The Council Of Nations Needs You!(XCOM)

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

OPERATION SOARING DRUID is a colossal failure, our first mission that has gone south completely, but really at this point the war is strategically lost. We needed the resources and technology this UFO would have offered, and have virtually no experienced, skilled men left.

Trust me, you can keep fighting for a while after this sort of disaster. I've managed to survive two such failures to this point in my current game. ("Survive" isn't the same as winning, of course.) I've managed to nurse things along by hook or by crook (I felt like I had only four or five soldiers available for a few weeks) and the failures pushed a large chunk of the planet into panic mode over time, but I'm still standing. Barely. I have in all likelihood a make-or-break battle coming that if I don't win will finally end the game because too many nations will drop out at the next monthly meeting. Even if I win, I'm probably looking at seven dropouts total and no margin for error. It's probably still an inevitable loss, but strangely enough it's no longer about winning or losing, but seeing how long I can push this before finally going down. It's a blast.

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

Trust me, you can keep fighting for a while after this sort of disaster. I've managed to survive two such failures to this point in my current game. ("Survive" isn't the same as winning, of course.) I've managed to nurse things along by hook or by crook (I felt like I had only four or five soldiers available for a few weeks) and the failures pushed a large chunk of the planet into panic mode over time, but I'm still standing. Barely. I have in all likelihood a make-or-break battle coming that if I don't win will finally end the game because too many nations will drop out at the next monthly meeting. Even if I win, I'm probably looking at seven dropouts total and no margin for error. It's probably still an inevitable loss, but strangely enough it's no longer about winning or losing, but seeing how long I can push this before finally going down. It's a blast.

This is what has me hooked on this game..

[law90026]

Oh if you need more names, Da Law at your service.

[Coffee Warlord]

Looks like it's CW version 3.0!

[Brian Swartz]

I totally agree Wolfpack -- I'll definitely be 'playing out the string' to the bitter end.

April 5 -- 4 more soldiers hired, we are down to 140 credits.

April 6 -- Korme is back to active duty. New Power Generator online.

April 8 -- Thin Man autopsy complete. Dr. Vahlen disgustingly reports that their venom has a potential use as a powerful disinfectant in treating wounds in the field.

We begin research on Experimental Warfare, an attempt to adapt some alien tech for our own use in combat.

Alert! Alien Abductions underway!

Moscow, Russia -- Low, Moderate, 4 Engineers
Pretoria, South Africa -- Low, Difficult, Assault Sergeant
Beijing, China -- Medium, Difficult, 200 credits

Well, there's no way we can handle a Difficult mission right now. Moscow is the only viable choice for a successful operation. We may well lose China over this, but we simply have no other choice as I see it.

Support Sq. Shane Korme is our only veteran. Joining him will be rookies Benton Gale II(USA), Revina Rew(Nigeria), and Chesapeake Murray(Scotland) aka Chesapeake II.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION SEVERED DIRGE
Theatre: Moscow, Russia
Touchdown: April 8, 2015, 5:27 AM

This location looks to be a train yard, with some good cover afforded at least initially.

Turn 1

We move into position behind a couple of rail cars, looking to cross over the first set of tracks(we can see at least three) while minding any potential flanks. Everyone's in good cover. My sense of danger is very high -- we really need a clean mission here to get XCom moving in the right direction again, with the whole project on the verge of collapse.

Turn 2

Revina Rew moves up between the first and second set of tracks, and spots a pair of Thin Men. Superb. I focus our fire in that direction.

It's not good enough. They stay out of range and assassinate her like she had no cover. What ... the ... crap.

Turn 3

We move up at a supposedly better angle ...

They hit Chesapeake Murray anyway. Seems cover is nearly useless against these guys from moderate or closer range.

Turn 4

Murray has a shot, injures one but it's still up. Thankfully, Benton Gale II finishes it off.

The other one poisions Murray, forcing me to get her out of there. Gale's a bit further back in overwatch, while Shane Korme moves up on the right. They fire at him, but a crate not halfway to him absorbs the blast.

Turn 5

A good flanking angle for Korme ... Murray needs healing, but the best way to do that is eliminate this threat. He guns down the second thin man, and we're clear for the moment! Murray hunkers down.

A couple more tracks forward and well to the left, we spot a pair of Floaters. They're not going to give us time. Bastards!

Turn 6

Gale moves up and has a shot at one, hits it but can't bring it down. The second one moves off to our left and flanks ... those things can move ridiculously fast!

The first fires at Korme, destroying his cover but not hitting him.

Turn 7

One in front, one to the left and behind. We have to take out the flanker, now. Korme and Gale both miss. Superb.

One of the floaters fires at Korme, the other at Gale. Both land a fatal barrage, while Murray is undone by the poison as we were never able to heal her.

Well, that was a short mission.

