Most Embarrising Moment.

[Ancalagon]

When everything's going well, bad things can happen. What is the worst thing that has happened to you on a seemingly easy/normal mission?

 

One recent one for me was when I was playing a sectoid mission on a landed abductor ship. I had two disarmed guys in the first room in because they were being MCed and I had 3 guys in the second rom in. I sent one guy from the squad of 3 into the main area and saw a sectoid. I accidentally auto-shoted one square away from the sectoid and my soldier hit the square perfectly 3 times. The alien shot a reactionary shot and kiled my soldier. I sent another soldier in and autoshoted the alien. He missed all three times. I autoshoted again and killed it but my guy couldn't run back so I sent in my third guy to cover his back. He saw another alien and I auto-shoted and killed it. On the alien turn, an alien came from each side and killed my two soldiers. I sent more soldiers to the door. However, they blocked the door with one of my unarmed MCed soldiers. I didn't want to kill him so I waited a turn to see if he would move or come back to the light side. During that turn the aliens MCed one of my guys standing outside the door and he promptly proceded to kill the other guys. I had also had two hovertanks watching the door. One of the sectoids opened the door, shot around the soldier standing in the doorway, and killed my plasma hovertank. I aborted the mission.

 

EDIT: I had two hovertanks watching the door, not cyberdiscs.

Edited November 11, 2003 by Ancalagon

[j'ordos]

Do abductors carry Cyberdisks?

[Jenny]

I don't think they carry terrorist races, but I'm not 100% certain.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

AFAIK: Terrorships and Battleships carry terrorists, nothing else does. The abductor's door is too small for a cyberdisk isn't it?

[j'ordos]

That's what I was thinking too...

[Cpl. Facehugger]

My most embarassing Xcom moment was when I was going to attack a landed small scout. (At this time I had power armor and Hovertanks). Since it was only one alien, I decided to forgo my normal smoker on the ramp. This was my mistake. Hovertank moves out, ZAP,ZAP,ZAP hovertank turns into rubble. Guy 1 moves out, ZAP down. Guy 2 moves out, looks around, and sees no alien. End Turn. Alien fires on my guy Miss,Zap, Zap guy screams as his stomach is burned away. 3 men move out and begin searching for the sneaky alien. Zap, Zap, Zap 2 of the three men are killed by reaction fire. Guy Three aims with his heavy plasma, and shoots off an auto. Miss-Miss-Miss. Still have enough for a snap. Zap- Floater is hit, he is still standing. End Turn. Floater ahhilates my remaining man. Then, a grenade flies directly into my skyranger, killing 2 men and wounding the rest. I send all my remaining men out, and begin searching for that sneaky bug. Zap, Zap, 2 more men down. Last man, better high tail it back to the skyranger... End Turn... Zap, Zap, Zap. Commander Phallus is dead. Total loss: 10 Veteran Xcom Soldiers, 1 hovertank, 1 highly expensive skyranger, and loads of equipment. Net alien loss, 1 grenade.

[Ancalagon]

OOPS! :o I had two hovertanks watching the door.

[Puasonen]

Nice to see there's some real superhumans here.

(not loading when looses a skyranger)

 

I almost once lost a AVENGER when going to FLOATER alien base, I can't remember seeing aliens use that much blaster launcher since that mission. Almost every damn alien turn blaster coming from somewhere, on good turns even 2 blasters flying to my soldiers pockets. The ending was pretty nice, I had one soldier left and I desided to save my avenger. On the way back to the abort zone, he got fired with blaster launcher but it missed, and when he got up with the elevator to the abortzone, there was a floater waiting and autoshotted sidearmor 3 times with heavyplasma but by a miracle my soldier didn't lose even 1 health! :o

[SupSuper]

I once didn't notice that the soldier with the loaded rocket launcher had another soldier right in front of him, thus when i went to fire at the alien, BOOM! Score should really have a "X-Com Operatives killed by X-Com Operatives" category

 

another time, i was going into a Sectoid terror site and my soldiers were loaded with Heavy Plasma Clips and Power Suits, and i had a Plasma Hovertank. i kill most of the aliens in the terror site easily, but as usual, the last alien was hiding deeply somewhere. after carefully looking at the minimap i found that one of the buildings hadn't been fully explored. i take my Hovertank there and when i'm going near the stairs, a grenade is thrown and BOOM goes the Hovertank and the stairs with it. i get some soldiers there and try to hit the alien by throwing some grenades through the hole where the stairs once were. i think he was hit, but he didn't die. eventually the Sectiod threw another grenade and BOOM go 4 soldiers. i take some other soldiers and (since the Sectoid was out of grenades) ZAP ZAP ZAP, dead dead dead. another soldiers, ZAP ZAP ZAP, dead dead dead. well, only 4 soldiers remaining, i decide to go look if the dead sectoids have any guns that could be of some use to this situation. cool, a Small Launcher, this should be useful. i go there but, unfortunately, ran out of TUs near the "hole". soldier with Small Launcher goes berserk, BOOM, 3 soldiers stunned. only 1 remaining. what should i do, save my Skyranger or still try to win my mission? ah well, i can always Load, so let's go for it

my soldier moves in slowly, doing his best not to get zapped like all the other soldiers. he ends his turn there, goes berserk, and ZAP, direct hit on the sectoid :o

the score still wasn't pretty.

[imperialus]

I was takeing a large scout and feeling cocky because I had just researched balaster bombs. I had a half dozen soldiers in the entrance to the ship and decided to open one of the doors and fire a blaster bomb to clear it out and win on a single turn. Unforunatly I hit a wall and wiped out everyone in the ship.

[Ahriman]

I was in Cydonia, on the second stage. My forces consisted of one veteran soldier and 25 rookies who all had over 90 psi strength and 80+ skill, but hadn't seen combat till then. I had my vet run around the level finding aliens to mind control, then had them force march into the brain room. Once everyone was in, I had my veteran fire a blaster bomb into the mix.

The room was flattened. Almost every alien in there (20+) died, but the brain itself was unharmed. I ended the turn and watched the last aliens panic, or go berserk and slaughter eachother till only two remained standing.

Unfortunately I hadn't considered what mind controlled aliens do to your morale... All my rookies proceeded to mimic what had just happened among the aliens, only they were far more closely packed. 3 turns and 16 human inflicted casualties later, my veteran soldier calmed down some, picked up his blaster launcher and finished off the alien brain.

 

Not quite the flawless mission I'd envisioned when I dispatched my valiant soldiers to end the alien threat...