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I don't know if you'll need anybody else at the moment, but you can always put PFC Wombat on the "stand-by" list.

I've never played the new XCOM so I don't know the unit creator works, but if this is all possible I'd like: White guy, shorter brown hair (not quite buzz cut, but I'd go shorter than longer), mutton chops (if that's an option, otherwise a mustache works), sunglasses of some kind. Just do your best

Class, I am not all that picky. Whatever you need. They all look cool, although I'd rather be a support or weapons guy.

P.S. Oh, If there's armor color and you don't have some scheme worked out already just give me something that doesn't scream "look over here, target!"

 dementedwombat wrote:
I don't know if you'll need anybody else at the moment, but you can always put PFC Wombat on the "stand-by" list.

I've never played the new XCOM so I don't know the unit creator works, but if this is all possible I'd like: White guy, shorter brown hair (not quite buzz cut, but I'd go shorter than longer), mutton chops (if that's an option, otherwise a mustache works), sunglasses of some kind. Just do your best

Class, I am not all that picky. Whatever you need. They all look cool, although I'd rather be a support or weapons guy.

P.S. Oh, If there's armor color and you don't have some scheme worked out already just give me something that doesn't scream "look over here, target!"

Welcome Aboard PFC Wombat! I certainly need more people! Unlike vanilla XCOM, Long war requires between 40-60 troopers. Vanilla XCOM *can* be done wit probably as few as 10. I'll work something out for you later tonight.

Trooper Heart reporting for duty, Sir!

This whole thing is just amazing... and I kind of want a marine made of me >.>

Third Squad making me proud as usual. At ease squad. At ease.

/salute

MEMO THRU: See Distribution.

RE: Official Portraits

1. All XCOM personnel are required to pose for an official portrait for their Enlisted Promotion Boards. Those who do not submit their official portrait along with their packet will be docked 10 points on the EPS board.

2. Submissions will be considered no later than 0700 on the day of the EPS board. Please upload your photo no later than 0700 the preceeding day to allow time for administration to properly route your photo to your Individual Permanent Record.

3. POC is the undersigned @ 545-572-5436 (KIL-LSA-LIEN) or at george.x.poindexter@xcom.gov

--George X. Poindexter
Human Resources.

Carlos 13th - A Long Overdue Re-Portrait. Also, sorry that you haven't been getting alot of airtime, but April will be a busy month for you.


Dead Meat - Complete with Guile Flattop. I did the best I could with the rest.


Marine_With_Heart - Welcome to the team. I decided to promote you right off the bat instead of starting you off at PFC. The Reputation of the Dakka Corps being such that you merit an immediate promotion. You are now a medic/support.


Demented Wombat - Welcome. You also have been promoted to Specialist, this time as an engineer. You'll specialize in using both offensive and support grenades. If it goes BOOM, you love it.


Bullockist - your re-portrait is complete. I hope this is more satisfactory?


Marine_With_Heart, report to third squad. You're their new medic. Try not to feth up as Third Squad is in the chute for QRF after the pounding 2nd Squad took at Cryptic Mountain.
Demented Wombat, You'll be joining Motyak and Trondheim is fourth squad - they need some explosive support. Grab some rack time - range training starts at 0700 tomorrow.

Look for Operation Cryptic Mountain later tonight. I've been putting it off a little because ... well frankly that one sucked.

Sweet, a medic! And I'll be damned if I'm getting shot in the head because of my helmet. Safety first gentlemen, makes it easier for me to patch you all up

ooooh, you can get helmets? Someone was smart.

Looking forward to throwing explosives all over the place. It's just like throwing a baseball, right? What's the worst that could happen?

OPERATION Cryptic Mountain: Ogbomosha, Nigeria. 4 April, 2015 "Bloody Saturday"

" I was there, when we lost our first. Oh, no one knew him - he was a new guy, but it still stung. Especially after pulling our asses out of the fire. How can you live with yourself knowing you were the one to kill the kid? I know what the shrinks say, 'It wasn't your fault, the kid ran out to save Chaos and got hit in the cross fire. You didn't pull the trigger.' It's all bull-gak. The words don't make it any easier.

