Pathfinder: The Flying Giant

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Past the hounds is a door that opens to what must be "the boss chamber" but in its center is just a half naked giant female cook who throws things (like the kitchen sink) at the party and is easily brought down. The enraged giant boss Mokmurian (who I guess was having a thing with the cook) then appears, flying from up above and shielded up to the wazzoo with anti-fire/anti-magic missile and damage reduction spells while tossing out a huge variety of magic himself, my favorite being he inverts gravity and those who don't save take "fall damage". WTF?

This turns out to be a super long fight with Mokmurian enjoying the "untouchability" Valeros had before. Only Ezren can regularly damage the flying creep while he himself is almost disintegrated and briefly turned into stone. Kyra undoes that and keeps everyone alive to simply endure all of the giant's spells until he runs out of them and comes down into melee with his club. That proves to be his undoing and he is quickly put down when he does so.

His master "Karzoug" then uses the dead giant as a puppet to insult the heroes briefly, but they're kinda too tired to listen so they just go about looting the place and going to that off limits library which they find the key to. It's full of magically preserved ancient tomes and a helpful librarian bot who will no doubt throw the next quest hook at us... in the next chapter. :P

Pathfinder: Can't Touch This

[Part of the Party Time journal]

A pair of frost giants and the lap running mammoth from earlier confront the party as they leave the Black Tower, but are no match for the heroes. Even the pair of rocs nesting in the tower who were attracted by the sounds of battle only get themselves dead or wounded, with the last remaining giant bird retreating back to its high up nest.

Proceeding below the party then uses the passphrase they found to get through the shining door into the lower basement where a strangely constructed room has Valeros shrink to half his size! While this makes his attacks weaker it also makes him harder to hit so he intentionally stays small for now.

Everyone else is protected from the shrinking magic by Ezren's shield, and they go on to beat another runeslave giant, smash a cauldron bearing golem (mostly Razmus with Shoanti blessings and then Kyra sanctified the cauldron), and fireball nuke the hell out of a zombie statue room. "Undead Giants" are the key words for things this team excels at murdering. An annoying wall demon keeps popping in and out of the walls spewing fire at them though, and it is with great relief when they finally catch that beast (a scanderig apparently) and slay it in its silo.

Advancing to the next large hall they are ambushed by five giant maidens who luckily can't hit the shrunken Valeros who pins them while the rest of the group takes them down. Resting up back in the zombie room, Merisiel soon spots a sneaky group of five dire bears and five halberd ogres stalking them and once again, Valeros blocks their progress and is untouchable as the enemies are destroyed.

The next little chamber has three hounds of Tindalos (apparently they can jump games too) get the drop on the party but are easy prey as again, they can't hit Valeros while his blind fighting and the high perception of everyone else makes their "hiding" kinda useless.

Pathfinder: The Black Tower

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The party rushes the central pit ramp where Valeros and Razmus handle a dire bear trio while the everyone else slings spells and arrows at a four giant basket ball boulder throwing team, the captain of whom actually downs Ezren, but Kyra gets the mage right back up with a full heal and letting him disintegrate the giant captain in retaliation when he makes the mistake of advancing. 

Once clear the party poke their heads out in the courtyard. It is now dusk but due to watchful guards on the towers and another washing down a mammoth nearby, there doesn't seem to be a quiet way to their target: the Black Tower, so they opt to rush a lodge in the opposite direction first to get rooftop cover from any more thrown boulders. Inside is an ancient dire bear who is easily slain by a crit from Joe Gang, but its roar alerts the guards who are in no time trying to raid the place. Too bad for them they are funneled through the doors which negates their threat level as they are peppered with arrows, spells and other sharp objects.

With all the guards dead Kyra uses a wall of stone to help the team avoid the mammoth running laps around outside like a confused puppy, and they climb a tower to sneak a long way around - avoiding the gaze of the Rocs nestling high up in a central spire. A trio of harpies does spot them though, and their song convinces Valeros and the Shoanti Squad to walk off the wall and take what is insignificant fall damage (thanks to the dice roll). Apart from their opening song they aren't much of a threat, and the team reconvene (with some climbing) in the interior of a guard tower to rest undisturbed for a bit.

That's kind of weird, but the outer camps did seem busy and in disarray so maybe the forged letters Conna delivered were doing the trick! Another quick sneak lands them inside the Black Tower interior which is so cold it hurts. Kyra uses stone shape to make a vertical hole transform into rough steps and down below they awake an ancient mummy who focuses all its kung fu attacks (it must be Jet Li's mummy) on the cleric while freezing Merisiel, Ezren and Joe Gang with fear.

