Chronicles of Phoenix Point and the Disciples of Anu

[Blathergut]

I’ve played through the game many times, usually nabbing Synedrion rifles as soon as possible, sprinkling in a berserker here or there for armour break, a priest for panic, and mostly going Phoenix Point materials.

I thought I’d try a campaign where Phoenix Point joins with the Disciples of Anu right from the start. I’d fully use the berserker/priest skills and weapons/armour. Go major time with virus and close combat. Forget NJ rockets or Synedrion sniper rifles. Technicians? Bah! I’ll steal from them. Might even use some stolen tech or research. But build teams focused on Anu classes and skills. I’ve never used Mind Sense or Ignore Pain. Can I survive in Anu armour? Can I kill with virus weapons? Can I control enemy will power like never before?

So, welcome (if anyone out there is even remotely interested) to the Chronicles.

First Week

I start out in North Africa (Legend). Not many havens nearby and Anu are scarce. I got lucky with a couple events and got Anu relations up to 21. The initial worm infestation brought them to 24 by turn 7 and I’ve just completed the 2nd Initiation revealing all Anu havens. Seems like North America is the destination of choice! One noticeable wrinkle: Not many nearby havens have recruits available. Hopefully more nearby scans with help with that! I’d like a 6th assault. Phoenix Point is building a fabrication plant to speed up weapons and armour for new recruits.

[TheDayBreaker100]

Looking forward to the following weeks lol

[Blathergut]

Thank you for the rare comment.

A quick restart mostly due to me being buried in trying to teach online. I muddled up early scanning and such.
It’s I think 3 days in. This is probably the best start I’ve had in the game. Having decided to go full Anu, when they asked me to raid a Synedrion factory I decided to go for it with only 4 operatives at levels 1. I’d never actually raided a haven before! I’ve always tried to get them all up to at least 25 to reveal havens and reduce need to explore sites.

It was a treasure trove! The Synedrion sniper was a challenge. We had to keep falling back and make it move just enough to try and get a couple overwatch rounds into it from distance while absorbing it’s shot each turn. Medkits ran out. Ammo was running out (you can’t carry much at level 1!). But it gave: -20Syn +15Anu; lots of resources; and most importantly, they dropped both an laser assault rifle and a sniper rifle. Those will be godsends this early once I research them! Stolen tech rocks!
Beyond that, a couple of scavenging missions and we have enough food piled up now to stop at both Anu havens and recruit 2 berserkers to fill up our initial team. Anu is at 19 relations. I think the worm mission adds 3 so we need one other little event or such. Hopefully!

That’s the new starting position.

[Blathergut]

A mid-first week update: It’s Jan. 06, we’ve has our first Anu haven defense, we’ve just finished the 2nd Initiation (not easy w two operatives w no armour and one w just a pistol!), topped up stamina, and headed to the first nest. I don’t ever remember a start position like this! Can we kill both in one go? Doubtful w one dude armed with a pistol. But maybe…

[Blathergut]

…of course we kill both…and there must be a third one somewhere!

[Blathergut]

End of the sixth day. First nest destroyed; Anu @ 34; team levels are 3 (heavy), 3 (sniper), 3 (assault), 4 (assault), 2 + 2 (berserkers). Second scan is just finishing and revealed all of maybe 3 points of interest. Heading south to initiate 3rd scan, hoping to find a second Phoenix base down that way. Have a fair bit of materials and such, but saving it to build laser assault rifles (coming up finished in R+D in about 14 hours. Then we’ll see about a training facility or two and start recruiting a 2nd team.

[Blathergut]

Jan o9:

-found 2nd base but disappointing; no living quarters or med bays; nothing useful
-Anu asked us to sabotage Synedrion power…so we went! Recovered: phlegethon body armour (nice!) and a neural pistol…more research!
-Anu @49 and 4th Initiation pops up…might be tricky with one sniper and two level 2 berserkers, but we are armed now w 4 laser assault rifles which help the berserks hit
-NJ @ -10 and Syn very unhappy w us @ -39…defending one of their havens right about now would be nice for the loot and to soothe them a bit

Major concern: There are exactly 3 havens offering recruits. Two are Anu and empty at the moment. One is NJ and we may have to recruit there despite our disgust of them and then quickly correct the new recruit’s thinking But this is going to be a problem until we somehow find more havens w recruits. There are NO Anu havens in sight in all of Asia to the west.