OPERATION SEVERED DIRGE is another total disaster. Actually, the worst yet, with only 2 aliens down for four of us.

Gale had one kill, Korme three(one today). The others were just there to get shot. Central Officer Bradford opines desperately, "I just wish there was something we could do. Anything at all."

Yeah, that's about how I feel about it as well.

[Brian Swartz]

Japan, India, and China go into mass hysteria, readying to leave the Council. Sweet.

My best idea on how to fight these guys at the moments is to retreat to fairly extreme range and try to get some shots in on them as they advance. If had any decent experienced operatives, that might even stand a chance of working.
If.

We hire three more recruits ... we have five raw rookies at the moment. 95 credits left. Frankly, at this point it's just a matter of how long it takes the aliens to kill us all.

April 9 -- Officer Training School completed. We immediately upgrade to allow our squads to have five operatives instead of four. That means we need two new soldiers. 15 credits in the account, on the ninth day of the month. Yeah, we are definitely totally screwed.

In addition to the previous mentioned nations, we have high panic in Russia(where we just got done failing) and South Africa(which we ignored) and medium in Argentina and Egypt.

Later in the day ... new satellite uplink is constructed. Not that we have the money to build any new satellites, or a chance of doing anything with them if we did.

April 10 -- Japan asks to purchase a pair of thin man corpses. I'm a little nervous about what they might want to do with them, but twenty credits is twenty credits is twenty credits. This does not affect their intent to bolt the Council, unfortunately.

April 15 -- It's stunningly quiet around here. Perhaps the aliens have just fully realized that they can finish us off anytime they feel like it, and no longer consider us a threat. Project Skunk Works(Experimental Warfare) is complete. We can construct a Foundry and Phoenix Cannons for our interceptors.

We'll research Arc Thrower, a device to disable aliens so we can capture them. The new recruits have all arrived.

April 22 -- Project Spark(Arc Thrower) is complete. We of course have no Alien Containment and no money to build any of these weapons, so this is of course irrelevant.

However, it has now been two weeks since we saw any alien activity. Is it too much to hope they have decided to leave us alone?

We go for Carapace Armor next. With only eight scientists, it will take two and a half weeks.

April 23, 12:54 AM -- Our first flash alert in quite some time -- a small UFO has landed in Nigeria! Could this be the break we've been waiting for?

Answer: No, because they are just going to kill us all. Again.

Still, off to the Skyranger. Never let it be said that XCOM gave up without a fight. Without much of one, sure, but not without a fight at all. All together now, repeat our motto: To die horribly and leave a messy corpse!!!

Five rookies head out: David Gonzalez, Ace Idol, Coffee Warlord III, Ardent Enthusiast II, and AJ Tucker.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION BLEEDING FLAME
Theatre: Nigeria
Touchdown: April 23, 1:08 AM

What in the world is a bleeding flame, for pete's sake!? Ahh, nevermind.

Coffee Warlord III has a particularly hostile look of malice on her face as she exits the Skyranger. Hopefully she'll save most of that for the enemy instead of her squadmates.

There's two directions we can really go from here. A stream runs along one edge of the zone, but there's higher ground and better cover the other way, so it's really an easy choice.

CW ends up running point, with David Gonzalez behind and the other three in support.

Turn 2

Ace Idol spots the UFO in the direction the stream runs, but the hill we're working our way up provides a decent vantage point so we keep moving. Lady luck is possibly smiling on us here ... it's about freaking time.

No sign of our quarry yet.

Turn 3

Ace is now on point. He approaches within about 25 yards of the ship ... still nothing. Queue the inevitable barrage of 'I've got a bad feeling about this' comments. CW is next, with AJ Tucker and Ardent Enthusiast II behind her.

Movement inside the ship ... it's three Sectoids! Never in my life did I think I'd be so glad to see those buggers. They exit to our left -- no you bastards, you will NOT be flanking us that way.

Turn 4

Ace shifts around to a better defensive angle, though he has to move down a bit to achieve this. A passable shot, but I put him on overwatch instead, covering the approach along the outside of the ship.

Tucker's in the best position to move out left and get around them, with CW, AE, and Gonzalez in fire support. Cover's good all around.

Turn 5

Tucker keeps swinging around to the left. They take a shot and miss him, AE moves out that way as well while the rest stay put.

Crap. Three more Sectoids emerge from the ship. Idol and CW both open fire, and both hit nothing but air. They outnumber us now.

Turn 6

Idol is going to get flanked if he doesn't watch it, so he moves back up to his first position. At least he'll have higher ground, and if they try to flank him the other way, we've got fire coverage over there now. Yeah, they'd probably all miss, but you have to try something.

Tucker keeps moving up on the left, they hit him but he's just injured, and he spots three more Sectoids to boot. Nine of them now. NINE! He panicks and takes one of them out, but it's still 8-5, one of us hurt. I'm not liking the looks of this at all.

