it could be me dead in the UFO...im in there too...no offense jeeber, but i hope its you...

What a team player. ;)

I went in a different direction from you and the blaster was coming straight towards me. So most likely I'm the one who is now human spaghetti sauce...

61st Mission: German Supply Ship!
(continued from this afternoon!)

(previously on X-COM II)

Nothing! But suddenly a Sectoid comes around the far corner, about 20 feet away! Oh no! He’s got a blaster launcher! Jeeber lifts his heavy plasma to fire, but he’s too slow! The Sectoid fires. From point blank range, the deadly rocket comes whooshing towards Jeeber D, who closes his eyes and prays.

(and now our story continues)

The rocket slams into the wall of the UFO mere inches from Jeeber’s head and...

…falls to the ground? It didn’t explode! It was a dud? Both Jeeber and the Sectoid look stunned, but suddenly both parties realize that the tables have turned completely, as the Sectoid is holding an empty Blaster Launcher and Jeeber D is holding a loaded Heavy Plasma. Jeeber quickly levels his heavy plasma just as the Sectoid turns to run away. Jeeber fires and blows the Sectoid against the wall of the UFO, where it drops to the floor with a thud. Wow! Jeeber D survived the impossible, and gets a kill to boot! Guess what breakfast cereal he eats! That’s right, Lucky Charms! X-COM 6, Aliens 0.

As this drama comes to an end, at the other end of the UFO, Coffee manages to exit the UFO and start back towards the Skyranger. Blade 6119 edges towards the next corner of the corridor. Suddenly, a Sectoid comes charging around the corner! Blade 6119 is face to face with the enemy, but before he can react, the Sectoid jams a laser pistol in his crotch and pulls the trigger. The direct hit from point blank range caves in the lower portion of Blade 6119’s Power Suit. Blade 6119 feels a flash of agony, then a wave of black nausea washes over him. He drops his heavy plasma to the floor of the UFO and falls to his hands and knees. He immediately fights through the nausea and rises back up to his knees, but before he can do anything more, the Sectoid jams the laser pistol in Blade 6119’s stomach and pulls the trigger again. The weakened armor gives way, and Blade 6119’s stomach explodes with a whoosh, splattering the walls of the UFO corridor in red. Still conscious, Blade reaches out weakly for his heavy plasma, but the Sectoid sticks his laser pistol in the shoulder joint of Blade 6119’s armor and fires again. Blade’s shoulder explodes and his arm—separated at the joint—cartwheels backwards and lands on the ground. Blade 6119 looks at his severed stump, then turns to the Sectoid. The Sectoid uses the butt end of the laser pistol to smash Blade 6119’s faceplate, snapping Blade’s head back and peppering his face with glass. The alien then flips the gun around and points it right in Blade 6119’s face. Blade 6119, mouth full of his own regurgitated blood, spits a defiant red stream right in the alien’s face. A second later the alien fires: Blade 6119 III’s head explodes with a gush of red. His lifeless body drops to the ground. X-COM 6, Aliens 1.

Damn it. We’re in trouble. We’ve got no one on that side of the UFO. We send everyone into action. Afoci and Tasan start sprinting towards the near door. Jeeber D turns around and heads back towards where we expect this dangerous Sectoid to appear along the corridor. To cover the other end of the corridor, Tucker and Illinifan V approach the far door of the UFO, pop it open and enter the craft. They head left, go past Jeeber D’s kill, and start around the next corner. Wade leaves the Skyranger and starts sprinting towards the UFO. RealDeal plots a firing course with his blaster launcher, then holds fire when he realizes that there is a greater likelihood that he’ll take out our own men than this enemy.

Jeeber D drops to a knee near the near exit and awaits the Sectoid to turn the next corner in front of him. Afoci reaches the near door of the UFO, just as the Sectoid comes around the corner on the inside of the craft in front of Jeeber D and the outer door. Afoci steps inside just as the Sectoid fires. The laser shot catches Afoci in the knee, denting his armor and sending a flash of burning white pain up his spine. But Afoci stays on his feet, and both Jeeber D and he open fire on the Sectoid, who is only a few feet away. Streams of green plasma hit the Sectoid simultaneously. In a few short seconds, there is nothing left but a pile of green goop. Revenge! X-COM 7, Aliens 1.

