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Land Raider

2020-05-15T03:27:49Z

2600:6C58:637F:E506:B410:1EC3:A3A4:59AD: /* Grav-Raider */

{{Topquote|Scorch the earth and all who stand upon it!|[[Dawn of War 2|Land Raider pilots doing what they do best.]]}}

[[File:LandRaider.jpg|500px|right|thumb|A Land Raider assaulting a position. Calling or playing it as a front line tank or a Baneblade knockoff is a [[Rage|sure way of getting your]] [[Anal Circumference|ass shredded]] [[Space Marines|by SM players.]]]]
Sometimes the only solution to a problem is a complete lack of anything resembling subtlety.

A [[Rhino Transport]] grown several orders of magnitude too large, the mighty Land Raider is one of the biggest available tanks that [[Space Marines]] and [[Chaos Space Marines]] can field. Its firepower is incredible, and its armor betrays no weakpoints: it has maximum armor (14) for ''every side'', something that only the [[Monolith#Warhammer_40.2C000|Necron Monolith]], [[Necron Pylon]], and [[Spartan Assault Tank]] share with the Land Raider; not even [[Baneblade|Baneblades]] have this. Its armor is pretty much only beaten by [[Warlord Battle Titan|Warlord Class battle titans]]. It can also transport Terminators. This is the [[METAL BOXES|Metalboxiest]] of all the [[Rhino Transport|METAHL BAWKSES]].

==Overview==
[[File:Land_Raider_Insides.png|500px|right]]
The Land Raider has always been a somewhat insane beast, owing to its large weapon load and the fact that only part of this load can usually fire at a given time, making it so that it's of questionable value - this is because there are almost always better choices to do what the Land Raider can do for cost - Predators generally do better at vehicle busting or infantry killing, and the main use of the Land Raider is as a transport vehicle for Terminators and getting them right into the heart of the battle, which is kind of lopsided with its heavy armament.

Even with this, the Land Raider is still something of a good combat vehicle, if only because of the changes to the 5th edition vehicle weaponry rules. Stationary, the Land Raider can fire off all its weaponry in a salvo, which is especially good for the Chaos version, which can mount a Havoc Launcher to add a little extra infantry-raping punch. The Grey Knight version is also notable (Psycannon Bolts help this thing a lot) since it's pretty much the only heavy tank Daemonhunters get.

Make no mistake: It may be inefficient, large, and points-heavy, but the Land Raider is ''still'' a powerful force and should not be underestimated under any circumstances. Virtually any form of Land Raider is a daunting foe if it sticks around, whether it has troops in it or not. AV14 all around makes it a tough nut to crack without dedicated anti-armor weapons, and the Land Raider still is likely to survive the opening salvo, especially if it has extra armor. However, keep your Land Raider away from dedicated anti-heavy armor (Railguns, melta), or you will very quickly feel the pain of losing all those points.

And before you say it, a Land Raider is not a main battle tank or an armored personnel carrier; it is an infantry fighting vehicle like the Razorback, since it can carry people inside and provide heavy fire support (hence Infantry and Fighting). A Baneblade is a main battle tank (well, it is if you don't accept the term heavy or superheavy battle tank), a Rhino is an an armored personnel carrier, a Land Raider is an Infantry Fighting vehicle (though perhaps you could throw in heavy into that term). Well, that is unless you can actually get the Ares and Terminus Ultra pattern models, who traded their transport capabilities for even more and bigger guns, where they're pretty much <s>MBTs</s> an assault gun and a tank destroyer respectively...Okay, now that that's over, the original Land Raider was designated an MBT by the man who found the STC and whom the vehicle is named after, Arkhan Land. If the theory that the Land Raider Proteus is actually the default/original variant of the Land Raider is correct, then the Land Raider IS an MBT, it's just that the variants that permitted honest troop capacity were utilized more often by the Assault-happy Astartes to the point that Land Raiders are now known by the more common offspring of the original pattern. Except it’s not. An MBT requires the armored fighting vehicle to be fully capable of engaging armor and infantry with its primary weapon(s), keeping pace with mechanized infantry and other vehicle forces, and possessing enough armor and firepower to rival heavy tank threats. Some patterns fulfill this to varying degrees. However, the Land Raider is simply too slow and rare to be classified as a Main Battle Tank. If anything, its most common varients are a form of Infantry Tank with troop carrying capability. A slow armored fighting vehicle capable of defending infantry against vehicles and helping infantry against enemy infantry and suppressing or destroying defensive positions. This is also why a Leman Russ standard is an MBT. It can use different shells to destroy infantry, light vehicles, and heavy vehicles all from a platform easily capable of keeping up with mechanized elements and dueling heavy tanks. It is also far more common, as an MBT is the primary and most numerous tank of a military, whereas the Land Raider is extremely rare. While the lascannons and heavy bolters working together could enable the Land Raider to serve as an MBT, the tank itself is far too slow and far too rare to qualify.

In terms of appearance, a Land Raider is basically a cross between giant World War I Mark series tank and a modern armored fighting vehicle. It's shaped more like the latter, but the exposed treads on the entire front of the tank and the sponson-mounted guns resemble the former. Oddly, the placement of sponson mounted guns on the Mark series tank was a feature implemented so the tanks could fire into enemy trenches more easily while also keeping them from becoming too tall and unstable; after the war, that design was scrapped in favor of rotating turrets that gave an entire 360 degree firing arc (cannons on a Mark tank could only be pointed at things in front of them or to the side, they could not aim behind it).. Why GW decided to model something after this is a mystery, but they seem to have a thing for giving the Imperium of Man pre-<s>Cold War</s>World War II vehicle designs. Isn't it obvious? The Mark I was a British invention! And now for the low price of $110 a piece! Holy shit. They do have an excuse, though. Most Imperial vehicles were either meant for exploration or utility and had guns and armor more as a “just in case”. So, there was no reason for them to be designed with combat practicality or effectiveness in mind. Heck, the Baneblade’s STC data says it is a light scout tank and it actually walks the walk of a true tank and its oddly tall frame makes sense for mounting anti-infantry/anti-vehicle supplementary weapons. Which it does and to great effect. The Land Raider is in the same boat and also uses its defensive armament effectively but its height is probably for transportation capacity.

Now in 8th edition, the Land Raider is a much more fearsome beast, being able to fire all of its weapons at different targets, and benefiting greatly from the new twin-linked rules. It's also T8 with 16 wounds and one of the very few 2+ armour saves on vehicles. It basically went from schizophrenic IFV to being a very effective IFV.

=={{anchor|Variants}} Variants and Such==
The Land Raider has a ton of variants. Some of the more noteworthy ones are listed below.

==={{anchor|Phobos}} Phobos Pattern===
[[File:StandardRaider.jpg|280px|thumb|right|A [[Ultramarines|Smurf]] Land Raider. AKA the Phobos Pattern.]]
The basic one has two [[Twin-Linked]] Lascannons in sponsons (called "Godhammer" pattern lascannon, probably in honor of legendary GW model designer, [[Jes Goodwin]]) and a twin-linked [[Heavy Bolter]], making it some kind of heavy infantry fighting vehicle derpfish. Prior to 8th edition, it was generally considered to be very flexible, but ultimately rather inefficient. The Predator Annihilator was better at tankbusting, as it could unleash 3 lascannon beams, one of which was twin-linked, whereas the Land Raider only had 2 twin-linked Lascannon (though the Land Raider could also take a pintle-mounted Multi-Melta, which could one-shot almost any tank). The Predator Destructor was better at killing infantry; 2 shots from an Autocannon and 6 more from Heavy Bolters shredded all kinds of medium/light infantry, whereas the Land Raider only had the single twin-linked Heavy Bolter to fight infantry (plus an optional Storm Bolter, which the Predator could also take). The Rhino was generally a better transport for its price, only falling short in its inability to carry Terminators. The Land Raider stood apart from the Predator and Rhino because it could fill multiple duties at once (it was recommended that you add a Storm Bolter/Multi-Melta, extra-armor, and a Hunter-Killer missile to help in this task), and it was the only vehicle in many armies that allowed a unit to disembark and assault in the same turn. It was schizophrenic and expensive, but it was ''effective'', especially if you used it right. In 7e, if you put 3 in the Land Raider Spearhead Formation for 750 points stock you got a lethal counter to those super-heavies, gargantuan creatures, and buildings with Mighty Bulwark thanks to the re-rolls for failing to wound or penetrate armor.

As of 8th, it's far more potent, benefiting not only from the generally-increased durability of vehicles and the elimination of firing arcs, but also from changes to how twin-linked weapons work. It now has greater firepower than either Predator variant (in fact, it's close to being tied with both of them put together), and the points changes on other vehicles such as the Rhino means that while the Land Raider is still ''expensive'', it's not as point-inefficient as it was.

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===Venerable Land Raider===
[[File:99120101061 CustodianLandraider01.jpg|280px|thumb|right|The 'Venerable' sub-variant of the Phobos Pattern. Deadly not because of its weapons, [[Custodian Guard|but the cargo it is holding.]]]]
The [[Adeptus Custodes]] also have their own sub-variant of the Phobos Pattern Land Raider called the aptly named '''Venerable Land Raider''' which is a Land Raider bristling with gold to blind the enemies of man with the superiority of the BLING. Venerable Land Raiders ignore shaken and stunned results and also comes with some pretty cool upgrades as well now like a 5+ invulnerable save from the aegis ability, and a 6+ FNP (yes, it has both an Invulnerable and a FNP because ''of course it does''), all for mega mucho points. Other than that there is very little difference armament wise other then being a 'cheap' (for Custodes standards anyway) replacement to the vastly superior [[Coronus Grav Carrier]], [[promotions|which is faster, inflicts a -1 to hit in melee, and is actually designed for Custodians (transports capacity of 6 means that it can carry two MSU guard squads, or a 5-man with Shield-Captain, at the cost of having a 3+ armour save)]]. Still, don't try to underestimate this sub-variant as the cargo it's holding just so happens to be [[Custodian Guard|dudes who can]] [[Rape|tear your Riptide a new asshole.]]

In terms of fluff, Venerable Land Raiders have a enhanced <s>AI</s> Machine Spirit, more so than conventional Land Raiders. Many Venerable Land Raiders can trace their history back to the earliest years of the Imperium and fought in the [[Great Crusade]] and [[Horus Heresy]]. As you can imagine, such engines of war was considered as a secondhand watered down version of the [[Coronus Grav Carrier|type]] [[Pallas Grav-Attack|of]] [[Gyrfalcon Pattern Jetbike|shit]] [[Caladius Grav-Tank|the]] [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] [[Telemon Heavy Dreadnought|used]] [[Contemptor-Galatus Dreadnought|to]] [[Orion Gunship |have,]] or rather still have but have been mothballed for...[[Derp|reasons.]]

Still, these dauntless war engines have now served for ten thousand years and each has built a legend every bit as magnificent as those possessed by the greatest Imperial champions. They have also developed Magos-class machine spirits and these noble and aggressive entities can independently aim and fire the vehicle's guns and coordinate its auto-repair rituals when circumstances require it. In extreme circumstances these amazing war engines have even been teleported directly onto the battlefield, through the use of ancient [[Just As Planned|Godstrike-pattern teleportariums.]] [[Rape|Deepstriking teleporting Land Raiders full of golden demigods?]] [[Cheese|Oh...all of the yes.]]

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==={{anchor|Chaos}} Chaos Land Raider===
[[File:99120102052 CSMLandRaiderRepack01.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Chaos Land Raiders are now at a reasonable price of a 100,000 Chaos Credits! Call your local [[Dark Mechanicum]] today!]]
Functionally identical to the Phobos Pattern Land Raider, the Chaos version has a number of small changes that actually make it quite a bit better than its standard counterpart. It has Assault Vehicle like the loyalist, meaning that troops exiting it can assault the same turn, and it can be further specialized as an assault transport with Daemonic Possession, Extra Armor, and Dirge Caster. It can also be turned into a better combat vehicle due to its ability to pack on a Havoc Launcher; this gives it the ability to fire a few clusters of blast templates downrange for those using it as a heavy offensive vehicle. You can alternately pack on a Combi-Bolter and Combi-Flamer/Melta, and they're even comparable with [[Havoc Launcher]] in current codex.

It's usually a bit more valuable to Chaos than it is to the Loyalists as a result. However, unfortunately for Chaos; this is the only kind of Land Raider they get, and compared to some of the other things on this list, it's out-specialized by other Land Raiders - the Crusader does Assault Transport (arguably; Daemonic Possession does a LOT to make this thing more dangerous, or DID before the rules change made Daemonic Possession cause the Chaos Raider to randomly eat passengers) better, and the Ares, Redeemer, and Achilles handle massed infantry better, whilst the Terminus Ultra is basically a tank destroyer. Add to this that the Chaos Land Raider doesn't have Power of the Machine Spirit rule that loyalist Land Raiders have, and the Chaos Land Raider is more limited in the ways it can shoot.

However, since it is basically a vanilla Phobos-pattern Land Raider, the Chaos Land Raider can still handle [[Indrick Boreale|multiple simultaneous]] roles as needed, which, paired with the Chaos Land Raider's generally-better utility makes it something of a decent deal. Worth using if you have the points to spend, or if you have some big nasty close-combat squad that absolutely MUST get into close-combat.

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==={{anchor|Crusader}} Crusader Pattern===
[[File:LandRaiderCrusader.gif|280px|thumb|right|PURGING WITH MY KIIIIIIIIIN!]]
Once upon a time, during a Crusade to bring the Emperor's Light to some foul heretics, the Black Templars' Techmarines considered that Twin-linked Lascannons weren't particularly useful when rushing forward to disgorge Sword Brethren [[rape|right where it hurts the most]], so they decided to [[heresy|tinker a bit]] with one of their Land Raiders and swap out its Mars-sanctioned weapon loadout... and thus the Crusader Pattern Land Raider was born. It forgoes long-range firepower in favor of a dedicated role as an assault transport/infantry fighting vehicle, generally making it a bit more effective at getting into the enemy's face and spewing out a truly immense amount of dakka just before its passengers double up on the beating in melee. Armed with a pair of Hurricane Bolter sponsons, an optional Multi-Melta (just in case a vehicle/fortification would think of getting in the way) and twin-linked Assault Cannons, the Crusader Pattern basically delivers a truly beautiful amount of dakka at (twelve Bolters, and two assault cannons=some 272+ rounds per second) close range (with the Multi-Melta being there to deal with the errant vehicle threat) before disgorging its troops into the heart of enemy forces. Making it even better, the Crusader holds more men and has Frag Assault Launchers, ensuring that the disembarking troops gain the benefits of Frag Grenades (which Terminators normally lack). This vehicle was so effective that it spread, to some of the other Marine chapters, including the [[Grey Knights]], who were given a few for helping the Templars out once, and eventually even got official recognition from Mars.

If you play Dark Angels, you owe it to yourself to play at least one game where this beast is boosted by a Banner of Devastation and some power fields, for an utterly hilarious TWENTY FOUR twin linked Bolter shots all protected by an AV 14 4 HP 4++ monster of a vehicle. All of this, however, comes at the price of the baseline Land Raider's raw offensive punch (unless you're fighting guard/cultist/Ork/Tyranid blobs, then you will eat people) - fight accordingly.

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==={{anchor|Redeemer}} Redeemer Pattern===
[[File:LandRaiderRedeemer.jpg|280px|thumb|right|I like my [[Tyranid|Tyranids]] nicely minced and cooked well-done.]]
The Redeemer is designed to maximize close-range punch. Whilst it's not the balls-out dedicated infantry-fighting vehicle/assault transport that the Crusader is, the Redeemer packs on considerably heavier '''fire'''power. It maintains the Assault Cannons, Frag Assault Launcher, and optional Multi-Melta, but replaces the sponson-mounted Hurricane Bolters with a pair of Flamestorm Cannons - functionally improved Flamers with S6, AP3, the only drawback to them being that since they're sponson mounted they can't hit targets that are too close to the front or back of the Redeemer.

Cheaper than the other Land Raiders, this is one of the more popular Land Raiders due to its slightly lower points-cost. Tends to annihilate infantry by the dozens once in-close and makes tyranblob crap itself in sheer terror, but seriously needs Extra Armor. Using these when facing Tyranids or bikes-heavy lists (Ravenwing) is highly recommended since they don't have any vehicles or anything with more than toughness 6. Flamers ignore any armour but 2+ saves and ALL cover saves, meaning you'll be BBQing nids and bikers negating their Venomthrope/bullshit rerollable jink save.

