There were a few missions between here and the last post, the important bits being that Milno, Miya and An unnamed heavy are all hurt and that the current troop consists of two snipers and two mechs, Lucas and Jim. Jim has the kinetic amp, Lukas the flame thrower.
The two mech troopers prove themselves capable by minigunning some floaters down almost instantly. their inablility to take cover does sort of bother me (they don't have THAT much health) but I suppose we'll have to deal with it. LEARN TO DUCK YOU BASTARDS!
The mission goes fairly well, except that Thomas gets himself strangled by one of those jellyfish things and injured, while Miya misses a fuckin pointblank shot on it with A FUCKING MINIGUN. But in the end, all is well.
The next mission is rather sparce in terms of people to bring. Our two mechs, Sniper Bishop and...some rookie. We'll see if he lives long enough to get a name.
The next mission seems like one of those DLC story specific missions. Yep. Some Guy name Zhang greets us carrying a bag filled with alien goodies. And now we have to escort him a good 200 meters or so before he's totally safe. Yeah, ok.
No sooner do we start out on our little trek then thinmen start dropping from the sky. Jim and Miyamoto both freaking miss on an overwatch shot but A bit of bishop sniping takes down one and then Jim takes down the other. Easy peasy.
The rest of it plays out much the same: they keep throwing thinmen at us and Lucas and Miya keep blowing them down, with some help from the rest of the team, of course. It's fairly boring and standar, but everyone gets a promotion, including Bishop, who gains the nickname "Zero"
We get that Zhang guy as a recruit, Though I don't know if I'll use him because I can't rename the bastard.
The Rookie with us last time becomes an Assault named morul and the gravely injured heavy becomes Stacy.
Funding finally comes in and I use it to buy more satelites, a new uplink, the genetics lab and a thermogenerator, as well as Laser rifles for Milno and Miya while we await the research of the sniper lasers, which come soon after. Now We're moving on to carapace armor.
The next battle looks somewhat difficult, but I decide to bring along Morul instead if Bishop, give him a bit of practice. I load him up with a scope and a shotgun laser and we're off.
It's a terror mission in japan. I would have expected them to be used to tentacles and horrible probing, but sure, ok. Lets hope These mechs give us some advantage against the fucking Cryslids I know will be here.
No cryslids, but fuck if that mission didn't end up with a lot of injured. It went alright until milno caught a car explosion to the dome and then several more people ate plasma from some mutons I angered at the same time as some floaters and jellyfish. Bad times. Had to retreat while spraying fire with the mechs, but managed to get away and turn the tides. Lukas gets pomoted to "Tik-Tok".
The next mission sees Bishop, Morul, Jim, Lukas, Miya and Stacy out to place transponders on a train for some reason. Part of that Mission tree with Zhang I think. Whatever, right? Murder is priority One.
The station is pretty much deserted when I get there and I send the units out in a tight formation. There's no meld around to grab so theres no reason to diverge from our mission of getting to the train.
Jim jumps on to the train, with Lukas in close persuit. Lukas manages to stir up a duo if thinmen, one of which is instantly taken down by an overwatch shot from Jim.
I attempt to get the second one, which has run off into the darkness, by moving most of the rest of the team around back of the train and coming up on the other side. They can't see anything, but Bishop manages to take the bastard down with an overwatch shot that passes straight through two windows of the train and gets the guy mid run.
More thinmen pop out as we move down the length of the train, placing transponders as we do. Jim and Lukas tag team one, while Bishop lays the other down with a laser shot from practically across the entire level. Thanks squadsight!
Command warns us about enemies dropping in just as a muton falls from the sky. Jim's out of ammo so he just charges the bastard. He eats a faceful of plasma before rocket uppercutting the alien brute a good 20 feet backwards. I get Miya to place another transponder and then get bishop up ontop of the train for a better vantage point. It pays off next turn.
Miya is still running down the train, popping transponders when he can, and ends up waking two more thinmen. One of which Bishop gets a 100% shot on from literally across the entire level. Once again, fucking squadsight man. Best upgrade.
