Tag: XCOM

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen: Epic new units!

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

We know a lot about XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. What’s really interesting is the whole new units coming to the action on both the enemies side and our side. So lets check them out because they really are something to be excited about.

On the side of the Chosen:

The Assassin is a stealth based unit who is a master of the katana and prefers close range combat. The assassin is prideful and see humanity as below her. It is said that she has unmatched skills in combat. She can kidnap your soldiers which if any has played XCOM 2 knows that is a huge problem. She can get stronger over the campaign and if you aren’t careful sabotage the Avenger (your ship). She can even taunt you. She’s got character hasn’t she. She can vanish from sight and stun/disorientate groups of soldiers with ‘Harbor wave from a distance. The Assassin will gain your instant attention. Remember that she will pretty much rush you down and put her trusty Katana to work.

The Warlock has been described as the most arrogant and said to have gotten too much from the psionic well of power also making him mentally unstable. This doesn’t sound good at all. He even goes so far to believe that he is a god and greater than the elders that made him. He is normally armed with an assault rifle but  he uses a wide range of psionic powers on the battlefield. He can afllict enemy soldiers with madness which leads to a variety of status effects. He can summon back up who can use strong melee attacks, while these guys are out he is invulnerable to harm (OP much?). Can teleport his troops around the field and can even rise up zombies who can explode. I already hate the Warlock.

The Hunter has a very different style. The Hunter is a unit who fights from a distance and stalks it’s prey, even from across the map. The Hunter just loves to disable and wound enemy soldiers then when the time is right, deliver the final blow. The more XCOM soldiers dies, the more cocky and confident the Hunter gets, which can lead to it making mistakes. The Hunter has a grappling hook to get to certain places. A tracking shot which let’s it know where that tracked enemy is at all times. They have concussion grenades and tranquilizer shots. He can also like the others, capture your soldiers to interrogate them and get sensitive information out of them like the location of your ship. Just remember that when you see the laser sighting beam, get out of the way.

On the side of the resistance

The Reapers normally kept to themselves and live on the fringes of socity, sort of like outcasts. They have battling the ADVENT for years. They are now willing to work with XCOM to take on the alien enemies. Reapers troops are more stealth and infiltration units, mainly because of their ‘shadow’ mode ability. This mode grants them concealment and has greater mobility options that a normal XCOM troop. Each action you take like moving, throwing something or firing has a chance of keeping the concealment but you get to see the chances of your action keeping concealment before making them. The reapers have a Vektor rifle and incendiary claymore explosive which can be attached to even a live enemy.

The Templars are a monastic lot of soldiers who are all about pushing their minds and bodies with psionic energy to the maximum limit. Sounds exciting but dangerous. The Templars are lead by one of the original psionic soldiers, “Geist”. They hid away after the fall of the XCOM project. They experimented on themselves and even developed weapons that use their psionic powers. They have psionic blades, their abilities are triggered through the use of Focus which builds up over the course of combat. They can boost their own damage and mobility. So what will you use your Focus for? Unleash power psionic abilities or boost combat effectiveness.

The skirmishers are all former ADVENT soldiers who have decided to go against their former leaders. The Skirmisher is all about offense. They can kill anything regardless of what’s going on. They have grapple hooks that not only allow for greater mobility but can use it to fly towards enemies or pull them towards him. Once close Skirmishers can use their wrist-mounted ripjack to deliver a real stab. They certainly love their bullpup SMG which when trained with can attack twice with it. They are capable of learning how to take extra actions without ending their turn like ‘Reflex’ which grants extra actions for each enemy that fired at the Skirmisher. Skirmisher is all about the damage.

As you can see, XCOM 2 is bringing a bunch of new things. The units of the chosen and the units of the resistance are very exciting. We at X35 Earthwalker are looking forward to the release of XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

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XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Epic DLC coming soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

XCOM 2 is the greatest turn based strategy game, we at X35 Earthwalker, have ever played. The amount of options you have to deal with a situation, the different amount of enemies and the problems they bring, the different weapons and equipment that you have to buy and equip wisely is just deep and done very well. Off course XCOM 2 wasn’t perfect but man was it very good.

Good news for all XCOM fans. A new DLC is coming out and it’s a large one. Almost like a whole game. It’s called XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. It will come out 29th of August for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This DLC adds whole new content to the game. The fight against the advent continues so new factions of the resistance form together to take down the enemy. That’s right we have whole new allies and units to back us up; however a new enemy called the ‘Chosen’ show up and they have one goal in mind: recapture the commander. So XCOM 2: War of the Chosen has new hero classes, new enemies, new environments, new missions and gives the strategic level of XCOM 2 another layer. 

The Chosen are the most smart and dangerous enemy we have ever faced. They are sent by the elders to carry out this recapture mission. They are well organised and got different units to give them every advantage they can get. The three units that have been revealed are Assassins, Warlocks and Hunter.

The resistance factions bring new things for us. These new factions have their own background and story behind them. They all look clearly different from each other and have completely different abilities and strengths. The three new factions that have been revealed are Reaper, Skirmisher and Templar.

If having to face the Chosen wasn’t bad enough we also have whole new enemies who are more than willing to take us on. We haven’t been given much information on the new enemies but we do know their names. There is the Priest, Purifier, Spectre and ‘The Lost’. They also look real cool and very distinguishable from each other.

There are whole new environments in this DLC as well. Expect to have tactical battles in such environments like xenoformed wilderness regions, cities abandoned because they were destroyed by aliens bio weapons and even underground tunnels. Hope you guys aren’t scared of the dark.

There is much more, we learnt that even your scientists and engineers can get involved in the action. They can be deployed on covert missions that if they complete successfully, will reward you with supplies and boost faction favour. Your soldiers interact with each other to some extent. The website explains that your “soldiers can develop bonds with compatible teammates for new abilities and perks.”  You can even create and design your own resistance posters that you can share with your friend in-game. 