Interestingly the Redeemer was invented by the Fire Lords Space marine chapter, and they wanted to name the pattern "Prometheus" after the titan who gave fire to man, but the name was already taken by the actual Land raider Prometheus designed by the Salamanders, so instead it was named the Redeemer.

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==={{anchor|Vortimer Redeemer}} Vortimer Redeemer Pattern===
[[File:99590107034_GREYKNIGHTSLANDRAIDERREDEEMER1.jpg|280px|thumb|right|The proverbial daemon steamroller.]]
A [[Grey Knights]] exclusive variant of the Land Raider Redeemer that replaces the assault cannons with psycannons and frag assault launchers with psyk-out assault launchers. These Land Raiders are a bane to [[Daemon]] players everywhere due to its armaments and the fact that it safely carries a detachment of [[Grey Knight Paladin|prolific Daemon rapists]] [[Purifier|and molesters.]] (To be clear here we mean rapists and molesters of deamons, [[Slaanesh|not rapists and molesters who are also daemons]]) Because it is a more specialized version of the regular Redeemer Pattern and the rarity of the weapons it carries, the Vortimer is both a rare and expensive vehicle to produce, not to mention an utterly secret weapon from the general public.

Because of its psycannons, the Vortimer could mulch Warp creatures into dog food, that includes and up to even greater daemons if the dice gods are in your favor. Hell, because it carries not one, but two psycannons, it could just as easily chew up light to medium vehicles as well. The Vortimer not doing enough in clearing out those pesky ethereal creatures from the Warp? No problem, you can just mount [[Rape|two heavy incinerator sponsons]] [[Cheese|for quadruple the fun.]] [[Troll|Watch and see]] [[Butthurt|Chaos players weep bitter tears]] as this machine proceeds to unload its cargo of holy retribution and cleanse their heretical armies into smoking cinders.

This vehicle was best seen during the Dawn of War 2 Elite Mod as the ultimate unit for the Grey Knights. Just as expected from the fluff, this thing was an [[Powergamer|overpowered train wreck,]] able to lay down massive suppressive fire whilst protecting its precious cargo of [[Mary Sue|Mary Sues]] to the frontlines. It would have been broken if it wasn't so damned expensive in an already expensive army.

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==={{anchor|Ares}} Ares Pattern (Chapter Approved)===
[[File:LandRaiderAres000.png|280px|thumb|right|The Ares is like the discount [[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank|Typhon.]]]]
Decides to say ''"Fuck that shit"'' regarding transporting and seeks to become the most destructive linebreaker around, trying to eclipse even the dreaded [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ Demolisher]] and [[Vindicator]]. No transport capability, and costs about 50 points more than the standard Land Raider, but you get what you pay for; Twin-Linked Heavy Flamer Sponsons, Twin-Linked Assault Cannons and a fucking ''Demolisher Cannon'' make this thing filthy rape to anything with the misfortune of getting anywhere near it. This tank lacks tactical flexibility, as none of its weapons has a range of more than 24"(although due to power of the machine spirit its demolisher cannon actually has a threat range of 36"), but what it lacks in versatility it more than makes up for in close-range balls-out power, it concentrates on applying overwhelming fire-power to a single point in the enemy battle line. If your opponents weren't shitting bricks trying to kill/escape your Vindicators, they most assuredly will at the sight of this fucking thing. Tyranid players tend to weep tears of blood, piss themselves, and crap their pants all at the same time when these show up. Now if only Chaos had them so we could toss on a Havoc Launcher and make it possessed. Now that would be the ''ultimate'' blob destroyer.

Basically, blow a hole in the enemy’s attempt to stop you, roll into it and spew fire and bullets until everything is dead. Rinse, repeat, lulz.

With the release of the Typhon you could spend fifty more points to get two more hull points and upgrade your gun to 7" blast Ignores Cover, but with the Ares people might actually play you.

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=== {{anchor|Terminus Ultra}} Terminus Ultra Pattern ===
[[File:Terminus.jpg|280px|thumb||right|Shouting "420 BLAZE IT!" or "IMMA' FIRIN MA LASER!" will be met with disciplinary action.]]
Now available as a free upgrade for a Land Raider formation in Apocalypse, but only as the exclusive ride of [[Antaro Chronus]]. The Yang to the Ares's Yin, and the second of the ''"[[Commissar Fuklaw|fuck transporting]]!"'' Land Raiders, which lack transport capability and anything resembling subtlety, the Terminus Ultra is designed as a dedicated vehicle-killer, armed with a hilariously over-the-top three twin-linked Lascannons and two single lascannons, the Terminus Ultra can overheat and explode if it fires the bulk of its Lascannon payload ''(you should know however, that the chances of this happening are tiny, you need to roll FOUR 1's when rolling to hit, or 1 in 1296)''.

Known for making Vehicle units shit bricks, and for destroying [[Titan]]s on its own. Beam spam and Shoop Da whoop indeed. There aren't many other vehicles that are better at the role of tank destroyer than this. Plop these in a nice easily defended spot where your enemy will have to bring his vehicles, super-heavy vehicles, high value HQ units, monstrous creatures, and gargantuan through and turn their most valuable units into swiss cheese. Make a note, however, that it's generally inefficient for the role, is a huge target and becomes 100% useless if facing blob armies of any sort - fight accordingly.

It made it's way into the offical Index as of 8th, though still exclusively for the Ultramarines and as Lord of War for no clearly defined reason. It's chance of blowing itself up has increased now that's firing 8 lascannons a turn, but it's far less likely to kill itself when doing so, and keeping a captain or rhino primaris nearby can mitigate that risk. While inferior to other LoWs in regards to raw firepower (the fellblade can match it's number of shots and packs more firepower on top of that, with no risk of blowing itself up), the Terminus stands out with it's lower cost and ability to fire at 5 separate targets every round. As of Chapter Approved 2017, the Terminus Ultra is now available to chapters other than Ultramarines as well - but only in open play!

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==={{anchor|Achilles}} Achilles Pattern (Forge World)===
[[File:Achilles_Pattern.jpg|280px|right|thumb|It's like [[Rogal Dorn]] thinking to himself, "Hmmmm...fortifying a Land Raider? Challenge accepted."]]
The Achilles Pattern is the most heavily armored Land Raider, and was originally-created by the Imperial Fists. The Achilles Pattern is a giant derpy hunk of metal, bristling with guns and designed to get in close, firing off heavy firepower before discharging its payload of troops right into enemy formations. In other words, it is exactly the sort of thing that comes to mind when you hear the words "land raider". Its armor is impervious to the Lance and Melta special rules and most other weapons suffer a -1 on armor penetration rolls (essentially its armor is the same as a Necron Monolith's prior to the 5th Edition codex, it's just that the rules are given different names). The only things killing it are heavy-bore anti-vehicle weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher outside of lucky shots with high-strength armor-piercing weapons, like a Baneblade or Terminus Ultra firing all of its weapons (thus using the law of averages to help in its attempt to pierce the armor), or anti-vehicle Titan guns (like those used by a Shadowsword or like the epic beamspam that can be unleashed by a Reaver or Warhound dual wielding Turbo-laser Destructors), or some weird shit like haywire, gauss, entropic touch and so on (because xenos are dirty cheaters). It mounts a devastating [[Thunderfire Cannon]] (which is a massive quad-barreled mortar that can cause several flavors of infantry death) and twin-linked Multi-Melta sponsons, but it carries only 6 people (that means only three termies), have no assault ramp and costs more than Ares and Terminus Ultra - generally those 6 places are for techmarine and his servitor retinue, or for command squad loaded with Plasmaguns. The earlier Achilles Alpha prototype swapped the Thunderfire Cannon for a Quad Mortar and was equipped with twin-linked Volkite Culverins as sponson weapons. The Achilles Alpha also had even ''more'' absurd armor, and if also given Ceramite or Extra Armor on top of that, was functionally invulnerable to damage. No, we are not kidding, it could only be really threatened by anti-titan weapons or a heavy artillery weapon that could deliver a massive kinetic impact like a quake cannon.

Chaos Space Marines recently got access to this version of Land Raider as well through [[Imperial Armour]] volume 13. Along with access to all the typical upgrades for Chaos Space Marine vehicles, the Chaos Achilles swaps out the Thunderfire Cannon for a Quad Mortar, which is weaker and less capable of penetrating armor but compensates with the Pinning rule- and as a bonus, its pinning tests are made with a -1 penalty. On top of that, the Quad Mortar's Strength, AP, and Pinning test penalty all increase as the Chaos Achilles loses hull points, making it more and more deadly as it takes damage. This is of course assuming it isn't killed in one turn like most vehicles do in the current meta when they draw the ire of the nearest D-strength weapon. God fucking damn it.

As of 8th, it's gotten far nastier, with a pair of heavy 2 multimeltas and the quad launcher now has access to shatter shells, a set of short range shots with [[Rape|performance similar to battle cannon shells]]. It's armor has received the same buff, as it's previous collection of special rules have been removed and replaced with a blanket [[Awesome|4+ invul save]].

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==={{anchor|Helios}} Helios Pattern (Forge World)===
[[File:Helios4dwje6q4no3.jpg|280px|right|thumb|The [[Whirlwind|Whirlwind's]] bigger and badder brother.]]
The Helios Pattern Land Raider is designed for fire support, replacing the usual [[Heavy Bolter]]s with a pair of twin-linked [[Lascannon]]s and sacrificing ten transport spaces for a missile battery from a [[Whirlwind]]. This allows it to provide heavy fire support at long ranges and with minimal opportunities for retaliation, though it's quite points-intensive for what it does, whilst the Achilles does it better. If you do use one, be sure to employ it with a [[shooty]] force that can actually use the damned thing, like a Devastator Squad.

It was originally designed by the [[Red Scorpions]], [[Derp|who didn't trust the Imperial Guard to provide them with artillery support]] ([[Basilisk|which the IG are the absolute masters of]]). Of course, this means that you're probably going to use it as an artillery tank, meaning you still have transport space. And a lot of armor. That will probably go to waste because you didn't just get a Whirlwind instead. It also has the option of taking an anti-air [[Whirlwind#Hyperios|Hyperios]] launcher, just in case you just want to equally pepper the skies in flak and falling plane bits hitting the ground at full speed. Although in terms of pound-per-points cost, it is still more efficient to just get a couple of Hyperios Missile Launchers themselves to fit the bill rather than wasting the points to put on a fucking Land Raider. Well, sort of. The purpose of the anti-air missiles would be that you use the land raider like normal but it can defend itself and its troops from air threats whereas the artillery missiles can be used to support the disembarked infantry even while operating like a normal land raider. It works on paper but games have rules and stuff real warfare doesn't.

It lost the Hyperios launcher in 8th, but it's missiles were reworked to be a decent combination of the whirlwind's two missile types and the buff to twin linked weapons upped it's firepower considerably. It's now effectively a combination of the predator annihilator and the whirlwind, but with 2+ armor, T8, and transport capability, all for only a small increase in the point cost over a predator and whirlwind. If you want a fun toy for your command squad, or have the points for more heavy support units and not the slots, the Helios is a worthwhile choice. Bombard the enemy, then advance into them and pretend to be a vanilla raider, dump troops, bombard other enemies while your dudes assrape. Continue.

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==={{anchor|Prometheus}} Prometheus Pattern (Forge World)===
[[File:RaiderPrometheus.jpg|280px|thumb|right|A [[Ultramarines|Smurf]] Land Raider Prometheus. It's like staring at an open cesspool.]]
20 points more than a standard Land Raider, this variant loses a few transport spaces (it has 10, so no IC with your terminators) for two quad Heavy Bolters (because FUCK hordes) and some interesting abilities: you get to subtract one from your enemy's cover save (because fuck hordes, again) and you also get to choose whether or not to add 1 to your reserve rolls. Essentially, you get to choose whether or not something comes in if you roll a 2. Not bad, does its job fairly well. It's the only Land Raider that can't penetrate the armour of another Land Raider, so keep it away from tanks.

In fluffy terms, [[Skub|there has been some debates on the true exact origins of this particular Land Raider.]] The exact origins of the 'Prometheus' pattern Land Raider remains a mystery. Some Tech-adepts believe it to be a variant of the 'Tartarus' pattern Land Raider, due to the striking similarities between the two. Although no clear evidence has been found to support this claim there is at least one archival report that depicts the vehicle, or else one that closely resembles it, that fought on the side of the Loyalists during the early period of the [[Horus Heresy]]. Others believe that it was the Salamanders which first produced it as they retain more Prometheus models, than any other Chapter and because they are often the go-to guys for 'super ornate shit with vague origins' (strangely however, the Salamanders deny this claim which is completely out of character... [[Alpha Legion|unless]]...). In any case, the number of Chapters which do have a Prometheus within their Armories is unknown. For example, the White Scars only have four of these Land Raiders. There is even another version that the origins of 'Prometheus' where in fact founded by the Landites - followers of the famous Arkhan Land.

In 8th, it remains largely similar to its 7th edition version. It's guns now [[Awesome|ignore cover entirely]], and the buff to reserve rolls has been changed to make one stratagem you use cost one fewer command point (to a minimum of one), so long as your warlord is embarked inside. This tank offers a lot of tactical choices now, such as the choice between using your warlord as the beatstick he most likely is, and keeping him inside the tank to buff the army.

{{clear}}

==={{anchor|Proteus}} Proteus Pattern (Forge World)===
[[File:LandRaiderProteus.png|280px|right|thumb|The Proteus which is a Land Raider equivalent of [[Old Man Henderson]].]]
The Proteus pattern is the latest in the long line-up of Forge World turning its sucky job of covering for GW's old models and fluff into a glorious winblob of [[Awesome]]. This is the old, goofy-looking [[Rogue Trader]] Raider, all grown up. Barely even considered a Land Raider, it doesn't even use the same Phobos-pattern chassis as all of the other Land Raiders do. This thing is so old that [[Eldar]] consider it old. This thing is so old it was a mysterious, time-shrouded relic when the [[Horus Heresy]] took place; i.e. the time from whence on all things made before that moment were mysterious, time-shrouded relics. This self-contained vehicle was supposedly used as a universal Main Battle Tank during humanity's first expansion, similar to the Leman Russ or Predator today; which just goes to show you how awesome things were back during the Dark Age of Technology. It was designed to combat all kinds of new and evolving enemies, as well as do exploratory recon work on unexplored worlds. This implies Proteus tanks not made by them Imperium might be around twenty to thirty thousand years old as of the forty-first millennium.

Oh, and it was the main battle tank of the Imperial Guard in the First Edition days. Yes, you read that correctly. Instead of the Leman Russ, you used a Dark Age ''Land Raider''.

So, on the wargame side of things, this thing is the metal-est box on the battlefield. It works like a normal Raider, with the option to switch out the Lascannons for Heavy Bolters or Heavy Flamers. But now, it gets the Scout rule, it can screw with enemy reserves rolling or buff your own rolls, it can get the Achilles' anti-melta armor (but not the anti-Lance), and no Infiltrators can get within 24" of it. You can get a pintle-mounted Multi-Melta, Heavy Bolter, or Storm Bolter. But that isn't the best part. The best part is that Chaos gets it too. Finally, the [[Chaos Space Marines]] get to [[meme|FIRE THEIR LAZORZ]] at multiple targets! And, Chaos gets to put on a pintle-mounted Havoc Launcher on top (so do loyal space marines as well if used in Horus Heresy and time span after that). And that thing is right next to the twin-linked Bolter, Heavy Bolter, or Multimelta we can put it too! The only downside to the Proteus is that it only has an 8 model transport capacity (assuming you take the Explorator Augury Web or the Ark of Unnameable Horror described below) due to its role as a universal tank, not a dedicated infantry ferry/weaponspam platform. It also lacks the frontal assault ramp and the Assault Vehicle rule, so don't even think about using this to drop termies. Loyalists should use it like a spearhead linebreaker, systematically killing tanks while screwing with reserves, and to safely transport some plasma gunners to rapid fire range.