Another muton drops and is promptly laser shotgunned while the last thinman is gifted with the remaining energy of Bishops laser sniper rifle. And then It's over, Miya places the last transponder and activates the train, despite injuries gained in the process. Stacy, Miya and Morul all get promotions and Miya is out for 4 days.
The next part of that Zhang mission is up before the heavy lasers are done researching and we're out again, this time with Jim, Lukas,Morul, Bishop, Zhang and Stacy.
We're off to bring down the alien battleship, hopefully without damaging it too bad. I hope theres a lot of good alien goodies in here.
We unfortunately blunder into thinmen and sectoids and Jim takes some damage while Zhang gets both shot and poisoned. We wipe the alien bastards out but..well I hope this ship isn't too big. Zhang isn't looking good and I have no one with a medkit.
Turning off the first power node brings nothing but a lone thinman, who is sniped while he wanders towards us.
Further movement into the ship brings more sectoids and thinmen, which are cut through with relative ease, including jim once again uppercutting one straight to the moon, Although Morul does get injured in the process.
The next part is a bit more tricky. A cyberdisk and a seemingly endless wave of sectoids and Thinmen leave Most of the team injured to some degree, but the final two power nodes get taken down in a dual assault by Lukas and Jim. In the end, Jim is wounded and out 5 days, Lukas is alright, Morul gains the name Wolverine but has to heal for 14 days (how uncharacteristic of a character named wolverine!). Stacy Becomes "Crater", no doubt due to his use of rockets and is out 8 days, and Zhang is out 14 as well. But everyone except Zhang gets a promotion, so I guess it's not that bad.
Ugh. I get rail guns researched for the Mecs, but Damn, a huge amount of the crew is out of commission. Jim, Thomas, Miya, Milno (nickname changed to honey badger), Zhang, Stacy and morul are all gimped for the moment.
During this down period of injuried soldiers healing up, they give us the first Exhalt covert mission. Hmm. I'll send thomas with a laser pistol. I'd send Milno (he is head of Covert ops after all) but he's still out with plasma burns over most of his body.
AND OF COURSE, now the abductions come. And I have to chose the hardest one, since if I don't that country is gonna back out of XCOM's funding. Ugh. UGH. So we have a team of Bishop, Lukas, Miya and 3 fucking rookies who are no doubt gonna die super hard. I give one a laser rifle because I have it laying around ad the others get reaper rounds. Lets hope they can at least hurt something before they die.
UGHHH, well, lets go get fucking eatten by Crysilids.
Things go pretty good at first, we disturb some jellyfish, kill one but the other strangles bishop for a bit before we get it off him. Three floaters kick down the door during this, see the shit going on in here, and run back the other way. Lukas gives chase and gets nailed twice. He takes two down over the course of two turns and then the final gets taken out by a rookie. I get miya to patch Lukas up a bit but then we come to a problem.
A container of meld is sitting over there. Miya could just run and get it just in time to save it from self destructing. But there is shit out there in the dark. I fucking know it.
Fuck it.
He actually gets all the way over there and gets it without problem. Its when he moves back toward the group that three more fucking floaters come out of nowhere.
Miya gets one, easily, and lukas gets the second. But the third evades the rookie's fire and disappears into the dark, bringing another floater back with him a moment later. Lukas brings down one, Bishop a second and a rookie brings down the last, a third hiding in the dark. Yay!
The female rookie gets the name Lyra and the designation of sniper. The Male gets assualt and the name Denzel.
We're back less then a day before the call goes out again; a UFO landed somewhere. We're still with the same team, though now lyra and denzel are sporting the proper colors for their class.
God damn it. There's meld on this level. I want it. Those fucking gene mods are expensive.
At first it goes fine. Wipe out some sectoids and floaters, the usual deal, but then as we close in on the ship a trio of Mutons appear and each and every one of them turns their weapons on Denzel, gunning him down and killing him permanently. And then Lukas misses. Tears clouding his vision, no doubt. He makes up for it a moment later by cooking one of of the mutons with his flamethrower. The other dies to combined fire while the third retreats back into the ship.