Wade and Tasan enter the UFO shortly after that, and the four men start an advance to the grav-lift that goes up to the third floor. From the other side, Jeff Nights II, Tucker, and Illinifan V start working their way to the lift from the other side of the craft. Tucker, Afoci, and Wade reach the lift first. Afoci and Tucker make it in safely, then head up to the third floor. Wade follows quickly behind them. Once there, Tucker approaches the grav-lift exit door, pops it open, and takes a quick look: nothing there. In the past, the Sectoid commanders have hidden out in the bridge, which lies at the other end of this floor. Rather than risk a room-to-room search, we call Real Deal and his blaster launcher. A couple of lucky shots to the bridge could save us a lot of trouble. Real Deal plots the course, pulls the trigger, and sends a missile on a winding course that ends at the outer wall of the bridge. There is a loud roar from that end of the craft, and we hear the frantic screams of a dying alien! Yes! Real got one! X-COM 8, Aliens 1.

And that is the last alien! It’s over!

Tough to lose such a fine agent as Blade 6119, but so many rookies taking a supply ship with only one casualty is a job well done. Way to go, men!

Wrap-up

Kills: Tasan, 1; Real Deal III, 1; Coffee Warlord , 1; Jeeber D, 3; Afoci, 1; Illinifan V, 2.
KIA: Blade 6119 III.
Wounded: None (Afoci was ok!).
Wet Diaper: Jeeber D, 1.
Attribute Improvements: Tasan, RealDeal III, Coffee Warlord II, Jeeber D, Afoci, Illinifan V.
Final score: ? Forgot to look at this again.
Mission Notes:
Jeeber D gets a hatrick! Well done! His grenade toss apparently got two Sectoids.

I have no idea what happened with Blade 6119 III. He just stood there while the alien got off four shots in a row. Damn. That was ugly.

I’ve decided to move the promotions news to it’s own post. There were a lot of them after this mission, as we have lost two sergeants on our last two missions, and now have enough men for another Captain’s position.

Go FOF X-COM!

Aww, screw the blaster launcher and get me an alien commander!







Preferably not Kodos.

That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me!

Oooh, a night mission. Scary. Good work, men! Shame about Blade6119, tho.

did you have to describe in such detail the killing?..my god...i was quenching the entire time...

Lets see...i talk about having asott "accidently" kill godzilla...godzilla says he should use that here...Blade6119,who has never been beaten in reactin by an alien does nothing while getting blasted to smitherens...godzilla blitz magically doesn't know whats going on...hmmmmm, i do! Well....everyone better watch out, because when blade6119 IV hits the game, its going to be a japanese monster bloodbath.

Oh...have a nice day!

You crazy Arizonian you...

you crazy thankfully not texan you...

Crappy: You actually just started "researching" another commander now. It's the leader we need again (I researched the other one in the wrong order), and they can only be gotten at alien bases.

Afoci: You did very well on your first mission!

Blade 6119: As soon as you died, I knew you would think that I did it on purpose. I just knew it. But really, I didn't. I actually sent you in what I thought would be the safer direction: Jeeber went the other way and got shot at by the blaster launcher, right? It was just that he got unbelieavably lucky, and you balanced our luck out. I've never seen someone get shot four times at point blank range and not react. It was unreal. Sorry about your death, but I would never willingly kill an agent.

Well, maybe not "never", but I haven't done it yet, anyway.

Don't get any bright ideas, GB. :)

Especially with me. Despite the fact I have a bad track record, and my boy has been mindzotted twice now, he keeps on kickin! Wheee!

CWII deserves promotion to Captain, I tell you!

Actually, commanders are the highest ranking aliens in the game. Leaders are one level below them. You need to capture a leader (I think a commander will work too) to research Alien Origins, but you need a commander to figure out where the alien's main base is. While the game only says a commander is needed, only a commander from an alien base will give you the information you need. Battleships also have a commander, but battleship commanders don't have that info.

At least I think battleship commanders can't tell you where the main alien base is. Now I can't remember if the game says commanders are only found at bases (which I know is wrong), or if it only says that you need a commander, in which case what I just described above is accurate. Maybe I need to go find my book and double-check.

That, my friend, is Karma coming back to kick you in the ass...

Alien Origins can be researched by capturing anyone. Martian Solution is gotten by capturing a leader, and the actual final battle information is gotten by capturing a commander.

