The Council Of Nations Needs You!(XCOM)

[Brian Swartz]

Seriously, what is wrong with this board? WHY ISN'T THERE A DYNASTY FOR THIS YET?!

Anyone up for repeated deaths and repeated catastrophic earth-failings, sign up here, where I shall record my/our efforts to save the planet on Classic Ironman(360 version). I've played a bit the last few days, enough to know I'm good enough to survive for a while on Classic(Impossible is ... well, what it says. None of the devs beat it on Impossible Ironman, and only a couple did with reloading, according to one of the interviews), and not good enough to beat it. My only semi-serious game on this difficulty resulted in a massive fail about three weeks in. Balance of difficulty seems right.

I expect to fail multiple times, at which point I will simply re-start. Until I succeed. If I do. We will be playing without the tutorial, so the first mission guys I can't rename until afterwards. First come, first served obviously. Anyone who wants in, simply post here with the requested first and last name. Adding hairstyle, hair color, skin color stuff is optional but not necessary.

I'll post about each mission and other notable events including the geopolitical developments. Enjoy, and join the suicide squad! Your species needs you!!

The first mission should be up sometime tomorrow.

[Breeze]

I want in...last time I got in right at the end of the end of the dynasty...

Benton Gale
Hair Style: Buzz Cut
Hair Color: Brown
Skin Color: White

[ntndeacon]

sounds fun...
Deacon Palmer
hair style: long
hair color brown
skin color tanned

[Kodos]

Always up for being slaughtered.
Kodos
Hair: Buzz Cut
Hair Color: Blond
Skin: White

[Poli]

Ardent Enthusiast
Hair Style: Buzz Cut
Hair Color: Brown
Skin Color: White

[sterlingice]

Sure, why not

Sterling Silvers
Hair Style: Surprise me
Hair Color: Silver
Skin Color: Surprise me

SI

[MacroGuru]

DJ
Hair Style: Crew Cut
Hair Color: Black
Skin Color: White

[Coffee Warlord]

Coffee Warlord
Hair Style: Long
Hair Color: Brown
Skin Color: White

[chesapeake]

Chesapeake
Looks are unimportant.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

Chesapeake
Looks are unimportant.

Pfft.

You have to LOOK badass to BE badass.

[Poli]

[Brian Swartz]

LOL.

*Ahem -- steps back in character*

XCOM inaugural mission:

OPERATION FIRST MIST
Alexandria, Egypt
Early morning, March 1, 2015

"Two possibilities exist."

"Either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not."

"Both are equally terrifying."

-- Arthur C. Clarke

XCOM's secret base has been established in Africa, more specifically just outside Lagos, Nigeria(the exact location is of course highly classified). The initial squad consists of the following:

Rk. Benton Gale
Rk. Deacon Palmer
Rk. Kodos
Rk. Ardent Enthusiast

The latest in a string of mysterious worldwide abductions of civilians by a non-indigent form of life has occurred here in Alexandria. Our mission is to eliminate this threat using whatever force is necessary.

The SR-77H Skyranger drops us in an intersection to the extreme southeast of our zone of operation mandate. There's a shop of some kind to the northwest, it appears to be a print shop, and a street both north and south. What appears to be an alien 'landing pod' is nearby, mostly gray but spewing green gases in all directions. Partially liquefied humans can be seen in the streets, in the shops, and farther to the north where we can just make out a second 'pod'. That seems the most likely direction to seek out those responsible for this incursion.

Turn 1

We slowly make our way forward, intending to hug the east edge of the shop and move up the street to the north. At least it is daytime, so vision should be clear. That's a rather surprising bit of luck actually.

Turn 3

Benton Gale moves forward, and instantly spots a trio of ... well, they look like overgrown monkeys with excessively large heads and eyes, scrambling about in the southwest corner of the shop. Dr. Vahlen waxes on over our communicators about how historic this moment of first contact is, while our four rookies are understandably just a hair more concerned about not ending up like so much green goo like many others have strewn around us. She dubs these things 'Sectoids', though it matters little what we call them -- we just know they need to die. At least it's daytime, so we have clear vision as much as we can.

Deacon Palmer approaches the south wall of the shop, breaks open a window, and lets loose a burst from his assault rifle that brings one of them down. One shot, one kill. These 'Sectoids' are wusses!! Kodos tries the same thing a few yards to the east ... and another one goes down. Of course, there is the disheartening sound of three more approaching down the street to the north ...

Turn 4

I think about sending Gale around the southeast corner of the shop and into the building, but that would probably expose him to far too much opportunity fire. Instead, we work our way west along the south wall, Kodos in the lead, with Palmer and Ardent Enthusiast following.

Meanwhile, we spot one of them moving in the vicinity of the northeast corner of the shop.

Turn 5

Ardent Enthusiast fires at the newly sighted advancing Sectoid, but he takes out only the nearby shop window, not the alien itself. The rest of the squad moves west around the corner, where there are dumpsters in an alley that provides some good cover.

It seems the aliens have the same idea, advancing south along the east wall.

Turn 6

They have good cover, and are just a bit too far away for a grenade, so [b]Ardent Enthusiast[b] moves west to the corner. There's one large window where one of them takes a shot at him, but it misses. The aliens try to reposition and miss another shot. It appears fortunes are with AE at the moment.

Turn 7

Benton Gale heads inside a service entrance near the southwest corner of the shop, taking cover behind a bookshelf in good position to snipe anything that moves or looks at him funny. The aliens take a shot at Gale, missing him but damaging the bookshelf but destroying the wall behind him ... and the dumpster behind that ... good thing we didn't have anybody nearby there.