The Chaos version doesn't get to use the Explorator Augury Web; instead, it gets Fear and a nasty toy called the Ark of Unnameable Horror. Whatever is in it is so horrible that anyone shooting at it has to take a pinning test before they attack- failing the test means the shooter must forfeit their attack and go to ground immediately. Although artillery, Fearless units, and units with no Ld score are exempt from this effect, it gives the Chaos Proteus an extra degree of protection against shooty foes, encouraging them to be used in a far more aggressive manner than their Loyalist counterparts. Of course, using it to ferry a few Havocs or Chosen to where they need to be is a good idea as well.

{{clear}}

===Excelsior Pattern (Warhammer World exclusive)===
[[File:Space-Marine-Land-Raider-Exelsior-Command-Tank.jpg|280px|thumb|right|The Land Raider Exelsior. For when you both need to lead and destroy.]]
An extremely limited edition Land Raider.

The Excelsior is a command vehicle, equipped with augur and communications arrays to effectively deliver orders on the battlefield. Due to the equipment and weapons it carries, it is quite the rare piece of tech to field.

A newly announced variant of Land Raider described as a command tank, the ridiculously named Excelsior, (which means "high" so, highest landraider) has the Phobos' Lascannon sponsons but replaces the hull Heavy Bolters with a [[Grav-Weaponry|Grav-Cannon and Grav-Amp]], and it can take a Combi-Plasma as a pintle-mounted weapon instead of the standard Storm Bolter. Basically a Rhino Primaris on too much hormonal growth, if anything it pairs quite well with the Rhino.

It comes with a 6++ invulnerable save and built-in immunity to Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned, but that's not its main draw. That would be its Tactical Authority rule- at the start of each shooting phase, any model of the same faction as the Excelsior within 12" (18" with the right upgrade) gets their choice of Counter-Attack, Fearless, Hit and Run, Interceptor, Skyfire, Preferred Enemy, and Tank Hunters. Finally, it gains an extra +1 BS as long as it's within 24" of a [[Rhino|Rhino Primaris]].

{{clear}}

===Wrath of Mjalnar Pattern (Chapter Approved, only for Open Play)===
[[File:LRMjalnar.jpg|280px|thumb|right|The Wrath of Mjalnar. A more practical way to mount a freeze-ray in contrast to the [[Stormfang|flying cargo container.]]]]
Because of course the [[Space Wolves|Furries]] need another special vehicle to suit their [[Mary Sue|special snowflake needs.]]

The Land Raider Wrath of Mjalnar is a variant of the Land Raider, that was created by the Space Wolves Chapter. What makes it unique among normal Land Raider is its main armaments, which are twin [[Helfrost Weaponry|Helfrost Cannons]] and two twin Lascannons. Whilst the Lascannons are pretty standards, the introduction of not one but two Helfrost Cannons makes it a pretty special looking Land Raider. How the Yiffers manage to do such unsanctioned modification without starting a war with the Mechanicus for [[Heresy|obvious reasons]] is unknown. Although it could be explain via the aftermath of the First War for Armageddon and the Cold War between the Wolves and the Inquisition.

Anyways, because of its Helfrost weapons, the Wrath of Mjalnar is a dedicated anti-tank vehicle as the Helfrost Cannons instantly turn the strongest of armor into brittle and immobile targets for the ensuing Lascannon fire. These makes the likes of Superheavies and even light skimmers vulnerable to these payloads.

Unfortunately, the introduction of these weapons makes this specific Land Raider to lose its transportation capability. Being able to only have a transport capacity of 5. Would still make a nice pimpmobile for a kitted out Wolf Lord and small retinue or Rune Priest to buff it.

{{Clear}}

===Solemnus Aggressor Pattern (Chapter Approved, only for Open Play)===
[[File:LRAggressor.jpg|280px|right|thumb|The Solemnus Aggressor, making the Land Raider Prometheus feel useless for 1,000 years and counting.]]
Think Land Raider Crusader on steroids.

The [[Dark Angels|brooding, secretive organization]] saw the [[Heresy|heretical]] things the Space Wolves were doing with their Land Raiders and decided their 'friendly' rivalry will not be concluded in the Furries' favor. Not to be outdone, the Dark Angels released their own version of the Land Raider to one-up them in a show of [[Lulz|absolute hilarity.]] The Solemnus Aggressor is born.

It is not known whether this thing was a relic discovered and kept by the Dark Angels or a piece of tech-heresy that will rile up even the most tightly screwed pants of a Mechanicum Magos. What is known is that this thing is every blob and tarpit armies worst nightmare (The Blood Angel's Angel Infernus is [[Skub|arguably/maybe better]]). Why is it so rapetastic? Well, because this monster packs quite the punch. Its main armaments are twin Assault Cannons, two Heavy bolters and two Hurricane bolters, which gives the Solemnus Aggressor the firepower to shatter an infantry advance in a single volley.

Seriously, [[Dakka|16 guns on almost all sides.]] I don't care how many [[Termagaunt|Termagaunts]] you have, they're all gonna turn into mince meat on the first turn.

{{clear}}

===Angel Infernus Pattern (Chapter Approved, only for Open Play)===
[[File:LRInfernus.jpg|280px|right|thumb|If you are not wearing fully enclosed ceramite armor that is at minimum, 15 centimeters thick. Consider yourself quite boned.]]
The close range assault dakka to the Solemnus Aggressor's long range assault dakka. It's every [[Sisters of Battle|Sister's]] wet dream (not personally involving [[Sanguinius]] that is) come true and a vehicle that would be more appropriate with the [[Salamanders]] than the [[Blood Angels]].

Like the Solemnus Aggressor, it is not known whether this thing was a relic discovered and kept by the Blood Angels on Baal's somewhat heretical underground tech caves. But what is ''definitely'' known is that this Land Raider focuses mainly on flamers. Kind of a reverse Wrath of Mjalnar if you count the twin-linked Helfrost cannon as a reverse flamer (Helfrost is really more like a reverse volkite). Its armament is the perfect ingredient in cooking blob armies to medium rare.

Its main armaments are twin Assault Cannons, two Heavy Flamers and two Flamestorm Cannons as well as a pintle-mounted Multi-Melta just to be sure. Essentially, 8 barrels of '''Hell'''. These weapons allow the Angel Infernus to unleash firestorms so intense, that even the most dug-in defenders are reduced to ashes in a heartbeat, Tarpitters would melt ''literally''. It is gobsmacking that the Blood Angels did not use more of these during the Devastation of Baal fiasco.

{{clear}}

===Hades Diabolus Pattern (Chapter Approved, only for Open Play)===
[[File:Hades_Diabolus_White_Metal_Games.JPG|280px|right|thumb|A Hades Diabolus, all pimped out the way [[Failbaddon]] likes it. Model courtesy of White Metal Games.[//www.whitemetalgames.com/product/hellforged-landraider-hades-diabolus/]]]
A Chaos only Land Raider variant, equipped with a hull mounted Reaper Autocannon, Sponson Twin Lascannons and Sponson Heavy Bolters. Created and used by the [[Black Legion]] during the Fall of Cadia to turn Cadians Infantry and Tanks into chunks, and it started gaining popularity within the Chaos Marines forces ever since. Compared with the other Chapter Approved special Land Raiders, this one is the most balanced of the lot.

Just as some of the loyalist Space Marine Chapters have adapted their Land Raiders to suit their particular styles of warfare, so some especially well-resourced or innovative Heretic Astartes factions have done the same. Perhaps the most enduring traitor Land Raider variant so far recorded is the Hades Diabolus, which was developed by the [[Black Legion]].

On tabletop, the Hades Diabolus is the 'Make-A-Raider' rule exclusive to Open Play that allows you to pimp yo big spiky ride (almost) as you see fit. The example given in Chapter Approved 2017 shifts its Twin Heavy Bolter onto extra sponsons in order to instead mount a Reaper Autocannon, making it slightly more shooty at the cost of 5 transport capacity. Yes, you can make a legit Chaos Terminus Ultra with this rule. No, you can't bring it to a normal game. [[Fail|Figures.]]

Due to its custom nature, there is no 'official model' of this Land Raider. However, multiple fan made models of the Hades Diabolus has made its way on to tabletop.

===Anvilarum Pattern===
An obscure pattern of Land Raider only mentioned offhand in one of the Black Library novels. Its weapon loadout is unknown, but it is said to have been open-topped, uplink-modified, and capable of carrying [[Dreadnought]]s into battle. It is said they were made in rememberance of ancient Terra's chariots. Imagine a tank being ridden by another tank. That is about the level of [[rape]] to be expected if it ever gets a model.

==={{anchor|Variants}} [[Looted]] Land Raider===
[[File:Looted_Land_Raider_Battlewagon.jpg|280px|thumb|right|OI! WE'Z GOT DA MOST DAKKA TANK FROM DA UMIES BOSS!]]
Every once in a while, an [[Ork]] [[Looted|gets it into his head]] to [[Blood Ravens|capture, rather than blow up, a Land Raider]], or [[Adeptus Mechanicus|salvage one from a bombed-out husk]]. Once the thing's been made suitably [[Ork]]y, it makes for a great Battlewagon, and though most Orks extensively modify the design until little of the vehicle's original shape remains, a few enterprising Orks like the boxy design of the Land Raider, and modify their vehicle accordingly. [[Counts As|Though it can no longer be considered a true Land Raider]] due to the various modifications the Orks have made to it, it's still killy and flash.

Certain ambitious/filthy rich Orks can also turn the Land Raider into a supped up [[Battlefortress]]. They just replaced the main cargo transport capacity and use that empty space to mount a [[Dakka|giant fucking gun on the top.]] It is also noted that such Land Raiders are converted into the Rokkitspitta variant of the Battlefortress or the anti-air Flakk Battlefortress. The amount of things you can mount on a empty troop compartment bay is endless

Just don't expect its [[Machine Spirit]] [[Rage|to go too swimmingly well with its new makeover.]] Chances of malfunctioning and exploding: Too damned high for the cost, but it's always good for a larf.

{{clear}}

===Grav-Raider===
While it's never gotten a model, the existence of a Land Raider even larger than a [[Spartan Assault Tank]] fitted with anti-gravitic plates that allowed it to function as a skimmer has been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels. Quite notably, Arkham Land used one as his personal transport (the appropriately named ''Land's Raider''), which was equipped with a turret-mounted [[Volkite Weaponry|quad- Volkite Caliver]] array. Incidentally, this also makes it the only known model of Land Raider with a turret-mounted weapon. Not to be confused with the [[Repulsor Tank]].

The [[Dark Angels]] also had their own Grav-Raider named Galatine (GW really can't resist King Authur shoutouts when it comes to the First Legion). Which was the personal ride of the Voted Lieutenant of the [[Deathwing]] during the [[Great Crusade|good old days]] and [[Horus Heresy|Horus's temper tantrum]].

==External Links==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvdD50nSISs Forge World talks about the history of the vehicle]
* [http://www.chamber42.com/files/datasheets/Ares/Archive/Ares_Final_4th_ED.pdf Original 4th Edition Land Raider Ares Datasheet from the original creator]
* [http://chamber42.com/blog/archives/251 Updated 8th Edition Land Raider Ares Datasheet from the original creator]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
image:99590101236 ArmouredProteusLandRaider02.jpg|<center>Armoured Proteus Variant</center>
Image:ChaosRaider.jpg|A [[Chaos]] Land Raider, impressively modded.
File:Party Raider.jpg|Another modded out Chaos Land Raider, belonging to the [[Emperor's Children]]. It functions as an assault transport and mobile crack party.
Image:RaiderCrusader.jpg|A [[Ultramarines|Smurf]] Land Raider Crusader. This design originated with the [[Black Templars]].
Image:RaiderRedeemer.jpg|A Land Raider Redeemer, widely known for being one of the only things that can scare Tyranids.
Image:RaiderAres.png|A [[Dark Angels]] Land Raider Ares
Image:TerminusUltra.jpg|A [[Salamanders]] Terminus Ultra, in all of its Las-cannony glory. (IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZORS!!!!!)
Image:RaiderAchilles.jpg|A [[Minotaurs]] Land Raider Achilles. Fielding one may inspire [[Rage|fury]].
Image:RaiderHelios.jpg|A [[Space Wolves]] Land Raider Helios. Aim away from eyes and face.
Image:Looted_Land_Raider.jpg|WE'Z GOT DA BEST [[METAL BOXES|BOX]] ON DA FIELD!
</gallery>

{{40k-Imperial-Vehicles}}
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!colspan=1| Adeptus Astartes!! Other Imperials!! Chaos
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{{Marines-Forces}}
{{Blood Angels}}
{{Dark Angels}}
{{Deathwatch}}
{{Grey Knights}}
{{Space Wolves}}
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{{Custodes}}
{{Mechanicus}}
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{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{Death Guard}}
{{Thousand Sons}}
{{Emperor's Children}}
|}

XCOM

2020-05-14T20:06:32Z

2600:6C58:637F:E506:B410:1EC3:A3A4:59AD: /* XCOM: Chimera Squad */

{{/vg/}}
{{Oldschool}}

[[Image:Xcom_2.png|thumb|right|]]

This is a [[Dan Abnett|rare treat]]. '''X-COM''', or as it's called across the pond, ''UFO: Enemy Unknown'' (It was released as XCOM in North America, it was ''UFO: Enemy Unknown'' literally everywhere else) is a turn-based strategy game that is, to put it simply, about as close to a game of [[Dark Heresy]] as one can get in isometric 3D. Note that X-COM is significantly older than [[Dark Heresy]], and older than all but the first edition of [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]], so it'd be better to say [[Dark Heresy]] is a lot like X-COM on the tabletop. Dating back to the much-lamented Microprose, it set a gold standard for atmosphere and playability that has, frankly, not been breached in ages.

The game is [[Dwarf Fortress|old as balls]] and in isometric view, which, paired with the Dark Heresy similarities, makes it more /tg/ material than /v/.

==A General Gist==

A general synopsis is that in [[grimdark|the not-so-distant future, there is war - and aliens]]. Aliens are arriving, and they are most assuredly hostile. It falls upon the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, or the eponymous X-COM, a multi-national task-force, to deal with the invasion by blasting the fuck out of the Aliens, stealing their shit, researching their technology, and using it to fucking kill them off, all the while fighting off terror attacks and trying to figure out where in Uranus these fucking things are coming from (as it turns out, from Mars, and if you win, the final mission involves you going to Mars and dropping an [[Exterminatus]] on their asses).

It kicked ass. It was good enough to spawn a sequel, ''Terror From The Deep'', which was basically the same game, but underwater and infinitely harder with a direct nod to Call of Cthulhu. Story-wise, the destruction of the Martian base activated a fail-safe in the aliens' system that woke up T'leth (not R'lyeh, but you get the point), their 'secondary' (and mobile) base buried deep under the seas of Earth, ran by a "Sleeping, Gigantic Alien In Coma That Can Manipulate Dreams" with an octopoid face, real subtle there. X-Com now again must protect the people while finding out about where exactly T'leth is and go in to blast it to smithereens with extreme prejudice. It was hard. Really hard. Not only do aliens have a major advantage technology-wise at the start and they tear through your recruits with impunity, but later in the game when you catch up they start using a nasty trick to take control of your troopers, leading to sometimes hilarious and [[rage|extreme rage-inducing]] turn one [[TPK]]s as your heavy weapon trooper gets controlled and fires his heavy weapon inside the transport while the team is busy disembarking. Oh, and did we mention that the only way to research the best armour in the game was to capture a live specimen of a rarely-appearing alien? And that to capture a live specimen you had to send a poor redshirt in armed with an oversized cattleprod to stun it in close quarters? And that said alien was [[rip and tear|able to tear a human apart effortlessly]] in close quarters? And (as if all that wasn't bad enough already), that the poor redshirt then had to pick up and to carry the damn unconscious thing back to the human ship praying [[rape|that the specimen didn't wake up with a grudge before he got there and the mission ended]]? Yeah, it was kinda like that. And the final level had THREE unsaveable separate levels full of extreme ambush points that had to be completed with no failure, a textbook example of "oldschool gaming".

