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!

I Respect you as a Fighter

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Sent Panicman, the Italian, Big Mike, Bald Witch, Gravedigger, Ikede to stop abductions in Germany where they encountered a new type of alien - the brutish, soldier-caste called Muttons. Erm. I mean Mutons. So all this time I was just fighting their scouts? Great. The big guys are pretty tough but easy enough to hit and to down making them quick work for my organized team, despite their jetpack boy helpers. The worst part was opening a door with a Cyberdisk sitting on the otherside, fortunately every one hit that round - especially the boys with the HEAT ammo.

Having secured the area they gained another solder - Adolf Hitler, who would see action almost immediately in Marseille - accompanied by Panicman, the Italian, Big Mike, Hughes and McIntyre. It was a library block being terrorized by chrysilids. LOTS of them, and between them genestealers and the zombies they make (which then make more monsters) the team could only save 9 of 18 civilians, having to withdraw back out to the street to deal with the swarm at one point. Early in the piece Hughes misjudged the speed of the bastards and was beheaded for her mistake, but she was avenged.

Heck of a way to wrap up an otherwise quiet month in any case, as the next council meeting drew to a close giving me another grade of "A". I must be doing something right!

Soldiers Lost in the Fourth Month: 4
Campaign Total: 13

A UFO then landed in the USA - a big one. Sent Okada, Neumann, McCarthy, Bald Witch, Bondi Vet (wielding our first plasma rifle) and Lucky Jew to check it out. It was full of mutons, including one badass muton that didn't bother with a gun! Unfortunately David, the Lucky Jew wasn't so lucky this time as he was flanked by unexpected muton reinforcements and unceremoniously shot in side of the head. Bondi Vet managed to keep everyone else alive with medkits and with good positioning and a ton of good luck eliminated not only the muton soldiers but their three sectoid commanders as well. Plasma rifle is handy!

It's a muton! Erm I mean a mutton?

Second Wave

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Soldiers Lost in the Third Month: 0
Campaign Total: 9

Sent sniper heavy team of Bald Witch, Gravedigger, Airhead, Ikede, Greene and Ragnar to Australia to rescue a General Von something... Von Trapp? From a damaged raised freeway crawling with Thin Men. Guess the invasion is still on after all? After blasting all their cheating faces off (and capturing one thanks to the Bald Witch) we got him and his last soldier out who joined our team called Bondi Vet. Not long after was the next council meeting in which the bald dude gave me a score of "B", probably because I couldn't shoot down that one UFO earlier.

Also, despite not having lost soldiers this month it seems that over half of them were in the hospital, prompting me to recruit a new batch and sending them straight into combat as we shot down another small UFO in Japan. Seriously, why do they always go to Japan? Anyway the rookie team composed of Okada, Neumann, McCarthy, McIntyre, Torres and Hughes moved slowly but surely through the forest eliminating a squad of floaters and thin men in the way.

They then stacked on the crashed UFO door an upon opening it were confronted by not one but TWO sectoid commanders! Obviously the one we killed at the base was just leading the exploratory force it seems. Fortunately my rookies all still had their grenades and the enemy pair were close enough to each other to summarily eat 6 grenades in succession. Thankfully it was just enough to kill them, and the team returned to base having earned their stripes. Mission complete!

Part of every alien's diet!