"Why don't you tell me about it."

"What the hell do you think I'm doing? I don't even know why I'm here."

"You've been at the range all day for the last 6 days. Your team-mates are worried about you. This isn't healthy."

"My team mates are in medically induced comas in the infirmary .... except for Docta-Deth - He put you up to this didn't he?"

"No one 'put me up to this.' This is my job. Everyone is worried about you, including Docta Deth. The Commander is worried too."

"The Commander? Really?"

"She asked about you by name. Wants a full debrief."

"She? I thought The Commander was a guy... nevermind. What's he .. I mean she want to know?"

"Everything."

--Transcript, Post Mission Psychological Evaluation
-- Subject, Specialist Dead Meat
-- 10 April, 2015

Oh man, stuff gone F.U.B.A.R.

Oh my! Someone died? Always a shame to loose soldiers, will await the after action report

Oh noe, I failed in my duty to keep someone alive at all costs...hehe looking forward to the writeup.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
OPERATION ROTTING SERPENT: Leeds, United Kingdom. Alien Abduction

Attacking my hometown? Okay, they just made it personal.

Of course 2nd squad, my squad, would get the hard op that goes tits up. Makes us look bad, especially compared to those glory hounds in 1st always gettin the easy missions.

Not too sure how often Swedish soliders pop up in Long War, but once one does, I'm calling dibs! Eusebius Walrus, sniper, make him look like whatever you want.

OPERATION CRYPTIC MOUNTAIN: 4 April, 2015 Ogbosmosha, Nigeria

The war in Africa had burned hotter than most areas, although in the early days it was unclear if that was simply because XCOM had the ability to detect and respond to alien threats in Africa most reliably or because the Aliens were testing XCOM - perhaps hoping to divine our headquarters for a strike. Whatever the reason Africa led the way in the early days. The skies over Nigeria had been a particularly fierce battle-ground with the like of Luis "Candyman" De Caxaios and William "Puke" Shaw making names for themselves in downing UFOs .

As April dawned, the aliens stepped up their attacks. Apparently, the aliens had been conducting research of their own as even sectoids were appearing in more formidable numbers - with more formidable powers. 2nd Squad was walking into a carefully laid trap in Nigeria.



2nd Squad (Motto: All Night Long) during final pre-mission briefing for Cryptic Mountain


I'm going to go into a quick explanation of the different loadouts here for those who may be familiar with vanilla XCOM but not with Long War. Specialist dead meat is our rocketeer. The class revolves around utlizing the rocket launcher. Unlike vanilla, rockets are way more innacurate so things like steadying weapons improves accuracy. Also unlike vanilla, you can shoot your rocket after you move at a much reduced range and increased scatter. Truly a desperation move. The Rocketeer's skill tree follows three main themes. The first is more and better rockets with skills like HEAT warheads (anti-robot), shredder ammo, shock and awe and javelins. These skills give you more rockets (that don't take up inventory slot), and let you fire them further for more damage. The second theme is improvements made to your primary weapon handling. These include skills like supression, opportunist, or mayhem. Choose these if you want your rocketeer to be more of an infantry guy who happens to fire rockets as well. The last theme is survivability. Skills like tactical sense, extra conditioning, sprinter, and will to survive can make your rocketeer quite the tank. That being said, I prefer to focus on the unique abilities of each class. An assault will always be a better tank, and an infantry/gunner will always be better at overwatch and suppression. I can't get highly damaging rockets from anyone except rocketeers so the more and better rockets theme will be the default theme for Dead Meat. In His current loadout, he is sporting the assault carbine ( a more accurate, but less deadly version of the assault rifle which will help improve his base aim). Rocketeers do not carry sidearms, but he has the rocket launcher instead. The rocket launcher comes preloaded with one standard missile. In Long War, rocketeers have access to additional missiles in exchange for item slots (Long War gives you the Tactical Rigging Foundry Project by deafult - which is why all my guys have two items instead of one right from the outset. I've given him an additional rocket as rockets are one of the few ways to reliably destroy heavy cover. Unlike vanilla, walls, cars, and various boxes are more robust. A single volley of alien plasma pistol fire will not reduce that warehouse wall you hiding behind to rubble. Lastly, I gave Dead Meat a laser sight to further improve his base aim.