AE moves a bit closer and fires, injuring one. Gonzalez can't do a whole lot from his vantage point.

Some of the Sectoids retreat. Two fire at Tucker. The first misses, but the second puts him down and out. AE, CW, and Idol all panic. Idol and AE fire wildly, while CW just puts his head down.

Turn 7

Gonzalez fires and misses. A couple of them miss AE, but destroy the tree he's hiding behind. Another fires from the side ... missed somehow with a really good opportunity to really make this mission suck.

Turn 8

AE shoots and misses ... I don't see a whole lot of options, we seem really boxed in at the moment.

Turn 9

AE goes left, turns, and has a good flanking angle on one of his assailants. He guns it down! A pistol shot by Idol injures the only other visible alien, and we're looking a bit better for the moment.

More of them move up in response. Gonzalez misses one as it ducks behind a log, and another fires at Idol, missing.

Turn 10

AE reloads, while Gonzalez is able to flank the bugger hiding behind the log ... he's got it!! Another pistol shot by Idol misses.

CW is still doing a whole lot of nothing back there in rear-guard overwatch. They're on target this time with a blast that impacts Idol's torso ... another one like that and he'll be done for.

Turn 11

AE moves up ... right by Tucker's dead body ... and misses a shot. CW and Idol retreat in that direction also.

Nothing from the Sectoids.

Turn 12

Another miss from Ardent, while the others keep repositioning. Meanwhile, it doesn't look like the aliens are in any hurry.

Turn 15

After a couple of them miss Gonzalez on the move, he's 20 feet away from one of the Sectoids with a completely open shot. Which he proceeds to completely miss. Freaking wonderful.

AE finally takes out one of them, but the second hits Gonzalez after retreating. At least he's still up, but good grief if he could shoot straight once in a while ...

Turn 19

A lot of reloading and Sectoids destroying Gonzalez's cover but not hitting him has been going on, not much else. We've managed to finally turn the flank around on the left, and they've reacted by scrambling back inside the ship.

AE finally gets to Gonzalez with a medkit, so he's looking a bit better for the time being. Gonzalez dodges reaction fire as he moves forward, finds an angle on one just inside the entrance and ends its miserable existence.

I forget how many of these bastards are even out there anymore.

CW hears more movement inside.

Turn 20

Having circled the map basically, we have to cross about 30 yards to reach the ship itself. Gonzalez is up there, the rest in fire support.

Turn 21

Gonzalez reports two contacts inside and to the right. Probably more out of sight. AE starts moving up, and spots an Outsider in there ... no surprise. Gonzalez opens up on it, not sure if he hit or not, was hard to tell from this vantage point. The others advance a bit as well.

The Outsider misses Gonzalez, taking out part of the wall of his own ship in the process.

Turn 22

Gonzalez and AE can't find a decent shot. Idol is the third to reach the outside of the ship, with CW in support.

The Outsider injures Ardent with his next blast. Damn that bastard, truly.

Turn 23

Idol shifts to the right side of the door, AE to the left. Two Sectoids fire at the latter, one grazes him and the other gets nothing. Gonzalez misses a shot, and CW's up to the ship.

The Outsider lets loose another blast ... and Idol is dead! Apparently cover is irrelevant to that operative-killer. Gonzalez panics, and AE keeps moving left, desperate to flank him.

Turn 24

The Outsider connects again, injuring CW, and she panics. Sigh. They miss Jensen as well. Looks like we are all going to be dead soon.

Turn 25

Gonzalez grabs his pistol ... another failed shot. AE dashes across another entrance, evades fire from one of the Sectoids in defensive mode, and blasts the Outsider from behind. He's gone!! DIE, YOU MISERABLE BASTARD!!!

Ahem. They return fire at Gonzalez and miss.

Turn 26

Ok, so this battle isn't completely lost yet. After some more misses back and forth, CW moves up and manages to flank one of the Sectoids. It's down!

Turn 27

More misses, and the return fire downs Coffee Warlord III. Well, given the family history, I spose we should have expected that, but still ... Sucks.

Turn 28

AE keeps moving ... and finds himself just inside the ship, face to face with a Sectoid. He blasts it, and that's it! No more life signs.

Phew ....

OPERATION BLEEDING FLAME was a long, very tense battle, and in the end a pyrrhic victory. 10 aliens for 3 XCOM operatives. In many endeavors a 3-to-1 kill ratio is quite good: in our case it's suicidally bad.

Ace Idol dies having done basically nothing. Coffee Warlord III had two kills. Ardent Enthusiast II had an impressive four tallies, but he'll be out 13 days now. He's been promoted to Sniper, and Gonzalez's two confirmed make him our new Heavy Squaddie. We haven't had a Heavy in a while ... AJ Tucker was highly forgettable, let's just put it that way.

