Lazy Saturnday

Mission 5 (Operation Fading Giant) is another abduction site. This time Wendy and Dave are both out of med-bay, though Caitlin is still recovering. We’ll at least have two Squaddies who have seen combat this time. The location is Bloemfontein, South Africa. Gary and Laura H., the two Rookies on this mission will surely learn a lot from Wendy and Dave. Everyone has been equipped with medipaks this time.

Dave spots a pair of Sectoids and opens fire but the shot is wide. Wendy moves up to a covering position and flushes a pair of Floaters. Things are heating up fast. Wendy misses, but Laura manages to get her first hit, though sadly it only wings the Sectoid. The Floaters try to flank and lay some heavy suppression fire down on Dave.

Gary takes out the Floater on the flank, but the suppressing one is too far away. Wendy moves up and finishes off the wounded sectoid and Dave goes on Overwatch, hoping for the aliens to make a mistake. And another pair of sectoids shows up. The squad is advancing slowly, but the graveyard is full of cover which cuts both ways, and most of their shots wound aliens at best, or go wide entirely.

Wendy takes a risk drawing fire from a Sectoid but making it to cover and putting down the last Floater. Laura manages to get the first double kill, as apparently when you kill an alien that is using mind control on another, the controlled alien is also killed. Hurrah, this is our second injury free mission!

Dave and Caitlin have both been promoted. Dave to Support and Caitlin to Assault. It’ll be a week or two before either of them is back on their feet, I need to hire some more recruits. Australia is in a panic, as we didn’t have funds to put a satellite up, they’ve withdrawn which is bad news. We did get a B on our first month.

We’re down to 6 soldiers, one of whom is still in the infirmary. Times are rough all over, 4 of them are going in to try and put a stop to an alien abduction site in Lille, France. Sadly we have no experienced soldiers, so it’s 4 Rookies, Caitlin, Dave, James and Highcove who will be going on Operation Shattered Hero.

The squad starts moving to cover, and almost immediately spots a pair of Sectoids. Caitlin is first to bring her gun to bear but misses, James manages to hit his target, and Dave also misses, but the remain x-ray flees out of sight of the squad.

Highcove slips around a van, flanking the fleeing Sectoid and taking it out. The rest of the squad moves up and goes on overwatch. The keyword of this operation is going to be slow and steady.

While James is reloading another pair of Sectoids burst out of a building down the street. Highcove takes a couple of shots and they scamper back into cover. Dave and Highcove both move into cover and take a few shots, but the x-rays are too far away and have excellent cover. Caitlin charges through the building to try and get a flank position and James moves up. The aliens return fire, wounding Highcove.

Caitlin opens the back door of the building but is unable to draw line of sight to either of the Sectoids, so when Highcove ducks into the building, she uses her Medipak on him.

James and Dave exchange more fire with the x-rays, and Dave takes a hit. There’s not enough cover here, and we’re almost out of medical supplies. Of course this is when Caitlin spots another pair of aliens coming up the side street. Dave manages to sprint into the building and heal himself, but one of the Sectoids manages to hit James with a mortal wound.

Highcove manages to take an alien down, but the plasma weapons can blast through the walls they are using for cover, and with nowhere to hide Highcove is blasted. Dave panics, firing wildly. Caitlin meanwhile has found a quite corner to reload. Moments later recovers enough to take out an x-ray that was attempting to flank their position and Caitlin makes a surprise attack from her position beside a freshly collapsed wall.

The remaining alien flees to the roof then hops back down and takes cover behind a mysterious alien device. A third pair of Sectoids shows up, and one runs right into the ruins of the store, diving behind a display rack at the last second as Dave and Caitlin spot it. It wasn’t quick enough though, and Dave takes it out, while Caitlin puts down the Sectoid hiding behind the machine. Hopefully there really is only one left.

This final x-ray is quite brazen, running into the store and standing on the fallen corpse of it’s comrade to fire directly at Caitlin, wounding her. Dave takes a shot but misses and Caitlin runs for cover to reload. The alien runs outside, and when Caitlin puts it down proves that it is in fact the last one and the mission is at least a partial success.

