Zombie

So here's the EOM report from the last mission: Solid performance overall which is probably an understatement. Love that bounty and the UFO components to sell. So we have two promotions this mission: Bomb Bloke which is his last and the new and improved Pete 2.0. Starting with BB of course: There were a number of ways I could have did this but decided that maxing out throwing with 2 points to an even 100 was the most worthwhile. Even if he can't use the mortar he can always throw a grenade or something, right? Then I put 2 points into agility and the last in vitality. Simple. Since BB will be taking a nice vacation for the foreseeable future we need someone else to take his place (again, like that's even possible). I think Full Auto is a perfect choice so he gets the nod. Then I started to wonder if maxing out shooting was even necessary for a soldier that exclusively uses a mortar? I suppose it's useful early on when mortaring isn't necessary and you need consistent xp to level up. But with the blanket +30xp mission completion bonus you technically could leave them at the back of the transport for a while mooching off of the hard work of others. Okay, let's do Peetie next: That's right, max out strength first at a nice even 100 then one point in agility, vitality, bravery and throwing. He's basically set for all the usual important stats so now we can focus on agility and vitality with maybe a few points into bravery. We shall see. I'm kinda getting antsy for that new combat medkit, lets check up on our scientists: Not too long to go actually. In the meantime the last workshop at my main base finished construction (finally): I immediately put the extra engineers on manufacturing mortar bombs: We're gonna need them. Eventually I'd like to finish up that sludge suit, but we also need more incendiary grenades and sludge grenades too. The work just never ends! So after the mortar bombs finish we put the team on cranking out a run of 8 incendiary grenades and then on sludge grenades: Not long after our research into the combat medikit finished: As is customary, let's look at it's description: It's very heavy, but is able to heal more damage per tile of size. Just for comparison, here's the normal Medikit description: Both can remove critical hits so the only difference is damage healing capacity. And the most potent healing item in the game is still the stimpack which can heal 70 damage, occupies 1 tile, weighs only 3 and can be purchased off the market instead of manufactured. So it's not incredibly useful but if you need a medikit for healing critical hits you may as well use the one with more healing capacity. As for what we are going to research next, I think it has to be the Thunderstorm interceptor: We need better interceptors badly as the UFOs have been steadily getting bigger and badder. Speaking of such, another supply vessel UFO just showed up over India and it's heading straight to Russia somewhere: When it saw my birds in the air, it's focus shifted on them instead: And with the addition of the base defenses we were able to take it down easily. This is UFO #180 by the way: We have to wait till the crash site is in daylight so while we are putzing around we may as well put the engineers on manufacturing a combat medikit: It'll take a while though. You know, I've been playing the game on a fairly regular basis this year and the one thing I noticed recently is the sudden drop of recovered alien weapons/clips/grenades. Seems like a good chunk of the later aliens have integrated weapon systems and thus do not need a hand-held gun. Nor do they use or even have grenades. And to think I've been using the inferno grenades like candy against Bonesetters. So I think the trick is to stockpile the inferno grenades for later and just use the lower power incendiary grenades instead. Same deal with the heavy photon beamer ammo though the aliens do seem to carry them sometimes. And if you need to use a better grenade to take down a particularly tough alien try a cryo or sludge grenade as you can manufacture those. Just some food for thought. As an aside, right now I'm #112 on the Steam leaderboards for UFO's shot down (954). If I down 25 more I'll be #105 and about 50 more it would be #100 or so. Once you get into the sub 1100 level, it becomes way easier to jump higher. In terms of aliens killed I'm a solid #20 with 7572 kills. And I'll probably be at this level for quite a while. - Zombie

Alien Supply Vessel Part 2 Still the same turn as before. Hobbes is upstairs in a building next to the UFO trying to get eyes on that other UFO cannon on the near side and it met with a couple blasts from the cannon. The first leveled the floor he was on and the second hit him but thankfully the damage was absorbed: And I think we all know what the next step is at this point - BB will mortar it: The blast hits a hidden unit for 79 and does 92 to the cannon. Neither were kills. And let's face it, there aren't any aliens in the game which can take 79 damage and remain alive so it's another cannon. Well, we can't let either stay so BB readies another mortar: This time the blast does 82 to the hidden cannon and 106 to the other, destroying both: A couple turns later and the first Trep spawns wanders out to see what all the commotion was about. Hobbes still has the high ground so he'll toss a normal grenade near it: It does 45 damage which somehow isn't a kill. That's okay, I want NKF to get some xp so he'll shoot at it next: His first bullet does a massive non-critical 61 damage which kills it: Four turns later and another Trep comes out in the same spot. This time Jman is going to take a long range aimed shot with his trusty photon beamer: It does a whole 20 damage. Time for NKF to do his magic again: The first bullet does 28 damage, killing it: Two alien turns later and a Bonesetter comes out of the other door and is met with reaction fire from Full Auto: The damage was absorbed unfortunately. But his second is going to be a hit too: It does a decent 32 damage. His last shot will also be a hit: His last does 18 which isn't a kill. We've got bigger problems now as an Iron Rattler comes out of the other door: It shoots at FA and the damage is absorbed. He shoots back and hits for 44 damage, killing it: Even worse, another Bonesetter comes out of the same door and shoots at JFG for 5 damage. He shoots back: He does 42 damage on this shot and 9 on the second but the damage was absorbed for the last. When it's our turn again, Hobbes is going to toss an inferno grenade next to that last Bonesetter: It does 50 damage, killing it: It also creates a nice kill zone for any aliens that venture out into the flames. Anyhow, JFG is going to try and auto shoot the other Bonesetter with his photon beamer: The first blast does 1 stinking damage but the second does 37 which kills it: During the aliens turn a Bonesetter comes out but runs straight through the fire into the open. Good tactic but it isn't going to help any: It moves a little more to the right and now is in Pete's sight cone. He reaction fires at it with the first bullet doing 11 damage. The second will also be a hit: The second does 37 damage: His last shot missed unfortunately. It's our turn now so NKF will shoot at it: The first bullet hits for 24 damage, killing it: We've been doing good up to this point, but I made a huge mistake in thinking there were no aliens outside of the UFO yet. I gave up on searching the rest of the map for the sake of brevity which is a lapse in better judgement for me. Anyhow the commander comes out of nowhere and shot at Hobbes for 3 freeze damage. Then another Bonesetter and then came down to the ground from a lift to the north of us. Luckily it's in an area where none of my soldiers are so BB will just mortar it: Big boom time, especially with the 4 explosive barrels nearby. Two of the barrels did 40 and 33 damage which killed it: That commander is on the ground in a good area so JFG will start us off by shooting at it: His shots do very good damage somehow and he manages to kill the thing ending the mission. I was kinda hoping to get some other soldiers involved in the shooting spree for some quick xp, but that isn't happening now. And I'm not going to reload to do this part over either. So join me next time when we check out the EOM report and allocate points to two soldiers who were promoted. On the Geoscape we go through a lot of research and manufacturing changes and shoot down another supply vessel. There's a lot of stuff to go over and I'll cover all of that and probably more. - Zombie

Alien Supply Vessel Part 1 Like clockwork, this is a cityscape map (again). We sorta deploy in the usual way as we have to be careful from the alien cannons. During the aliens first turn a Rider comes out of the room from the "parking garage" (?) in the building next to the transport. It just stops there like a dummy so Gimli is going to shoot at it when it's our turn: The first bullet hits for 18 and the second is a weak spot kill for 70 damage: Can't get much easier than this. Still the same round and Pete sees another Rider below the transport. It's grenade time as he can't shoot down there and be prepared for a big boom: The explosion does 37 damage. killing it: During the alien's next turn a Rider shows up in a tower in back of the transport. It shot at CG but the damage was absorbed. He shoots back with his trusty photon beamer and the first blast looks like it'll be a hit: It does 20 damage while the next does 3 and the last is a monstrous 42: There are also some Bonesetters which are poking around our areas during the remainder of their turn. The first is where that first Rider was: at the door to the "parking garage". And as before, Gimli will shoot at it "point blank" style: Low damage rolls meant a little back and forth between them. Gimli was hurt for 2 damage when the Bonesetter shot at him, but he finished it off with a final damage roll of 51: The other Bonesetter is 2 levels above and in the air. Full Auto is going to shoot at it from the ramp of the transport: The first bullet does a healthy 43 damage. The second was absorbed and the last did 20 which killed it: I think you can probably see that part of an alien cannon is visible in the darkness. BB wants to mortar it so bad this round but I have to reel him back: We really don't have a clear "lay of the land" in order to use the bomb to it's full potential. In other words, we can't see where the other cannons are... yet. Gimli is recruited for this dangerous job the next round. He makes it out unscathed while also uncovering another cannon. Okay BB, you are clear to put one between them: One was unfortunately not enough as he managed to damage the one on the right for 94 and the other for a paltry 27. The second bomb did 87 damage to the one on the right, destroying it. As for the left cannon, it remains up as the blast only did 68. We are going to wait till our next round to do anything else, who knows, maybe a Bonesetter will go up there yet. During the aliens next turn another Rider peeks it's head in the door from the "parking garage". When it's our turn again, it's Gimli to the rescue: He hits for 18 & 69 (critical hit) killing it. And now BB is going to mortar that other UFO cannon: The blast does a pi$$ poor 41 but it was enough to take the cannon out... finally: On our next turn Gimli goes up the lift to take a peek and is shot at by a hidden Bonesetter. He's able to spot it and since nobody has a clear shot at it BB will mortar it: The blast does a massive 176 critical damage to the visible bonesetter killing it and also hits another alien for 101 killing it too: During the aliens turn, FA shoots and kills a Rider below for 30 damage: Awesome! When it's our turn again, Gimli takes the unenviable job of scouting for more UFO cannon targets. He just barely can see a little bit of the scary central turret so BB will send a mortar there: Do you see that odd looking tile on the roof of the UFO? We'll be getting to that more at a later mission. Anyhow, the blast did 150 damage which destroyed it: We spread out little by little but haven't seen any alien activity in a long time. But we did hear hibernation pods opening so Treps and Iron Rattlers will be on the menu soon. On cue, we see two Iron Rattlers. One shoots at Jman for no damage and he shoots back at it. Looks like it'll be a hit: It does 20 damage but doesn't kill it. All his other shots miss. We've got bigger problems now as a Bonesetter appears out of nowhere at the corner notch of the UFO: Zombie is ready for it and hits for 6 & 9 damage so far: The last bullet does 4 damage. Meh, he tried at least. The Bonesetter shoots back and hits him but the damage was absorbed: This triggers him to take another auto-reaction shot which does 5, 27 & 37 which kills it: Lucky. Spifficate the Swines though? Is that really necessary? Come on guys, we're above these aliens. Well, NKF is going to toss a grenade on the two Iron Rattlers: It only does 11 damage to one but it's still a kill somehow. The other one takes 39 which is also a kill: I'll stop here as there is another part to this mission yet. You'll want to stay tuned for this one as there's a ton of action left! - Zombie

