(X-Com) The Council of Nation Needs You! -- Part II

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM Headquarters

April 27 -- A small request from Australia: we sell a pair of thin man corpses to them for 20 credits.

April 28 -- Our satellites are ready. We take a closer look at the global situation:

High Panic: Canada, Argentina, Russia, Japan, India, Australia
Medium Panic: United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, China

Lots of hotspots to be sure. Asia and North America espescially. Right now we need scientists more than we need engineers. We put one in Russia as it's Europe's worst, we already have interceptors there, and of course it's a particularly generous funding nation. The other two go to Canada and the US -- we'll hopefully focus on Asia with abduction missions and start putting satellites up there next month. These will massively increase our income.

April 29 -- Officer Training School completed!

[Brian Swartz]

APRIL COUNCIL REPORT

Overall Grade: A!

** 2 UFOs Shot Down
** 1 Terror Mission stopped
** 2 Abductions stopped
** 3 Satellites launched
** 4 Research projects completed
** 2 UFOs raided

All in all, a good month's work. There are still four nations at High(Argentina, Japan, India, Australia) and three at medium(Mexico, UK, China), but none of those have satellites. The birds are certainly doing their jobs well.

Funding -- 916 gross, 715 net, 3 Scientists, 2 Engineers

735 Credits, but a ton that needs to be done. More interceptors cost us 160 credits. A pair each of aim and dodge uplinks are built, in case we encounter particularly tough fights. That takes us down to 493, which we intend to pour into as many satellites as possible.

We excavate the remainder of level two of the base first though, and build another power generator. We also get a couple of critical upgrades at the officer training school, expanding our squad size from 4 to the maximum of 6. Now 268 credits and little left to sell.

We're up to 21 Engineers, 9 Scientists. Still inadequate, but somewhat less inadequate than it was before. More researchers are still a big priority.

ROSTER REVIEW

CORE SQUAD

** Major Fox 'Lights Out' McCloud -- 25 kills in 10 missions, unquestionably XCOM's finest.
** Lieutenant David 'Demon' Gonzalez -- 4 kills in 1 mission. A very strong and fortuitious addition.
** Sgt. Coffee 'Missionary' Warlord -- 8 kills in 5 missions. Unquestionably our best medical officer.
** Sgt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol -- 12 kills in 5 missions. Idol has rapidly risen to #2 on the XCOM Killboard, and should be back in action soon.
** Sgt. AJ 'Shadow' Thomas -- 6 kills in 3 missions. He's going to be out for another week and a half, and it's unsure if he'll retain his spot when he returns.
** Sq. Benton Gale II -- 1 kill in 3 missions.

That's our best team for tough assignments, all of them quality except for Gale. I'd like to have another heavy to throw in there, but we only have the major in that category.

RESERVES

** Cpl. Sterling Silvers III -- 3 kills in 3 missions. A backup right now, he's filling in for Shadow and may take his place permanently by the time the Irish sharpshooter heals up.
** Sq. Deacon Palmer -- 1 kill in 1 mission. Third on the support class totem pole, he'll see action only in the event of injury.

We have three untested rookies, and will bring in others soon I'm certain. We need more heavies and a backup assault, but are good otherwhise with a strong team and a very strong leader. Our active soldiers have 60 combined kills, with Lights Out McCloud notching almost half of them with 25!

MEMORIAL WALL

These have fallen in action:

** Sq. DJ Thomas -- 7 kills in 2 missions, KIA Operation Final Shroud, 3.19
** Sq. Benton Gale -- 3 kills in 2 missions, KIA Operation Final Shroud, 3.19
** Sq. Sterling Silvers -- 1 kill in 4 missions, KIA Operation Final Shroud, 3.19
** Rk. Sterling Silvers II -- 0 kills in 1 mission, KIA Operation Forgotten Chant, 4.11.

It must be said that the worst two operatives by far have been Sterling Silvers variants :P. At this point in our last adventure, we'd dropped 16-17 operatives ... I like four better .

Our goals are to prepare to upgrade to next-gen armor and weapons, continue capturing whatever enemies we can(still no sectoids captured), and get as many satellites up as possible in May.

[Coffee Warlord]

Clearly the Sterling Silvers Combat Unit Factory is an inferior competitor to the cutting edge innovation that is Coffee Warlord Combat Unit Enterprises, Inc.

[BYU 14]

Idol enterprises is every bit as efficient in turning out killing machines as CWCU however

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Clearly the Sterling Silvers Combat Unit Factory is an inferior competitor to the cutting edge innovation that is Coffee Warlord Combat Unit Enterprises, Inc.

Correct, the Coffee Warlord Combat Unit Enterprises Inc has a long and distinguished history of turning out inferior units that Sterling Silvers Technologies cannot hope to replicate

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Ya'll do know you're on same side ... right?

XCOM Headquarters

May 1 -- Dr. Vahlen reports her interrogation of the floater is completed. After a tense conversation with Bradford, I'm told our next key step in understanding the alien plan is to capture an Outsider. I didn't think that was possible, given them being pure energy beings who just vanish when 'killed'. Dr. Vahlen thinks the arc thrower will do the trick though.

We have also gotten more insight into the alien armors from this interrogation, halving our research time on those projects. Right now we're stepping out of our normal research plan to look at Alien Nav Computers, which we will need to build a Satellite Nexus(they have twice the capacity of the uplink facility). That research will unfortunately take almost two weeks.

Meanwhile, Ace Idol is back on active duty.

May 5 -- 5:51 PM. A small scout UFO has been detected at the northwest corner of the United States, right on the US-Canadian border. And this one we didn't have to shoot down, it landed all on it's own for some reason.

This could be a chance to get much-needed resources from an undamaged craft, and get some needed experience for some low-level operatives.

STRIKE SQUAD

Maj. Fox 'Lights Out' McCloud(Heavy) -- scope
Sgt. Coffee 'Missionary' Warlord(Support) -- medikit
Sgt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol(Assault) -- arc thrower
Cpl. Sterling Silvers III(Sniper) -- Scope
Sq. Benton Gale II(Support) -- medikit
Rk. Kodos Yang(CHN) -- arc thrower

Yang will get his first mission, and Gale gets a chance to work her way up as well. We're giving Demon the day off. Our goal is to have a clean mission, and capture the Outsider if possible. This should be fun, our first mission since upgrading to six squad members.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION FROZEN JESTER
Northwest Washington, United States
May 5, 8:02 PM

It's a clear day, but we still get ourselves in a heap of trouble and quickly. Idol spots a trio of Sectoids, and at the same time a trio of a hulking green creature -- that's right, boys and girls, it's Muton time!! Grrr. For this mission, since we already want to capture an Outsider, our goal is to capture one of the Sectoids, and kill the rest. Idol retreats and we wait for them to advance.

There's no good cover here but we do the best we can. Two of the squad hit the first muton as it advances. We irritated it there, and that's about it. One hits Yang, and he's critically wounded! McCloud fires a rocket ... completely off-target, wide right! Gale stabilizes Yang.

