Right, what happened... First, some backdrop. This mission, unlike the others, was a
landed large scout, not crashed like all the others. So I was a little worried.
Now, some pre-battle shenanigans. Tant and grunt were the ones who usually hupped the rockets, but seems that Seyena and Riven wanted to this time, so I shrugged and let them keep them. Valor and Gregor tried to go into battle with literally nothing but pistols. I slapped them and gave them laser machine pistols, and the usual outfit of a frag, a smoke, and a stun rod.
Oh yeah, right, day eighteen, have eight some laser pistols. Super focused research, ho!
Anyway, Sal, Chris, Charlotte, and Alex were the only ones still using regular battle rifles. So to start off, I do my usual of having Sal, him always being the first up to bat, pop a smoke with zero timer and wait a round. Out the ranger, once again, we're literally a stone's throw from the alien ship. I'm guessing whoever pilots isn't a fan of walking.
So, Chris spots the first alien on the second turn, and
snapsnipe shots him with a OHKO. So not even three turns in and a alium has a smoking hole in its head thanks to a hooded XCOM Operative.
I did the similar two teams, one circles one breaches routine with this ship. Team two waited by the door, with Chris having his left side to the door looking off in the distance at something. The door promptly opened, a Sectoid looked out, then shut the door and huddled in the nearest corner in what I can only assume is fear. Next round Chris put it out of its misery with another snipe shot to the head, point blank style.
Double breach the main room, Alex on the right with Valor on the left. Valor went first, guns a blazing to find no one. Made his way to the reactor room door. Everyone else joined him and waited for the next turn. With a nod, Valor jumped into the room to see a Sectoid with its back to him, it hasn't noticed. Two whaps with a stun rod and it knew then, well it rather knew the floor better. Feeling confident, Valor looked around the rest of the reactor room and lorded over his kill. Unbeknownst to him, there was a shadow behind the reactor...
Meanwhile, team two had done a full circle by now. Figuring that the team inside had it taken care of, they fanned out to find any stragglers. Now, I'm not a fan of the game hide-and-go-bang with the aliens, and it seemed Riven wasn't either. There was a two story barn to the south of the sky ranger, which soon became a two story building with two very big holes in the walls thanks to her rocket launcher. Nothing in there that they could see, the two grunts went to check out the house and the upper left while Sal, Olison, and Charlotte went to check out the surprisingly thick apple tree forest in the southeast corner.
Nothing was found in the northwest sector, as was said by the grunts and Riven, in the southeast forest however... Sal and Olison entered, Olison first with Sal close behind. Charlotte lagged behind, fiddling with a frag. As they ventured deeper into the forest, Olison saw something. A sectoid, and it saw him too. He didn't have time to react, and Sal couldn't understand why Olison was worried as he didn't see it himself. Sal saw it then though when three bursts of plasma fire went towards them, two missing with one hitting a tree and another a bush leading to Charlotte, the third struck Olison dead on in the chest. With a grunt of pain, Olison full auto'ed the tree the sectoid was hiding behind, turning it into a burning pile of ash and the alien into a very charred corpse with two holes thanks to his laser.
Back in the reactor room though... While Valor was standing over his kill, another sectoid walked out from behind the reactor and fired three times. One hit the door, the second a ceiling. By now Valor was probably wondering where the hell these sectoids took their firing lessons from. The third struck him in the chest though, and with a cough of blood he slumped to the floor, dead. Seeing the commotion, several outside tried to rush in, but Ami was the fastest, and turned the sectoid into fine swiss cheese with her laser.
No promotions, and only one dead and one wounded.