Over in the mixed-character-pool test campaign, a supply raid. I hate these missions; all of the peremptory missions (i.e., the ones that pop up while you're trying to do other things and you have to do them NOW NOW NOW or Movie Voiceover Guy will be... disappointed in your progress) are annoying, but the supply raids seem particularly pointless. The rewards aren't that great, you're not countering a Dark Event, the missions themselves are not very interesting, and the justification given for docking you points if you skip them—that you passed up an opportunity to Disrupt ADVENT's Operations—rings somewhat false given the disparity in size and resource base between ADVENT and XCOM. You're basically just getting your squad some experience and giving the RNG another chance to drop a Chosen and/or Ruler on them. These missions always piss me off when they come up.

This one, at least, was not one of the "run around a zombie-infested city tagging crates, while Bradford bleats endlessly at you about the ones you couldn't possibly have reached before ADVENT picked them up because your dudes do not have infinite mobility" ones, which are my absolute least favorite missions in the game. It was one of the old supply raids, from the pre-WOTC game, which are basically just kill-all guerilla ops missions with the added wrinkle that if you blow up too much stuff along the way, the not-impressive-to-begin-with completion rewards get reduced to even less worthwhile levels.

So we're out in the middle of an open patch of alien-landscape-ified ex-grassland somewhere in what used to be the American Midwest, attempting to secure a stopped ADVENT supply train. The security presence isn't too bad—couple of scrub-tier troopers, an officer, couple of Sectoids. The worst baddie that turned up in the first group was one of those nanocloud robot ninja things.

And of course then the Assassin dropped in.

The Assassin can be a problem even on a wide-open map like this, especially one with a convenient long, narrow obstacle (the train) in the middle of it, because with her bullshit mobility and at-will stealth, she can come sprinting out of nowhere, shank one of your dudes, and then use her bonus move to break LOS behind the train and stealth up again. Repeat. Repeat. And since in this playthrough she's immune to Overwatch and explosives, this can go on for... a while. Sure, you can spread your squad out until you've got eyes on most everywhere, but then they're too far away to do much in the way of mutual support. It can be a hassle.

On the other hand, she did drop in all the way at the other side of the map, which meant that even with her absurd movement rate, she wouldn't be in range to pose a threat for at least a couple of rounds. Plenty of time for us to deal with the rest of the train's security mooks and get into some semblance of a decent position. Nipa, you're farthest forward, she's probably going to target you first. Keep your axe handy. And now we wait.

And wait.

Hmm. No sign of her after two rounds. This is awkward.

In this campaign, Chris Trott from Hat Films is a Specialist who I've had going down the Combat Hacker skill line. At the time of this mission, he had just been promoted to Lieutenant, which unlocked the Scanning Protocol skill. This is a skill that doesn't really seem terribly useful a lot of the time. In the original version of the game, about all it was good for (other than increasing the Specialist's sight radius a bit) was prematurely uncovering the Faceless (shapeshifting infiltrators disguised as civilians) on terror missions. There's another thing it does, though, which was also not helpful very often in the old version, because there weren't many mobs it applied to:

It reveals invisible enemies.

The downside is that it's only got one charge, and it doesn't cover the whole map, so if you fire it too soon in a situation like this, you've blown it. Still, it's been two turns now with no sign of anybody. The map's not that big. The Assassin must be somewhere close by now. Trott? If you would be so kind.

She appeared maybe five squares away from Nipa, in prime position to attack her first thing next turn.

Or, since it was our turn now, for Nipa to go over there and chop her in the face with a Fusion Axe.

In the following passage, dialogue that actually happened in the game is in bold, while dialogue that only happened in my head is not.

TROTT uses SCANNING PROTOCOL. It's super effective!

ASSASSIN appears.

ASSASSIN
Oh, fuck my life.

TROTT
(with audible satisfaction)
Dead muthafucka.

NIPA throws her spare FUSION AXE at the ASSASSIN (which is a free action) and hits.

ASSASSIN
Is that your best? I am disappointed.

NIPA jumps over the crate she was using for cover, takes two strides, and WHACKS the ASSASSIN with her remaining FUSION AXE, but doesn't quite kill her.

ASSASSIN
Aagh! You will not do that again!

GRYPHON
(has no line of fire)
Y'know what, I think she will.

GRYPHON uses TEAMWORK.

GRYPHON
You can do this!

NIPA
(singing under her breath)
♪ I've been working on the rail-road...

ASSASSIN
Oh, fuck my life.

NIPA gives the ASSASSIN another CHOP. The ASSASSIN takes bonus damage because this is the third attack in a row to hit her, not that it matters in this case.

ASSASSIN
Impossible!

She DIES and TELEPORTS AWAY. Nipa racks her FUSION AXE on her back.

NIPA
(calmly)
Feind eliminiert.

(tr. "Enemy eliminated." There's no Finnish voice set in the game, so she speaks German. Look, it was either that or Russian.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.