Mailing lists.

With so many of my troops out due to injury it's time to get some experience for some fresh faces. Fortunately it's just a moderate difficulty mission! I've got Lieutenant Matt "Eleventh Doc" Smith and Lieutenant Bill "First Doc" Hartnell leading Corporal Mandy and three squaddies! I've finally upgraded to six person squads, and hopefully the extra gunpower from an extra team member will help with the lower health and skills! The little icons underneath each character is a nice summary of just how few skills they have!

At one point in the mission, where we are recovering an item from a resistance haven while Advent swoop in, "Eleventh Doc" Smith finds himself craving food unexpectedly. I zoomed in to find that he's standing next to one of the ubiquitous billboards for the Advent burger. 

Ahh, Tom Baker has joined us as scientific liaison, we'll be uncovering the secrets of Jelly Baby technology any second now! Maybe we can fight the Advent burger with a new type of sugar treat?

Mission successful and with only a few injuries, the next mission rolled on before everybody had time to recover. That's even with bonus healing from my med-bay! With a mix of A-team and B-team injuries, the next mission is a go in the snow!

Check out this beastie! This is a berserker, it has lots and lots of health, it likes to hit things really, really hard, berserker is always angry, don't be like berserker. Man, one of these can ruin your day, a smashing hit against a squaddie can mean no more squaddie. If only there were a way to concentrate lots of firepower against it.

Oh, yeah, there is a way to concentrate lots of firepower against it. Phew!

Of course, if you're not really careful you can end up with one of your troops on only one health. Phew, that was CLOSE! I think it's probably not the best idea to tell your wife that you let her die. Even in a game =)

And moving towards a large old building, "Cowboy" finds herself grenaded and shot at as well, leaving her on one health with enemies still close by! She's been with me since the very first mission! If you look at the name in the bottom left of the previous screenshot and this next one you'll see it's "First Doc". He has saved the bacon of SO many troops with his flying, healing, Gremlin drone!

By the way, one way to get extra intel from Advent troops is to "Skullmine" them. The Skulljack is a tool that "interfaces" with the chips in the Advent skulls. Unfortunately it's not USB compatible so "Analytic" Lovelace uses the interface that Doc Tygan has invented. It looks a lot like two long claws that stab upwards through the jaw and into the skull. It's slightly invasive. The trooper doesn't really survive. It looks awesome though! Here's to new intel! The only downside is that it's a melee attack, leaving the generally weaker specialist out in the open. Still, surely she won't die from one small step out into the more open area?

Oh, right, another Faceless (the shapeshifting goo monsters) was hiding in plain sight, pretending to be a civilian. One big claw sweep and my squad is almost destroyed, you can see the burning ruins of the cover "Analytic" was hiding behind. Fortunately Mandy is in a good position with her sniper rifle and liquifies the huge alien entity!

Wow, that was supposed to just be a moderate difficulty mission! Although I had three near casualties, I'd have had actual KIAs if the Doc hadn't been around! Mandy racked up a few kills too, sniping from a distance whenever there was an enemy that needed a little more incentive to pack up and go.

The boffins have been boffining away, and created this new special lab called the Shadow Chamber. With special computer systems, the hope is that we can discover more about the alien plan with targeted research.

And what amazing things we've discovered! Some of the intel we've "extracted" are chains of DNA. The bodies we found at the "special sauce" lab all have particular DNA strands in common. There is obviously some system at play here, specific DNA codes that Advent are interested in. Just what for, we're still not entirely sure. 

Digging a little deeper we find a mailing list! Spam email and letter box drops targetting different fast foods to different people! Oh... My... Gosh... the devils are using a targeting DNA based approach to develop the ultimate special sauce tailored right down to the tastebuds of each human being. There are some that can resist this advertising, but soon I think we'll all be eating right out of their hands. Hmm. Hopefully not literally as some of them are big gooey monsters.

Just as well they're nowhere near developing this to its full extent... oh... wait... The project countdown has been reached and I have just a few days left to try and set back their plans or else the Earth is DOOOOOOOOMED!

I'm almost out of supplies, I'm almost out of time, I'm almost out of troops. This may not be the playthrough we were looking for! 

Special Sauce

In order to spread word of the resistance we're fighting alien advertising with our own advertising! Central is putting together some crowd funded television programs.

We have erected a few of these really subtle, hope the aliens don't find them, radio towers. They'll be spreading the good word!

With the new engineers and scientists (thanks mostly to my Dad and Doctor Who incarnations) we've finally created more advanced weaponry. These magnetic weapons pack quite a substantial punch over our old guns. Shen quite enjoys trying them out!