Turn 8

Gale moves a bit east, dodging some opportunity fire to hide behind a column, and throws a grenade at the nearest enemy. It blows a hole in the wall, annihilates everything he was using for cover, but he's still standing. However, Ardent Enthusiast uses the opening to sneak in behind the bookshelf and takes the undefended Sectoid down. Another one bites the dust!

At least three of them left. Deacon Palmer fires through an open doorway at the northwest corner of the shop, but misses. His target moves into the store and behind a counter. It's getting crowded in there.

Turn 9

No more than a dozen feet away from the Sectoid that Palmer missed, Benton Gale manages to complete miss it. What the heck, dude?! Ardent Enthusiast misses as well, but Palmer's second try is better than his first. High-velocity transcortical lead therapy makes it four aliens down.

Meanwhile, Kodos has found another useful doorway north of the print shop. It appears this adjacent building is a modest library, but he has a decent sight line on a Sectoid hiding behind a large flower pot on the sidewalk just east of the structure. He wings it, but it's only injured not down.

Turn 10

Time to finish them off. Another salvo from Kodos fails to do so, missing completely and instead taking out the windows on a beige pickup in the street behind. Gale misses high as well, but Ardent Enthusiast bullseye's it ... yet alien life signs are still strong on our scanners. Our work is not done yet.

Ah, there's another one, scrambling across the street from the east to take cover behind a yellow cab.

Turn 11

Hitting the cab and blowing it up, setting it on fire, whatever would be just as good, anything to make that guy expose himself. Benton Gale just drops him with a great shot over the trunk of the cab, and it's all over but the housekeeping operation!

POST-MORTEM, OPERATION FIRST MIST

Well, that was rather easier than expected. Six dead aliens on first contact, no injuries.

** OOC Moment: I've done the first mission(different maps all) at least a half-dozen times, and often everyone comes back injured and few come back at all. I've never failed to lose at least one soldier, so we got more than a little lucky here. I'll take it, but I don't expect that to hold.

Promotions all around: We now have four Squaddies instead of Rookies. 2 kills each for Deacon Palmer(Brazilian Support) and Ardent Enthusiast(Korean Assault), 1 for Benton Gale(Japanese Heavy) and Kodos(Korean Sniper).

ARTIFACTS RECOVERED

6 Sectoid Corpses
12 Weapon Fragments

[Kodos]

"Great job, fellas. I get the feeling this is gonna be easy!"

[korme]

Just played the demo. Quite a bit of fun.

[Poli]

Best of the best!

[Brian Swartz]

March 1, 2015

Back in Africa, it's time to look around at our super-secret XCOM base for the first time. The nerds have retired to the nerdery and come up with the following summary:

BY THE NUMBERS

Engineers: 5
Scientists: 5
Structures: 2(1 Access Lift, 1 Satellite Uplink)
Satellites: 1/16(Nigeria)
Balance: 242 Credits
Monthly Net Income: 142

Dr. Vahlen and staff begin research on Alien Materials, which should yield useful results relating to combat armor and protective gear. Meanwhile, the engineers get busy working on getting a new satellite built, along with a pair of medkits. Just like we're down to 92 credits.

There being not a whole lot else we can do, let's look at the soldiers you haven't been introduced to yet:

Rk. Sterling Silvers -- Russian Male
Rk. DJ Malakhov -- Ukrainian Male
Rk. Coffee Warlord -- Japanese Female
Rk. Chesapeake Arnold -- American Female

I find it a bit amusing that the name 'Coffee Warlord' is our highest-ranking woman soldier. Moving on to the unclaimed ones:

Japanese Male
British Female
American Male
Nigerian Female

For a total of 12 soldiers, more than we need right now. Our second mission report will be coming shortly.

[korme]

I'll play along.

Shane Korme
Hair Style: I think it was #12, in between the two puffier cropped ones
Hair Color: Lets go purple. We're facing aliens, lets get weird
Skin: White

I don't care which male I rep, Japanese or American is cool

[sterlingice]

Russian male: excellent. Privet, comrades! (Wait, Russian not Soviet)

SI

[Breeze]

I think Gale needs glasses...do I need to add that to appearence...

[Brian Swartz]

No, I don't think I have the option to put glasses on him. And no for another reason, as will be seen shortly ...

March 7th, 2015, 12:02 AM

Alert! Alien Abudctions underway!

Possible Mission Locations:

New York, United States -- Moderate Difficulty, Low Panic, Reward of 4 Scientists
London, United Kingdom -- Moderate, Low, 4 Engineers
Kolkata, India -- Moderate, Very Low, 200 credits

Well, we could scratch New York right away, as Engineers are more important than Scientists to us so it offered no reason to go there over London. Down to London or Kolkata, and we choose London eventually as it has a higher panic level.

With a Moderate difficulty mission, I don't feel we can risk taking raw recruits along. Palmer and Kodos bring medkits instead of grenades, and off to the British Isles we go!

OPERATION HOT RAIN
London, United Kingdom
1:03 AM, March 7, 2015

Turn 1

We're dropped in on the south end, a lot of territory to clear. Shipping crates to the west, a smallish office building to the right, mostly open territory to the north and past that. It looks like the roof of that building might be a good perch for Kodos.

Ardent Enthusiast heads over to the warehouse ... and spots four Sectoids immediately. Joyous. This is a definitely a target-rich environment. A decent look at one across the corner of the building through a couple of windows, but a shotgun blast misses. Kodos moves north to sight on any aliens coming from that direction, and injures one cowering behind some flimsy wooden crates with his pistol. The Sectoids respond with three shots, missing twice but doing some damage to Ardent Enthusiast with the third.