Ultimately its the combination of channeling positive energy, Kyra's flamestrike, Valeros' flamethrower and Razmus' blessed sledgehammer that smashes the undead thing back into dust, also smashing open a scroll case it was carrying. Among the contents is a paper with the passphrase to the shining door below.

Pathfinder: The Headless Child

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Following the voice the party comes across a chapel to Lamashtu (again?) within which are the four remaining missing people from Sandpoint: the adults tied to stakes and blades rigged with ropes being held up by the young boy Dario who looks like somethings been munching on pieces of him, missing an arm among other things. A laughing evil voice asks which one they want to save and Valeros uses his helm of teleportation to get right in there only to find it is mostly an illusion conjured by two half lion lamias! The first one smashes him decently while the second bites off and devours Dario's head, who alas, was not an illusion. 

The Lamia's mirror images are really the only thing keeping them safe as once those are removed they fall quickly, with the last one trying to retreat but being blocked by Kyra's wall of stone while Merisiel backstabs it to death. A patrol of four giant guards then storms in from behind them but Valeros' flame thrower and Razmus critical hammer blows erase them from existence before they can do much. 

After looting they proceed towards the next roaring sound they hear and find a pair of chained young red dragons who demand to be let free so they can eat the humans. Ezren responds by dropping an ice storm and cloud kill on them, and they respond by breathing fire which Merisiel dodges completely while Kyra heals those who don't. Shoanti archery and Valeros' dragon slaying blade end the weakened winged lizards soon after letting the team proceed around the corner to the prisoner preparation chamber where they find the remaining trio of tortured Sandpoint prisoners chained. 

A massive giant springs from hiding from the mud, smacking Merisiel hard but is taken down in one round with a combination of Joe Gang and Shay's archery and Ezren finally landing an empowered disintegrate spell. After freeing the captives and resting again they receive a magic message to meet with Conna at a nearby altar where she reveals that she's delivered the forged orders and advises them that the password for the shining door probably lies in the black tower above. She also mentions the giant defenders are massing a defense at the ramp though, and offers to try keep the prisoners (including the beardless dwarves) safe and hidden. 

Pathfinder: The Shining Child

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The explosion seals the cave passage behind the party, so they take the time to rest up until a very animated and friendly bat ushers them deeper in to its master, an equally suspiciously friendly giant named Conna who happens to be the mom of the current giant king Mokmurian who she says has been possessed by some evil and now must die. That's pretty dark, but we'll take it! Conna draws out a map of this lower level as best as she can along with the guards and traps within, and due to her hesitance to fight her kin Valeros asks her to deliver forged orders instead.

The rescue prisoner mission is switched to kill the king guy instead so the team makes their way along a quieter passage taking down a trio of ogre tanners and two stone giant smiths who were keeping half a dozen beardless dwarves prisoners. Merisiel sets them free and they join the team as they take out two giant trolls guarding the passage down to Mokmurian's lair but it is blocked by a huge, ancient and clearly trapped glowing door.

Razmus chucks a boulder at it but that just angers the spirit within, a screaming shining child that teleports right into the party's midst and blinds everyone but the Shoanti, Shay and Razmus. They, along with Kyra's summoned elephant and Valeros' blind fighting skill eventually smash the spirit but the door remains unchanged. The party takes cover to rest again and for Kyra to cure blindness when they hear a noise from a nearby tunnel. A call for help?

Pathfinder: Climbing up the Back Door

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Night falls as the team moves along the ravine to make it beneath some cliff facing caves that Razmus marked on the map, the lower one of which is a wyvern nest that he has a personal grudge against (since they were sent after him before) so the current best climber Valeros goes up to fix some ropes and then tosses one of his flamethrower alchemist fire fuel cans like a grenade to light up a pair of the winged bastards before five foot stepping off the cliff behind him - falling slowly thanks to the feather fall ability of the cape of the eagle (from Vault No. 3).

The wyvern pair fly out in a rage but fail to hit any of the team waiting below and are subsequently arrowed by the Shoanti Squad and back stabbed by Merisiel. A larger wyvern still waiting inside the nest is speared down by Joe Gang and then the team rests up to recover HP and spells before Valeros does a big climb to the next and much higher cave which contains giant undead spiders piloted by little spiders? Since this party is ultra-tuned to face undead the enemies are quickly obliterated by holy magic letting the team proceed through some narrow tunnels through which Razmus has to squeeze, though Valeros gives him the cape of the eagle so that he can just transform into a bird if it gets too tough.

He doesn't end up needing it as the cavern opens up a fair bit and a band of nine Redcaps (evil dwarves) ambush them! Their small size hides their toughness of -10 damage resistance which means taking them down heavily relies on the magics of Ezren and Kyra, Razmus' and Kyra's celestial elephant's brute force, Merisiel's sneak attacks, and Shay's frost bow while Valeros tanks the five in front as the Shoanti Squad nearly perishes doing the same with the four at the back. A suicide bomber kobold with a necklace of fireballs then shows up and pushes the party's HP even further towards zero but is not enough to down anyone yet (thanks to people making reflex saves)! 

