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Carlos the Jackal

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Jack "Bomber" Howitz

Introduced in post 0197 (Page 014), owned by Bomb Bloke.

New Zealander. Below average strength. Exceptional speed and stamina, but lack of strength and reflexes makes him a terrible shot. High psi, but doesn't like the idea. Bunks with Nathaniel "Hankosha" Jacobson. Currently assigned to squad 1 as a medic/demolition expert.

 

That's Howitz's excert from BB's heads up so it looks like your right, he probably wouldn't be man enough to handle the cannon. I'd just figured he was the heavy weapons, sapper, what have you it seemed to be a logical choice. I can't edit right now but I have taken out the double post, thanks for letting me know FA, no idea how I managed that! Good to see you back as well, maybe we'll start progressing a bit quicker now!

 

If anyone has any ideas on how to sort out Howitz or if Bomb Bloke pops his own nose in at anmy point feel free to advise! I'm not too sure how to edit without losing too much of what I've already done!

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Looking good, Vet. At first I thought "How can he write 1500 words about being stuck in the passenger hold?" but that nicely describes and fixes the characters of Squad 1.

 

And if Howitz realizes he can't carry the HC and run at the same time, well that's his problem, isn't it? :P

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lol! thanks JFish, means a lot coming from a seasoned writer such as yourself :P Unfortunately, whilst it would cause Howitz personal problems, it wouldn't exactly make the mission a walk on the beach for the rest of the squad either :P Maybe FA's right, maybe we just drop it and equip Howitz with an assortment of nades?
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We should also axe the flamethrower from the fic. While a great psychological weapon, I really don't think the shock troops of the alien invasion (ok, floaters may be the teddy bears of thealien invasion but oyu get my point) are going to be frightened by it. No-one I can think of uses flamethrowers any more. They weigh too much, the tanks are vulnerable (can you imagine a tank of inflammables being hit by a plasma blast?) and you don't get much fire out of them. Not to mention, using one in an urban area?
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I think the point of the flamethrower, wherever it came from originally! Was more to raise morale of our own troops than to lower the morale of the aliens. And to be fair, we don't know that these guys can fly yet, which ultimately will drastically reduce the effectiveness of the flamethrower anyway and probably cause it to be axed from official XCom armament... I can see exactly what you're saying FA, yes it's incredibly likely to explode and its not very sensible in narrow corridors but this is Buenos Aires and we're pretty much in a harbour when we land so the spaces are nice and wide open. I'm not sure what everyone else thinks but personally... I think it'll be kinda cool :P
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It's perfect for enclosed spaces (it's what it was used for, clearing bunkers and trenches, but in large open areas the flame disperses, and it's not as effective. It's just an especially vulnerable bit of kit what with the aliens firing superhot bolts of plasma.
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  • 2 weeks later...
To be honest, although its been a long time, not much has actually happened! Technically yes, Tammy and Poison have just been sitting about in the rec room doing nothing of any significance since you went away... This is a squad one mission now though so Tammy's on the skyranger right now. Literally about to touch down in Buenos Aires as soon as someone writes it in!
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Well, my charecter (Charlie Urgon) got an nightmare from the shatered Mind Probe, so he decided to ask, what was that thing that Dana or Daniel droped.

 

Daniel explains to Charile, what that thing was, at the same time Dana tried to probe Charlies mind, just an experiment, and gets thrown out out of Charlie's mind, due to his pionic potential. But I'm not the controler of them, so Veteran its your call.

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Huh? I'm confiddled... Was that post a response to something DC? Cos if you're trying to tell me something I didn't get it at all :P Dana and Daniel are Zager's characters not mine... I think so anyway, they may be crazy Photon's but he isn't coming back for a while :P And I've told you before, repeatedly in fact, we aren't ready to lay on thye psionics too hard core yet so just be careful with those posts. Noone is immune to psionics, or if they are they can't wield them either. Also noone has been trained in psionics so noone can control them. It's still a bit early in the day to be determining who has what level of psionic abilities but as long as its done right we can fit it in. Just remember, no superheroes! If I find Charlie probing ethereals and cheating at poker he'll be introduced to the firing squad! Same goes for everyone else!