That's right. That's what I get for trying to pull that all from memory. :)

And this kinda useless trivia is what I get for having an eidetic memory. :)

Great job as always GB. The desription of Blades's death was gut-wrenching and over-the-top, but excellent nontheless.

Keep up the good work. And send out SP3 on a mission every now and then. We'd like to kick some alien butt especially after what that basterd did to Blade. :mad:

**Stares at the phone and decides to risk missing THE call
**Places an order for a case of Lucky Charms br4eakfast cereal
**Hangs up and continues staring at the phone

Great Job everyone! How the hell did Jeeber survive!?!?!?!?!?

Now I know why I've never recognized that word before. It's absolutely 100% never been used to describe me. I have an absolutely awful visual imagination/recall. Considering the company I keep sometimes, I think that helps in my fight for sanity.

SI

I have to balance out the fact that I have such a high recall ability with lots and lots of alcohol. It numbs out the stuff I don't want burned into my skull. :)

The important thing, apparently, it to research Aliens Origins first, otherwise when you research the Leader and the Commander, you get no results.

Um, ahem, Crappy didn't figure that out so he went ahead and researched the Sectoid Leader and Commander that we nabbed on our first base assault before researching Alien Origins. Basically this means that all those men that died on the first base mission kind of died in vain, and we need to get another Leader and another Commander.

We nabbed a Leader somewhere back there, and Crappy's men are working on him now, but we still need another base Commander to solve the alien riddle.

Tucker: I have no idea what happened on that blaster missile shot. The Sectoid came around the corner, fired the missle, the missle went right at Jeeber D (there was no way the alien could miss, as the firing angle was such that any miss would hit the wall right beside Jeeber), and then nothing happened. The only thing I can think of is that somehow the alien programmed the missile to end its course in the air. If you don't program a missile so it actually hits something, it will just drop harmlessly to the ground in the last square of its firing course.

Split: Yeah, I feel badly that there have been quite a few people that haven't been on missions in a while. I apologize. One of my goals has been to get the active readers on roughly the same amount of missions, but with three UFOs hitting Europe for every one that hits somewhere else, it just seems to be that Europe gets more than its share of the action. Once we get this next base mission done, I'm going to try to rotate people in to Europe on a regular basis so that we get closer to an even mission balance.

Also, we've got about a dozen agents from the "pre-thesis" stage who I don't think are reading the dynasty any more. I'm thinking about putting all of them together on one base and abbreviating the write-ups for their missions. I may do a roll call after our next base mission so we can be sure who the people are that aren't around any more.

Japh: Thanks for the correction on the leader/commander mix-up. In the game we're doing it correctly (i.e., currently researching the leader, looking for the commander). I wrote it up wrong, though. Thanks.

I'm still going to aim to get the next mission up on Sunday, but I think it will be very late when it does go up, and it might be Monday before I can post it. I'll try to set up the mission on Saturday, but it might be tough to do before Sunday. In any case, we should get pretty much back on track with this next mission.

Announcement

X-COM command regrets the loss of some of our top agents in Portugal and now in Germany. However, new leaders must be called forward to replace the fallen. We announce the following promotions, effective immediately:

Patman II: Captain
Sachmo II: Sergeant
Achilles: Sergeant
Qwikshot II: Sergeant

Afoci: Squaddie
Illinifan V: Squaddie

Congratulations, men. Lead us well.

Why am I not a squaddie? I thought you got Squaddie automatically when you got a kill? Or am I already a squaddie? If so, why am I not a sergeant? There's a hero inside of me, and I'm pretty brave myself.

Update

UFO activity completely stops over the course of the next few days. This gives us some badly needed time for recruits to get into our bases. By the 9th of September, eight new agents arrive at our EU COM base: Lokugh II, Sir Fozzie, Wolfpack, Japherwaki II, Condors II, Marmel, Swaggs, and Travis III. They are weighed, tested, and assigned sleeping quarters within a few hours. By the end of the day on the 9th, our ranks are back up to 100%. Afoci, Tucker, and Jeeber D are shifted to other bases to balance our forces better.

Also on the 9th, Sterling Ice happily gives us word that the EU COM Hyper-Wave Decoder is now online and functioning at 100%. This amazing device, modelled using alien technology, will locate 100% of the UFOs within its search radius, and will also give us much more information about the size and course of the UFOs it finds. It is a major breakthrough in our ability to identify and hunt enemy craft.

