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[Flying Dice]

Update 4

Spoiler: Operation Lost Ring (click to show/hide)

This is a critical mission. If we fail it, we lose a minimum of two countries, likely more because we're on Impossible. To boot, we would be going into the second month with nothing but a handful of rookies. We're at do-or-die time, and the clock's hands are pointing to die.

We're on the observatory map, which is both good and bad. We have a decent route around the right edge, but the eventual lead-out point of that position can be poor, depending on spawns. For those of you who don't know how Council missions work, this is the gist: Start with/make your way to a civilian (the former in this case). Escort the civilian to the pickup point through whatever spawns are on the map, usually Thin Man heavy, but likely with some sectoid leavening in the first month. As an added bonus, Thin Men will randomly fall from the sky. As an added problem, getting the civilian to the Skyranger only puts them out of harm's way; the mission doesn't end until all the xenos are dead. With that out of the way, let's get started!

The natural route out is through the south doors. I move my people there and overwatch, predicting that a Thin Man will drop outside. Naturally, I was right. Looks like watching Beagle's X-COM videos is paying off already.


After a healthy round of reaction fire, Meph puts it down.


We know they won't come twice in a row, so everyone hustles out, careful to avoid the cloud of noxious smoke. Sadly the team is unable to simply climb over the chain-link fence and flee the area. A second Thin Man drops, and Xantalos grenades him. Dissonance Run & Guns to finish him, as I've forgotten about her not having Lightning Reflexes. This ends... poorly.


The rest of the squad panics. Xantalos and Meph hunker down, but Kansa decides that it's a good idea to take a shot at the civilian they're supposed to be protecting.


The thin man gleefully puts Xantalos into a crit wounded state.


Meph stops fucking around and kills him, while Kansa moves to stabilize Xantalos.


This leaves us with two soliders with total assets consisting of basic rifles, one frag, and one smoke grenade against nearly a full Council Mission, trying to escort a wounded civilian. If we can pull out a victory Xantalos will live to fight another day. Another thin man drops down and overwatches just out of our view range. There's nothing we can do, and we have no cover. We overwatch for two turns and the thin man continues to camp the same spot, because the computer is a cheating bastard. Eventually we gather the courage to move up. The thin man is nowhere in sight.


The roof of the building we just left is both nearer and devoid of full cover. The building across the way has full cover on the second level, but we'll have to risk triggering something to reach it. I opt to try to sneak our squad along the edge of the map rather than running straight across. Thin man is not impressed.



Well, fuck. On the up side, our only objective now is to successfully evac, and if we can do that we'll still have a few soldiers with experience in the field. Four sectoids object to that plan. Kansa and Meph hunker down, ready to fight for their right to party not be dismembered and eaten by a bunch of alien Vin Diesel buffs. The evac point is within sprinting distance, but with four overwatched sectoids there's no way they'll both make it. A lot of sectoids move, though. Meph and Kansa do a quick round of rock-paper-plasma gun; Meph loses and makes a blind-faith dash for the Skyranger.


She takes a hit but makes it. With the reaction fire spend, Kansa follows. There's no choice but to leave the unconscious body of Xantalos the 2nd behind. Mission aborted.



As you might be able to tell, I'm really bad at this, especially when the RNG throws up bullshit like that thin man jumping onto the roof. 

Meph is promoted to heavy, but she'll be in sickbay for nine days. The month is almost over, and Vin Diesel is spreading bad rumors about us. The Euro scene is less than pleased, but it doesn't look like they'll be surrendering yet. On the bright side, I sent my intern down to a hardware store to pick up some paint and scrap metal. I tried to send one of Doktor Vahren's, but for some reason they keep disappearing. I think he also bought some hair dye on the way back. Kansa is stylin', and Meph (who has changed her name again for some reason) is... something.


We also would like to welcome Rookies Gentleman Raptor, Bibliophile Ghost, Monkey Noggin, Vorpal Jabberwocky, and Mk.III Xantalos, in no particular order. That constitutes our entire roster. Oh dear. We've almost reached the end of the month when we receive word that more alien attacks are under way. They're stealing the British Crown Jewels, American Declaration of Independence, and Brazilian Swimsuit Calendar 2013. Although the Americans are offering an assault Sergeant and the Brazilians $200, the U.K. is closest to panicking and must be dealt with, even with a take of 4 scientists.

With three rookies and Kansa, we are ready to deploy to one of the smallest, most painful maps there is. Bon voyage, fresh meat.


Tune in next time to Ironman Impossible for more catastrophic failures and dead rookies in Operation Morbid Empire!

[Xantalos]

Oh dear.
Well, it is fun possessing the grunts at least.

[Flying Dice]

Heh, I think that when I inevitably crash and burn, the second campaign is going to be done without damage roulette. But yeah, this failure is completely on my head for once. I apparently had a total mental disconnect when I send Dissonance on that run, I suppose because I'm so used to having assaults with Lightning Reflexes that it just didn't click that she was still a squaddie.