Swarm Leader Part 3 It takes us about 4 turns to clear the central room and the hallway in the back of the UFO. Zombie just opened the door to the vat room to the left of the hallway and noticed the door to the left lift room was open. JFG tossed a normal grenade in the vat room to start clearing out that mess and what do you know, the explosion from one of the vats hit an alien (for no damage unfortunately): Now that we know something is in there, NKF breaks out the Golden Pineapple (DG2): It damaged something for 3 damage and something else for no damage. (Let's get real for a second, we know these unseen aliens are Bonesetters): Oh, and there was another Bonesetter caught in the blast too. Dunno why I didn't bathe the place in fire with inferno/incendiary grenades. At least the blasts revealed the location of one of the Bonesetters so Gimli will auto shoot it: He did three auto shots as the damage was all over the place and still wasn't able to take it out. Figures. He even shot NKF in the ass (luckily no damage). In a somewhat rare moment, Bomb Bloke picks up a photon beamer and decides to shoot at it: The first blast was absorbed, but the second did 6 damage which killed it: The next round Pete starts us off by tossing a grenade into the room to the right of the hallway, but there were no aliens present: A least it removed the "furniture" in there so aliens can't hide. Five turn later and finally the whole team is ready. When we open the door on the left there is a Bonesetter inside so Pete's going to auto shoot it: He kills it easily as all the bullets did decent damage. A couple rounds later and Pete is first up the lift on the left and comes face-to-face with a Bonesetter. Well, not exactly face-to-face as the Bonesetter was looking away from him, but that's even better as he's going to shoot it point blank: Inconsistent damage prevented him from killing it with three bullets. And of course, the Bonesetter had to shoot back a couple times injuring Pete for 4 once, but he was able to kill it when the last bullet did 49 damage: We patched Pete up and then two turns later NKF spots a Bonesetter by the hallway leading to the bridge. Tammy comes out of her hiding spot to throw a photon grenade at it: She ended up tossing two photon grenades and both did crap for damage (8 & 5). Pete tossed a normal grenade next to it but the damage was absorbed: We make a little mistake by not blocking the door completely to the lift room and that Bonesetter comes inside during it's turn. It shot at Zombie for no damage and Zombie shot back also for no damage. Well, it's right next to Pete now, so when it's our turn again he'll auto shoot it: He hits for 4 & 48 damage, killing it: During the aliens next turn the Bonesetter Commander and Zombie trade shots for no damage on either side. Zombie can "tank" the commander as his tundra armor blocks everything but the most damaging cold attacks. When it's our turn, Tammy is going to shoot at it for some xp: Blade and Jman also shoot at it but for little-to-no damage: His last blast does 23 damage though. I think it's time for Zombie to stun the thing and end this: And that was the end of the mission. EOM report was good: We recovered a lot of heavy photon beamer ammo which was awesome. And to address that big pink elephant in the room, Tammy and Blade both get fully promoted to Colonel! Here's Tammy's point allocation: Pretty simple, I put 3 points into agility to max that stat out and then 2 into vitality. It was a pleasure fighting alongside Tammy as she was always so reliable. Zombie will miss her as everyone else will too. Well, here's Blade's final stats: Same point allocation as Tammy. I initially put 4 points into agility to max that out at 94 but at the last minute changed my mind and decided vitality might be more helpful. The first swarm reward I got was 3 advanced ship parts: Not really interested in geoscape stuff I reloaded and got 2 advanced ship parts and a personal teleporter: Well, that's better I guess. And I'm pretty sure 2 is the most of any soldier only rare item you can recover from a swarm reward. There aren't any alien life scanners anymore so there are actually fewer useful items than UFO:ET. I mean, the personal teleporter is nice and all, but is it necessary or useful for everyone? No. The personal eternal shields, distortion field generators and pale blue crystals are the best for soldier "survivability". With Blade and Tammy "soft retired", we need two more soldiers to fill their shoes (like that's even possible). I get Full Auto back on the team as well as Crazy Gringo. I gave one teleporter to CG as his throwing is 97: I gave the other to Gimli "just because": Well, it wasn't completely random. I wanted a soldier on each of our breach teams to have one and because CG and Gimli are close in xp I figured they were good choices. Not like I've been using the teleporters much anyway. Back in the Geoscape and I just sent out all my interceptors from Europe, Russia and the aircraft carrier to engage an alien supply vessel headed to Africa: I thought one of the golden eagle interceptors would get really damaged, but the UFO seemed rather disinterested in us or had weak weapons. Everyone engaged it at close range and at this point it's pretty much downhill for the UFO: After we down it I wait a couple hours till the crash site is in daylight and send out the transport. Before we could get there the game informs me that our photon defense finished construction in Antarctica: Let's check that base out again: Still 16 more days till the other photon defense is completed so we aren't out of the woods yet so to speak. But at least we have a couple golden eagle interceptors stationed there. It'll be a little while till we finish building all the weapons+shields+missiles+bombs necessary to equip a new fleet. And then a little more time to build the planes themselves. Thankfully though, there hasn't been much action down here yet. So join me next time when we deal with that patrol vessel. - Zombie

As a late edit to this, if your soldier can fly and also has a life scanner you'll be able to detect aliens on that level. So you can go up and down with that soldier to scan all the levels of the battlescape or have separate soldiers on different levels with a scanner to check. Both are viable. The first option is really for when you only have one scanner while the second is when you have multiples. - Zombie

I'm getting there. Without giving too much away, there's a mechanic in place which, how should I put this, makes life very difficult if your "ducks aren't in a row". Long story short, you better be prepared. And from what little I know there seems to be only one path to get from point A to point B in terms of strategy - no shortcuts or alternate paths. Don't worry, Thorondor and yourself will be making guest appearances before end game. As it stands, I'm done hiring and training any more soldiers. I think the pool of soldiers I have is sufficient enough to draw from for the final missions. Right now, there are a few soldiers ready for final promotion and nobody else to replace them on the transport so SV and Mr T will be back together probably in medic+rear commander roles initially and then over to different roles eventually. - Zombie

Swarm Leader Part 2 It's three turns later now and Zombie reaction fires at a Rider trying to exit the UFO: This shot hits for 49 killing it. Pete also gets in on the action and reaction fires at another Rider trying to exit too. His first shot hit for 35, killing it too: Looks like the killing fields. Two turns later and Pete reaction fires at another Rider exiting the UFO. The forst bullet did 15 damage which is a start: The second bullet did 27 damage killing it: Easy stuff, these Riders. Pete just spotted another UFO cannon which shot at him for no damage so BB will mortar it as usual: The blast damages a hidden Bonesetter for 42 and does 57 to the cannon: There's no way Bomb Bloke is passing up another opportunity to fire his mortar again. This time the blast does 85 to the hidden Bonesetter killing it and it also does 140 to the cannon which takes it out too: We just created a hole in the wall of the building for Tammy to peek in as we've been hearing a Bonesetter moving around nearby. A couple rounds later and Tammy spot it so it's auto shot time: Her first bullet did 15 damage. That alerted the Bonesetter which caused it to fire back but the damage was absorbed. Tammy's second bullet missed and the last the damage was absorbed. With the Bonesetter's attention focused on Tammy, Jman is going to shoot another hole in the wall hoping to hit it with the last shot: It missed, but that just allows Gimli to walk right next to the Bonesetter to shoot it point blank: The first bullet was absorbed, but the 2nd did 17 while the last did 30 which killed it: See? The pincer attack verks! With all those doors open to the left we think there's another alien nearby. The Next round Gimli investigates and finds a Bonesetter. It shot at him but the damage was absorbed. Jman is going to shoot a hole in the wall next: And the Bonesetter isn't there anymore. It's standing next to Gimli now: Strange stuff, these teleporting Bonesetters. Blade shoots a hole in the wall where the Bonesetter is now and hits it with the last blast damaging it for 45. Time for a point blank shot from Gimli: He hits for 12 and 6 damage which kills it: During the aliens turn a Rider shoots at JFG (I think) with it's heavy photon beamer ammo: The shot somehow missed so when it's our turn again Pete is going to toss a normal grenade at it: The first only did 15 damage so he tossed another which did 46 and killed it: Seven turns go by. We don't think there are any more aliens outside so everyone splits up into the two breach squads. When we open the right door we can see that the door to the engine room on that side is open. NKF is going to toss a grenade at the door to set off those engines : He damages a hidden Bonesetter for 13 and the engines exploding kill another doing 116 damage: The next turn JFG walks inside to check things out and spots a Bonesetter behind a stack of some crates or boxes: He gets out of there as NKF wants to toss an inferno grenade next to it: The blast does a pitiful 4 fire damage. At least it destroyed those boxes as that allows JFG to take an auto shot at it with his photon beamer (normal ammo): The damage from the first blast was absorbed but the second did a healthy 49 while the last did 14 which killed it: Kinda wished JFG would have cracked out the heavy ammo for this at the blasts from that would have been better for screenshots, but he got the job done in any case. Stay tuned for part 3 where we deal with more Bonesetters both upstairs and down then take a little target practice at the commander before finally stunning it. - Zombie

