Operation Lazy Father (Target Escort - Frankfurt, Germany)

Gentlesophs, I am your host, the Kid With A Pen, and welcome to XCOM:  War Interminable - my playthrough of XCOM:  Enemy Unknown, with the Enemy Within expansion, the Operation Slingshot DLC, and most importantly the Long War mod.  Links to all of these can be found on the "What is XCOM:  War Interminable?" page below this post.

Today, we have a Council mission - specifically, an Escort mission - in Frankfurt, Germany.  There are two nice things about Escort missions in XCOM:

• Firstly, you get full control of the VIP.
• Secondly, you don't have to find them first.

There are, of course, exceptions (Portent and the mission where you meet General van Doorn), but generally you start out having already made contact with the VIP, and you just need to escort them to the Skyranger.  Remember when we retrieved Chilong?  That's your typical Escort mission in XCOM.

In fact, I wouldn't mind a generic Escort mission for the Council to roll along with Bomb Disposal and Asset Recovery missions.  I imagine that the hardest part would be to generate maps other than the existing Escort maps for variety, but you could generate a civilian using the Rookie generator (the game already does this for Terror missions), and give it a name and nationality appropriate to where the mission site is.  Escort civilian to extraction zone.  Fight your way through Thin Men and Seekers, possibly with Muton or Mechtoid backup in later stages of the game.  I think it would be an awesome mod.

Anyway, enough chatter!  On to the mission!  Our team today is:

Our medic and squad leader, Scooby

Our VIP, William Thorne - German presidential candidate from the Free Democratic Party and suspected alien sympathizer.

Our scout, Stalker

Our infantry, Zilch

Our rocketeer, Boom Boom

Our sniper, Checkmate

Our other infantry, Plunder

Our engineer, Chilong

And our gunner, Crash.

We need to get Thorne over to the Skyranger for extraction.  Good thing we didn't bring Schuster on this op - he's made no secret of his opinion on the man and his campaign, that the best thing that could happen to his position on the alien threat would be to see the inside of an alien stasis chamber.

All we know for certain is that his collaborativist rhetoric has made Germany uncertain that it can maintain its commitment to the Council of Nations and the XCOM project, his party has gotten a lot of support from unknown sources, and he's somehow acquired classified information regarding the XCOM project that we believe he intends to release in order to embarrass the sitting government and draw popular opinion onto his party's side.  The Free Democratic Party hasn't been represented in Parliament for a few years, and it looks like they're prepared to pull out all the stops to get back in.  Historically, a president's election has been a good indicator of what party will win control of Parliament in the next one, and Germany will almost certainly leave the Council in 2017 if Thorne and the FDP take power next year.  President Gauck has expressed concern over the FDP's pro-alien stance, and so we're here to give their presidential candidate a first-hand look at the aliens' interest in collaboration with humanity.

First thing we do is get him out of the open air.  He, of course, angrily protests that we have no right to take him.

Strictly - legally - speaking, he's right.  XCOM's mandate doesn't include arresting civilians, presumably to be held indefinitely without trial, on charge of sympathizing with the aliens, but we're the ones with the guns here.  Back off.

Checkmate, Scooby, Crash, and Stalker take the roof, just in case any aliens drop in.  Checkmate steadies aim.

Boom Boom steadies her weapon, bringing up the rear.

The squad overwatches.

Crash and Stalker unload on a moving target up ahead.  In the darkness, it's difficult to tell, but...

Contact!  Definitely Thin Men.

More Thin Men drop down on the building across the alley.  Whether they're here to free Thorne or kill him, they represent an obstacle and a threat to our goals.  Go loud, Strike One.

Stalker throws a battle scanner onto the roof of the other building, hopefully getting eyes on the enemy.

Yup.  We've spotted two Thin Men on the roof on that side.

Checkmate can't see either of them, so he just gets to better cover and steadies.

Boom Boom brings up the rear, and steadies aim.

The squad overwatches.

Thorne continues to question our authority, "I work for the people!  On whose authority do you operate?"  Zilch tells him to shut up and keep his head down before the aliens get him.