Artifacts Recovered
9 Sectoid Corpses
25 Elerium
60 Alien Alloys
20 Weapon Fragments
2 UFO Flight Computers
1 UFO Power Source

Quite the haul, there.

[BYU 14]

Queue Ace Idol's brother, Axel Idol to join the fray

[ntndeacon]

Please bring back Deacon as many times as we need to.

[Breeze]

Gale 3 is ready to roll when needed...

[Coffee Warlord]

CW 'Blade Reincarnate' IV ready for action!

[chesapeake]

Not much production from my namesakes. Hopefully the third one will be charmed.

[Brian Swartz]

Argh!! ... browser keeps screwing up as I try to post today. Dunno why.

Anyway, moving on, we recruit two new soldiers to add to our completely inadequate six actives and are down to five credits. However, China wishes to purchase a pair of SCOPEs for 57 credits. We sell some un-needed stuff and make a 31-credit profit overall on the deal, allowing us to bring in a third body.

April 26, 5:24 AM -- Alien Abductions Alert! Is early morning the only time they know to pull this crap? Seriously? Have they no decency?!

A very difficult mission to Japan, difficult to France, or Easy to Canada were our choices. Well, Canada's the only one we have a chance with, though this ensures Japan will walk from the Council in a few days, I deem the chance to maybe, possibly, somehow get some experienced guys going and bring in a few scientists to be the better option.

We'll bring along new Heavy Sq. David Gonzalez, joined by rookies Deacon Palmer II, Sterling Silvers II, Kodos II, and Braydon de Brach. Ardent Enthusiast II is still a week and a half away from being ready. Gonzalez grabs a scope, with others taking a vest, grenade, and a pair of medkits, in that order.

En route, we are notified of breaking news -- the aliens have shelled Moscow, Washington, and other major cities from orbit, along with some urban invasions. We are wanted in Delhi, but as the Skyranger is already on its way to Ottawa that won't be happening. I have a feeling we will hear about this from the Council ...

[revrew]

Precious is not pleased. No, not pleased at all.

[sterlingice]

Are we dead yet?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Not yet. Fairly soon .

OPERATION FORGOTTEN PROPHET
Theatre: Ottawa, Canada
Touchdown: April 26, approx. 7:30 AM

Turn 2

We are in a gas station, and spot a couple of thin men across it. Grr, I don't consider those guys to be 'easy'. Kodos II misses a shot at them as they move, and Deacon Palmer II has no shot, both are in pretty good cover.

That is of course irrelevant to the enemy it seems, who substantially injures both Palmer and Braydon de Bach with their return fire regardless.

Sterling Silvers II trades fire with one of them and manages to win his battle ... one Thin Man down! We are helpless to keep the other one from retreating ...

Turn 3

Working our way through the station, we spot Floaters and, unless my eyes deceive me, Sectoids in the store itself. Two shots of opportunity are off-target as they look for better positions.

Turn 4

Gonzalez's first shot of the mission ends a floater! However, another one returns the favor by gunning down Silvers, who was unable to find a good defensible location.

Turn 5

Gonzalez fires again, making it two shots and two kills. The second floater is down, but we can't afford to trade manpower with these things -- there's just too many of them. Palmer's up to a phone booth along the side of the store ... hasn't got a firing line on anything though. At least a thin man left out there, and probably more.

Turn 6

Gonzalez switches lanes in the gas station, fortunate to dodge fire from the thin man as he does so. He hasn't got much of a look to return fire from there, so Palmer inches across the outside wall of the store, while Kodos and Braydon find better support positions.

Turn 7

The Thin Man is content to sit there and wait for us to come out in the open to be hit. Gonzalez has another idea, and pulls out his rocket launcher. He blows up three things: a van near the thin man, the thin man itself ... and a car right in front of him that he had to shoot through to make the shot, injuring himself pretty bad.

As a result, the tool that is rookie Kodos II panics and fires at Gonzalez from close range, missing thankfully.

It turns out that was the last of 'em!

OPERATION FORGOTTEN PROPHET is a true success, our first in quite a while. We lose one rookie, drop four of the enemy, and with two straight in the win column are generally feeling better about ourselves.

Artifacts Recovered
2 Floater Corpses
2 Thin Man Corpses
6 Weapon Fragments

Lots of long-term injuries unfortunately: Gonzalez 18 days, Palmer 19 days, de Bach 14 days. Only Kodos, who of course did nothing useful, is ready to go out again right away. Gonzalez's 5 kills do not earn him a promotion. What a crock. Silvers had one at least before he bought it.

[BYU 14]

LOL, poor Kodos, the redheaded stepchild of XCom

[sterlingice]

A true success... with Sterling's death

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Back at HQ, Bradford reports a couple of important facts.

** Russia is now in full-blown panic mode. Unsurprising.

** There's still time to get to Delhi in time to make a difference there with the latest 'urban invasion' by the aliens. So we stay only long enough to fuel up the Skyranger, and we're off again!

