XCOM 2: Blacksite

[Part of the XCOM 2 story]

It seems most of the soldiers on board the Avenger are survivors from a zombie apocalypse. Zombies made by aliens. It makes sense too, as during skirmishes with ADVENT forces there are occasionally sectoids who are no longer the little creeps from before. These enhanced scum are now human height, psionically gifted and can use their powers to blast, mind control or raise the dead! Luckily killing a sectoid also nullifies whatever control is had from people. And corpses.

The sectoids aren't the only true form aliens in ADVENT's pocket. A team sent to an ADVENT blacksite to investigate what was happening to their prisoners not only found a horrible scene of mass liquification, but also had to face MEC units (robots) and Thinsnakes, who I'm told are the true form of the old Thin men.

During their infiltration (stealth is new in this game) the squad of Ex-cop Katz, hardnose Mia, old Dorothy and Adriana did a good job getting to the front door quietly - but upon being spotted by a turret were then pinned down from three directions. An officer managed to flank and kill Dorothy before the canister he was standing beside exploded, and when the remaining three pushed into the building Adriana was stabbed by an ADVENT ninja while Mia got tongued by a Thinsnake - which pulled her our of the building, constricted her, and ate her.

Makes me miss the original thin men.

Katz managed to retrieve a vial of the liquification liquid and barely escape, completing the mission, but she is now shaken from what she saw (reduced will, making her a prime target for psionics of things like the sectoids).

Tales of the Blight: Alien Export

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

Talking to Queen Anora at Arl Eamon's estate I am convinced she genuinely wants to stop the madness of her father. After easily proposing a marriage between her and Alistair as that would be the strongest candidate against Loghain at the Landsmeet, she first sends us to the elven alienage (slums) to find out what sort of schemes Loghain had going in there and why things got so bad that it had to be closed for so long.

Apart from meeting a hilarious group of beggars and assisting a near blind templar to cleanse a number of buildings of evil spirits and demons, I can focus all my attention on the supposed plague within, as well as group of Tevinter Imperium troops (overseas empire) who claim to be helping cleanse the sick via magic. With a bribe and a bit of snooping it becomes clear that is not what they are doing at all. They are slavers!

Stop abducting people!

As expected, I carefully annihilate them all - especially the ones that try talk to me to stop the madness. Their leader ultimately reveals they are there legitimately as they struck a bargain with Loghain. He tries to make all sorts of deals too to spare himself at the end, and once more to Morrigan's disapproval I decline all of them - opting instead to eradicate such scum from existence.

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!

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!

All Your Base!

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Sent my crack team of Greene, Bald Witch, Mister Mustachio, the Italian, Gravedigger and Big Mike rappeling down into the alien base. Fitting this is the first mission I can send a full squad of SIX in now. The large complex had pretty much every type of scum we encountered thus far plus some robotic drones. Once into the main hall the team expended most of their grenades on an unexpected trio of chrysalid genestealers, then proceeded to the control hub while bypassing another three who didn't seem to take notice of them.

The last room was huge, with a raised platform in the middle. Had half the team take the high ground while the other swept around the flank and we soon discovered the alien boss here was a little sectoid commander (with a lot of health). That's when all hell broke loose as the three chrysalids we bypassed came charging into the rear and abither squad of jetpack boys appeared off on the side. Fortunately most of my heavies still had their rockets which, in combination with accurate (lucky) shooting saw the alien commander being alone again.

Not this time, Cats!

With suppression fire and throwing everything we had left against him, Bald Witch finished him off with an arc thrower - capturing his naked ass. She's actually pretty good at that. All of them made it back alive. Upon their return Bradford organized a victory party and indeed, the rest of the world suddenly became less panicked altogether. Dr. Vahlen was about to celebrate in her own way, readying her gloves and equipment for our new guest.

My Churro, Your Taco

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Soldiers Lost in the Second Month: 2
Campaign Total: 9

After selling a surplus of scopes to Russia to help them with some missile launch, it was time for another council meeting and the end of month two. Thanks to last minute satellite launches everyone was still onboard with the XCOM project giving me a grade of "A" again, but those little panic bars just seem to keep creeping up. A large UFO made an appearance not long after but my little fighter plane had no chance to shoot that one down so I ordered it back while it could still fly. Back in the base I -FINALLY- have my officer training school and can now send FIVE operatives on the field.

Just what I need, because Dr. Vahlen's wailings were getting too annoying and it was time to capture one of the bastards. Next contact was at a gas station in Mexico where floaters and thin men were enjoying burritos I suppose. I sent veterans Panicman, Mister "Nuke" Mustachio, Big Mike, Gravedigger and David "the lucky Jew" because he got to carry the tazer. :P

Taking cover next to cars and pumps at a gas station sounded like a catastrophic plan but it surprisingly worked very well. With suppressing fire from Panicman, accurate sniping from Gravedigger and well placed grenades and rockets from heavies Big Mike and Mustachio the aliens lost their cover pretty quick, followed by their lives. The Lucky Jew even managed to taze one before almost getting killed himself, yet on one HP he killed two more bastards with his pistol and flanked a thin man for a point blank shotgun blast.

Mission complete! Excellent performance all around if I do say so myself, and finally Dr. Vahlen is happy. I saw her singing and skipping past my office door with a large bottle of lube in hand. That poor, poor alien we captured though...

