A Nasty Surprise

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

So I finally built a foundry - turns out there's a bit of useful tech in there (alien grenades get a big thumbs up) which I get Shen and his team researching right away. In the meantime Captain Whiskey is leading a team composed of Techno Viking, Blunder Buss, Reloader Jones, Buster Downs and Derka Derka to assault an abductor ship in the UK. Decided to let the snipers hang back while the others advanced to the loading bay. A cyberdisk thought it could take advantage of this but the snipers downed it and its drones easily. Next up was a berserker and some heavy floaters - again no issues there. Then it happened... a frigging sectopod teleported in the middle of my squad. WTF!

Sectopod Surprise!

Scattered the forward guys but Reloader Jones was stuck under suppression fire. Half the team hit the mech meaning it had a second turn, almost killing Jones with rockets then vaporizing Captain Whiskey with its beam laser. Fortunately it was destroyed soon after, and Derka Derka flanked and killed the suppressing muton with his pistol - only to have its buddy show up and ice him in return.

Once he was dealt with the team had a free run to the control room where another ethereal and his two elite guards waited. First elite was killed via overwatch fire. Then the ethereal came forth and reflected Reloader Jones' missed plasma shots back at him resulting in his messy death. A lucky critical from Blunder Buss followed by a grenade from Buster Downs freed Techno Viking from the mind control just in time to alloy cannon that last elite muton to death. Mission complete!

With that, another month came to a close - now I have full satellite world coverage and all countries are still on board. I got a grade of "B".

Soldiers Lost in the Eighth Month: 6 (including 1 pilot)
Campaign Total: 31

Walk like an Egyptian

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

After our last encounter I decided (finally) to deck out my troops in the best gear I could afford, raising funds by selling corpses and debris (seriously). Another titan suit with a few plasma sniper rifles and heavies. Wish I could sell the 52 scientists and Dr. Vahlen too since they are out of things to research, but there's some law against slavery so I'd have to kill them first for my corpse purchaser. Before I could give the order to do just that, the bald man interrupted with a call asking to get some important data from a building in Egypt. Possibly the Matrix Trilogy. With my high ranks in hospital I sent Buster Downs, Blunder Buss, Techno Viking, McCarthy, and Reloader Jones led by super-chick Captain Alpha. Surely superior equipment will make up for their lack of experience!

Mr. Anderson, welcome back. We missed you.

And it DID! Ofcourse it helped that the twelve idiot thin men liked to cluster together, giving an easier time to eliminate bunches of them with explosives. They managed to land some hits too, but in the end Alpha rallied her panicked team to complete the mission with no casualties. They also rescued Major Sledge, a techxpert working at the facility who now joined the team. Feeling cocky (for a chick) Alpha then went with Hitler, Okada, Derka Derka, McCarthy and Airhead to stop abductions on a major highway in Brazil. A squad of elite mutons combined with a cyberdisk and heavy jetpack team put the hurt on early. Airhead opted to stay out of cover to provide sniper cover against a flanking floater, blowing his brains out. An elite then did the same to her, making her live up to her name. McCarthy got a lucky shot against the cyberdisk, downing it before it could fire but then one of the elites grabbed his head and shoved its heavy plasma down his throat and fired, the shots tearing out of his rear.

The rest of the team fought back and eliminated the remaining elites, advancing cautiously with Alpha taking high ground on a bus. A second squad of heavy floaters attacked, critically wounding Alpha as she fell off her perch and panicking Okada into doing a rambo-like move and blasting the hell out of one of them. Unfortunately this put her in the open and she was cut down soon after. Luckily Hitler and ex-terrorist Derka Derka saved the day, eliminating the remaining foes. Mission complete!

Authority Equals Asskicking

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Soldiers Lost in the Fifth Month: 7
Campaign Total: 20

After a combat filled month it was time for another council meeting where I still netted a grade of "A". Due to my lack of troops I recruited five more (all I could afford since the rest of the funds went into base and firestorm construction). I should point out that I'm just using alien tech from captured aliens, not creating my own yet. Also, all my troops are only using the basic armor, again due to funding cuts! :P  Anyway, the five new squaddies (thanks to the new guy perk at the Officer Training School): Buster Downs, Guy Smiley, Techno Viking, Blunder Buss, and Reloader Jones were led into their first sortie by Panicman to stop abductions from a graveyard in Australia. Aliens and corpses again... I'll not speculate. Despite some morale breaks they handled the "light" level enemy force of mutons and floaters pretty well and with no casualties.

Their reward was being joined by the local graveyard keeper, Captain Whiskey, who got tested right away as he was sent to Vancouver with Alpha, Big Mike, Bald Witch, Hitler and the Italian to handle a terror attack there. Squads of mutons, a new heavy floater type (sounds like a big poo), and a deadly cyberdisk were the enemies and due to them all coming one after another the team was hard pressed to stay alive... let alone save civilians. Unfortunately the Italian took a face full of gatling laser fire sending his flaming and charred corpse into a nearby car (which then exploded). The others took damage too, but they methodically cleaned out the threat and saved 11 out of the 18 civilians in the area. Thankfully there were no chrysallids!