Turn 2

A point-blank blast by Benton Gale ends one of them, and Kodos pulls out his sniper rifle and finishes off the one he shot previously. Two down. The only other immediate threat is outside the north wall of the office building ...

Kodos chose a poor location, as a window offers a flanking angle. Deacon Palmer covers him with a smoke grenade, and the Sectoids simply dig in where they are and hope we'll expose ourselves to opportunity fire.

Turn 3

Gale moves into the building for a shot at the enemy outside to the north, but misses. Ardent Enthusiast flanks east outside that wall, the Sectoid fires but takes out only part of the wall. Palmer moves into the building, and he misses too.

They fire at Gale this time, taking out most of one of the inner walls partitioning the rooms, and this place is getting torn to shreds. It looks almost as much like a smoldering ruin as an office building now.

Turn 4

It's ammo expended, there's nothing to stop Ardent Enthusiast from flanking the alien from behind ... it takes a shotgun blast to the back from no more than ten feet away, and doesn't even go down! What the heck!? Is this Sectoid made of like titanium or something? Gale moves up to close range from the other direction and finishes him off, but wow -- that totally should not even have been necessary. Still, there's was no chance with the numbers we had and no open field of fire.

The remaining Sectoid to the north scampers back even further in that direction.

Turn 5

Palmer catches up to Ardent Enthusiast and administers some healing meds from the medkit. Not a lot of cover to the north, and we see at least three Sectoids now moving out that way. A lot of fighting yet to be done here.

Turn 6

One of them left himself exposed to fire from our direction ... Gale is the closest but can't hit it. Ardent Enthusiast is out of ammo so switches to his pistol ... and misses anyway. Palmer maneuvers back inside the north wall(part of it is still intact) to give himself an angle, and he misses as well. Good grief fellas. Fourth time's the charm? Yep, there's Kodos with an on-the-mark shot with his sniper rifle. Four bad guys down.

Turn 7

Gale reloads, while Palmer and Ardent Enthusiast miss. Again. The Sectoids are learning it seems that Kodos' field of fire is a good zone to avoid.

One scrambles forward with some kind of mental, psychic link to the other, Kodos fires at him on the move but misses. He returns fire once he reaches cover, and wildly misses.

Turn 8

Another miss by Gale. Ardent Enthusiast hits the closer Sectoid with his pistol shot and injures it, but I see no clear way he can get to a better position without opening himself up to a lot of fire. Palmer reloads, and Kodos misses.

They advance, farther, and shoot at Gale injuring him. He's fine for the moment, but we should have had someone on overwatch for opportunity fire there.

Turn 9

They've moved too close to Gale behind more wooden crates, and he ends that nonsense with a salvo from his rifle. No angle for Kodos, who reloads, and I'd like to get Palmer moving forward closer to where Gale is, but right now both we and the remaining enemy have good defensive positions, but getting forward is risky.

The Sectoid wheels east through a shipping crate, and manages to catch Gale. He's down and not moving! I don't know how he pulled that shot off, Benton was pretty entrenched there. They'll pay for that. Oh, how they'll pay!! We've survived many more risky situations, but have just learned the hard way that combat is never safe.

Turn 10

That move exposed him to Palmer's field of fire, and Deacon guns him down. That's the last of them, but we paid a price for victory here.

POST-MORTEM, OPERATION HOT RAIN

A few minor mistakes and just plain dumb luck combine to doom Benton Gale, who dies with three kills in two missions just before we vanquish the enemy.

Artifacts -- 6 Sectoid Corpses, 12 Weapon Fragments recovered.

Geopolitical Update -- The United States is up to High on the panic scale ... we need to do whatever we can to pacify them, and it'll be two weeks before we have a new satellite to deploy. Japan, India, and Australia are all at Medium, with the other dozen nations of no concern at the present.

Apparently our failure to intervene in New York, the US's largest city, had dramatic consequences. I order the Engineers to build another medkit, replacing the one used in Hot Rain.

[Brian Swartz]

Let me know -- this goes for everyone, I was just waiting for someone to get killed which I expected wouldn't take this long -- if you want your character to be re-spawned. I'm happy to do so if you like.

[Brian Swartz]

March 9 -- Project Looking Glass has been completed. We can now build Nano-Fiber Vests, which will significantly improve survivability. We will now continue to study recovered Weapons Fragments, this time with an aim towards weapons advances.

Producing four vests takes us down to 13 credits, aka almost flat broke.

March 12th, 3:15 pm. Red Alert! We have our first atmospheric UFO detection, just off the Nigerian coastline to the south. Scramble Raven 1!

The UFO is shot down, light damage only to Raven 1. A complete success, and ... wait. It's still intact, and there are still life signs. Hmm. Apparently it's not going to be that easy. We've got to go in on foot. To the Skyranger, and pronto!

[Breeze]

Yeah...glasses not necessary on a corpse...

Yeah, I'd like to get back in...I've never played the game so I'm not sure how the respawning works, but if you need a new name you can use Brett Gale (Benton's younger brother)...

[Poli]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Let me know -- this goes for everyone, I was just waiting for someone to get killed which I expected wouldn't take this long -- if you want your character to be re-spawned. I'm happy to do so if you like.

Most definitely.

[Brian Swartz]

This is a priority mission, so veterans Sq. Deacon Palmer and Sq. Kodos will be coming along. Ardent Enthusiast is injured, four days out from a return to active duty. Rookies Sterling Silvers and DJ Malakhov will see their first action.

The rookies will be outfitted with nano-fiber vests to increase their chances of living through this, espescially as they'll be out front -- Palmer and Kodos are not frontline troops, and they'll pack medkits.

