Fenn Vs X-COM

[Fenn]

Part 3 - Novosibirsk Terror

We open up the mission to this sight. Good news - we have Floaters instead of Sectoids. Floaters are like Sectoids, but a little larger and sturdier and capable of flight. I'd rather face them here though, because while Sectoids bring engines of destruction on terror missions, Floaters just bring Reapers - oversized attack dogs.

Bad news - that's still two aliens pointing guns our way. Haphazard drops a smoke grenade at the front of the Skyranger, yet there's no guarantee the Floaters won't find us anyway on their turn. So the tank is going to have a go with its rocket launcher.


Not bad - one Floater dead, and the other shot the tank thrice but couldn't get past the armor. Let's move the tank out of the way -


Except there's another Floater right in front of the ramp the tank somehow missed earlier. Well, we really have to kill this one before it shoots somebody. The tank moves forward and Quagma Blast fires his Autocannon...which I forgot has INCENDIARY rounds, not explosive ones, which leaves the Floater unmoved. Haphazard still has an angle though:


Needless to say, that takes care of the Floater. There's still one more off to the right, but from Quagma Blast's position we have a line of fire. Bobchillingworth, a nameless agent and El Grillo all take Aimed shots, but none of them manage to hit.

During the extensive Alien phase, at least three civilians are slain, but the smoke grenade works - nobody on our squad dies.


The tank moves up, spots the Floater from before, and rockets it. The Reaper up north gets burned up by an Auto shot Quagma Blast's incendiary rounds -  Reapers are weak enough to fire that mere incendiary rounds can kill one outright.


Our starting corner of the map is safe enough now to take the squad out of the Skyranger. Everyone tries to spread out, and an agent throws a smoke grenade ahead for extra safety.

Half a dozen civilians die on the alien turn. Oh well, better them than us.

Turn 3:

The tank (which caught on fire at some point) advances forward, suddenly taking a heavy hit from the darkness. It won't be long for this world so it presses forward, revealing two Reapers a Floater off to the side. The shot came from the front however, so Dreylin tosses a flare forward to uncover the culprit:

Two agents try and fail too shoot him, until Bobchillingworth steps up and drops the Floater with a snapshot from his Sniper Rifle. With that threat gone our grenadier Simba Laroupe primes a grenade and passes it to Dreylin, who throws it at the  nearest Reaper but falls just short of it.


Haphazard blows up the far Reaper. That leaves just a Floater off to the side and a Reaper in front with a grenade nearby.

Sadly I lose my mind at this point and order Quagma Blast to try for an aimed shot against the Reaper. This has predictable consequences:

Hopefully haphazard will not catch on fire, but you never know.

During the alien turn, more civilians die and the Reaper destroys the tank. Unfortunate to lose it so soon, but that will leave it open to retaliation. First we have to help out haphazard, who's passed out from the smoke and fire. Our medic picks him up and carries him to safety:

Perhaps he'll survive after all.


Meanhwile two of our riflemen cooperate to shoot down the offending Reaper. In doing so we spot the other Floater from before; Bob shoots it but doesn't kill it. Dreylin throws a High Explosive charge to make sure it dies.


El Grill moves into the house and spots a Reaper frighteningly close to us. He manages to hit it through the window once with a burst, Quagma Blast does the same, and grenadier Simba throws a frag at its feet.


Both Reaper and Floater obligingly perish.

Turn 5: haphazard dies from his fatal wound (of being on fire). Farewell haphazard.


Remi Mercer throws a flare, steps forward and reveals yet more Floaters and Reapers in the same spot. She moves aside to try to give Bobchillingworth a line of fire, but then the Floater fires back, missing her but striking El Grillo dead center. Farewell El Grillo.

"That's enough of that", thinks Dreylin, priming and throwing a second High Explosive at the group. Remi moves north and spots a Floater:

She tries an Auto shot, but only one of the three bullets hit. In return, the Floater shoots back. The plasma misses Remi again and vaporizes another agent again. Remi has very peculiar luck. Simba is able to make a long-distance grenade throw form near the Skyranger all the way to the Floater, blowing it up.


During the alien turn a shot flies in from the northeast and knocks out Quagma Blast. Remi manages to stabilize him and spots his shooter, floating above the road. She misses, as does Bob (off of a 94% shot I might add) and another rifleman. Simba has better luck, managing to shoot it down with two consecutive pistol shots.


A Reaper runs up to Remi and bites her to death - so much for that luck. Also three agents pass out from smoke inhalation, leaving just two able-bodied soldiers. Simba throws a High Explosive at the Reaper, but it falls well short and kills the unconscious Dreylin, Quagma Blast and a third agent.