Pathfinder: The ones at Storval

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Upon approaching the massive and guarded steps leading up to the Storval Plateau, Valeros plays the prisoner gambit (in this case Razmus pretending to be a prisoner) with long planned forged letters ready to go. Alas, Kyra's diplomacy roll of a natural one means the six giant guards immediately start throwing and rolling boulders down the giant steps like Donkey Kong! 

Ezran and Kyra fireball nuke the attentive guards, while a hasted Razmus (who can run up the giant steps as normal) gets right up to their face quickly and smacks down the weakened ones easily. With them dead, the team continue up and rest up near the mountains before attempting a stealth raid on the looming watch tower up ahead, which stands pretty far from the main castle and is used as an early warning system. Merisiel's stealth roll of a natural one means the warning signal is lit even before the squad reaches there.

They can annihilate the giant guards-woman and her two runeslaves pretty quickly then hide in the watch tower itself as a giant roc comes to investigate. They hope to ambush the bird when it lands but no - it instead hovers above squaking loudly for some time.  Luckily, it flies off before any investigators from the freaking army camped outside the giant castle approach (they're still forming ranks) so Razmus leads the team through the mountains he previously used to escape from while Ezren drops a wall of force to slow any pursuers.

Eventually they reach a long drop to a ravine below where they use collectively use their siege or regular engineering knowledge to construct a ladder-stair down to the narrow shore edge, but thanks to DL rolling super high on the percentile die a patrol of three stone giants and their giant dire bears show up at an awkward time and have to be put down and tossed in the drink before the team makes their descent.

Pathfinder: The Shoanti Squad

[Part of the Party Time journal]

From Ravenmoor the party continue North, crossing a deep chasm on a flimsy rope bridge guarded by four trolls and some annoying stirges. The fire weak trolls aren't burned due to the condition of the crossing so are instead downed and tossed in the ravine where they'll regenerate after... however many months or years. :P 

The team then meet five Shoanti tribesmen who are questing to rescue some captives of their own, and Valeros readily agrees to help them. They assemble outside a troll berserker camp which is easily torched by Ezren while Kyra's celestial elephant crushes most of the defenders underfoot. Merisiel frees the caged captives here, none of whom are from towns the party has been in, but at least the people the Shoanti wanted to save are here - including a Shoanti princess. Peach is that you?

In thanks the Shoanti escort the squad back to their village, which so happens to be under attack by a chimera who is slain in two quick turns. Meeting with the chieftain later, the party learns that the Shoanti and giants used to be more friendly to each other, they even used to trade goods. Now the chieftain shares a vision of a possible entry to the giant castle involving a dark cave with webs, and sends the five strong Shoanti squad with them to assist.

While they leave their mounts at the Shoanti village as the chief suggests, their party number still increases when they finally regroup with their old buddy Razmus the hill giant whom they magically "called" (seriously its almost like a telephone spell) some time ago (just after the raid on Sandpoint) as his knowledge of his old ex-buddies might come in handy. 

Pathfinder: Uwu and the Joe Gang

[Part of the Party Time journal]

When Stolas returns with the location of the fleeing raiders the heroes go on the pursuit, finding a giant and half a dozen sinspawn feasting on a smashed caravan on the road. Surviving bard, Lyrielle, joins the "Joe Gang" (Valeros' followers) to smash them and proceed to Ravenroost to regroup with Shay to take down four more giants, their three giant bears, and eight more sinspawn popping out of a sinwell (where Kyra's new celestial elephant stomps through the trees and tramples them). 

They rescue one of the captives who was "dancing" for her life and return her to Sandpoint and advise the priests to sanctify the sinwell they just cleared, then follow leads to find the other captives, passing by Thistletop and its new goblin colony led by ally King Fat Mouth. Alas they're not up for joining in a fight against the giants.

The next encounter takes place at the desecrated town of Sarenburg where the team demolishes 20 ghouls and six ghoulwolves despite their sniper boss "Uwu" (his elvish name was too long to remember, so Valeros shortened it) taking Ezren down with a drow sleep bolt for most of the fight. Luckily this team is ultra-geared for undead, and it is an easy fight which rewards Kyra with bonus magic to her scimitar (now +4) and a dire wolf mount (after being cured of ghoul disease) for Shay.