Chaos 0xomega is an engineer. They basically love consumables. They specialize in using all types of grenades. Their grenades to more damage, they carry more of them, and they throw them further. Their supplementary skills provide a range of buffs to the squad (dense smoke, smoke grenade, battle scanner, holo-targetting) or additional damage through the ranger skill, heat ammo or mayhem. Chaos will be primarily a grenadier so I'll be focusing on making her as awesome a grenade thrower as possible. Here she is loaded down with offensive grenades. Because of her grenadier perk, she get 2 of each type of offensive grenade she takes, so in reality, she has 2 HE grenades and 2 AP grenades here. I stuck her in the light armor TAC vest in order to improve her mobility (mobility is kind in XCOM). Since she'll need to get fairly close to utilize her grenades, I gave her a shotgun as well. She'll back up my Assault in CQB.

Mrs. Scruffy is an assault and probably my favorite class. They are the closest equivalent to a tank among the XCOM operatives. They're tough, they love getting up close and personal with a shotgun, and they have what may be the best skill in the game in Run & Gun. There are really only two ways to build an assault in my mind. There are more, but I feel it makes the assault just a mediocre infantryman. You can make him a very survivable tank with tactical sense and extra conditioning who does great damage, or you can make him/her an allright tank who does RIDICULOUS damage with close combat specialist, close encounters, sprinter, and vital point targeting. I prefer that my assaults stay alive, so I'll be making them tanks, but really this class is the class I tend to upgrade as the mood strikes me. It's very hard to go wrong in the assault class.

Both the Legion (I've taken to naming all troops not associated with a Dakka member Legion with a number designation are PFCs and thus have no class yet. PFCs will usually get some form of offensive grenade to help ensure they get a kill and some form of buff/heal like smoke grenade (on legion 11) and a medkit (in case Docta Deth goes down).

Speaking of Docta Deth, she's a medic. Medics in Long War have three very distinct skill trees to choose from. The first and signature ability is the three medkit uses. Medics always take the field with 3 medkits. The first path a medic can take is a sort of light infantry/fire support trooper who also heals people. Medics on this path are good at overwatch, suppression, and basically utilizing their primary weapon. The second path is sort of a support character who operates a little like a grenadier but utilizes buffing grenades like dense smoke, combat drugs, and such. The last is the pure medical tree which slowly but surely makes you into a healing machine able to pull troopers back from the brink and send them back into the fight at almost full health. I'll be utilizing the last tree mainly.

The team advances on the warehouse at the hub of alien activity. In the post-mission AAR, it would be established that the team had intended to work it's way up the outside right side of the warehouse before breaching the building from multiple points.


Things quickly go wrong as first contact is made at the extreme edge of engagement ranges. The resulting shift back to the left (and away from heavy cover means that the three sectoids are not easily suppressed while the team moves. Smoke is deployed in an effort to conceal the team


A key point in the battle and one that had a disproportionate impact. Dead Meat's rocket flies wide of the target and sets the south-western end of the warehouse on fire. 2nd Squad would be forced to spend an inordinate amount of time digging the sectoids out of their heavily fortified positions.


A grenade injures, but does not kill a sectoid in the opening exchanges of Cryptic Mountain. These sectoids would prove extraordinarily tough for XCOM to dislodge.


heavy fire suppresses members of 2nd Squad


XCOM operative codename Legion 11 crucially fails to kill a sectoid while flanking his position.