It then spawned a second, easier, somewhat different but still appreciated sequel, ''X-Com Apocalypse''. The destruction of T'leth had a heavy price: when it rose above the clouds, it was self-destructed, killed the whole boarding team and fucked up Earth's biosphere. Humanity retreated to quickly built mega-arcologies to survive, the first among them being Mega-Primus built on the ruins of Toronto. One day, tetrahedral bright gates appear 24/7 in the city's skyline, and spews UFO's; and [[Meme|aw shit, here we go again]]. This time, X-COM, this time being a corporation, can keep existing even when the government hates you if the player is hideously rich. The Aliens' Homeworld, a separate pocket universe behind a black hole can be attacked infinitely, even after failures. The questline is more or less the same: down a UFO, research 3 alien aeronautics technologies, reverse engineer some prototype and strike back. Unlike the two first game, there's a bigger political aspect to things as you have not only to make sure you deal with the damn aliens coming to fuck your shit up, but remain best buds with the other humans while doing so, or risk denial of public and material services(no free travel if Transtellar is mad, and Megapol, the police corporation won't sell you guns or vehicles). It tried to blend Turn-Based & Real-Time strategy into one so you could play it at the speed you wanted, and even attack other human factions for loot and in the case of Cultists, a public service. All in all, a decent and ambitious, if not overwhelmingly good game (mostly because a ton of content was cut before release). Basically this time it was one [[Cyberpunk]] city against extradimensional aliens, though the equipment from the first two games gave the player (and humanity) a far greater headstart and replicating alien equipment is nanotechnologically done and doesn't need trophy materials but money.

Then Microprose was bought by [[Hasbro|that which must never be named]], who proceeded to nose-dive the IP with games like [[Shit Twinkie|X-COM: Interceptor]] and [[Fail|X-COM: Enforcer]]. At least Interceptor had a decent backstory and for those with a good eye, explained where the aliens in ''X-Com Apocalypse'' came from and what happened after X-Com 2. X-COM: Enforcer was little more than a horribly cheap third person shooter fit for 90's arcades.

Fucking [[RAGE|Hasbro]].

Anyway. Combat is a lot like Dark Heresy's in that it's exceedingly lethal; at the game's outset, you have no armor beyond jumpsuits with Kevlar stuffed into them, and your firearms are the best and most powerful weaponry that chemical propelled explosives can provide only moderately capable against alien forces (though quite diverse). In order to properly take these fucking things on anything remotely resembling their own terms, you need upgrades. Upgrades come through research, and research comes by shooting down UFOs, landing a ground assault, killing the surviving aliens, and stripping the UFO like the [[Blood Ravens]] do other chapters' shiny bits. Once brought back to base, your researchers can look into what makes the alien's gear work, research your own weapons and tech, and develop technologies to help in the fight against the Aliens. Eventually, you can load your forces up with [[Space Marine|Power-armored bad-asses]], but starting out, your forces are fragile, and fighting smart is ''vital''. You ''will'' suffer casualties early on - guaranteed - but such is war, and you must press on, allowing the survivors to grow into [[Colonel Greiss|manly badasses]].

The Aliens in the first two and the Interceptor prequel are a diverse bunch led by some creepy floating cloaked faggots, ranging from the rank-and-file Sectoids (conventional "gray" aliens), to Chryssalids (horrifying abominations that inject targets with eggs that turn them into mindless drones which will explosively birth new Chryssalids thereafter, think Xenomorph meets Genestealer). Their entertainment is neural stimulation implants which trigger exact effects of LSD, and they simply harvest anything and anyone and puree them alive before injecting into their bloodstream when hungry. Nightmare fuel = YES. The game manages to be exceedingly creepy for one so simple, and is one of many reasons that X-COM works so well. Better yet, the sequel has Al

==Tales of Heroism==

In accordance with /tg/'s love of war stories about [[your dudes]], several examples of awesome have been compiled:

''Instant'' death doesn't ''always'' happen. Occasionally, one Rookie will be touched by God and succeed against all odds. After that, he will die horribly. [[Just as Planned]].

X-COM agent of note: [[Marc Lecointe]]. Lecointe survived numerous missions, got the highest kill count on most missions, killed a Snakemen leader and his bodyguards (despite losing over half the squad), and got shot in the face and back with plasma and lived. He eventually was hit with return fire in an alley and began bleeding. He returned fire and killed the Snakeman, but bled to death before help could arrive. Lacointe lives on in our hearts.

Another agent of note is Gristle McThornbody, a Rocket-Toting Team-Killing asshole who refuses to die OR be mind-controlled. He's so badass, that even when he has 85% or more to hit on a 2x2 alien, he'll still hit the wall twenty tiles to the left.

== New Stuff and Things ==
According to things [[/v/]] likes to watch on the Internet, a new X-Com game is in the pipes, set to be made in the gameplay and spirit of the old games, with new graphics and updated for the new generation of gamers to be introduced into the X-Com game style. It lost the dash along the way someplace, and got re-named ''XCOM: Enemy Unknown''. This new game, which has spawned joy boners in many on /v/ and /tg/ alike, is believed to stem from the utter, burning [[RAGE|fury]] that was originally spawned from 2K's simply-titled ''XCOM'' game, which, near as we can tell, is an FPS that takes place in the 1960s and has exactly ''nothing'' to do with the actual X-COM franchise. Seriously, don't look into 2K's game if you're a fan of the series on any level - it will cause veterans to spontaneously transform into [[Angry Marines]] and/or [[Khorne|Khornate Berserkers]]. Apparently, those in charge had the wherewithal to note that if they didn't make a ''proper'' X-COM game, [[/tg/]] (and by extension, [[/v/]]) would [[Anal Circumference|leave their asshole in ruins]]. They even went ahead to declare the two games take place in separate universes. If only [[Games Workshop]] had [[Matt Ward|that much sense]]...

== XCOM: Enemy Unknown by Firaxis ==
[[File:XCOMGameplay.jpg|200px|thumb|An in-game screenshot of the new game.]]
And Firaxis came to the rescue, promising to return to the roots of XCOM (note the lack of a hyphen this time around, although the logo ''does'' have a horizontal stripe taken out of the "COM"). Since Firaxis has a lot of ex-MicroProse people, a lot of them have had to do with the original as well, and the original musical score will make a return. Although it's changed a few things to avoid hurting the brains of [[/v/|delicate little console kiddies]] like removing time units, removing ballistic simulation, cutting down on your maximum amount of squad members (4 at the start and 6 maximum) and limiting us to one base (though each base location gives its own unique bonus), it still somehow manages to be a good game in its own right. If the original X-COM is like Mordheim, then XCOM is like Space Hulk: massively simplified and more heavily dependent on the luck of the die, but with less micromanagement and long-term planning required.

If you haven't bought the game and you're a TBS fan, everyone in /tg/ that isn't [[That guy]], would highly recommend you give it a whirl at the modest price of <strike>
$39.99 </strike> $16.49 for all the good remade XCOM games because of our father Gabe Newell on PC,
still is 39.99 for console/Non-Steam or $9.99 on mobile/tablet devices. Like always, we have footage for vidyas: https://youtu.be/qDhuZ4b51hA https://youtu.be/-SKoS5BYVuY https://youtu.be/bxuzLyR-000

===XCOM: Enemy Within===
[[File:MectoidMEC.jpg|200px|thumb|Did we mention melee combat with exosuits?]]
''Enemy Within'' is an expansion pack (and unlike most "horse armor" tier DLCs with the name this one actually deserves it) that completely re-defines how the game progresses, compared to the original one. The game's story still progresses like the original game, but expands on it for a more entertaining experience.

It adds the "meld" resource to the game, a type of alien organic/synthetic-hybrid nanomachine that allows you to unlock two powerful technologies: MEC and genetic modification. MEC allows your troops to interface with a Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit, a heavy exoskeleton that brings the heaviest of weapons to the field (Including the option for a powerfist equivalent called a "Kinetic Strike Module". Yes, make your own faux [[Terminator]] squad! Especially when the Tier-3 Paladin upgrade bulks up your suit's armor that you look vaguely similar to Termies.). Genetic modification allows you to augment your troops using data gathered from dissected aliens, making them killier than ever before. In fact, you can create your own equivalent of an Imperial [[Space Marine]] with the list of available modifications you can do (Two of these specific upgrades are a second heart and the ability of self-regeneration).

It also adds new aliens to the xenos' side, like a cloaking squid robot that chokes your troops to death and their own brand of exosuit troops. It also introduces another enemy into the game: EXALT. EXALT are a bunch of power-mad blokes who sees the alien's invasion as a way to gain power by adapting their technology for themselves, inching them closer to world domination. They see you as an obstacle and are determined to undermine your efforts to defeat the aliens by disrupting your operations through a number of ways and sowing panic amongst XCOM-member nations, generally making your already hectic life even more hectic. You must now defeat this new threat through a combination of [[Ork|cunning brutality and brutal cunning.]] They have most of your technologies to go toe-to-toe with you (Except for their own exosuits) and they are well hidden, so bringing them down won't be an easy affair.

=== XCOM 2 ===
[[File:People%27s_reaction_to_XCOM_2%27s_Vipers.png|200px|thumb|Turns out they ''are'' poison glands. Hee.]]
A direct-ish sequel to EU/EW, XCOM 2 seems to decide that what's canon is not: not "you killed all the aliens, now here's more aliens", but "you know that Impossible Ironman game you played for a laugh and got utterly stomped? That's the canon ending". (The utterly stomping part takes place in the base assault, and it is so bad that two of the most important things got taken: The Commander, and more importantly, central officer Bradford's sweater). The aliens won before humanity even got to laser weapons, taking over the world and unifying humanity (read: ruling over them in a pseudo-utopia "Brave New World"-style), and basically preparing to turn them into another of their slave races (not that most of humanity knows this).

XCOM refused to back down even after the Council of Nations ceased to exist and instead went underground, hijacking an alien supply ship to act as a mobile base for hit-and-run operations against the alien occupiers, in the hopes of toppling the ADVENT (the puppet government aliens've set up) and exposing the true purpose of their supposedly ideal society to the world. So they free the captured Commander (sadly the sweater seems to be shrunk in the wash) and it's guerilla warfare time.

This is where the first core gameplay mechanic differs from the previous entries in the franchise. Where before now you had to push forth inch by inch before getting jumped by sectoids and surprise sectopods lurking around corners, most missions start with your strike team in concealment, letting ''you'' get the jump on the aliens. Once you execute this initial ambush, however, it reverts back to the standard formula for the rest of the mission.

New features include:
The Assault class has been given a makeover to focus even more on [[Rip and Tear]], replacing the sidearm with a sword and changing title to the Ranger. The Sniper has been renamed the Sharpshooter and given a pistol-focused skill-tree-route that turns the soldier into Clint Eastwood (literally, like you can have a stand-off by firing 3 pistol-shots in the same turn). The Support class has been renamed the Specialist and been given a drone to hack, heal, shield and/or zap shit remotely. The Heavy has been given a nice grenade launcher to act as your cover-stomper, and been renamed the Grenadier. Psi-operatives are their own class now as well, and get hate-hair and [[Cadia|purple eyes]] because that makes sense and all psychically talented people look like neo-punks. Troops can be captured, and then rescued, which also reclaims any expensive gear they had on them (but it's never the captured troops you actually need back).
New enemies (without spoilers), including "human" ADVENT security troops (who really love to say "bitch" and pointing towards your soldiers) with magnetic weapons who look like humans till you get their armor off, sectoid-human hybrids with teeth, thumbs, and belly buttons (which can be really creepy if you '''really''' think about it), and Snake-women called Vipers (which is what the Thin Men actually look like without their disguises). Yes, there were snaketits on the thread that announced this to /tg/. No they are not actually tits, being venom glands. No /d/ did not care. Yes they have drawn porn of them. Yes, it will be added to the gallery. And yes...Chimera City confirmed Viper fetish as canon. Yes...There are viper bordellos are in the game.

Moving on.

XCOM 2 also contains an in depth explanation for the aliens' motives that many fans felt was lacking or too ambiguous in Enemy Within. Apparently, the Ethereals have some kind of fatal disease they can't cure, so they've been trekking around the galaxy culminating genes to form the ultimate bodies for themselves, while amassing a genetically supreme army. When the Ethereals found humanity, they found their genes to be so awesome and powerful that just adding some of them to a lowly sectoid turned it from a pathetic 3' tall creature you could kill with basic weapons, to an 8' tall psionic rape machine that could raise the dead and withstand salvos of bullets to the face. They then set up an alien government on Earth so they could discretely process humanity's best genetic material and slowly form new bodies for themselves that don't die called Avatars. And by don't die, we mean have copious amounts of health, teleport every time they're injured, regenerate like crazy, are guaranteed to successfully mind control anything, and are immune to any of your psychic status abilities(ie: panic, disorientation, and mind control, you can still annihilate them with psionic fire). And the boss fight involves killing three of these dick-butts and an endless wave of alien reinforcements. Using human DNA is also where their ADVENT troops came from, they grew armies of human spliced with unspecified aliens to act as their public face to the humans. But humanity wins anyway, because humans are just that fucking awesome.

The game is also notable for abandoning the usual conditions for losing. The norm for the series is for your funding to get cut if too many countries lose faith in XCOM. Since you're fighting a guerrilla war and your support are humans fighting to survive outside the aliens' control zones, that isn't happening. Instead you lose if the aliens complete the Avatar Project, their goal to mass produce the bodies for the Ethereals. If they do you get treated to a scene of almost all resistance being crushed because the Avatars are dangerous enough in small numbers and an army of them would unstoppable. You can slow progress, but can only stop it by finishing the game.

So far there have been recently four DLCs for XCOM 2. "Anarchy's Children" added new customization features for your soldiers, most of which you wouldn't ever really use. "Alien Hunters" adds a new mission, weapons, and alien rulers who you have to hunt down. The alien rulers get to take an action every, single, time, one of your soldiers does(this is changed in war of the chosen,because firaxis realized it was bullshit). This is even more infuriating then it sounds. Some more customization options are added too. "Shen's Last Gift" adds another mission and the SPARK class soldier. SPARKs are robots you have to make in the proving ground. War of the Chosen finally allows players to add modifications to their guns, gave them better aim and a health boost. So now they're worth taking. If your Grenadier is injured or has low morale. While their weapons are much larger and more powerful-looking than the other squad specialized weapons, they don't do more damage than the regular specialized weapons. This is stupid, as an auto-cannon would naturally do much more damage than a 7mm Gatling Gun. They are also prohibitively expensive so you have no choice to do the mission if you want one for cheap. Optional mods have improved their balance to outright making them a super unit if you wish.

And here comes the fun part; if you read the developers blog, their idea of "balance" is to actually nerf plenty of stuff...so the game is harder after having a buffed-up alien lord chase your dudes all over the game. Was old-school really this hard?

You think that's bad, the end game unlocks second wave options, like increasing all Health by 50%, having your guys get worse as they get injured, have their stats rolled at random, so you can make the game even HARDER! Because dying is ''fun''.

And finally, if you find yourself bored with the vanilla experience, XCOM 2 has a very healthy and active modding community adding anything from extra voice packs to full on reworks of the entire game akin to the famed Long War of the original game. Do you want Bob Ross to lead your squad to victory? Want to bring back weapons and MECs from the EU and EW? Your own custom [[Deathwatch]] kill team? The possibilities might not be ''endless'', but you can ensure no two games are ever the same. A warning though, due to how easy it is to create and add mods to your game, care should be taken when implementing them, [[rage|as conflicting or poorly made mods can crash the game or corrupt your saves.]] Additionally, unoptimized or script-heavy mods can make lower-spec computers run like absolute ass. Unreal Engine 3.5 has annoying stability issues as well. You read that correctly. [[Derp|It runs not on the latest version of Unreal Engine 4, but a modified version of Unreal Engine 3.]] [[Fail|Not even the DLCs or WOTC itself have fixed these issues]]. Even a high end gaming machine will experience game crashes due to the age of the engine. With a higher chance if one is running over 150+ mods. So care should be taken when concurrently running a large number of them. Damn it, Firaxis patch your damn game!