ASIA COM also completes the construction of an engineering workshop that will be used entirely to help improve our finances. We hire 50 more engineers for the site. Once there, they will begin construction of profitable military products that we can sell to various corporate concerns. This should help our bottom line significantly.

Finally, just after midnight on the 10th, the quiet ends. ASIA COM radar picks up a small UFO soaring across the Pacific. Toddiec IV launches in the Interceptor to hunt it down. After a long, 12-hour chase, he engages and forces the craft down over northern India. We put Kodos, Sachmo II, and eight complete rookies aboard the EU COM Skyranger, and send them into battle. They should reach the UFO crash sight just before dark on the 10th.

On board: Kodos, Sachmo II, Travis III, Marmel, Swaggs, Sir Fozzie, Condors II, Wolfpack, Japherwaki II, and Lokugh II.

Good luck, men. Remember that Kodos is on our side.

Real: You've been a squaddie for days now. Haven't you noticed the bigger paychecks? Do you even cash the things?

X-COM II Troop Master List (After Mission 61)

USA COM

EU COM

ASIA COM

SAM COM






X-COM II Troop Attributes
Support Personnel

Attribute Leaders (After Mission 61)

Attribute Doggies (After Mission 61)

Top Ten Kills Leaders
Waiting List

The Hall of Heroes

New Recruit Analysis

Swaggs, Marmel, and Condors II clearly look to be the cream of the crop of our eight new recruits. Good bravery, fast reactions, and good shooting are tough to improve, and these guys have some nice scores in all three of these critical attributes. Getting three rookies with such high numbers is a fantastic break for us after losing so many good men in the past couple of battles. Travis III is not far behind these three guys. Lokugh II looks to have middle of the road ratings.

At the bottom end of things, Wolfpack, who may be the weakest agent we have ever recruited, is going to have to rely on his shooting to stay alive. Sir Fozzie's bravery, or lack of it, is a matter of concern, but if he can keep his wits about him, he could do well with his blindingly fast reactions. Japherwaki II should eat lots of Lucky Charms, pray daily, and try to stay as far away from aliens as possible.

Dang, missed out on another mission. Must... get... kill numbers... up.

well...at least im one of only 3 dead in the top kills list...shows i did well before dying...maybe after the roll cal we should start using those inactive members for the dangerous roles...or, if you want a challenge, purposely kill them off...might make for an interesting twist in a war we are winning...

Oh, and godzilla...i was just joking...i know your pissed about me ruining the phoenix flames dynasty, and some other things, but i trust you will only hurt me if you see me in real life....besides...11 missions...13 kills...still a squaddie...hmmm Oh well...maybe ill have better stats this time.

Im back, and glad to see this welcoming me. While i was gone many of my brothers have died, and i am truly sorry. Im ready to exact my revenge on those alien pricks!

So I get one of the worst characters ever, and you're going to make me guess my stamina? My luck the question mark is either a 0 or a 1.

So hey, I noticed you were able to say something nice about all the other rookies. What about me? Where's my positive comment? What's my redeeming quality?

Or maybe the best question is, who let me through the recruiting process, and has he or she been fired yet? :)

AStott: You volunteered for the next base assault, right? You time is near!

Blade 6119: Glad you understand! And I'm not pissed about that Phoenix thingie either. Didn't bother me at all. Blade 6119 III had a damn fine run, too, if I may add. Number six on the all-time kills list in 11 missions is one fine record. And most importantly, he broke the family jinx. Let's hope Blade 6119 IV is the last member of the Blade 6119 family that we'll need to call up.

Achilles: Welcome back, sergeant!

Japherwaki: Your stamina is 63. Sorry, I couldn't read my own writing when I put it up last night, and didn't have the game handy to guess. Um, let's see. Something good to say about you. How about...

You have good ratings in all the useless combat skills. That's positive, right?

Actually, you're not that bad. If you're hidden PSI-skills are good enough and you survive some missions, you could end up being a decent agent. I mean, look at Jfbbis. He had almost no skills when he came up, and he's still around.

______

By the way, the next mission should almost certainly go up tomorrow sometime (probably late evening).