Swarm Leader Part 1 With Hobbes still in the hospital, we go in one guy short. Maybe I should have brought along Thorondor or Space Voyager as I'm sure either of those guys would have performed good, but hey, we don't want to interrupt their little vacation, right? That just leaves more xp for Zombie. So I send NKF off the transport and he spots a Rider at the front. Auto shot time: The first bullet hits for 24 damage, killing it. Now we can see one of the UFO cannons so BB will mortar it: The blast only does 69 damage, so Zombie takes an auto shot at it. His first two bullets hit for 41 damage each which destroys it: It's the alien's turn now and all hell breaks loose. A Bonesetter comes out of the UFO only to be met with reaction fire from Zombie. He hits it for 45 and 18 damage killing it. Oh, there are 2 Riders at the door and don't forget about the Rider at the top of the pic: One of them shoots at Zombie for 2 damage. He shoots back hitting for 30 which kills it: Now we can see a Bonesetter inside the UFO door: And another Bonesetter shows up where that lone Rider is: A Bonesetter shoots at Pete from the UFO door but the damage was absorbed. And that was the end of the aliens turn. Busy! It's our turn now and there are 6 aliens visible to us. We have our work cut out for us, that's for sure. Pete's going to start off the proceedings by tossing an incendiary grenade at one of the Bonesetters just outside the door to the UFO: It kills the Bonesetter as it's a weak spot hit for 71 damage. It also hits the Rider for 22 damage: There's no way anyone can engage that Bonesetter inside the UFO so Pete is going to shoot at it: He hits all three times doing 65 damage which takes it out: Fantastic stuff! Four left. Blade is going to shoot at that Bonesetter by the lone Rider with 51% accuracy and pray: Most of the blasts were absorbed, but he managed to hit for 37 and 9 damage and his final was a critical hit for 75 killing it: Tammy is now going to shoot at the Rider by the UFO door which is already hurt: Her first bullet only hits for 8 damage but that's enough to kill it: Two left. Zombie is going to shoot at the lone Rider: He hits for 15 & 20 damage, killing it: The last alien we see is a Rider at a door to the building to the south of us. When NKF moves to get into position to shoot at it he also spots a couple more aliens. We'll deal with that in a bit, as NKF is going to shoot at Mr Rider first: He hits for 22 & 47 killing it: Ok, what's next? Ah, there's a Bonesetter on the roof above where Tammy is. She still has plenty of APs left so she's going to toss an incendiary grenade up there: It's a critical hit for 58 fire damage which kills it: The last alien we see is a Bonesetter in the air above the building to the south of us. Nobody has a shot at it so we leave it go. It comes a little closer to us during the alien's turn so now JFG is going to shoot at it and hope for the best: He should have hoped harder as there were a lot of hits for very little damage. He even managed to accidentally hit Pete but thankfully the damage was absorbed. I think we'll switch gears as we can see a Bonesetter inside a building to the north of us. Tammy is going to shoot at the side to create a hole: With the hole created she can target the Bonesetter: Not much damage initially, but her last two bullets did 48 & 24 damage, killing it: With that out of the way I think we'll have Zombie shoot at that airborne Bonesetter: He hits for 20 & 31 damage, killing it: Hope you could see my strategy for dealing with multiple aliens without resorting to the mortar. Granted, this had a lot to do with luck, but if you deploy properly to cover all possible threat angles you can at least get shots on the targets. I think there will be two more parts to this mission as there were quite a few aliens present. Stay tuned for that as it should be interesting! - Zombie

Time to take a look at some of our soldiers. First up is JFG who now has exactly 2500xp: He has 64 missions under his belt with 112 kills. Not bad considering he's been a rear commander for a number of missions now. He's still rocking a VT2000 shield in addition to a newer VT3000. We'll continue to use the old VT2000's until they are gone which may be a while. Next up is Hobbes who's still in the hospital for another 2 days: Poor guy. Must be kinda uncomfortable wearing that armor and lugging all that gear around in the hospital. It's too bad we don't have more pale blue crystals, personal eternal shields or distortion field generators for our other soldiers. Would be nice to kit everyone out for the final mission like this, I'd certainly grind that out. Anyhow, he's a few hundred points away from his final promotion so we are going to have to start thinking of a replacement soon. Speaking of that, Tammy and Bomb Bloke are getting even closer to a promotion than Hobbes: These two have been part of our squad for so long it's almost inconceivable that we are going to need to find replacements for them too. Pretty big shoes to fill if you ask me. I think Tammy is our soldier with the fewest missions to get to this level which is a big accomplishment. Heck, Blade is also getting close to his final promotion as well: He's been a cornerstone in our squad by backing us up with his trusty photon beamer. Back in the Geoscape and we recently shot down a light cruiser UFO but now there's a heavy cruiser UFO inbound to Africa... at least that's what it looked like. There's no way we'll be able to do both these missions as the light cruiser is slated to disappear in a few hours. So the interceptors are sent out to bombard it: And now it's gone: Good. This will give us a chance to down the heavy cruiser. The thing just didn't want to cooperate with us and flew over the North Atlantic instead of over land. I send everything after it because it's supposed to create a terror site and we don't want that: Yup, we down it over water which means it's gone too: Since that's gone, I think we should expect a little lull in UFO activity for a while. That'll give our engineers at our main base some time to start on a Sludge Suit of armor: It's gonna take over 6 days which is a really long time to wait, but what else can we do? At least this other workshop will be coming online fairly soon which should help speed things along. In the Geoscape again and now we get a swarm warning: Well, I wonder where the leader is going to be? It's buzzing around the south ocean around Antarctica just out of the reach of our defenses there but it's getting closer. That's not really an issue right now as our fly boys in South America just downed a patrol vessel, a light cruiser and a heavy cruiser: There's another heavy cruiser in the North America region and it gets close enough to our base to trigger the defenses: We'll let the defenses soften it up a little bit but we need to send the interceptors out to give it a target: We take it out easily and then all efforts are on the swarm leader. We just barely take it down over land: Ok, there are way to many UFOs to do ground missions on and all of them are way out so we'll just bombard everything in South America and North America: I sent my transport out to do the ground mission on the swarm leader but it'll take a while to make it down there. A recon vessel is also buzzing around Australia so our interceptors at the main base will take it out and then bombard it too: Next up is the swarm leader ground mission so stay tuned for that as it'll be interesting! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 2 May as well do the rest of the mission now. It's a couple turns later and part of my team has made it around the far side of the UFO but we can't go any farther due to the watchful eye of the last cannon. I was afraid that I used up all my luck taking out the other cannons with the mortar in one hit so I decided to have the team grenade the thing instead. NKF was standing in fire from the blast he created but got lucky as the damage was absorbed. Anyhow, Hobbes will start us off with a normal grenade: The damage was absorbed so he tossed a photon grenade which did 39 damage. Pete is going to toss a normal grenade now: It does 34 damage so he tossed a photon grenade too which did 20. Blade tossed two normal DG1 grenades which did 9 & 16. JFG tossed a DG1 which did 41 and that took the cannon out: Easy peasy? Not quite, but again, it's cheap and spreads XP around. We have another issue to deal with as a Bonesetter is spotted at the SW corner of the UFO. NKF is just barely able to toss an incendiary grenade on it: It did 45 damage so he tossed an inferno grenade at it next which was a weak spot kill for 74 fire damage: Unreal! A couple turns later and our breach team arrived at the NW door to the UFO. When it was opened we saw a Bonesetter in there so Blade is going to take an auto shot with his photon beamer: He does 9 & 26 damage but the last shot is absorbed. JFG is going to take a snap shot at it with his photon beamer: It does 48 damage which means another dead alien: The next round our 2nd breach squad opens the other door and spots a Bonesetter just inside. NKF is going to auto shoot it: He hits twice for 62 damage which kills it: The next turn we hear a Rider walking around near our 2nd team so when we open the door NKF will shoot at it too: The first bullet is a weak spot kill for 69 damage: You may notice that the door to the left engine room is open. We noticed that too and our 1st breach team opens the other door to spot a Bonesetter inside. Pete gets the nod for an auto shot: Let's just say that he's a late bloomer as all his damage came at the end when he was nearly out of APs. At least the thing is gone: It's now 13 rounds later. Nothing happened on the ground floor anymore which was surprising as the aliens usually set an ambush for us. Anyhow, Pete charges upstairs via the left lift and sees a Bonesetter right in front of him. Auto shot time obviously: He damages it twice for 48 but it "moves" after the last bullet hit. And there's another Bonesetter up there too. Pete tries targeting the same bonesetter again, but it's not where it moved to... it's in the same place it was before, just invisible. He shoots again: His second bullet deals 32 damage which kills it. And of course the Bonesetter corpse is not in either place. Buggy! Well, he can't do anything else this round so he heads back down the lift. In his place is Hobbes who will shoot at the other Bonesetter: It was mostly no-to-low damage except for the last bullet which did 38 and killed it: Not much happens for 6 turns except the entire squad is now at the door to the bridge. Zombie peeks his head in there because he's in the tundra armor which protects him from the bonesetter commander's cryo grenades and weapons. He does spot the commander but also a Rider (after it shoots him for no damage). He tries stunning the commander but it wasn't a hit somehow. He gets the hell out of there and lets JFG shoot at the rider and the first shot was a kill when it deals 33 damage: We wait a couple rounds then Zombie peeks inside again. The commander is in the same spot so he shoots at it this time. The first two shots were absorbed, the commander shoots back and it's damage was absorbed and then Zombie shoots the last bullet which does 12 damage... and the commander shoots back but its damage is absorbed again. Well, we just shot at it and the shots hit (one for damage too) so the commander must be where it's at. Right? So Zombie will try stunning it again: (Notice that the stun rod is 100% accurate even though Zombie's other hand has a rifle in it). So what happened with Zombie's second stunning attack? Nothing. The commander was not hit for any stun damage, but the game ate some of Z's AP's. What a crock of crap. Well, now what? We can't stun it to end the mission as that doesn't work. I guess the only option is killing it. We aren't going in there anymore so now that the door is open NKF is going to bathe the thing in Infeerno grenade goodness: The damage was absorbed. The commander took a lot of fire damage during it's turn as it refused to move from it's spot. Forgot to take a screenie of this but the thing died after a couple rounds of roasting in it's own shell. EOM: We couldn't stun the commander and now Hobbes is in the hospital for 3 days. Great. At least we have some stuff to sell again and we got that $600k bounty. That helps. Next time we'll check out some soldiers, then deal with a couple pesky UFOs that were buzzing Africa. And after that deal with a UFO swarm attack. Totally blindsided by this as I usually play ahead a little bit to try out strategies but this never came up. So yeah, we are going to be busy! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 1 When we land it's a ctiyscape map. So Zombie takes one step off the transport intending to deploy in the usual fashion but the aliens had other plans. There were 2 Riders and a Bonesetter camped out on the roof next to us. A Rider reaction fired at Zombie but the damage was absorbed. Z-Man didn't have a shot on any of the aliens but he could toss an Inferno grenade up by the Bonesetter: The blast only did 23 fire damage to it. Well, crap. That didn't quite work out: I have Hobbes open the door below so Zombie could get into cover. NKF exits the transport and is shot at by that trigger happy Rider too, but the damage was thankfully absorbed. Pete comes off and decides to toss a normal grenade at the Bonesetter: It does a whole 12 damage. Not enough for the kill, but on the bright side it took out the guard rail around the rooftop: Blade takes a couple snap shots at the Bonesetter with his photon beamer but only manages to damage it for 3. Gimli comes off ready to take an auto shot at it with his rifle: All three bullets hit but did no damage. At this point I'm running out of options quick. All three aliens are still alive and I have a room filled with half my soldiers with no APs and very explosive items around them. As a last ditch effort I'll have Bomb Bloke nuke the highest rooftop making sure to "split-the-difference" so to speak when selecting a tile to target: The blast is very effective as it kills the Bonesetter after dishing out 49 damage to it and also takes out the Rider doing an incredible 141 damage to it: Well, that's better. That other Rider is worrisome as it's closer to getting to our soldiers below. BB is out of APs but Tammy finds out she actually has a shot on it somehow: The first bullet hit for 38 damage killing it: With the landing zone clear we breathe a big sigh of relief. For the next 8 turns we slowly spread out trying to hold the progress we made in the first round. Tammy steps off the transport and finds a Bonesetter at the front of the transport. It was behind the guard rail but Tammy found out she could shoot at it: Her first bullet did 63 damage, killing it: Good job! During the alien's next turn a Rider shows up below the transport and shoots at Zombie hitting him twice for no damage. He is kneeling down on the right of the pic: After the Rider is done shoting, Zombie shoots back and it's a weak spot kill for 70 damage: Amazing! Four turns later and Tammy peeks off the back of the transport to find another Bonesetter in the same area as before. And she has a shot on it too: Her first auto shot did 56 damage total. Not enough for the kill, but this thing must be teetering on death so she'll shoot again: This auto shot did nothing but the first bullet of the last did 6 which took it out: She is a coldhearted killer, no doubt about that and I'm certainly glad she's on our side. Three turns later and Hobbes spots one of the UFO cannons and this time Bomb Bloke is close enough to nuke it right away: Big Boom time which takes it out for 128 damage: A couple turns later and a Rider shoots at Jman damaging him for 3. But he reaction fires back with his first shot killing it for 40 damage. Oh, and his last shot misses wildly hitting a car which explodes and that sets off a series of other cars and barrels to explode too: Three turns later and we can barely make out another cannon in the darkness so BB will mortar it: The blast does 123 damage destroying it: Three turns later and we've just spotted the cannon on the far right side so BB is called upon to nuke it: This blast does 121 damage which takes it out: The mortars have been fairly uniform in terms of damage potential which is nice as I hate wasting 2 bombs on each cannon. It's a couple turns later and we've been revealing a large part of the map so far. No aliens to see yet, but I don't want to get any closer on the close side as there are a lot of explosive things in the way. NKF will preemptively shoot at a car to set the whole shebang off before we have to get closer: The initial blast is quite impressive as it destroys a lot of things: And then the big explosions happen and that's where we start cooking with fire: Too bad there were no aliens in the blast radius otherwise it would have been epic. Join me next time where we take out the last UFO cannon with grenades as I was worried my luck was running out on the mortar, then kill a bunch more Bonesetters with a couple Riders thrown in the mix to make it more interesting. The commander gives us headaches with it's glitchiness but we kill it in the end. - Zombie