A group of thinmen charge out of the ship a turn later, but combined fire reduces them to clouds of fart gas.
We move slowly into the ship, not wanting another Denzel incident. We catch sight of that last muton running around in there and lukas lumbers in and finishes it off on his own. Now there's only the cockpit and the inevitable outsider left.
I let the unnamed rookie, a guy in a porno-stache, take out the outsider and then we're off and away home.
The rookie becomes a sniper named Auron and Denzel's widow is informed that the dice were bullshit.
In addition, Lukas is awarded the Defender's Medal for his long service to the cause.
At this point, I'm just screaming through autopsies in an attempt to get the genelab to be useful. We get through 3 of them before that covert mission that we sent Thomas on finally comes to fruition and we can send an extraction team. We're going in heavy this time, both mechs are ready so they're going, along with the newly healed milno, as well as lyra, miya and Bishop. Lets hope Thomas can pull through, unarmed as he is.
OH MY GOD.
This fucking game. I swear. Exhalt is weak but fuck if the game isn't skewed in their favor. 80% chances miss 4/5 times. Flame thrower and grenade damage indicators which show them being hit then result in no damage.
Well, despite being surrouned by like 10 fuckers who are HACKING, we manage to get out, mostly thanks to jim and his ability to just charge headfirst into fire and slap the shit out of people via rocket fist.
Two more drop in not a moment later. Lukas misses a 70% shot. Fine. Bishop has a 98% shot on the same guy. Jim takes out the other and we spend a turn or so regrouping.
Then 4 more fucking exalt drop from the sky. See, I really hate that in this new game. In the old Xcom, guys didn't just teleport in and completely ruin any attempts at strategic placement. Sigh. Well, lets see if we can sprint over to the extraction point.
Wait, I just saw the save file for this mission. Operation Brutal Jester? You're fucking with me.
Well we kill those last 4. THEN 2 MORE SPAWN. Kill them too. I bet more would have spawned, but Thomas reached extraction. Whew.
Milno is wounded. Again. 9 days. I gotta get that fucking thing in the officer school that does fast healing. That and maybe the genetic thing that does it.
A lot of research gets done before another covert mission comes up. I'm sending Lyra on this one.
The next mission to come up is an abduction. And man, it is nice to have the heavy hitters all back; even the eternally injured milno.
This mission is Jim, Miya, Lukas, Bishop, Milno and Thomas. Boys club. And by that I mean a club with which we crush alien skulls. Via Rocket fists. Yeah.
Two mutons come out of nowhere, get a crit on bishop and mildly annoy Jim. So Thomas shoots one and Jim punches the other so hard it destroys the wall he's standing in front of and flings the corpse 30 feet.
Around the corner we come across a sectoid in power armor. No fair. Foul. Thats our shtick. And they have plasma weapons. Assholes. And it can shoot twice, bringing lukas down to like 3 health. Great. Well, we kill him and Lukas gets a few healing sprays shoved up his tail pipe but I fucking know he's gonna be majorly injured after this. Poor dude, he surived this entire dark time of everyone being injured only to get maimed now. Well, least he's not dead.
Well, the last two bastards are just jellies that I kill via overwatch, so thats that. Lukas is out for almost two weeks and Bishop for just over a week. But Miya reaches Major, so I guess that something. And maybe this corpse will have some nice new mech pieces. The robo-boys could use some new nuts, so to speak.
Well, that corpse did open up new foundry upgrades, so thats better then nothing.
The next mission sees the return of the long injured Morul and Stacy, along with Jim, Miya, Milno and Thomas.
It's an alien landing zone mission, over in the land down under. Operation "Lazy Shroud". More like "Lazy guy at base who makes up these names and is also an asshole."
Nothing really special happens on this mission, but it goes really well. Lots of promotions (milno, jim, Thomas and Stacy) and all the Meld found. YAY.
Author
Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Missions 9a, 10, 11, and Heph post war survey team) (Read 435732 times)