Our next mission is another nasty retaliation one. The aliens are attacking and slaying innocent violent resistance fighters (you know, all they've ever done is plant explosives on vans, buildings, trains...). We encounter mutons, big hulking guys with nasty plasma weapons and a mean left hook. I found this out in my previous game the hard way. My ranger ran up and went to slice him, but he counterattacked, doing massive damage and ensuring that I only ever use long range weapons on them now! They also have armour, so are pretty tough tanks. Oh, and they can throw grenades too!  

And to make matters really fun there are two shape changers on this mission. Of course, you don't know that they're not innocent trained killer guerilla fighters until you stand close to them. Then the ordinary human explodes into this goopy...

... enormous, massively tall (like twice person height) monster with big claws. They're actually not too bad if you're ready for them, but if you're already fighting other aliens, having one of these pop up right in the middle of it all is terribly nasty! During the game you often get a choice between several missions, you can only do one. Each of the missions will have a different bonus for completing it, AND cancels one possible alien bonus. The missions you don't do enable one of the alien bonuses! One such alien bonus is the addition of more of these shape changing aliens to missions. It's a lot of fun, actually, to have different random changes in the game going on all the time.

Here's one of the snake ladies wrapping up "Cowboy". This wouldn't ordinarily have been too big a deal, she's pretty tough and in a minute she'll chop up the hissing serpent with her customary aplomb.

The reason it was a problem on this particular mission is that with Cowboy wrapped up, there was nobody available to intercede when one of the people we were here to rescue turned out to be a shapeshifter, who climbed up next to the Sixth Doctor, swung a mightily massive claw and sent the Doctor off to another regeneration cycle! Nooooooo! He'd been totally awesome and it was devastating to lose one of my fun and high level guys. So tempted to hit the reload button!

A veteran of 8 missions, his grenadiering skills had saved much, much bacon. The grenadiers don't always get super kill ratios, but their grenades often incapacitate, remove armour and allow the others to mop up afterwards. I find them indispensable. Unfortunately one was just dispensed with!

In a bit of hilarity to lighten the mood, my father in law was a reward from a mission. He just happens to be a grenadier! Unfortunately he's not as skilled or well equipped yet. Here's hoping I can keep him alive, otherwise I'll be in trouble!

And if I'd had this just one mission earlier, the Sixth Doctor may have still been with us! Our boffins have made some stronger armour, well named Predator armour will stop a few more projectiles and alien claw swipes I hope! Here's Cowboy trying it on in our little fashion show room on the Avenger.

Oh, look, Paul McGann has joined us! I'm hoping with this many Doctor Whos (Doctors Who?) I can't surely lose!

Operation Severed Chicken put me back in my place! How fun are the mission names! If it wasn't for "First Doc" Hartnell I'd have had a complete party wipe! Even so, my poor team are going to be resting up for a while after this! What went wrong? I was so tense that I didn't take any screen shots of the mission! What happened was a simple case of "my new guns and armour mean that I can play way more riskily!" Nope. Apparently not. I've read a lot about people not liking how tough this game is, but I quite like the risk. Even when I'm doing well, a few stupid decisions can really turn out badly! Next time I shouldn't run blindly forwards showing three groups of aliens at once.

While the A-team rest and recuperate I build an impressive new special armour. It's an exo-skeleton harness thing that is ideal for heavy weapons users. On one arm it includes a pop-out rocket launcher! Tari takes it for its first outing and it proves to be great fun =) It's got quite a noisy sound effect of all the little pistons and stuff at work. The new mag cannon is much easier to wield with the EXO suit! 

The next mission involves knocking out an enemy VIP and shoulder carrying him back to base. Here's First Doc doing the honours while an Advent wanted poster shows Tari in the background! Word has it that this enemy VIP knows some of the secret herbs and spices being used in the Advent burgers. We need to interrogate him!

After Doc Tygan performs another very splatty autopsy on a muton we are able to upgrade to using plasma grenades. I'm still not sure why he had to slice up the alien for us to learn about grenades. I'm not sure I want to ask.

My next special armour type is called the Skeleton Suit. It is lighter armour than the big EXO Suit, but increases mobility and includes a grappling hook! The grappling hook can be used every few turns. You shoot it up on top of a building, vehicle etc. and it pulls you right up there. Great for snipers and rangers!

With the Advent doomsday clock ticking down, I learn valuable intel about a Blacksite Facility. The trains I've been intercepting have been transporting something there. I send my top squad members to investigate.

The horror! After the VIP we abducted told us that one of the ingredients of the special sauce could be found on the trains we were thinking maybe cumin, or cardamom, instead we find... Dun dun daaaaaah... human bodies being transported in some sort of goop. Stacks of cylinders like this are next to the train tracks and an ominous looking building is just beyond.

A building full of tanks of humans! What! These aliens are up to something no good! How much more nefarious can it get! The alien abductions that we used to hear about were supposed to have stopped, but clearly they haven't! Just what IS going on here, I'm still pretty sure it has something to do with advertising Advent burgers, but maybe, just maybe there's something even more sinister afoot?