After heavily suppressing the three sectoids, 2nd Squad leader Scruffy believed that things were well in hand. Docta Deth and Dead Meat would maintain the base of fire while Chaos and Scruffy would begin a double-envelopment to roll up the alien flanks. Things quickly turned sour.

Sectoid reinforcements join the fight


Spec Scruffy finally manages to make a kill on the left flank sectoid. Scruffy would take a serious wound in the ensuing exchange of fire although she would continue to fight.[i]


Chaos 0xomega kills the 2nd of the three original sectoids with a well placed grenade. This sectoid had finally succumbed after being shot at 5 times with rifles (all 45%+ shots), once with a rocket (it missed), and once with a grenade (for two damage). Moments after this kill, Scruffy would make the kill on the sectoid threatening Chaos's flank. Note the fire still burning out of control on the warehouse.


In the confused chaose of battle, some images have been lost. Here we see the immediate aftermath of the sectoid counter attack. The fire in the warehouse burned caused a partial collapse that deprived Chaos of cover. The sectoid in the far upper left hand corner of the photo took advantage and shot Chaos - inflicting a chest wound and inducing a collapsed lung. The Sectoid in the left hand side of the photo, who simply WILL NOT DIE opens fire on Scruffy and almost puts her out of the fight. Legion 11 (top right quadrant of photo) has been continually mind frayed and is half dead and continually panicking. Legion 12 has just recovered from panicking earlier under a psi panic attack. Dead meat has just used his last rocket to seriously wound the sectoid in the lower left for Docta Deth to finish off. Docta Deth misses a 91% shot and Scruffy is forced to finish off the sectoid with her pistol.[/i]


XCOM operative fall back to reload and devise a plan of attack in order to secure Chaos for MEDEVAC. Just out of picture on the top right three more sectoids close in on the XCOM positions.


SPEC Scruffy decides the the right flank sectoids are the bigger (and more aggressive threat and buttonhooks the entire squad around to the right. Legion 12 and Docta Deth advance into the warehouse to engage sectoids in CQB while Dead Meat supresses the 2 remaining sectoids on the left. Spec Scruffy takes matters into her own hands.



Legion 12 kills one of the few remaining sectoids with a well placed grenade. Chaos 0xomega is bleeding out right behind him.


Specialist Scruffy describes the moment. "We were low on ammo. Our grenades were gone. The cover had been blown away around Chaos and she was just writhing on the ground out in the open. We'd killed all the sectoids near by but Chaos was right in the middle of the killing ground under fire from two directions. Docta Deth and I were on the right flank and we needed maybe five more minutes to clear it. Legion 11 and Dead Meat were on the left and were in a similar situation. Legion 12 was just in front of Chaos under heavy fire. I could hear him telling Docta Deth that Chaos was fading fast. I told him to keep up the fire - we'd get her after the sectoids were dead. He said something I'll remember forever.

"I don't think she's gonna make it that long. I'll go get her."

"and just like that he stepped out of cover, ran over to her, and relieved the pressure on her collapsed lung with the needle decompression kit. He stopped the bleeding and then got in the prone between her and the sectoids. The sectoids immediately opened fire, and Legion 12 just kept shooting back. He just kept shooting and when he couldn't shoot anymore, he rolled over on to Chaos and shielded her with his body. He died right there. On a stinking fish warehouse floor in god-knows-where Nigeria."

The fight seemed to go out of the aliens at that point. Docta_Deth here shoots one of the last three aliens with her sawed-off shotgun.


[/i]Dead Meat surveys the destroyed landscape of the docks district. In the coming weeks, Dead Meat would blame himself for Leion 12's death and Chaos's injury.[i]


It was a somber ride back to XCOM HQ and an even more somber debrief. The mission was deemed a success but at what cost?


