Rock Paper Sectoid: RPS vs. The Alien Menace

[arathain]

OK. This time I only lost two assaulting the downed UFO. The damned energy thing did its usual one shot one kill and took out Nathan, but in doing so it allowed John to get off a reaction shot, and Alec finished it off at point blank with a massive volley of lead. John's death was more my fault- I was hoping to run him through the UFO to help flank some Sectoids in the trees just outside the craft. There was a Sectoid in the craft- it had fled from an earlier encounter, and hit John with reaction fire, causing him to panic, and flee out of position. It finished him off on its turn.

[Drake Sigar]

Attacking a landed large cargo UFO in Brazil

Very cool, first time I've seen corridor fighting. Did you get a crapload of alien rescources? That looked like a lot of boxes.

[Makariel]

My typical philosophy when encountering a new type of big, scary enemy is "I don't want to see what its gun does". On that note, I sent Makariel charging straight up to it to finish it fast [...]

Incidentally, that's how I play multiplayer shooters.

Good stuff! Makes me want to play even more and show the aliens that I'm not only a shotgun-toting killing machine, but also a general and gentleman.

[arathain]

Ahh, this next run is going better. Thanks, Alec 'Hulk' Meer and Mad 'Android' Jax.

[DarkFenix]

Very cool, first time I've seen corridor fighting. Did you get a crapload of alien rescources? That looked like a lot of boxes.

Ohhhh yeah, those things are worth a metric fuckton of resources. They make a fun environment to fight in too, lots of cover, corners and corridors make a great arena for squad tactics.

One nice thing late in the game is explosives stop being at all detrimental to corpse loot collection. All enemies I face now have enough health to never be one shotted by explosives, so an opening grenade or rocket merely softens them up and destroys their cover, making picking them off conventionally very easy.

[MadJax]

Ahh, this next run is going better. Thanks, Alec 'Hulk' Meer and Mad 'Android' Jax.

Thankyou for the cool nickname ;)

[SanguineAngel]

Oh man, I was so excited this morning I got up at 6 to play having preloaded during the week. took an HOUR to finish the installation so I have essentially played 3 rounds of the first skirmish before I had to come to work.

Playing on Classic Ironman, skipping the tutorial since I played the demo, I deployed in Russia, setting down in a picturesque town square just behind the burnt out wreck of a bus. I quickly discovered that I had been flanked by two groups of three sectoids each, lurking behind cover and proving generally tricky to get at.

By assuming a defensive position and setting all my troops on overwatch, I was able to take out the group on the right flank (but not before the Assault Trooper destined to become Jim Rossignol takes a minor hit).

In the course of the next two turns I moved the trooper to be known as Alec Meer into heavy cover behind some sort of transit van, from where he deployed a grenade at the feet of the first sectoid on the left. Fellow troopers will be taking up support positions in the event of a reprisal when I get home this evening!

[Dr.Honeyslut]

Sweet, finally got the game downloaded. Gonna mess around with it today, then start a campaign proper tomorrow with a team of RPS goons and random fb friends. Prepare for lots of blood, death and incompetent boobery.

[Tikey]

I've played a few good hours.
There are already loses. Arathain, you were one of my best soldiers, and you died a hero delaying the aliens so the rest of the team could get to the extraction point of the worst mission ever.
Meanwhile Drake Sigar has become my top soldier and a hell of a sniper too.

This is my current team (I always try to take one rookie so I have some cannon fodder)


A painful memento of Arathain's death

[Drake Sigar]

Meanwhile Drake Sigar has become my top soldier and a hell of a sniper too.

Of course!

[Tikey]

[arathain]

Twice now I'm the guy dying holding up the advancing aliens while everyone else pegs it. Note to self: altruism and sacrifice not necessarily a perk. Thanks for the screenshot. Those are some damn fine boots to be dying in.

[Splynter]

The base is woken up by the sound of alarms. Alien abduction teams have landed around the world, and we'll only be able to respond to one. The reports coming in from Dallas indicate a sizable alien strike-force has landed there, but North American public's growing unrest leaves me no choice but to choose this site over other, easier battles. I order Sq. Sparkasaurusmex, Sq. Florence, Col. Clockwork, Lt. Sigar, Cpl. Honeyslut and Sq. Angel to suit up and head for the Skyranger.

