Not a Code Black, but painful nonetheless:
Started up a new Classic Ironman campaign last night and things were going well. Very few deaths, lots of successful missions, and my base was filling in nicely with newly created Mech and Bio facilities. I then went on a Difficult abduction mission. Going on this mission were my new support-skilled MEC trooper (with high stats), a Squaddie Heavy with amazing stats, a Squaddie Assault with good stats, and a squaddie Sniper with decent stats.
Mission was at the Paper factory, which either goes really well or really poorly for me.
Move in cautiously and find a group of Floaters off in the parking lot. Ok, no big deal (although it is the first I've seen those guys this campaign). We move up and gun them down no problem. Unfortunately they were guarding a Meld canister that had way too few turns on it, so I lost that one. I then moved up to building to see about finding the rest of the aliens and the other Meld container.
Now, at this point my Fiancee came home, and I
really should have just quit. But, not, the mission was going well and I just
had to keep playing. With my attention split between a conversation with her and the game. The game got jealous.
My next turn revealed a group of Seekers on my Right, who promptly stealthed, and a wandering group of Floaters coming around the Building on my Left. While I'm in the middle of a parking lot with no real good positions to fall back to and a bunch of cover that's likely to explode if it gets a blast of plasma. I've since come up with about three or four really tactically intelligent things I should have done. But I was talking and only giving the game half my attention, so I did none of those. No, instead I got into a firefight with the aliens. Half my guys in partial cover, invisible aliens swooping in to incapacitate people...oh, and I forgot that my MEC had the Support skill (Extra defense for nearby allies) and not the Heavy skill (Extra defense from the closest enemy, which my main MEC from my last campaign had). So Instead of using him to help keep everyone safe, I had him running around blasting aliens and trying to punch things.
End result:
My very, very promising Heavy dead (55 will and 81 aim as a Squaddie
)
My bog-standard sniper dead (slow and with only ok stats, but still my closest to getting a corporal sniper)
0 Canisters of MELD captured
Both my assault and MEC trooper heavily damaged.
X-Com: Enemy Within