Base mission... oh yeah. Righto. I'm ready. Bring it on.

Hmmm more kills than Patman II and he gets the promotion to Captain. Thomkal II (and not me) is a bit steamed.

Enjoying the dynasty as always GB, even if I'm not posting much at the moment.

Can't believe that blaster missile failure last time or the brutality of that attack on Blade. Good thing he died, he would have been a eunuch after that first shot anyway

BWAHAHA!

SI

Isn't there some way to know about the PSI ratings of people through tech or is that always a hidden rating?

SI

I should probably let somebody who's played the game in this century answer, but I'll take a stab at it: I believe the PSI ratings are hidden until you develop the PSI labs (or whatever they're called). Once the agents go through PSI training you can see their PSI ratings.

Can anyone confirm or refute my questionable recollection of how this works?

Correcto, Fonz. Every agent has a psi rating to start. It only becomes visible after they go through a month of psi training.

Every month, you can select 10 agents per psi facility to train.

Crappy's men have completed this research, and Sterling Ice's men are currently building PSI-labs at both EU COM and USA COM. They should go online before the end of this month, which means we can get 20 agents PSI-trained in October.

62nd Mission: Rookies and Newbies, Oh My!!

The EU Skyranger crosses Eastern Europe on a cloudless, cool, September afternoon. We should have no problems reaching today’s target: a downed UFO scout in rural, north India.

You can taste the fear inside the Skyranger. Injuries and death have whittled down our agent force, forcing a massive call up of nearly a dozen rookies in the past week. Eight of them are aboard the Skyranger today, and Kodos and Sachmo II will have their hands full keeping this crew in one piece.

Thirty minutes later, as the sun starts its dive towards the horizon, the Skyranger begins its gradual descent to the Indian countryside. The men inside mouth silent prayers to their gods to keep them alive through their first battle.

Left Side:
1. Lokugh II (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
2. Travis III (Laser Pistol, Power Suit)
3. Sachmo II (Blaster Launcher, Laser Pistol, Power Suit)
4. Japherwaki II (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
5. Marmel (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)

Right Side
1. Kodos (Heavy Plasma, Stun Launcher, Power Suit)
2. Sir Fozzie (Blaster Launcher, Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
3. Wolfpack (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
4. Condors II (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
5. Swaggs (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)

The Skyranger drops the final 100 meters to the Indian countryside. We’ve got the usual fare: farmland and groves, with scattered fences and walls splitting them up. We’ll be coming down on the northern side of the battlefield. The area to the immediate rear of the Skyranger is secure. To the left of the exit, we can see a small date tree grove. To the right of the exit, towards the nose of the Skyranger, there is a collection of small, one-story shacks. Directly at the nose of the Skyranger is a small, wooded area. Everything else is flat farmland. We can make out no sign of the UFO yet.

The Skyranger hits the ground, bounces once, then comes to rest on the dusty Indian soil. The exit ramp falls away with a thud, and a cool afternoon breeze wafts into the Skyranger bay. There are no signs of alien activity. Our tanks rumbles down the ramp, scans right, and spots a Floater, about 20 feet away, in an open field to the left of the shanties! Lokugh II is quick on the heels of the tank. He hits the ramp, jumps left, lands on his feet, turns right, braces his weapon using the ramp of the Skyranger, and pulls the trigger. The Floater is trying to get to cover, but Lokugh II opens up its back with his first shot, and the Floater tumbles to the ground with a scream! X-COM 1, Aliens 0.

As we swing our tank up towards the shacks that lie beside our Skyranger on the right, Sir Fozzie exits the craft and takes up a firing position behind a low stone wall that lies next to the shacks. Once there, he spots the looming shape of a cross-shaped UFO lying about ten feet beyond the shanties. He scans the battlefield for movement…

There, inside the second shack! Sir Fozzie sees a splash of purple cut in front of one of the windows, then it disappears! He also hears the click of a wooden door opening as well. There may be a couple of them in here, and they are very close.

We move up tank further up alongside the shacks. We can now see that there are only two of them: a larger one next to us and a smaller one just beyond the first one. Travis III exits the Skyranger, heads left, and takes up a firing position at the Skyranger landing gear. Inside the Skyranger, Wolfpack prepares a grenade and steps to the edge of the exit ramp. We might be able to take out any aliens in that second shanty with a grenade toss over the first one.