 

I don't like heroes...

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Poison picked up some sort of mind shield charm thingy that Hankosha dropped (and wants back, though he doesn't know who has it), but other then that neither she nor Tammy have done anything interesting. They can be thrown into just about any plot at the moment.

 

So far only Sectoids and Cyberdiscs have been recovered, and no real interogations have been done, just a few autopsies. The tech-type characters have been jumping from one project to another.

 

Although no characters have access to a psi-amp at this point in time, some of them have worked out how to make the mind probe work. That doesn't include any soldiers, however, I've every intention of having someone cheat at cards with it soon, as we've already had people doing simplistic mind reading tricks.

 

It's not at all practical to give Howitz a cannon of any sort. He can barely aim with a standard hand cannon, and while he could technically carry a heavy one about, he wouldn't be able to fire more then a round while standing up (and he'd miss). If it was up to me (and I'll assume it is :P ), he'd be carrying a pistol, a good amount of grenades, and either an HE pack or a medkit.

 

Flamethrowers make for great drama. I wouldn't expect them to be any use in an open area though - They aren't long range, and it'd be easy to out-manuvourea a unit holding one. That said, not many living creatures like being set on fire.

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Briefly - Flamethrowers work best as support weapons, as in Saving Private Ryan - you button the enemy up, then bring forward the flamethrower (preferably when it's safe to be running about with a backpack full of fuel) to administer the coup de grace.

 

If it's in the story already, I'm happy to see/write a scene where the flamethrower features - maybe this is the episode where we teach the aliens it's not safe to use manholes and sewer tunnels to move around, and they never do it again - but at the same time, the danger and weight and limited practicality may convince XCOM to never bring it again.

 

Good writing, BB - we finally landed!

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Quick reminder as to what's going on at the moment...

 

This is our new squad one after the reshuffle, it only leaves us with ten men as obviously now we don't have the tank! We should have taken replacements but its too late now so we'll have to go with this...

 

Rick Osmond Chez "Ping" Laser rifle

This is my character, Squad leader and primarily rifleman. As squad leader is first to be equipped with experimental weapons

Jack Thomas "Warlord" Auto cannon

Warlord's character, second in command and often Rick's target to trade experimental lasers for regular weaponry

Tamara Hilliard "Tammy" Sidearm

Tammy's Character, medic armed with pistol or other sidearm

Tim Day "Timmy" laser pistol

Carlos's character, pistol scout

Jack Donovan "Ripper" Rifle

Rasicar's character, a rifleman

Jack Howitz "Bomber" nades and pistol

Bomb Bloke's character, a self styled sapper and medic

Greg Conner "Ghost" Laser pistol

Filler by the looks of it, a rifleman

Johann Ibsen Rifle

Spaceman 42's character, a rifleman

Bob Jennings "Stump" Flamethrower

Snikers's character, a rifleman

Ki-tat Chung Plasma pistol

Ki-tat's character, technologically minded so may specialise in laser/plasma weaponry

 

Already, Greg Connor 'Ghost' is dead. For those of you who are confused, that's because Ed Dodge is now in squad two, so Greg will replace him in being crushed! Also above are the list of currently equipped weapons as already mentioned. So it should be nice and easy to see what's what!

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  • 2 weeks later...

And after the correction, Dodge is dead? NOOOOO!!! !!!

He can dodge helicopters, has fantastic reflexes, and we can't give him a chance at a giant furry bull?

Why couldn't some unknown recruit have died instead? Or maybe he narrowly dodged fatal goring?

Never mind me, I'll sober up by tomorrow -

JFG

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I thought dodge was filler?! It's editable but if he isn't filler, and I don't think Ghost is either, then we're all out of rookies to kill! Any suggestions? Cos I can edit the fic to fit if someone has an idea of who we can swap him with...
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Dodge is filler. But he's been filler for quite a while now, is JFG's point... Still, everyone's gotta die sometime.

 

I still haven't finished sifting out all the rookies mentioned in the fic yet (I've got two more pages to go), so once I get my listing up to date there might be someone in there.

 

Not sure why we can't just crush Ghost? He belongs to Fatigue, but he's never made a post in the fic, so I consider the character fair game.

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