The team touches down at 6:01 am in the middle of an intersection facing what looks to be an abandoned boutique at the bottom of an apartment complex. The team quickly moves to what cover they can find in the open. Col. Clockwork cries out 'Contact!' as a team of Mutons backing up a lone Berserker stirs inside the shop. The Berserker charges blindly out the doorway, and the team cleanly takes him out.

The remaining Mutons quickly retaliate, and the one-two punch of a grenade and plasma fire knocks Sq. Angel into critical condition. Cpl. Honeyslut rushes over and stabilizes his fallen comrade, while Clockwork shrugs off some plasma fire in his newly minted Titan armour. Then, things get bad.

Two Berserker-Muton teams and a trio of Heavy floaters advances down the right flank, taking some shots at Sigar and Clockwork. One of the Mutons inside falls to Laser fire as the team repositions to counter the incoming enemies. One Floater jet-packs to the other side of the building, flanking him as a Muton keeps him suppressed.



Clockwork dashes inside and takes out the suppressing Muton with a point-blank shotgun blast to the face. HoneySlut moves over to fire on the flanking floater, and somehow manages to miss! If I'd had to guess, I'd have given him a 98% chance of making that shot. Sparkasaurusmex moves inside to take cover behind a display case from the advancing horde in the street, and fires on the flanking floater, injuring him in the process. Florence panics disgracefully after a rocket shot (expertly delivered to the vehicle the aliens are hiding behind for MAXIMUM DAMAGE) sends an enraged Berserker his way and whimpers behind the alien drop pod. Sigar moves behind the hood of the Taxi and whittles down the resistance of one of the Berserkers.



After clearing out the Floater and remaining Muton from inside the shop, the team repositions inside and behind the building to reload and prepare for the remainder of the alien force. Setting up an ambush pays off, as a passing floater is vapourized by Cpl. Honeyslut. I think he deserves a promotion for that.



With momentum shifted back in our favour, the rest of the operation passes without a hitch. Back at base, Cpl. Dr. Honeyslut and Lt. Drake "Nix" Sigar are awarded well deserved promotions. I hear that the men have taken to calling the good doctor "Shield". A fitting name for a medic.

Unfortunately we aren't afforded much time to regroup, as the next day, this appears on the Geoscape:

[arathain]

I think this game hates me. More than usual.

OK, so I restarted. My pace is slow as usual, but hey, things are going well. Done some abductions, a crashed UFO, a Council mission, all good. I've got some really promising soldiers up and coming. I've just upgraded my squad size to five. The only thing I really need is engineers, to build more satellite relays and the carapace armour I just researched. Up comes an abduction mission to Mexico, moderate difficulty, reward of 5 engineers, and Mexico could use a panic reduction. A perfect opportunity to put my new skills and bigger squad to the test. Nothing I can't handle.

I put down at a gas station. My advancing squad quickly alerts some Thin Men. No problem. Actually, one of them has come quite far forward, and has left himself vulnerable to the attentions of newly gifted Sgt. Quintin 'Hardcore' Smith, as Assault trooper. Run and Gun puts me a little farther forward, and the disturbingly human alien drops in a cloud of green gas. Actually, this is not all that happens. Concurrent with this, I manage to disturb another cluster of Thin Men and two groups of Sectoids. I didn't get a precise count, but I am now facing eight to ten foes, who are all in good cover inside or on top of the main building. It's handy that I'm home alone, because I started to swear loudly at this event.

Alright, Arathain, keep it cool. No need to panic. The first thing is to try to keep Quinns alive for a turn so I can pull him back and send him on a different flank. He's only in light cover, so Sq. SanguineAngel puts down some smoke. Meanwhile Lt. Meer finds a good rocket shot is not quite in range, so he moves up a bit. I meant to suppress the the alien I could see, but accidentally hit the wrong thing and just fired instead. No bad thing. He missed, but the holo-targeting on his LMG lit up that fiend like a Christmas tree on the visor of Hypernetic, who was hanging back to take advantage of squadsight. 68% chance to hit, so of course he misses. My Rookie can only see one Thin Man in heavy cover, and decides to wait for movement.