2nd Squad would be out of commission for a month as they rebuilt and recovered

Holy crap these aliens just would not die. I was constantly missing high percentage shots - at one point I missed 4 65%+ shots in a row. When I did hit, it just wouldn't do enough damage to kill them. Their psychic attacks did a number on Legion 11 and kept Leigon 12 pinned for a turn. I even had a sectoid hit scruffy while under the effects of a flashbang - basically I got hit by Stevie Wonder from fifty yards away. My luck just gave out on this mission. I suppose I could have done a better job positioning my troops but I was worried about activating more pods (I thought there might be thin men or floaters around) and i didn't want to get in a crossfire. It ended up happening anyway, but that's XCOM for you. On the bright side, we only lost a PFC so I didn't lose someone whom I've invested a ton of training into.

Next update we're going to slow it down a little and focus on base development and the air war. We might even get into Stream Dragon and his third squad's mission, Operation Driving Line.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Of course 2nd squad, my squad, would get the hard op that goes tits up. Makes us look bad, especially compared to those glory hounds in 1st always gettin the easy missions.

Docta Deth and Dead Meat have been rotating guard duty outside your hospital room to fend off Shen and Vahlen. They keep excitedly talking about "cybernetic augmentation" and "gene resequencing" or something along those lines. No idea what they're talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Not too sure how often Swedish soliders pop up in Long War, but once one does, I'm calling dibs! Eusebius Walrus, sniper, make him look like whatever you want.

Don't currently have a Swedish solider in XCOM, but if one pops up (and they do occasionally) you do indeed have dibs. I couldn't interest you in low mileage German or Australian sniper could I?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
Don't currently have a Swedish solider in XCOM, but if one pops up (and they do occasionally) you do indeed have dibs. I couldn't interest you in low mileage German or Australian sniper could I?

Meh, might as well go for the Aussie. If there's callsigns in Long War and he's still kicking around at that point, make him "Vulture".

Gene sequencing? Cybernetic Augmentation? I volunteer as tribute! If it gets the squad back innaction faster, do what ya gotta do.

And its all my fault ;_; Legion 12 died trying to save me, I have a redshirts blood on my hands.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Gene sequencing? Cybernetic Augmentation? I volunteer as tribute! If it gets the squad back innaction faster, do what ya gotta do.

And its all my fault ;_; Legion 12 died trying to save me, I have a redshirts blood on my hands.

It's all very theoretical at this point. No one knows if cybernetic augmentation is even possible. Time will tell. The squad will be back in action soon enough.

31 days is too long damnit, I cant be sitting around in a hospital bed when there are alien scumbags to kill. We need to get back in the fight ASAP, and the sooner the better. Cant let 1st squad have all the fun. Besides that, I want -no- I NEED more kills.

I present Specialist Esubius Walrus, Sniper. Congratulations Walrus, you'll be assigned to 1st squad as they are currently on stand-by. Grab some rack time and hit the range when ready. You'll get your nickname once you've earned one (no one has made corporal yet). Specialist Carlos 13th has been moved to third squad in order to participate in Driving Line.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
31 days is too long damnit, I cant be sitting around in a hospital bed when there are alien scumbags to kill. We need to get back in the fight ASAP, and the sooner the better. Cant let 1st squad have all the fun. Besides that, I want -no- I NEED more kills.

Your ... enthusiasm for augmentation is noted... and appreciated.

-_- If you need me Ill be frenching my sidearm from the discomfort of my hospital bed.

I voluntere myself for genetic augmentation, in an bid to give us an advantage over our foes. And to avenge my fallen comrade in arms

 Trondheim wrote:
I voluntere myself for genetic augmentation, in an bid to give us an advantage over our foes. And to avenge my fallen comrade in arms

(not to mention freaky cool mods!)

Welcome to Glory Squad Esubius

Are snipers any good in Long War? I've always gound them lacking in vanilla.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Welcome to Glory Squad Esubius

Are snipers any good in Long War? I've always gound them lacking in vanilla.

