Assembled for the mission were Sergeant Handorf (Heavy Weapons specialist), Sergeant Rich Ivanoff (crack sniper), Sergeant Shannon Crow (Assault Class), Sergeant Burk Dowell (Medic), and Sergeant Ron Johnson (infantry support).
The drop location was along the German border in an industrial zone district. As the team moved up, Sergeant Johnson was engaged by two greys almost immediately and quickly retreated to cover. Sergeant Crow fired on the aliens as the advanced on the team but missed so she took off at a sprint and advanced on them to get the element of surprise. A second shot from her shotgun leveled the psionically enhanced grey flat.
Sergeant Ivanoff advanced behind her, providing oversight of the field looking for targets of opportunity while the rest of the team took up defensive positions behind them.
Sergeant Ivanoff rushed ahead to a better sniper location but was fired upon unexpectedly. I think my butt cheeks clenches as the plasma bolts whizzed by his head unimpeded. Sergeant Shannon Crow rushed ahead of Sergeant Ivanoff as if they were in a competition for the kill. That’s when Sergeant Johnson performed a tactical blunder. In an attempt to provide supporting fire angles for Crow and Ivanoff, Johnson managed to draw the attention of two armored flying aliens we have dubbed “floaters” that had been hiding inside of a nearby warehouse. Johnson suddenly found himself in a very compromising position and had to immediately retreat for better cover.
Shannon Crow blasted the remaining grey, robbing Sergeant Ivanoff of the kill, but now found herself flanked by the floaters. The situation was turning rapidly on the team.
Seargent Dowell immediately opened up on one of the two floaters, scoring a direct hit but failing to do enough damage to take it out of the battle. Ivanoff took a clean shot of the other undamaged floater and missed.
Suddenly the floaters were on the move, advancing and firing upon our unit. one directed it’s fire on Sergeant Dowell and missed, the other on Sergeant Ivanoff and also missed. Now it was our turn!
Handorf suddenly let loose with one of his new shredder rockets and destroyed the previously undamaged floater. Sergeant Shannon Crow advanced and had a great shot but failed to hit the injured floater. Worse yet, she was completely spent on ammo.
Sergeant Dowell rushed forward to support Crow and fired a volley that connected, destroying the previously wounded alien and leaving no known targets in sight.
The team wisely spend a moment reloading all their weapons before advancing further. Dowell and Johnson rushed into a large warehouse together and discovered two more floaters waiting in ambush inside. Johnson immediately unloaded and destroyed one before it knew what hit him.
The remaining floater retreated deeper into the warehouse and Handorf bravely gave chase, unloading his heavy weapon and damaging the alien in it’s retreat but not eliminating it. Shannon Crow rushed in quickly behind unloading her shotgun and missing. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Sergeant Burk Dowell rushed again again, flanking the alien and dropped it from the flanks with a seemingly improbable shot. This kid is becoming a real stud!
With no remaining targets in sight, the team reloaded weapons and prepared to advance again. That’s when Sergeant Ivanoff, now alone outside the warehouse, heard aliens approaching quickly.
Quickly the entire team, including Sergeant Ivanoff, took up defensive position within the warehouse and someone spotted what appeared to be two, maybe three Thin Man aliens approaching from the parkinglot. The stand off had begun but it was our team that advanced first, taking up positions behind vehicles as they exited the warehouse to engage.
Sergeant Ron Johnson took fire from a plasma weapon but managed to dodge out of the way. Sergeant Shannon Crow rushed forward, full speed ahead, and blasted a Thin Man in the face, ending him quickly.
At that moment a second Thin Man appeared and quickly scampered up on top of a semi trailer for better ground. Fortunately, Sergeant Ivanoff was in perfect position to take a shot of opportunity and dropped him instantly. Mission complete! Eight aliens dead and no injuries!
The after mission report looked like this.
Sergeant Ron Johnson now had two missions and two kills.
Sergeant Michael Handorf has six mission and five kills.
Sergeant Rich Ivanoff has five missions and six kills.
Sergeant Sannon Crow has six missions and eight kills and for me that was enough to promote her to the rank of Lieutenant. Lieutenant Crow asked to be trained in rapid fire so she could fire twice as fast and have chances to hit more targets.
Finally, our ace soldier, Sergeant Burk Dowell with six mission and a whopping eleven kills. I decided to promote Burk Dowell as well to Lieutenant whereupon he immediately asked for more training in being a combat medic. Not sure why, he’s never had time to heal anyone with all the killing he’s done, but I granted his request none the less.
Now on my second month as the commander of XCOM I find that I have a lot of places I could improve but no budget to support it. My soldiers could be better armored, our base could provide satellite up link capability, our scientists discovered how to make modified scopes for sniper rifles, and I’ve been told, we will soon be able to engineer laser rifles but all if takes money and we’re flat broke!
I managed to sell a few things on the grey market and scrounge enough credits to get a couple of new suits of carapice armor for my soldiers. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
By the time another UFO appeared in our skies we at least had an interceptor available and managed to shoot it down. Time to test out that new armor. But who gets it?