OPERATION FINAL FEAR
Touchdown at: March 12th, 4:07 PM
Location: Nigerian Interior

Our mission is to eliminate all hostiles and preserve the alien craft intact. Satellites indicate the target vessel is due south. Thankfully this is a remote area, some trees but mostly rocky hills.

Turn 1

Silvers spots a couple of Sectoids to the west immediately. Shows what we know. Kodos tries a low-percentage pistol shot from range ... not the best choice perhaps, and it misses. Overwatch for the others.

DJ misses a shot as they move to flank Silvers ... they should have ended him right there. It's pure blind luck that they hit a tree he was hiding beside.

Turn 2

Sterling Silvers dashes to a much better cover position, behind a rocky outcropping. Now we're starting to get in business. DJ takes a shot, and one Sectoid is down.

They try for Silvers again, but it harmlessly burns up on the rocks.

Turn 3

Silvers trades inferior cover for a closer position, and hunkers down to compensate.

That other Sectoid is in a tough place to approach from our vantage point. It fires at Silvers again, but the shot isn't close, destroying a perfectly fine tree before it reaches him.

Turn 4

Silvers moves up behind said crispy tree, has a passable opening, and utilizes it to gun down the second enemy. Ok, now we're clear. About the whole find the UFO to the north thing ... ya know ...

Turn 5

Inching slowly forward, we can hear them out there. The bare outline of the ship is visible, but that's it.

Turn 6

Silvers spots a new kind of alien as he approaches the one good cover spot from this vector. Dr. Vahlen describes it as a 'being of pure energy'. It tries to fire at him, but he keeps his head down as the green plasma zooms overhead.

Turn 7

Silvers moves up against the wall of the ship by a large opening. No angle to shoot here, but it's a good spot to snipe anything that moves. DJ is in overwatch as well, while Kodos maneuvers to the east ... and spots another pair of Sectoids. Sheesh. Three enemies to worry about.

The new contact fires at DJ, who is crouched behind a log but still somewhat vulnerable. He's a ways out, and it misses.

Turn 8

Silvers moves into the ship itself a bit, against a wall. Still can't get a good shot. DJ moves in a bit closer.

The Sectoids open fire on Silvers, succeeding in taking out a wall on their own ship. The 'energy being' is not so unlucky. Silvers is down and critically injured! Deacon Palmer does the appropriate thing, of course -- panicks, and runs away from the combat zone to the west.

Dude, you have one job. ONE. Healing injured guys in just such an occasion. It's great when you kill something, but your job is to heal them. Not run away when they get hurt. Coward! Deserter!!

Turn 9

The new alien exposed himself to Kodos on the east in order to get off his shot on Silvers. After his head is removed by a sniper rifle bullet, the rest of him disappears.

A pair of Sectoid shots at DJ Malakhov accomplish nothing.

Turn 10

Palmer approaches the ship, intent on saving Silvers before he bleeds out and dies. At least he's remembered the concept of following orders eventually. Kodos maneuvers behind a tree and brilliantly takes out one of the Sectoids with a pistol barrage. Two big-time kills there in close succession by Kodos!!

The remaining Sectoid goes into defensive mode. They're not so brave when isolated.

Turn 11

Kodos gets too full of himself, and takes a poor risk, approaching a log close to the alien position. Fortunately, it misses him, and another pistol shot bags him another kill! Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good ... he's been both today. Palmer gets to Silver in time, and he'll live.

That's it! No more alien life signs.

POST-MORTEM: OPERATION FINAL FEAR

Deacon Palmer(who did nothing aside from the end-of-mission after-everything's-dead rescue) adds a promotion to Corporal to his panick attack. Dunno about that, but we'll take it. Kodos has three kills to give him six total -- in other words, he deserved his promotion despite a little riskiness out there. One kill each for the rookies. DJ Malakhov earns a promotion to Sniper Squaddie, aka Kodos' new backup. Silvers heads to the medical ward, where he'll be for the next 18 days. The Outsider almost made him our second casualty ...

Artifacts Found
4 Sectoid Corpses
12 Elerium, whatever that is
32 Alien Alloys
10 Weapon Fragments
2 UFO Flight Computers(1 damaged)
1 UFO Power Source(damaged)

Allowing most of the good stuff to be damaged isn't great, but hard to avoid here. They didn't exactly surrender quietly. Definitely got to chalk this outing up as a success.

[sterlingice]

I'm trying to decide if I was lucky or unlucky there

SI

[kingfc22]

Let me at 'em!

David Gonzalez
Looks - no preference.

[MacroGuru]

That's right DJ Rocks!

[BYU 14]

Damn I want in, loved the old Godzilla Blitz dynasties

Ace Idol
Bald
White

[revrew]

Ooh! Can I get still get in? Revrew actually survived to the end of GB's dynasty without being killed, so perhaps the name is a bit of a good luck charm. If you have room, add a new rookie:

Rev "Mr. Ekko" Rew
Hair Style: As long as possible
Hair Color: Royal Blue
Skin color: Black as midnight
Nationality? - Anywhere in Africa

Respawn as often as needed. I don't mind being the new Blade (wasn't he the one who had like 6 different versions?)

[Coffee Warlord]

And yes, you can continually re-spawn Coffee Warlord.

But get me some action, dammit.

[Brian Swartz]

Tons of time for people to still get in. Everybody will get plenty of **action. Thanks for joining.

** Horrible deaths in new and inventive ways. That's the XCOM way.

[Brian Swartz]

We sell the damaged UFO components for 50 credits on the gray market.