While most of the character customization mods introduced (like the Halo: Reach MJOLNIR armor, Mass Effect Turians/Asari/etc, Star Wars Clone Troopers n' such) are entirely cosmetic, one particular mod bears special mention for you elegan/tg/entlemen out there. Armors Of The Imperium is a Warhammer 40k mod that adds fully fledged Space Marine power armor into the game, including a standard set, an Assault variant, a Terminator variant, an Apothecary variant, a Techmarine variant and a Librarian variant. For the ladies in your army, they have access to the Sisters of Battle power armor alongside the Seraphim variant. These armors can be upgraded much like the standard armors ingame and offer significantly better protection than the vanilla equivalents (as you would expect), with the specialized armors offering additional benefits to their wearer. The customization available to your personal Space Marines is ridiculously expansive, allowing you to mix and match virtually any version of the armor from Mk. II through Mk. X and enough additional bits and bobs that'll make any kitbasher weep with envy. Combine this with the available voice packs, bolter and plasma weapon mods to create your very own personal Space Marines to defend holy terra in style!

====XCOM 2: War of the Chosen====

This brand new expansion gives us three new allies to aid us. It's actually more than large enough to be a game into itself.

*Reapers: Stealthy hunters who are armed with nothing but a rifle and explosives. It's enough. They wear [[Shadowrun|trench coats and gas masks]]. Have a special ability where they have a chance to not reveal themselves upon attacking. Enemies have vastly reduced detection ranges against Reapers, and Reapers can detonate explosives on the map without revealing themselves. They can also throw an environmental explosive. [[Dakka|They also have an ability that lets them shoot at an enemy until they run out of ammo.]] Long story short, these guys are only slightly less powerful than the Reapers from Mass Effect.

*Skirmishers: ADVENT defectors who are armed with a grappling hook that can pull them to a rooftop and pull themselves to the enemy or vice versa and at max level allows them to have the [[Awesome|alien rulers ability to gain action points every. Time. The. Enemy. Moves.]] Except it only works three times a turn, and doesn't trigger on non-move actions. [[fail|The game doesn't tell you this.]] Their Bullpups have lower range and damage over the standard rifle, but make up for it by being able to shoot multiple times a turn and being wielding by dudes using grappling hooks to zip between buildings like Spiderman. Despite the longer barrel would give it the same stats and longer range. Once again you need download a workshop mod to fix this.

*Templars: [[Grey Knights|A resistance group made of only psionics]] that wield psi blades and machine pistols, but you'll probably never use those. They're fast, hard to kill, and hit like a brick. And like any good psi-based unit, they can fry their enemies with lighting from their hands. They're like the [[rip and tear]] half of the Ranger, but with psionic powers. They have access to some rather obscene powers (like being able to teleport your allies and enemies across the map or summon lightning storms to disintegrate several enemies at once), but this is tempered by them needing to build up Psionic Focus by killing enemies in melee in order to use them. They're also fantastically hammy and roll their Rs.

But these new allies come with a catch as you now have to fight the titular chosen who can adapt to your soldiers' abilities with their own strengths and weaknesses, and the Lost ([[tarpit|zombie swarms]]) that attack both you and ADVENT. Along with these new allies and enemies is trying to get the three resistance groups to work together, as well as a new fatigue and relationship system.

The faction leaders are voiced by actors from [[Star Trek|Star Trek: The Next Generation]]. [[Fail|They do pretty good job except for Marina Sirtis poorly performed lines.]] Good thing the game allows players to switch to a better voice for your first Reaper(and their other soldiers).

====Tactical Legacy Pack====

A mini expansion pack that adds 4 mini-campaigns detailing some of the adventures of Bradford and Lily Shen during the tumultuous days of ADVENT's takeover, adds new weapons to your WotC playthrough for each of these mini-campaigns you beat, allows you to choose between three soundtracks, (X-COM 1, X-COM 2, and Legacy Remixes), allows free access to all of the 100 challenges rather than the random daily challenge system, and even allows you to make your own challenge missions. Also has more than a few bugs and oddities that needs to be fixed with workshop mods. However it isn't as a glitchy broken mess compared to some [[Fallout|other games]].

IT WAS Free until Dec 3rd, 2018, for all WotC owners. Though it's still a cheap buy at $7.99 on Steam. The ability to switch between three soundtracks alone is worth it.(remixes of classic XCOM tracks, the OST from Enemy Within and the vanilla War of the Chosen soundtrack. )

=== XCOM: Long War ===

The big daddy mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown made by a small developer known as Pavonis Interactive that is single-handedly responsible for XCOM 2's thorough mod support (alongside Firaxis [[Blood Ravens| "borrowing"]] some notable aspects of this mod for the actual sequel), Long War is a ''very'' extensive rework of the entire game from the ground up. While the mod greatly expands the classes, perks, weapons and armor players can gear up their dudes with, it also greatly enhances the aliens' arsenal, which now adapts and evolves to combat the player the longer the game goes on. The number of changes made to the game is well into the hundreds and the difficulty is so stepped up that it makes the vanilla game a walk in the park comparatively. This mod is almost universally praised, to the point that not only did Firaxis make it a point to make the sequel as mod-friendly as possible, but they actually partnered up with the Pavonis team to help develop the core XCOM 2 game as well as the first wave of miscellaneous mods to showcase how easy it is to plug-and-play community made content into the game.

As said previously, this is pretty much ''the'' XCOM mod. It's such a big mod that a lot of other XCOM mods are metamods designed to modify ''this'' mod!

=== XCOM: The Board Game ===

From [[Fantasy Flight Games]], there's a board game adaptation of XCOM (in fact, ''XCOM: Enemy Unknown'' was quite inspired by board games, with the two-actions-per-turn system instead of the old 'time units'). There's a companion app for smartphones, tablets, and computers which controls the aliens and informs players of events, a bit like a [[Game Master]], but without exposing the players to too much bookkeeping. Amazing what games can do with computers these days -- just imagine if such a thing had been available for [[FATAL]]! On second thought, don't.

Players (1-4) take on different roles in the XCOM organization. The Commander keeps an eye on the budget and allocates interceptors. The Chief Scientist directs research efforts. The Central Officer works the app and solicits input from the others (if there are any) to make decisions (many of which are time-critical). The Squad Leader manages troops and base defense. Together, they need to allocate their resources, judge when to push risky but rewarding avenues (inviting retribution from the aliens if they fail), and defend humanity. Like the games, successes are rare -- a die only has a 1/3 chance of coming up with a success, and tasks may need multiple successes. There is also an "enemy die", a [[d8]] that is rolled against the number of times that task has been attempted. If it rolls equal to or under that number, something bad happens. So, do you pool resources for critical tasks (neglecting anything else, and hoping that your priorities are correct), in order to most likely be successful before the threat level climbs too high? Or do you stay flexible but push your luck? Your call, commander.

=== XCOM 2: Long War 2 ===
If you thought XCOM 2 was ''already'' hard, thanks in part to the involvement of the original Long War modders in the game's development, said modders come back with a sequel mod for the game. Not only does this go even further than the first Long War in going into a lot of detail, such as new graphical touches, significant rebalancing and completely overhauling the global map to be more reminiscent of classic X-com. But the difficulty is amped up even more, with missions even requiring you to send in potentially fatal scouting parties to make sure your ''other'' squads don't die on the spot. Also, rather than launching parties directly into battle, missions spawn on the geoscape with an expiration timer. The player ''can'' launch immediately, but the enemy presence will be drastically increased! Instead, the idea is that the squad can spend time infiltrating, to let ADVENT get complacent and draw troops elsewhere. Having more Resistance folks working Intel increases mission expiration times, but the bigger and heavier the squad, the more infiltration time is required. And vice versa -- short-staffing a squad can allow a player to infiltrate to high percentages on short notice... but now you've only got like four guys on the ground, and that might not be enough firepower if activations go badly...

This mod requires dramatically more strategic thought and care. Weapons, armor, and equipment are all purchased individually, forcing you into decisions like 'do I continue the rollout of my newly available armor-piercing coilguns, or do I buy armor for the two rookies I've trained up?' and 'do I send my last seven man team to secure me an engineer, commit them to a long infiltration to wipe out an advent tower, or hold them in reserve for a better opportunity?' The difficulty is likewise much higher, but you have dramatically expanded options to combat it with special weapons, squad leaders, extra inventory slots packed with flashbangs, veteran troop skills, choosable bonus perks, a psi advancement training regime that makes some actual sense, and many, many more troops and mission opportunities. Minor reinforcement on that last one, in fact: in stock XCOM 2 you'll likely end the campaign with fewer than twenty soldiers, whereas here it's pretty common to have a hundred active-duty troopers at a time.

The Shinobi ([[Derp|all the Ninja IRL schools have closed up shop]]) is the most overpowered class. Making missions easier then they should be as he can [[derp|bypass Overwatch]] and has a very low impact on infiltration. Making missions unrealistic for players who hate RNG and want a pure stealth game.

The devs of Long War have said they will not be making a Long War for War of the Chosen. The reasoning for this is two-fold; sifting through all the new/reworked code introduced in WotC would take months, if not a year or more just to ensure compatibility with the expansion, much less add to it. The second and more important reason is that Pavonis is focusing heavily on their own X-COM type game and would much rather put their time in that project (understandably).

Some faggot on reddit, however, has recently (as of late 2019) made some impressive strides. While Long War of the Chosen isn't ready for primetime and is missing some important features, anyone can download the beta for it here: https://github.com/long-war-2/lwotc

=== XCOM: Chimera Squad ===
A surprise entry into the XCOM series, being teased on April 14th and coming out 10 days later. It was supposed to another expansion for War of the Chosen. However since XCOM 2 was already bloated. Chimera Squad was turned into its own game instead.
The game takes place 5 years after the human victory achieved in XCOM 2, and centers around City 31. So you'll have to wait until XCOM 3 to see 2s sequel hooks resolved. In this city, former aliens and humans live together in a tentative peace, and you take control of the namesake Chimera Squad composed of both alien and human agents. It's their job to clean up the remaining remnants of ADVENT as well as other violent troublemakers around the city. Gameplay-wise, Chimera Squad seems to play more like Final Fantasy Tactics, rather than the modern XCOM entries, in that units move on a timeline rather than using block turns. There is also a bigger emphasis on individual agents, as you fail a mission if any of [[Your Dudes]] die.

It's more or less a combination of Alien Nation (the aliens are former slaves) and SWAT/Police Quest, while being a loose remake of XCOM: Apocalypse.
The individual maps are considerably smaller, and mostly down into "rooms", in general each room containing a set number of enemies (there are exceptions; reinforcements can, and will arrive on certain mission types). Each mission starts with you breaching the "room," taking a free move or attack action, and letting enemies hunker down (if you caught them by surprise) or take their overwatch fire (if they were expecting you), before the game goes to turn based mode, and once you've cleared out a room your agents heal a set amount of their HP based on difficulty before you breach the next room, and move on to the next "encounter".

All agents have a dedicated melee attack called "Subdue" which deals a small amount of damage (3 - 4), which if it defeats the enemy knocks them unconscious instead of killing them, potentially allowing you to gain bonus Intel after the mission is over. Multiple agent abilities are dedicated to making it easier to "arrest" enemies for this intel boost, although with the number of captures that are happening in a single week, you got to wonder what they're doing with all of those prisoners... <s>Soylent green</s> <s>Advent burger</s>Burger Palace anyone?

And it has Vipers as fetishized [[monstergirls]] with exclusive sex worker locales as canon and anime style advertisements featuring the various aliens. Make of that what you will. There is a also Sectoid conspiracy theorist Floyd Tesseract But unlike the IRL douchenozzles Floyd is actully intelligent and locates the hostages of a terrorist cell before Chimera Squad does.

A few have joked that the whole game is actually happens in the mind of your XCOM agents whenever they get mind controlled, and why they fight with the aliens against humans. Which if true, says a lot about XCOM agents regarding their attitude towards Vipers. [[/pol/|Though it's mostly the usual morons whining about diversity.]]

Also the game is currently buggy as fuck with the game defaulting to integrated graphics, agents losing their loadouts, along with the stranded crash to desktop and freezing. So you're better off waiting for patches to fix them if you want to start with Ironman. The impatient should keep the task manager open on another monitor just in case.

== The Bureau: XCOM Declassified ==
Despite having the name XCOM in the title, the game really has little relation to the series. The reason behind this is because 2K passed this game on to the lovely people that brought you Bioshock 2; meaning it was made by a studio that makes more or less decent games. It was first revealed in the E3 2009 only as "XCOM", a first-person shooter set in the 1950s where you would fight black-goo/geometrical eldritch abomination aliens things. While it looked decent, it had the unfortunate problem of being the latest XCOM game since ''Enforcer'' and a far cry from the beloved strategy game the fans all knew and loved, the reaction was so bad that Firaxis' ''XCOM: Enemy Unknown'' became a thing, while "XCOM" was retooled into ''The Bureau: XCOM Declassified''.

It's supposed to be a prequel, set in the 1960s during the Cold War era. The protagonist, William Carter, was a CIA agent just delivering a suitcase of classified "documents" until an Outsider disguised as a female agent got ahold of it. Not long after that, an alien invasion commenced!

The Bureau is a RPG that plays like Mass Effect, but not as good for a variety of reasons. One reason is in the dialog scene, you're given choices of what to ask/say. They really don't impact the game, nor changes it for the most part, so you can skip a majority of it if you want to. The agents in your squad are pretty dull, sure you can change their names and how they dress, but really doesn't offer any friendship/foe engagements. If they die, you will need to recruit another agent and start him off from scratch, but really, leveling them up isn't fun and customizable, so just restart a checkpoint if they do die.

The agents in your squad have bad AI if you don't babysit them and give commands on what they should do, and their skills at fighting Outsiders are... Well, okay. The best they can offer is their abilities, so spamming them and you taking care of the killing is an effective way to go (Some recommend starters to start their first mission with a Recon to cause critical damage on certain enemies and a Commando for [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|taunting the grunts and make them easy picking for you]]).

There would be more to go on, but if you want to know more about the game, you can search up reviews of XCOM Declassified. In short, it's a decent prequel that fans can find some enjoyment, but it's not as good as Enemy Unknown. Without going into spoilers, there's also a reveal during the last few levels that's surprisingly meta and well-written. Still worth looking into if you can find it for cheap or rent it.

Interestingly enough, turns out that the universe in XCOM Declassified is the same as that of Enemy Unknown/Within's. After the events in The Bureau, all records were wiped. This explains why the player had to start from scratch at the beginning of Enemy Unknown. When the Ethereals of Unknown/Within spoke of their [[Derp|own failure to ascend,]] they really meant that they wanted to be like the Ethereals from The Bureau. Either way, only time will tell exactly [[Grimdark|what the hell they were preparing humanity for.]] However since XCOM lost the war and were forced underground by ADVENT in XCOM 2. Asaru's efforts were made pretty much worthless.

== Xenonauts ==

X-Com coded by [[Reasonable Marines]].

A faithful remake of the original, with time units and all that. Changes a few things (like lack of Psionics on your side) and adds vehicles (yes, blowing up half a building with a rocket jeep is awesome) and controllable dogfights. Basically the alien invasion is during the Cold War and makes everyone shit themselves simultaneously when THOUSANDS of spaceships are openly in orbit and fucks humanity's shit up in creative ways. Every day the UFO's are left wandering, news bulletins full of terror and destruction emanate from the screen adding to the drama and suspense.

The ending is very creative, particularly concerning the plot of how an inferior species can even bother to defeat a powerful empire. Stunningly well-made, desperate final mission which may result in a glorious ending, or a bittersweet ending where you still win but the assault team is martyred.

Other differences between it and the original include:

Maps are mostly pregenerated, not fully procedural.

Fewer weapon and ammo types. Seriously, you've got the big five (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper, and LMG) and a rocket launcher. No variant ammo types, although the weapons do have researched tiers (which are simply damage-ups).<s> This means no unfairly powerful weapons like the Rape Launcher or the Stun Grenade Launcher.</s> There *are* a few super weapons but seriously, if you waste a "Singularity Generator" which is an ENTIRE CAPTURED BLACK HOLE (a hot commodity salvageable from alien battleships) for a 50 kilogram (without ammo) glorified grenade launcher that doesn't even one shot its AoE, you are a fucking moron.

More basic inventory control. You don't micromanage producing and storing individual missiles, and you can have as many magazines, grenades, and med-kits as you want, limited by carrying limit. You just build the alien-based laser or plasma gun, base gives you ammo made fashioned from a melted-down alien cells. (Alenium is basically a quantum-grade battery aliens came up with. Usually it powers the alien craft, you simply creatively salvage the spent ones into explosives because [[HFY]].)