Another one critically injures Gale immediately. Two soldiers panic. The other two mutons hit McCloud ... do these guys ever miss? McCloud fires twice, and takes one of them out!

A bit of luck next as a pair of mutons and sectoids each all miss. Silvers tags the wounded muton, but it's still not down. Idol moves forward, takes it out ... and spots a trio of floaters. Meanwhile, the other muton critically injures Coffee Warlord. Dandy.

We've got no medkits left. Spitfire, McCloud, and Silvers are still around, but have no chance to win this fight against so many on their own. We beat a hasty, disorganized retreat. Gale bleeds out, and Idol panics, delaying our escape as he runs AWAY from the extraction zone. Silvers takes out a floater, but now he and McCloud have no ammunition. Lights Out tries to move to safety ...

Unforunately, a floater finishes him off, despite a good spot behind a tree. Major McCloud has just entered history. Idol dashes to the Skyranger, unable to make it because he ran away while panicking. Moron. He dodges some fire, but is hit by a sectoid's plasma blast. Switching to pistol, Silvers misses the offender.

Sectoids destroy Silvers' cover, and Warlord bleeds out. The remaining duo makes it to the Skyranger, and it takes off, leaving Kodos Yang to bleed out or face an even worse fate at the hands out of the aliens.

OPERATION FROZEN JESTER is an abysmal failure, XCOM's first failed mission. 3 dead aliens, 4 dead operatives. I don't know if we'll recover from this.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

** Sgt. Coffee 'Missionary' Warlord -- 8 kills in 6 missions, KIA
** Sgt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol -- 1 kill, promoted to Lieutenant?!, wounded(11 days)
** Cpl. Sterling Silvers III -- 2 kills, promoted to Sergeant?!
** Sq. Benton Gale II -- 1 kill in 4 missions, KIA
** Maj. Fox 'Lights Out' McCloud -- 26 kills in 11 missions, KIA
** Rk. Kodos Yang -- 0 kills in 1 mission, KIA

[Coffee Warlord]

Clearly the death of that CWCU was due to corporate sabotage. Likely from Sterling Silvers.

Luckily, we've just released a new product update, making Coffee Warlord Combat Unit Mark IX-A the Best Unit Ever!

[BYU 14]

I would almost like to refuse my promotion after that display of panic

[CrimsonFox]

bah! Why did I run? I should have just stayed put, reloaded and blasted em!

[Breeze]

Gale 3 will hopefully do better...maybe than the 1st 2 combined...

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM Headquarters

After Frozen Jester we have five active soldiers left, another pair injured. No choice but to bring in 5 recruits. We'll need to scale back on our satellite ambitions, at least somewhat. I've learned a couple things:

** I haven't the first foggy notion how to fight Mutons
** We need to more cautious with downed UFOs, and work harder at finding ways to retreat to good cover. There wasn't much there in this case.

We're going to have to be perfect for a while if we hope to rally from this. We did get quite a bit of bad luck -- spawning six enemies right off the bat, the Mutons hitting their first four shots taking out two of the squad immediately, McCloud's missed rocket(90% accuracy rate in field testing) ... I think it was a very winnable mission if we could have turned down the suck in those areas.

May 6 -- Power Generator complete. I'd like to build a laboratory and speed up our research, but we no longer have the money to consider such extravagances.


May 7 -- Alien Abductions Alert! Of course. Boy are we screwed.

Delhi, India -- High, Very Difficult, Heavy Captain
Cairo, Egypt -- Very Low, Difficult, 4 Engineers
Marseille, France -- Low, Difficult, 200 credits

Not a choice here. We need to go to India or Asia(yes, the whole continent) is basically lost. If we succeed(unlikely) we will bring in a hugely-needed recruit capable of nearly placing the legendary Lights Out McCloud immediately. If we don't ... well, everyone will get spawned a lot for the brief remainder of this adventure.

STRIKE SQUAD

We have but five able-bodied operatives.

Lt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez(Sniper) -- scope
Sgt. Sterling 'Claymore' Silvers III(Sniper) -- scope
Sq. Deacon Palmer(Support) -- medikit
Rk. Benton Gale III(UK, female) -- medikit
Rk. Ches O'Peake(US, male) -- vest

We've got a pair of snipers and a trio of warm bodies, more or less. We'll extremely defensive here, no arc-throwers ... we just need to survive missions, whatever it takes. Demon and Claymore need to be killing machines for us to have any hope.

[sterlingice]

Well, we're boned

SI

[Wolfpack]

Mutons in a tightly confined (one square block) abduction map are damn near impossible to beat. The combination of hit points and killing power from a half-dozen of them are almost overwhelming to any but the largest, most experienced groups and even then, casualties are almost a certainty. (I still have horrible memories of having a major have a muton dead to rights, blow his chance at the kill (85% to hit as I recall), then getting himself killed in turn. I ended up winning, but I was down to two soldiers and they were both severely wounded by the end. I was pretty much toast in the game after that one.

[Brian Swartz]

Sounds like barrels of fun(and all too familiar) ...

OPERATION DRIVING HYMN
Delhi, India
May 7th

We're at a construction yard site, and from our entrance we could be approached forward, left, or right. Snipers will hang at the gate and use their squad sight to cut them down ... they'd better shoot well and often.

At least there's good cover here, all over the place. We spot a trio of floaters right away, and four reaction shots manage to wound but not kill one of them. That could have gone better. Only Ches O'Peake can see them, and I'm not about to advance into this cauldron -- she retreats to a safe but completely useless location outside and we wait for them.

One of them moves in, Gale misses but Silvers knocks it out of the sky! The wounded one is visible now only to Gale ... she retreats as well. Four of the squad are now not even inside the gate.

Another one moves, and Silvers gets this one as well! The wounded one, apparently confused, moves closer then tries to retreat -- and Demon Gonzalez is there for the kill! Three floaters, three sniper kills. So far this has gone perfectly according to plan.

Two more floaters ... and Silvers makes it three straight reaction-shot kills! Incredible!! Warlord retreats again ... three more floaters, close by! Demon gets one, though I think Ches O'Peake wounded it first.

Ok, that's five down, all floaters. Three more are out there. We have nowhere to retreat to this time, they are too close. Gale is hiding behind a vehicle just in front of the entrance, and they are on the other side of it.

The snipers take their best shots, and Silvers gets one of the closer enemies. Demon has a better look at one on the far side of the yard -- both hit their targets! Truly amazing shooting from the snipers, and it's why we aren't dead yet against this floater swarm. One left, fairly close. Palmer misses, having done basically nothing so far today. Gale hits it, but it's still aloft. O'Peake has to take a bit of a chance, moving in to flank ... got it!

Eight floaters left, and we aren't done as we hear movement forward and to the left in an abandoned, partially demolished building. This time we are forced to move into the yard a bit. Gale spots them -- it's a pair of mutons! Eeek, I'd rather prefer more floaters, thank you very much.