March 17 -- Raven 1 is refueled and repaired, Sq. Ardent Enthusiast is healed and ready to get out there again, and Project Sagaris is completed. That, of course, is our investigation into alien(espescially Sectoid) weaponry. It has provided the ability for us to build S.C.O.P.E., an advanced targeting module. I order the engineers to get one ready ... Kodos at least will want to use this.

Down to 48 credits.

March 21 -- A new satellite is ready. We send it and one of our two Ravens to the United States, which is willing to contribute an additional 180 credits a month to our Council funding -- the other three nations that are now in the 'danger zone' would combine for 220 if we could support them all.

US panic level drops to Low following this announcement. Japan is our new top target, with India and Australia secondary concerns.

March 22, 6:20 AM -- Bradford interrupts my sleep with the news that Council wishes a 'word'. Never just one with those guys. They couldn't wait for a decent hour? I guess that's what we get for not being on Greenwich time.

Apparently the aliens have attacked a remote observatory in Mexico, where a key scientist is stationed. The Council wishes us to extract him. XCOM benefits for this operation include of course lowered panic in Mexico and the rest of North America, and an overt reward of 151 credits and 2 more staff scientists.

The Skyranger is being prepped as we speak. Sterling Silvers will not be available as he's still out injured, but the four veterans are. Sq. Ardent Enthusiast will run point, with Support Cpl. Deacon Palmer and Sniper Cpl. Kodos King. The one tough call is that on the front line will also be rookie Coffee Warlord. We could bring along another sniper in Sq. DJ Malakhov, but one short-range soldier on a retrieval and escort mission seems thin.

We'll have to rely on our veterans to teach her the ropes on the fly. This is our first Council-mandated mission, a key test and crucial opportunity to prove that XCOM has what it takes to protect humanity. This will also be the first time we send a woman into the field.

Lots of firsts, and lots on the line. Ardent Enthusiast will pick up a nano-fiber vest, medkit of course for Palmer, and one of the new scopes for our sharpshooter Kodos. Another vest for Coffee Warlord, in the aim of keeping her alive: hopefully it won't just be a stained part of her body bag after this is over.

[Kodos]

I also would like to be back in the pool should the unthinkable happen.

[Brian Swartz]

Unthinkable? Don't you mean inevitable? :P

Ok, this mission I accidentally deleted most of the writeup so I'll just have to summarize, which means it will be shorter than usual.

OPERATION BLIND SHROUD
Chihuahua, Mexico

We apparently got to the target no problem -- we start in what appears to be the main observatory room of the complex with a Dr. Marazuki in tow. It looks likely to be a lot tougher getting out. There's several exits, and we have to get completely across the complex to an extraction point far to the north and a good ways west. Most of that distance is outside with tons of angles to cover from enemy attack.

Almost immediately, a new kind of alien drops in and bursts into the double doors behind us. After two missed reaction shots, someone(I think Deacon Palmer, but it happened very quickly and I wasn't sure) drops him. Dr. Vahlen dubs this a 'Thin Man', which is very descriptive or what they look like, but perhaps unscientific.

Ardent Enthusiast is out the door closest to our destination, which leads to raised walkway with a railing along the north and west sides of the observatory. He is able to close to another Thin Man to the right, taking it out with a shotgun blast to the back. It explodes into a green cloud, which doesn't look particularly healthy. Coffee Warlord fans out to the left and around the corner, while Palmer stays on the right just inside an adjacent building in that direction.

This turns out to be particularly fortuitious. Another Thin Man drops right outside the window Palmer is looking out. He fires immediately -- the enemy absorbs the blast and stays on it's feet. Palmer's able to fire again before it can do anything, and takes it down. Another cloud of gas, pretty much forcing Palmer to stay where he is. Meanwhile, Kodos is covered to get up to the roof of the observatory to a decent perch.

Marazuki, in the meantime, has found it necessary to wax eloquent about pointless crap, such as how he's studying UFO flight patterns to try to determine where they came from, the massive resources this invasion must have required just for them to get here, blah blah blah -- I think he and Dr. Vahlen might have some interesting conversation but I'd like to shut up and, I don't know, let us concentrate on GETTING THE HECK OUT OF HERE!?!

Ardent moves north -- and a couple of Sectoids appear to the west. He's got a lot of options, none of them good. Moving east and north will cover him in that direction, but who knows what's farther north than might flank him. East through the window where Palmer is will be safe, except for that whole running through unhealthy-looking gas thing. He slides a bit west for partial cover and hopes for the best. The Sectoids are behind a couple of extremely large gas tanks of some kind ...

An exchange of fire between one of the Sectoids and Coffee ends up with her injured and her bullets thudding harmlessly into the concrete. Ardent is able to flank around the other way, kill one enemy and get two for the price of one since it was mind-melded with the second(basically, a Sectoid psychic link, kill the originator and the trauma of it all gets the second for free). We're clear for the moment, but could get approached from any direction. At this point, Ardent Enthusiast is about halfway across the complex, the others needed to catch up a bit.

After some more moving up, Ardent dashes west to a small storage building ... a Sectoid to the north behind some crates covered with blue tarps fires and misses. Marazuki foolishly dashes in there as well, fortunately without anyone noticing.

Coffee Warlord works around the south and west of the storage building, making sure there's no danger in that direction, while Palmer can finally leave out that stupid window and move up on the east. Kodos has been about useless, unable to sight in on any of the enemies so far.

There's a large semi trailer, mostly filled, north of the building, and beyond that it is mere yards to extraction point where the Skyranger awaits. Ardent moves up on the west side of it, the semi shielding his movements from that one Sectoid which is our lone contact. If he can move around the north of it, he should be able to flank that guy, and then we are home free.