Meanwhile, on the roof:  Scooby misses a Thin Man on overwatch.

Another Thin Man on the roof hits Stalker but does not kill.

Crash hits another Thin Man on overwatch.

Contact!  Another pod of Thin Men inside the store.  Zilch's team will have their work cut out for them protecting Thorne.

One Thin Man jumps down from the roof and spits acid all over Stalker.

Fortunately, Stalker's already wounded, so I don't feel like wasting a medkit on her just to get rid of acid.

Checkmate gets the first kill of the mission.

Crash one-ups him by getting the second, while covered in acid.

Scooby misses a Thin Man.

Boom Boom steps out to help Scooby's team take out the Thin Men, and misses her shot on a Thin Man.

Zilch kicks open a door into the alley, and zilches an unsuspecting Thin Man.

Thorne, hearing the sound and fury of battle all around him, ducks down in the safest space he can find.

The squad overwatches.

Stalker misses a Thin Man moving to flank her...

...and it spits acid instead.

Oh.  That's why.  Looks like I missed a Seeker, which flanked Stalker and got a critical hit on her.  Covered in acid, she can't exactly move anywhere without nearly dying, but the Seeker will surely kill her next turn, if the Thin Man doesn't first.

Plunder nails a lone Sectoid.

Crash kills a Thin Man with a Flush.

Stalker was barely able to make it to cover, and Scooby was able to get to her to keep her from dying.

Thanks to Paramedic, Scooby gets to take an action after using a medkit, and so she uses it to shoot at the Seeker.  Naturally, she misses.

Stalker misses as well, but in this case that's not the point.

Stalker managed to get holo-targeting up on that Seeker, giving Checkmate the kill.

Thorne moves up and hides like the wet-pants politician he is.

Boom Boom moves up and steadies.

One of the Thin Men moves into the store, but it apparently took a yellow move, so it didn't get to shoot.

Unfortunately, it's behind high cover.  Plunder fails to hit it.

However, Chilong has a high-explosive remedy to the situation.

Without any cover, Zilch was able to get the kill with stunning ease.

Crash hunkers to avoid wounds from acid.

Meanwhile, Scooby heals Stalker again...

...and then reloads.

Boom Boom advances and steadies aim.

Checkmate moves up and steadies.

Stalker moves up and reloads.

Plunder overwatches.  Because she has Sentinel, she gets two of them.

Next turn, another Thin Man drops down.

Scooby moves up to Crash and heals her, mainly to neutralize the acid.

Crash takes the opportunity to reload without injuring herself.

Boom Boom steadies once more.

As does Checkmate.

Chilong leads the squad in overwatches.

Checkmate hears movement coming from the laundromat.

Another Thin Man drops down.

Stalker misses it, and Crash flushes it...

...and Checkmate steadies aim again.

Thorne tries to make a break for it, yelling, "You're all just a bunch of puppets!"  Something about that bothered Stalker, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it...

Boom Boom steadies aim...

...and the rest of the squad overwatches.

Stalker kills a Thin Man on overwatch.

Thorne books it for the Skyranger, taking the opportunity to demand to know where we were taking him.  I suspect there's a cell at a CIA blacksite somewhere with his name on it.

Even though we've secured the VIP, scanners show that there are still aliens in the area.  We can't allow them to report back to the alien high command and reveal for certain that we have Thorne in our custody.

Stalker moves up to check for aliens, but finds none behind the dumpster.

Boom Boom steadies a rocket in case a pod of Thin Men jump out of nowhere.

Checkmate steadies aim.

The rest of the squad overwatches.

Scooby hears movement coming from the laundromat.

Contact!  Zilch spots a pod of Thin Men flanking towards the Skyranger.

He hits with his overwatch shot, but fails to kill.

The Thin Men fall back to cover behind some cars.

Meanwhile, Crash somehow gets eyes on a Thin Man moving past a closed door, and manages to hit it on overwatch.

Zilch zilches another Thin Man.