[Kansa]

Oh yeah I have the best hairstyle now

[Mephansteras]

Sweet. Ravenna's already proven her worth and a 70 Aim Heavy is going to be rather nice. Pity she's laid up for a week, though. That rocket would have been really nice to have on the construction site.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly I should have just had Xantalos danger-close that Thin Man with his rocket. I keep forgetting that in Impossible the standard changes from "Use explosives as safely and sparingly as possible" to "Blow up EVERYTHING". That partial campaign on Normal-Classic easymode made me forget half of my paranoid-obsessive healthy habits. 

[Xantalos]

Shame, man. Shame.

Remember the Prime Motto:

"When in doubt, C4"

Now THAT should be the motto of X-COM.
...
I want to see a Mythbusters X-COM mod/game now.

[Flying Dice]

Update 5

Spoiler: Operation Morbid Empire (click to show/hide)

The mission opens on a rooftop construction site. It's not a great map, but it does have a lot of cover if we can get deeper into it. The squad carefully advances through the half cover on the right side when-

-yeah, yeah.

Firefights with us in half cover is not the way to go in Impossible, but that's what we're looking at.


Bibliophile rushes the shipping container, eating reaction fire in the process. Kansa gives her some cover.


With a flank on the melded sectoid, it's only a matter of wasting taxpayer money.


Things are looking up. In fact, we might actually-

-oh for fuck's sake.

A xeno runs up to say hello. Kansa high-fives him with bullets.


Disgruntled, Bibliophile Ghost decides to phase into the shipping container.


Hey, that wasn't too bad. Maybe-

-DAMN IT.

A series of troubleshooting sessions later...



...the squad is out of trouble and decides to go looking for more. After they spray down Bibliophile, of course.

A long session of careful advancement is spoiled by one brain-dead sectoid.


Monkey Noggin is really on her game tonight.


So's Kansa.


The sectoid isn't, either. Gentleman Raptor gives him a pro bono lesson.


Noggin is less than spectacular with her reaction fire and takes a mouthful of plasma, but she'll live.


Raptor will too, for the moment. He does the right thing as incompetently as possible, missing his panicked return fire.



Bibliophile is a bit better off.


So was the sectoid that shot her.


Desperate for a game-changer, Raptor hustles up, intending to grenade the mind-melder in preparation for a follow-up attack from the ladies on the second floor. It ends... poorly. He will never enjoy another bootleg Twilight film.


Several more rounds pass, with Bibliophile again setting herself up as a pinnacle of accuracy while Noggin flails around spraying lead all over the sky, the mind-melder is put down, along with his linked buddy, by Kansa.


One of their friends objects to this. Forcefully.


Not enough, though. Bibliophile jumps from on high, and she and Kansa put it down.



Along with a couple more that sprint into the same ambush. Apparently all the soap operas have melted the rational decision-making portions of sectoid brains. Noggin takes the third floor, intending to scout. She carefully edges up to the lip of the roof, when-

-eh, it's expected by now.

After six or seven turns of Kansa and Bibliophile camping behind shipping crates and picking off sectoids one by one as they rush, there are only two left, both hiding in the small walled area. At some point Noggin took reaction fire, but that doesn't hurt her throwing arm. Her grenade kills one of the two, destroying the other's cover. Kansa cleans up.


Bibliophile is promoted to assault; Noggin is promoted to heavy. Kansa is promoted and takes the Sprinter ability, which allows him to move three additional tiles with each move. It doesn't sound like much, but holy hell it is. Raptor gets nothing, because he's dead. That's three injuries and one death, but we successfully cleared the mission. Unfortunately the U.S. and Brazil throw fits. The end of the month is almost here; we're going to lose the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa. We won't miss them, bloody cowards.


On the plus side, we managed to recover the ABBA records that Dr. Chen sent us to retrieve. He's promised that he'll work extra hard on the next satellite as a reward. With only two healthy rookies, we sell some of the rotting sectoid corpses to a taxidermist, making enough to hire five more. The end of the month comes, and we quickly order another satellite. Of course we can't deploy it without another uplink, so we're really bad and auction off a bunch of stuff. I'm sure we won't need that junk in the future, right? We still need engineers, too.

We finally finish PEWPEWPEW research and begin on Xeno-Biology. I would buy pewpewpewguns, but we're short on alloys and engineers. Gee, who could have possibly predicted that? Naturally, when we shoot down a UFO (barely; the Interceptor almost died and got the final shot in with 1.7 seconds left), we scramble a team to retrieve all our delicious loot. Bradford also mumbles something about the aliens carrying the cryogenically preserved corpses of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Cpl. Kansa, Sq. Ghost, Sq. Moondancer, and Rk. Jabberwocky are en route. Join us next time on Ironman Impossible to watch our squad of poor fools be touched inappropriately in the French countryside during Operation Hot Priest!

[GentlemanRaptor]

Operation Hot Priest? Eh, I saw someone get Operation Black Father once...