So here's the EOM report from the last mission: Yup, I'd agree with excellent. We nabbed another commander, killed 18 aliens, got 10 photon beamers and a couple clips, plus the UFO components. Let's not forget about that $540,000 bounty too. No promotions, but that's fine. Up till recently I sold all the UFO components except for a stockpile of 50 units of the common and 10 of the uncommon. I changed my strategy on this a few weeks ago. Right now I'm stockpiling ALL the Alien Fibers, Alien Flight Controls and Alien Gravity Engines and selling all the advanced UFO stuff. You will recover a lot more of the common items so those can start to add up quick. In addition, the prices you get on the open (urm, black) market are pretty good: $28k for the Fibers, $40k for the Flight Controls and $120k for the Engines. I could probably get by just fine without selling the components (especially with the mods I have enabled) but I usually like to keep stockpiles of something on hand just in case our funding is low or we have big-ticket items to manufacture as I can offset the cost of that a little. Back in the Geoscape and our photon defenses in the aircraft carrier have completed: Well, let's take a peek at it then: So we have 3 photon defenses there, 2 light rocket and 2 heavy rocket. That should be good for a while. Now are all those defenses necessary as opposed to putting in another hangar and having only 3 defensive systems active? Well, an extra interceptor would be nice to help defend our main base, that's for sure. But interceptors are kinda expensive to manufacture and have monthly expenses you have to deal with. Plus they are fiddly as you have to send them out to the threats and then back them off when they get damaged. Whereas if you can draw the UFOs back to your base with your interceptors then the defenses can help shoot the UFO down. I say the more defensive systems, the better. Back again on the Geoscape and the next thing that happened (5 hours later) was our last 2 workshops finished construction at our base in Antarctica: We are going to take a look at that base too: It's going to take 7 more days till the first photon defense is up and running and 23 till the other is ready. So we are going to have to rely on our rocket defenses to help shoot down UFOs in the meantime. With the two additional workshops we can pump out a fighter shield in a little more than a day: The quicker we can get "sets" of interceptor components ready, the quicker we can manufacture the interceptors themselves. Anyway, it's about a day later and we suddenly have our hands full with UFOs. We just shot down a recon vessel in Africa and we are currently getting ready to shoot down a heavy cruiser near our main base (with another recon vessel slowly poking around in the Pacific Ocean): When the heavy cruiser comes a little closer I send out all the interceptors from the aircraft carrier, our main base and Europe: It doesn't take too long to down a "weaker" UFO like this, in this case about 21 minutes: Nope we aren't going to bombard this crash site as it's close to our main base. It's a nice fireball when it crashes though: We are waiting a little bit to see what that recon vessel does in the Pacific Ocean. It lands somewhere in the water(?): Not sure if it's Easter Island or a game glitch, but I'm not ready to find out which. So I send some interceptors from our base in South America to bombard it. It doesn't take long to destroy it: One less UFO to worry about. Since the sun rises in the east, we are going to assault the heavy cruiser UFO as it's in the sun first: So stay tuned for that next time! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 2 It's the next round and when Jman comes down a lift he spots a Bonesetter nearby. Time for an Inferno grenade: It does a whole 23 damage. Not sure what I was thinking here, but instead of sending Jman back up the lift I had him shoot at the Bonesetter with his photon beamer. Not only that, but I didn't have him kneel down either so his accuracy is only 65%: He connects only once for 12 damage which didn't kill it (2 shots missed). If that wasn't bad enough, he didn't have enough APs to get up the lift to relative safety. So he has to weather it out in a corner, hoping, preying that the Bonesetter looses interest. Doesn't work, as during the alien's turn the Bonsetter comes right up to him and shoots. Luckily the damage was absorbed. On the bright side, Jman now has a 99% accurate auto shot: He hits for 19 and 42 which kills it: Meanwhile, in a lower part of the map Hobbes comes down some steps to find a Rider nearby. So he'll shoot at it: The first bullet hits for 31 killing it. Hobbes then goes back up the stairs as high as his APs allow: About three turns later a Rider comes out of nowhere and shoots at JFG with it's heavy photon beamer (AOE) ammo. JFG's armor was enough to soak up the damage, but the Rider was not so lucky and died in the blast: Already resorting to suicide bombing tactics aliens? Seems a little early for that. About 6 turns later KFG spots a Bonesetter by the left door of the UFO. Tammy is right above that area so she'll toss an incendiary grenade down there: It does an incredible 59 fire damage which kills it: Another 6 turns later and a Rider comes out of the right door of the UFO, opens the door to the room where 4 of my soldiers are staging, takes a step in and runs out of APs. Smart, really smart. Gimli is going to shoot at it: He hits for 23 & 38, killing it: Nothing happens for 6 turns so the whole team breaches the UFO. Nothing is in the first area, but on the next round Hobbes opens the door to the right in the back hallway and sees a Bonesetter inside. Time for an auto shot: He really didn't do much so now Pete is going to try: All the damage was absorbed so Zombie had to mop up the mess by killing it: Wait, what is that blob to the right in the lift room? I think that's the commander! But it's not really in the lift room, it's upstairs somewhere. Not sure why there's a ghost of it visible. A couple turns later and we split up into our two breach teams to take the lifts. Half of the team is staging in the left room when a Bonesetter comes literally out of nowhere and shoots at Jman with it's heavy AOE photon beamer ammo. Jman shrugs off the damage, but Tammy takes 10 damage and NKF takes 16. Jman shoots back hitting for 49 on his first shot: His second shot killed it (no screenshot, sorry) and then we patch up Tammy and NKF. A few turns later and everyone is upstairs now trying to tighten the noose. A normal Bonestter comes out to greet us and then the commander comes out to throw a cryo grenade at JFG for 27 freeze damage and another at Hobbes for 3. After patching up JFG (Hobbes doesn't require attention as he has the pale blue crystal), we'll have NKF shoot at the normal Bonesetter: He shoots at it till he's out of APs and is somehow able to take it out with the last bullet dealing 42 damage: With the commander left and the team weary and possibly sore from injuries, it's time to end this by stunning the commander. But first, everyone shoots at it for some free xp. Hobbes gets the honors to stun it: And that was the end of the mission. I'll cover the EOM report next time along with some base updates and then shoot down a couple UFOs and then we have to bombard a small recon vessel that landed on the water in the Pacific ocean. Well, maybe not. Easter Island is in the vicinity so maybe it was there. - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 1 This mission is again on some sort of a base map. Not really sure what, but there are plenty of trees and vegetation to hide behind near our transport. We only get 4 soldiers off the transport when we spot a Bonesetter by a gate. Luckily Hobbes still has some APs available so he'll toss an inferno grenade at it: It does 46 fire damage which isn't enough for the kill. Blade thinks a normal grenade will take it out: Nope, the damage was absorbed. So Gimli comes off the transport to throw an incendiary grenade on it: It does 45 damage which kills it: It's amazing how a lowly incendiary grenade puts out just as much damage as a powerful inferno grenade, isn't it? I was a tad worried about all those soldiers bunched up from the grenade throwing, but nothing happened for a couple rounds. We now spot a Rider on a rooftop to the right of the Bonesetter. NKF somehow has a shot at it: The first bullet does 58 and that means one dead rider: A couple turns later and we spot one of the cannon on the roof of the UFO. As always, Bomb Bloke is going to mortar it: It does 102 damage but that isn't enough to destroy the cannon. So he'll send another: It does 84 damage which destroys it: We now spot a Bonesetter on a rooftop to the north of our transport. JFG has a line of fire so he'll try a snap shot with his photon beamer (normal ammo): The first shot did 18 while the second did 13 and the last did 36 which killed it: The next round we spot a Rider on the ground in the same area. Jman is close enough and in cover so he'll toss a normal grenade on it: It only did 19 damage. Well, seeing as it's damaged already, let's have Gimli take a long range auto shot at it: The first bullet did 36 damage which killed it: It's now four turns later and we spot another UFO cannon. Blade is in cover and in range for a throw so he'll toss a photon grenade on it, hoping to soften it up for BB: It does a decent 38 damage: BB is too far away to get a mortar over there this round so that'll have to wait till next round: The blast does 144 damage which destroys it: I'm feeling a lot better with those two cannons out of the way. There is one more on the left side which can be an issue but we haven't spotted it yet. Oh, and there's a Bonesetter along the close side of the UFO so Gimli is going to shoot at it: It took two auto shots to kill it as there were some low damage rolls: A couple rounds later Zombie peeks in the door to the building to the north of the transport only to come face-to-face with a Bonesetter inside which shoots him for 1 damage. An auto shot at point blank range seems like the answer to that: It took him two auto shots to kill it as the first bullet was absorbed: We eventually spot the other cannon on the UFO roof on the left side. It takes BB a number of turns to make it over there safely without getting spotted, but now he's ready to mortar it: It only does 65 damage but the blast sure looks nice: So he sends another which does 104 damage which destroys it: Join me next time when we venture down in the bowels of the base to rid it of more Bonesetters and Riders, then head inside the UFO to kill the last 3 bonesetter soldiers and finally stun the commander. Not like we need another one, but they take full stun damage so it's just easier to end the mission out that way. - Zombie