Upon their return they had one more shock, learning that one of their team mates was psychic (thanks to the new Psionics Lab in the base). Gravedigger has more than a big rifle it seems, he also has a big head. Bondi Vet and Panicman, who also underwent the testing were found to be not as gifted. I then sent our first Psi-voodoo guy with his two fellow psi-test compatriots along with Airhead, Whiskey, Derka Derka to stop abductions in a small Nigerian shopping strip. All aliens were neutralized WITHOUT any of my team taking damage! Better yet, Panicman has reached the highest rank of Colonel.

Psychic =/= Psionic.

Out of Options

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Panicman, Neumann "Alpha", Ragnar, Torres, Murphy and Derka Derka arrived in South Africa to extract one Thomas Hutch from a quiet district that happened to be CRAWLING with Thin Men. Their group sizes and number of groups were unusually high. This made it extremely dangerous and sniper Murphy was the first to find out just how much. After getting caught in a choking cloud of poison, her cover was destroyed and the next rounds of enemy plasma fire completely severed an arm and a leg - her lifeless broken body panicking some of the others. Managed to still sweep the whole area before both Ragnar and Torres also succumbed to the Thin Man poison, vomiting up all of their insides on the street. The rest of the team, plus Hutch and his bodyguards got out ok though.

Cars do not make good cover in this game.

Panicman's work was not over though, as he was sent next to stop abductions on a bridge in Sydney, Australia - bringing Airhead, the Italian, Big Mike, Greene, and McIntyre who bought the farm early when a muton exploded the car she was taking cover behind. The rest of the team were all injured during the encounter against the squads of mutons and thin men with Big Mike taking the worst of it - at least they made it back to the infirmary. This was directly followed by a terror attack in Leeds, UK. With all my other soldiers dead or injured it was up to Ikeda, Gravedigger, Greene, the Italian, Alpha, and Hitler to save civilians on an overpass.

The area was heavy with muton activity, and after wiping out the first squad the team ran into a bad combination of two berserkers and a squad of chrysalids. After using up all the explosives they had both berserkers were still up, leaving Greene and Ikede to lure the brutes away from the others in a desperate attempt to finish them off. It didn't work. The pair jumped upon a woman each and began pounding them with their massive fists behind the cab they took cover behind. As Dr. Vahlen knows, some things just can't survive that amount of fisting. The remaining troops managed to finish off the berserkers afterwards, as well as a few more gun toting mutons, another squad of hungry chrysalids, and a number of zombies that had been impregnated with chrysalid eggs. Out of 18 civilians, they saved 6. Mission complete!

That Didn't go Well

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Finally we have constructed our first Firestorm, a hybrid of human/alien tech to make one badass plane. Got to try it out too as it shot down an unknown sized UFO (looked pretty big) without taking much damage. The Sky Ranger transport was not far behind with the Bondi Vet, Cosmos, Derka Derka, Lucky Jew, rookie Sofia and Captain Mustachio tasked with sweeping up the mess, and what a mess it would turn out to be! As the team neared the crash site the first thing they ran into is a mini-ufo!?

Oh... shiii@#!

Since it looked tough I ordered them to expend all their explosives on taking it down (which just barely did the trick) but just as soon as that exploded a large group of little sectoids appeared in the woods with two drones, and though the team survived the firefight they were all injured from the encounter as they proceeded into the UFO proper. It was there they encountered THREE sectoid commanders, and due to the teams lack of firepower at that point they failed to down a single one in their opening barrage, only injuring them.

The sectoids responded by mind controlling Sofia the rookie which panicked Cosmos into shotgunning her to death. Soon after Cosmos himself was mind-raped by one, causing him to put the barrel of his weapon into his mouth and blow his own brains out. A panicked Derka was shooting wildly, injuring Captain Mustachio who then found a face full of plasma bullets, melting it off and killing him in slow agony. Not sure how Bondi Vet and the Lucky Jew pulled it off then, but between the two of them (and ricocheting bullets from Derka) they downed the remaining enemies and got the hell out of there. Mission complete!

A Little Bit of Conversation

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Dr. Vahlen killed the captive during her "interrogation", and now she wants another one, specifically an alien pilot. With a stroke of luck a UFO had landed in Japan so I sent valkyries Ikede and Murphy with Bald Witch and newbies Ragnar the Red (another Viking) and ex-terrorist Derka Derka. Despite encountering heavy resistance from sectoids, floaters and thin men they managed to capture said pilot while only suffering minor injuries (well, in Derka's case severe - but he lived).

While Vahlen and Shen "talked" to the outsider I killed time by sending Mister Mustachio, Panicman, the Italian, Cosmos and Airhead to a trainyard in Brazil where a floater army was abducting commuters. Easily put an end to that safely and quickly through good overwatch fire and by the time they got back the captive was dead and Shen wanted to construct a "key" out of its remains.

Oookay.

With most of Europe on the verge of total panic and the rest of the world not far behind I let them go ahead and do whatever with our remaining funds. It's actually very surprising how often this project that is "protecting the world" is bankrupt. Still, it turned out to be a good call because whatever they did - they managed to locate a large alien base in Asia! Damned sneaky aliens. This time we're going to take the fight to them!