We hit some reaction shots, and both are wounded and still very much alive. They move forward and fire ... wave goodbye to Deacon Palmer! Our medic is the first to be killed. I hate these guys so very, very much(the mutons, of course :P).

We retreat, and both of the mutons move to good cover, making them darn near impossible to hit. Silvers dashes back outside the gate, dodging their fire, one of them tags him but he's still on his feet. Demon with a shot ... hits one but it's not dead yet. The rookies hunker down and I hope they do something stupid.

One moves forward and tosses a grenade ... Silvers is gone, and O'Peake and Gale injured. Damn these things. DAMN THEM!!

Demon slides over for a pistol shot, and one of them is finally down. The other one kills Gale.

It is basically down to a shooting contest now against the final muton. After some while, Demon Gonzalez manages to win it!

That's it, but wow -- we did fine till those big green monstrosities showed up again.

OPERATION DRIVING HYMN results in 10 dead aliens, 3 dead operatives, and while it is a success, clearly mutons continue to kick our ass.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Sq. Deacon Palmer -- 1 kill in 2 missions, KIA.
Rk. Benton Gale III -- 0 kills in 1 mission, KIA
Sgt. Sterling 'Claymore' Silvers III -- 8 kills in 5 missions, KIA.
Rk. Ches O'Peake -- 1 kill, promoted to Heavy Squaddie! Wounded(5 days)
Lt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez -- 5 kills!, promoted to Captain! Wounded(8 days)

ARTIFACTS

** 8 Floater Corpses
** 2 Muton Corpses
** 22 Weapons Fragments

[BYU 14]

A mission called Driving Hymm seems like it should be much more serene than this was

[Breeze]

ok...let's try 4...

[ntndeacon]

Deacon Palmer version 2.0 is online!

[sterlingice]

Number 4 it is

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by BYU14

A mission called Driving Hymm seems like it should be much more serene than this was

Indeed! Those people in ops can be weird sometimes.

Any bets on who'll be the first to hit version X on their character? :P

[Neon_Chaos]

Do you have beam weapons yet? They are crucial in fighting the tougher baddies until you get your hands on plasma weapons.

[Brian Swartz]

Not yet. That's a real Catch-22 in the early game(though I'm still finding ways to do it better every serious game I play) because you have to keep getting satellites up and you don't have a lot of money/scientists to go after beam weapons.

[Breeze]

I've got dibs on Gale X...(if we get that far). My characters haven't been particularly helpful in the dynasty...

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM Headquarters

We have a new heavy by virtue of our barely-successful most recent mission. Meet Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II. Am I the only one who thinks that should be 'Sludge' there?

Anyway ...

She's literally the only soldier available until we get reinforcements both from the recruiting ranks and the medbay. We're up to 10 soldiers, which means bringing in two more. It's also clear our satellite ambitions will have to be scaled back some. We build three more, and have to sell 4 floater corpses to achieve that much.

9th day of the month, and we are broke again. 1-8 days on the injured squad members, and hopefully we'll have time to heal them before we go out again.

May 11 -- The UK wants a pair of nano-fiber vests, and will give us 3 engineers. That's a winning bargain financially in the long run, and we agree -- up to 24 engineers now.

May 13 -- Alien Nav Computer research is completed. Thin Man Interrogation is up next. We have only a very few days left, and unless something breaks our way, we'll need to sell a bunch of stuff just to be able to build another uplink.

May 15 -- We're out of time, and are forced to sell off about 20-25% of our critical stocks of Elerium, Alien Alloys, and Weapons Fragments to raise the 150 credits we need ... a few corpses in there as well. It's painful, and will hurt us down the road, but we'll have 50% global coverage by the end of the month.

The good news is that only Spitfire Idol is still on the injured list.

May 17 -- Idol is back, and thin man interrogation completed. It's been a while since our last mission, and I'm just fine with that thank you. I'm not interested in getting right back out there to fight more mutons. Or ever, for that matter. We set Dr. Vahlen to work on autopsying one of their corpses.

We are building nothing of course, being flat broke.

May 20 -- 3:43 AM -- Alien Abductions Alert!

But of course.

Manchester, United Kingdom -- High, Very Difficult, Support Captain
Brasilia, Brazil -- Low, Difficult, 4 Scientists
Johannesburg, South Africa -- Low, Difficult, 200 credits

None are easy. The global situation continues to worsen gradually. Countries are going to go nuts no matter where we go. The UK is the only real choice, as we'll be on the verge of kissing Europe goodbye if we don't.

Everyone's healthy, so we bring the A Squad, and we'll find out if the third time's the charm in the muton-hunting game.

STRIKE SQUAD

Cpt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez(Sniper) -- scope
Cpt. Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II(Heavy) -- medikit
Lt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol(Assault) -- arc thrower
Sgt. DJ 'Shadow' Thomas II(Sniper) -- scope
Sq. Ches O'Peake(Heavy) -- medikit
Rk. Ren Snow -- arc thrower

Yep, that's right, our top squad now features a squaddie and a rookie. We really can't afford to lose any of the top four core fighters. We also really, really need to get a quality support operative as the two basic medikits are laughable against the damage output we are facing.

Every mission is essentially make-or-break at this point. We know what we need to do, and that we're quite possibly incapable of doing it. If we win clean here and grab that Support Captain ... things just might start looking up again. IF.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION FORGOTTEN THRONE
Manchester, United Kingdom
May 20, 4:39 PM

We deploy on a street corner, with a food mart nearby. We'll use a landing pod and a white van for our initial cover. Carefully.

Snow moves forward and spots a pair of floaters. Clearly we won't have time to set up a defensive position, we'll just have to fight our way to a foothold. The rookie fires and misses. The Sledge Warlord moves into position and shoots at her only target -- hit, but not down. Spitfire Idol gets behind the van and rapid-fires with his pistol ... misses the first but gets the second and there's one down. The snipers can only stand in the middle of the street exposed and scan for something to shoot at, a very dangerous start here as there's just nowhere to hide.

The other floater moves through the store ... both snipers fire and one hits it ... it moves around the van, and Ches O'Peake misses it! Damn it!! That was a suicidal charge though, it has no time to fire and Idol has a gimme shotgun attack from a few yards away. Two floaters down, and we have our foothold. For the moment. The snipers move up into cover with extreme caution.

Weapons full again, we hear them ahead on the left and try to fan out to the right to get a better firing line. We move along the van, Idol in front and he spots three more floaters up the street in that direction! That's just dandy -- again we cannot retreat, as there is nowhere safe for us to fire from.

Spitfire gets to a landing pod, which provides the best cover at that end of the street. Shadow has a look at one -- got it! We pull shooters down the street to get as much fire support as we can. One floater teleports forward to a more exposed position, while the other puts down suppressing fire on Idol.

Oh thank you so much for being stupid, and now you all get to die. Snow misses the closer one -- not sure how he managed that, but he did -- and Demon misses the suppresser. Ahem. Thomas gets his second kill, leaving only the further suppressing one left. Idol hunkers down and the others prepare to fire if it advances. It ... teleports to right where its comrade died.

