cause controversy) it is far more efficient in terms of what you need to buy and play a game than most other games out there. depending on the faction and the list you want to field, you can get away with just having 7 models or so (you will probably want more, but even for a tournie list you can look at 10 models), thats it. 10. Yes, each individual model is more expensive than in some other games (although that is becoming less true in recent years with certain company's price hikes) but overall you are looking at an inexpensive, amazingly fun, beautiful game that has a far more tactical side to it that other mini wargames out there.

I dont really want to say much more as i dont want to derail the thread, sorry....

Heard some news from somewhere on the internet. Could just be a rumor or some new content or similar. I'm looking forward to it though i heard the slingshot DLC was kind of a disappointment. This was shown at PAX East '13 apparently. Yes it teases the f*ck out of everybody too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sF1MqYb0dmE

Nooo! Mysterious voice guy! Who's going to tell me I did pretty good this month but he was expecting that anyway now?!

Anyway, good. New DLC will give me an excuse to start another play through.

I like the mysterious voice guy. Never has an anonymous NPC ever been so cool in all of gaming. I mean you can't even see his face or most of him and yet even his presence is scary somehow and he's on your own freaking side asking for your help.

Please be Terror from the Deep 2, Please be Terror from the Deep 2, Please be Terror from the Deep 2, Please be Terror from the Deep 2, Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2Please be Terror from the Deep 2.PLEASE BE TERROR FROM THE DEEP 2

I swear that creaking in the background sounded like what you hear in the movies when the subs go too deep and start to buckle in from the pressure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just realized the other possibility.

Two alien types from the classic are missing. Snakemen and Reavers. Hopefully they can figure out how to make Reavers actual threats if they go that route

Reapers were a joke and have been replaced with Berserkers.

Thin Men are the new Snake Men.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Thin Men are the new Snake Men.

Yep, they are indeed. And I think they're better for it.

Thin Men are really cool. They're so creepy the first time you meet them. Of course late game you just own them but their missions are usually the most fun.

Reapers and Chryssalid were kinda combined in the new game... and man did they make Chryssalids a lot more scarey this time around from a visual perspective. I seem to remember some blob things in the original too that were missing.

 BlueDagger wrote:
Reapers and Chryssalid were kinda combined in the new game... and man did they make Chryssalids a lot more scarey this time around from a visual perspective. I seem to remember some blob things in the original too that were missing.

Visually scary, yes indeed. Mechanically, only for the first couple times that you meet them. Once you get troops skilled up enough, you destroy them from range before they can even do damage.

The original game, on the other hand, has you trying to hunt down a lone crysalid with your troops. You're terrified the whole time becuase you know there is only one, but one wrong move and there will suddenly be only one of your troops left while everyone else on your team has been converted. Ridiculously scary, even scarier when people start dying. That's just something that doesn't happen in the new game. In the new game, it's more of the first time you run into an all mutton mission, or when you first encounter a sectopod because you never know it's gonna happen until you run into it, then you realize you're not prepared for it at all.