Of course, we have basically no chance. We have four active soldiers, and can't even field a full squad. All are rookies, and only Kodos II has seen any action. Joining him are Da Law, Rev Rew II, and Shane Korme II.

Still, allowing another major city to be obliterated simply can't be countenanced.

We land in India a mere three hours after wheels up in Ottawa ...

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION PATIENT LINE
Theatre: Delhi, India
Touchdown: April 26, 10:57 AM

Our goal is to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible. If we fail here, and we almost certainly will, Asia will be lost and the war soon after. This looks like our final desperate chance to turn the tide.

Satellite surveilance indicates 18 civilians still alive in this sector. We're on a raised bridge highway of some sort, and it's a horror zone ... fires, plasma burns, dead carcasses both alien and human are everywhere, along with destroyed, malfunctioning, and burned-out vehicles of all kinds. A truly horrific sight.

There's only one way ... we must cross the bridge.

Turn 1

Kodos II moves forward behind the door of a cab ... there's no decent cover to be found here ... and spots a number of civilians along with a couple of 4-legged, purple, spidery creatures. Vahlen has one of her more inventive names, dubbing these things 'Chryssalids'. All I know is that damn these things can move fast! One of them approaches just on the other side of the door from Kodos.

He fires immediately, and hits it, but it's still moving. Da Law moves off to the left behind a red sedan, and her shot is true as well ... it grunts and simply keeps going! WHAT THE HECK?! Are these things even killable?

Rev Rew II moves up on the left behind a blood-spattered vehicle. Another hit, and no, it STILL isn't down. Shane Korme II goes behind the same car, and he opts for a grenade. That takes it out finally ...

injures Kodos as well ...

and he's dead seconds later when the car explodes!

Further up, we hear a civilian dying. 1 operative dead, 1 alien dead, 1 civilian dead with 17 of them left. Delhi sucks, but at least it's not boring :P

Turn 2

Law and Korme have pretty good angles on the second Chryssalid, but both miss. Rev Rew spots a ... it can't be ... apparently it is, a zombie. He hits it repeatedly in the head, but doesn't stop it. What the hell are they doing to these people?!

Turn 3

Korme finishes off the zombie, while Law wounds the alien. It keeps moving of course.

Another zombie starts towards us. 4 civilians are now dead, 14 left.

Turn 4

A zombie has almost reached Law, he wounds it and Law finishes it off, while Rev Rew misses the Chryssalid. Another zombie reaches Rew, murdering her with it's flailing arms. Those things are clearly much tougher and more powerful than ... what they used to be, what they were naturally. There are no words for the horror here.

A full third of the civilians are dead, and half of our squad. The good guys are dropping like flies.

Turn 5

Korme retreats to Law's position, injuring the zombie while she reloads. We spot another zombie further up the bridge.

Turn 6

Korme reloads, while Law hits the zombie ... and it's STILL moving! It can't quite reach us yet, but the death cries of two more civilians reach us. 8 down, 10 to go, and we are in no position to do a single solitary thing about it.

Turn 7

Law finally executes the closest zombie from point-blank range, the other is approaching fast and Korme wounds it.

Once again, we see another approaching behind it. Two more civilians are slaughtered. We are so completely, totally screwed here. Delhi is screwed, humanity is screwed, and soon after it the galaxy.

Turn 8

Korme wounds the zombie, but Law misses it from like ten feet away. It's the last mistake he'll ever make. The zombie 'gives birth' -- not at all an adequate description of seeing a new, smaller Chryssalid crawl out of the body of something that was recently human, but I don't know how else to describe it -- and the alien impales Law. A death more than horrifying enough to make me stop being furious over his utter incompetence in missing an unshielded target from that range.

Another zombie is headed around the other corner of the car.

Turn 9

Korme can stay here and die, or get the heck out. He chooses option B, dashes for the Skyranger, and makes it! We're ... no, he's out of here, as the only one left alive save the pilot.

OPERATION PATIENT LINE is even more disastrous than expected. 5 kills, 4 of them former humans turned zombies, 3 operatives lost, and the mission to rescue Delhi is a complete and total failure.

[Brian Swartz]

Upon hearing the news of our failure, India withdraws from the Council immediately. The Doom Tracker is now at 2/8.

Shane Korme II is promoted to Sniper Squaddie with his three kills. Well yippee freaking zippee, it's a bit hard to get excited about that. We hire two recruits, aka moving targets for the aliens, dropping us to one credit. ONE DAMN CREDIT.

After a few days, we receive the Council Report. My main goal for this attempt was to at least survive this two-month review, so in that sense mission accomplished. Barely.

The XCOM project is still alive, but definitely on it's last leg. Japan, China, and Russia all withdraw. We are given a laughably optimistic C grade for April. The Doom Tracker is now at 5.