Supply Vessel Part 2 It's now our turn again. Crazy Gringo is in the farmhouse kitchen upstairs trying to clear it out but spots a Bonesetter in a corner. He quickly closes the door as he's nearly out of APs: The next turn he opens the door again, but the Bonesetter isn't there? I know it's still in the corner there so CG is going to toss an incendiary grenade there: It only does 17 fire damage. Okay, how about a normal grenade then: Th blast does 49 damage killing it. Notice where the body is: Now we spot a Bonesetter just inside one of the UFO doors. JFG is going to toss an Inferno grenade on it since he can't shoot at it: It only does 22 damage. He tossed a normal grenade on it next but the damage was absorbed: That's all anyone can do this round (well, BB could've wasted a mortar bomb on it, but come on, seems like overkill). During it's turn it comes closer to us so now Tammy is going to shoot at it: One auto shot was all it took, though the first two bullets only did 4 & 5 damage: The next turn another Bonesetter exits the craft and moves to the tool shed. There's also a Commander in the air, but we'll deal with that later. Pete's going to shoot at the normal Bonesetter on the ground: He hits it once for 17 damage and somehow kills it? Not sure what's up with that except perhaps one of those incendiary/inferno grenades or mortars pre-damaged it. Speaking of the mortar, BB is going to send one near the commander now: It does 34 damage which is promising: He's going to send another one in back of the commander hoping to find a break in it's armor: This time the damage was absorbed. All-righty, you asked for it, BB is going to use one of these sludge (chem) mortar shells on it next: And that kills it! EOM: And Crazy Gringo is promoted. Here is his point allocation: Basic stuff really. One point went into Throwing to max that stat out at 99. Then one point went into bravery to get that to 72. Not adding points into that anymore so it'll have to be good. And lastly two points in agility and one in vitality to round things off. Looks like a solid soldier overall. Back at base and our two heavy rocket defenses finished construction at our base in Antarctica: Speaking of such, let's take a look at that quickly: The 2 workshops will be done in a couple days which is nice. One of the photon defenses will require 9 days and the other will be 25. Not worried about that as we have the rocket defenses to backup the three interceptors, and we haven't seen many UFOs down here either. I have a feeling that will change though. About an hour later our research into the Megetra (Mega) completed: Let's look at its description first: Obviously, don't bother using sludge (chem) stuff on them, though on paper I think a sludge mortar bomb might be enough to do some damage. Mechanical is also a no-no but what else do we have to shoot with? Nothing. At least it takes full damage from incendiary and freeze so we can toss grenades on them. Well, we are going to start researching the Combat Medikit next: I've been waiting on an upgrade for our soldiers since forever it seems. Even though it's not a weapon I think it'll be a little more potent than the regular medikit. And we need better healing capabilities with the new aliens. The only trouble is that these take a very long time to build (sorry, couldn't help it as I checked). It's at this point that I started thinking on the long build times of stuff at the main base. Right now it's becoming kinda annoying as our main base is the only place we can manufacture soldier-only items. We are always low on bombs for the mortar, ammo is constantly needed and we are way behind on better armor. Need I mention grenades and now the upcoming combat medikit? Something needs to be done pronto. I started to think what facility we could safely cut at our main base and I think we don't need 2 heavy rocket defenses: Let's remove that: Well, not remove, but sell. Kind of a good feeling knowing that we get our original investment back out of it again. In it's place will be another workshop: See, I think the issue here is that bases in this game are 6 x 5 while bases in X-COM:UFO (UFO:EU) are 6 x 6. Those extra 6 modules suddenly seem really important, don't they? Or heck, more hangars would be nice too. Not sure why the devs didn't go this direction, but it's probably due to balance. Back in the Geoscape and a heavy cruiser shows up over India. Our main base starts firing its heavy rockets at it along with the floating base in the Caspian Sea. May as well send the interceptors from Europe over there to draw it in closer: That strategy worked and when it's close to the floating base I send out all the interceptors nearby: Took a little while to whittle it's health down but eventually it crashed: Before I send out the transport I take Crazy Gringo off as he was just promoted. In his place I put in Gimli as he needs about 400 xp yet to get to CG's level: Join me next time when we visit that heavy cruiser! - Zombie

Supply Vessel Part 1 It's a farm map this time so we deploy in the usual fashion. During the alien's first turn NKF starts reaction firing on a Bonesetter on the farmhouse rooftop. The first bullet was absorbed but it looks like the next will be a hit too: Everything was absorbed unfortunately. Well, it's still 3 xp for him at least. When it's our turn, NKF will continue shooting at it (there's another Bonesetter up there now): It took two auto shots to take it down and all but one bullet did actual damage. The other Bonesetter is Pete's responsibility: Much the same as NKF: all but one bullet did damage and he killed it easily with two auto shots: Same round, and on the ground floor of the farmhouse there are two Riders. Crazy Gringo is going to shoot the closest one first: His first two bullets did 15 & 13 damage, killing it. May as well shoot at the other Rider right away: This time his first two bullets did 23 and 5 which was enough to kill it as well: During the alien's next turn another Rider came bolting out of the farmhouse and came right up to CG - across the hedge from him. He walks a little closer to get into point-blank range to fire: He did 22 and 35 damage killing it: It just can't get any easier than that. A couple turns later Jman is trying to spread out a little bit but was spotted by an alien cannon on the roof of the UFO. It shot at him doing 4 damage. Bomb Bloke will nuke it with the mortar: The blast does 132 damage to that cannon and damaged another for 45: The next round JFG notices a Rider behind a hay bale by the tool shed. So he'll shoot at the bale first: With that obstruction out of the way Blade can shoot at it. No need to go crazy with an auto shot at this range, a snap should be sufficient: It does 26 damage which was enough for the kill: We finally spotted the other alien cannon we damaged earlier so BB is going to mortar it again: It does a decent 109 damage which means it's gone. It also hit something else for 37 damage: My guess it's another cannon somewhere. We don't have eyes on it yet so it doesn't make any sense to fire on it blindly. The next round JFG tries to sneak a little closer to spot it but it sees him and shoots three times. The damage was all absorbed thankfully. Now that we see it, BB will come a little closer to mortar it: The blast does 132 damage which destroyed it. It also did 95 to another cannon to the right (you can probably see the red targeting circle): The next round JFG spots the other cannon (and a Trep too). Let's get rid of that cannon first: It does 121 damage (not 132?) and that's way more than enough to take it out: This Trep really isn't a threat to anyone where it is, but I'd just as soon take it out while the going is good so JFG is going to take a snap shot at it with his photon beamer: His first shot did 4 damage so he took another which did 40. Not enough for the kill, so Blade is going to shoot at it (snap shot this time too): He does 44 which kills it: A couple turns later and Zombie has a little issue with a Bonesetter who was in the farmhouse on the ground floor. It shot at him during it's turn, missed once and blew up some explosive barrels. Zombie is shooting back and does 8 damage with the first bullet: He then hits for 11 & 19 which kills it: Wait a minute, that's 38 damage and a Bonesetter has 65 health. What gives? Well, I think the Bonesetter hurt itself in the blast but the damage wasn't caught by the game because it was still technically hidden from us. Kinda a dumb mechanic, but that's how it works. Join me next time as we take out the last few Bonesetters and the commander even shows up outside which gives us more opportunities to take it out. CG gets a promotion so we allocate his points, then we take a look at our new base in Antarctica. Research into the Mega finishes so we start looking at the new combat medikit topic. Finally I make a change to our main base which I hope will help us out in the future, and last but least, we take down another heavy cruiser and make a last minute crew change. Should be an interesting episode. - Zombie