Coffee moves up that way as well ... and spots another Sectoid north and west of the semi. Well crap. It ducks behind the cab, and AE is in no man's land -- fortunately, it's dumb enough for some reason not to turn around the near corner and most likely kill him.

So, Ardent turns the tables, ducks around the northwest corner of the truck, and there's one less Sectoid to worry about. Make that two -- another psychic link, so after Palmer and the first one had uselessly fired at each for a while, AE gets two for the price of one yet again! He's a machine today . Coffee's back in the building to provide cover, Palmer exchanges harmless fire with the other Sectoid from the east.

It seems we're safe to move Dr. Marazuki up on the west side of the trailer ... but then a Thin Man drops from nowhere(literally, out of the sky) on top of the semi cab. Palmer takes a pistol shot(his rifle's out of ammo) and misses. Coffee dashes out of the storage building to draw it's fire so it won't kill the Doctor -- she's cut down before she can take three steps, a bloody mess just outside the door.

Thin Man jumps down on the east side of the semi and behind some crates where the Sectoid had been, completely ignoring the doctor, fires at Palmer and misses. What the ...

Palmer fires again with his pistol. He hits the Thin Man again. He fails to kill the Thin Man, again. Ardent misses it, exclaiming 'I'll get him next time!'. I'm thinking 'Dude, you are so lucky you are still alive. Eventually there won't be a next time.'

I need to learn not to think such things. The Thin Man runs over to the semi, jumps up on the cab, down on the other side, and ... ignores the doctor again, turning instead to execute Ardent Enthusiast from 10 feet behind him. What the hell?! How did he do that? These things have some serious hops.

Palmer finally manages to kill the darn thing, but it's taken down two of our squad. We creep slowly to the extraction zone, enduring no more alien contact.

POST-MORTEM, OPERATION BLIND SHROUD

Losing two operatives, including Ardent Enthusiast after he took out an XCOM record five aliens on this mission, is very painful. He did have quite an epic death(my most memorable so far) but damn that hurts. Never tell yourself the mission's over until it actually is over. Got too careless there, esp. towards the end.

Kodos is promoted to Seargeant, and given the nickname 'Claymore'. Same for Deacon Palmer, who shall be henceforth known as 'Missionary'. Palmer's three kills tie him with Kodos for active operatives at six apiece. Ardent Enthusiast dies with eight in three operations. Meanwhile, Coffee Warlord was killed in a brave but ultimately failed and useless maneuver to draw fire away from our target, Dr. Marazuki.

ARTIFACTS
4 Sectoid Corpses
4 Thin Man Corpses
16 Weapon Fragments

[Brian Swartz]

We don't get to stay back at XCOM very long. Two new buildings are available(Laboratory and Officer Training School). We begin Xeno-Biology research, a preliminary analysis of the corpses we've recovered so far.

March 26

More alien abductions are underway. A tough choice awaits us:

Brisbane, Australia(Medium Panic, Very Difficult, 200 credits reward)
Buenos Aires, Argentina(Very Low, Moderate, New Recruit(Support Seargeant))
Vancouver, Canada(Low, Moderate, 4 Engineers)

I have no illusions that our squad is up to handling a 'Very Difficult' mission, so Australia's off the table. Maybe I would have dared to risk it if we didn't lose Ardent Enthusiast. Probably not though.

To Vancouver we go. Sterling Silvers is still 5 days away from a return to active duty. This time out, Missionary Palmer becomes the only operative to have not taken a single op off. Backup sniper DJ Malakhov will join him, along with a pair of rookies: Chesapeake Arnold and Shane Korme.

The rookies are outfitted with vests, a scope for Malakhov, medkit of course for Missionary. We haven't a single Assault or Heavy trooper, and need one of the rookies to fit that bill. Hopefully.

En route to Vancouver, we are notified that the US satellite is in position!

[Brian Swartz]

Meanwhile, for the newbies and respawnings, let's update the list. First, those who have already been mentioned in some capacity and not yet killed ...

Sgt. Deacon Palmer(ntndeacon) -- Support
Sgt. Kodos King(Kodos) -- Sniper
Rk. Sterling Silvers(sterlingice)
Sq. DJ Malakhov(MacroGuru) -- Sniper
Rk. Chesapeake Arnold(Chesapeake)
Rk. Shane Korme(korme)

Rk. Lucy Jones(UK) -- unclaimed as we don't have any real female names
Rk. Benton Gale II(American) -- interestingly, the actual in-game name was close, 'Ben Cook'
Rk. Dayo Moshodi(Nigerian Female)
Rk. Lexi Murray(Finnish Female)
Rk. David Gonzalez(kingfc22, Norwegian Male)
Rk. Ace Idol(BYU14, French Male)

The rest will be assigned as more disasters require more recruits:

Rev 'Mr. Ekko' Rew(revrew) -- note that you have to earn a nickname by surviving long enough to get a couple of promotions
Coffee Warlord II(Coffee Warlord)
Ardent Enthusiast II(Poli)

Note: if anyone doesn't care if you are drafted as female(I can't edit gender or nationality), let me know and I can move you up the list either with a changed name or a female with a male name, whatever you prefer.

[Poli]

Poor AE.

[Coffee Warlord]

Well, I lived longer than the original Coffee Warlord, who had an award (re)named after him, upon taking 3 steps out of the Skyranger, plugging one alien, and dying on turn 1.

And no, I care not about gender or anything. I got aliens to kill, and I can do that with or without a penis.

[tucker342]

AJ Tucker reporting for duty sir!
Hair length- short
Hair color - brown
Race - white

[sterlingice]

MacroGuru is now in competition with you for soldiers. Better get back to it

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

MacroGuru is now in competition with you for soldiers. Better get back to it

Roffle! The more the merrier, I say.

