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!