All of Asia is firmly in the alien column, and there's more. South Africa is at High Panic, Egypt medium; Argentina is also medium, but the rest of the Americas are looking good. Europe appears likely to be next to fall, with Russia already out, France at High, and Germany and the UK both at Medium.

We use a good portion of our monthly stipend to build three satellites, costing us 198 credits, with a goal of shoring up some of the more defenseless points. It would be useless to put any in Europe as we have no interceptors to defend them, so there still isn't any real hope. If Europe goes, that'll push us over the edge.

Excavation, an access lift, and more recruits drains the account. We've bought ourselves a bit of time to keep fighting through at least part of May, but that's about it.

[Brian Swartz]

May 5, 2015 -- Alien Abductions Alert!

Egypt, France, and Brazil are our choices. We have to hold Europe to survive, and we won't do so if we don't respond in France, so this really isn't a choice.

The threat meter reads Very Difficult as we head to Marseille. Oh joy. The reward is engineers, the penalty for failure self-evident.

None of the injured men will be ready for a couple of days. With the new recruits, we can at least field a full squad again though. Our sole vet is Sniper Sq. Shane Korme II, with rookies Benton Gale III, Chesapeake Jordan, Coffee Warlord IV, and AJ Tucker II also going out.

Into almost certain death they go -- humanity should be proud of them, even if it matters little in the end.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION ROTTING LAW
Theatre: Marseille, France
Touchdown: May 5, late morning

We embark in a parking lot, with a grocery store directly in front of us, another building connected to the left of it. There's a landing pod to the left, leaving me wary of a flanking effort in that direction.

This is no man's land, with crap for cover. We need to get to that building ASAP.

Turn 1

Coffee Warlord moves up, Benton Gale back to watch that left flank from the only good cover in range, one of those bus stop building things with benches. The others fill in around that pair as best they can.

Two floaters come at us right away, from the left. Shane Korme misses with a pistol shot, but AJ Tucker takes one of them out of the sky! The other disappears for the moment.

So much for getting to the building undetected, but a big, big entrance for the Chinese rookie!

Turn 2

Korme stays right where he is and pulls out his rifle. Crap for cover of course, but he should be ready to fire at anything that moves. Gale slides left, but can't get an angle on that other floater. Looks like Tucker's set to get flanked, but darned if I can see a good spot to move him to. He moves up behind a blue car to the left, not a super location but as good as anything around here. He fires for the second one, and misses.

CW is around to the front of the grey sedan she's behind ... no shot from there. Chesapeake Jordan takes a look around that sidewalk to the right of the building. He sees nothing.

The floater slides off somewhere left-ish, out of our view.

Turn 3

Time to move in. If that floater comes at us from the left again, we've got a firing line set up with Tucker, Korme, and Gale over there. Too exposed, Tucker hunkers down. CW is up to the corner of the building ... nothing in sight. Chesapeake darts inside, leaps over a counter, finding cover behind a ... cash register. No, really.

He spots two thin men at the far left corner. The plot is stinkening here.

The floater returns, right next to Tucker, and injures CW. Why in the world did Korme not see that thing? I have no clue what to do with snipers sometimes, this is an example of one of those inexplicable(to me) 'blind spots'. One of the Thin Men poisons Chesapeake.

Lovely.

Turn 4

Great angle for Korme on a headshot to the floater ... and he misses! Dude, you can't miss that shot. You just can't, not when you have no other job as a freaking sniper. You have that nice long rifle precisely so you have no excuse for missing when they're out in the open like that.

*Sigh*

Chesapeake escapes the poison, over the counter and to a solid wooden pillar in the middle of the store. He's got no decent shot on anybody, so he hunkers down there.

Tucker is almost face-to-face with the second floater, and scores his second kill by knocking this one out of the fight as well! Whew.

Now, everyone needs to vector in on those Thin Men. Gale is now in a completely useless spot, and he wheels ... can't retreat CW as she's the only cover fire Chesapeake has, so she moves along the wall, left of the door.

One of the thin men moves right and aims out the window ... Tucker is slaughtered! No ... no ... the one guy on the mission who's proven he can shoot straight, and just like that he's history! Have I mentioned yet that I hate thin men with a hot hot hate?

Four left, all of whom have basically blown it out their arse so far. CW panics and fires, missing wildly.

Turn 5

CW maintains her position in support while the others move up on the right, with the aim of supporting Chesapeake. One of the thin men poisons CW, while the other moves out of the building, flanking and killing Chesapeake.

Screw this garbage.

Three left, two thin men killing us seemingly at will.

Turn 6

Korme moves up to the corner of the building, firing and missing with his pistol.

Both thin men fire at Gale. Both hit him. He's dead. Again. Korme panics and mumbles various disturbed, unintelligible things.