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

I lived longer than the original Coffee Warlord, who had an award (re)named after him, upon taking 3 steps out of the Skyranger, plugging one alien, and dying on turn 1.

I think it's basically impossible to die on the first turn here. Very, very possible to die shortly thereafter though :P

Ok, so back to the fight after a nutzo weekend per usual ...

OPERATION BLINDING NIGHT
Theatre: Vancouver, Canada
Touchdown: 7:19 PM, March 26, 2015

Hold on a sec. Blinding Night?! Who comes up with this nonsense? Anyway ...

We deploy in front of a bank, our likely target, but there's room to move east and west. Not an ounce of good reachable cover in any direction. We need to get to that building, but hopefully without exposing our flanks.

Turn 2

Shane Korme moves up to the '24' hour sign just in front of the bank at it's right corner, and spots a couple Sectoids further out that way, in the parking lot to the right and back of the building. He takes a shot at one ... missed. Slow is the only way to advance in this kind of environment.

They return fire, hitting only a blue sedan yards away.

Turn 3

Korme misses again. Chesapeake Arnold moves up behind a sedan ... missing the second enemy. Good grief rookies, would somebody hit something? Deacon Palmer's pretty much locked in place as the only thing covering the flank on the left. DJ Malakhov shifts to the right, behind a brown van.

They fire and injure Arnold, setting the sedan on fire. She's got to move, and two more Sectoids approach from the left, one on the roof, and one in the parking lot around the corner of the bank. Palmer fires at the one up high, missing it completely. This could get bad in a hurry ....

Turn 4

Arnold dashes right to a yellow car -- she's got a flanking angle on one of them from here, and hits it -- but it's only injured and won't go down. DAMN IT!! Korme misfires again.

The blue sedan where Arnold came from explodes, while another Sectoid advances, firing at Arnold and she's down ... permanently. What a bloody mess.

Turn 5

Korme moves up to the near wall of the bank at the corner, while Malakhov complete misses the enemy that was injured. We cannot hit a bloody thing. Vancouver is quickly turning into a no-XCom zone. Palmer stays in overwatch.

The yellow car explodes, the injured enemy misses Korme and takes out a window, making a new hole in the right side of the bank and killing four bushes. Heckuva landscaping bill being racked up here.

Turn 6

Malakhov goes for a headshot and misses again. What ... the ... heck. Korme tries a pistol shot that he probably shouldn't have ... no dice there either.

It fires back, and there's a hole in another side of the bank. That corner where Korme stands doesn't have much left of it.

Turn 7

Malakhov completely misses yet again, while, out of cover, Korme retreats to the sign and does the same thing.

It's not like everything is long-range potshots here, we just, ya know, completely suck today for whatever reason. Another section of the near wall of the bank explodes in burning plasma as they are shooting almost as bad as we are.

Turn 8

More of the same, except completely across the left side of the bank wall sections are disappearing also. That's got to be from the Sectoids over that way.

Turn 9

Malakhov switches to his pistol, out of ammo, hits the already injured Sectoid ... and it still won't go down. How many bullets is that thing gonna take? Korme tries to flank, but can't get far enough forward.

More misses from both sides.

Turn 10

Screw this. Korme hunkers down. Malakhov has to hit something eventually, right? Another miss. This time they fire back at DJ, getting nothing.

Turn 11

Finally. DJ takes out one with a headshot -- that only took all of forever and half more again!! The other one on the right falls back to the rear of the bank.

Turn 12

We need to pursue and somehow cover the left flank at the same time. One of the enemy on the left had the same idea, giving up being patient and flanking around the side of the bank ... it's cut down by Palmer! Well done, Sergeant!!

Turn 13

Ok, one left in each direction. Time to divide and conquer. Korme has a shot at the one on the right, which is presently cowering behind a dark-colored station wagon. Windows shatter, but that's about it. Palmer takes a big risk dashing through the building -- it fires at him and misses.

The second time it does not miss, and Palmer's hurt a bit but still ok.

Turn 14

Palmer leans out a window and drops that enemy. Now to work our way west. Malakhov moves up along the side of another vehicle ... and all hell breaks loose. Two Sectoids on the roof, who have not been heard from to this point, spot him, drop off into the bank, and and slaughter Palmer with shots from his blind side. The second one is fatal.

What an absolute bloody clustered mess screw-up pile of happy horsecrap this is turning out to be.

Korme panicks, for good measure.

Turn 15

DJ fires at one Sectoid that left itself open ... missed wide. Naturally. Just because he's a sniper doesn't mean I should be able to rely on him to, you know, actually hit something once in a while.

They still gun for Korme, and still miss.

Turn 16

Another fail by DJ, while Korme runs for cover like a cowardly fool. They fire at DJ, missing again.

Turn 17

We run out of ammo again, and everyone misses again.

Turn 18

They hit Korme, who's nearly down for the count, and he panicks again.

Turn 19

Another miss by DJ. It's not just a mirage ... we literally can't do anything properly. No idea how, but they managed to flank Korme and still miss him. Thank goodness they suck too.

Turn 20

Korme ducks around and the far right corner of the bank, getting an open shot at and dropping one of them! Another one tries to sneak through the bank, and DJ drops him on the move! What just happened there ... we like, actually hit the target twice in a row?! Something's wrong ...

Turn 21

All right. This has been a bloody horrible crap disaster of a mission, but we can still get out of here alive. There's only one left, so far as we know, out left of the bank. Shane Korme and DJ Malakhov move along the far wall ...