Meanwhile, Chilong grenades the Thin Men, with appropriately explosive results.

Crash finishes off that Thin Man at point-blank range.  She gets covered in acid in the ensuing Thin Man explosion.

Boom Boom and Checkmate steady aim.

Plunder overwatches, just in case the Thin Men try anything funny, like running into her overwatch traps.

Chilong gains entry into the restaurant, spots a Thin Man, and grenades it to limited effect.

Zlich reloads.

Boom Boom moves up to the restaurant, and blew the Thin Man away with a rocket.  Overkill?  What overkill?

Checkmate steadies aim again.

The squad overwatches.

Contact!  Another pod of Thin Men in the laundromat.

Crash misses a Thin Man on overwatch.

Scooby gets up close and personal with the thing, hitting it but failing to kill.

Boom Boom attempts a flank, but misses.

Crash takes up position behind a folding table and hunkers.

Stalker, who has been advancing along the rooftops, drops in behind them in the hope of catching the Thin Man in a flank...

...and ends up flanking an entirely different Thin Man.  Never one to leave an opportunity unexploited, she blows the thing away with a single shot.

Due to lack of any better options, Checkmate moves up and takes a shot at the last Thin Man, which fortunately is a kill.

Op success.

Well done, people.  It looks like we have a few promotions, so we'll get to them.

Boom Boom makes Gunnery Sergeant, and gains Shock and Awe, which lets her carry another standard rocket for free.  Now, she can theoretically carry a maximum of five rockets (three standard, two Shredder) on missions.

Checkmate also makes Gunnery Sergeant, and gains Lock and Load, which puts him one more step closer to In The Zone, which will turn him into a terrifying killing machine.

Chilong gained Mayhem, which makes his grenades do more damage.

We got a decent haul on that one, too.

Thorne's questioning his loyalty to the aliens?  The prospect of sharing a cell with a Thin Man will do that to a person.

Stalker's hunch about Thorne's comment about puppetry turned out to be valid.  Recalling the attack on a French military convoy a couple months ago, she remembered the lone survivor of the attack saying those exact same words.  Could Thorne be connected to that attack?  Surely not.

Anyways, back to the Hologlobe!

Our second targeting module is completed!  Frost should be happy about this one.

Our first run of Alloy Plating is finished!  Excellent.  It's not the better armor that Vahlen promised, but it beats ceramic inserts.

And now, we have an unprecedented opportunity - an alien battleship is enroute to Beijing, presumably to attack the city.  We are going to divert the battleship to Shenzhen by deploying the alien transponders we've recovered from landed UFOs on a Chinese commuter train bound there from Urumqi.  According to Vahlen's analysis of the transponders, backed up by intelligence reports from sources in Japan, they're of a type that the aliens use to order their UFOs to prepare to receive a resupply.  The plan is to lure the battleship into a holding pattern over Shenzhen, where Strike One uses the cover provided by Chilong's device, another transponder used to identify an alien supply craft, to board the battleship and take it over while the aliens are caught unawares.

First, however, we need to get these transponders aboard the train so that the battleship falls into out trap.

Coming on this mission is our squad leader, medic and Patreon contributor Vixen, with the standard medic loadout.

Long Shot is also coming on this one.  A train station will be a shooting gallery for a sniper.

Alpha is our scout.

Banzai and Rascal are our infantry.

Caper and Geronimo are our assaults.  We don't have enough Alloy Plating for Geronimo, but he has more HP than Caper, so he'll have to make do with ceramic plate inserts.

Finally, we're bringing Enforcer along, toting an autolaser and the spare medkit.

Strike One has reached the mission site.

And that's where we'll leave this update for today!  Join us Monday for Operation Crystal Palace!  Remember, you too can join the fight by going to https://www.patreon.com/user?u=177434 and subscribe today!  Every subscriber gets to have a rookie named after them!

Can't subscribe to my Patreon campaign, but still want in on the program? Go here to see how you can get in: http://xcomwarinterminable.blogspot.com/p/join-fight.html  With that, I hope to see you next time!