[Rodo]

I miss the thrill of living in the edge.

[SpardaSon21]

I'm pretty sure HLP recognizing The E as Earth's baddest mother****er because of that is a significant contribution.  Oh, and the fact operators of remote-controlled weapons platforms are now part of the Spoonzer Elite.

[Scotty]

When I asked about it in Site Support, it got shot down.  Make what you will of that.

At any rate, I'd be okay with a restart as long as I can still be the pilot.  I'm always the pilot.

[StarSlayer]

The establishment felt it wasn't significant enough to HLP's culture to warrant inclusion.

Yeah, I'm not sure how "significant enough" gets judged either.

See that's why you need to make the most of every opportunity and ensure it stays culturally relevant to HLP:

We can't let infighting tear us apart! What if we compromise and target all humanoids with pointy ears? That way we also get rid of the Vulcans!

Also I don't have any personal quarrel with Spoon! It's for the good of humanity, there's no other way.

I don't think you quite understand but he's the Goddamn Spoonzer Elite.  About the only thing xenos scum soil themselves in fear of more is The E.  He's a cold metal menace and I'd take my chances against any extraterrestrial threat backed by the dread armor of the one known as Spoon...

[SpardaSon21]

I'm pretty sure The E carries around the paw of a Demented Fuzzy Shivan for good luck.

[NGTM-1R]

So **** has gone south. Or north. It's hard to tell when you're in this deep.

India and China pulled out, North America is on the edge of losing it, and we're still broke. But we're hitting North America in response to an abduction mission now. Attending are Talon 1024, Scourge of Ages, Polpolion, Dire Wolf, and Rodo.



I have no idea what that is, but it looks pretty badass. And here we are with only a couple of lasers in the squad. **** **** ****.


Sectoids add the to the problem as Rodo misses two shots at the nearest new enemy.



The situation is bad. A grenade has badly injured two of our troopers, causing Rodo to panic. (Fortunately also causing Rodo to gun down the grenadier.) We have hostiles on both sides and we've lost track of one of the alien heavies. Polpolion is stuck out so far front that there's no cover from both groups, and others are taking fire that's fortunately not hitting from the Thin Men that appeared behind us or the Sectoids in front of us.





Dire Wolf provides a bright spot by bringing down the most distant Sectoid, which also kills the one it's psychically linked to.



Polpolion redeploys with the reduced Sectoid threat, only to stumble onto some Floaters. Still, one of the Thin Men goes down. This might be salvageable, particularly since Scourge killed another Sectoid.




...I should learn not to say things like that. Dire Wolf just got blown away by a grenade and some plasma fire. The second heavy appeared and though it was shot up by Scourge it's not dead. Talon 1024 brought down one Thin Man by standard reaction shot and one by extra short-range reaction shot, finally clearing that flank.




But Polpolion gets shot in the process.



Rodo and Scourge manage to kill the heavy with a grenade and a rocket, but both have empty guns and the Floaters move up, killing Talon 1024.



Options are limited. Reloading in place will let the floaters probably kill both surviving troopers before they can return fire. There's no room to pull back and reload in, unless we do it on the Skyranger. I can try to keep the fight going, and lose everyone and the mission, or save two, and lose the mission anyways.

Mission aborted.


Four countries just panicked. Four.

This was a ****up of massive proportions. Talon has been with us since the beginning, and the others were mostly experienced and capable. The appearance of the Thin Men and their large frontage on one flank, and the lack of room to pull back and redeploy, caused the team to be torn to shreds. I was hopeful when the Thin Men effectively wasted a turn of fire, but the inability to eliminate either side as a going concern in one turn and the appearance of the Floaters meant that the mission was still fishbait.

[Mort]

Keep going! I'm interested in seeing how this ends

[Polpolion]

It's kinda hard to tell what's been going on here. Did we just get overextended, or did aliens just randomly appear out of nowhere? Or both?

[deathfun]

Damn
What caused China and India to pull out?

[NGTM-1R]

It's kinda hard to tell what's been going on here. Did we just get overextended, or did aliens just randomly appear out of nowhere? Or both?

A little of both. This particular map is a bad one to fight on, and you have to gamble on whether the Thin Men spawn point is being used or the aliens are in the building. I bet it wasn't being used, and I lost that bet.

Everything after that was downhill, since I didn't have the ability to arrest the slide by knocking out one side of the ambush in a turn.

What caused China and India to pull out?

My own derpiness. I was using satellites to manage panic levels and didn't realize unintercepted UFOs raise them. This was literally the first game I ran.

