Xenonauts: Tarantula

[Part of the Xenonauts story]

With the 60 scientists keen on getting their hands on live captives samples, the soldiers are equipped with gas grenades which they use to nab a lizardman grunt at the cost of Ray Santos and Lily Shen as you need to be kinda close to throw said grenades. Alas the grunt knows very little so a second base "Tarantula" is established South America just in time to shoot down an alien corvette!

This one is literally inhabited by bullet resistant terminator robots and odd floating disc drones that kill Commander's old buddy, Central as well as Sherrif Val and Brenda Catatonic. It's only at this point that I realize corpses can be looted for potentially superior firepower! Also, to combat this new metal threat the Xenonauts now deploy a hunter car during away missions. This machine gun mounted killing machine takes the slots of two soldiers but it is well worth it as now the squad just sits tight until the car clears the map while locating the UFO. Pity it can't capture it though.

It's worth the two soldier slots on the drop ship.

The aliens response is to conduct a terror raid at Paramaribo, led by lizardmen who are now joined by reapers (who are basically XCOM Chrysalids) who move quick, kill in melee and turn their kills into impregnated zombies. Once the zombie is killed a new reaper pops out of it. It's a vicious cycle! Thanks to the hunter car (which runs out of ammo) and a good firing line the Xenonauts triumph and even manage to capture a lizardman leader!

Decluttering Day 21: "Hitman" duck.

State of Decay 2: Team Humanity

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With a surplus of fuel, Val sends out heart destroying teams armed with molotovs which does the job nicely while she plays peacekeeper between the enclaves of Rashida and Peyton. These two eventually join the Stragglers too as they end up saving each other more and more often. Soldier Umoren and squidman Dan also join, arriving with the warning that a large group of bandits is arriving into Drucker County. Umoren and Val deal with their many scouts and then find their base of operations, using long range sniping to take down all of them. With them gone Val is certain her legacy is secure (map victory) and they never had to move base once!

You'll need at least nine molotovs minimum per heart.

Downey isn't happy there though, so she takes the soldier Umoren and bad girl Rev from Team Sanctuary to Cascade Hills to settle into a house that looks a lot like the last base she was in. At least this one has higher walls. While Team Sanctuary continues to provide utilities to that region, the trio also get daily gifts from Val's Stragglers (benefit of winning as sheriff, you can have two benefits active). Surprisingly, it is Rev who earns the leadership of this group: team Humanity, as her goals align with that of Downey and Umoren. First job: build an army.  

Helping people around the hills they manage to recruit Nancy, Nestor, Lance, and stray cat Brandon. Alas, Nancy is exploded to death when she uses molotovs on a plague heart within an LPG warehouse, and Lance is killed in a firefight against people abducting doctors. Doctor Monique takes his place as the team moves into a huge container fortress that easily houses them all, even when soldier sisters Krissy and Parniyan arrive. Other than the heart in the LPG warehouse, the rest are pretty straightforward to clear with this team - even when low morale (out of meds) has them grumbling and considering exiling their leader Rev.

Insight: It took me a long time to work out that outposts have lockers that you can deposit and withdraw items to and from your main base. This makes looting easier as you don't always need to go back, unless you want to deposit rucksacks.

State of Decay 2: The Stragglers

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Splitting into pairs, all the plague hearts turn out to be easy to destroy without any particular tactics (easy mode), and team Sanctuary gains new recruits cowgirl Maddie and Des. With that done team Sanctuary moves base a few times over the next few days while Dr. Hurt tries to work out how to plug in electricity. Eventually this is sorted out when they move into the local fire station which has its own power supply. Soon enough, other people come to request entry into the team and while Dr. Hurt accepts bad girl Rev and good girl Goose - he is forced to turn away others.

This group of unwanteds eventually returns in a pitiful attack which gets them all killed, but the gunfight does draw in a lot of zombies including freak types of bloaters (poison gas), screamers (summon more zeds) and a juggernaut (fat tank). The base holds easily and with that, Dr. Hurt knows his legacy is secure (map victory)! It isn't long before Val and Downey want to run their own place though, so they and Downey's bro Jamaar head on to Drucker Country where they establish a base in a nice house, with utilities supplied by Team Sanctuary (benefit of winning as builder).

Dr. Hurt advises a buckshot diet to this juggernaut.

 

Val and Jamaar go assist new neighbors Rachel and Beth against thieves, "the Furies", and this time Val tries to make peace. The Furies seemingly accept handing over the goods, but immediately go hostile once Val picks them up. The ensuing fire fight draws zombies in and some of the Furies escape while Jamaar is turned into a blood zombie. Val shoots him in the face and takes the two new girls back to base to break the bad news to Downey. Not only did Val kill her brother, by default she is voted leader of this group: "the Stragglers". To reinforce her position, Val also quickly recruits Lory and ex-cop Katz before planning out how to clear the many plague hearts in this area.

Insight: Apparently, to learn electronics you need to read computer books, which is completely different from electrics - for which you need utility books. For me that was very obscure. Also if you recruit one person from an enclave, the rest of the enclave disbands so choose wisely whom you pick, or if its more beneficial to have a friendly enclave around (especially on harder difficulties).

State of Decay 2: Team Sanctuary

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

At some undisclosed location, Red-Talon soldiers desperately try to hold their position against hordes of zombies while their tech works on the relay to the AI code named CLEO to provide support against the growing undead illness. It does not go well for them.

Shouldn't have used all those wall repair kits earlier on...

At Providence Ridge, an odd group of survivors makes their way to a nearby Firewatch tower to serve as their base. Military girl Val, Dr. Hurt, Downey and her brother Jamaar decide to stop here as Jamaar has been infected by the new blood plague which is being spread by infected zombies recently. At least they are easy to spot, having blood red skin and glowing red eyes instead of the glowing yellow eyes the "regular" zombies do.

Luckily Dr. Hurt knows how to produce a cure if he can get his hands on some plague samples from the infected zeds, so Downey goes to work and finds another group of survivors that want to destroy the nearby plague heart which causes this infection. Joined by handyman William, old Dorothy and female soldier Parker they locate and destroy the horrible looking construct with melee weapons even as it calls waves of zombies to defend it. Fortunately the infection rate here is very minimal (easy mode) and everyone survives.

The next day there is already unrest at the camp as to who should lead. Downey's idea of taking control by force is outvoted immediately while Val blows her chance at becoming "sheriff" when she tries assist another pair of survivors against some thieves. Harsh words and gunfire are exchanged, after which Val takes survivor Douglas back to camp. By default, Dr. Hurt becomes leader as his plan is simply to build a big, self reliant base. His first mandate though: destroy all the remaining plague hearts in the area, because the best defense is a good offense. Thus team Sanctuary is born!

Insight: In Daybreak horde mode, your tech needs to survive seven waves of baddies which was clearly intended for multiplayer. Solo wise best I've done is reach the half way point of round 5. You can buy a lot of time if you fight outside the barricade, especially in the earlier rounds. It pays to learn the dodge counter (C forward through an attacking zed then E its back) as that helps in the main game too.

It's been a long time since I played State of Decay, but its nice to see that my tips for that game still mostly work for this one too! Settings wise I'll be starting from the easiest of easy modes and working my way up slowly using custom difficulty sliders through this story.