On the other side of the Skyranger, Lokugh II breaks away from the Skyranger and heads into the grove at the left of our exit. The grove is fairly open, and he can easily see that there are no aliens inside it. The area beyond it is showing up as “clear” on our radar, so Lokugh breaks left again and starts heading up through the fields that lie alongside the Skyranger to the left of the exit.

Back at the shanties, we edge our tank up to the corner of the first shanty…

Floater, standing right outside the door on the south side of the first shack! We put our tank in reverse and pull it back a few meters. Sir Fozzie preps a grenade and tosses it over the first shanty to land just a few feet away from the door. Wolfpack exits the Skyranger, runs up beside Sir Fozzie, and tosses his grenade up over the first shanty to land just beyond the second one.

Slam! Bam! The two grenades go off within seconds of each other. Wood planking and dirt are scattered about in the ferocious blasts, as the backsides of both flimsy buildings are blown apart. Just after Fozzie’s erupts, we hear the Floater near the door screaming in agony! Well thrown, rookie! X-COM 2, Aliens 0.

We send our tank around the corner. It scans the remains of the buildings, but sees no signs of Floater movement. Looks like there was only one in here, and Sir Fozzie blew it apart. However, our tank spots another collection of shacks about 30 feet away, which lie just to the right of the UFO.

Things fall quiet for a moment, and we devise a plan. We know that the door to the UFO lies on the far side of the craft, exactly opposite from our position. We’ll send Swaggs and Wolfpack around the north side of the UFO to converge on the exit door from that side. We’ll send Marmel and Travis III behind the tank, and have it cut between the newly found shacks and the UFO to converge on the door from the south side. Japherwaki II and Condors II will search the newly found shacks. Sir Fozzie will pull back, join Lokugh II, and together the two of them will confirm that the fields to the left of the Skyranger are clear of enemies. Kodos and Sachmo II, our babysitters today, will stay at the Skyranger in case things get ugly.

We move out, and all the agents start on their way. Swaggs and Wolfpack start down the left side of the shattered shacks. Travis III and Marmel meet at the tank, and they quickly go around the other side of the shacks and head towards the UFO. Not far behind them, Japherwaki II and Condors II start around the first set of shacks and head off towards the second set.

As Swaggs and Wolfpack work their way towards the UFO, they see smoke drifting out of a large hole in the center of the craft. Following our usual procedure in such cases, Swaggs pops the pin on his grenade and tosses it up and into the craft. Wham! The grenade goes off with a muffled boom: we can hear the death screams of a Floater inside! Yes! Easy candy! X-COM 3, Aliens 0.

Travis III and Marmel, approaching the UFO from the other side of the shacks, decide to try their luck as well. Travis III tosses up a grenade into the gaping roof hole. The grenade goes off almost instantly, but we hear no alien screams follow it. Damn. The men also can now see that there is a two-story building tucked against the backside of one of the shacks in the second cluster. Double damn. Without knowing what lies in that building, we can’t safely approach the UFO from this side: Travis III and Marmel would be dead meat if there were anything inside that building.

A little ways behind them, Japherwaki II and Condors II begin their cautious approach on the second set of shacks. And in the field on the other side of the Skyranger, Lokugh II and Sir Fozzie make it far enough to see that this side of the Skyranger is indeed clear of aliens. The two men turn left and start to work their way up to Japherwaki II and Condors II. Meanwhile, back at the Skyranger, Kodos exits the craft and takes up a long-ranger firing position behind the wall to the right of the Skyranger. Sachmo II also exits the Skyranger and takes up a firing position with the Blaster Launcher. With buildings in play, the Blaster Launcher might be needed; with Floaters around, buildings are never really “clear”, as Floaters can fly over the tops of buildings where we can’t see, and Kodos can now spot some of this movement from a ways back of the battlefield.

Wolfpack and Swaggs continue around the north side of the UFO. Marmel and Travis III have to hold up where they are and wait for Japherwaki II and Condors II to clear the building that lies off to their right.

