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!

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.

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!