Turn 25

After a few turns of overwatch leapfrog, Korme nears the far west corner and can hear it moving. Apparently the enemy hasn't moved much ...

Taking a peek around the corner, it's sandwiched between a couple vehicles but has no cover in this direction. Which doesn't stop him from hitting nothing but windows on the blue sedan between the enemy and his position.

The Sectoid fires back, and said sedan is on fire now.

Turn 27

After some more misses, Korme finally drops him, and that's the last of them. Cleanup may now commence.

POST-MORTEM, OPERATION BLINDING NIGHT

Horribly named and executed worse, Blinding Night results in losing two more soldiers, Deacon 'Missionary' Palmer and Chesapeake Arnold. XCOM lost one operative in it's first three weeks of operation: it has now lost four in five days. That is a disturbing trend, ladies and gentlemen, and also an unsustainable one.

Shane Korme is promoted to Support Squaddie.

Artifacts
6 Sectoids
12 Weapon Fragments

[MacroGuru]

Ugh...DJ not pulling his weight..

[Brian Swartz]

Meanwhile, back at XCom HQ ...

We get to work on building another satellite uplink, but have only five active soldiers. We recruit two more, all we have the money for.

March 28th -- Project Mobius(Xeno-Biology) has been completed. Sectoid Autopsy is our next endeavor.

April 1st -- Well, we survived a month. We get a B grade from the Council, which has shrunk: Australia has withdrawn. Our income is 461 Credits, 1 Engineer, and 1 Scientist.

Japan and India are in the danger zone at High panic, with China and Argentina at Medium. Clearly, Asia has to be our top priority in keeping the Council together. 1/8 on the Doom Tracker.

Meanwhile, Sterling Silvers returns to active duty and we have a pair of additional recruits.

Construction begins on a power generator and Officer Training School, leaving us with 200 credits.

April 2 -- Sectoid Autopsy is complete, otherwhise known as Project Roswell. They show evidence of cloning, genetic manipulation, and biomedical implants. We can build, but have no reason to right now, Uplink Targeting(to give our interceptors better accuracy).

We'll work on a Thin Man Autopsy next.

Alert! April 5, 7:04 PM

A medium-size UFO has been detected in northern Texas, United States. Raven 1 is scrambled and manages to down it, but sustains severe damage.

To the Skyranger!!

[ntndeacon]

bring back Palmer!!! forever and ever!

[revrew]

Revina "Ms. Ekko" Rew can be a female; and the U.K. is fine if that gal isn't claimed. The rest - black skin, long, royal blue hair - still works.

And we'll earn our nickname. Oh yes, we will. Won't we, precious? Precious says, "Yes."

[Brian Swartz]

Shane Korme is still a day out, so we have Rk. Sterling Silvers finally getting back into the action, along with snipers Sq. DJ Malakhov and Cpl. Kodos King. A new rookie from the US, Coffee Warlord II, also enters the fray.

OPERATION SOARING DRUID
Theatre: United States
Touchdown: April 5, 2015, 9:05 PM

After some rather uneventful explorations ...

Turn 4

CWII spots Thin Men -- three of them -- in the direction of the crashed ship. This could be interesting. They take cover off to our right in elevated positions.

DJ and Coffee combine to kill one of them when it tries to advance -- the second one misses Coffee.

Turn 5

Kodos headshots a second Thin Man -- he's a beast, and we need every one of his shots while we rebuild a decent squad around the corporal.

The final one approaches, missed by Coffee and Silvers before he poisons Kodos! Sigh.

Turn 6

A revenge shot by Kodos misses completely, and Silvers and Coffee join in firing wildly into the air to no effect.

The Thin Man does not missed. Kodos is down and not moving, critically wounded. Malakhov panics, and some new kind of flying alien appears near the ship.

Yeah, this mission has already hit the crapper.

Turn 7

Silvers shoots one of the new arrivals, aptly named Floaters. Coffee hits another, but succeeds only in irritating it. It fires back twice, missing her both times.

Turn 8

Another miss from Silvers. The remaining Thin Man unleashes a fatal barrage at CWII, and DJ panicks again. Surprised he hasn't eaten his pistol yet, frankly.

Turn 9

Sterling Silvers is right on top of a floater ... and misses. The return fire kills him. Yeah, that just about sums it up. Meanwhile, helplessly lying on the ground with no-one able to help, Corporal Kodos bleeds out.

Turn 10

DJ Malakhov is now solo, and back from panickland. He celebrates by shooting down a Floater.

Turn 11

Malakhov injures another floater, who fires back and misses. Surprisingly competent stuff there DJ.

Turn 15

After a lot of essentially useless maneuvering, the Thin Man gets a reaction shot that wings DJ, but he's not out of the fight yet.

Turn 16

More missed shots are traded back and forth with the floater.

Turn 17

Malakhov headshots the floater. Finally! Only one Thin Man remains, at least in terms of the immediate danger.

It responds by nailing DJ, who joins his comrades in making this their final mission.

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.

5 dead aliens, while Corporal Kodos King(8 kills, 5 missions), Squaddie DJ Malakhov(5 kills, 3 missions), Rookie Sterling Silvers(2 kills, 2 missions), and Rookie Coffee Warlord II(No kills, dead in the first mission like her predecessor) are added to the rapidly growing memorial back at HQ.

[Brian Swartz]

Precious probably doesn't know what it's talking about

But yeah, you're up for the next mission then with the Nigerian.

[MacroGuru]

Alright..that sucks..DJ was hanging in there except for the panic..

New Rookie for the grubbing

Brayden De Brach
Somewhere in Europe..

[sterlingice]

Sure, Sterling is good for sequels

SI