GWG's III
Part II: Never Gonna Give This UpOperation Spectral Priest ReduxThe team splits into pairs, each taking one side of the road. Overwatches are the norm. Right at the last movement on the third turn, we spot a couple xenos who flee for cover. Overwatches all around, people.
One of the aliens fires at Private Ruiz, who apparently could have shot the one xeno. She moves forward, but alerts no fewer than six more buggers, who run for cover. Damn plasma-armed roaches. The squad maneuvers.
Those xenos? One zaps Private Ruiz down to 1 health, panicking her and Private Owusu, who run behind a truck and shoot at a xeno respectively. Private Hall is killed, and Hudson, the only member of the team not dead or requiring an underwear change, runs forward and kills a xeno at long range.
The aliens responded. At first, all was good; Hudson was saved by their inaccuracy (one seemed to hit
the alien device it took cover behind) and his dodging skills, but the penultimate xeno killed him. And the last one? Killed Hall. The dog is fucked. Ruiz decides to end this the best way she can: Charging at the nearest cluster of xenos and dropping a grenade at her feet. Three were wounded; Ruiz did not survive. Was this better or worse than plasma? Who the hell knows?
Operation Spectral Priest Panicked Stooge TriduxWe advance much as normal. A xeno is encountered at the dawn of the second turn, shot at by Ruiz (who misses on 50%) and Owusu (who kills on 35%). We continue moving forward, shooting at more aliens who show up. Owusu avoids Overwatch fire from unseen xenos twice in as many turns, but then panics from a scratch given by the xeno's plasma pistol. Didn't even pierce the armor. The other xeno missed him but set his cover up to blow. The cover that, when he panicked, he ran to a slightly different part of.
(Memo to self: Attempt to capture a xenomorph alive, then send its pistol to the Mythbusters to determine if it is, in fact, realistic for the weapon to be able to make cars explode.)
Hall kills the last damn xeno we see. However...we've killed what, two? There's more. I alt-tab to the game right after typing this, advance Ruiz, and discover three more xenos, who of course get free moves. Owusu predictably dies when the car he's hiding behind blows up. Ruiz panics, shooting Hudson for three damage, panicking Hudson who shoots back for three damage. It's hilarious. Anyways, Hall advances and discovers more xenos, xenos' turn, they both miss Ruiz, one setsthe car Hudson is hiding behind on fire, forcing him into the open to sprint to a car right at the edge of his dashing range...and get killed by an Overwatching xeno. Ruiz panics
again and misses a random xeno, finding her mind clear enough to complain about ammunition. One xeno polishes of Ruiz, another puts a burn straight through the armor of Hudson, the last surviving and most competent of the rookies this mission.
Dog, fucked. Hudson has a plan: He walks out into the open, swings his arms out wide, and shouts "YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?!? COME GET IT, MOTHERFUCKERS!" A reaction shot interrupts him in the "walking" phase of his plan. Mission failed.
Maybe II isn't for me.
Operation Spectral Priest TriduxI advance more aggressively this time, Ruiz discovering a trio of xenos blissfully unaware of my existence on the first turn. Or maybe not, since they kill Ruiz, causing Hall to panic and Hudson to...also panic, but the kind that makes him shoot Hall for panicking. Unsuccessfully, but still, you've got to admire the Commissar vibe. Oh, and Owusu, the last functioning squaddie, gets killed. So yeah, two dead two panicked on the first turn. Thankfully, the second is...strangely uneventful. The survivors cluster a bit and Overwatch, watching over nothing. Hall takes a reaction bolt to the face, taking one point of damage and losing seven points of Charisma. He then gets critically wounded by another xeno's shot, as a trio of xenos more wanders in and sprints for cover.
"Fuck this," Hudson says. "Not fucking again."
He runs for cover, spots two more xenos, and gets shot twice. Lethally.
Operación espectral Sacerdote Número Cuatro¡Esta vez, vamos a intentar informar en roto español!
Nos retiramos a un rincón. Cosas todavía se presentaron en el segundo turno, y luego huyó. No es que se tropezó El Overwatch. O estaban dentro del rango de tiro al momento de retirar despedirnos...Espere, mierda, que son! Ruiz y Hudson pánico cuando Owusu fue asesinado; Ruiz rompió la formación y fue matado por el avance de principio a fin. Hudson recibe un disparo a un punto de golpe y el pánico, corriendo a la esquina del tablero. Hall se vacía su rifle de asalto sin hacer uno de los tiros del cuarenta por ciento. Él entonces muere. Uno adivina qué. Hudson Overwatch...a? Overwatche? (I don't know how to conjugate Overwatch as a Spanish verb. It does not have a standard ending!) Él Overwatche para muchas vueltas--¡para diecinueve vueltas!--con un punto de golpe, antes de detenerse Overwatchiendo. Entonces, él dio un paso hacia adelante, vio a dos extranjeros, se perdió uno, y murió. Al Final.
Priest spectral Operation Number Four
This time, we will try to inform in broken Spanish!
We retired to a corner. Things are still presented in the second round, and then fled. Not that tripped the Overwatch. Or were within shooting range when picking goodbye...Wait, crap, they are! Ruiz and Hudson panic when Owusu was killed; Ruiz broke formation and was killed by the progress from start to finish. Hudson is shot to a hit point and panic, running to the corner of the board. Hall his assault rifle was empty without one of the shots of forty percent. He then dies. One guess what. Hudson Overwatch...a? Overwatche? (I do not know how to conjugate a Spanish verb as Overwatch It does not have a standard ending.!) He Overwatche for many laps-for nineteen laps-with one hit point, before stopping Overwatchiendo. Then he stepped forward, he saw two foreigners, lost one, and died. The End.
Oh wow. That was horrible.
Anyways, I learned a valuable lesson those last two missions. My tactics suck...but changing them
makes things worse.
Dude. Be nice, that was in jest.
Well, there were much less absurd ways to jest. That was so over-the-top, it looped past being stupid, to being funny, to being annoying.
That is stupid.
Even if the joke's not that funny, I don't think there's reason to be that insulting. ^_^
But in seriousness...
Gravity does have the minor issue that it (EDIT: very probably) only propagates at the speed of light; unless the mystery aliens are already in the neighborhood, they aren't likely to notice it in a reasonable timeframe. It also falls off as the square of the distance, and we know the gravity well of the black hole wasn't that significant, relatively speaking, because the Earth still exists and because the black hole evaporated in fairly short order. That is to say, the threshold for identifying it would likely lead to a large number of false positives. That said, there is no reason given in-game why they wouldn't be in the neighborhood; we only know that they came to Earth in the Temple Ship. I don't believe we know about FTL technologies or the like that the aliens may or may not possess, and if this is a war taking place in the local neighborhood, there would be an acceptable turn-around time that also gives time for X-Com's budgets to be thoroughly cut due to the absence of an alien threat. It could also be possible that the mysterious threat possessed some ability to track the Temple Ship in a given manner (perhaps an ansible-like technology we saw similar to that used aboard the scouts; if they know the Ethereals' goal, the mysterious threat lets the Ethereals do the hard work of finding any potential threats, then swoops in and cleans up shop if it looks like they succeeded), and its attention will be drawn by the sudden cessation of that signal.
All of this makes more sense than detecting the hole. Which may or may not have ever existed.
-Snip-
Keep trying. Soon you will learn and proceed to rise from the piles of corpses like a mighty phoenix. Then you will die on the second mission.
Yay?