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! :)

Pathfinder: Lamatar

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

The first two Kreeg guards at their cavernous mountain top fortress manage to KO Ezren, but are put down soon after by the rest of the team so for the next two guards who also have a hill giant assisting them, Ezren doesn't hesitate to hit them with ice storm which really messes them up. In the nearby mining and forge chamber with a dozne more ogres, Ezren and Kyra annihilate almost all of them with fireballs while Razmus helps(?) my throwing boulders but missing each time!

The next chamber has a trio of hags that manage to force cage Kyra and Ezren while also blocking Razmus and Shay, but are taken down by Valeros, Kyra's summoned bear, and Merisiel's ultra deadly backstabbing. Then the team finally comes across the remains of Black Arrow Captain Lamatar who is now a frost wight and absolutely the scariest foe they have faced so far. He's very fast, shoots three times and every time he hits drains a level! WTF!? As the team is only level 9 and reaching level 0 is death, they throw everything they have against this guy and finally succeed but only end with Ezren and Shay not being level drained.

Low on spells the team then rests at the entrance of the fortress just long enough to get spells back and heal but not recover lost levels before a returning patrol of ogres interrupts them, though Stolas gives early warning for the heroes to strike first. Ezren opens with cloud kill which basically ends the majority of the enemies, and once that's wrapped up the crew decide to press on to a huge throne room with two giants: a throne sitting necromancer and his guard.

Merisiel's giant-slaying bow and Razmus' hammer efficiently deal with the nameless guard while the necromancer hits the team with fireballs and magic missiles. Comedically Razmus finally lands a hit with a thrown boulder but the necromancer catches it and throws it back, smacking him in the face! Ultimately the bad guy, who was more of an HP sponge rather than a threat like Lamatar, is slain.

A note in his treasure pile suggests he too answered to someone else, but first the team return Lamatar's finger (as requested) to the undead nymph who revives him, restores everyone's missing levels, then fades away to the spirit realm making the forest a normal one again. Lamatar is unable to get over his failure and instead of returning to Fort Rannick decides to become the new protector of these woods.

Pathfinder: The Best Type of Friend

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

With the situation at the dam resolved, Eye Patch, Kibb and Shay return to Fort Rannick while the main party reports in back at Turtleback Ferry - passing by a wagon of criminals being sent there as new recruits, one of whom is Orik who apparently has the worst luck but Valeros is certain the Black Arrows will be happy to have him.

Back in town the team experiences some hag induced nightmares and are further interrupted by a little fairy guy who asks for help for his angry mistress. He leads the way to some evil twisted forest where they make quick work of tree blight enemies before finding said mistress, a now undead nymph who was once the main squeeze of the Black Arrow Captain Lamatar, and reduce her anger down to sadness by agreeing to find what's left of him up at the Kreeg fortress in the mountains.
 
Having heard tales of giants being active in that region, the team decides to make a detour to Claybottom lake to retrieve a giant-slaying bow of one Robin Cloakley, who went down with the gambling / pleasure barge everyone at Turtleback Ferry talks about. Ezren stays on the boat while Kyra, Merisiel and Valeros dive down using water breathing magic and collect the magic bow which involves Valeros being temporarily swallowed by a giant fish!

Now headed back up the mountain (again? seriously?) and passing Fort Rannick the Black Arrows are eager to join in to take the fight to the Kreegs but the team decides to only bring Shay (because more people = longer combat). As they continue the ascent they find an badly injured hill giant surrounded by the corpses of wyverns. Not wanting to fight an enemy who isn't at full strength, Valeros heals him up with potions and discovers this giant, Razmus, isn't a bad guy at all!

The big guy has claimed this section of the mountain for himself and is unhappy with recent competition that's moved in so he is more than willing to not only lead the team up the mountain to the Kreeg fortress (bypassing extra encounters), he is also willing to help smash them! Isn't that the best type of friend?

GTFO: ALT R3A1 - Resuscitation

Just for practice (since R2 is getting hairier by the level) I decided to scout out R3A1 solo (with bots, so not really solo) and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was almost exactly like my first write up of it. The original version was the very first GTFO level we ever managed to complete! The load outs were as follows (I basically made it Jim and DL bots, but with Auto Sentry tools as those are the easiest to deploy):

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
[Bot]: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Auto Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Double Tap DMR/Combat Shotgun/Auto Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Hel Gun/Biotracker/Hammer

The mission is to bring the "baby" to a machine, get it stamped, and return to extraction. Everything is brighter now, and many of the more vertical rooms have been changed to be less so which makes it much easier. Sneak through the one way you can go (and save this first door), bop the sleepers, open first security door with no alarm and bop the sleepers in here. Leave the baby at the locked gate to go into the big door to bop/shoot more and use a terminal to locate the key you need for the door as you'll only need to open one of these.

