5...

[Gimli]

March

Terror Site 2

Sectoids and Cyberdiscs

Baghdad

 

EDIT: Inappropriate joke removed.

The first terror site went fine more or less, but I had Floaters.

 

Turn 1. Day mission, good. Prime smoke grenades, drop one in the front of the Skyranger to minimize the chance of first turn casualties.

Turn 2. One guy out next to the upper Skyranger wheel, nothing suspicious. He's armed with a Heavy Cannon and a stun rod.

Girl out to the second wheel, armed with an Auto Cannon and a smoke grenade. one sectoid and one Cyberdisc in sight, luckily out of self destruction range. Both of them fire at the Cyberdisc (I forgot they were resistant to that kind of weapons). Nothing.

Soldier 3 is armed with a Rocket launcher (large rockets). I decide not to use him if I don't have to so I just pull him out so he'd be ready for next turns.

Soldier four is out with a plasma pistol. I have 9 of those in total. Cyberdisc goes down with a bang revealing another Sectoid.

Soldier five takes both the sectoids out.

End turn.

 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where it all went wrong. Aliens are shooting at civilians, nothing unusual there. Then in the Skyranger, one of the guys goes crazy, shoots a soldier and drops the HiX. How he managed to do both in one turn is still beyond me. I assume he primed the HiX and then shot one of the soldiers causing reaction fire which killed him. Unfortunately, it also meant that the HiX would activate. The Skyranger's contents were now gone for the most part. It could only mean one thing - M.C.

Turn 4. Everyone's panicking except for one guy who's gone berserk, but doesn't kill anyone and the rocket launcher guy, although he just got lucky, because his morale was in the panicking range. End turn.

End turn. M.C., two guy lost, leaving me with three.

Turn 5. The rocket launcher guy goes berserk, fires a rocket and hits the M.C. -ed guy. Unfortunately, all 3 of them were in the blast range.

 

Disbelief.

 

Mission summary:

All civilians dead.

13 soldiers dead.

9 plasma pistols and 18 clips lost, as well as all the other, less important, equipment.

1 Skyranger lost.

 

Lesson of the day. Do not let your guard down, ever.

[lokiju]

Heh, sorry for your loss.

 

One thing I have learned is that you have to smoke the inside of the craft as well because they can see you through the front window. I wish I had paid a little more for tinted windows.

[FullAuto]

I hate that.

 

Tactical deployment, overlapping fields of fire, watching your background, effective use of cover and concealment, and one man getting Psied and playing Irish roulette with the rest of your squad.

[Bomb Bloke]

Irish roulette - Is that the version where you use a semi-automatic?

 

One thing I have learned is that you have to smoke the inside of the craft as well because they can see you through the front window. I wish I had paid a little more for tinted windows.

Oooh, I forgot about this one. Looking at the LOF maps for one of the drop ships (either the Ranger or the Avenger, can't remember) reveals what looks to be quite a decent hole in the front.

 

I was going to try and fire some shots through, never got around to it...

 

Anyway. Yeah, usually psi attacks take few more turns to be effective. Bad luck.

 

Never known a panicking/beserking soldier to prime grenades... I've seen them get a massive TU bonus, though (couple of hundred points). Enough to do some serious damage with a laser rifle.

[FullAuto]

Irish roulette - Is that the version where you use a semi-automatic?

 

It's like Russian roulette, except the weapon is fully loaded.

[Azrael Strife]

edit: thanks, Gimli.

[Gimli]

Joke. I thought it would be obvious.

EDIT: Though after thinking about it, you're right, it may not be appropriate even as a joke, so I've removed it.