Smaller team sizes. Max troop count on a mission is 12, with the best drop-ship.

Fewer oddball items, like the motion scanner or psi-ball, but there is now an assault shield, so your dudes don't immediately die when popping open a UFO. Said shield gets upgraded with Alien alloys, and even the final mission sees use of it. Trust me.

Rookies are better out of the gate, but are still shit compared to your colonels. Still, they have a decent chance of killing an enemy in a turn, doubly so if carrying a missile launcher. No longer to operatives miss the broad side of a barn. They *will* miss the spot but will still shake it badly.

Explosive weapons damage items, lowering the amount of money you receive from selling. This is for the best, because explosives are stupidly powerful and are probably the most reliable way of putting a fool down. Considering Reaper, the expy for Chyrssalids are even faster and crazier, you *are* going to need them.

Saveable, customizable loadouts for all of your troops, and obviously no engine-based limit on the amount of items you can bring into a mission.

Aliens don't really hide in corners or really hard to find spots, which makes flushing them out a lot easier. I said flushing out mind you, as they DO charge out and deal extremely serious amounts of damage before going down, to say nothing of teleporting aliens that burst fire in your face if they are lucky.

Troops remain vulnerable a lot longer. You are never at the point where you can float an invincible army of death-dealing demigods over a cowering cadre of snakemen, raining death and destruction down with maddened glee. Even if you do, weird aliens will teleport close and blow you out of the sky, or your flyer will fry a nerve from psionics.

Country relations are more important than after-mission loot.

You can kick or pistol whip an enemy to death. Cue surrounding an annoying alien marksman and beating him to death with riot shields.

You can call airstrikes to cancel boring UFO raids.

=== Xenonauts 2 ===

Now with 3D graphics! A demo is available through GOG.com, with the release planned to be <s>later in 2017</s> <s>late 2018</s> <s>early 2019</s> early 2020.

== UFO: Alien Invasion ==

The most detailed opensource version of XCOM based on the Quake 2 engine.

Buildings are not destructible and it doesn't have a great fog-of-war. It doesn't have unmanned vehicles like the current iterations and sadly doesn't have any sort of Chryssalids yet.

Has a better world map than any other XCOM in that you can fully explore it like google-earth, even showing ship movement on the globe in real time. The campaign is more forgiving in that it does not force you through Acts like Enemy Unknown where you can't possible keep everybody happy, or has nations constantly bitching at you for radar coverage like in Xenonauts. Instead you get to bid captured UFOs and give preference to unhappy nations that feel neglected or where you haven't been saving civilians frequently.

The camera is completely free in battlescape mode just like in Enemy Unknown, complete with zoom capabilities. Lots of different weapons, though you will find yourself a fool if you don't immediately start using alien weapons. Also levels tend to have more floors than other iterations, such as one mission in which you're going through an office building or another where you're entering a subway.

The only major problem with the game is that the smoke grenades are so overpowered your guys will be coming out of your drop ship like Snoop-Dogg out of his trailer. Otherwise you'll find aliens are more than happy to shower your guys with plasma from across the map.

After a general huge update smoke is now useless and aliens are much, MUCH more powerful.

Oh, and its free. Still, fuck it. Final version is broken, often locking the game, and developers have been keeping silent, the fucking FAGGOTS.

== Phoenix Point ==

A spiritual successor by Julian Gollop himself. As of the time of this edit, fully funded and in development with a hard-as-balls backer pre-alpha having been released. The basic idea is; some kind of strange virus has been dug up in the permafrost and has had two outbreaks so far, each escalating in severity. Now it's invading the land a third (and fatally final) time, most of humanity is gone (Partly cus of the virus, partly cus of WW3 happening during the second outbreak), and you must defend the survivors from both the creatures and each other, you poor sap.

The virus morphs all life into Lovecraftian horrors. Literally Lovecraftian; it is implied that [[H.P. Lovecraft|Howard the Great]] was inspired by ancient findings describing an outbreak of the same virus a few million years ago. It even came from Yuggoth. Humanity being humanity, there are several factions with drastically different ideas on how to deal with it; there is a faction based around a religion [[Genestealer Hybrids|worshipping the mutations that is also capable of retaining human consciousness despite said mutations]], another is [[Eclipse Phase| high-tech anarcho-communists trying to coexist with the virus and other factions]] while the third faction [[Starship Troopers|Is a high-tech PMC turned militaristic civilization with "Service Guarantees Citizenship" that just wants to destroy the virus and any of its sympathizers]].

So far, the game has managed to gather enough funding and reach one stretch goal for a floating base that will be given as FREE DLC, along with other stretch goals at a later date should the game be successful.

Expected; large bosses, your own mutated soldiers with crippleable limbs, the option of saving a group of people by [[Dawn of War II|landing on a giant creature and injecting it with poison]], Deep Lore, A hybrid of the old TU and new Two-Action system, unique tech trees for each faction (which you can also get in on by either allying with or stealing from them) and randomized global events (a la Crusader Kings 2).
Oh, and there are [[Flamer|flamethrowers]], Shoulder-Mounted missiles, power armor, gauss rifles and other goodies, such as a mutant mount for the cultist faction.

== XPiratez ==

What XCOM 2 was to XCOM: Enemy Within, XPiratez is to X-COM: UFO Defense. Made of pure [[Awesome|awesome]], you lead a crew of female mutants on a quest to kick ass, gain riches, and fuck bitches. A mod for OpenXcom, it's completely free and gets constant updates. Go check it out! Nothing's more satisfying than crushing a pureblood's head in with a sledge hammer and then mowing down his mates with your [[Dakka|custom Boarding gun]]. Basically, post XCOM defeat, humanity is a province in the alien empire, and a long, long time later, you lead a band of mutant female pirates living the pirate life, looting, capturing, ransoming, and eventually enslaving prisoners. More detailed, fanmade, with a morally darker atmosphere for the protagonist faction (apart from turning prisoners from human factions to slaves -miners for men, maids for females, and ahem..."squires" for shota younglings from Cult of Sirius), PirateZ offers a unique experience.

== The X-Com Files ==

This megamod for OpenXcom will allow you to grow X-Com from its humbled beginnings, as a two-men team travelling the world in an expensive-looking car to global the military force we all know and love. It contains many, many additions, like new mission types, enemies, equipment and story arcs (including the entirety of my previous project, the Final Mod Pack). It also places the game a bit more firmly in the 90's conspiracy genre and its clichés.
Defeat the enemies from the outer space, the oceans the underground, but primarily within our own society! This mod and XPiratez have become very popular on Twitch, a questionable website sometimes described as a hive of scum and villainy with thots.

== The Tabletop Game ==

Yes, there was a Tabletop game, made by [[Fantasy Flight Games]], so this article has some direct /tg/ relevance. The problem is, [[Derp | you need a cell phone app to play it]].

==Aliens==
Needless to say, in this game, there are many different types of aliens that your teams are going to have to fight.

===Original Continuity===

====X-COM: UFO Defence====

'''Sectoid''': Doesn't matter what game, these guys are always the first things you face. They're not tough, but they are annoying, and the higher ranked ones (yes aliens have ranks, just like your guys in the old games) can and will successfully mind-control your guys all the fucking time.

'''Cyberdisk''': The original flying, metal pancake, these guys only show up supporting Sectoids. They can take an abusive amount of punishment, and deal it out just as much, before exploding when they are finally disabled. Expect to see your bullets passing over or under it all the fucking time.

'''Floater''': Changed significantly in the remake. Here they're a still mostly intact torso and abdomen mounted on a giant, floaty antigravity ball. They can't fly as freely as the ones in future versions, but they're far less suicidal, and prone to setting up ambushes.

'''Reaper''': Big, spiky dogs that appear alongside Floaters on terror missions. They're dumb as shit and only attack in melee making it easy enough to lure them out and turn your entire fire team against them. Now if that would actually kill them.

'''Snakeman''': Another basic type, these guys are easy pickings on any mission other than Terror Missions. Their autopsy states that they are stuffed full of fertilised eggs so take that "men" part with a grain of salt.

'''Chryssalid''': And these are the reason you'll hate Snakemen on terror missions. They bring Chryssalids with them. Twelve foot tall murder bugs that kill people, plant their eggs into them, turn them into shuffling zombie, which hatch into new Chryssalids unless killed, ''quickly''. Unlike the remake these guys can take a beating, and it's entirely possible to have an entire squad with laser weapons and repeating grenade launchers hit one of these bastards with every shot, and it'll still be standing at the end. You see one of these things, you do not let your squad break apart or approach blind corners.

'''Muton''': As always the aliens' equivalent to your guys, except they're better armoured (despite wearing goofy green jumpsuits), better armed, and just better being as they're not the best janitors all the world's militaries have to offer. Mutons don't have Psionics on their side, so if you want to play with them bringing along your Psi Specialist is a good idea, otherwise they're going to take an absurd amount of punishment to put down. A superhuman grade Muton can take a block of High Explosive to the chest and come out shooting, so bring the plasma, and bring enough it of for a small city block.

'''Celatid''': One of the two terror units found alongside Mutons, it looks like nothing more than a floating kidney bean. It's small, it's fast, and it has the most damaging non-High Explosive attack in the game, which becomes even more destructive against non-armoured targets like your rookies, or civilians. Thankfully this attack works on a lobbed arc so its range is severely nerfed down to 7 tiles, but out in the open that goes up to 16 tiles, and it can attack up to three times in a turn if it doesn't have to move.

'''Silicoid''': The second terror unit that is deployed alongside Mutons, and the most useless alien unit in the game. It crawls along at a speed of 8 tiles a turn, has no ranged attacks, and triggers reaction fire from even the worst of your guys allowing you to use it as a reaction fire training sponge, especially if you use Incendiary rounds as it will not take any damage from fire or incendiary rounds, but your guys will still gain experience. High Explosives work well against it.

'''Ethereal''': Far different from the remake game, Ethereals are packing heat in conjunction with their insane Psi abilities. These cloaked bastards can fly, will rain plasma fire down on your squad, spot for their allies to make their job easier, and at the end of it all, they'll mind control or panic the ragged remains of your squad. Kill them as quickly as you can, preferably from long distance with a Blaster Launcher.

'''Sectopod''': Giant metal murder toads. These guys aren't actually robots, although they come close, they are intact Remote Control murder mechs for the ethereals so that they don't have to get close to you while they turned you into plasma fried Kentucky X-COM rookie. The scary thing about these guys is just how much punishment they seem to take, even from late game weapons; however if you can target their rear armour, and bring laser weapons (which deal x1.5 damage against these guys) you'll be laughing all the way to the ICU. Of course this is going to make your prospects against their Ethereal controllers far, far worse, but hey-ho, win some, lose some.

====Terror From The Deep====

IA, IA, CTHULHU FATAGN

'''Aquatoid''': Genetically, and surgically slap gills and flippers onto a Sectoid, et Voila! You have an Aquatoid. Their commanders still have the Psionic abilities of their land locked cousins, but they call it Molecular Control, because they're fancy like that.

'''Gillman''': Apparently an earth creature, these creatures from the black lagoon were around when DINOSAURS ROAMED THE EARTH!, and submitted to the aliens when they arrived the first time round. They make for 'poor' soldiers (although this being TFTD that just means their only better than your guys by a factor of 1 or so, and not 3) and can take a bit of punishment from basic weaponry, although by the time you get Sonic weaponry, they start dropping like wheat before the scythe. Taking one of these guys in alive, and dead is critical to researching melee weapons (???), and accessing the final mission. So get catching.

'''Lobsterman''': An organic Sectopod, these guys will walk off whatever you throw at them, and then strike back with extreme prejudice. Ironically though they're mostly weak to stunning weapons, making tasers, and stun grenades the best weapon to use against them if you've got them. If you don't, well you can always use drills to pierce their hides, or hope that the tiny plinking of your harpoons cause them to laugh themselves to death.

'''Tasoth''': A clone vat species based off of humanoid velociraptors, these guys would be awesome, if they were on your side. As they are not, they are assholes. In combat they function as Ethereal lite's, unable to fly, and not quite as psionically potent, they make up for this by having much more physical strength, health, and durability.

'''Bio-Drone''': A brain-in-a-jar mounted on a super speaker. Electrical impulses torture the brain and use its screams (without vocal chords, don't ask me) to project a wave of hyper-condensed sound which will melt the victim's brain inside their head. Noise Marines might have stolen this idea for their Doom Siren. Grimdark as fuck because often the brains are made of kidnapped civilians.

'''Calcinite''': A Gelatinous green goop inside an old school diving suit, it might be possible to mistake this thing for one of your guys while you're underwater, but they remain fully suited up while on land, so the helmet is a good indicator. They lack any ranged attacks, and will instead try to run up and claw your agents face off, to add to this, their antique diving suits are tougher than your guys starting body armour (WHY?), nonetheless any weapon will put them down.

'''Deep One''': You'd think this would be the perfect place for some Cthulhu monstrosity, but sadly no. These guys are more "The Fly" than anything else. Humans that have been captured, tortured, and then surgically and genetically altered to become alien shock troops, the only original bit of their humanity left is their eyes. Their primary ranged attack is an arcing electrical burst (which is treated as a Gauss weapon for damage types) which allows them to fire over walls and other obstacles so nowhere is safe.

'''Hallucinoid''': Giant electrical jellyfish. The aliens keep on taking earth creatures and turning them into weapons of war. Although choosing jellyfish may have been a... poor decision. These things aren't particularly aggressive, preferring to just gently float into range when they can be bothered, rather than hunting your agents down. Unfortunately they're still tough enough to weather the storm of fire that their slow approach allows you to unleash on them, and their melee attack is devastating.

'''Tentaculat''': BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T BE A X-COM GAME WITHOUT CHRYSSALIDS, NO MATTER WHAT YOU CALL THEM. THEY CAN FLY NOW SO HAVE FUN! (appearance is directly identical to Grell from [[Dungeons & Dragons]])

'''Triscene''': A mother-fucking T-REX! The aliens brought back a T-Rex, slung two sonic cannons onto its sides, and let it loose in battle. These guys are the sectopods of TFTD, without the sectopod's weaknesses. However they have one glaring flaw, which is they have no under armour, and one well placed grenade will severely hurt them, or outright kill them if powerful enough.

'''Xarquid''': An overgrown Nautilus that swims in reverse, the things act like sniper tanks, preferring to sit in one corner of the map, usually several levels up, and snipe your squad from a safe distance. Other than the reaction fire you'll inevitably take when hunting these things down, they're not particularly dangerous, just use cover and explosives if they're on the ground, or get underneath them and take out their weak underbelly.

====X-COM: Apocalypse====

'''Brainsucker''': Because Facehugger was already taken. Why is the first alien you encounter in this game another GOD-DAMNED CHRYSSALID? FOR FUCK'S SAKE! These guys are fairly weak, and can be dealt with simply in RT mode, in TB however, their movement speeds enough to take them from outside your field of vision and into attack range, considering that their melee attack is a one hit kill keep enough time units back for reaction fire.

'''Multiworm''': One big ugly green fat worm the size of a human that shoots acid like a machinegun. Kill it with piercing weapons for a surprise burst of FOUR land equivalent of piranha, the Hyperworm. Use fire and nades for a pentakill in one shot.

'''Hyperworm''': Doglike rapid moving worms with a vicious bite. Toss fire and grenades to kill quickly.

'''Chrysalis''': In 72 hours, the Hyperworm turns into that to produce new aliens. Harmless meat bag.

'''Anthropod''': Ugly blue humanoid alien with decent stats. The first gun using alien. Helpless on its own but Alien equipment becomes TPK bait afterwards complete with personal shield and fuckhuge bazookas.

'''Psimorph''': Huge flying blob [[Psyker]] with fuckton of HP. Kill on sight as it will mindrape every agent. Luckily stays in the Alien Dimension... Mostly.

'''Spitter''': Misunderstood Pink Guy from Uganda who looks for de way, spitting on Heretics. Weak.

'''Megaspawn''': Imagine an Imperial Knight but alien scum and wholly organic. Its' rapid firing, replenishing rocket launcher arm and ORGANIC LASER CANNON ARM says it all. Huge and powerful.

'''Popper''': Muslim alien who Allahu Akbar's you.