[Blathergut]

Jan. 10

We decided to go for the 4th Initiation. Success! Our sniper must have a charmed life. After taking out an initial NJ sniper that appeared, he was left standing in the open. Next turn, NJ launched a rocket at him (went over head and off map), two more snipers targeted him and both missed (he would have been dead). At the end, our heavy had to take a rocket to the face at point blank so we could get to the last NJ soldier, but he survived thanks to some cover. [ S = sniper position; B = berserkers positions so they could pop up, armour break-shoot, and jump back down for cover]

Anu and 54, more NJ equipment recovered (machine gun, rocket launcher), various Anu research gained (they are working on priests I think, that’s the one I need)

[Blathergut]

Jan. 11

On the way back from the 4th, heading to base to top up stamina, we get what we most needed: a Synedrion haven is attacked. Hopefully we can nab a couple hours of sleep first.

[Blathergut]

Anatomy of a Battle

1. Get to cover. Always. You have no idea what you are facing. The sniper moves to map edge (a bit of protective insurance against bombing things coming at him; they might fly off over his head). Heavy moves to cover and is spotting. Everyone else just gets to cover.

2. Sniper stays in place, overwatching. Heavy goes into building for safety (still don’t know what we are facing). Everyone else goes around and IN the building, again, safe as opposed to being able to overwatch.

3. Assault goes on overwatch since we hear something moving (sounds like a crab). Everyone else prepares to go out but waits. If you step outside now you risk Pandoran overwatch as well as return fire if you shoot. If you don’t shoot, why go out?

4. The arthron moved; overwatch fire from Blaze was ineffective. But in her turn, both bursts from the laser rifle took the arthron down considerably with no risk of return fire. Our other assault can now dash out + shoot to kill (no risk of return fire) + dash back into the building.

5. Somewhat rude but effective!

[Blathergut]

Still Jan. 11

-back to base to top up stamina before taking on the 2nd nest (that will bump Syn up a bit)
-Syn wants an NJ energy attacked…we will probably do that to bump Syn up another 15
-because…they are the only ones with a ship we can steal

I’ve set up my two 4-man teams:
-Hvy/Berserk
-Sniper/Priest
-Assault/Priest
-Assault/Berserk

Just need an airship for 2nd team…and some armour…and waiting on Priest development from Anu

[Blathergut]

Jan. 13

-NJ intro mission completed
-sabotaged NJ energy at Synedrion request
-stole Synedrion airship

Two teams now ready (although a couple of the operatives are level 1s ). One will stay at original base, complete Symes retreat et al, and defend that area. Second will head to 2nd base and start scanning west from there, aiming eventually for 3rd base in Europe. Along the way the teams can add in rookies to start building a 3rd team of four.

Anu @ 63 NJ @ -29 Syn @ -36

STILL waiting on priests. But…just built a grenade launcher.

[TheDayBreaker100]

I find these very amusing

[Blathergut]

Up around Jan. 19 I think:

-finally got priests so two teams of four operatives set up (4th one waiting on a promotion to assault):

Assault/Priest

Heavy/Berserk

Sniper/Priest

Berserk/Assault (eventually)

Hit points, will, and movement are low. Points went to double-classing them and picking up those extra skills. Now each mission should see those three increase slowly. We’ll see how these 4-man teams handle the harder Pandorans. Am use to heavy-snipers with you-know-what at level 7.

[Blathergut]

Now this was an interesting battle. I needed food for recruiting and didn’t want to use materials trading to an Anu haven, so we raided a Synedrion food production. I’d never seen this map before. It was gorgeous with all the green and red plants and such. Made me sad to take it all!

It was also the first battle I’ve played since the game came out where I was fighting room to room a-la-Stalingrad or such. The two priests (assault/priest + sniper/priest) were invaluable for their panics. I’ll point out the times.

Starting positions below with no enemy in sight. Gorgeous buildings and incredible detail on the gardens. We move to the left along map edge w sniper and heavy. Assault/priest + berserk/assault head into the stairway of that little cube building just in front left of us (stairway on the opposite side. We hung in the stairwell, having heard something upstairs. Other two (both rookies) seek cover against that cube section.

Our 2 man team gets into the upstairs and finds two Synedrion operatives. Miss Atomic nailed the one during overwatch. Her partner comes up and finishes off the visible sniper. Miss Atomic steps out, puts a burst into the 2nd, panics him, and steps back. Down below, the rookie pair have taken out a Synedrion vehicle (thanks to armour break) and hear more footsteps.

The room is cleared.

Our pair of rookies continue to impress! One Synedrion operative gunned down as he tried to run towards us. Another lingers back there. Can we kill enough to panic him? (Second rookie is down behind that cube bit, shooting through a narrow alleyway.)