Finally, we find a vial floating in some sort of force-field that may be a link between the special sauce and the horrors we have witnessed here. Tari grabs the vial and we fight our way to the extraction zone.

The fighting in this mission was tense, busy and non-stop. We fought every alien type we'd seen so far, but I'd brought my best troops and we succeeded with no fatalities!

Sure, we took a ton of hits, but I was pretty proud of my team after this one!

We've set back the alien doomsday clock a few hours, but, wouldn't you know it, another "urgent" mission pops up as soon as we touch down on the Avenger. Fortunately my B-team can head out with First Doc (as he was uninjured) and I'm sure things will go just swimmingly =)

We're getting closer and closer to discovering just what is going on here!

Quantum and mechanics.

I've been joined by renowned physicist Richard "Quantum" Feynmann for the next mission! Jane, Tari, Mandy and Sixth Doc are here too, we're going to raid a supply train!

Ooh, looky here! A snake woman! They are not too nasty if you take care, but can be really dangerous if you aren't careful. They have amazing dodge stats, so are tricky to hit, can spit poisonous clouds and, worst of all, they can flick their tongue out across the map, pull you out of cover and wrap you up in a crushing embrace! Also snakes are creepy.

Oh. And "Quantum" took a leap and was killed. Well that's not a great start to the mission! Sorry about that, Team Physics!

Time for the rest of the mission to be all about revenge. We have snipers...

And grenadiers! As you can see, the Sixth Doc has pulled out a last second save as this Advent troop was just about to whack Tari with his big stun-stick!

Not my finest mission by any stretch of the imagination. Still, the mission was a success and the troops know that the mission comes first. The train was loaded with strange cargo crates. Some "special sauce" and some frozen Advent chips. I've got the Doc thawing things out and we'll analyse the results later. Also taste testing is important.

There's a chance that getting wounded and having a stressful mission can "shake" your soldiers. They lose all their will (making them more prone to panic and psychic attacks) until they perform well in a successful mission without taking too much damage. If you manage this recovery they get a bonus to their will in the future!

Jane Kelly was promoted to sergeant and was given the nickname "Cowboy", so I've changed her outfit to add an appropriate hat. I think hats are important.

We also rescued an engineer, it's Peter "Twelfth Doc" Capaldi! He'll be doing a lot of construction work around the place now! In my last playthrough he was an awesome pistol-toting sharpshooter, this time he's fixing things.

Speaking of Doctors, the First Doc has joined us! He's a specialist and plans on becoming an awesome medic with a bit of gun-toting on the side!

Here the crew is awkwardly rappelling down to the next mission. When it's in video motion it looks quite fluid, but this screen grab looks a little awkward!

Taco has a bead on that psychic sectoid there and pulled off a nice headshot!

First Doc began the mission by hacking a locked door on a van...

Then piffed a grenade that blew up a car and two Advent troops! One very useful Doctor to have around!

Speaking of Doctors, Eleventh Doc has the greatest facial expressions when slashing things with his sword - I think he's after some sort of acting award.

And who was it in the locked van, I hear you ask? It's my dad! That's engineer Keith Turner there, crouched behind the door of the future looking car as we head towards extraction past the dead alien bodies and building on fire.

When you first load up the game it has a nice little video background. At first I thought it was neat, it's always a different scene showing an XCOM troop in the foreground and some Advent in the background. Then I noticed that the troop in the foreground isn't just some random model, it's one of your soldiers! It almost feels like they've been still working and going on missions in the background while you're not playing. Hopefully nobody notices that they never seem to get injured or killed while I'm not around, otherwise I'll be out of a job!

It's not all doom and gloom on planet Earth. Here's Mandy in a playground. A slightly overgrown playground, sure, but it looks fun, right? Right?

Near the playground was an Advent robot and a stun lancer guy. These guys are the bane of my life in the early missions. They can run and attack like my own rangers, but their stun lance can be devastating, from knocking unconscious to stunning and disorienting. Last game I lost three troops in one mission to unconsciousness. To save them you have to pick them up and carry them to extraction, but of course, you can't shoot back if you're carrying another troop. Really hard decisions to complete missions, extract troops, fight on...

Eleventh Doc ran a little too far forward and spotted two sectoids and an advent trooper. Uh Oh! Fortunately he has some specialist friends! Ada sent her Gremlin to "aid" him, giving him a nice defensive buff until the next turn.

Then she pulled out her gun and blew a sectoid away! You go girl! In the end the mission was a success and I didn't lose any troops! Woohoo!

Of course, I've spent time building my sick-bay so that the troops who are injured can get back into the game more quickly! Funny how I needed to prioritise that =)

Well, a famous physicist dead, my dad rescued and a few more recruits added, I'd call this session, if not a win, then at least not a loss! Next time I finally get some upgrades and uncover more of the nefarious alien plot. Dun dun duuuuuuh.