Pathfinder: The Raiders of Sandpoint

[Part of the Party Time journal]    

Correspondence found on the defeated giant necromancer indicated a planned raid on Sandpoint sometime soon so the heroes send advance warning (via magical message) and sure enough giants attack the city before they arrive so this time DL has us playing the archers, guardsmen, and militia defending the town with new temporary roles of the resident sheriff and monk played by Juris, the berserker weapon smith lady played by Rose, local priest played by myself and bard Ameiko played by mom.

While the sheriff, monk, priest, and all guardsmen and militia were wiped out, they did kill six giant raiders, three giant bears and scared a red dragon away before the usual heroes arrive (Cleric Kyra [Rose], Wizard Ezren [Juris] and his owl familiar Stolas, Fighter Valeros [me], Ranger Shay [my NPC cohort - yay for leadership], and Elf Rogue Merisiel [mom] now mounted on a flying griffon [statuette pet we bought en route back]) to help take down the remaining three giant raiders and their boss who was after some rock at the possible ancient lighthouse called the "old light". 

We also manage to save a burning ships worth of badly timed reinforcements from five opportunistic reef claws and apart from a trio of spear men most are actually siege engineers that teach Kyra and Ezren siege machine building post-giant raid while Shay and Stolas track down the raiders that managed to kidnap people from the "noble" district which is quite out of town.

Said ballistas they create (and a celestial grizzly bear Kyra conjures) are super handy in gunning down a mercenary band of orcs and their undead fodder raised by the orc shamans who seemed to be paid to do a follow up attack. This time the heroes are aided by the halfling celestial (!?) "child" Daygrace who was kept hidden in the abbey and is functionally another cleric. When the coast is clear Valeros recruits her and the spear man trio into his service [because leadership is cool]. 

DL does a good job printing out all the maps and material that we all get to enjoy! :)

Baldur's Gate 3: Interesting Condition

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The warlock Wyll meets the team at the entrance to the Underdark to try slay Karlach on orders from his patron, the cambion Mizora, but is convinced not only to stand down but to join the party instead. For this he is turned by hellish magics to look a bit more devilish but it doesn't seem to bother anyone much. Especially not the minotaurs, hook horrors, duergar or really annoying bullette that attack the party members equally.

Luckily there's a friendly Myconid colony nearby and a big shroom guy named Glut helps the party clear out this zone until he is slain by a spectator (beholder type thing) near the end, but the team is free to take a rowboat down to the duergar controlled Grym Forge and again via parasite-psionics trick them into being allies for now.

Deciding to explore first the team completes the jumping puzzle to get to the forge itself, fighting animated armors on the way but it is a lava mephit ambush (and the fact they explode on death) that kills Karlach on the steps leading down to it. They opt to back off for now, which is the perfect time for Gale to reveal that his "condition" is worsening, and that he's a living bomb.

Baldur's Gate 3: Left or R... Yeah, we're going Left

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Back at the druid camp the team are welcomed as heroes since Halsin turns out to be their leader! Halsin does pass that role off to someone else though so that he can accompany the team to Moonrise Towers, where he believes the solution or cure for the tadpoles resides. Volo first wants to try his hand at removing a tadpole and fails, removing Catharina's eye instead but replacing it with a machine version that lets her see invisible things. A decent upgrade!

Volo then waves them good bye as they set off and en route they find the berserker and ex-soldier of Zariel named Karlach who has an infernal engine for a heart and joins them after they help her defeat some evil paladins hunting her down.

One gnoll warband later they also rescue Chancellor Florrick and a few other Flaming Fist soldiers from a burning tavern en route to the mountain pass that leads to Moonrise Towers, only to find that an entire Gith patrol AND their red dragon block the way. As they don't look like they'd be leaving anytime soon the team decides to try out the second path - via the Underdark. Because that sounds MUCH safer right?

XCOM 2: Arms Race

[Part of the XCOM 2 story]

As ADVENT begins deploying more advanced units like the annoying shield bearers who can protect all allies around them, so we also start fielding more advanced tech: stronger magnetic weapons and the more durable Predator armor, but even these aren't enough as Lory is burned alive by the splash of a grenade, and Ex-Red Talon soldiers Beebo Bee and Chavez are ripped apart by an enraged (muton?) "berserker" when they misjudged how far the hulking monster could sprint.

Since more supplies are required for further upgrades, squads are sent on raiding missions which resulted in the loss of more soldiers: Old Mary was out sniped by a Codex, Helena and Beth were exploded by a grenade, Douglas was impaled by the spear of an archon (flying robot that looks like just the upper torso of a man), and Downey had the misfortune of discovering an Andromedon. These aliens only exist in a hazmat battle suit and despite managing to kill the alien with her shotgun, the suit powered up all on its own and proceeded to pummel her to death. Thanks to their sacrifices, the rest of their team mates now wield even more powerful plasma weapons and Warden powered armor.

