UFO Assault 101

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Dr. Shen completed this Hyperwave Relay device they wanted to build and upon scanning for UFO's we detected a large cloaked bastard lurking in South Africa. It wasn't the same one that shot McCool down unfortunately, but it didn't matter. I sent our local Firestorm in and it shot that bastard down.

Didn't seem big enough to be their leader's ship (I'd think that even for aliens, size matters) but I still sent "A" Team of Hitler, Gravedigger, Big Mike, Bald Witch, Bondi Vet and "new" Major Sledge. What followed can only be described as pure tactical genious! After eliminating a pair of elites patrolling outside, the team entered the craft itself where it sounded like everything was hiding in the central control chamber.

Breach, Bang and Clear!

Rather than walk around to the door, the squad took up a good firing position at their initial entry point and grenaded open the wall, revealing not only a frail alien commander but also 2 sectopod squads and four elites! Rained grenades and rockets into the room while Bondi Vet provided smoke gas cover to help survive return fire. In one round almost all enemies were dead, the two sectopods hobbling out and two remaining elites taking cover in an adjacent hallway. A second round of grenades cleared the ship of all enemies entirely, and the team returned without even taking a scratch. In addition, both Gravedigger and Hitler are now highest rank of Colonel! :D

As they brought back the wierd device they found a super large ship appeared on the map, even causing an earthquake at the base. Ahha, -that- must be the boss I thought to myself. Shen pointed out we have nothing to even damage that... yet, but I am confident whatever this device is holds the key in taking that thing down. The end is near, I can feel it.

Total Annihilation

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Soldiers Lost in the Seventh Month: 4
Campaign Total: 25

The end of a combat heavy month saw me with another grade of "A" and with funding from all but one country (since they didn't have a satellite yet). Soon after a giant alien craft was detected over South America, the one place I didn't yet have a Firestorm (it was in transit). Still, I had my last Raven interceptor and its ace pilot Vince McCool so I sent him out to sortie. He lasted 2 seconds before being annihilated by the heavy weapons on alien craft. With not much else I could do about that I turned my attention to a terror strike in Osaka where I decided to send out a freshly hired squaddie team of Clown Face, Rocket Man, Party Girl, Badass, Elvis and Hot Momma to earn their stripes. This time they had the best gear, all wielding plasma weaponry and in titan suits. What could go wrong?

They landed at a tank factory (wtf?) and annihilated the first group (cyberdisk) they saw while Clown Face busily saved civvies in the AO. Then came a zombie horde with crazy chrysallids and a sectopod. Things got very hairy as Party Girl handled the zombies while Clown Face was alloy-cannoning (turns out it's not that good) sectopods and the rest of the team focused fire on the mecha. It wasn't enough to take down the mechanical horror which then made Hot Momma live up to her name by disintegrating her with its special beam cannon. Her horrible death shriek spurred the team on to eliminate the robot in the next round. Luckily the surviving chrysallids decided to flee/eat other things and left combat only to be replaced by a muton berserker squad.

Why didn't I think of that?

With no more explosives and unlucky shooting the berserker pummeled Clown Face's skull into a fine mist and even punched Elvis (only the second man to survive such a hit - the first being Hitler in an earlier mission) before being taken down. With a few rounds to regroup and reload the remaining mutons and chrysallids were not an issue. 4 out of 18 civilians saved. Mission complete!

The Titan Project

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Soldiers Lost in the Sixth Month: 1
Campaign Total: 21

A large UFO appeared over Egypt just as the month came to an end and despite the best efforts of my Firestorm and Raven interceptors stationed there the crafty craft got away, leading me to get a grade of "B" at the end of month six. With almost all the world having satellite coverage now and good funding coming in (everyone still backing XCOM) I put in an order to get more Firestorms out there and to outfit them all with plasma cannons. Also, I finally decided to buy some armor for the troops now that there are people worth protecting - getting three suits of heavy titan armor constructed, which would see near to immediate use as a large UFO had landed in Mexico (maybe the one that got away from Egypt).

Sent Gravedigger, Techno Viking, Guy Smiley, Blunder Buss, Buster Downs and our second Psionic - Adolf Hitler to investigate. After eliminating the thin men and heavy jetpack boys guarding outside I got the team to circle around the craft to try something new. Buster Downs lobbed a grenade at the control compartment, revealing a pair of sectoid commanders who were easily gunned down by the surprise attack. From that position they also then exploded the opposite wall from which some wierd noises were coming from, revealing a muton team standing beside an alien powersource. A rocket from Hitler followed by good shooting put them down quick... and then came the cavalry in their blood red armor.

Not quite.

These elite muton bastards had armor to match our titan suits and put up a huge fight, injuring a number of the team and killing Guy Smiley with a ridiculously distant grenade throw. Eventually Techno Viking managed to flank them and really pour on the hurt, with Gravedigger mindflaying one to death. They were the last enemies on this site. 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!