11.
The Mighty Amazon
Command has a pretty strong suspicion that this Terror Mission will go the same as the last one.
Before the Amberlynn Reid takes to the air, Dear Leader finds himself "promoted" to Rear Commander, which is XCOM autist lingo for sticking him in the back of the Skyranger so he doesn't cause a morale blow by getting killed. I normally think this kind of thing is cowardly and also prefer to use the skilled marksmanship of my highest ranking troops to get shit done, but in Dear Leader's case it only makes sense. Besides, I actively avoided getting him killed all this time by having other soldiers draw reaction fire ahead of him. It would be idiotic to lose him over something stupid at this stage of the game.
The team braces itself for a disapointing display of cowardice. Dear Leader reminds everyone that there's a fair chance they could be facing Mutons instead, but with Heavy Plasma still some time away from finished research nobody is terribly thrilled about that possibility either.
Yep. Its Ethereals again.
Someone gets a good grenade throw in but its not enough and ditdatdot needs to lay into the bastard to knock him down.
A-Z0-9 scoops up Dark Edea's half-melted body and we demonstrate the better part of valor.
Draggs somehow makes Captain even though they're still gluing him back together.
The Council is pissed and so is Dear Leader. When we detect significant activity in South America, he loads up the Amberlynn Reid and takes off without permission. Supported by little more than a pack of green officers and rookies who have barely seen any combat. Command is more than certain that the alien activity going on in South America is Ethereals. Its confirmed to be a base mission when another Very Large UFO appears and lands nearby. This ship is definitely a Supply Ship, not a Harvester or Terror Ship. The Chrischan interceptor is dispatched from Deagle Nation to take out one of the scouts.
We can take a supply ship, even one with Mutons on board. But what if the enemy is Ethereals?
Dear Leader is going in hot.
Its Ethereals. When Dear Leader establishes radio contact with Command they tell him to get his ass off the ground immediately. But its clear to everyone there that this mission is different from the two Terror Missions.
Robert Tepper - No Easy Way Out
We know the crew complement of a Supply Ship. We know their weaponry. We know there will be no support units like Sectopods. The aliens have already singled out a target for psionic attacks in A-Z0-9. This map is the thick jungle of the Amazon Rainforest, terrain that only the most hardy and savage of human tribes have ever mastered. There are few places for the aliens to hide and lots of cover for us. We are in our element.
XCOM stays in the fight. Its risky for sure, but this victory could almost totally erase the negative score from the failed Terror Mission. A-Z0-9 completely loses his shit and panics, flinging his weapon to the ground and running screaming into the night. This is exactly what I was hoping for, as the most vlunerable trooper to psionic attacks is now unarmed. If he doesn't get shot in the face he might draw enough aggro his way to let the rest of the team do their jobs.
A player should do well to remember that though psionics are the Ethereals' biggest strength, they are still extremely capable marksmen matched only by the Sectoids.
@Pocket Dragoon is sniped from the darkness by an enemy far beyond visual range.
Catgirls is hit directly with a stun bomb. The thick foliage drastically reduces the blast radius and keeps The Valeyard on his feet.
The undergrowth does nothing to stop grenades though.
We use the endless supply of extra conventional grenades I packed with the team to go full Agent Orange on this patch of jungle. The foliage will be no shelter for the invaders. Its unknown if either of our attacks manage to hit the alien taking potshots at us in the distance, but I'd be willing to bet he's not a happy camper right now.
They're tough but they ain't indestructible. A squad of four fresh rookies moves up. If they're killed off spotting the aliens, so be it. Our more experienced troops stay behind to pick their shots and continuing shelling the enemy with grenades if the need arises.
The aliens know the true threat though. Captain
@ditdatdot is killed by presumably the same sniper from earlier.
The rookies have met the enemy. Some of them predictably can't shoot for shit, but more than half of their shots land to my surprise. Its not clear in the screenshot, but there's only one small path through the foliage that would allow us to get to Catgirls. We're choked off for the moment but the cover is excellent. Meanwhile, Chaos Theorist appears to have found the sniper to the south.
The alien confirms its deadly accuracy by sniping
@ChucklesTheJester.
Conventional grenades predictably do dick all to the alien even with two direct hits. Chaos Theorist still has his alien grenade though.
Girly throw strikes again though. The best Chaos Theorist can do is lob the grenade a few spaces in front of the alien. We'll have to hope the formidable splash radius on this thing will be enough.
It works. The alien is down for the count. Not dead but almost certainly bleeding after all of that punishment. Meanwhile, Considered HARMful rounds the UFO. Even though he's done almost nothing for the entire battle so far, this is an important development. There are no aliens in the north waiting to ambush our soldiers when we get ready to storm.