Memorial:

Anjoli KIA 3/5/2015; 2 Missions; 3 Kills

Will KIA 3/12/2015; 1 Mission; 1 Kill

Naeem KIA 3/26/2015; 4 Missions; 7 Kills

Patrick KIA 3/26/2015; 4 Missions; 2 Kills

Joanna KIA 3/26/2015; 3 Missions; 5 Kills

Duncan KIA 3/26/2015; 1 Missions; 2 Kills

Highcove KIA 3/26/2015; 1 Missions; 2 Kills

James KIA 3/26/2015; 1 Missions; 1 Kill

Operation Severed Jester

Our power generator is online, and some basic research is underway, but funding is short. Fortunately the Council has a mission for us. A high value target is under fire in Melbourne. If we can get the target out safely we will reap both financial rewards and support from the scientific community.

Sq. Joanna is out of the infirmary and eager to get back in the fight. Also on this mission are Sq. Patrick, Cp. Naeem and Rookie Duncan on his first mission. Not but a few minutes in and a new alien appears, flanks the squad and takes Naeem down. He was the most experienced soldier we had so his loss is felt especially hard. Fortunately the squad holds it together and the Royes lay down a hail of fire that puts the Thin Man out of our misery.

Our target is Anna Swift, once her area was secured we began moving her back to the extraction zone, but of course, more aliens started pouring in right about then.

So much for this being a low loss mission. As the squad approached the extraction zone, they holed up behind a fountain. A Thin Man popped up and took cover where Naeem had been crouching when he was killed, and proceeded to exchange fire with Duncan. Sadly the x-ray won the exchange and when Duncan went down, Patrick panicked and began firing wildly, glancing Joanna in our first case of friendly fire. The VIP we’re trying extract also panicked.

Patrick got things back under control and began advancing, but the x-ray took out Joanna, and then Patrick in short order.

This mission was a total bust.

Memorial:

Anjoli KIA 3/5/2015; 2 Missions; 3 Kills

Will KIA 3/12/2015; 1 Mission; 1 Kill

Naeem KIA 3/26/2015; 4 Missions; 7 Kills

Patrick KIA 3/26/2015; 4 Missions; 2 Kills

Joanna KIA 3/26/2015; 3 Missions; 5 Kills

Duncan KIA 3/26/2015; 1 Missions; 2 Kills

Operation Rotting Ring

So we’ve done a little research, and and shot down our first UFO. We sent in our two experienced crew members Patrick and Naeem, and Joanna is still injured so next up on the roster were two green Rookies; Will and Wendy.

The squad moved in carefully on the crashed vessel, keeping to cover and covering each other carefully. However tragedy soon struck and a pair of x-rays both managed to score hits on Mirone killing him. Wendy was also hit, but the squad managed to neutralize most of the threat and she was able to get back to the relative safety of some covering wreckage where Patrick was able to fix her up w/ a medkit. The rest of the x-rays were dusted without further mishap. 

Wendy was promoted, and assigned to Assault class from her hospital bed, but the docs say she should be back on her feet in a couple of week.

Memorial:

Anjoli KIA 3/5/2015; 2 Missions; 7 Kills

Will KIA 3/12/2015; 1 Mission; 1 Kill

It was the worst of ideas, it was the best of ideas. Classic Difficulty X-Com: Enemy Unknown on Ironman mode and every Soldier gets named after one of my friends. Initial squad of four is my Thursday Night gaming buddies, Anjoli (Assault), Joanna (Support), Naeem (Sniper) and Patrick (Heavy). All four made it through the first mission without incident.

The second mission (Operation Blind Future) was not so successful. Anjoli got ambushed early by some sectoids and killed three but was killed as well. Joanna was shot, and Patrick used his medkit to fix her up. Then she got shot again, and Naeem abandoned his sniping post to stabilize her before she bled out. Naeem was definitely the MVP, taking out 6 aliens, and was promoted to Corporal.

Memorial:

Anjoli KIA 3/5/2015; 2 Missions; 7 Kills