Xenonauts: Dreadnought

[Part of the Xenonauts story]

The time has come to use the plan to end the aliens for good and the old Commander leads Parker Sanctuary, Stray Cat Brandon, Dr. Tygan, Captain Logan, Straggler Rachel, Straggler Rashida, Carol Hattier, Timeflies Stomachio and Billy Bob O'Reagan with hover tank support onto the alien dreadnought to immediately waste the initial lizardmen guards and charge forward to the upper temple.

En route, Billy Bob is flanked and killed by terminators while martian men with big guns and good aim destroy the hovertank from far away - the explosion catching and killing the commander, painting his pieces along the metal walls. Dr. Tygan is sniped by a jetpack guy as he locates the High Praetor whom Rashida snipes. Brandon also falls to plasma fire while the team uploads the virus and clear out the remaining enemy shooters.

Alas, the escape pods aren't working - they have to back track to activate them but to their horror discover a swarm of (never ending) reapers pouring in after them. Establishing a firing line they put down dozens of the reapers before finally a round of bad shooting and reloading lets one get the drop on Logan. They are overrun, impregnated into zombie bitches and then are autowarped by the virus to who knows where. The entire squad is lost but no one cares because it is VICTORY FOR THE PLANET! YEAAHHHHHHH! Once again the Earth is saved.

The Xenonauts last stand.

Decluttering Day 25: Xenonaut rough journal, since this story is done! :)

Xenonauts: Dili

[Part of the Xenonauts story]

An aerial terror strike at Reykjavik proves to be a good time to unleash the newest marauder aircraft to butt kick the aliens back into space, but a terror mission in Dili introduces a new alien variant - the tough, large headed wraiths who have a knack for teleporting.  Dr. Monique is caught be surprise and wraithed while Megan Allen is mind controlled into a building that the scimitar tank drops down on top of her for an instakill. Worth it as it took three wraiths down too! The large drones that accompany them are also decently annoying and a good match against the scimitar.

Of course, the Xenonauts didn't know these were NOT the Praetors they needed to capture and lost a few soldiers trying to take some in with Straggler Rachel plasma-ed by a lizardman and Ursula getting lizardmelee'd to death, Sera getting sniped by a jetpack boss and Ghorlak Beholder eating a friendly grenade to ensure a clear path to capture a creature they didn't actually need to.

Since the aliens are clearly becoming stronger (like those lizardmen are now regenerating) MAG rail-gun type weapons are produced for all the soldiers as well as three power armors for the LMG carriers which makes it easier to win battles against the alien battleships landing to terrorize Nairobi and Cape Town. Despite this Dr. Isaac is still killed when taking the bridge of one of those multi storied UFOs. 

It's the only way to be sure.

Dili then is the target of another terror attack, and since their previous efforts did not make Indochina return to the council this time they just nuke the entire city, populace and all. If you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem! Then for whatever reason, Dili is terrorized and nuked AGAIN. Who were they terrorizing, I'm not sure... the aliens either really want something there or are just kinda stupid.

Decluttering Day 23: Broken Pig charm.

State of Decay 2: The Stragglers

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Splitting into pairs, all the plague hearts turn out to be easy to destroy without any particular tactics (easy mode), and team Sanctuary gains new recruits cowgirl Maddie and Des. With that done team Sanctuary moves base a few times over the next few days while Dr. Hurt tries to work out how to plug in electricity. Eventually this is sorted out when they move into the local fire station which has its own power supply. Soon enough, other people come to request entry into the team and while Dr. Hurt accepts bad girl Rev and good girl Goose - he is forced to turn away others.

This group of unwanteds eventually returns in a pitiful attack which gets them all killed, but the gunfight does draw in a lot of zombies including freak types of bloaters (poison gas), screamers (summon more zeds) and a juggernaut (fat tank). The base holds easily and with that, Dr. Hurt knows his legacy is secure (map victory)! It isn't long before Val and Downey want to run their own place though, so they and Downey's bro Jamaar head on to Drucker Country where they establish a base in a nice house, with utilities supplied by Team Sanctuary (benefit of winning as builder).

Dr. Hurt advises a buckshot diet to this juggernaut.

 

Val and Jamaar go assist new neighbors Rachel and Beth against thieves, "the Furies", and this time Val tries to make peace. The Furies seemingly accept handing over the goods, but immediately go hostile once Val picks them up. The ensuing fire fight draws zombies in and some of the Furies escape while Jamaar is turned into a blood zombie. Val shoots him in the face and takes the two new girls back to base to break the bad news to Downey. Not only did Val kill her brother, by default she is voted leader of this group: "the Stragglers". To reinforce her position, Val also quickly recruits Lory and ex-cop Katz before planning out how to clear the many plague hearts in this area.

Insight: Apparently, to learn electronics you need to read computer books, which is completely different from electrics - for which you need utility books. For me that was very obscure. Also if you recruit one person from an enclave, the rest of the enclave disbands so choose wisely whom you pick, or if its more beneficial to have a friendly enclave around (especially on harder difficulties).