Turn 8

After a whole lot of nothin' for a few minutes, CW wheels around the back of the store. That turned out to be a bad idea ... two more thin men are there. He has no shot, and is in a pretty good defensive position. That ends up not mattering as they both her him ... another casualty.

Four thin men vs. Korme. Yeah, right. He has only one decent target, and goes for the headshot ... miss.

Figures. He's a sniper. Why would he be able to shoot anything?

Turn 9

They advance towards the front right corner of the store, one of them a little exposed and this time he gets them! One moves out the front of the store and injures him with a shot, but he gets the best of him on the return fire!

Well, how about that ... Korme is actually at least making them work to kill him.

Turn 11

More movement at the rear of the store. Well that's reassuring ... even if Korme manages to take out two more of these fellas, he's still screwed. One is almost on top of him, another laying down suppressing fire. There's nowhere to go ...

A desperation shot misses, they come around the corner and Shane Korme lies dead in a blaze of plasma.

OPERATION ROTTING LAW is a failure, costing five operatives for four aliens. We're used to it.

[revrew]

Precious is beginning to think you're just using Revina as cannon fodder.

Precious feeds off carnage.

She's switching her allegiance to the aliens. Please, put in Revina III. Precious likes.

[Coffee Warlord]

CW....yes....FIVE.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by revrew

Precious is beginning to think you're just using Revina as cannon fodder.

'Cannon fodder' and 'XCOM Operative' are really quite interchangeable terms, are they not?

Back at the HQ ...

France is in mass hysteria. So what else is new. So is South Africa. And Egypt. Time to administer the last rites.

Argentina, the UK, Germany, and Brazil are all at High, Nigeria at Medium. North America still looks good at least. We have seven soldiers, three of them active, and a whole eight credits so we can't bring in any more.

The next few days bring a lot of ultimately useless activity ...

May 5 -- Project Thorax(Carapace Armor) is complete. That'd be good news indeed if we had any capacity to build the stuff. Floater Autopsy will be up next, pointlessly.

May 6 -- Access Lift is now operational. Which is splendid, but it no longer matters.

May 7 -- Ardent Enthusiast II is fit for active duty again. Even better, Germany wishes to buy a dozen weapon fragments for 75 credits. We eagerly make the deal and use the income to hire five recruits. Ah, the random flailings of a dying, terminally ill patient.

May 8 -- Having taken a whole three days for Dr. Vahlen and her crack team, Floater Autopsy(Project Crimson Cape) is complete. We now have the expertise to build Defense Matrix(dodge upload) for Interceptors. Nobody cares. Alien Nav Computers is our next research project.

May 12 -- After a few days of much-needed boredom, Braydon de Bach returns to active duty. Shortly after, we spot a UFO in Nigeria ... we didn't need to shoot this one down, it landed on it's own.

Let's go down fighting!!

Two days yet on the IR for Gonzalez and Palmer. The best of what we have available is Sq. Ardent Enthusiast II(Sniper), Rk. Braydon de Bach who at least survived one mission, and complete newbies DJ Hudson, Axel Idol, and Sterling Silvers III.

[sterlingice]

Operation Blaze of Glory?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

The XCOM memorial lists 25 operatives(I note with ... not sure what emotion ... that this exceeds the number MacroGuru got killed in losing his first attempt ...

We've set a record!! :P

Ahem. What's a few more, really.

OPERATION COLD RING
Theatre: Nigerian Interior
Touchdown: May 12th, 7:45 PM

Bradford tells us to expect heavy resistance. Oh, JOY!!

Lots of high ground on our side of the map, espescially to the right. Let's head that way. Sterling Silvers III is in front, a couple others watching the flank straight ahead.

Turn 2

Continuing up ... Ardent Enthusiast II spots the ship in the direction we were initially headed. I'd still like to get him up on that hill and see if we can draw anything into his sight line. We hear something coming back from the left. There IS a smaller hill out that way ...

Turn 3

AE is up to a good perch, and I start sending the others down closer to the ship. Axel Idol is in front.

Then we spot three floaters to the left. So much for that idea.

Turn 4

Braydon de Bach and DJ Hudson duck behind trees to form the first line of defensive fire against the floaters. Only Idol has eyes on them, hitting one but it's still aloft. Silvers can't find a decent place to dig in.

The wounded floater moves in on Idol, but hits his tree instead. A second one fires, but seemed to only hit it's wounded ally. Good thing they are as incompetent as we are.

Turn 5

AE finds a target ... one down!! Two more left. Idol misses a second, the third seems to have retreated. They move again on the left ... and de Bach plants another enemy. The third appears way on the right ... how in the world did it get over there? It fires, and Idol is gone!!

Panicking and incoherent babbling ensues on the parts of Hudson and de Bach.

Turn 6

That thing is set to flank AE unless we do something. Silvers fires, and misses. Unless Ardent can shoot that thing we're totally screwed -- he knocks it out of the sky, his second kill today!