Before starting the alarm I shut and foamed the big door and put the sentry guns facing each other inside, with more foam in between them to catch things in crossfire. This is because with bots, you can't really do c-foam duty. Open the correct class IV and unlock the door and win the fight (in that order). Some giants came in here but we had a lot of ammo still so it wasn't a problem. Beyond the door was a scout who I just revolvered to the head (I was just messing around), shot the sleepers that woke up and snuck into the next room with giants. They were far enough apart for me to just snake through, get the key and snake back. Afterwards its just back to the baby and pushing forward through the next big door.

Clear the arcing hallway then open big door number three and clear that room too. Another security scan door waits for us here so I shut the two big doors, foamed the inner one, put the auto sentries at the door facing away (so things get shot in the back) and cfoamed the hallway to catch things for the guns, then its alarm time. Scan first then win.

Lots of loot in the empty chamber ahead and I made sure that I had 12 cfoam and everything else went to the bots because they'd be doing the fighting now. Baby goes into the machine, gets stamped and starts an alarm. As bots never carry the baby I picked it up and just made a beeline for extraction while they covered me, only stopping to cfoam that first door in the level to halt the pursuers before getting to extraction. Baddies did manage to arrive, including a pair of barrage firing hybrids which I don't remember being there last time. Still, no big deal. Just fight well and GTFO! :)

GTFO: ALT R2C2 - ???

Yep, this mission is actually named ??? and unlike other times where I say "we haven't been playing GTFO" this time we certainly have been but this level is really up there in terms of BS with the only good news being there aren't any scouts. The job is to recover 7 IDs (out of 9ish that randomly spawn) and then get back out but the main problem is that there is an endless alarm which means you'll have groups of 4 striker/shooters coming at you every 45 seconds. Hope you are good in melee! Also I only discovered now that the strikers also aim for your head so with good timing you can just crouch to evade their tongues (much like shooter blasts). Our loadout was as follows:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear (team 1)
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer (team 1)
Jim: Double Tap DMR/Combat Shotgun/Auto Sentry/Hammer (team 2 - terminal duty)
[Bot]: DMR/Hel Gun/Biotracker/Hammer (team 2)

Expect to run this a few times to get used to where cabinets, turbines and cells randomly spawn. Terminals and the disinfection station are in fixed/stagnant positions. Artifacts that improve hack lock skill are handy, as well as a notebook/pen and paper for whoever is doing the terminal (for us it was Jim). Feel free to sprint as there are no sleepers until the last parts anyway just to really screw you over. Here is what worked for us in the end.

From the drop rush to open the big door straight ahead (team 1) and the one to the right (team 2), the idea being to save them for an upcoming hold. If the scum spawn out with you then its good! Fight first and then get the doors open. Team 1 should then go open the door to the left (if its still there) while team 2 who opened the right door sweeps into the next room, following the right wall of the next room to open the next door and loop back out and both teams return to the starting drop room. There's a terminal here on the right side if you are facing away from the hole, and one of you needs to find where the easiest 7 IDs are from here while everyone else defends. You don't need to go into every room!

Once that's done sweep into the next room and make sure you find the tools for c-foamer and ammo for everyone. Open the non-alarm team scan door at the back and there's another terminal just overlooking the stairs (just turn left as you go up). Team 2 stays at this terminal to ping a cell, fog turbine and resources for team 1 to get (split up) opening the two doors dead ahead and to the right. Team 2 can help loot once the cell and turbine are located and bring everything back down to that big dark room with a security door down some stairs in the fog. The generator for the cell can be found by following the stairs down from first scan door you opened and then following the left wall.

Next part is important: wait for the wave of four and your cfoamer needs to get to the middle door (the one looking at the starting drop room) to shut and ice it while the enemies are killed. Then Jim usually closes the door near the fog alarm and DL closes the back door then everyone has to get to the fog alarm door (ideally someone holding the turbine) and get the thing going. If you are lucky the wave will come from the starting drop room which means the cfoamer has just enough time to sprint up the stairs to continue to hold it while your allies do circles and kill flankers. DL usually comes along to put a mine facing the door too at this point. Unlock the door and survive until its back down to the four chasers.

When ready get the fog turbine and you're going to need to march through the fog. Speed is important but as the turbine guy can't run you do have time to unlock some boxes if there are any en route. Follow the right wall and go through the big door and the next big door just beyond that. Feel free to close these behind you but just be careful because sometimes the [Bot] loses pathing here like an idiot which will cost you the run. After the 2nd door you want to follow the left wall to stay up on a metal walkway and someone not carrying the turbine should eat some infection to run ahead and hack lock the small door just around the corner.