Only three agents are left, but maybe there aren't too many more aliens? Simba and the medic group up near Bob to try and revive him. A turn later, Simba sees another Reaper approaching; good thing there was a spare High Explosive lying around.

By Turn 11, the team is once again about to pass out from smoke, even with stimulants from the medikit. Another Reaper is spotted and disposed of with a grenade, but there's at least one Floater still lurking about - we can hear him trying to shoot a civilian in the apartment block.

Turn 12:

The squad takes cover in a house to escape the smoke. Along the way the see a civilian wandering in a daze. That might be the Floater's target; if so, the Floater must be nearby.

Turn 14:

Simba walks in front of a window and is gunned down instantly. At least we know where the Floater is. The medic steps out of the house and sights the Floater on a second floor balcony:

Unfortunately, when he takes another step to try for a firing angle, the Floater turns out to have plenty of TUs left and shoots him. Can Bobchillingworth finish the mission alone?


Bob runs forward, sees the Floater facing away from him, and for once kills it with a single shot. The mission doesn't end there though - there's still more enemies lurking.

Bob draws his pistol runs over to the apartment complex, checking each room in turn. Clear...clear...


There's one. But Bob can only fire one shot, and it probably won't be enough to kill the Floater. Hoping for the best, he retreats to the bottom of the stairs and hopes the Floater doesn't notice him...


Today, Bob is lucky. The Floater comes to a stop at the balcony and Bob drops it with two pistol shots, but sees one more Floater off in the distance. It's not over yet.

Bob retreats downstairs and hides around a corner. Next turn, he creeps forward and finds his mark in front of a house:

This time, only a single pistol shot is needed. It's not all good news:


Turning around to head back to his corner, what does he see but still another Floater. This time, Bob heads east to hide around the corner, hoping the Floater will show its side to him.


It floats past the balcony for sure, but has the wherewithal to see Bob and fire a shot at him - miss. Bob's just as innacurate with his pistol, but after a round of snapshots takes down his opponent. How many more are left?


Next turn, Bob sees another Floater crossing the courtyard. Four shots are enough to put it away. Bob's running out of pistol ammo. He thinks of making a run for the Skyranger...


No such luck.


Bob fires the last two bullets from his pistol. Both miss. Bob ducks behind cover, and for a couple of turns neither foe is able to get a good shot at one another. The Floater blows out some of the wall trying to get at Bob; Bob shoots at the Floater but misses. Then:


The Floater circles around and just barely misses with a plasma bolt. This is the moment of truth. Bob crouches, takes aim, and:


Boom.


VICTORY!    


Bobchillingworth, you're a damn hero.

[Dp101]

That was some impressive pistolling from bob there. I was convinced that the mission was a failure after the explosive charge went short .

[DaveV]

Fond memories of this game and its atmosphere. Those black interturns with shots and screams were really nerve wracking. Add me to the list of expendables.

[Dreylin]

Well at least I was unconscious before being taken out by friendly fire ... is it my imagination or is the smoke causing as many deaths as it's supposed to be preventing!? 

Anyway, the secret seems to be to die once and then come back a hero, al. la. Bob.

[Bobchillingworth]

That was incredible


Kind of morphed into an interesting fusion of Alien and Home Alone by the end.

[Fenn]

Dreylin, usually the idea is to put the smoke between you and the enemy...except I had to smoke the Skyranger so the Floaters wouldn't shoot into it, then I smoked the only way forward, and then a whole bunch of aliens showed up so everybody spent a few turns breathing in the fumes. That plus the fact I like to throw smoke everywhere in night missions since your agents have such poor visibility anyway, and you have a recipe for misfortune.

I think this pair of statistics sums up these first two missions:

[Fenn]

Part 4/5 - UFO Recovery

Bobchillingworth returns to base, alone but victorious.

Selling excess alien stuff brings in $1.3 million; most of that goes to replacing the lost tank and soldiers, and hiring more engineers in anticipation of laser pistols.


Once Dp101 recovers (I bet he's glad to have missed out on the terror mission), we'll have a full complement of named troops if we take a HWP along.

Soon enough, the end of the month rolls around, and with it X-COM's financial report:

Ouch, only barely positive. Must have missed a some UFOs in Europe and Asia, since we only had the one before the terror mission. At least Spain appreciates our success with the first mission.


A few days later, the designs for Laser Pistols are ready!


For whatever reason, the description is completely false: the Laser Pistol is less accurate and costs more TUs to fire than its ballistic counterpart. What it does have is burst fire, almost twice as much power per shot, and a much better damage type that almost nothing resists.