Seriously? It can flank Spitfire from there but of course it won't get the chance. Another wide-open miss by Snow ... HIT SOMETHING, ROOKIE!! This isn't rocket science. I'm trying to give him a chance to promote himself and help the team, but he won't cooperate. O'Peake hits it but fails to bring it down, so Ace Idol uses a shotgun blast to finish the job.

Ok, now we actually have some reasonable room to maneuver. Only had to kill five floaters to achieve that. We do some maneuvering to get the right setup, spread down the street across the length of the store.

Sledge moves up on the left ... two more floaters! Again, not enough room to retreat as they press in on us. Shadow Thomas is flanked and ducks behind the van, wounding one with a pistol shot. Warlord has a much better look at one left of the store, but misses! We need to get the others back from the right and into this battle as safely as we can. Idol dashes to near Sledge's position, and hits the second of a pair of rapid-fire pistol shots ... lucky one there, and it takes down the wounded enemy! Everyone else is too far to do more than get closer.

The remaining floater falls back, and we ready a more concentrated defensive position. More movement ahead and on the right as Spitfire eventually leads us forward again.

We clear the food mart completely and advance along its left side ... still nothing. We've got to be careful of our right flank as we move forward -- there's no way to pursue the floater any further without risking alerting other aliens to our prescence. I don't see a better direction though. Who knows where that thing flew off to. Idol climbs a pipe to the roof of the building ... nothing going on up there.

We clear this entire side of the block, and move into a bookstore. A small office on the other side seems consistent with what we're getting from the scanners ... and they burst out as we move in!! At least, it looked like 'they' at first, it was only one floater and it had no chance to survive all of the squad firing on it at once. The office wall now has a second, unintended 'door' as well.

Six floaters down, more of some kind out there. Snow opens the far office door ... mutons! I should have known. Three of them to be precise. Great. Well, we know what we're gonna do ... fall back and hope to find some way to weaken em and take some out.

We see two of them on the move -- a shotgun blast by Idol misses, but Snow actually manages to hit something and one of them's wounded now. All of them move out of sight again. We collect for defensive fire.

Another one charges, and between three reaction shots we almost take it down. A second one moves into the office -- we miss it, that's the one Snow wounded already. It's too close, we need to kill it. Now. Shadow misses a headshot, and Sledge readies a rocket ... it explodes just outside the far office door. Most of the office is incinerated, one muton dead, and the close one has no cover now. Snow still manages to miss it. Unfreaking believable, rook! Idol finishes it off. Two of them down. We ready for the final one to attack.

Movement in the alley past the office and between another pair of buildings ... only Snow has a shot, and not much of one. Demon finds an angle out another door, and a well-placed sniper bullet nearly takes it down. Nearly, but not quite.

It charges, and Snow finishes it off! I wish. He completely misses, of course, and so does Idol with his pistol. The muton blasts Idol with plasma, he's hit good but still up. That guy simply does not know how to go through a mission without getting injured. He just can't do it.

It's in the open ... guess what? Yep, Snow misses again. He couldn't hit himself if I ordered him to. Idol tries again, and gets the revenge kill. And it's over! We're clear!!

OPERATION FORGOTTEN THRONE is nearly clean, 10 aliens killed, site secured, 0 operatives lost. Our first-ever true success against mutons. It was still quite tough, but we got it done. They are bastards, truly. Next time I'll go crazy and try to capture one. Maybe. Maybe not.

Argentina hits full panic, and I'm surprised they are the only ones.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

** Lt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol -- 6 kills! Gravely wounded(11 days). Go figure.
** Sgt. AJ 'Shadow' Thomas -- 2 kills
** Cpt. Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II -- 1 kill
** Sq. Ches O'Peake -- 0 kills
** Cpt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez -- 0 kills
** Rk. Ren Snow -- 0 kills, despite many opportunities I might add.

Crushing to get no promotions with 10 kills, we really need to build some of the squad up.

ARTIFACTS

** 7 Floater Corpses
** 3 Muton Corpses
** 20 Weapon Fragments

[Brian Swartz]

Meet our new Support Captain, Fox 'Hitch' McCloud II. He's British, and pleased to meet you. More or less, anyway. He'll be tasked with keeping our sorry butts alive in future missions, a likely impossible task.

May 22 -- Muton Autopsy complete. Chryssalid Autopsy is next up. A few hours later, the Council requests an audience.

An important UN official is stuck in a dangerous hotspot in Mexico. They would like us to extract him, and will pay 140 credits(sold already) and supply us with a new recruit -- a Heavy Captain!

Out we go, the prospect of having two Captains in the heavy specialty is enough to make me salivate given our situation. With Spitfire in the medbay yet again, we have five available officers ...

STRIKE SQUAD

Cpt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez(Sniper) -- scope
Cpt. Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II(Heavy) -- medikit
Cpt. Fox 'Hitch' McCloud II(Support) -- medikit, first operation
Sgt. AJ 'Shadow' Thomas(Sniper) -- scope
Sq. Ches O'Peake(Heavy) -- arc thrower
Rk. Deacon Palmer II -- first mission, arc thrower

I'd send Ren Snow back out there, but he was so incompetent(there's a 1 in 50 or more chance of missing all the shots he missed) that Palmer II gets a look. We need people who can hit enemies 10 feet away without cover. Not a high standard, but one he couldn't meet.

We're gonna miss Spitfire on this one. He's become skilled as a scout, and is the only assault class operative we have of any skill level. He's proven proficient in survival(albeit in addition to great ability in consistently getting himself shot as well) and his 20 career kills are second only to Lights Out McCloud. On the other hand, Hitch McCloud should help us conserve our personnel longer. In theory, anyway.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

The muton blasts Idol with plasma, he's hit good but still up. That guy simply does not know how to go through a mission without getting injured. He just can't do it.

Once you've done R&R in the officers club a couple of time you would make sure to get hit each mission too.

Now excuse me......."A little to the left please Barbi, oh yeah that's it"

[Brian Swartz]

Belated chuckle @ BYU ...

Time to get this moving again now that the holiday insanity is behind us, busiest week of the year in my business and I got to shoulder quite a bit of the load as usual so today(first day off in a week) is my relax, chill, no one is allowed to interrupt me day.

Anywho ...

OPERATION FIRST DREAM
Acapulco, Mexico
May 22, 1:44 PM

Back to Acapulco, where as you may recall our first terror mission took place last month.

We're on a bridge highway -- I hate these situations because the whole darn thing is basically a big bottleneck. We need to find and extract General Peter Van Doorn. Interestingly it's Hitch in command for his debut mission ...

Just like the last time we were in Mexico, it is a complete disaster zone. There's no time to admire the view. We spread out and advance, soon running into a man who says part of the bridge is collapsed up ahead and that's where our target is. Time to get to work then.

We spot a pair of thin men, who back up and leap over the edge into the collapsed area. Retreating to draw them out, DJ Thomas II takes out the first one. Another one is cut down by two of the squad, I'm not sure which two hit it but that was as clean as it gets!