Aliens' turn. The good: my Rookie scores a hit on a Thin Man trying for a flank, although she doesn't quite kill it. The bad: I was worried Quinns would go down under sheer weight of fire. I needn't have. The first Thin Man to take a shot gets a critical hit and drops like a stone. The next set of volleys are targetted at Alec, who also gets critted to death. Aha. Ahahahaha fuck.

There's a twist to this. A nasty twist, like a knife. Quinns isn't dead. He's bleeding out instead. Something desperate and senseless in me refuses to leave him to die lying next to a petrol pump, surrounded by nightmares. The aliens have spread out a fair bit, so one location isn't necessarily more dangerous, so SanguineAngel heads forward to stabilise. She advances cleanly, surviving some oncoming fire, and gets to a good spot in range to use the medpack. She dies next turn to a accurate plasma fire. The rest is a blur. I don't I wanted Hypernetic to flee, but he panics, and is cut down. The Rookie has been doing well, but she finally takes a shot. She survives, with one health. The poison finishes her off.

So, who's left? I review my list. Sniper Jane Rossignol is recovering from an injury. On duty we have another Sniper, Tim Stone, and an Assault, Mad 'Android' Jax. I'm running out of Rookies, so I'll have to spend precious funds hiring more, rather than the dozen other things I need to spend money on.

This ought to go well.

[DarkFenix]

I've hit a little bit of a brick wall. My interceptors aren't capable of shooting down the alien command ship for the next story mission. Looks like that'll be on hold until I can build some of those newfangled semi-UFO's and suitably arm them. Still, I can wait until next month's money without trouble, I have a couple of satellites ready to launch to quell panic and my satellite nexus is building for another 5 capacity.

[Splynter]

Bah. The terror mission was flawless, month ended with an A rating. To kick this new month off, I assaulted a large landed UFO, and was doing pretty well until some Mutons, a Berserker and three Elite Mutons started doing some damage. Nothing we couldn't handle, until Sgt. Patrick "Tombstone" Swayze panicked and shot Col. Alex "Trips" Clockwork, killing him. He was subsequently cut down by enemy plasma fire. This set off a wave of terror, with the assault ending with one survivor: Maj. Drake "Nix" Sigar. Tombstone Swayze has brought disgrace onto our entire unit. Those who went to their graves:

Col. Alex "Trips" Clockwork, 41 kills in 18 missions.
Lt. Dr. "Shield" Honeyslut, 9 kills in 6 missions.
Cpl. Rob Florence, 7 kills in 3 missions.
Sq. Sanguine Angel, 3 kills in 2 missions.
Sgt. Patrick "Tombstone" Swayze, 5 kills in 4 missions.

[arathain]

Sq. Oshada, I'm sorry. That one was really my fault. You were wounded, I had lost track of some Sectoids, and there was no cause to use you so aggressively. Fell to a storm of reaction fire.

[arathain]

Oh dear. It's my first Terror Mission, appropriately named. I am in no way ready for this. Capt. Jax, this is your chance to shine.

[arathain]

Oh hey, that actually went really well. I quailed a bit when I spotted the Chrysallids, but MadJax blasted one and Jane Rossignol (newly nicknamed 'Black Widow') blasted another from halfway across the map. I deliberately let a civilian standing next to one of the buggers get caught in the rocket blast, which I feel pretty bad about, fate worse than death notwithstanding. There was one amusing moment where a slain civvie rose as a zombie, only to have three soldiers unleash reaction fire, all of whom hit. Dropped!

To cap it off, a neat combination of a Rookie exposing himself for a risky grenade and MadJax with an ArcThrower netted me a live Floater. That Rookie turns out to be none other than DarkFenix

[MadJax]

Good to see I'm living up to expectations, and great write ups by arathain there ;)