I really dislike these things.

The arms race is enough of a distraction to almost let the aliens complete their Avatar project (the countdown timer that replaces the doom track is a nice touch) but luckily this can still be set back by destroying one of their research facilities. Rashida gains an extra medal of heroism for managing to extract with an unconscious Squidman Dan after her was KOed by a ninja.

Battle Brothers: Good Times

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Despite the mounting injuries, the Spears take on a contract to eliminate a small orc encampment. On the way Majorn finds a necromatic site he declares they must cleanse, so the Spears take on the usual zombies and necromancer, but this time with two fallen heroes flanking the mage.

They are quite sturdy which is bad given the lesser zombies keep standing up, but Raven manages to axe the shield off one which enables the Spears to pincushion it to death. The other is peppered with arrows until Bes singlehandedly defeats it  - much to Sunbro's amazement.

Useful when you actually have people that can shoot.

At the orc camp the team encounters berserkers leading the regular orcs. These scary creatures don't wear armor though, making them prime archery practice. Fanatic was foolish enough to let one get close and knock him on the head, leaving him with permanent brain damage (ironically one of the best permanent injuries to have in this game).

Apprehending some thieves afterwards, Big Mike is happy to report to the company they now have over 50,000 coins in funding. Gander further cheers everyone up with a cow tipping session (lol) and as icing on the cake, Sunbro reports the nobles are discussing terms. The war is over!

When he asks with true concern if the Fabled Spears of the Church are now going to disband, he is met with laughter and cheer. "Not bloody likely!"

Future Combat

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Alpha and Buster Downs were sent with "newbies" Elvis, Badass, Party Girl, Rocket Man to handle a small UFO scout ship in some forest in the USA. The Sky Ranger strangely dropped them off on the side this time (guess it didn't want them to escape) putting them in between a heavy floater squad and an elite muton bunch. In the exchange of fire Badass opted to fire a rocket at the mutons instead of taking cover, trusting his life to Buster Downs to put down the last jetpack boy flanking him. Buster missed. The alien did not. Despite the loss of Badass the rest of the team cleared the remaining enemies and entered the ship proper to find another ethereal (they're all over the place now) and one elite guard. They managed to injure both but then the ethereal made the mistake of mind controlling Rocket Man. This panicked the rest of the team (except Alpha) into unloading all their ammo at them - killing them both. Odd way to complete a mission.

The team then traded Alpha for Blunder Buss and filled the remaining slot with our new hover SHIV tank for field testing against a supply barge in Canada. It had the same layout as the previous one but this time the team started off on the side. Though Buster was killed in action through floater fire and finished off by being electrocuted by a drone, the rest of the team defeated the floaters, berserker, sectopod, cyberdisk, elite mutons and ethereal captain with little issue thanks to the tough, highly mobile, and super accurate SHIV unit and its mounted plasma cannon. It couldn't be mind controlled and thanks to its flight capability easily outflanked all enemy defensive positions. I agree with Shen that this is possibly the future of combat as it out performed most of its human counterparts.

It sees you... ALL!

They have MECHS!?

Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!

Alien Alert! A huuuuge UFO landed in a river in Japan - some sort of massive cargoship which we couldn't just ignore so I sent Gravedigger, Hitler, Bald Witch, Bondi Vet, Big Mike, and Okada to investigate what seemed to be a cargo ship. The large bay doors were open and inviting but given my untrustful nature I sent the team around the left flank first, eliminating some heavy floater guards as they moved up the side. They also alerted a pair of elite mutons but those aliens wisely opted to withdraw to the second section of the ship - some sort of stable? Anyway the team boarded on that second part, finding and eliminating the crafty guards.

I then sent them up to the roof of that section to take high ground and all hell broke loose as chrysillids, another muton group, jetpack boys and drones spotted me. The chrysillids came up first and I made it a point to explode them to death early. Next up were the floaters and drones which used up most of their move just to fly up - good shooting put all of them back down. While reloading and waiting for the muton group half the team was hit by some sort of missile barrage - no idea where that came from, but everyone was still up. Decided to clamber back down and use the main hall way to gun down the berserker and his buddies there. All the team was hurting bad at this point but Bondi Vet was doing his job of keeping everyone alive very well.

Intruder detected.

With reloaded weapons the team climbed up the other side of the stable section and rushed to the end where they found a new type of foe - an alien mecha! It survived everything we threw at it on initial contact, then opened its shoulder launchers as it took aim. At least now I know where those rockets came from! A good grenade throw from Hitler saw it explode into a gazillion pieces before it could fire again though, leaving the team free to enter the surprisingly empty control structure. Swept back down the ship and found a pair of sectoid commanders in the loading bay who were fed a shredder rocket and a lot of lead (and a little plasma) completing the mission with no casualties, but with a lot of injured and critically injured personel.