In my defense, all the soldiers tossing grenades were in cover so the cannon couldn't figure out where the thing came from. It's much safer than shooting at the cannon directly, that's for sure. Heavy Cruiser Part 3 It's now nine turns later. All our soldiers are inside the UFO and there were no aliens in the central area on the lower level. Odd, but maybe that last Bonesetter we killed earlier was the last central guard. Whatever the case was, I had Zombie open the door to the left room off the hallway (with the teleporter naturally) where he spotted a Bonesetter in there amongst the vats. Nobody can shoot at it, but Pete can throw a grenade over there: It does 6 damage to the Bonesetter which was crap. The blast also destroyed most of the vats which was nice, but the Bonesetter "jumped" to a different location in the room where it was able to shoot back at us with it's heavy photon beamer ammo. Pete took 2 damage, but Zombie and Hobbes shrugged it off: I almost reloaded the game at this point but figured I'd give NKF a chance to recover first. He's going to toss an inferno grenade on it: It does a decent 37 damage. Crazy Gringo is going to shoot at it now: All the bullets hit and did 5, 5 and 6 damage, killing it: Not the highest damage rolls but he got the job done and that's all that matters. The next round Zombie is going to toss a grenade into the room on the right even though it appears to be devoid of aliens: Yup, nothing was in there. Why waste a grenade on this? Well, it removes the "furniture" in the room allowing us to see in the corners. And if there was an alien camped out in there somewhere, the grenade would tell us. Three turns later and we are ready to start breaching the upper floor of the UFO. When we open the door to the lift room on the right side, a Bonesetter inside shot at Hobbes but the damage was absorbed. NKF will shoot at it: He needed two auto shots but was able to take it out: Always the chipper soldier, isn't he? A couple rounds later we breach the left side. Nothing was downstairs, but there is a Bonesetter in the lift room upstairs. Pete's going to shoot at it: The first bullets damage was absorbed, but the second did 49 and the last 19 which killed it: Before we could get everyone onto position the next round we find the commander by the left room. I had Blade, JFG and Tammy shoot at it. No damage was done, now Pete is up: Again, the damage was absorbed except for one bullet which did 11. I think it's time for Zombie to stun the thing: And that was the end of the mission. EOM report: Pete and NKF both got 4 kills and both were promoted again! The points breakdown was identical again. One point into Shooting to max that stat out at 101 , one point into throwing, two into strength and the last into bravery: Looking back at this I probably should have put the bravery point into strength to max that out right away. But these guys are going to be promoted again soonish so it'll be fine. One thing is for sure: these are two of the best soldiers I've seen come out of the program so far (well, besides Throrondor - he's a god too). So it makes sense to be picky when hiring, don't settle for lower shooting and strength! Back in the Geoscape and a photon cannon and a VT3000 fighter shield have finished: We need these for our base in Antarctica. Oh, and here's a hint: when an interceptor is built, make sure you have a cannon, missile, shield and a bomb on hand there. That way when you transfer it to another base it'll be equipped already. A day later now and a supply vessel UFO appears over Alaska: I send in my interceptors from South America to engage first. When the UFO gets close enough to my base in North America to trigger the defensive systems to fire, I send the interceptors from there to greet it. By that time the first volley of missiles from the South American interceptors will be on the way. Needless to say, the UFO couldn't really do much before it's shot down: Let's look at the end of month summary: I mean, it's not all that bad. For the areas we have bases in (EU, Russia, North & South America) we have maxed out funding with them and they are all happy too. Africa is happy too as we have an aircraft carrier in the Med. Even though the other areas are "POOR", it's a chump change drop in funding. Once our base in Antarctica is shooting down UFOs on a full time basis, our funding will probably max out there. And I'd guess that it's reach will probably spill over into Asia and Australia too. So really, we are doing pretty good in terms of securing funding. In terms of other funding areas, we had fewer UFOs this month to visit and by extension, less items to sell. Not the end of the world, we'll make that up. The biggest expenses were the new interceptors and the base facilities in Antarctica. I knew this going into the process... funding is always going to take a hit when expanding. But we managed to keep it all positive so there shouldn't be any problems assuming it's kept under control next month too. Stay tuned for that Supply Vessel mission next. It should be interesting! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 2 It's four turns later and Blade just spotted the UFO canon on the northwest side. We don't want to waste mortar shells on this so Blade will toss a normal grenade on the thing for some easy (but low) xp. Notice the lone weapon inside the UFO - that's the "incidental" kill when BB nuked the first cannon earlier: The blast did 29. So he threw another which did a healthy 40 damage. Good start! It's not gone yet so Bomb Bloke will drop his mortar so he can throw a grenade at it too: It only does 12 damage: The next turn he tossed another grenade on the thing: The blast did 27 damage so he tossed a photon grenade on it but the damage was absorbed: BB looks a little disappointed, doesn't he? Well, Blade is going to toss a photon grenade at it now: It only does 11 damage so Jman steps in and tosses a normal grenade which does 19 and takes it out (finally): I'm not sure why the photon grenade is so underpowered against cannons. I mean, it shouldn't be as it has 80 damage while the grenade has 75. The only real difference between them is the blast radius (5 for the grenade, 4 for the photon) but that shouldn't be a factor when we are always tossing them directly on the cannons. Maybe it's just bad luck but more often than not they do crap damage to everything except maybe Riders. Speaking of Riders, it's two turns later and a Rider pops out of nowhere down below where Pete and NKF are (along with a couple support soldiers one who is Hobbes): NKF reaction fires hitting for 27 with the first bullet killing it: I move up Hobbes and Pete to the doorway leading outside to hopefully block any more aliens from getting past us. When we open the door a Bonesetter reaction fires at us with it's heavy photon beamer ammo. It damages Hobbes for 8 (which really isn't an issue as he has the pale blue crystal) but the damage is absorbed by Pete. Pete is going to shoot at it: It took two auto shots to take the thing out as the damage was absorbed for half the bullets: Same turn, I decide to have Bomb Bloke mortar the last cannon on the far side of the UFO: It's a weak spot hit for 166 damage which means no more cannon: I probably didn't need to do this but I want to clear out the "bowl" where the UFO is in and don't want a cannon taking pot shots at us during this. The next round JFG rounds a corner down below where he spots a Bonesetter so he'll auto shoot it with his photon beamer (normal ammo): One shot missed while the second did 16 and the last did 4. The Bonesetter shot back but the damage was absorbed. JFG shoots again hitting for 18 and 36 which killed it: Two rounds later and the team at the northeast door to the UFO notices that the southeast door is open. NKF is going to throw an incendiary grenade there just in case an alien is inside: Nope, but a round later it comes out to stand in the flames which do 13 damage. By this time our other team has made it to the UFO so Blade is going to toss another incendiary grenade at it from around the side: It's a weak spot kill for 64 damage: So that takes care of the outside of the UFO. I think this is a logical place to stop - I'll do a part 3 to this mission next time. Probably shouldn't have took so many screenshots of tossing grenades on the cannon but I wanted to give you guys an idea of how many it could take to destroy it in this way (that number = 7). - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 1 This UFO is on some sort of a base map, not really sure what to call it but it's certainly different. (Maybe it's a "mining" map)? Oh, and its big. Not in terms of length & width but length, width & height (or depth). That's right, there are multiple levels underground and they encompass almost the entire map except for the UFO which is in it's own little cubby. Anyhow, we spread out the best we can and don't see anything for the first 6 turns. We spot a Bonesetter first so Hobbes will take an auto shot at it: And he kills it when the two damaging shots do 30 & 37: Atta boy! Then JFG peeks out to inspect the damage only to spot one of the UFO cannons: Not sure what I was thinking here, but I convinced myself that the cannon couldn't possibly shoot at JFG if he throws a grenade down there: And of course, the grenade doesn't do any damage either. To make matters worse the cannon shoots back at him but luckily the damage was absorbed. Okay, playtime is over. BB's got an itchy trigger finger on his mortar: He hits something in the darkness for 32 damage (which I assume is a Bonesetter) and the cannon takes 118 damage. Neither are kill shots: He still has APs left so he lets another one rip. This time the blast does 55 damage to the unseen Bonesetter which kills it and it also does 130 to the cannon which destroys it: In a way, I think the grenade "test" JFG performed actually helped us out as it forced the use of the mortar which ended up taking out a Bonesetter too. The next turn we can see a Rider is standing next to a piece of equipment near to where the first Bonesetter was. Pete doesn't have a shot at it, but he can throw a grenade there: The blast from the exploding equipment does 99 damage to it which is an automatic kill for weakling aliens like this: So satisfying! The next round we spot another UFO cannon. NKF is in a position behind cover and he's in throwing range so might as well toss a normal grenade on it: It does 33 damage which wasn't too bad. He's out of AP and can't throw another grenade but he grabs another to be ready: The next round we spot a Bonesetter in the air near to NKF. Normally, I'd let him shoot at it for xp but Zombie has a better shot: The first auto shot did 32, 5 and 4 damage which wasn't enough to kill it. But the first bullet of his second shot did 33 which took it out: With that out of the way it's time for NKF to toss another grenade on the UFO cannon: It does a healthy 53 damage. So he tossed a photon grenade on it too but it only did 17 damage: NKF is out of the weak grenades so next turn he's going to toss a golden pineapple on it: That blast did 54 damage which destroyed it: Now that's how to take out a cannon if time isn't a concern and external threat pressure is low. During the alien's turn a couple rounds later a Bonesetter opens a door in back of where the equipment used to be only to be met with reaction fire from Jman: Love pics like this with the yellow trail. Anyhow, this shot hit for a whopping 2 damage but the second did 58 which killed it: Certainly wasn't an easy shot to make but Jman took it all in stride. Three rounds later and Pete is slowly exploring the building to the north east of us when he spots a Rider inside. Trouble is, he's out of APs so he takes a little bit of cover and preys: Fortunately I left NKF at the open doorway so the Rider shot at him instead and both shots from it were absorbed. NKF had just enough APs left to reaction fire back. The first bullet is going to be a hit to the head: It does 38 damage killing it. Good job! The next round Pete comes out of cover to find another Rider in the next room. It would be a difficult shot for him to take so I bring in Crazy Gringo from the nearby door to shoot at it instead: The first bullet does 26 damage which kills it: A couple turns later and a Rider opens that door where the Bonesetter died from Jman's barrage. This time JFG is going to redeem himself by shooting at it: The first blast does an impressive 49 damage which kills it: While moving Pete around he came face-to-face with another Rider in a lift room. An auto shot seems to be called for in this instance: The first bullet does 41 damage which kills it: Join me for part 2 where there will be more UFO cannon tribulations. Then we head underground to take out the last Rider. We mess with a couple Bonesetters in/near the UFO by flash frying them in a flame-kissed orgy and then meet up with a glitchy commander which we stun. Promotions were made, a UFO was shot down and the end of month summary came. Lots of stuff to cover so you don't want to miss it! - Zombie