A great start, and we reload and keep moving. After a bit, Palmer spots two more. They're more cautious this time, but after a minute they rush us as well, and the first one takes five shots to kill as three of us miss it. The second one takes all of us, Demon getting the kill on the final shot. That's a lot of uselessly expended ammo, but it was worth it.

We have to leapfrog a bit to make further progress due to sporadic cover. It's slow going, but eventually Palmer moves up to the edge of the dropoff where the bridge is collapsed, and we can the General ahead on the right behind a red SUV. Palmer goes over the side ... and spots more thin men, two of them, on the opposite side just past the dropoff over there! Thin man central round these parts ...

Same drill for us, Palmer darts back up via a ladder, one enemy approaches and dies in a hail of fire, and just as I am about to give up on the other one coming forward, he tries to move up as well with the same result. Six down!

Now we move over the edge, scanners completely clear this time. We make contact and ready to move the package back to the Skyranger. We're halfway there.

A thin man drops in behind the snipers in the rear, both of them fire and one takes it down. Bradford says more are coming, shocking surprise there. Another one drops in back the way Van Doorn is, and we get him before he can do anything as well.

Eight thin men. Is there a convention in Mexico, or something?

Another warning from Bradford that we aren't through yet. We retreat, cautiously covering the VIP from all sides. Part of the way there as we just start to think we're almost done, another pair drops out of the sky. There's no good fall-back point from here, so we just fire ... Palmer gets a nice shot that drops the most isolated of the two, and after a miss by O'Peake, Demon Gonzalez takes out the second.

That's it, the General waltzes over to the Skyranger and we all take off!

OPERATION FIRST DREAM could not have gone any better. We rescue the target, get him back to our base, and take out 10 thin men without so much as suffering a single shot or poison attack attempt from any of them. Totally clean!!

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Demon Gonzalez leads the way with 3 kills, Ches O'Peake and Deacon Palmer II have two each, and the other three get one apiece.

[CrimsonFox]

Yeah Demon's cool and all but he's no Major Fox McCloud!

[Brian Swartz]

You're right about that -- only one of them is still alive

[Brian Swartz]

Our new Captain is Sterling 'Nova' Silvers IV.

We use the money from our last mission to build a laboratory. I consider waiting until the end of the month, but we need next-gen weapons and armor asap so speeding up research is crucial. 15 credits left.

May 26 -- 12:46 am.

A large UFO is spotted in the northern US! Class undetermined. We scramble Raven-4 ...

It takes out both of our interceptors, despite using aim and dodge uplinks to assist. It seems we just don't have ships advanced enough to take out something of that size yet.

Later in the day, we complete Chryssalid Autopsy. Experimental Warfare is up next.

May 29 -- Uplink complete! Satellites follow shortly, and it's time to choose where to put them.

Argentina's about to leave the Council if they don't get one, so they are an obvious must as the first choice. We grab Mexico as well, which gives us the North American bonus halving the price and maintenance of our interceptors.

We leave Asia alone which means we don't need to buy more interceptors to put up there, leaving the final one down to France, Brazil, Egypt, or South Africa. I need scientists more than anything, so South Africa gets the nod.

MAY COUNCIL REPORT

Not quite as good as the previous ones, we get a B for our overall grade this month.

** 1 Council Mission Completed
** 2 Abductions Stopped
** 3 Satellites Launched
** 5 Research Projects Completed
** 1 UFO Escaped

Losing that large UFO over the US cost us some, but the Americans are still solidly on board.

Income: 1176 credits, 6 Scientists, 2 Engineers

We've got 50% coverage now, 8 of 16 countries with a Satellite. Of the remaining ones, 5 are at High Panic: Brazil, France, Japan, Australia, and Egypt.

26 Engineers and 15 Scientists now, more balanced than it was but we still need more research. 954 credits, and a strong profit margin -- the finances look better all the time.

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM HQ -- June 1st

The essentials will get done first. Two more interceptors will get done right away for South America, which has none at all. We need to get down to the third level of the base now, so we build another lift and another power generator.

In terms of satellites, we need 9 more engineers to build a nexus, so we can't do that yet. 804 credits, we'll wait a bit for construction and see what happens.

June 1 -- Laboratory completed. Experimental Warfare follows within the hour. The Phoenix Cannon, a superior interceptor weapon, is now available. Our next research project is Carapace Armor.

We build one Phoenix Cannon for each interceptor, 8 total at 10 credits a shot. Two more Dodge uplinks cost an additional 68.

June 5 -- Carapace Armor research is completed. We'll definitely be needed those suits next time we go out. At 17 credits apiece, we can outfit an entire squad for about 100 credits -- not a bad price at all.

June 6 -- Access lift completed, and another abduction alert!

Liverpool, United Kingdom -- Very Low, Difficult, 4 Engineers
Melbourne, Australia -- High, Very Difficult, 200 Credits
Fukuoka, Japan -- High, Very Difficult, Assault Captain

Power Generator is completed during the briefing, we'll decide on building directives when we return, but we do some more excavating in the meantime. That of course gets more expensive the deeper we go, 40 credits a room now.

We definitely are going to Asia, the only question is where -- Australia or Japan. Do we go for the money or the man? Funding is becoming less and less of an issue, so we head to Japan.

102 credits and half our stash of alien alloys get us Carapace Armor for the squad. As an aside, I'm kind of curious to see how the panic levels will shake out with helping one country in a continent but leaving another, as I've never seen that kind of situation come up before. Assuming of course that we succeed ...

STRIKE SQUAD

Cpt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez(Sniper) -- 12 kills in 4 missions, scope
Cpt. Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II(Heavy) -- 2 kills in 1 mission, scope
Cpt. Fox 'Hitch' McCloud II(Support) -- 1 kill in 1 mission, medikit
Lt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol(Assault) -- 20 kills in 7 missions, arc thrower
Sq. Deacon Palmer II(Support) -- medikit
Rk. Benton Gale V(AUS) -- first mission, arc thrower

[CrimsonFox]

Dr Howard Dr McCloud Dr Howard...please report to the medbay to treat several large acid wounds and a missing face...

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION MORBID KNIFE
Fukuoka, Japan
June 6, 4:49 AM

We're on some steps leading downward from a plaza behind us, hoping to use the height to our advantadge. There's no initial signs of the enemy, so we won't have to fight for a foothold in this LZ. Spitfire soon spots a pair of Mutons on a bridge ahead and to the left, and it's on. No room to retreat.

Sledge Warlord readies a rocket ... it's wide right but close enough, damaging both and taking down the cover of one of them. Hitch has the best shot on the exposed one ... got him! We'd like to capture the second one given a good start like this, so Idol tries a pistol shot to weaken it, but is off target. This could still get dangerous quickly. We grab the best cover we can, and Palmer covers three of the squad with smoke.

It moves forward, right out in the open and doesn't fire. Is this thing daring us to kill it, or something? Demon Gonzalez fires a pistol ... it's not often you are hoping a shot doesn't hit any vital organs, but this one does and it's down!

