Rookie Hall of Fame

[Crafty]

My first nominee, Sarah Blake. First ground mission of the game on superhuman, January 8. Medium scout. First half of the troops head out, take out a few sectoids. Blake, carrying a rocket launcher, shuffles up to the door of the Skyranger in a backup role. Next alien turn, a sectoid fires from a nearby building, shoots out a wall, hitting nobody. Blake's response? Reaction fire with a small rocket through the window of the building to kill the bastard.

 

I nominate Sarah Blake for the rookie hall of fame.

[dogfish]

I nominate all those rookies who accidentally shot another rookie in the back at UFO-Crash Site-1

[chiasaur11]

Forget the man's name. Forgot his stats.

 

But his deeds? Earth will remember them with honor as long as it is free.

 

Ironman run, second month base assault. Laser weapons? Still limited to officers. And the enemy? Sectoids.

 

Making matters worse, the revisions still aren't done. The base is an indefensible mess. The tank and a vet clear one hallway. The rook goes to another.

 

And begins to show heroism of the kind X-Com needs. Kills a couple Sectoids with reaction fire. And then runs into every rook's worst nightmare. A commander gives him a gut full of plasma and begins reducing his mind to mush.

 

Now, he can't be a good psychic. He's the primary target of any hostile mental attack, which makes his stats on that front? Probably pretty awful.

 

But he shrugs it off. And shoots the commander unconscious.

 

Before the conclusion of the mission, he takes or dodges several more plasma shots, kills at least one more Sectoid, and never falls under enemy control. Eventually, he bleeds out, and, sadly, the commander he caught had to be put down, but thanks to him, the base assault was downed with minimal casualties, despite being, well, about as bad as these things can be first month.

 

Best psi weak rookie a guy could ask for.

[Hobbes]

My rookie of the month would step out of the Skyranger carrying nothing, dodge a plasma shot that would hit an unseen alien on the back killing it, he would then rush to the dead alien, pick up an alien grenade and then proceed to blow the entire UFO and the surrounding countryside with it, turning everything into neatly chopped pieces of wood, alien alloys, mutton steak and, alas, himself.

[dogfish]

Yeah I wish in the mission summary it would tell you who died so that you can mourn your loss.

[Crafty]

Not sure if this is really rookie hall-of-fame material, but a funny moment in the game I just started. Squad of rookies busts into a large scout, drops the two sectoids inside, and then moves to position by the two doors. Once they're in position, I end my turn. Apparently, one of the sectoids was merely unconscious, and gets up, winds his way through the four rooks at the door on the left side, opens the door, and walks on through. They all had plenty of TUs remaining, but not a single reaction shot was fired.

 

I just picture this whole tac squad just sitting there, focused on the door, while a sectoid casually walks right through them, saying, excuse me, pardon me, coming through...

 

It was an epic rookie fail.

[Sunflash]

Not sure if this is really rookie hall-of-fame material, but a funny moment in the game I just started. Squad of rookies busts into a large scout, drops the two sectoids inside, and then moves to position by the two doors. Once they're in position, I end my turn. Apparently, one of the sectoids was merely unconscious, and gets up, winds his way through the four rooks at the door on the left side, opens the door, and walks on through. They all had plenty of TUs remaining, but not a single reaction shot was fired.

 

I just picture this whole tac squad just sitting there, focused on the door, while a sectoid casually walks right through them, saying, excuse me, pardon me, coming through...

 

It was an epic rookie fail.

 

 

"...Jim?"

"...Yeah, Dave?"

"...Was it just me, or..."

"Did you just see an alien that we just shot get up and walk by?"

"You saw it too?"

"That or the pre-battle wiskey had more than just wiskey in it..."

[chiasaur11]

"Look, Steve got chewed out for wasting a commander last week. I don't want to be the guy who kills a valuable resource."

 

"...That sounds an awful lot like traitor talk, Bill."

 

"Look, I'm as loyal as you. It wasn't even armed!"

 

"So, you're admitting it's using it's mind control powers?"

 

"What? No! I.."

 

"ON THE GROUND, ALIEN PAWN!"

[Invertin]

My general policy to rookies is "we can get more of them", so I've picked up the protocol of sending out my newest soldier. Alone. The other guys might be providing sniper support, but for the most part he's alone unless we're on a terror mission, or a ship mission bigger than "small" (which is the point you want to cover all sides, and one guy can't do that)

 

Anyway, got to a base mission and decided to use that protocol but not quite the same. I used him as a scout to work out the layout of the base. I forget the Rookie's name, so let's call him Kickass McFuckyou.

 

Kickass went ahead as the scout, alone, because I didn't care at all about his survival. I'm not a very nice leader. He ended most turns crouched next to a corner where aliens could pop out at any minute.

 

Let me put it this way. Fully intact base. No explosives. One rookie. No casualties.

 

I think that most of them were taken out in a Cyberdisc explosion, and another group of them attacked the entrance point for some reason, where the heavily armored hardasses were sitting.

 

Speaking of which, we had flying armor and stuff by this point, but he was a rookie, so he was unarmored and he still made it.

 

If I remember correctly, he got shot by the last alien on the map and died of his wounds on the way back to base (or at least, it said that I lost an XCOM agent when nobody died, so I assume it was Kickass.) If I remember incorrectly, then he's still fighting. And now he gets to join the group that sits at the back watching the rookie get slaughtered.

 

"Uh. Should I just.. Walk through the door then?"

 

"Yeah, sure. It'll be fine."

 

"But what if there's a guy on the other side?"

 

"Shoot him. We all went in UFOs on our own to earn our place, so do you."

 

"Well alright then."

 

*ZAP*

*THUD*

 

"Oh man did you just see that? Three plasmas straight through his chest! Look! I can see the burn marks where his ribcage come out! Oh god, that was friggen awesome!"

[Bomb Bloke]

If I remember correctly, he got shot by the last alien on the map and died of his wounds on the way back to base (or at least, it said that I lost an XCOM agent when nobody died, so I assume it was Kickass.)

Troopers will survive any wound so long as they're still alive when the mission ends. Presumably there are statis pods hidden in the SkyRanger. Or something.

 

One thing soldiers won't "survive" is being under mind-control at mission end (it makes them go MIA, to be more precise). Presumably they use the confusion to escape your employment. Can't imagine why they'd want to do that...

[Invertin]

Troopers will survive any wound so long as they're still alive when the mission ends. Presumably there are statis pods hidden in the SkyRanger. Or something.

 

One thing soldiers won't "survive" is being under mind-control at mission end (it makes them go MIA, to be more precise). Presumably they use the confusion to escape your employment. Can't imagine why they'd want to do that...

Hm. Must've been wrong then.

 

I wasn't entirely sure if there was one loss anyway. I might've been remembering the wrong mission. I don't actually remember anyone getting shot except for that one rookie, and he definitely made it out alive...