At any rate, our Engineers get started on twelve of them, and the Scientists start research on the Laser Rifle. Our regular pistols will be phased out as the Laser Pistols arrive, but we'll keep the Rifles for accurate shooting. The Engineers will have some downtime between finishing the Laser Pistols and the availability of Laser Rifles; that time will be spent manufacturing Motion Scanners to sell for profit.


The 15th of February sees a small UFO detected over North America.


The Canadian base has no craft yet, so an Interceptor is scrambled from HQ to seek out the invader.


The Interceptor catches up with the UFO over Europe, but the alien ship is wily and outruns our craft after a brief skirmish. It slows down eventually, and the Interceptor finds it a second time and shoots it down...over the Atlantic where it can't be recovered. Nuts.

A few days later, a very small UFO appears over North Africa, but it proves to be too quick for us and escapes unhurt.


Finally, on the 20th of February a small UFO is detected. Our Avalanche-armed Interceptor gives chase and shoots it down over Iceland. After some waiting for day to arrive, the Skyranger sets off with ten agents and a fresh rocket tank.


The Skyranger touches down in a flat, watery plain with no cover to be found, but fortunately(?) right next to the UFO, so at least the squad won't have to go very far. The tank is first out and sees nothing.


Satisfied, Dp101 and AdrienIer throw some smoke grenades to cover the east, and well away from themselves - they know about the 'incident' with smoke in the last mission.


Everyone exits the Skyranger but Bobchillingworth and haphazard. On the alien turn, the sound of the UFO door opening is heard, but nothing else happens.


Rounding the corner, the tank finds a Floater...


And dispatches it with ease.


DaveV takes the other corner and runs into a slightly more precarious situation.


Thinking quickly, DaveV fires a burst at the Floater, but his shooting reveals a second and then a third Floater standing behind the first. He doesn't have enough TUs to run away, and that calls for some grenade action. RefSteel and Dp101 prime frag grenades and throw them at the two remaining Floaters, killing them both.


DaveV pulls out his motion scanner and detects two Floaters: one to the south - probably in the UFO - and another to the north, surprisingly. That's going to be difficult since the north is full of untraversable water. The tank goes out into the open, hoping to draw fire from that direction.


As expected, the tank gets some attention - two plasma shot from the front, but it survives. That Floater must be around here somewhere...


There we are. Quagma Blast and Bobchillingworth are both in position to snipe this guy, but impressively the tank is able to score a direct hit on a mid-air target. That just leaves one more Floater, and he must be in the ship.


Brave* haphazard rushes the UFO and finds the last alien facing away from him. Even better, he manages to knock it out with one jab from his Stun Rod.
*Just kidding, his bravery is terrible


A perfect mission! Would you look at that.


Bobchillingworth continues to climb the ranks. Not for what he did on this mission (nothing), but that terror mission is worth two promotions at least.

edit: I've been informed that these 300x400 images are a little small. In the future I'll use 640x480 images, which should be much more readable. I'm still thinking about what resolution to use.

[RefSteel]

He doesn't have enough TUs to run away, and that calls for some grenade action. RefSteel and Dp101 prime frag grenades and throw them at the two remaining Floaters, killing them both.

That's me:  Proudly saving my skinfellow X-Com agents with cowardlyprecision grenade-throwing from a safe back-lineshelpful back-up position!

[haphazard1]

Just read the base management post; have not yet read the terror mission. But I wanted to post this before continuing: You're trusting me with a rocket launcher?

Hope you don't regret this.....

Edit: OK, burning to death is not a good way to go.  Ouchie!

But the new me managed to do some good, bravely (sort of) entering the UFO and even stunning an alien for capture. Go me! 

Very nice work completing the terror mission! Early terror missions are very tough, especially at night. A positive first month is not a bad result, given the almost squad wipe.

[Fenn]

Your first guy had 44 strength! There was no way I could resist handing him a rocket launcher. Sadly your reincarnation is a 21 Strength weakling and had to sit the next mission out...

Part 6 - Once More, With Feeling

The squad returned home from Iceland in high spirits. All of them had survived the mission, which brought back over a million dollar's worth in loot and another live Navigator. With these funds, twenty more scientists could be hired to speed researhc into the alien technologies. Things were beginning to look up after the bloody first two missions. Their relief was to be short-lived: not three days later, the alarm went out:

Aliens were looting and pillaging in Lima! Quickly, X-COM's finest suited up and rushed to the hangars, with one newcomer.

Lewwyn joins as the squad's second rocketeer, replacing haphazard2 who hurriedly volunteers to stay behind at base.