Sigh. I think we kill these things better when we are trying not to, there's something truly perverse about that reality. Oh well. We reset and move left towards that bridge. Hitch spots a trio of floaters, left of the bridge and past it. Two reaction shots miss, but McCloud takes care of the one that is still visible himself.

Warlord drills a second, as our mastery over those things continues. The final one approaches, and a trio of shots results in it being wounded but still aloft. We have a few shots, but let the rookie Benton Gale V try his luck, and he finishes it off!

So far so good. When your worst luck is accidentally killing a muton, you know you are off to a good start. Soon we hear more ahead and to the right, but stay focused on clearing the left flank. Idol moves up to the edge where we can see the street below ... two more floaters off that way!

Idol retreats a bit, wounding one with a rapid-fire pistol shot, Hitch finishing it off and others are in support fire positions. Gonzalez wounds the other one with a pistol as it approaches, and it's Gale again looking like he knows how to handle that assault rifle in finishing it off.

Seven down. I wonder how many more. The bridge has no cover, moving on to the street is potentially a death trap, narrow with few ways back out and up. So we swing back to the right. Spitfire Idol slides out to the street on the far side of the bridge ... three more Mutons!

Figures. It's on now. Hard to see a good place to retreat. Spitfire withdraws a bit, rapid-fires with his pistol, hitting once. The Muton yells, and Idol panicks. PTSD is an ugly thing, and he's a mental wreck, having been in way too many of these situations(regardless of the luxurious 'accomodations' at the officer's club).

Nobody else has line of sight, and we spread out to support. Hitch uses his smoke ... one of them injures Idol anyway. He panics again, and it's no looking so good -- I don't know if we can get him through this.

One of the mutons misses Idol, the second hits him ... he's critically injured and down. Could be worse. Both groups seems to be waiting for the other to advance, and we're running out of time before Spitfire is a goner.

One of them finally charges ... we hit it twice, but it's still on its feet. These things can take a lot of bullets. It tosses a grenade, injuring Hitch and Demon and destroying some of our best cover. I hate mutons, truly.

We could try to capture it, but that's a pretty suicidally stupid thing to do with two more out there. After a pair of misses by the squad, Warlord takes it down, and Hitch moves in to revive Idol.

They toss a grenade at Hitch and Idol. Spitfire is down and this time he won't be getting up. I won't describe the varying locations that parts of his body landed after that blast. Most of the squad panics, two fire at their fellow comrades, with Demon injuring Palmer. Superb.

Hitch McCloud is exposed now with cover destroyed, and he's hit by plasma fire, critically wounded himself now. We have no-one who can save him, and the rest will be lucky to get out of this alive the way it's going.

Gonzalez finally gets a reaction shot, nearly killing one of them on the move. Gale misses. They shoot from across the street ... Demon Gonzalez is down, killed instantly! An incredible shot there, and we do what we normally do. Panic and fire at each other, missing of course. Going downhill fast.

Gale wounds one of them, then panics and hunkers down after it does it's war cry yell thingy. They lob a grenade and take out his cover ... he's a dead man. Except that they manage to miss him. I'm not sure how, and don't really care. Gale finds more cover and hunkers down again. They kill him anyway. Figures.

They approach ... Sledge misses. She moves forward and fires again ... a second Muton is down!! Only one left now. It shifts, and critically injures Warlord! Seriously, what the ...

She panics and fires back, missing. Palmer dashes forward ... and the muton guns him down. Another one bites the dust. It's now Sledge vs. Muton to see who survives this mission. I wish I could say my money is on Sledge, but it just isn't.

Warlord retreats and reloads, goads the muton into approach, hits it ... and it's still up. Well, this next shot will end the mission one way or the other. Warlord charges ... and falls to the concrete, slain.

Guh.

OPERATION MORBID KNIFE is a disaster, 9 aliens killed, a full squad of 6 operatives as well.

There is full panic now in Australia, Japan, and France.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Cpt. Fox 'Hitch' McCloud II -- 4 kills in 2 missions, KIA.
Sq. Deacon Palmer II -- 2 kills in 2 missions, KIA.
Cpt. Coffee 'Sledge' Warlord II -- 4 kills in 3 missions, KIA.
Cpt. David 'Demon' Gonzalez -- 13 kills in 5 missions, KIA.
Lt. Ace 'Spitfire' Idol -- 20 kills in 8 missions, KIA.
Rk. Benton Gale V -- 2 kills in 1 mission, KIA.

Well, that might have been the death blow for XCOM. We have eight soldiers left, four of which have never seen action. Only Nova and Shadow are what I would call capable. We just went from the strongest group of operatives I've ever had to a completely inadequate roster in one mission.

[CrimsonFox]

Ffffffffffffffff.....

[CrimsonFox]

Is it correct to say that the "panic" feature really kills this game?

[Breeze]

Well as bad as that was for me...it was better than the last few Gales to go through the slaughter house...VI is ready...

[sterlingice]

So, gearing up for campaign #3?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

Is it correct to say that the "panic" feature really kills this game?

I wouldn't say that necessarily. It definitely makes it a lot harder though, but the whole mental midget thing is something you either accept as part of the XCOM universe, or it will drive you insane .

Originally Posted by sterlingice

So, gearing up for campaign #3?

Take thine heresy elsewhere, heathen! We fight to the end round these parts :P.

[Coffee Warlord]

Speaking of #3...I hear a new model of Coffee Warlord has shipped.

[BYU 14]

Dammit, no more massages!!

Ace Idol the sequel reporting

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Take thine heresy elsewhere, heathen! We fight to the end round these parts :P.

I feel misquoted!

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Lol yeah I can't believe I didn't notice that -- was supposed to be the 'gearing up for #3' bit.

<---- feels stupid.

Fixed.

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM HQ

Four more recruits are queued up and we build our three satellites for the month. 277 credits left.

June 8 -- 1:23 AM. A large scout has been detected off the Argentina coast! One of the Ravens is being outfitted with a Phoenix Cannon, so we only have one(already with the new weapon). We use a Dodge uplink, and the fighter closes the distance, sustains heavy damage but shoots it down!

So here we are. We can't afford another disastrous mission, we will be irrevocably doomed if we do.

STRIKE SQUAD

Cpt. Sterling 'Nova' Silvers IV(Heavy) -- scope
Lt. AJ 'Shadow' Thomas(Sniper) -- scope
Cpl. Ches O'Peake(Heavy) -- scope
Rk. Ren Snow -- scope
Rk. Kodos(USA) -- medikit
Rk. Ace Idol II(RUS) -- medikit

No arc throwers, I bought a couple of scopes as we are now in desperate times. Yes, we need to capture an outsider. We need to live to tell about this raid a lot more.

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION COLD LINE
Argentina
June 8, 3:40 AM

Nova is in command of course, and moves forward, instantly spotting ... something. A silver metallic flying ... well, it looks like a flying saucer more than anything. The engineering department notes that they want to call it a Cyberdisc. We've nowhere to retreat, so ... weapons free! Nova suppresses it, and we hit it three times which only takes it down to about halfway. That thing is like a tank!