I fail to catch it in a screenshot, but A-Z0-9 falls under alien control at one point. I get worried because even though he's unarmed, he still has a belt full of grenades. One alien grenade right in the middle of my advance would be enough to wreck this mission completely despite the progress we're making. Instead, the aliens realize he's been unarmed and worthless this entire time and begin targeting my rookies. A-Z0-9 is left to suffer the aftershocks of mind control.
The aliens make us pay for every inch.
@Future Physical Violence is killed while charging the UFO.
The assault teams start to come together. The plan is much more cautious than the previous UFO breaches. Both teams will breach and take the entrances. Then North Team will circle around, clear the engine room, and then take position around the lift. Once all of that is done, South Team will move up and secure the other lift.
Critically, each floor will be cleared one at a time. This is because South Team is too small to effectively deal with that labryinthine third floor effectively having only three soldiers. Survivors from North Team will reinforce them up to six before they go up.
Catgirls are Love must know how to party hard, because he soaks up an entire Medikit and a half full of stimmies to get back on his feet, and still needs a few more doses to lower his stun to manageable levels.
Radical Cadre is zeroed in on by the remaining Ethereals. This means South Team is effectively down a member for the moment. A-Z0-9 is no longer under attack but still panicking anyway.
Its decided that the aliens aren't going to stage a terribly effective ambush if they're wasting all of their time units on psionic attacks, so North Team breaches the UFO. South Team will breach once North Team signals that the coast is clear.
The aliens stop tormenting Radical Cadre long enough for South Team to make an entrance. Perhaps they've realized shit is about to get real. The plan hits a snag when South Team makes first contact, but the alien tries to retreat and runs into North Team instead.
Niggermancer joins the "kill shit you can't even see" club.
The sweep of the second floor begins. The aliens are getting desperate now. They target Honka Honka Burning Love and panic him.
Catgirls maintains his reputation of shooting enemies he can't even see by bagging one during reaciton fire. The second floor is clear.
Unbelieveably, the last alien tries to escape using the lift and gets fried by reaction fire from The Valeyard. We don't even have to sweep the third floor!
Get a load of that sick fucking score. And only four casualties! The rookies certainly showed up both of the more experienced teams this time. For many of them this is actually their first mission. A-Z0-9 may have spent most of the battle out of his mind but he put up quite a fight, only falling under alien control once during the whole thing. We couldn't have done it without him. The medical staff shoots him up with a bunch of Lexorin and Dear Leader snags a bottle of the directors' bourbon for him so he can sleep it off.
As the Skyranger takes off there's a sonic boom overhead. The Chrischan intercepts the scout the moment the battle is over. It slips away during the first encounter, but the Chrischan chases it into the rising sun and eventually sends it plunging into the ocean.
All effort is poured into the Heavy Plasma research. Dear Leader wants to be able to face the Mutons one on one next time we encounter them.
The Jace Interceptor takes another scout down in Europe.
Looks like they had a rough landing.
Aww, Sectoids. How cute.
After the shit this crew has seen, this mission is basically a vacation.
Promotions go flying everywhere. The squad props up the dead Sectoids on some old pitchforks they found and pins their new bars and stripes all over them. Dear Leader snaps a few polaroids while the grinning squad poses around the two aliens. He writes "Wish you were here!" and tapes one to the director's door when gets back to base.
Son of a bitch finally.
I looked it up and the autists who swear by the Heavy Laser into the endgame are mostly abusing the fact that it has a lower time unit count for Aimed Shots, allowing soldiers with high time unit counts to make up to three Aimed Shots per turn. This also requires that the soldier basically not have moved or done anything else that turn, and that they also have high accuracy on top of everything. Fuck that. The Heavy Plasma is superior in every possible way. Its even lighter, allowing every soldier in the squad to carry one and an extra magazine! I barely even have to strip away any grenades or stunrods like I had to for the Heavy Lasers.
The Council changes its tune in a hurry. Even Egypt shuts the fuck up and forks over the cash they owe from last time. Only Japan has anything negative to say about us because of our shamefur dispray in that last Terror Mission.
The festivites continue with the hazing of a brand new batch of recruits.
@McMitch4kf,
@Horus,
@entropino,
@Agent of Z.O.G.
@Ponchik,
@FAT_KHAZAR_MILKERS,
@Affluent Reptilian,
@Burning Bridge,
@Randall Fragg,
@HumanHive,
@Forgetful Gynn,
@NerdShamer,
@Bathroom Attendant,
@world of shit,
@Kane Lives,
@Lemmingwise,
@Friend computer,
@Bungus Scrungus,
@Llama king,
@Twitter Hate Mob