Dr. Dolly Vahlen is ready to begin the "interrogation".

Raiders of the Downed UFOs

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Finalising a trade to Australia (who wanted to buy alien alloys) the UFO alert went off again, this time in Japan. A bigger ship than last time! Fortunately I had constructed an interceptor there and our ace pilot Vince McCool was visiting the region at the time. Looked like a nasty dogfight but Vince shot down that bastard in the end despite taking a ton of damage himself. Deployed Mister Mustachio and Panicman along with newbies Cosmos and David.

Seemed this ship contained Jetpack boys AND Thin men along with the little dudes. The first group was a non issue, eliminated by overwatch fire mainly while the thin men got to enjoy high explosives of the rocket and grenade variety. It's annoying then that as the team advanced on the ship Cosmos was downed by overwatch fire from the normal little dudes, because he didn't DODGE!

Even the aliens facepalmed.

After teaching those SOBs a lesson my remaining three men busted into that UFO, surrounded the alien pilot and summarily executed him (Dr. Vahlen: WHYYYYYY!?). At least it seems I'm improving with these UFO raids. The following one that landed (not shot down) was tactically cleaned out by David, Big Mike, the Italian and Mustachio with no casualties through liberal use of explosives and lure and kill tactics. As a celebratory gesture I let them explode the ship. (Dr Vahlen: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! MY RESEARCH!)

Missions Complete, and somehow Cosmos actually survived (guess I finished before he bled out)! Despite all these victories though it seems like most of the world is on the verge of panic. Oh well, I'm sure that's not important. Right?

Le Le Le Le Le Le Bombe!

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

The aliens have planted a bomb in France. Why? No idea, but it's up to XCOM to stop them! This time I sent Panicman with my other rostered rookies, Erik the Viking, Big Mike and Jill the Airhead. The area, two roads with a small convenience store in between with a warehouse at the back, was littered with alien bomb generators that power the bomb which my team could diffuse as they advanced, delaying the bomb's ultimate explosion. Yep. Aliens are stupid.

Counter-Terrorists Win!

At a glance I figured the bomb would be at the furthest point away from me so Panicman and company charged up immediately towards the loading bay of the warehouse at the back, ignoring the convenience store altogether. A squad of the little alien dudes got startled as they approached, taking cover in a parked truck and the warehouse proper. It didn't matter though since a lucky grenade from Big Mike blew up the wall two of them were hiding behind, killing them AND a third one that had mind melded with one of the exploded ones.

A grenade from Airhead and good shooting from the Viking eliminated two more then Panicman took care of the stragglers (point blank) and disarmed the bomb just as incoming x-rays appeared. No not fish, that's what they call the aliens. Thin men. A whole bunch of them. Overwatch fire injured two of them and Panicman, who deftly evaded being shot at through a skylight, took cover and finished one off, Big Mike shooting across the rooftops to slay the other.

Two more thin men showed up, one blasting Erik through the chest - killing him outright. The other exchanged fire and wounds with Mike, while Airhead tried to approach to capture it - but fell short on range, so I told her to switch to her autorifle. She then promptly missed every shot from 10 meters away. Good thing Panicman was on the ball, eliminating the thin man from the roof as he jumped down with overwatch fire and then lobbing a grenade at the last guy in a cold calculated fashion.

Mission complete and promotions all around! Ironically Airhead, who killed nothing this round with her gun and missed every shot was given the consignment of... SNIPER. I'm surprised the aliens haven't already won actually.

Recover Miss Sing Person

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

The hiss of the dropship doors ended with a thud as the four man team led by Mister Mustachio deployed out towards the park. Their objective: to rescue some woman named Anna Sing who had escaped alien captivity. Wasn't long before they ran into their first opponent, a "thin man" who opened fire from the otherside poisoning Emmet with his first shot. Mustachio replied by rocketing that guy in the face and led the squad forward on the left flank, the Russian and Emmet following down the middle and the Niggeress on the right startling three little aliens near a cop car. One managed to wound her with its pistol, and she responded by shotgunning two of them in the face.

The last one was gunned down by the Russian as he then reached the panicked VIP and began leading her back. A second thin man then appeared on top of a bus and instantly came under overwatch fire from the waiting Mustachio and finished off by Emmet from the park square. All was going well as the team made their way back when suddenly a third thin man, the boss no doubt, was there waiting for them.

Similar but different.

His first shot went right through Mustachio's jugular, dropping him to the ground. The rest of the highly trained team then all shat their pants and panicked, with Emmet hiding behind a fountain, the Russian (whom I shall now call Panicman) shooting AT THE VIP but missing (fortunately), and the Niggeress dropping her shotgun and bending over while weeping like a child. The thin boss took advantage of this and shoved his gun into her ass then pulled the trigger, killing the stupid bitch instantly.

The VIP decided to make a break for it, sprinting into the open but not quite reaching the drop ship. Panicman managed to fumble a grenade out at the thin boss but it survived the blast and took aim at the civilian. It fired but at the last moment Emmet did a true slow mo heroic move by eating all the bullets himself, his body exploding into a shower of blood. Panicman then panicked some more and with a loud scream unloaded all of his remaining ammo into the thin boss... miracoulously killing it.

Mission complete! Anna Sing, Panicman and the not yet dead Mister Mustachio returned to base.