The RB team is filled with the noodle-armed; Lewwyn is mightier than most by a sizable margin.


The Skyranger faces the northern edge of the map, and finally managed to arrive in the daytime. The tank rolls out of the cabin to see what it can see...


As the tank trundles on to the ramp, thirteen plasma bolts come screaming out of the darkness - miraculously, the tank is able to survive, and draws a bead on some of its attackers. Floaters again!


It looks like that plasma damaged the tank's targeting, because its rocket veers way off. It's up to the soldiers to handle this.


Dp101 jumps out, but forgot to prime his smoke grenade before landing, and an auto burst from his rifle fails to injure the Floater behind the gas pump. He's forced to duck behind the tank for cover, and Quagma blast throws a smoke grenade down. Everyone else moves to the front of the Skyranger.


Many shots ring out during the alien turn; incredibly, the tank weathers three more plasma shots without crumpling.


This Floater was still out in the open here from last turn. The tank shows him the error of his ways.


Molach stumbles upon an outright gang of Reapers rampaging through the gas station. That's a few too many for him to handle, so he steps aside to let the pros take over.


Quagma Blast has just the thing for Reapers:

Much better.


AdrienIer opens up Turn 3 by spotting this Floater for the tank, which...misses so badly that Adrien is fatally wounded.


Luckily RefSteel is nearby with a Medikit to patch Adrien up.


A Floater comes into view on the next turn; El Grillo plants a grenade right behind it, but turns out to be not close enough - the Floater walks away from this one.


Back at the ranch, Lewwyn threads the rocket needle to reach this Reaper.


A civilian beside the Reaper dies in the blast (bad place to stand lady), but the beast does go down.


RefSteel heals the last of Adrien's wounds and runs forward to spot the frag-surviving Floater. El Grillo gets the honors.


Adrien himself finds uncomfortably close to a Reaper by the sidewalk; the tank fires again, and it's a direct hit this time - both Reaper and a nearby Floater drop dead.


By the gas station, Dp101 locates a faraway Reaper, but him and Bobchillingworth can't quite kill it. DaveV throws a frag near the beast while Lewwyn and Quagma Blast reload their rocket launchers.


By the next turn, two more Reapers have wandered in. Molach tries to throw a proximity grenade at the one nearest to him, but the roof of the station makes it a no-go.


Quagma Blast aims for the two Reapers to the south. He misses, but his rocket goes on to slay an alien off in the distance. I'll take it.


Lewwyn is more on target: both Reapers perish. DaveV finishes the eastern Reaper off with a pair of Laser Pistol bursts, and the area is clear once more.


While moving south, Bob catches sight of a Floater in the main road. El Grillo drops it in a single shot once again.


On Turn 5 now, and a Reaper's creeping up on Adrien and Bob.


Quagma Blast has them covered; an unseen alien dies alongside the Reaper.


Continuing down the west road, the tank comes upon two Reapers side by side; one dies to a rocket blast, but the other stands tall even after a shot from Bobchillingworth's sniper rifle.


Bob could be in danger here, so Dreylin primes a smoke grenade and Lewwyn throws it over the Skyranger to block the Reaper's vision.


Even that's not enough. Bob's luck has run out for a second time.


DaveV manages to avenge him at least.


Meanwhile, Dp101 and Molach have been scouting clockwise through the gas station and the east edge of the map. They find a lone Floater, whom Lewwyn introduces to his rockets.

At some point AdrienIer, not wanting to fall behind Bob's death count, falls unconscious from smoke inhalation while carrying a primed grenade. Needless to say, this kills him.


A couple of turns later, the tank spots a Floater without a gun; that means they've started panicking.


Just to help them along, Lewwyn sends a rocket over to a Floater spotted by Molach.


The tank, having run out of ammunition, now drives around looking for Floaters. It's not as dangerous as it sounds - one of these Floaters is unarmed and the other one is unable to pierce the tank's battered hull. DaveV is able to kill the unarmed Floater with some long-distance Laser Pistoleering.


RefSteel gives the other one a nasty surprise.


Searching for the last hostiles, the tank is ambushed by a gun-toting Floater. It takes an opportunity shot, but for at least the third time the tank survives on a sliver of hitpoints. Will Dreylin, Molach and Dp101 be able to handle the Floater?


As it turns out, El Grillo has an angle and manages to snipe the Floater from clear across the map. I don't think he's missed a single shot this mission.


Almost all the civilians died, but we sure blew those aliens up good.


Bobchillingworth's and Adrien's deaths were avoidable - I forgot AdrienIer had a primed grenade - but there's always more where that come from.