[Rodo]

--Rodd's personal Log--

Entry 18:
Date 05-05-15 11:05:32

*static*
*static*
*static*

I ****ed.

*static*
*static*
*static*

We're ****ed.

*static*
*static*

-LogEnd-

[TrashMan]

If you do plan to re-start I reccomed you use the Warspace Extension mod.

And friggin hate enemies appearing out of nowhere OR getting double moves. Taht is not difficulty. That is garbage.

[NGTM-1R]

We now return to the downward spiral.
Abduction mission, Paris. Rookies SpardaSon and Firespawn join Esarai, Scourge of Ages, and Mort.


We're going to touch down just about first light. We won't be operating very deniably, but at this point it probably doesn't matter. This could easily be our last operational mission.


The alien plot revealed: attack our fast food. We wanted to move up quick, establish some depth so if the aliens rush us we can trade space for time, but FireSpawn finds the hostiles too soon, and his shot misses. Then he gets poisoned and shot at (but missed) while the main stop line in the parking lot can hear things moving around in the kitchen.



Scourge of Ages takes a shot at a bunch of Mutons running out of the kitchen. He misses. So does Mort's and  Esarai's overwatch shots. (Esarai killed the door, but it's okay, it was a bad door.)



First FireSpawn has to get the hell away from the car, because it's going to blow. The answer to large numbers of hard-to-kill hostiles is, of course, explosives. FireSpawn contributes a grenade and Scourge adds a rocket. This doesn't actually kill any of them unfortunately, but it strips their health down to a manageable size.



Esarai then shoots one of them in the face.


Told you the car was going to blow.


The Aliens decide the real problem is Mort, and react accordingly. The first shot misses. The second does not.



Scratch Mort. Incidentially, this causes FireSpawn to panic. Dammit, here we go with the downward spiral.


Scourge brings a Muton down. So does Esarai, so we've dropped the heavies, just leaves a couple of Thin Men and probably another pair of aliens of some sort.



Like Floaters! Nothing wrong with Floater-aww ****, did you really just get overwatched SpardaSon!? I'm pretty sure these bastards didn't actually set overwatch! At least that apparently snapped FireSpawn out of the panic.


Esarai and FireSpawn both blow shots at the aliens. Scourge is reloading. (Esarai had an 85% to-hit chance. That's the second time this mission and it's kinda ****ed up, game.)



This Thin Man? He actually missed FireSpawn from that range.


Then his buddy poisions FireSpawn, again.


But it was a Floater than actually killed him. We're now down two rookies and a squaddie.


We pull out, we're losing Europe. Failure is not an option. (Except when it is, as you'll see!) Naturally, Scourge of Ages feels the need to fail hideously at that point, missing two shots at the Thin Man near where FireSpawn died.


Can you spot the problem here? I didn't. It's going to hurt in a moment. (Hint: the car next to Esarai is ****ing on fire.)


Esarai, wounded by the car explosion, is taken out by a Floater. So Scourge panics and hunkers down.


That didn't work out so well for him.


"Base this is JGZinv. Status Black. Emergency abort."

We lost the squad.


Two more countries have panicked and our reserve at this point consists of Rodo, who's injured, and the two rookies I can afford to buy. We're genuinely about as ****ed as it's possible to get here. And there's a UFO in the air nearby now.

[NGTM-1R]

I shouldn't have sent SpardaSon forward.

If I could take back one thing about this mission, that's it. I don't think it would have delayed the Floaters moving up by more than a turn, and it might not have mattered at all, but quite aside from killing SpardaSon it doubled the number of aliens I had to deal with right at the moment I was all out of Area Of Effect Death with which to solve such problems.

I would have still lost Mort, and I probably would have lost one or two other people, but I think the mission could have been won if the Floaters hadn't arrived at that moment.

[Scourge of Ages]

Well that's the way it goes. I lost so many squads when I played on ironman...
And now I'm dead too. Send in the clones!

[deathfun]

Watch these rookies he sends in next completely demolish the entire world of aliens

[TrashMan]

Looks like it's time for a new game.

I shall again reccomend you use the warspace extension mod (or my own tweak file I linked a few posts ago)

[Rodo]

No! I ain't dead!..Give me my glorious death!
You can't leave me like a POW :C

Besides.. I might just win this all by myself 

[Mort]

Talk about a mission that went FUBAR

[TrashMan]

Speaking of which - Y U only have 1 satellite?

Sat = cash = love.