Japherwaki II reaches the wall of the first shack, and turns the corner along the far side. Floater sniper! He’s lying on top of the two-story building, with his scope facing the area that Marmel and Travis are heading for. Japherwaki II has a decent shot from where he is. He takes careful aim and lets rip on full-auto. His first shots sail badly wide and alert the Floater, who quickly shifts to take aim at Japherwaki! Hurry up, Japh! Japh keeps his finger on the trigger, and just as the Floater sets up, one of Japh’s shots catches him in the chest, sending up quick spray of purple! The floater lets out a gurgle and his head slumps down. Way to go, Japh! X-COM 4, Aliens 0.

Japh can now see that there is two-story barn that lies about 40 yards to the south of the two-story building. We send Lokugh II and Sir Fozzie in that direction.

While Marmel and Travis II wait behind the tank, Marmel decides to use his grenade as well. He primes it, then lobs it into the hole. There is a crash inside the UFO, and we once again hear an alien scream! Marmel’s got his first kill! X-COM 5, Aliens 0.

On the other side of the UFO, Wolfpack and Swaggs reach the far corner of the craft, go around it, and set up firing positions on the exit. From here they are also facing the as yet unsecured two-story building, and they should be able to react to any movement from inside there as well.

Japherwaki II and Condors II quickly clear the first set of shacks and approach the building.

Meanwhile, Kodos decides to get a little exercise. He approaches the UFO, preps his grenade, and tosses it up and into the hole in the roof. Boom! Another blasts rips apart the interior of the craft, but once again, we come up empty handed. Kodos then slips back to his firing position at the wall.

As Lokugh II and Sir Fozzie approach the barn, Japherwaki II and Condors II reach the windows on the first building. The first floor is split up into several rooms. From here everything looks clear. Japh goes in the back door and starts clearing rooms while Condors II goes around and comes in the front door. They meet in the central area, and get ready to barge up to the second floor. Japh walks over to the stairs, places his foot on the first step, and looks up the stairs…

Whoa! Two Floaters! They are facing the other way—apparently they are waiting to ambush anyone that approaches the UFO—and they are unaware of Japh’s presence below. Japh quickly whispers an alert to Marmel and Travis III, who are only about 20 feet away, just shy of reaching the building on the UFO side. Wolfpack and Swaggs also train their weapons up at the walls and windows. Japh whispers “On three! One, two, three!” Everything and everyone open fire at the same time: Japh blows huge holes in the back of one of the Floaters, sending it sprawling to its death. From the other side, our rocket tank sends a missile into the brick wall that makes up the exterior of the second floor. The explosion blows a large hole in the side of the building and spews brick and glass to the ground below. A fraction of a second later, Wolfpack, Swaggs, Marmel, and Travis III begin pouring heavy plasma fire into the second floor. Travis III watches as two of his shots slam into the second Floater, spinning it like a rag doll and sending it twisting to its death! Whoa, baby, that was one awesome display of firepower! X-COM 7, Aliens 0.

And that is the last alien! Well done! Seven dead aliens and no casualties!

Wrap-up

Kills: Travis III, 1; Swaggs , 2; Japherwaki II, 2; Marmel, 1; Sir Fozzie, 1; Lokugh II, 1.
KIA: None
Wounded: None
Attribute Improvements: Travis III, Swaggs, Japherwaki II, Marmel, Sir Fozzie, Lokugh II, Kodos.
Final score: 100-something
Mission Notes:
Swaggs apparently got two aliens with his grenade toss inside the UFO!

Good mission. We spread the kills our reasonably well, as six of our eight rookies on board picked up at least one kill. Just what we wanted.

Master GB knows how to play this game !

Take that, alien scum!

(I always wanted to say that ;))

No offense Kodos, the Floaters are alien scum ;)

This was probably a welcomed sight...

Way to go rooks!

i hadnt died in awhile, and ive forgotten how boring it is to not be in the game...*starts whistling while crouching in corner*

Sure, GB. Focus on what I don't bring to the table. :)

Can't believe I didn't get a kill out of that mission. Oh, well.

When I saw the part about walking into the room with two Floaters, I figured that with my slothful reaction speeds, erratic aim, and low bravery, I'd have just enough time to soil myself before the Floaters blew me apart.

But even a slow, inaccurate coward can take down a Floater from behind. :)

I can't wait to see what my improvements are. I'm just glad to have seen some action, and to actually have an impact on the alien war, other than providing target practice for one of our fellow soldiers during out first alien base assault.

GB is getting quite good at this. Time to take out any alien bases left.

Attempted bump.