[Mephansteras]

Oh, mission names...

[Lightningfalcon]

Operation Hot Priest? Eh, I saw someone get Operation Black Father once...

I've had Operation Hot Mother before.  I try not to think about it.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Riveting action thus far. Dorf me if you live long enough to get some more rookies.

[Jim Groovester]

I was just thinking about doing a Ironman Impossible XCOM LP. Oh, well, looks like I've been beaten to it.

I'll take a soldier when available. Make him look like this stately fellow to the left.

[MonkeyHead]

Accuracy is overrated. I highly approve of my shoot lots until I hit approach.

[Flying Dice]

Update 6

Spoiler: Operation Hot Priest (click to show/hide)

As the Skyranger touches down in the French wilderness, also known as downtown Paris, the squad solemnly gaze at a ghastly sight. Not the trail of fire, no, far worse than that. The pilot just took the last two liter bottle of Mountain Dew from the cooler. Their blood up, the troopers rush down the ramp, ready to kick some xeno arse.

I wasn't kidding about the fire, though.


The squad heads left, onto the high ground. After a few turns they hear alien gobblegook coming from the north. If we can close and take out one pack of them without triggering anything else that'd be wonderful. Jabberwocky goes east to the very end of the full cover cliff to secure the flank while the rest of the team hooks left up the ramp. There's something of a problem here: Kansa is our most mobile soldier, but he's also got our medkit. He's the easiest to move up with, but also the least expendable, not least because he's the highest ranking solider we have. We continue to advance cautiously, and after a while we hear something that doesn't sound like sectoids. Ghost eventually makes contact, but the xenos go to ground.


Sadly, they do it on the high ground.


Vorpal does okay for his first shots fired in anger. A few moment later, a sectoid gets an UTTERLY BULLSHIT critical hit on Bibliophile, despite her being hunkered down in full cover. RIP.


Vorpal freaks out and wastes some ammo. A turn and a smoke grenade later, Ravenna gives a hearty "FUCK YOU" to the mind-melder and his flanking buddy.



The last sectoid sprints away, pursued by a hail of bullets. He eventually makes a break for it; Kansa and Vorpal polish him off.


Reloading, the squad makes their way to the high ground. More sounds are heard from the direction of the flaming UFO. Now's really about the time I start wishing that I had a squadsight sniper. The moment we leave the high ground, we hear noises from the cliffs to the north. Y'know what, fuck that noise.

FUCKING FLOATER PATROL OUT OF NOWHERE!

Hey, you lot handled that nicely. Well done!

Jabberwocky decides that now is the perfect time for a grenade. I do believe that he's right.


Ravenna cleans up.


Yeah, try that again, y'dirty bastids! "Rat tat bang", Ravenna? DAMN RIGHT. And then a sectoid patrol... from the north.


With a 68% hit chance, Kansa does not disappoint. X-COM: paving the road to Valhalla with xenos corpses.


Ravenna makes a risky sprint for a tree, but she survives.


Kansa and Ravenna put another one down... for AMERICA! Wait, no, those dirty Americans bailed on us. Screw you America, they put that one down for North Korea!


Jabberwocky takes a shot, and Kansa cleans up. Good ol' reaction fire.



With no more strange noises in the Ardennes, the squad prepares to breach the UFO. They pile up on the south door...

...empty. They take the right hand side, moving towards the next glowing barrier. It's some sort of reactor room. They pie it off and clear without incident, setting up at the third door. This time they see someone. Thing. Herr Doktor yammers about alien flight computers while Kansa, Ravenna, and Jabberwocky figure out how best to blast the bastard.

According to Ravenna, the best way to conduct relations with alien dignitaries is to do so... directly.


Mission success! One squaddie in exchange for a boatload of corpses, loot, and the bodies of Lynyrd Skynyrd is not a bad deal. We needed more firewood for Bradford's den. I guess hot priests have something going after all.


Jabberwocky is promoted to assault (damn it, you're doomed now). Ravenna makes Corporal and takes Bullet Swarm. Some new rookies are indoctrinated. Damaged goods are auctioned off, though Bradford and Vahler didn't let me sell Chen. We've got the materials, we've got the money, but we need engineers.

Xeno-Biology completes. The Three Stooges want me to capture a live alien. Bft-hahahahahahaha! We don't have the engineers to do fuck-all anyways, so research starts on Carapace Armor. If we're going down, we're going down in style, dual-wielding pewpewpewguns in fancy space armor.

Ah, abductions. The perfect chance to earn some engineers? Let's see what the offers are... Cash from Nigera, scientists from China, and... a sniper sergeant from Argentina. FUCK YOU, RNG. Meh, China's only at two points of panic, while Nigera and Argentina are each at 3. I'd rather have a decent sniper than cash at this point, so Cpls. Moondancer and Kansa, Sq. Noggin, and Rk. Groovester suit up for deployment to Latin America.


Tune in next time to Ironman Impossible for Operation Crystal Mother!