XCOM 2 WOTC Exquisite Timing with all the Chosen Weapons

[ruslanbes]

Final score: here[imgur.com]
Full timeline: here[airtable.com]

Note that is was not an Ironman run.

My takeaways (besides the typical "get more engineers/scientists" and "rush the story".

Building Order

1. Proving Ground
2. Lab
3. Resistance Ring
4. Power Relay
5. Digital Network (Resistance Ring Upgrade)
6. Shadow Chamber (on a shielded core)
7. Resistance Comms
8. Power Conduit (Power Relay Upgrade)
9. Holo Planner (Resistance Ring Upgrade)
10. Additional Comm Station (Resistance Comms Upgrade)
11. Psionic Gate (Shadow Chamber upgrade)
12. Power Relay (on a shielded core)
13. Power Conduit (Power Relay Upgrade)
14. Training Center
15. GTS
16. Infirmary
17. Defense Matrix
18. Quad turrets (Defense Matrix Upgrade)

Quad turrets were just in time to counter the Avenger Assault. At that point they weren't strictly necessary but I had free engineers and supplies so why not.

Lab first was the idea I saw in one of the old guides and I quite liked it. It really helped with going through research.

GTS was built before the assault of the 2 remaining Chosen Strongholds.

One Engineer was always sitting in a Resistance Ring, the rest were building/digging. I didn't use the Skirmisher bonus.

Research

After the Story Research projects have been done, my priorities were on a Predator Armor, Mag weapons, Plasma Grenade and a couple of breakthoughs. After they were done, Scientists were mostly busy in the Shadow Chamber. Almost all the autopsies were done for free. After the Story items were done I had just enough time to research all the Chosen Weapons.

Proving Ground

I decided not to go for Sparks and instead built 4 Ammo + 2 custom grenades. Probably 1 Spark would be better than 2 grenades. I managed to also research:
* Battlefield medicine (never used, useless)
* Bluescreen rounds (too late, useless)
* Advanced Explosives (see the note about grenades)
* Skullmining (occasionally useful, got 3-4 small intel caches from it)

Soldiers

I specifically tried doing a round robin and almost always took the weakest soldiers. I liked this approach because it made missions equally difficult. At the end everyone was Captain+ and I got 1 Colonel Ranger.

Since the Training Center was built only in June all the Ability points were dumped into Dragunova. Everything except the Target Definition and Distraction is worth buying. Captain Reaper is very good in the Abandoned Mark supplies Supply Raids where they can single-handedly wipe out 2-3 enemy pods with Remote Start+Needle+Highlands+Silent Killer+Deadeye and still keep the whole squad concealed.

I delayed investing into Templar, primarily because of lack of supplies for the upgrades, but then later a Templar with Bladestorm was very helpful in the Psionic Gate mission against Chryssalids. I would recommend to start taking them into missions and level up whenever possible.

Cox (Skirmisher) was completely abandoned mainly because I didn't want to invest into his upgrades and I didn't have the spare weapon Mods.

Items

The only things which I built and which were useful throughout the game were Mimic Beacons. I built a couple of Mindshields just for the Warlock Stronghold but at that time the team was so powerful he didn't even have a chance to use his powers. Medikits were used maybe 1 time in the mid-game during the first Berserker appearance. In an Ironman mode I would've built a couple battle scanners too.

Resistanse Ring

Here I got really really lucky.

I got "instant supply pickup" Order from the start. And the Europe region which was my first expansion from Africa had the "instant contacts" bonus. At the end of May I had both.

Besides that I had also "2x resources from scans" and "+2 turns on timed missions" which helped quite a lot.

The Covert Ops were almost entirely "Hunt The Chosen" except for "Gain Ability Points" at the end and one mission to get a promotion.

I did the Rescue Mox mission pretty early on April 3. I think it was the best place and time to Skullhack an officer. The idea was to trigger the Level 10 alert, kill the first reinforcement (which is nearly always an officer + trooper/lancer), skullhack the second, kill the codex, get away. My mistake was that I was too scared after the skullhack, ran away and then spent 1.5 months looking for a codex to kill.

After that I got lucky with both Forge and Psionic Gate lcoations which both were only one region away from the 5 regions I already had. I didn't attack any Advent Facilities.

Black Market

Don't sell any Elerium Cores even if they're in Very Interested section. Selling Datapads/Data Caches are ok since you have time to research maybe 1 or 2 of them. Buy any Enginners and Scientists. Buying one Soldier should also be ok. Don't spend Intel on any PCS/Mods until you know the locations of the Forge and Psionic Gate.

Final mission

I was ready on June 30 and spent the last two weeks to kill 2 Chosen, research their weapons and defend the Avenger.

I ended up with a team of 2 tired soldiers but with all the Chosen Weapons the mission was pretty easily won with the Flawless mark.

[Hammer_Squirrel]

Nicely done

[Narrowmind]

Interesting coverage.

[Karasukan]

On Legend you dont have time for all the tech and Chosen.

[Uncle Khai]

Originally posted by Kara sukan:

On Legend you dont have time for all the tech and Chosen.

I did win campaign legend grim hozion with all research! Exactly 1 year in game February 2036!

[Karasukan]

Originally posted by Uncle Khai:

Originally posted by Kara sukan:

On Legend you dont have time for all the tech and Chosen.

I did win campaign legend grim hozion with all research! Exactly 1 year in game February 2036!

thats early!

[(T_T)]

Saving this one.