4.
Homarus
Things seem to be looking up. Strange that we haven't encountered the Aquatoids on a Terror Mission yet.
Looks like we're right on top of the enemy sub, its a fairly small one too. The team is feeling confident.
FUCK
One of the toughest opponents in any XCOM game, these are the Lobstermen. Incredibly heavily armored, to the point where a player is likely to need a volley of even Sonic attacks to take one down. Completely immune to explosives, don't even bother. And otherwise identical to the Mutons in every way except with none of their weaknesses. Lobstermen have reinforcements, higher ranking troops, and mildly better psionic resistance.
Those claws aren't for show either.
@Considered HARMful gets reaction fire on the Lobsterman advancing on him, but it bounces completely. The Lobsterman snips his head clean off in one blow.
This is the best I can do for a firing line. Any more troops in one place and it will invite grenades for sure. Lobstermen on top of all of their other qualities are not shy with grenade throws at all. I have SailingTheSaltySeas move down to take cover in that reef while Allakazam223 is sent up around the back of the Triton. There's only two of the damn things, maybe we can still surround them.
Autofire accuracy is poor but we get a few hits in between all the spraying and praying.
The concentrated fire gets at least one to back off.
Oh Jesus.
Perhaps expecting easy butchery once it got up close, the Lobsterman completely used up all of its Time Inits getting inside the sub. I could easily lose everyone in the sub at this point. Luckily, I'm an older and wiser Terror From The Deep player, and I know the one weakness Lobstermen have is Thermal damage, such as that done by our Thermal Tazers.
Dear Leader is in such a hurry that he accidentally sticks Overcast with the Tazer first (whoops). The Lobsterman goes down after only one hit. Maybe its wounded from all the Gauss rounds it took earlier?
With that situation having resolved itself, the team sets about dealing with the other Lobsterman.
We give the other one everything we've got.
The amount of punishment this thing just shrugs off is unbelieveable.
Eventually its shell cracks and its haemolymph spills out into the ocean.
Two of them for only one of us. But we got extremely lucky, if that first one had used its grenades instead of walking straight into a Tazer party, we could have lost at least half the team.
The interceptors have no luck catching these larger craft. They're probably filled with Lobstermen too, to be honest.
Some good news, at least.
ScubaJace catches up with this large scout.
At least we can still shoot these things down easy.
Its bound to be more Lobstermen. Command tells Dear Leader and Overcast to be ready for anything.
To make up for the lack of land environments there are actually nine different underwater terrains that are not mission-specific. UFOpaedia lists two terrain types as having ruins like this: Atlantis and Mu, of course both being named after lost continents that supposedly once had advanced civilizations on them. The wiki doesn't really indicate what the difference between these two actually is though. I'm less than thrilled to see that the whole map is filled with ruins for the already formidable Lobstermen to hide in.
We landed right on top of them again.
This reaction fire of course has no chance of killing them, but its a decent start.
I couldn't ask for a better shot than Friend Computer. In the face of certain death he lays down a hail of autofire and manages to land four out of six shots.
Dear Leader and Overcast are in constant radio contact with the point team.
Stand your ground. Focus your fire. They're not invincible. Its working, one collapses.
Everyone outside is out of Time Units though.
Yeah, there it is. One Sonic Pulser sends
@R00T,
@Friend computer and
@NerdShamer to Davy Jones' Locker.
Only SailingTheSaltySeas happened to be far enough away to avoid the carnage.
Nobody loses their cool though. Rookie Polyboros and Dear Leader step out of the Triton and fell another Lobsterman. two down, two to go.
The third one vanishes into the gloom after taking some fire.
To try and get some more firepower on the seafloor without making us vulnerable to grenade throws, I send Overcast and Polyboros out as far as they can go into the ruins. Polyboros reports that the ancient architecture creeps him out, but Overcast reassures him that we haven't seen any evidence that the aliens are hiding in them. Yet, anyway.
The third Lobsterman decides its chances would be better up close and tries to close in on the RaceWarSub. I have Penne Dreadful pull his Thermal Tazer and meet it half way. Three down.
The fourth and hopefully final one makes itself known.
Penne Dreadful and Dear Leader make a strong showing at first.
The rookie accuracy leaves a lot to be desired but Pissmaster manages to fell the fourth one.
I was wrong about there being four. The fifth one picks off
@SailingtheSaltySeas while everyone else is focused on the alien submarine.
I decide to try something novel and have Johan Schmidt walk up the wing of the Triton and on to the roof, where he'll hopefully be able to spot the enemy. Pissmaster covers him.
The alien turns out to be a bit closer than I anticipated, but I still have Pissmaster try it. He demonstrates pisspoor aim as he not only misses every shot but also nails and instantly kills
@Johan Schmidt.
Polyboros2 doesn't take this friendly fire incident well.
The Lobsterman predictably pulls a grenade which reduces both
@Allakazam223 and
@Pissmaster to paste.
Just_Somebody loses it and paints the RaceWarSub with
@wtfNeedSignUp's brains.
This development naturally does not lessen Polyboros2's mental breakdown any. Penne Dreadful gets another shot off at the alien. I come up with a desperate plan to avoid this mission ending in total disaster. I have Penne ready his Tazer and suicidally close in on the Lobsterman.
Meanwhile I have Dear Leader and TerribleIdeasTM fan out from the RaceWarSub to try and draw the Lobsterman's attention away from Penne. I base this on absolutely nothing, but I assume the Lobsterman will go after the marine that last drew its attention, which would be TerribleIdeasTM.
Either its dumb luck or my hunch is correct, as the Lobsterman goes for
@TerribleIdeas™ and blasts him.
Dear Leader plugs the thing with reaction fire, causing it to turn and leap off the back of the Triton. Right in front of Penne Dreadful.
Penne Dreadful, already frazzled from the way this mission has gone, and now faced with eight feet of heavy armor and giant claws, that he's supposed to walk up to and poke with an icecube on a stick, finally snaps. He dumps his entire magazine of Gauss rounds into the target. Which, to my astonishment, fells it.
Somehow we still have a positive score on this mission. Just_Somebody makes Ensign despite dispalying the utmost incompetence on that run.
I notice that Sonic Rifle batteries only cost 1 Zrbite to manufacture, Zrbite of course being the alien fuel for this game. Even though we haven't researched it yet, our technicians can apparently use it to manufacture more batteries. Fuck it, don't call it an exploit; its just bad design. I order 30 of them so we don't got into battle basically unarmed against these damn things again.
In short order the entire team is equipped with Sonic Rifles. What's left of the team anyway, we only have 9 marines at the moment.
Speaking of which.
Newcomers:
@Thomas Highway,
@The Valeyard,
@Chocolate Wombat,
@Shadfan666xxx000,
@RabidWombat,
@chaosrevolutions,
@draggs,
@Mooger Meng,
@not william stenchever,
Clones/Resurrected: @
RIPRhongoBongo, @Corn Flakes,
@L50LasPak,
@Kane Lives,
@LullerDerbyRollin,
@McMitch4kf
Yes, I'm resurrecting myself this game. We need the bodies.
Next time: Probably more Lobstermen and more grenades.