Get everyone in there, kill the 4 chasers if need be, then seal the small door, foam the big door to the a left and get started with the security scan on the right. This is a quick scan but you can also quickly die here if you aren't on your game (or the bot decides to take a scenic path when you start it). As soon as the door is unlocked open it and go up the stairs out of the fog (drop the turbine). Fight everything else up here and find more stairs up to locate a disinfection station to cleanse everyone.

Immediately beside you is a blood door. Are there IDs that you need in there? If yes that makes it simple as you can open it now, but for our winning run the answer was no, so we pushed ahead to the small door in the corner which opens into a big chamber with another blood door down some stairs. We did need this one, but it needs power so we just had to go across to the no team scan / no alarm door at the opposite end which leads to the zone with a cell and a fair amount of resources. NOTE: This zone and the zones beyond all blood doors has sleepers. Giant sleepers too. You don't have time to be sneaky though so just shoot em.

With the cell in hand return to the corner between the door you used to enter here and the blood door with stairs down which is where you'll find the generator. DL then setup mines for the downstairs blood door and opened it with the usual hybrid pair and small guys coming out (+ any sleepers that heard the blast). Can't really help much with this next bit but "go in and find the IDs". Yep. They are always in lockers or boxes so stick together, communicate and you'll be ok but don't waste time.

After our first batch of ID's are collected we need to go back through the fog zone, so get the turbine and again follow the right wall which will lead to a terminal here. Ping the ID's while your team protects you, then pick up said IDs and make your way out.  For us we now had to go to the final/first blood door which needs a key (you'd have picked this up while searching for the other IDs) so again, setup (careful of mine + 4 spawners) deal with the hybrid pair + regular monsters + sleepers that wake up and get in there. Get however many IDs you still need (for us it was 1) and run back to the extract as five giant strikers spawn in to give chase. DL got cut off and did not make it, but I think he delayed them for a long period. That said the extraction scan is really slow too, which means we still needed to win against the big boys (+ the endless spawners). Somehow, we did and managed to GTFO!

GTFO: ALT R2C1 - Triangulation

Been awhile since our last expedition here as GTFO has fallen off our regular gaming schedule, but  after an early fail this one turned out to not be so bad! A note on our loadout - Biotracker essential, Cfoam and mines also handy but sniper sentry next to useless! Jim's choice of bringing a Combat Shotty also paid off big time towards the end!

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Double Tap DMR/Combat Shotgun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Hel Gun/Biotracker/Hammer

Today we need to reach three terminals and UPLINK_VERIFY 3 codes into each of them one at a time. Of course alarms will sound while doing these and the things that come for you are invisible strikers! They are probably the least of your worries though.

From the drop clear as you see fit but before heading through the Rank V-M alarm to the North, you might as well do whichever side door you need to for your first terminal, and if you so choose do the other side for gear as well which we did(no alarm on either). Note: there are scouts aplenty here but usually only one per room. Unless they are behind a security door you should probably go kill them, keeping in mind high ground lets you strike their noggins easier plus it keeps you out of the fog in the later part of the mission.

Your first terminal will most likely only have one door leading to it, meaning a simple cfoam duty + single mine will most likely see you through it. The Rank V-M alarm has three doors leading to it, and in both our attempts the bad guys never came from the Southwest doors (note we shut everything and usually our Southeast doors were broken). You then get into a big fog area where killing the central scout is top priority. Afterwards, kill the scouts in BOTH wings. This is because the next terminal is here, and strikers spawn from the opposing wing. The defense involves three doors but the enemies never came from the large bottom floor one.

You'll find fog turbines here so bring at least one with you after you clear the next door to the North which is a class III alarm. You'll be done with circles by the time the invisible strikers get to you, just make sure Biotracker man is ready to scan. Beyond this is the worst part. Thick fog, wall cancers and giants waiting in the mist. When we goofed it was Jim's combat shotty that smacked those big guys down. The final terminal is back here with a single door to defend which is again, easy. After you're done use the corner stairs to funnel the invisible strikers and clear out any that remain before making your way back to the extraction spot.

Invisible strikers will keep coming at you endlessly now (but there are gaps so not very endlessly) so just calmly fight your way to the drop point and hold. It's a pretty long hold so expect to fight and if you survive, good job! You can GTFO! :)

Pacific Rim / Uprising / The Black

Kaiju versus giant robot action!

Pacific Rim

Aliens are conducting a slow invasion of Earth, sending in a giant monster every few months to wreck the place up. To combat this the humans have developed massive robots called Jaegers that require two pilots to be mentally in-sync to battle these giants and while the robots have the occasional weapon it usually comes down to fisticuffs without a care about collateral damage! A decent plot backed by great CGI makes this a pretty good movie. I quite appreciate that the robots are also not super-agile "Transformers" type and are more janky as robots are meant to be. Thumbs up!