Bobby Ray's is back baby! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 2 Since it seems like there aren't any aliens outside the UFO we start to make our way over there. One thing that bugged me is that there are some "protrusions" along the middle of a couple of the sides of this craft type. I've been using them as cover but when there isn't that need anymore they are a pain. So I have Blade take a snap shot at a nearby barrel to see if that does anything: Yup, the blast is strong enough to remove part of those chunks at least: Maybe tossing a grenade would do more but one photon beamer shot is basically free in terms of cost. Anyhow, the next round we spot the far UFO cannon on the door side so BB is going to mortar it: The blast only does 44 damage The next blast does a pitiful 74 damage: I'm going to have our "Slaughter replacement" Crazy Gringo shoot at it with his rifle: The first bullet does 32 damage, destroying it: If the damage of the Ultra AK1 ammo was more uniform I'd probably have the soldiers shoot at the cannons instead. But then the issue is that if you don't destroy it within that auto shot it'll shoot back and probably will damage someone. It's 6 turns later and we've just started the breaching process for the UFO. When we open the far door we notice that the engine room door is open too. So Pete is going to toss an incendiary grenade just inside the door to "feel things out": The blast sets off the two engines killing a Mega inside for 138 damage (non-critical hit too): A couple rounds later NKF spots the right engine room door open so he'll toss an incendiary grenade just inside the door like Pete did: Only thing is that those things he's standing behind for cover will not allow you to throw over or around them. Well, crap. And if you move out from behind them you can't toss a grenade inside anymore. So NKF is going to try tossing it right by the door instead: Nothing. We even waited till the next round but no incidental damage either. The door was still open though so maybe it glitched open for a few rounds? We still aren't sure what's going on there so we wait a number of turns to see what happens. Short answer is nothing but the door seems to have fixed itself now. So Zombie takes a peek into the hallway at the back and is shot at by a Mega for 12 chem damage. NKF patches me up and then Pete enters to shoot at it: All his shots were absorbed. Same thing for Hobbes although he managed to damage it once for a minuscule 8. JFG now enters and shoots at it with his photon beamer. The first shot looks like it'll be a hit: It was absorbed too, but his next shot did 35 damage which killed it: About 10 turns later and we've just begun the inner braching process when we notice a Mega in the same room as before. It opens the door where part of the team is behind and shoots at them. The shot missed entirely somewhere. We dodged a bullet there so Pete is going to take a point blank shot at it: But wait, that isn't a Mega, it's a Poisonous Bird of Prey. Yes, inside the UFO! I've never seen a big alien (non-main race) type inside before so that was a surprise. Anyway he hits for 65 and 17 which kills it. There's one of the BoP's secondary units which was deployed in that room too. It's invisible but with the help of the mini map we were able to find it and shoot at it: Before heading upstairs I saved the game and reloaded hoping to get rid of the wonkiness going on with doors staying open on their own and invisible aliens. For the time being it seems to have fixed itself. It's 4 turns later and Zombie goes upstairs alone for a little exploration session. He finds a Mega outside the right lift room so he'll shoot at it: His first shot hits for 43 which kills it, the next round Zombie is going to book it back into cover: The next round our other team led by Hobbes finds a Mega next to the left door upstairs. Hobbes will shoot at this one: His first shot was absorbed but his second did the same as Zombie dealing 43 which killed it: It's about 4 turns later and we see some movement during the aliens turn on Hobbes' side. It's the Mega Commander so NKF is going to shoot at it for training purposes (everything was absorbed): Jman shoots at it next with his photon beamer which damages the commander 3 times for 34 total damage. The thing must be close to death so Hobbes is going to stun it just in case there's a difference between Bonesetter Commanders and Mega Commanders: 62 stun damage = one unconscious mega commander: The mission is obviously not over. There must be a Mega somewhere yet. Hopefully it's inside... yup it's on the bridge and it shoots at Blade for 11 chem damage. Zombie is going to shoot at it now: And that was the end of the mission. Here's the report card: I'll say excellent too as we were able to overcome some glitches. Back in the Geoscape and our research into the advanced alien flight control just completed: Ah-ha, a new interceptor type is available now! Let's check out the description of the flight control first: Interesting. In terms of research, I think we'll go with the Mega first: You are probably thinking what the he!! is this guy doing researching an alien instead of a new interceptor type? Hear me out, ok? The Thunderstorm is going to take a lot of time to research which means there will be no upgrades to our soldiers for at least that long. And it's going to take a while to get enough of them built to make a difference too. Lastly, I'd like to fully get our new base in Antarctica somewhat completed which means we also need to have a little time to manufacture the weapons to go on the new Thunderstorms. So in the interim I'm thinking of researching the Megetra first as that will open up the new combat medkit topic. I'd like a better medkit for us as we are dealing with tougher aliens now and those chem weapons do a lot of damage. We don't need a lot of them - just 2 to start - so it will not take too long to manufacture them and get them into the hands of our medics/rear commanders. Back in the Geoscape again and now we detected a heavy cruiser UFO which is headed to Africa: I wonder where it is right now? Turns out it's over our South American base so I scramble the interceptors there to greet it: Apparently it's afraid of our show of force and decides to head South instead, then suddenly stops. Ingenious strategy drawing us away from the safety of our main base defenses to target one interceptor. I hold out as long as I can, then send the damaged interceptor back to base. Oh, and send reinforcement interceptors from Antarctica: We destroy it in the meantime so I guess it wasn't necessary to scramble more interceptors. You just never know: It'll be daylight at the crash site soon so we are going to get our soldiers ready and send them here next. Stay tuned for that next time! - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 1 As is typical, this is a cityscape map. Nothing doing in our first round as there were no aliens spotted so we deployed as usual. The second round was different. Tammy comes off the transport to look around and spots a Bird of Prey that's greenish-yellow in color. Hmmm, chem BoP maybe? She's going to shoot at it to find out: Yes indeed, it's a Poisonous Bird of Prey (I'll call it a PBoP from now on). One of the bullets missed so she had to take a second auto shot to kill it: Decent damage numbers at the end. I'll forgive the missed shot and 2 damage shot as "new alien on the first turn jitters". Not sure how Tammy missed this, but there's also a PBoP right above the exit to the transport. So we'll have NKF shoot at it from the building he's in: None of the bullets missed and he was able to take it down with two auto shots: A couple turns later and Hobbes spots one of the UFO cannons from the building. It didn't spot him so he huffed it out of there: A couple turns after that and BB is finally in a position to mortar it: It does 111 damage which was not enough to destroy it and he doesn't have enough APs to shoot again so we'll have to let it be: Same round and Tammy comes off the transport to look around and spots another PBoP in nearly the same spot as before. So she'll shoot at it: The first bullet hits for 15 while the second did 51 damage. The third bullet is on the way, will it be enough? The bullet is just barely visible midway between her and the PBoP: The last does 32 which kills the thing, nice shooting Tammy! At the start of our next turn BB is going to mortar that UFO cannon again: The blast does 71 which destroyed it: The next turn Tammy comes off the transport to look around for more PBoPs to shoot at but doesn't spot any. She does get a glimpse of the UFO cannon on the other side near to us so BB will mortar it: The blast does 98 damage so it isn't destroyed: He's not going to mortar it again unless the $h1t hits the fan so to speak The next round Blade and his new buddy Crazy Gringo are down below and spot a Mega by a small building directly under our transport. He doesn't have a shot at it directly so he does the next best thing and shoots at the building with his photon beamer (normal ammo): Once the glass was out of the way he was able to shoot at it properly. The first blast does 41 which killed it (body disappeared) and the rest would have also been hits: The next round there's another PBoP near our transport again but much higher in the air, this time Jman will shoot at it: His photon beamer does fantastic damage and he's able to kill it in one auto shot: BB thinks that now is a good time to mortar that UFO cannon again: This time the blast does 96 damage which destroyed it: It's the next round now and Jman comes off the transport to look around and spots a Mega on the ground. He can't shoot at it but can throw a grenade that far. He decides a cryo grenade would be best choice as the blast is more localized: I'm not sure if I've shown what the cryo grenade explosion animation looks like so I included a pic of that here: Kinda pretty. And against a Mega it's probably a bit overkill but they can easily be manufactured so we may as well use them. The blast does 90 freeze damage which isn't even a "weak spot" or critical hit: It's 15 turns later now. We've been spreading out a little more trying to cover (and hold!) a wider piece of the Battlescape. There doesn't seem to be any aliens outside anymore as we haven't seen any PBoPs since that last one we encountered before. But a Mega came out of the UFO and shot a chem weapon at Tammy but missed (thankfully). Tammy will shoot back: The first bullet was absorbed, but the second did 37 damage which killed it: Join me next time when we play around with an exploding barrel, have difficulty taking out another UFO cannon. Then we go inside the alien craft to leave a wake of destruction in our path on the lower floor and head upstairs to deal with a couple more Megas and a commander too! - Zombie