'''Skeletoid''': Anthropod V2.0 with flying. Fast reacting, agile and smart. Dangerous with endgame equipments.

'''Micronoid Aggregate''': Actual alien rulers. Hive mind of single cells running across all Alien veins and buildings.

'''Queenspawn''': Mother whore, land octopus and breeding bitch. If you stun her, you get the best Alien toxin gun... AND IN GAS FORM! Now you can start a race war and gas all xeno scum, like humanity should.

'''Overspawn''': Kaiju alien dropped from top 2 biggest UFO's. When aliens get mad, it will rampage across town, and can destroy the xcom base underfoot if it hits its building. Scramble all crafts and shoot it down, try hitting it with rubble for instakill.

===Reboot Continuity===

The reboot continuity has its own array of different monsters, with some changes in variety between the first and second game.

====X-COM Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within====

'''Sectoid''': Tiny little grey men in the first game, these are the first Psionic enemy you'll meet, with the ability to boost each other in combat. This can be rather nasty giving them an extra hit point and a +10 to hit and dodge, although if you kill the booster, you'll kill whatever Sectoid they're boosting as well thanks to Psychic feedback.

'''Sectoid Commander''': Only in the first game, these guys are Sectoids on psychic steroids. You'll see one on the tutorial mission and get a taste of what they can do, even if you don't fight it. They're stronger, tougher, and more psionically powerful than the basic sectoid, and are the first unit that can possess your guys mid-firefight.

'''Thin Man''': Apparently an "Infiltrator Unit" nobody (other than the Ethereals) would mistake these guys for human at close distance as they have snake scales running up their necks, and are skinny enough to make a supermodel jealous. Apparently they were made from genetically modifying Snake-women as they can spit clouds of poison at great distance, and will explode into one when they're killed. Otherwise they're real flimsy. Do not underestimate them, however, as their choice of weaponry and habit of frequently spawning on high ground means that they will often one-shot soldiers through full cover if not dealt with quickly.

'''Muton''': How you know the aliens are stepping up their game. Everything up till now has been child's play (for a particularly psychotic child), then these guys come along. Big, tough, cunning, brutal, and dangerous, these guys will mulch a squad equipped with regular weapons and armour without breaking a sweat, and capturing one of these guys alive brings one of the better upgrades. Have fun.

'''Muton Berserker''': Ha, ha, ha. These girls are melee monsters, capable of soaking up bullets by the magazine, and slowly getting angrier and angrier as they do. If they can get in close they'll unleash the melee hurt, but thankfully they're not amazingly fast. Thankfully, their instinctive charge of the last person who shot them means you can set them up to run a gauntlet of Overwatch fire, with a bit of luck.

'''Muton Elite''': As much health as the Berserkers, plus armor, and lacking the berserk charges. Instead, they carry heavy plasma cannons.

'''Floater''': Apparently reject Mutons, stripped down to an upper torso and fitted up with cybernetic implants, mainly a jetpack. They're your first hint that the aliens may not be one big happy family, as they have an idle animation consisting of them ripping at their flesh and bionics until blood spurts. They're basically the fastest unit in the game, great Overwatchers, and pack about as much punch as a standard Muton. They have a special ability that sacrifices all their actions for the turn to instead fly to any single spot on the map, which they love to use to get the drop on your team.

'''Heavy Floater''': A tougher, armored version of the standard Floater, with a bigger gun. Basically just replace floaters in the late game to keep them competitive, but they've got no new tricks up their sleeves.

'''Outsider''': Strange "energy" lifeforms that serve as the technicians of the UFOs. You need to capture one of these in order to advance the game. They're wimpy, but their light plasma rifles are deadly accurate, so they can gun down whole teams if you're careless. For some unexplained reason, they just up and completely vanish from the game as soon as sectoid commanders turn up, never even being mentioned again. The most popular fan explanation is that they are actually not so much ''crew'' of the UFOs as ''hardware''.

'''Sectopod''': The aliens' equivalent of a tank; an enormous, heavily armored killer robot that walks around the battlefield in a perpetual squat, it has insanely high health, high armor, a 50% damage reduction ability with the Enemy Within expansion, and the ability to blaze away with both a fuck-off huge fire-laser-beam-thing and to launch showers of cluster bombs. They also blow up when you kill them. Your most hated enemy.

'''Cyberdisk''': A ridiculously fast flying robot that can shapeshift between a flying saucer-like flight-mode (in which it's harder to hit) and its unfurled combat mode. Not quite as killy as the sectopod, but still really adept at ruining your day.

'''Drone''': Small flying robots that basically zip around like laser-spitting wasps. They don't do much damage, but they can repair mechanical aliens and they explode like a grenade when killed. And they're extra-hard to hit, for added nuisance factor.

'''Chryssalid''': An absolute fucking nightmare, just like the original series. These bugs are lightning fast, vicious, and if they kill anyone they'll automatically plant an egg in the corpse, which will turn into a zombie before hatching a new chryssalid three turns later. And these zombies are tough enough to weather several turns of shooting. One of the standout points of Enemy Within is a pre-baked mission where you get to investigate a whaling ship that crashed ashore in Newfoundland after being infested by Chryssalids who turned the catch into their personal hive. Your job is to first investigate the area, and then light the place up for your bombers so they can carpet bomb the place into fire and rubble, running your squad away the whole time.

'''Ethereal''': The leaders of the alien forces, physically frail but masters of [[psionics]], which they can use to ''really'' fuck up your day.

'''Seeker''': A relatively weak squid-like robot that uses camouflage to sneak up on its prey and then tries to crush it to death with its tendrils. They like to go after isolated members of your squad, which can be used to bait them into going after Assault troopers with Close Combat Tactics for hilarious effects.

'''Mechtoid''': An armored exoskeleton piloted by a sectoid, carrying twin plasma mini-cannons. Sectoids can use their mind merge ability to give a layer of shielding to mechtoids; killing the sectoid removes the shield and causes some damage to the mechtoid.

====X-COM 2 / War of the Chosen====

'''ADVENT'''

The end results of what the Ethereals want to do with humanity. Puppet soldiers controlled by a series of psionically linked chips that feed back to command nodes. It's stated that the Commander's brain was a central "tactical command" processing node for these, providing the ADVENT officers and troops with advanced stratagems. The fact that XCOM rescued him in the tutorial mission serves to explain why the Resistance has such an easy time with ADVENT during the game itself, forcing the aliens to send in the more advanced otherwordly brawn.

*'''Trooper''': The grunts come in three flavours, with increasing HP, Dodge, and Accuracy as they tier up. [[Imperial Guard|Challenging only in high numbers primarily by way of sheer volume of shots and by overrunning soldiers pinned down by said firepower]].

*'''Officer''': These guys aren't a threat on their own, however they can Holo-Target one of your guys, granting their ADVENT and alien allies a +10 to hit against that soldier. Killing the officer removes this mark from your soldier and as such, you should prioritize taking down the officer should you become afflicted by it.

*'''Shield-Bearer''': The most annoying ADVENT type in the base game, these guys can pop a shield that gives every ADVENT and Alien soldier in range +3 or +5 temporary HP. Combined with their armour these guys can take a licking and keep on ticking. Taking them out will drop the shield on everybody else, so they should be a target priority otherwise each affected enemy will require significantly more effort to drop. They also kinda look like Robocop so they have that going for them.

*'''Stun-Lancer''': Melee focused, these guys are noticeable by the fact they were far less armour than any other ADVENT soldier. They're addicted to melee and will almost exclusively favor charging in to taze your guys with their electric Melee beatsticks. While this normally just runs a good chance of disorienting or stunning your soldier, it can straight up knock your dudes unconscious if RNG fates it so. In the event some affliction prevents them from slapping your dudes with their tasers, they do carry a standard ADVENT Rifle. They however can be easily dealt with if you have a Ranger with Blademaster, Bladestorm and upgraded blades. They'll run towards your Ranger only to be swiftly cut down like chumps.

*'''Priest''': Introduced in WotC, these guys are the ADVENT Psions. Primarily a supportive unit, they can boost another ADVENT soldier much like Sectoids could in Enemy Unknown (and like that game if you kill the priest the soldier will suffer psionic feedback and die), or they can put one of your guys in Stasis for a turn, preventing them from doing anything. Advanced and Elite priests have additional tricks that allow them to Mind-Control your guys, and place themselves in Stasis if they would be killed, instead staying around with 1 HP for another turn.

*'''Purifier''': Flamethrower wielding ADVENT troops that only appear in WotC. The guys are kept "secret" from the public (despite that fact they can appear in any mission if the RNG says so) as they are supposed to hunt down and kill the lost in the old, abandoned cities. As stated they use flamethrowers, alongside incendiary grenades, and when you kill them there's a good chance they will explode, so don't kill them with melee unless you want to lose your eyebrows. Although that can lead to some hilarious chain reactions if you're lucky.

*'''General''': Only appears in assassination missions in WotC. Essentially just a beefed up Officer with a shit ton of HP, and the ability to throw Flash-Bangs.

*'''MEC / Heavy MEC''': The first truly heavy ADVENT Unit. These things come with an absurd amount of HP and armor for the early game. They're not particularly smart however and cannot use cover at all, instead relying on their durability to weather your shooting so take advantage of this. Remember not to bunch your guys up as they have a shoulder mounted missile launcher that they will use on your guys if they're clustered together. MECs can also use suppression at the end of their turn if they can't target a group. The Heavy MEC is just tougher and more accurate, you can think your way through this fight. The best way to deal with them is hacking or anti-machine equipment such as EMP rounds and grenades.

*'''Turrets / Heavy / Superheavy''': It's a turret. What more do you want? They have some armour and a decent amount of HP as well as the ability to fire up to twice per turn (more often than not, they'll shoot once then enter overwatch). As can be expected, turrets don't move and are usually positioned up on building rooftops or on trains for that high-ground advantage. Like most mechanical enemies, you can hack it with a Specialist or simply destroy it by using Bluescreen rounds. If the turret is on a rooftop, you can also utilize conventional explosives (like grenades or rockets) to blow out the floor from underneath it, destroying the turret instantly.

*'''Sectopod''': The final and toughest ADVENT unit. It's just as much of a nightmare as it was in the first game. Sectopods have three actions per turn as opposed to the nearly universal two, can extend their legs to give themselves a height advantage over your soldiers and walk through nearly all buildings and terrain (destroying cover or even blowing out the floor from underneath your soldiers as it does so) in their path. The basic shots they fire do devastating damage and shred armor, potentially killing even highly ranked soldiers if caught even slightly off-guard. They explode rather violently when they are finally defeated, likely killing or severely injuring any units caught in the blast. So don't be stupid by making your melee units deliver the finishing blow. As with any robotic unit they can be hacked by a properly specced specialist, although their rather high hacking defense makes taking control of them extremely difficult. Bluescreen Rounds, EMP Grenades and/or acid grenades are all highly recommended when fighting it.

'''Aliens'''

*'''Sectoid''': Tougher than you remember due to the infusion of human DNA. Now have the ability to resurrect dead troopers - yours and ADVENT - as zombies, and all sectoids from the get-go can lay a mind whammy on your troops, randomly panicking, disorientating or controlling them.

*'''Chryssalid''': Because why the fuck wouldn't the Ethereals keep their most effective terror weapon. These guys have changed from scuttling horrors to burrowing, venomous, scuttling horrors, capable of turning anyone they kill, either with their venom or their claws into a slowly metamorphosing cocoon that, if it reaches maturity, will spit out '''THREE''' new chryssalids, because Firaxis hates you. They are rendered mostly harmless by being set on fire, so if you think you're going to run into them bring incendiary rounds, fire bombs, and hell weave vests. The previous sentence is no longer the case in War of the Chosen, so prepare your anus.

*'''Viper''': The most famous of the new aliens because they look like [[serpentfolk|humanoid snake-women]] with [[furry|nice tits and a sweet pair of hips]]. Appear pretty early in the game; not much tougher than sectoids, but quite annoying. They can drag you out of cover with their tongue whip attack, spew toxic clouds like the Thin Men, and strangle you in melee like a Seeker. These gals represent the true form of the Thin Man alien from the last game. (And yes, the thin ''men'' were actually disguised snake ''women'' the whole time.)

*'''Andromedon''': One of the cooler new alien designs, it could almost have been ripped out of the old X-COM series. It looks like a combination of an old diving suit and an iron lung, filled with green acidic sludge, and a single pickled alien who apparently needs that sludge to live and dies if exposed to Earth's atmosphere. When you kill it the first time the glass torso-visor shatters, exposing the pilot's corpse, and the suit reboots and come to life by itself, dropping its heavy plasma cannon and charging into melee. In its first form, an Andromedon is a tough customer, with more armour & health than a Muton while packing the same firepower. In its second form it will only ever try to hit you with its fists, but it leaves behind trail of acidic and poisonous sludge that hurts your guys if they try to move through it (because jumping isn't a thing, despite the ability to haul yourself up drainpipes) which makes navigating the battlefield a hassle, especially in densely packed urban missions. Thankfully their second form will be easier to deal with. Due to the immense control of the battlefield these guys possess (being able to simply destroy cover by running through it and leaving acid trails that can cut off avenues of approach) in addition to their rather devastating firepower, it's highly recommended you fully focus these things down if no other priority targets (like Sectopods) are immediately present.

*'''Faceless''': A new enemy that should only appear in Terror Attack missions, but they can be seeded in regular missions if you pull the Dark Event that allows them to mingle with the regular citizens. Isn't that lovely. Shapeshifters that look like ordinary humans until your troops get too close (or all other aliens are killed), then they turn into ''fucking huge'' moaning melted-wax men with claws the length of shotguns. In the early game they can be a hard target to drop due to their fairly high HP and ability to regenerate lost health every turn. That said, as exclusively melee units that rely more on ambushing unsuspecting XCOM operatives, they can easily be kited and picked off at range. In a pinch, your Scanner Grenades and Specialists can reveal concealed Faceless by scanning the area, so there's a touch of counterplay against them.

*'''Muton''': Remaining as the ethereal's shock infantry, these Mutons have apparently been crossbred with humanity, making them slightly smaller and faster, but also slightly smarter. But considering just how badly the A.I. can flub up sometimes, you have to wonder about that last one. They aren't packing any more HP, but they now have a point of armor, which means that the first point of damage from every attack gets ignored, so they'll soak up more damage unless you can shred their armor with heavy weapons and explosives. They'll still be a threat until you get Plasma weapons, and 3rd tier armour, but once you're there, they pretty much become chaff beneath the scythe. They also like tossing grenades if they don't have a direct line of sight on your troops. Along with the ability to use suppression if a Muton can't get into melee. Making them an annoyance well into the late game. They're also the only Alien that has countermeasures against melee, being able to parry and riposte 50% and dealing significant damage to your Ranger.

*'''Berserker''': Now visually more distinct from the regular Muton instead of just having a fancy costume, being entirely naked and seemingly skinless, looking like the musculature section of a human anatomy book. Still the same extremely tough melee combatants with the same instinctive berserker charge, only now they have this feature that lets them attack their ''allies'' if they're mad enough. This game also reveals that Berzerkers are actually the Muton ''women''. Gives a whole new meaning to the term [[Amazon]], huh?

*'''Codex''': A replacement for the Outsider, but far more annoying. The Codex first appears when you Skulljack an ADVENT officer, and it looks like a weirdly sexy woman made of pure yellow, but with a cybernetic brain & spinal column. They can teleport around the battlefield, and when struck by an attack that fails to kill them, they split into two Codexes with half of their remaining health. They can also create temporary zones of energy that suck all the ammo out of your guns, and then close with deadly force. Naturally you want Snipers or Magnetic/Plasma Weapon chain attacks to kill them quickly. Which you should have by the time of encountering them. Unless of course you rush the skull-jack out in your first run, and get one of these while you still have conventional weapons, in which case... have ''fun''. Or just toss a flashbang at them and turn them into slightly more dangerous ADVENT Troopers.

*'''Specter''': Another WotC specific enemy. These guys look like the Codex if they were men and made out of Necron Scarabs rather than pure energy. It's fitting too as they are a collection of Psionic nanobots that can grab your guys, stun them, and create a shadowy doppelgänger with all of your guy's skills and gear, and none of their bad luck. Thankfully killing the Specter will also kill this doppelganger and bring your guy back into the fight, but if you can't take it down immediately, expect the tide to turn against you. In a pinch, you can revive a soldier possessed this way with a medically inclined Specialist, though you'll still have to fight the doppelganger. Oddly, attacks that harm biological targets without requiring a will test can harm the Specter.

