Operation Devil’s Knife
Date: 03/18/2015
Location: Hong Kong China
Objective: Sweep and eliminate hostiles
Squad
| Name | Rank | Specialty | Missions | Kills |
| Deacon Palmer | Squaddie | Assault | 2 | 3 |
| Poli Rules | Squaddie | Sniper | 2 | 1 |
| Coffee Warlord | Squaddie | Heavy | 1 | 1 |
| DJ Thomas | Squaddie | Support | 2 | 3 |
We touch down in some type of industrial complex and I immediately send Poli up the side of a building, where he spots 2 sectoids milling around by a stack of pallets. Warlord follows Poli’s directions and ducks behind a porta-pottie, firing at one of the intruders and missing. Thomas is right behind CW and unleashes on the same target, taking his head off. Two more sectoids appear, but neither gets a clean line of site on our team.
Poli takes aim from her vantage point on top of the building and scores a head shot on a sectoid, clean kill. CW peers out from behind the john and rips off a quick burst missing her target. Palmer races up and fires his shotgun at the same target and also misses, he is in the LOS of sectoids now, so he will need Thomas to save his ass right here. Thomas doesn’t have a shot, so he pops a smoke grenade in front of Palmer and CW. The diversion works and the sectoids fall back.
Poli has no shot, so she moves behind an AC unit on the edge of the building and hunkers down to get set for her next opportunity. Warlord, Palmer and Thomas all advance to the edge of the smoke and take cover, going to overwatch. The aliens stay put and as the smoke clears we have the advantage.
Poli has no shot and goes to overwatch, but knowing where the aliens are huddles, Coffee Warlord queues up a rocket and takes both of them out as they evaporate in a scintillating explosion, Vahlen can kiss my ass with her no explosives request. Thomas and Palmer move up slightly, find cover and wait.
As we advance, Palmer and Thomas spot two more sectoids, but both miss their reaction shots. The aliens are startled and pull back to cover. Poli advances to try and get a better vantage point from atop some containers. Warlord hurdles a box and gets off a shot, missing again. He apparently has a rocket because he can’t hit an elephant’s ass with his gun. Joining the trend Palmer and Thomas miss as well. One of the aliens moves up and drills Thomas, who is hurt badly and pulls back to tend to his own wounds.
Still no shot for Poli, so I bring her down and she gets off a pistol shot, nicking one of the aliens, while CW reloads. Palmer runs to where CW is, but forgets to gun, now our advantage belongs to the aliens and it looks like it is about to get ugly. Instead, the aliens mind meld and one moves up and takes cover going to overwatch. We are spared.
Poli goes back to the sniper rifle, but misses the front line alien, who also avoids Warlord’s errant shot. Palmer goes to run and gun, somehow manages to avoid being hit by the alien on over watch (another tactical mistake, ugh) and then tears the aliens heart out of its chest with a well placed shotgun blast from point blank range. His wounds mended, Thomas moves back up and goes to overwatch, drilling the final sectoid as it tries to maneuver to a better position. Another flawless mission!
Summary
Operation Devils Knife - Success
Aliens killed: 6 – Excellent
Operatives lost: 0 – Excellent
Artifacts recovered
6 sectoid corpses and 8 weapons fragments.
Promotions:
Deacon Palmer – Corporal, learns tactical sense (+5 defense per alien in sight)
DJ Thomas – Corporal, learns sprinter (+3 to movement per turn)
Thomas, despite his egregious wounds bags 2 aliens as does Coffee Warlord thanks to the magic of rockets. Deacon Palmer and Poli Rules snuff 1 alien each to complete the kill board. Thomas will be out 13 days recovering, but the pain should be lessened by his promotion. We collect 4 engineers and panic reduced by 1 in China, while increasing by 1 in North America and Africa.