Why I hate Ethereals

[Hobbes]

14 soldiers land, equipped with plasma rifles and heavy lasers at a terror site, all veterans. The first soldier starts moving around the LZ *ZAP* Ethereal on a building kills him.

The rest of the team deploys, kills the sniper and starts moving. No other aliens are around the LZ, the streets are too narrow for Sectopods to rush their positions. The team detaches into a southern and northern element and gets ready to hit the other side of the map. First soldier moves, alien turn *ZAP*, gets injured and unconscious by plasma blast, a grenade falls right afterwards on him. No remains of him left on my turn.

*PSI* soldier panics and starts running to the location of the second dead. Alien turn. *ZAP*

Meanwhile, the southern element detaches into three pairs: one goes to clear a building where an alien had been spotted. Another to the third level of another building to get shots at the aliens. And the third encircles a building in a flank maneuver.

*ZAP* *ZAP* The two soldiers who where clearing the building get killed on the same turn facing the stairs.

The Commander and the Colonel get to the third level and starts shooting at the aliens. Kill one, the next turn *ZAP* *ZAP* incoming fire from Sectopods take out both.

The flankers move and try to fire at the Sectopods: no hits and *ZAP* *ZAP* on the next turn from reaction fire of the Sectopods. A sniper gets another soldier *ZAP*

Now, with only four soldiers left I did (or tried to) the sane thing: retreat. *PSI* *PSI* *PSI

Three of the soldiers panic. The fourth almost makes it to the Skyranger before also panicking and running into the aliens path. *ZAP*

Another soldier dies running aroung with 3 critical hits until his health finally gets to zero and a third is zapped by the aliens.

Now, the last soldier panics for six consecutive turns until finally he regains control. Grabbing a heavy laser he makes a suicidal attack, I'll-go-down-fighting style. He spots a Sectopod, fires, misses.

The aliens stunned him on their turn........13 KIA, 1 MIA and only 4 dead aliens

 

I hate Ethereals!

[Ki-tat Chung]

bah! ethreals? my psyguys eat ethreals for breakfast! well anyway, after a while, i find that even my regular soldiors who have decent psi can defend against a ethreal, and even take control it. i have fun panicing ethreals at the end of the mission.

[Slythe1]

Ya can't go up against them with weak psi soldiers.

[Hobbes]

All of my soldiers had 60+ ratings on psi power. Even if your soldiers are psi strong there's always the risk that the aliens will panic/control them (the same way that you're not supposed to be able to control Cyberdisks/Sectopods with psi amps but you can).

As for psi-amps, my soldiers consider them to be weak, cowardly alien tactics. I've stopped using them because the game gets too easy that way

[NKF]

Without any fantastic deus ex machina device in your pocket like the psi-amp, the real trick is to somehow survive the psionic onslaught and at the same time steadily kill the ethereals one at a time. It's tough, and you'll suffer losses (or at least face a ton of setbacks), but that's all you can do really with uncertain troops. Smoke appears to feature a lot in my strategies against them lately.

 

- NKF

[Lleshap Johari]

Blasterbombs. Scorched Earth policy when it comes to Ethereals... or anything else. Nuking things is fun...

[Hobbes]

All of those are true, but I guess I like playing outnumbered and outgunned... gives the game a little spice

[Lonestar]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I don't use plasma weapons. Anyone can win with good enough weapons. But to win with inferior weapons, funds and men really takes strategy.

 

Speaking of hating ethreals, I remember a time when they attacked a base of mine. I had 10 soldiers. They mind controlled all but one. Killed them. Then stormed up the to the upper level and killed the last guy. All in three turns.

[starts having flashbacks to the horrors.]

[Hobbes]

I think I got that particular mission saved, if you want to give it a try. :mad:

[Rattler]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I don't use plasma weapons. Anyone can win with good enough weapons. But to win with inferior weapons, funds and men really takes strategy.

 

What about not using everything(I don't use blaster bombs, pys-amps, or small launchers) but sending in limited men say like 6 or less.

[NKF]

Don't go down this path my friends. For this way leads to madness. I know. I'm there.

 

Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with trying to achieve the best results with the cheapest (or craziest) alternative. I mean, it forces you to use your head rather than to rely solely on brute force.

 

Best of all, it lets you know your own limits.

 

- NKF

[Rattler]

I just like plasma guns, in TFTD I try to use guass equipment as long as possible untill I'm forced to change. I just love guass, only problem is having to constantly pump out clips for those things.

 

I always try to weed out the weak minded from my squads and send in limited but strong forces to take out etheral bases

[Pumpkinhead]

https://ufopaedia.xcomufo.com/pics/ethereal.gif

[Hobbes]

LOL