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I assaulted an Overseer UFO. It has scary troops. Oh hell, does it have scary troops.
Complement:
4x Muton Elite
2x Heavy Floater
2x Drone
1x Sectopod
1x Ethereal
I had never seen any of those before this mission, save for the Drones. I was woefully underequipped - those Muton Elites did 8-10 damage per shot, which, while not enough to one-shot my units, is more than enough to leave them in very bad shape. Only one of my units has Titan Armor, and even she really does not want to risk taking two hits from those things. And I'm still working with laser weapons and light plasma rifles on offense. I won this by a lot of luck and a lot of cautious play.
I found two of the Muton Elites outside the ship. I took one down immediately with two psionic attacks (I found that Labrys, one my heavies, has psionic potential as well, and it was a damn good thing that I brought her and Chie on this mission) and a shot from someone else. The other retreated into the ship... only to come back out one of the side entrances next round and shoot one of my units from a flanking position. I took some care to weaken it, then zapped it for a capture.
I slowly proceeded down the hallway, and ran into the Sectopod and Drone. That frightened me, a lot. After seeing the damage the Muton Elite did, a big walker like that had me thinking one-shot-KOs were not far behind. Didn't help that it had insane health, I was not getting favorable odds to hit, most of my units didn't have line-of-sight to it, and the hall was sparse on cover in between where I already was and where it was. So I shot down the drones and had Labrys, who was my advance unit due to having that Titan Armor, use a Shredder Rocket on it - which was a questionable move. While it did 8 damage to the Sectopod (Heat Ammo) and weakened it to future attacks, it also blew open the nearby walls, which was both a blessing and a curse.
Anyway though, lots of tentative shooting and overwatching later, it shot at me a couple of times and missed, taking out chunks of the wall when it did. I got a couple of reaction shots on the Sectopod that did weaken it a fair bit, and was moving some units into a side room that had been opened by the rocket, trying to get a view of it while having some cover. It took that opportunity to move around through another entrance to that room and fire at my troops point-blank. I'm not actually sure how much damage it did, as I was too shocked by the discovery that its attack is an AoE, and more importantly that it had killed itself with it, to notice. Pure. Luck.
So, that down, I proceed very slowly, healing my troops (I brought two Supports who have three-use medkits - I used all of them in this mission, and they're the kind improved to heal 6 hp per shot), and uncovered the rest of the enemies through the hole in the wall my rocket had blown. Yes, all of the rest. Fortunately by staying very defensive I was able to engage them slowly, taking down first a Heavy Floater, then having the Ethereal stupidly walk around the corner and right up to one of my heavies. That was a stroke of luck - it had double-moved, so it didn't get to do anything. And I don't want to know what it could have done. I just dropped its health with ease because it was out in the open and zapped it for a safe, easy capture.
From here things got hard again, because the remaining Muton Elites and Heavy Floater started taking good positions to attack me. The rest is a long, tense engagement where I play as defensive as possible, including a lengthy period where, it turns out, both side were just sitting in their respective rooms doing overwatch every turn. Eventually, I had to take the offensive, and was slowly able to take them down, largely thanks to Chie and Labrys being able to zap them with Psionics for an almost-guaranteed 5 damage a pop every other turn (plus that power decreases their aim and movement, which is very handy too). It was close though - I can't count the number of times when something could've gone wrong and cost me a character. You'd better believe I breathed a big sigh of relief when I got that mission success message.
So, yeah, that was amazing, and I cannot believe I pulled it off, much less to as resounding a final success as I did. No casualties, Chie became my first Corporal, Chie and Labrys both unlocked the top rank of their psionic powers, and I come home with two new captives to interrogate, several new corpses to dissect, and a lot of materials. Oh, and the next phase of the story beginning.