Overall this DLC looks amazing right now. It is deep and rich with content. It’s bringing whole new environments, enemies and resistance units shaking up the game to some extent. This is a whole new campaign as well with new strategic layers. We will reveal more concerning the units in another blog. This DLC is definitely worth checking out. You may not like the Chosen but you will like… the ‘Earth Walk!’.

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XCOM 2. Tactical soldier classes

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

XCOM 2 is just an excellent strategy game. There isn’t another like it. We at X35 Earthwalker were a big fan of the first XCOM but XCOM 2 really did improve the game and took it to a higher level. It isn’t perfect though as we have found a few faults with the game but overall it is amazing. We will be talking about the soldier classes and how tactical things can get. There are four classes in XCOM 2. Ranger, sniper, specialist and grenadier. Each one are not to be ignored.

The Ranger is probably the hardest to master and use properly. Many will get excited about the fact that they have swords and will want to slash everything in sight but it’s risky. Slash lets you run up to an enemy and then almost kill them straight up but normally leaves you in the open or run towards another group of aliens which usually results in death. Instead use the sword only when you know it’s safe and when you really need to kill a certain target. Once the Ranger has the phantom ability it will stayed concealed even after the team got exposed. Allowing you to move around the map and level by themselves to complete and objective single handedly or get a perfect flank on the enemy. Shadow step is another powerful ability which allows the Ranger to not trigger any overwatchs or reaction fires. This means your Ranger can move freely and even ignore suppression. Once X35’s Ranger was pinned down by suppression and straight away he made his Ranger leave the area with no consequences. Rangers are the best when it comes to mobility. Use them to complete objective, go solo from the group and kill enemies in close range style.

Snipers is probably the most favourite class amongst XCOM gamers from the first game because they can dish out high damage from far away and attack more than once. In XCOM 2 they are more versatile than before. The pistol can no longer be underestimated. Upgrade your pistols when you can. The sniper gets abilities like lightning hands which allows them to fire the pistol and it won’t cost an action. This means you always get to attack more than once. Shoot with pistol at a near enemy and then snipe that other one that’s far away. Always place your snipers in elevated positions as ‘Death from above’ ability allows you to have another action after killing an enemy who is at a lower elevation. Snipers are no longer weak in closer range combat as the gunslinger abilities for the pistol make them lethal like faceoff which allows your sniper to fire his pistol at every target in range once. The best ability and the thing that makes snipers great is squadsight which means, if your team mates can see it, then your sniper can see it (as long as there is a line of sight).

Grenadiers are lethal in XCOM 2 and probably more lethal than before. Their ability to launch grenades is essential. Use them to damage groups of enemies at once and even destroy enemy cover to expose them for your sniper and other units. The shredder ability makes this class the best at dealing with armoured enemies getting rid of their armour. Suppression will keep those melee enemies, like the stun lance using soldiers, in their place, preventing them from moving or more likely killing them as they attempt to come near. X35’s favourite grenadier ability is holo targeting which means whenever your grenadier takes a shot at an enemy, your whole team gets increased accuracy against that enemy. Chain shot is just for dealing immense damage as it allows you to shoot at an enemy twice as long as the first hit connects. This makes you think about what to do. Normally you will have the grenadiers make the first moves as they really set things up for the other classes. Maybe use the grenadier to blow away a part of a wall or building to reveal enemies for your snipers, or do you fire at a essential target first allowing your team to have better chances of hitting that target or do you have them move up right next to an enemy just to use chain shot for the real damage? The choice is yours.

Specialists are very interesting indeed. They are equipped with gremlin units which provide all their abilities. Firstly a specialist can hack advent security towers to gain certain perks like disorientating all enemies for 2 turns or grant extra intel. Specialists can also interact with objectives like the computers or alarm system from a distance making them essential to get there in time or hack from safety. It gets crazier. They can send the gremlin to increase the defense of themselves or any ally making them harder to hit for the duration of the alien turn. As the specialist is promoted he will gain the ability to Heal allies from anywhere, remove status problems like panic, poison and even stop bleeding out. Then inflict guaranteed damage against any enemy and then the best of all be able to hack mechanical units. X35 loves this. You can hack to disable or even better take control of those advent mecs which he then sends directly towards the enemies to reveal their location and fight to the death. Make sure to hack sentry guns to have them fire at enemies and then overwatch to keep bringing the pain. Specialists can do anything and once used correctly, will make your team officially OP (over powered). Lastly don’t underestimate the ability to deliver 2 points of guaranteed damage as there have been many moments when that has come in handy to finish of a certain enemy.

Off course there are many more abilities for the classes and each is useful in their own way but pick them according to your style. XCOM 2 is very strategic and makes you think for a bit before making any actions. Place your snipers in high places and combined with ‘Death from above’ you have potential double kills lined up. Have your specialists always using their gremlins to buff, heal or even grant soldiers an overwatch as these actions only cost one action, meaning you can still fire afterwards. Hack those mechanical units when you can to get the best possible advantage. Be masterfully strategic with your Rangers. Literally X35 once had his ranger with concealment go alone to the objective and complete it by themselves and got that Ranger back to the rest of the team alive. Rangers are also best at killing on the go thanks to ‘Run & Gun’ and their swords. Be careful though. Grenadiers must use what they have to control the battle field their abilities create new pathways with grenades, pin enemies and lay down the damage if need be. They can even get armour of their own with ‘Blast padding’ meaning you can have them at the front knowing that they are harder to kill.

We are really loving what XCOM 2 have done with the game and will continue to play it. What do you think of the classes in XCOM 2? Maybe you have strategies of your own. Whether you do or not make sure you know… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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