It 'throws' a grenade, injuring three of us including Shadow and destroying our cover. Splendid.

Nova pulls out his rocket launcher, and finishes it off! Ok, we're injured, but we just found a new powerful enemy and our commander on the ground took it out. Feeling a little better about things now. We're still alive for now. Combined fire takes out a small mechanical flying thing we are unoriginally calling a Drone.

That second one was pretty weak. We use both medikits and get moving forward, and left, it's soon clear there are multiple enemies that way. We're up to a hill for a better look, Nova slides left -- a pair of thin men.

We retreat to a low ridge, and one of them injures Nova from outside our sight range. Bastards. We spread out and advance but still can't see them. Kodos finds one as it wounds him on the move, then it charges and we take it out. Everyone resets and we wait, but the second thin man just isn't coming.

Bizarre. We now hear more motion back to the right. Sounds like ... mutons. Shocking. Nova finally spots the other thin man, well hidden, and lays down some more suppressing fire. Ace Idol II flanks and kills, and we've got one less to be concerned about.

Four enemies down. We angle back to the right, and hear more straight ahead. We veer around the UFO to the left, making sure to clear this flank first. Then Kodos spots them ... yep, it's a pair of mutons! Everyone in range retreats, those not in full cover hunker down.

One advances, and Ches O'Peake misses high. It fires at Ace Idol II, missing there as well. Good thing we had her in defensive mode.

They're entrenched ... O'Peake readies a rocket, damaging both and annihilating their cover. We need to take them out before they move again. Shadow lines up a headshot ... one down! Snow moves around the left flank, and gets number two!

Rockets are really our only big weapon against these guys, but we survived this pair. Now back to the right ...

We hear nothing except inside the ship, and cautiously approach a door. We put the as-yet uninjured operatives in front. Idol triggers the door ... nothing. We've never been in a ship this size, even if it is supposedly a mere scout.

We move in and towards the first door to the left ... and find another empty room. A ghost ship so far. The next door seems to be a central chamber of some kind, leading to the three outer rooms that make up the perimeter. We go in, and there's the outsider! It's hit once by Shadow, but is still moving. Idol moves in, firing high and the enemy fires back, also high. Idol again ... high again!

Snow finishes it off, and Dr. Vahlen is ticked we didn't capture it! Scanners are clear, doctor. We survived. That was the goal.

OPERATION COLD LINE ends with a lot of injuries, but nobody dead and 7 aliens killed. We aren't dead yet.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Cpt. Sterling 'Nova' Silvers IV -- 1 kill, wounded(8 days)
Lt. AJ 'Shadow' Thomas -- 0 kills, wounded(9 days)
Cpl. Ches O'Peake -- 1 kill
Rk. Ren Snow II -- 2 kills, promoted to Assault Squaddie!
Rk. Kodos II -- 0 kills, wounded(8 days)
Rk. Ace Idol II -- 3 kills, promoted to Support Squaddie, wounded(4 days)

ARTIFACTS

** 2 Thin Man Corpses
** 2 Muton Corpses
** 1 Cyberdisc Wreck
** 1 Drone Wreck
** 37 Elerium
** 100 Alien Alloys
** 15 Weapon Fragments
** 4 UFO Flight Computers(1 damaged)
** 2 UFO Power Sources(1 damaged)

Nice haul here! We sell all the damaged components of course, raising our total to 305 credits. On the other hand, we have exactly four fit soldiers ready to go out for the next couple of days.

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM HQ

June 8 -- Argentina wants to buy a pair of nano-fiber vests. At 57 credits, that's a 35-credit profit for us, and every little bit helps.

June 9 -- New recruits arrive. We could now send out a full squad if needed. We build another Dodge uplink, and along with some more excavation are now sitting at 226 credits. Our roster, and surviving upcoming missions is a more pressing concern.

June 14 -- So far, so good, a couple of our injuries have healed and nothing so far. Beam Weapons research is complete. This is a big one, the gateway into our next-gen weapons based on laser technology, adapting the aliens tech in preventing energy dissipation. Laser Pistols and Laser Rifles are now available. We'll need alloys, the hundred we picked up in that last mission are vital. We start with an order for four pistols and two rifles. We'll need more advanced weapons for the snipers and heavies.

Right now we have five class soldiers -- 2 heavies, and one each of the other classes. We could use a third rifle, but have no need for more pistols at the moment. I add another one and we have 148 credits, 91 alloys left.

Initial lab tests show that the laser pistol will be roughly twice as effective as our conventional ballistic one, and the rifle is nearly that much an advancement. They are good enough that our Assault troopers will take them instead of shotguns.

Heavy Lasers is our next project, which will develop a machine-gun variant. It can't get done soon enough.

And it doesn't.

June 15 -- Alert! Terror attack in Manaus, Brazil!

Well, craptastic. We have a decision to make, a couple days yet from being fully healthy again.

We have one corporal, 2 squaddies, and would have to take three raw rookies. No really capable operatives are available, what with Nova and Shadow still on the mend.

We lose Brazil from the Council and possibly others if we don't go. I'm guessing they aren't going to sing our praises and offer us hundreds of credits a month for ignoring this. And if we lose the six operatives we are sending ... well, we havent' really lost all that much, have we? So off we go, spending a bit more on more rifles before we launch. They'll probably all die, of course.

STRIKE SQUAD

Cpl. Ches O'Peake(Heavy)
Sq. Ace Idol II(Support) -- medikit
Sq. Ren Snow II(Assault)
Rk. Fox McCloud III(RUS, female)
Rk. David Gonzalez II(JAP, male)
Rk. Benton Gale VI(NIG, male) -- medikit

Scopes all around except where otherwhise noted. Everyone gets laser weapons except for Ches O'Peake, who can't use the kind we have.

[ntndeacon]

a new Deacon Palmer is up and operational

[Brian Swartz]

OPERATION LAZY SLEEP
Manaus, Brazil
June 15, 9:23 PM

This fight may be many things, but lazy or asleep will not be among them.

Our drop location allows us to move in only one direction, left around a wall in front of us. Screams, plasma-damaged and exploded vehicles, fires, sandbags, sirens ... yeah, it's a disaster zone all right.

As the ranking officer, Ches O'Peake is in command here. We see no initial contact, but soon Snow spots them ... three Chryssalids! Two stay back, one advances -- we need to take that down pronto. O'Peake hurts it a bit, and then I think it was Gonzalez finishing it off. Two shots! It appears these laser weapons are worth the price. And probably about 10x that.

We move up into support positions in case they charge, which I actually hope they do to keep them away from the civilians. One kills an innocent, the other moves off to kill a second, wounded by Idol but it keeps going.

Cyberdisc on the left! We take out a drone but miss our other shots at it. That thing's on top of us, and has to be our priority now. Snow misses the second drone, Ches O'Peake hits the disc but it's merely annoyed. We drop the drone and hit the main again, but it's still got plenty left. Idol uses up her smoke grenade for cover.

