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!

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!

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!

Swan Song at Falkreath

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

After getting out of the lake I continued West, finding a pair of orc hunters taking down a bear. One of them was killed in the process so I took his arrows and the bear's hide and followed his friend from a distance. The poor sap walked right into a bandit ambush and died from arrow to the head syndrome, while I carefully evaded the scum - reaching another empty imperial camp where I could cook up all the food I had looted from the docks. Salt is an important commodity! Continuing into the mountain pass I was escorted briefly by a mounted hunter for most of it before he turned back. On the road I found one of the Khajiit caravans I had been hunting, only they were already dead - another elaborate and large scale bandit ambush that I avoided. Probably a subgroup from the ones camped at Helgen which I steered clear of.

Eventually I reached Falkreath and the whole way I was wondering how I was going to break into town without getting spotted by the guards. Turns out I just needed to jump the fence, then using a new found skill thanks to the challenge blog - rode up the waterwheel to the roof of the timber house and quietly made my way to Dead Man's Drink to get some clues as to who the Thalmor agent was here. The tavern was packed so I made sure to interview everyone, highly suspecting a random orc who was present. As it turns out the person I was after was the young bard named Delacourt who seemed extremely worried to see me. I needed a way to kill him in a crowded room without everyone alerting the guards... then it occured to me.

It's a growing epidemic!

I asked him to perform Ragnar the Red which he did, and while everyone stood around watching him I hid in one of the rooms and sent an iron arrow into his mouth near the end of the song. The audience was shocked, but had no idea who did it. I'd like to say now that I wanted to do some cool exit strategy to ghost myself out of there but the minute I stepped out I was sighted by the guards and had to simply run for the hills (well, the mountain) literally. Once on the otherside I just jumped in the lake and followed the river (fighting off slaughterfish) while carefully avoiding Riverwood - breaking a few wolf necks in the process. In no time at all I was approaching my next target city... Whiterun.