Three aliens, one operative terminated so far. Could certainly be better, but it's usually worse, so it's hard to complain.

Turn 7

de Bach is on point, moving towards the ship. He hears something up on the right ...

Turn 8

Silvers and Enthusiast shift that way, but see nothing. AE is staying where he is, as he occupies a darn fine location on top of the hill.

Turn 9

Silvers moves forward and to the right, spotting a pair of ... I'm not quite sure what these things are. Hulking giant green aliens ... Dr. Vahlen dubs them 'Mutons'. They don't look friendly or cuddly.

Definitely want to keep our distance from them. AE shoots as they get cover, missing, while the rest of us dig in and don't really have much of a shot on them.

One of them hits Silvers, a second moves and both de Bach and DJ Hudson fire and miss him, then he finishes Sterling Silvers off. What the heck guys??!

Turn 10

Ardent has a good look at the close one ... he hits it but that simply makes it mad. It lets out, for lack of a better term, a war cry, and AE panicks, leaving his secure perch. Dude's a dead man now. de Bach has no shot, but Hudson fires ... and it's down! They can be killed!!

The second Muton fires at de Bach, missing. AE panics again. Wuss.

Turn 11

Nobody has any kind of decent shot. I try to retreat, and the muton moves off, we see not where.

Turn 12

While AE is trying to retreat, it comes out of nowhere and hits him. Naturally, he uselessly panics. Again.

Turn 13

DJ Hudson looks for a better position, and he's hit and badly hurt by the muton. We still can't see it from any of our cover positions.

What ... in ... the ... world.

The muton fires again, and DJ's dead. We are so completely screwed, it's not even funny.

Turn 15

After it finally misses for once, de Bach moves up in an attempt to get any kind of decent shot in. In doing so, he spots three floaters.

Freaking fabulous. AE is finally back up to the spot he panicked and ran away from some while back.

The muton and one of the floaters finish off de Bach.

Turn 16

Well, it's time for Ardent Enthusiast to die. He knows it, and they know it. He takes out a floater first ... and then is slaughtered by the muton.

It seems there's no defending ourselves against them. Cover appears to be irrelevant.

OPERATION COLD RING results in five dead on each side, and we never got even close to their ship.

Ardent Enthusiast II had a fairly impressive seven kills, Braydon de Bach one, and DJ Hudson one as well. The other two were just there. We don't really miss guys around here ... we don't really expect anyone to come back. Soon, there'll be nobody even willing to send them ... but we try not to think about that.

[BYU 14]

Blaze of glory indeed

With the death of Axel and Ace, their uncle, former pro wrestler Austin Idol has signed up for X-com. the good news here is when, er if, he dies, he is already old.

[kingfc22]

Give me some extra meds. Gonzalez is the only hope right now.

[MacroGuru]

Respawn!

[Brian Swartz]

You're good Gonzo, but nobody can save this disaster.

Macro may not have time to be respawned, we'll see.

We need five more soldiers -- two will come off of IR soon, so three more still needed. That takes 37 creds more than we have. 8 more Sectoid corpses, down to 20 now.

May 16th. 3:25 AM. Abductions Alert!

Port Elizabeth, South Africa(Very High, Very Difficult, Heavy Sgt.)
Mendoza, Argentina(High, Very Difficult, 200 credits)
Calgary, Canada(Very Low, Moderate, 4 Scientists)

Strangely, the aliens have left North America pretty much alone. Canada is the only non-urgent mission. It's also the only one we have a chance in hell of surviving.

Calgary, here we come!

Sq. David Gonzalez is our only non-rookie, and he'll lead this charge(scope). Joining him will be Deacon Palmer II, who has at least survived one mission. The greenhorns that remain are Kodos III, Da Law II, and AJ Tucker III.

[BYU 14]

Do you believe in miracles???

[Breeze]

Gale the whatever is ready (I've lost count)...

[Poli]

Time to die!

[kingfc22]

Let's do this!

[Kodos]

Kodos III... I've got a good feeling about this kid. I like the cut of his jib.

[Brian Swartz]

FYI, thanks everyone for participating. I'm shutting this down -- only a couple missions were left before the Council pulled the plug at the end of May anyway. There's plenty of other XCom dynasties out there, it's kind of crowded and I've got other projects to work on.

It was fun getting my butt kicked .

Oh, and Gonzalez went on to have 9 kills, tops of anyone, and was still alive at lights out. Pretty darn impressive.

[Kodos]

Awww. Thanks for an entertaining read!

[MacroGuru]

Ahh, it's not crowded...always room. Remember, your dynasty was the spearhead for mine.

[Brian Swartz]

Thanks fellas, I'm truly glad you enjoyed it.

[sterlingice]

Needed a final blaze of glory!

SI