This was the positions of the sniper and the heavy, covering our left flank. Two Synedrion operatives are dead and two more will be eliminated in that lower section of the building, ending the mission. They were armed with poison grenades which were painful. Luckily we caught two of the snipers up in that room before they could open up on anyone. The sniper/priest used panic a couple times to ensure we would not take fire during the Synedrion turn.

Gains for the mission: A whopping 900 food!

[Blathergut]

Jan. 22 Update

-Anu @ 74 (6th Initiation waiting in Greenland); NJ @ -42 Syn @ -28 (We just saved one of their havens from the Pure. Lower screen, south-east Asia, heading back to 2nd base in north-east India area.)
-I need a 3rd vehicle and was hoping for a speedy Synedrion one but alas, none are in sight anywhere. If I don’t spot one soon, we’ll see. I’d like NJ up a bit in diplomacy before knocking them down further.
-Other team is up in the far north-east tip of what was Russia, starting a scan to try and get us into North America and the many Anu havens there.
-I need a priest to become a priest/sniper but none in sight yet.
-waiting for containment…will start dissecting and harvesting Pandorans
-3rd base found near the site of ancient Sparta…medbay repaired + living quarters being built (they want me to head to Central Africa for 4th base but I want to access North America)

[Blathergut]

It’s Jan. 27

It’s been a couple scavenging missions and we also finally broke down and raided NJ for a ship. There are just NO Synedrion ones visible on the entire planet (not that we SEE all of the planet). We’d bumped them up a bit with a couple events so the raid took them down to -51% but a little event after that (some dude who use to be in a boy band…) got them back to -48. The ship was sent back to the original Phoenix Point for the 3rd team of 4. They will start exploring N. America. Team 2 is in the original area of eastern Asia and Team 1 is operating out of that base near old Sparta. I suppose they will have to go looking for our 4th base in Africa.

The priest/snipers are proving actually very effective. They can pop off one panic and then a sniper round.

[Blathergut]

So the plan for the next few days:

-harvest Pandorans for mutations to soldiers; the closer we are to the Pandorans the better!
-protect any havens we can (in exchange for goodies of course) so we can pop a couple more raids on them once they are up a bit in diplomacy
-complete the Anu 6th Initiation (Can I do it w just 4 operatives? My sniper priest finally got to level 4 and double-classed to sniper but didn’t have enough points for quick aim. One mission needed first I suppose!]

[Blathergut]

A scavenging mission vs the Forsaken. Can my C Team survive it?

The battlefield. The Forsaken are not known for their long-range weaponry, so we’ll try to hang back and see if we can deal with them across that open space. Running across and into the building at top right would give them exactly what they need: close fighting. And me with this team, that ain’t gonna happen!

Level 4 Assault: Other than the biochemist, not too much to speak about. At least she can use an assault rifle effectively! And being laser, that will help with firing across that distance.

Level 4 Assault: These two are the strength of the team (such as it is!). He’s going to have some trouble hitting at distance because of Reckless, but any rounds that do hit will be felt.

Our eventual sniper! Luckily he has the sniper perk! And has the Anu armour that cranks up perception. Being able to induce panic has saved this ancient derriere more than once!

Our eventual heavy/berserk. I had him armed with a laser rifle but we all know how good he was with it. So I’m trying a laser pistol instead. Four of those rounds into something can be painful. The grenade launcher is really why he’s with us! (Not that he’s very good with it!)

Recent rookie picked up at a nearby Anu haven. He’ll someday grow up to be an assault/priest. He can atleast shoot from a distance!

First Enemy: That Forsaken is carrying a virus rifle. THAT could be damaging to us, considering the vast amount of will power each of my operatives have. We have our little fire base targeting him. The heavy is up a ways for now, trying to be in grenade range. Our rookie will try to find a position. Right next to those pretty red barrels is maybe not a great idea!

First Sniper Shot…

Oh to be a sniper! One of our so-called accurate-with-an-assault-rifle tries to finish off the Forsaken after that sniper shot. And our other assault has a dumb tree in the way.

Nearing the end. I’ve marked where a couple Forsaken are now forsaken. Grenades helped to knock down armour. Our sniper earned his pay today. Time to move forward and finish the last two (I hope!) off. Saved most crates. Probably will lose one up top of that building unless we can keep him panicked.

There actually was a 3rd one at the far side of the battlefield. We made short work of them. Some goodies got!

[Blathergut]

I will pause this for now and start a new Anu campaign with the new patch. A couple things to remember:

-push for Pandoran capture and harvest to fuel our mutations
-use virus rifles then to knock will down, panic, and then stun (I really miss that Synedrion paralyzing sniper rifle!)

Maybe I’ll pick this back up if I can get that campaign to the end of January. Compare the two campaigns then.