*'''Gatekeeper''': A giant, floating, psionic ball that might be the replacement/upgrade to the cyberdisks. No, we're not joking. For all the goofiness of trying to summarise this thing, it's a shockingly vicious threat. That big metal sphere contains a psionic powerhouse in the shape of a fleshy mass with tentacles which will unfurl to bitchslap your soldiers into the ground if they get too close. When moving or firing its eye-beam (a very strong, if semi-inaccurate laser), it remains enclosed in its heavily armored sphere (We're talking 4-6 pips of armor, difficulty dependent). In order to use its most powerful attacks, however, it must unfurl out of its armor in order to cast them. These include the ability to create a ''massive'' explosion that deals heavy damage to everything within it and reanimates ''all'' humanoid bodies within its radius as zombies that it controls (this includes any humans killed ''by'' said explosion) and the ability to grab your soldiers and siphon their life to heal itself. Additionally, it'll try to use cover despite being a 2x2 giant, floating, metal, psychic ball of doom. As a final FU, when killed they explode with a blast that will reach all tiles around them, heavily wounding or outright killing any of your squad next to them. Melee units such as Templars should be kept far away if they don't have Fortress. One of them is always encountered during the Psi Gate mission and will likely be the first time seeing them. Hilariously these tiny Eldritch Abominations can be mind controlled by Psi Operatives, if their will stat is good enough. Another way of dealing with them is using explosives and heavy weapons that shreds their armor. These would be the first targets to use Frost Grenades on if you encounter them early in the maps. You should have Magnetic or Plasma Weapons by the time Gatekeepers start showing up or they will be nearly impossible to defeat.

*'''Archon''': So someone in the Aliens' side realized that having a heavily mutilated torso mounted on jetpacks, which actively tore at its implants and constantly mounted suicide charges so it could be put out of its misery was bad for PR, so they replaced the Floaters with these guys. They look almost angelic or like something out of a high-tech ancient egypt, and their design incorporates a lot more white and gold with much less obviously chop-shop cybernetics. The nigh-constant pain going away has made them far smarter too. They still like to jump around the battlefield, but now they can also use a new ability called Blazing Pinions to rain rockets down on your guys after a turn's delay and will actually take advantage of cover. They also happen to have the Adonis-like musculature of a Chip-n-dale dancer. No seriously, ask any fa/tg/irl who isn't asexual or a lesbian to look up these, and she'll tell you they're one of the sexiest videogame monsters she's ever seen. Snaketits, meet mechpecs.

*'''Avatar''': The Ethereals' plans are revealed when you discover these creatures. Avatars are genetically engineered lifeforms created from the genes of the most psi-capable humans, crafted to house the essence of the Ethereals, whose own bodies are breaking down irrevocably. Extremely tough and powerful psionics, these guys are arguably your highest priority on the battlefield. The Commander gets one of his own at the end of the game. This is because they plugged him/her into their psionic network and never bothered to remove or change anything after XCOM recovered them. [[Fail|As the Ethereals are really quite stupid despite claiming to be the superior race.]] While lacking the full skill set of the Psi Operative, they have useful abilities that can still perform near their level. Avatars also come an awesome gun that they hardly ever use; [[Cheese|it ignores armor values, uses only one action point that allows him to fire twice in one turn, and can knock a Sectopod down to half health in a single volley.]] It can be acquired through workshop mods should you want it outside the final mission, though most such mods restrict the weapon to Psi-Operatives. It wouldn't make much sense otherwise.

'''The Alien Rulers''':
If you played the previous game, you may have been wondering: "what happened to Dr. Valen?" Well, the first DLC for XCOM 2, "Alien Hunters" reveals that she went off and set up her own base in an abandoned alien genetics lab, where her experiments in undoing the genetic suppressants on three cryogenically suspended subjects created three amped-up alien variants so powerful that the Ethereals couldn't control them. Great work, doc! Alien Rulers have a huge health bar and many unique abilities, but one of their more bullshit traits is that they have, no shit, Lair actions from D&D 5e. If you don't play D&D, this means they get a free turn in reaction to ''every'' action your troops take. This is nerfed somewhat in the WotC expansion to only reacting to anybody taking an action in its immediate line of sight (so dudes hiding behind walls or who are too far away won't trigger them). The best way to deal with them is heavy use of Incendiary, Acid and Venom Bombs. Not only do all these grenades stack damage over time effects (such that they take damage on every one of their own turns), but the burn limits the number of things they can do on their turn, the acid shreds almost all their armor while the poison severely hampers their accuracy, if it doesn't just gimp them of their reaction entirely. Free actions (like the Lightning Hands perk) and reloading don't trigger reactions, while abilities that allow your troops to make multiple attacks (like Rapid Fire or Chain Shot) count as one action. In WotC, Sharpshooters abusing the Squadsight mechanic can attack them without triggering a reaction if they are doing so from outside conventional range. Something you should have before facing them in mid to late game. Because fuck these guys. War of the Chosen also allows you to "integrate" this expansion, eliminating the special story mission in lieu of just shoving the Rulers around various facilities and just giving you the special guns. Doing this means missing out on a couple minor cutscenes, controlling Bradford for a mission and missing out on the opportunity to take his fancy gun kitted out with [[cheese|every possible upgrade]] for a spin.

*'''The Viper King:''' The only male Viper in existence, this creature shows why the Ethereals removed the male gender from the viper species with how rampantly he set about fertilizing every female viper he could encounter, filling an entire base with a huge array of hatchling vipers you have to fight through. His unique abilities allow him to spit a freezing gas instead of the normal venom. The weakest of the Alien Rulers, the Viper King is usually the first one you encounter. He's ironically also the most vulnerable to the Frost grenade, so slap it in a Grenadier with the Heavy Ordinance perk and hit him with it from out of sight to maximize your attacking opportunities. If you manage to tag 'n' bag Subject Gamma, you can turn his carcass into a unique Spider Suit, the Serpent Suit, that can scare the scales off of normal vipers and lash out with freezing whips.

*'''The Berserker Queen:''' Just as much bigger and scarier compared to normal berzerkers as they are compared to male mutons, Subject Beta can not only unleash a howl that can panic your whole squad, but is equipped with cybernetically integrated wrist-mounted hammers she can use to create earthquakes. Because fists the size of the average adult human weren't enough apparently. From her carcass, you can build the R.A.G.E Suit, which not only terrifies mutons and berserkers, but lets your trooper make a berserker-style charge attack themselves.

*'''The Archon King''': Subject Alpha is the nastiest Alien Ruler in the game, and has the most health. His special attack "Devastate" is a version of Blazing Pinons (the Archon's "shower an area with rockets" ability) that does less damage, but which can also disorient, stun and knock unconscious. Worse, it hits on the next Ruler Reaction, meaning you have no chance to get away from it the way you do from Blazing Pinions. He also has a unique attack where he grabs a trooper, hauls them into the air, and then power dives them into the floor. If you can take down this asshole, his corpse can be refashioned into the Icarus Armor, a superior Warden Armor suit that grants the Vault ability and the ability to pull off the Archon's "move to any point on the map you wish" twice per mission. Give it to your best Sniper, as this allows them to keep up with the rest of the squad and find the nearest vantage point.

'''The Chosen''':
The new Dragons aka Second in Command below the Ethereals. These three alien hybrids were once human before being abducted by the aliens (indeed, the Hunter was once one of the Reapers before his capture) and molded into the Ethereals' ideal elite agents. Each of them acts as an antagonist to one of the three resistance factions XCOM allies with and usually come equipped with a bunch of BS abilities that can wreck your troops at lower levels. You also want to find their base ASAP as they gain upgrades through the game like you do and can hurt your income. Getting their OP shit is also a nice bonus.

When first encountered they'll attempt to stun and either siphon the knowledge from or capture one of your troops for intel. If they succeed in doing so, it gives them a massive boost to their progress against you and will ultimately lead to a potentially game-ending assault on the Avenger. Additionally, soldiers that they choose to capture will go off the grid for quite some time before you can get the chance to rescue them. If they appear during a Blacksite mission, The Chosen AI will just straight up murder a squad member instead. [[Rage|The game doesn't give any hints to this change in behavior.]] So if you're counting on manipulating their AI into kidnapping a soldier who is near death during those missions. The Chosen will just slaughter your squad like the rest of ADVENT. Because all bets when are off when your trying to kill mommy? and/or err daddy? Shklee? Maybe?
Thankfully, the game rolls to give them permanent weakness, along with an arch enemy who will deal extra damage to a Chosen among the new Hero classes. They will also roll for one immunity and a special ability, though the immunities are things that many players will hardly ever use against a boss regardless. The special power can either be meh, or fuck you right over. Good thing for the player the summoning powers are mutually exclusive and can't gain strengths that counter most of their weaknesses.

They can also be countered by researching Mindshields, your own (fully upgraded) Psi operatives and the buffed Sparks. When you have the latter two the Mindshields are redundant as the last two are right out immune to being stunned and mind controlled. Too bad there aren't new lines for a Spark with Julian's voice. As hearing a GlaDOS expy with the attitude of Bender snark back at The Chosen would have been hilarious.

*'''The Assassin''': The first of the Chosen you'll meet if you're playing the "Lost and Damned" mission to introduce yourself to the new mechanics introduced in WotC, the Assassin is a dark reflection of the Ranger class. The biggest [[Weeaboo|weeb]] in all of Advent. She attacks mostly with her Katana (although she does have a rarely used shotgun called Arashi, and you'll thank the programmers she rarely uses it), striking out of concealment to stun one of your guys (Who you'll then have to revive or risk them getting kidnapped), before running away. In the same turn. Because the Bad Guys get to move, shoot, move, but the player doesn't get nice things. To top this all off she's immune to overwatch so you either have to try and escape from the current mission, or take the fight back to her just as hard. Oh yeah, and avoid bunching your guys up, or she will stun half the squad at a time with an area of effect special attack, but don't get too spread out or you won't be able to revive stunned soldiers before she kidnaps them. Thankfully, her concealment works by the same rules as yours, and it'll break if one of your guys flanks her, so if you've got a good idea of where she is, you can move someone in to reveal her, and then light her up with the rest of the squad. To make her easier to deal with make sure to take a Specialist with Scanning Protocol. After killing The Assassin you can build Arashi and her Katana. Though many will find her Katana redundant after they have tier 3 Axes and late game Templars.

*'''The Hunter''': While you would expect a roided up [[Space Wolves|Craven the Hunter cosplaying furfag]] by name alone, he is instead a more or less a [[Vindicare|hit man armed with a pistol and sniper rifle]] with an Affably Evil personality.[[Ork_Snipers| He's also known to have team killed some of the weaker Advent aliens when he got bored]]. Unlike his siblings he outright admits that he is a psychopath who likes killing things. The Hunter's abilities are a bit mundane compared to the other Chosen. While still being effective none the less. His Tracking Shot can aim at your troops from the other side of the map, and if they don't move he will kill them the next. This makes mind controlling Advent and hacking MECs for recon useful for once. He also come with a grappling hook with no cool-down, stun grenades and pistol tranq shots that never miss. So don't be stupid and send in a lone Reaper without Banish. Even if he rolls them as a weakness. As they don't put out enough damage to out snipe him and will end up killed or captured instead. His Sniper rifle Darklance and pistol Darkclaw are obviously weapons that are meant for your Snipers. So Reapers can't use it without modding the game. Not a good idea regardless as it can't be modified with extended magazines and mods that can do this might cause conflicts. The Hunter is by far the most popular of The Chosen among players. While all three of them are edgelords, he adds a huge load of snark to his. He even mouths off to the Ethereals. This shouldn't be surprising as he's voiced by the very talented Nolan North.

*'''The Warlock''': Probably the most dangerous of The Chosen, if you don't have Mindshields. If you do he's about as dangerous as the final boss of the game. If you don't he's damned near impossible as he'll mind control your entire squad at once. In the event his mind-wiping powers are ineffective/on cooldown, he'll summon waves of exploding spectral zombies or psionic copies of Stun Lancers to swarm after you. On his direct offense he has a buffed up plasma rifle that will do extra damage to psionics (i.e. your Psi Operative and Templar), a mind bullet that will split off to affect up to two additional targets, and the ability to teleport his own allies into flanking positions. Sometimes his AI does some stupid shit such as teleporting an Advent next to him. Bonus points if said Advent is the target your supposed to kill during the mission. Once you get his Disruptor rifle, it has every possible upgrade in the game. Though only Rangers, Psi-Operatives and Specialist can take it in an unmodded game. A waste on the latter two as by the time you get it. Their late game abilities and equipment make giving them a 3.5 tier weapon redundant.

'''The Lost
Also know as the laggers, as the game starts slowing down if there are too many of them on screen. Introduced in WotC, the Lost were created when survivors of the initial invasion decided that returning to the desolated ruins of their former cities still infested with radioactive alien drop-pods and trying to live off the scraps [[derp|was a good idea]]. The Lost serve as a sort of third enemy faction and will attack XCOM, ADVENT and Alien forces alike (though with a very high preference for [[your dudes]], go figure). Any explosives, be they from grenades, gas tanks or cars will summon hordes of them in the missions they can appear in and can potentially overwhelm both your soldiers and your computer's RAM in high enough swarms. They have a notable weakness to fire and if ignited, will run away panicking before burning to death. Any successful killshot (be they from you or the aliens/ADVENT) will refund the action point spent to kill it, which helps significantly when dealing with swarms of them. Like both the aliens and ADVENT, all variants will start appearing with more base health as time passes, but as long as you're on top of your research game, they shouldn't be a problem.

*'''Regular''': Standard Lost behave exactly like any prototypical zombie; they beeline it towards whichever enemy suits their fancy and try to peg them in the head with their rotting limbs. In most cases, they can easily be killed in a single shot with most guns, bar the unlucky miss/damage roll.

*'''Dasher''': Faster and with slightly more initial HP (4-5, as opposed to 2-3) these guys aren't much more of a threat compared to regular Lost. They do have a surprising threat range and can easily surround isolated soldiers if not picked off immediately, however.

*'''Brute''': These guys have a lot of HP for a Lost, can actually deal some melee punishment. Early on they do require a little bit of focus fire to down them and they become more and more common by endgame. Then again, by endgame you'll have the best weapons and armour, so once again... only really a threat if you're unlucky, and there's a lot of them.

Recommended soldier classes for missions involving lost are Reapers with Banish and Annihilate, Skirmishers, Rangers and Templars with Bladestorm and Templars/Sharpshooters with Faceoff for room clearing. Dragonfire rounds also ensure that even if by some miracle the Lost shot by them survives, they'll be rendered harmless and die shortly after. There is also a mod that makes their targeting more realistic, as by default they target XCOM(70%) over Advent(30%). Which doesn't make sense as Advent would have no reason to deploy Purifiers. They become even more annoying if the game rolls to deploy a Chosen at the same time. Be wary of your RAM and don't rely on autosaves.(16GB+ is the bare minimum you want to have! If it still lags use lower settings. High settings look about as good as maximum and still run at a decent FPS.)

== See Also ==

*[[X-Com Play By Post]], experimental rules for playing X-Com on a forum.
*[[XCOM: Tomorrow's War edition]], a conversion of [[Tomorrow's War]] for playing X-Com on the tabletop.

== Gallery ==
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== External Links ==

* [http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page UFOpaedia.org], a wiki dedicated to X-COM (and sequels, and mods, etc.).
* [http://openxcom.org/ Open Source engine for the original game]
* [http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=269&enmi=XCOM:%20The%20Board%20Game Fantasy Flight Games's official X-COM game.]
* [http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/? Long War main page.]
* [http://ufoai.org/wiki/About UFO: Alien Invasion]
* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BqoEJUWKVRFSKXOA2Ks3Ce7Kvphmg0kAFKcuXJHgmr0/mobilebasic?pli=1 Things X-COM operatives are not allowed to do], a list in the vein of Mr. Welch's list. Occasionally hilarious
* [https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=5026.0] A 40k mod for openxcom NO idea as to why it hasn't shown up here.
[[category:Video Games]]
[[Category:Software]]