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Years after the first movie where humanity won the war, a new threat appears (or there wouldn't be a movie right?) with new pilots to face them. While I appreciate that there's more humor injected here the plot makes a farce established elements in the first movie, like - now there are agile Transformer type robots that don't need two pilots because... they (incorrectly) thought it was cooler? Still an entertaining spectacle but not as good as the first one. Surprisingly while the fully CGI bits are nice, the blue screen segments are particularly bad.

Pacific Rim: The Black

In this two season animated series, Kaijus have taken over Australia and some survivors who have been living in hiding come across a functional training Jaeger that gives them a shot at escaping to the shore. I'm quite happy that the janky robotness is back and that the 3D animation is very good. The monsters look especially great! The mind melding drifting (two pilot thing) is also used to greater effect here, as the plot continues threads established from the previous two films. It's a decent offering and one Pacific Rim fans will enjoy.

GTFO: ALT R2B4 - Septic

The final B level for ALT rundown 2 really brings in the infection rate with many areas of wall cancers and farty fog so its fitting the mission is to find a SPECIFIC fog turbine and bring it to the forward extraction point. Again we brought our scouting load out:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Heavy AR/Biotracker/Hammer

It's mostly a one way level as the door to the Northern alarm needs an access key so you'll first need to head West to a non-alarm door while clearing the little sleepers in the starting zone. Beyond this begins the wall cancers with giants. Yuck. The key to that previous door is in here somewhere though and the fog turbine deeper in. There are also alarm doors to the North and South, be sure to check which way you need to  go and keep your lights on those wall things.

Ours was to the Class V door to the North which was an easy to hold ice one since there's only one entry. Beyond is a most horrible room of wall cancers and little scum. We just opted to make noise, kill them all, and carefully proceed here to light up the things to make them temporarily "sleep" and found TWO fog turbines. We foolishly just grabbed the first one, and only at the end did we realize it was specifically the second one we needed for... reasons, so if you want to save a trek back here - pick up the correct one now!

With the objective in hand back track to the first door and unlock the Northern class IV alarm. Ice and mine what you can but expect scum to get through. There's a downstairs poison fog area where some scans will fall into, so Jim with the turbine and guarded by the bot handled those while DL and I ran interference.

The next zone is FULL of fog, so make good use of that turbine but hold onto any little fog repellers you come across. We just kept intentionally making noise here and fighting at open doors if we found giants, then at the very North is a class V alarm door IN THE FOG. After closing and mining as many doors towards the start as we could, I split the remaining cfoam between the two doors where we'd be holding. This is where the little fog repellers come in handy, and yes they will come in while you are still scanning. For us, the waves were almost exclusively from the looping Eastern hall.

Once you're done go in and up the stairs then kill those stupid sleeping giant shooters. One on one you can literally dance around them in a circle and keep power striking to win, but hey - shooting is good too. Just setup for a long extraction alarm before getting in that circle (drop the fog turbine in there) because yes, your pursuers WILL make it up to your position. Shoot well for just a minute more and GTFO.

GTFO: ALT R2B3 - Pathfinder

Been awhile since the last drop so we just went with our "standard scouting loadout" which we've used a fair bit now as it's pretty effective in winning on the first go:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: Rifle/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: DMR/Heavy AR/Biotracker/Hammer

The main objective here is a terminal hack (using uplink commands), but the main puzzle aspect is the very first zone which contains an interesting mix of doorways that you'll need to use for two separate defenses - clear out the little guys without wrecking any of them. To the West and East are Class V security doors needing a security key card which is hidden behind the Northern Class IV alarm door. Little c-foam, many mines. 

We bungled our hold and lost some doors!

In the Northern area you must get past giants and a scout to get the keys to the East and West doors, but you'll only need one of them! Check on a terminal to determine which way your objective lies - ours was to the East! A regular team scan (no alarm) door leads to a further zone North that is an extra "supply" zone guarded by giants. Back in the first zone we then setup as best we could for the East, cfoaming and mining the open doors and putting the sniper sentry to assist (always at a door pointing at us so that it shoots things in the back).

Our terminal was at the very Eastern section here which only has one door leading into it. Regardless, we cleared everything and shut everything and use the last of the supplies to cfoam hold the door followed by good fighting. Since I was holding the cfoam Jim was doing terminal duty. After the last code is entered there is an extraction alarm so things won't stop coming. Instead push forward right after killing a wave and get back to the drop point and then hold with whatever you have left. I was down to just my spear when we finally GTFO. :D

GTFO: ALT R2B2 - Power Corrupts

I hope you practiced silently smacking giants in the previous level because you're gonna need it here (or you can just practice here, whatever). The objective is to find four small generators to plug four cells into (which come down the elevator with you). Our load out was the same as last time, which means DL got extra ammo again for the sniper rifle.

