RyanAR15

Ya, I got that name when I took on a Plecton real early in the game, in an elemination mission. My squad was Malcom and a rookie, Malcom had a Browning HP or a G19...can't remember. Anyway, he had to 'shuffle' as my fastest squad member to kill the Plecton, shoot, move, shoot, move. I can imagine that this shot Malcom up to legendary status with the troops..."yeah...he's the one that took on a Plecton with a handgun...and killed it" "Woah..."

Ever had one of those situations where everything was going smoothly on a routine mission--downed pilot, recon, eleminiation, etc., and suddenly your squad was an in extremely hairy tactical situation, with more and more enemies popping up quicker than they are going down, but the squad survived and lived to tell? What's yours? Recently, I was in a typical downed pilot mission. At some point, the game toughness increased, I've finished Area 51, but the Russian mission hasn't appeared yet. My squad has a LV13 Malcom, and the other troops between LV10 and 5. Well, this mission seemed no diff than the other downed pilot missions...couple of Cudgels, a baloon fish or two...another milk run. The pilot was on the other side of the urban map, so I figured after I'd downed what I'd seen I'd go and get the pilot and out, mission accomplished. Then I rounded the corner...the pilot was located just on the edge of an intersection. I saw my first Car Crab (of this game). Then I saw my second. I map out a plan...scatter, shoot, move, scatter, no problem... A Plecton joins the mix, 180 degress off the position of the Car Crabs. Time to adjust some of my movments. The "Oh sh**" factor is increasing rapidly by this point. Then, a few seconds later, a Slime Thrower is spotted between some buildings in reasonable cover. This isn't looking good. I've got 4 troops w/ Steyrs or G36s, a single soldier w/ a Super Striker, and a single sniper that can't move fast enough to execute the 'Plecton Shuffle' tactic. Well, I ended up giving each soldier 45 seconds--at least--worth of a plan. Moving from one area to the next, into cover and out, trying to keep the number of enemies that could concentrate fire on one soldier down to a minimum. It looked like a massive ballet dance of lethal proportions--fire on one target, move, and fire on a different one, crossing troops, changing direction constantly, moving and ducking in and out of cover. I had acid gobs criss-crossing my screen, puncuated by the odd lightening bolt from the Car Crabs. Slowly but surely the enemies went down. :sly: That one got pretty hairy, and landed me 2 troops in sick bay for a couple days, but we survived. Boom boom, baby.

I thought at one time--actually, before I patched my game--that death bellows were sorry enemies as well. For some reason every time I found a death bellows, it was already dead--I never have figured that one out. But I ended that game when I got my squad greased time after time on the Russain mission not knowing it was a 'plot' mission at the time. Anyway, after I patched the game and restarted in Europe, I have now seen a real live Death Bellows, but fortunately they are much easier to dispatch than a Plecton--less range, don't move, and don't have as high an ROF as a Plecton does. I do it like other posters have said, shoot, run, shoot, run, shoot, I have a line of swarming insects covering my path, and if it gets too dense I wait till the insects disperse (out of LOS of the Bellows) and go back and do it again.