A couple of floaters arrive, and we've got zombies incoming now as well. Joyful. Civilians are dying like crazy, and the cyberdisc lets loose with a grenade ... injuring two of the squad while another panics. Yeah, this is going really ... crappy. Idol drills the closest zombie, nearly killing it. Ches O'Peake sends a rocket out to the left, finishing off the zombie and doing more damage to the disc. After a couple more shots, Snow finishes off the metallic abomination before it can do any more harm. Gonzalez hits the second zombie, but it's still coming.

One floater teleports behind us, while the second slaughters a civilian and one of the Chryssalids 'produces' another zombie. We're in hell. The wounded zombie approaches and is nearly on top of us. 7 civilians are dead, and we're fighting for our lives, unable to help.

Snow is closest to that zombie, and bags another kill. Gonzalez retreats, flanking and killing the floater that moved behind us. Gale misses the second floater, and a nice timely shot by O'Peake drops the wounded Chryssalid! That one won't be creating any more zombies at least.

I've already lost count of how many enemies we've killed so far. Idol moves forward, taking out the remaining floater. For the first time in a while, we're clear of all contacts -- that's good since we are almost out of ammo as well.

Two more Chryssalids ahead, and there's at least one zombie about, though it's out of sight range for now. Two more civilians die -- 9 down now. McCloud and Idol combine to take out the closer spider, the second one retreated. While the rest of the squad moves up and reloads, I ask myself why any of them, to say nothing of all of them, are even still alive.

Another pair of civilians are gone, still no contact. We keep pushing forward, through a courtyard with a couple rows of battle tanks with varying degrees of damage. Snow is in front, and with McCloud's help takes down another Chryssalid. Still at least one of those left and zombie(s). Gale moves up on the right, and for the first time has a chance to use a medikit.

Are you freaking serious?! Two more Chryssalids burst out of a warehouse past the row of tanks up ahead. They're almost on top of us ... O'Peake hits the closest one twice, but it's still up. Gale misses at close range, dang it! Gonzalez finishes it off, but there's still one left ...

Thankfully, the others remember how to shoot, and Idol and McCloud combine to get the second one. Two more of the purple fiends are in range, one closes in but can't quite reach us ... but no more civilians die, so we seem to finally have their attention at least.

Snow and McCloud combine to take another one out ... how many of these freaking things IS that?? .,.. Oh, crap. Another FOUR of them come out of the warehouse. What in the world, is this like a breeding hive for these things or something? A tank explodes, and Idol's down because of it. Two of the others panic, one at least fires at and hits an enemy. We have to retreat, no way we can take all of them out from here.

Snow finishes one off, while McCloud has no ammunition and has to use a pistol, enough to take down an injured spider. O'Peake retreats, then hurts another -- that couldn't have gone better other than, you know, the whole dying and panicking thing.

Both of the remaining Chryssalids retreat and kill more civilians. 13 of them dead, and one operative. We move again, Gale spies one on the right. His second horrible miss, while the others move up and reload, unable to get close enough.

O'Peake cuts down one as it approaches, the second one retreats, leaving us to deal with the latest zombie. Gale and Gonzalez take out the zombie, and it's forward! once again.

Another zombie comes out of the warehouse, right side. McCloud hits it, O'Peake finishes it. The rest of us move around the right of the warehouse, readying to breach the door around the right side. The remaining Chryssalid comes out that way ... Snow hits it first, then the others do, it didn't have a chance.

Finally. Scanners go dark, and the cleanup can begin.

OPERATION LAZY SLEEP is an epic battle, eventually victorious beyond my wildest expectations! We kill 24 of the enemy, more than twice the amount of any previous operation. Ace Idol II is the only casualty. 5 of 18 civilians make it out alive for a POOR rating, but I'm ecstatic under the circumstances.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Cpl. Ches O'Peake -- 8 kills!!, Promoted to Sergeant, Nicknamed 'Flash'!
Sq. Ren Snow -- 4 kills, promoted to Corporal!
Sq. Ace Idol II -- 4 kills, KIA after 6 in 2 missions.
Rk. Fox McCloud III -- 4 kills, promoted to Support Squaddie!, wounded(7 days)
Rk. David Gonzalez II -- 4 kills, promoted to Support Squaddie!
Rk. Benton Gale VI -- 0 kills. 24 enemies, and he couldn't manage to take down a single one of them. What a pathetic loser :P. Promoted anyways, to Support Squaddie. Wounded(4 days)

We promote three rookies, every last one of them to Support. Have fun fighting for op time fellas, that's ridiculous!

ARTIFACTS

** 2 Floater Corpses
** 1 Cyberdisc Wreck
** 11 Chryssalid Corpses
** 2 Drone Wrecks
** 8 Elerium
** 16 Alien Alloys
** 11 Weapon Fragments

11 Chryssalids. Eleven. With three rookies on the squad. Eat it, ET!!

[Brian Swartz]

XCOM HQ

We recruit one more soldier to replace Idol -- 91 credits left.

June 16 -- Well, we need to build our uplink to have it just barely ready in time, and we are 59 credits short. We sell a dozen corpses, mostly of thin men. Then I realize, too late, that we don't have enough engineers. Too late to do anything about it. We are screwed, and will lose multiple nations from the Council, because I didn't know we needed another workshop. Argh. I'm a moron. I build a workshop anyway, to make sure this isn't a problem next month.

That really, really blows. Attention to detail. Sigh.

June 23 -- Everyone's healthy again. Heavy Lasers is complete now. We can build Laser Cannon, a better interceptor weapon, and Heavy Lasers for our heavy class operatives. I cancel the hastily ordered workshop and get my money back. We need it for other things. 4 Laser Cannons and 2 Heavy Lasers takes us down to 8 alloys.

The Laser Cannon has somewhat less accuracy than the Phoenix Cannon, but higher armor penetration. We arm one fighter on each continent, as it will be superior for larger ships but not as good against smaller ones.

June 25 -- 9:34 PM. A large scout is detected over Germany! It has landed, which means a tough fight of course. Everyone except our sniper, 'Shadow' Thomas, now has laser weaponry. We'll also be packing arc throwers, as we need to capture an Outsider, and wouldn't mind bagging a sectoid or muton either.

STRIKE SQUAD

Notably absent is Shadow, simply because others are more effective thanks to the new weapons. Should the worst happen, he'll become the new leader of combat ops, but there's no place for him on this mission.

Cpt. Sterling 'Nova' Silvers IV(Heavy) -- scope
Sgt. Ches 'Flash' O'Peake(Heavy) -- scope
Cpl. Ren Snow II(Assault) -- arc thrower
Sq. Fox McCloud III(Support) -- medikit
Sq. David Gonzalez II(Support) -- medikit
Rk. Kodos II -- arc thrower

Kind of a strange combination here, but hopefully we can make it work. A trial by fire of the laser weapons now against what is likely to be a numerous and varied assortment of enemies.

[Breeze]

Not dead this time...just terribly ineffective...