Fixed it for you. As a preface to the rest of the mission, I'd like to mention that I cut quite a few screenshots out. And I was sorta jumping all over the place during the gameplay itself so there are areas which may be a little confusing. I will do my best to fill in the blanks. Supply Vessel Part 2 It's the next turn and Jman just walked around the corner to see a Trep a few tiles away. I think there's a lot of players out there who would just have Jman shoot at the thing, right? *looks around* Not me. And there's an important reason why: for front line troops I like them having plenty of APs left over at the end of our turn just in case an alien comes around the corner they can reaction fire at it. Besides, if you have a soldier take a long range aimed or snap shot at the alien and don't kill it, the alien will shoot back. The alien is probably going to take an auto shot which is very inaccurate and the result of this is fewer APs left. If you can't kill the alien with long range shots and it's APs are depleted you can always shoot with the front line trooper safely. Granted, we are talking about a Trep in this instance which doesn't carry a weapon, but it's nice to continually practice this theory. So Slaughter (who is a fair distance away) is going to take a 71% accurate auto shot at the Trep: All his bullets hit and all did decent damage which killed the thing (purple death aura included for free): The next round Jman spots another Trep through the windows in the building he's using as cover. This time Blade shoots at it with his photon beamer. The first shot did a decent 30 damage but more are on the way: This shot does an equally impressive 34 damage which kills it: Now seems like a good time to try and take out that scary central turret on the UFO so BB readies a mortar: It's a weak spot hit for 187 damage which destroys it: Bomb Bloke is still too far away to target the other smaller cannons at the far corner of the UFO, so we'll move him up now. During the alien's next turn Jman spots a Mega through the windows so when it's our turn again he makes a beeline straight to it. An auto shot with the photon beamer at near point-blank range should do something: Well, he only hit for 28 total damage so another auto shot was in order. The first blast was absorbed but the second did 15 damage which killed it: With that out of the way BB is going to send a mortar by the other two turrets, closest one first: The blast does 111 to it and 81 to the other. Neither are destroyed so let's do the same thing again: This time it does 131 and 69 damage which was enough to take both out: During the alien's turn the Mega Commander shows up and shoots at BB with some sort of a chem weapon which damages him for 15. Luckily there were no critical wounds so he runs over to NKF to get patched up: Every last area of the body is affected but it's only superficial thankfully. There's no way we can shoot at the commander as it's amongst some girders on a catwalk: If BB wasn't injured he maybe would have been able to mortar it, but alas, that's off the table now. Reluctantly we have to let it be. It tries shooting at us during it's turn but misses and hits the ground instead. It then heads straight for the chem cloud to stand in it. New tactic? Pete's going to start us off by shooting at it: Most of the bullets were absorbed but he managed to damage it a couple times. JFG has been awfully quiet this mission so far so he'll try shooting at it with his photon beamer: Same as before: most of the blasts were absorbed but a couple did very minor damage. Maybe Jman can do better: His first two shots hit for 6 and 14 which killed it: I wasn't expecting this as commanders usually have a lot more health but apparently not for Mega's. The mission isn't over yet so we lie in wait. We see a Mega wandering around where the commander was and luckily NKF is there to shoot at it when it's our turn: He hits all three times but only damaged it once for 5. I move him into the building behind him as I don't want to risk getting him hurt. Slaughter is camped out in the building to the right of the Mega so he comes out to take an auto shot at it: His bullets alternated between absorbed and doing a little damage but he was eventually able to kill the thing: And he even has time to get back into his hiding place! A couple turns later and we see a Trep in the air where the commander used to be. NKF needs the xp so he'll shoot at it from below: He kills it and that was the end of the mission. Report: Slaughter is promoted to Colonel! Let's allocate his points: Three points go into agility to max his AP stat out and then the last two go in vitality. Wish I had a few more points to max that stat out too, but he's quite the tank right now. Well, since he's fully promoted he's going to get a nice long vacation alongside Thorondor and Space Voyager. That's a power trio right there folks! While we are back at base it's time to sell a little stuff: You can see I have a pretty big stockpile of alien gravity engines and flight controls. The reason for this is they sell for good money and they are common on all UFOs. Between the both of those I have $8 million in space buck reserves. Technically I should really just sell off the rest of the components as I get them, but I keep a small stockpile of 10 units on hand for some extra mad money when we have big ticket items to produce. Since Slaughter is on vacation we need a replacement for him. We all know nobody can truly replace him but how about Crazy Gringo? He's got great shooting and throwing and his strength isn't bad either. Seems like a solid choice from where I'm sitting. There's no rest for the wicked as we need to go to that heavy cruiser UFO next so stay tuned for that! - Zombie

Supply Vessel Part 1 I go into this mission thinking it'll be the usual Bonesetters+Riders, but nope not even close. It's a cityscape map so we deploy as usual. Nothing is spotted until the alien's second turn when a big thing comes out of nowhere and lands at the foot of the transport. It spooked Jman who reaction fired back at it showing it's a Chemical Monster (abbreviated CM from now on). The first shot did 17 damage so that's encouraging news: His second shot did 12 more and the last was absorbed. When it's our turn, I'll have Pete auto shoot at it: All of that shooting was absorbed except for the second to last which did 29 damage, killing it: A couple turns later we spot another different type of alien at the nose of the transport. Pete needs the xp so he'll take an auto shot at it: The first bullet did 6 damage, the second was absorbed and the last did 39, killing it (the type of alien is a Megetra, but I'll be referring to it as a Mega from now on): Well, these two alien types don't look all that tough so far. Certainly not pushovers, but no Gehe level either. "If it bleeds, we can kill it" type of thing. Three turns later and we've been slowly exposing more of the map. Blade and Slaughter are right below the transport and notice another CM down there. Blade is going to take a couple auto shots at it with his photon beamer to check the damage it does: All pretty low numbers, nothing above 19 damage. So Slaughter is going to auto shoot it now: All the bullets from the first auto shot were absorbed. But on the second auto shot the first bullet did 29 which killed it: Four turns later and Slaughter spots a Iron Rattler nearby so he'll auto shoot it: He hits for 14 and 22 damage killing it: Kinda surprised to see the Iron Rattlers out so soon, normally they spawn much later in the mission. In any event, we know there will be more of them (and Treps too). The next round Blade spots another Iron Rattler through the glass windows of the building below. So he starts shooting out the walls to get a lock on it. His first shot doesn't even make it past the door because it hits Slaughter instead. Luckily for no damage: With a nice big gaping hole in the building, Slaughter has a clear shot at the Iron Rattler: Some pretty low damage rolls caused him to take another auto shot, but the alien couldn't stand all that pressure and buckled: During the alien's turn a Trep comes out of nowhere to try and "blade" Tammy who was in the transport. Nobody shot at the thing so when it's our turn again, NKF is going to shoot at it: The first bullet does a respectable 37 damage, while the second was a critical hit dealing a "monstrous" 75 damage killing it: Four turns later an Iron Rattler comes up the lift by the ramp of the transport and shot at Tammy for no damage: It was a "glitch" kill as the Iron Rattler shot back after it died. Luckily Tammy absorbed the damage like a champ: Ten turns later and Hobbes got up the nerve to peek around in the building next to us. Part of the walls are missing there which allowed him to catch a glimpse of 2 cannons on top of the UFO: Unfortunately, BB couldn't mortar them as he was inside the building. Not only that, but there is a CM standing on the lift above. I have Peetie huff it over there so he take a shot at it next turn: He kills it no problem with only 2 bullets: A couple turns later and BB can finally send a mortar out to those alien cannons: He destroyed both dealing massive critical hits (one was 168 and the other 199): The next round Zombie sneaks up on the upper roof of the building but is spotted by another cannon which shoots at him but the damage was absorbed: You can probably make out the big central cannon too. We have a problem though because we spot a Mega below by the corner of the UFO. Blade can take a shot at it and his first blast does... nothing. Absorbed. More are on the way though: His second was absorbed too, and the last missed. The Mega shot back with it's scary chem weapon but it only did 1 damage to Blade. As always, Slaughter has to try and mop up the mess these other soldiers do. Let's try an auto shot: A lot of bad damage rolls happened so now Hobbes steps in with an auto shot of his own: More low damage numbers, but we must've whittled the Mega's health down enough as Hobbes was able to kill it: Join me next time for more Trep+Iron Rattler killing, plus another Mega and a surprise visit from the Mega Commander which hurts BB. Oh, and let's not forget about those stupid alien cannons too. - Zombie

Heavy Cruiser Part 2 It's now four turns later and Bomb Bloke has moved closer to mortar an alien cannon on the UFO: And for once the bomb does a healthy 136 damage which was enough to destroy the thing: About six turns later and Hobbes spots another alien cannon on the far side to the right and is shot at twice for 5 & 4 damage. No problem there as his pale blue crystal healed him right up. BB's mortar couldn't shoot that far and I was too lazy to move him to get into a position to take it out so how about we have Jman take an auto shot at it instead: His first shot was a weak spot hit for 77 damage while his second is doing 20: His last shot was absorbed and then the cannon shot at him but missed thankfully. On his next shot the first "bullet" does 36 which takes it out: He got lucky with the 77 weak spot kill, but overall it wasn't a bad idea to just shoot at it. I could see having someone like Hobbes to shoot at it himself as he could probably "tank" the damage the cannon could manage to do. It's now turn 58 and we've been busy clearing out the buildings on the north west of the transport. Nothing really was inside but we did spot a Bonesetter outside on the ground. Hobbes is going to toss a normal DG1 grenade on it: It does a respectable 42 damage so Jman is going to try an incendiary grenade: It does 29 damage which was enough to kill it: That actually worked too. Hmmm. We spend the next 17 rounds slowly revealing the rest of the map, I'm pretty confident we didn't miss anything so a select group of soldiers gathered at the far south east side of the UFO for breaching duty. There's one alien cannon left so BB is going to mortar it: It only does 109 damage so the thing is still active: We've got bigger fish to fry right now as the UFO door closest to us is open. We took a peek around the corner before but don't see anything so the alien (probably a Bonesetter) is inside somewhere. Tammy is going to test the waters out by tossing an incendiary grenade at the opening: The next turn the Bonesetter comes outside to barbecue itself and takes 18 fire damage. Zombie is going to toss a normal DG1 grenade on it now: It only did 18 damage so he tossed a photon grenade on it next which did a healthy 42 damage which killed it: You may be wondering why I haven't had BB mortar that last cannon to finish it off. Well, it's teetering on being destroyed so the bomb would be overkill so I had Jman huff it over to the far side to toss a normal grenade on it: It does 25 damage which means no more alien cannons to worry about anymore: It takes a couple rounds to split the team up to cover each door and when we open the far one there is a Bonesetter just inside. Time for NKF to take a nearly point blank shot at it: His first bullet does 59 damage which kills it: Pete tossed a grenade at the door to the left room thinking there might be an alien inside there yet, but no. Made a nice explosion though: A couple turns later a Bonesetter comes out of the doorway on the right and shoots at Jman for no damage. He shoots back at it for (surprise) no damage as well. When it's our turn Pete is going to shoot at it: It actually required 2 auto shots to take it out, but it's kinda expected at this point due to our under powered ammo: When we move into that room we actually spot a Bonesetter just inside the far door so Hobbes is going to toss an inferno grenade as close to it as he can: It does a respectable 34 damage. Since it's wounded, Tammy is going to shoot at it now: The first bullet was absorbed but the second hit for 56 killing it: A couple rounds later and the commander came out to say hello: It glitch-moved back to the far doorway to grill itself but the damage was absorbed. NKF is going to start us off by shooting at it: Unfortunately, he killed the thing before Peetie could shoot at it for some xp. That was the end of the mission. EOM report: Again, NKF and Pete 2.0 were promoted. And as before, because both their stats are so close I gave them the same point allocation: 1 in Bravery, 1 in Strength, 1 in Throwing and 2 in Shooting: Probably should have just tried to max out strength and shooting first, but at this point in the game I was worried about PSI becoming a factor. Back in the Geoscape and we just detected UFO #163. It's a patrol vessel near North America: As soon as it hits the Idaho/Montana region our base defenses kick in and start firing at it: When it starts to move Northeast over Wisconsin and Lake Michigan I send out the interceptors: We just barely take it out over Maine before it makes it to the Atlantic. And now there's another heavy cruiser that shows up over the arctic: It's headed to Europe though. When it gets there we shoot it down. Not very pretty, but it's down at least: Well, I think we better start heading over to the supply vessel crash site first as it's in daylight. Stay tuned for that mission next! - Zombie