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: PDW/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Hel Revolver/Machinegun/Biotracker/Hammer

Giants are all over the first zone, so stealth kill or stealth past as you see fit. The first generator is in here somewhere so make sure to ping it at a terminal before going through the regular team scan to the next zone, which is dark and tiny and full of ugly spitter things on the wall that scream and poison you if you get too close. Shine your light on them to make them sleep! Little sleepers are in here too, so balance as you like. We still stealth meleed with flash lights on. Lol. Anyway, second generator is in here too. Yay!

This is followed by a largish zone with the third generator and CLASS V alarm exits to the North and West. One of these will contain the last generator spot so check first which way you need to go (ours was West). For defense here since there was no door, Jim's sniper sentry was facing inward around the bend from the entry point so that it would hit both upstairs and downstairs mobs (you'll understand when you see it) and I cfoamed a cone infront of the gun to give it more time to shoot things while DL also put mines just after the cfoam. Note there's a non-alarm team scan East but leave that shut first to simplify things. This defense held until around the last set of circles so it's pretty effective!

Behind either CLASS V door are rooms of scouts! For single ones DL sniped, but for the double Jim tossed a cfoam grenade and missed but a scout still walked into it, leaving it open for me to spear and then spear his buddy - which was both cool cause it worked and foolish cause it was safer if DL shot it, but whatever. :P

After plugging in the last generator head on East through the non-alarm door until you hit a zone with a CLASS V ALARMED BLOOD DOOR. What!? This one caught us as we thought it was just a regular blood door, so mine was set up on the East door, sniper turret along South wall facing back towards us (always shoot things in the back) with foam in front of it. At least I shut the door behind us, but it wasn't cfoamed or mined. On your run, make sure to do those things. We also had cleared the room by stealth bop, and then I just fired one shot to get the fog sleepers to come out.

So, with the surprise of needing to do circles - we rushed forward to start the scan and then I went back with the bot to hold the first wave along the South wall while the others tore down defenses and did circles, but I had to fall back pretty quick. Eventually all the circles were done and we ended up doing a big counter clockwise semicircle to win the wave. Sheesh. Comparatively the regular blood door segment of this blood door was pretty straightforward! Once done, its a fast silent extract just behind that door to GTFO!

GTFO: ALT R2B1 - Sacrifice

Next step down from R2A1 is basically the introduction to blood doors and making giant strikers more common. It's a simple task: just open up the forward extraction spot which you will find just by going North all the time. This was our loadout:

Me: Pistol/Revolver/Cfoam/Spear
DL: DMR/Sniper Rifle/Mines/Hammer
Jim: PDW/Machine Gun/Sniper Sentry/Hammer
[Bot]: Hel Revolver/Machinegun/Biotracker/Hammer

Now's a good time to recap how to stealth kill giants: stack up behind solo sleeping giants and each call out a unique limb on the target. Swing a fully charged melee at the same time and your goal is to break the limb you called out as that forces the giant to stagger. Hitting the nape and destroying the head is always a good idea, as that deals significantly more damage. Note: if you brought clubs and knives, this is probably going to be tougher! For groups of big guys, clear everything else, shut the doors to kill the noise and snipe them.

Clear your drop zone of regulars and you'll find the first blood door. A mine pointed towards the door is better than one across, but either way there will still be scum that you will need to shoot after. Make use of the shelf cover provided when those spiky head hybrids come out. They can shoot a lot, but cover negates their greatest strength.

Beyond that is a big zone with giant sleepers and 4 security doors (other than the one you just used to enter). In the SE is an optional "supply closet" we didn't bother opening as it would just complicate things, then two more blood doors to the East and West, and a locked Apex door to the North. The key card is behind one of the blood doors so ping it, then prep with a mine (ours was to the East) and shoot the left overs from cover again.

Inside is a scout which DL sniped, and the key card to Apex CLASS VII alarm! To setup for this, we shut all the doors we could and DL mined all the immediate ones and the ones one step away while I cfoamed all the immediate ones and used the remaining cfoam in a cone in front of Jim's sniper sentry positioned at the Eastern blood door (because that's what we opened) facing towards the Apex door.

This is one of those "fight well" situations, but remember to do circles too! The [bot] on biotracker is amazing at letting you know which side to pay attention to as the swarm came from both East and South for us. Opening the Apex door triggers an extraction alarm so combat mine and rush and hold the extract spot as a wave of giants comes after you. DL is great with the sniper rifle and really smashed them here, though with that gun being 100% full with 8 shots it meant donating a lot of ammo kits to him, which balanced out my excess of ammo with the twin pistols. Everything worked well, and we GTFO of there. :)