Really? They were godly in Vanilla if you speced 'em out right. My Snipers almost always competed with my run and gun assaults for the most kills. Snipers have been actually nerfed a little in Long War although they aren't dead-weight in the early ranks like they were in vanilla. I would say that snipers are overall less powerful, but have a better power curve than in vanilla. They will never reach the peaks of god-hood that they did in late war vanilla, but they will not be the 200 pound dead weight that they were in early war vanilla either. Esubius has already proven quite handy, but that'll have to wait for the next time Glory Squad goes out.

 malfred wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
I voluntere myself for genetic augmentation, in an bid to give us an advantage over our foes. And to avenge my fallen comrade in arms

(not to mention freaky cool mods!)

Duty knows no limits, thus one must be prepared to give oneself up so that the wider world may yet survive

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Welcome to Glory Squad Esubius

Are snipers any good in Long War? I've always gound them lacking in vanilla.

Really? They were godly in Vanilla if you speced 'em out right. My Snipers almost always competed with my run and gun assaults for the most kills. Snipers have been actually nerfed a little in Long War although they aren't dead-weight in the early ranks like they were in vanilla. I would say that snipers are overall less powerful, but have a better power curve than in vanilla. They will never reach the peaks of god-hood that they did in late war vanilla, but they will not be the 200 pound dead weight that they were in early war vanilla either. Esubius has already proven quite handy, but that'll have to wait for the next time Glory Squad goes out.

I guess I just never got anyone ranked up enough as a sniper in order to see the other side to snipers

Looking forwards to more Glory Squad though

Once snipers get Double Tap in vanilla, and once you get some weapon upgrades on them, they tend to murderize the living hell out of things, at least in my (admittedly limited) experience.

OPERATION DRIVING LINE: Beunos Aires, Argentina. Date: 10 April, 2015

XCOM command was concerned about the efficacy of the 6 man squad in on-going operations. Bradford was vocal in advocating for platoon level deployments in the future. SPEC Bullockist correctly pointed out that XCOM lacked the personnel for that sort of operation and the Commander immediately shot it down on the grounds that a small squad was less likely to draw attention. The Commander did allow Bradford's request that more experienced squads be mandated and that rookies would be limited to one or perhaps two soldiers on the mission. Strong emphasis would be placed on soldiers unlikely to panic in the face of overwhelming alien firepower. R&D was mandated to close the technology gap as soon as possible. Vahlen felt we would be better served by studying and capturing live aliens, but the Commander wanted more firepower and he wanted it yesterday. Beam Lasers were put on top priority. Research quickly bore fruit and an order for a test run of laser rifles, autolasers, and other weapons was placed.

Dr. Shen Initiates the first run of laser weapons.

Unlike vanilla, things take time to build in the workshops. The laser rifles will take two weeks to prepare. SCOPES take 8 days I believe. Nothing is instant in Long War.

At about the same time, we had a small scout UFO sniffing after our satellites over Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa.


LT. William "Puke" Shaw was given the task of bringing the scout down. Ultimately, it was an inconclusive bout as Shaw severely damaged the UFO in exchange for heavy damage on his own interceptor. F.O. Helen "Giggles" Mitchell was given the next intercept and successfully brought the UFO down off the coast of western Africa. There were no alien survivors although Brazil sponsored a deep water excavation team to recover wreckage.

"Giggles" joined Candyman and Shaw as the three XCOM pilots with a kill.

In Long War, pilots rank up too. The more kills they have, the better accuracy and evasion they get. It isn't a huge spike (something like 3-4% per kill, but it does make it worth stacking kills if possible.

As mid-April approached, The Engineers came up with the first in what would be a long line of semi-autonomous combat drones built for XCOM - otherwise known as the SHIV. The commander immediately saw the benefit of a semi-expendable combat asset and ordered that one be built along with an autoloader and weapon gyro to keep the minigun supplied with ammo and improve it's aim.


As it was now conclusive that the UFOs were targetting our satellites, top priority was given towards having a spare satellite on hand in case one was shot down.


The deep excavation to reach steam vents continued. It was determined to be more advantageous to spend the money reaching steam now than to make due with outdated fission generators until the natural expansion of the base brought us to our steam vents. It was a sacrifice that would set back XCOM base development substantially.

The morning of April 10th dawned bright and brisk in Beunos Aires. It promised to be a beautiful day - until the aliens attacked the train yards in the city center. 3rd Squad (Motto: Go Third or Go Home), led by Stream Dragon and supplemented by the newly transferred Carlos 13th from 1st Squad would ingress from the north and assault southward through the waiting rail cars.


3rd Squad would be bolstered by the addition of XCOMs newest gadget, the SCOPE. The significant improvements to aim reported in testing had convinced the commander to allow field trials. Stream Dragon's squad would be noted throughout the war as being Dr. Shen's guinea pigs in fielding new equipment.


Carlos13th and Bullockist form the rock of the squad - laying down a fearsome base of accurate fire from mostly static positions. SPEC Heart provide supplementary fire and medic support while SPEC Stream Dragon and Talizvar are the assault element. The relationship between scout and assault troopers was one of intense cooperation and mutual respect across all squads An intense rivalry over kill counts would develop between among the various scout/assault duos in XCOM. 3rd Squad chose to forego the use of mass explosives as the scientists were bitterly complaining about the lack of retrievable evidence from the likes of 1st squad and 4th squad. Spec Malfred was disappointed to learn of his transfer to 4th squad only minutes before the mission was to go.

The north side of the train yard where 3rd squad landed was fairly clear and Stream Dragon immediately devised a plan of action to assault the upper levels of the south side. Stream Dragon's squad made it to the top level without incident, but they could hear the aliens moving on just the other side of the train car they sheltered behind. Stream Dragon passed the plan down to his squad.

Carlos and Bullockist would lay down fire from the train car (green box), while Talizvar would take Marine with Heart with him around the left hand side (yellow arrow). Legion would stick with Stream Dragon and assault over the cargo car and flank the enemy from the right (blue arrow).

This is what happened on the alien turn.



What the camera's didn't capture was two more floaters activating and another seeker (I believe) going into stealth mode.

3rd Squad all of a sudden found itself facing two new kinds of aliens - the heavy flying cyborgs aptly named floaters and the flying metal spaghetti monsters named seekers. 3rd Squad, to it's credit, got on with the killing.

Talizvar claims the first Seeker kill in XCOM history.

Stream Dragon bags his first thin man.

Legion 22 flashbang both floaters in the hopes of stopping them flanking 3rd squad.

Marine_With_Heart piles on the damage - neither floater is dead quite yet.

The violence of 3rd squads assault stuns most of aliens. Their return fire is ineffective, and most of them just hunker down in overwatch. No casualties sustained by 3rd.

Disoriented aliens try to assault 3rd's position. The line is breached, but innefectively.

A high-caliber bullet from Carlos 13th's sniper rifle exits the back of the Floaters skull


Talizvar contemplates just how much more this will hurt the thin man than it will hurt him.


The answer is 10x more.


More grenades make for a bad day for Floaters


Stream Dragon completes the double envelopment. The remaining floater is screwed.


Everyone believed the battle was almost over, but the there were still cloaked seekers around. third squad almost pays the price.
Bullockist and Marine_with_Heart are attacked by Seekers.


After a furious dash to destroy the two remaining robot aliens, Marine with Heart deals the final blow. He would collapse with a partially crushed windpipe shortly after this photo was taken.


XCOM promotions are slow in coming for third squad - although they have fewer missions than either Glory Squad or 2nd Squad.


This last photo has nothing to do with Driving Line, but it does give you an idea of how much busier Long War is compared to Vanilla - keep in mind this is early April which is still considered early game even in vanilla XCOM.

Dang, looks like we ran into some kind "super-sectoid" or at least a very lucky one.