Hawke's War Stories: My center is giving way, my right is in retreat...

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Before long, the US Army came rolling up with Super Pershings on the East flank. I redirected the nearest group to assist them, but the line was broken before long. I pulled my remaining troops into a  new defensive position around a city, but the final nail was hammered into the coffin by a German attack, spearheaded by King Tigers from the West. My army crumbled, and the other two more or less fought over the corpse.

Now, a battle from my successful run at XCOM:Enemy Unknown, Impossible Ironman. 

I was a few months into the game and I planned to attack the Alien Base next, but a massive Supply Ship had other plans. I scrambled my best equipped fighters to bring it down, and I nearly lost two in the process - it put up one hell of a fight, and I expected the crew would do the same when my squad arrived. 

Once it was downed, I began equipping my men with the proper weapons an equipment, preparing to send them to tackle the new alien craft. Not knowing what to expect, I mostly sent my A-Team - A crack shot sniper, a Heavy who's a big fan of explosives, a medic, a support soldier who's great at suppressing enemies, and an Assault soldier known to laugh off enemy shots while storming fortified positions. There was one new one, a promising low ranked Squaddie. After a few hours flight, the Skyranger reached the landing zone.

My squad approached the massive downed craft with caution. Well, aside from the sniper. He remained at an elevated position on the outside to provide cover. After they had gone into a breach in the hull of the ship, aliens started crawling out of the woodworks. Or would that be metalworks? Not only did they outnumber my squad three to one, but my men were in serious danger of being cut off from their only retreat route, leaving them badly outnumbered in close quarters.

As soon as I began my retreat, a trio of Chryssalids, monsters worthy of an Alien movie sprinted into the path, physically blocking the way. With concentrated fire, they were killed before they could zombify anyone with their armor-crushing bite. My squad reached the exit with the main body of the aliens behind and to the right, but too many on each flank of the escape route for a dash for the LZ to be anything but suicide.

In my attempt to make a breakthrough, they critically wounded a squaddie with great stats and destroyed the last cover from the exit to the LZ. Those Chryssalids delayed us long enough that the enemy was right on top of us, but my Heavy destroyed the alien cyberdisc and its support drones with assistance from my sniper. Speaking of my sniper, a Muton was approaching him faster than I'd like.

My Assault managed to kill an enemy approaching the right flank of my retreat route, but it's not exactly secure since a Muton squad magically moved there DURING MY TURN, in his shooting animation. On the plus side, my left flank was secured by my sniper and a Support, and the Squaddie was revived. With that, I managed to pull everyone into a defensive position and kill most of the enemies in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately they killed the Squaddie, but better him than a veteran.

A Berserker was hiding in the shadows between my sniper and the squad. Several other enemies have moved to cut us off completely. My only option is to engage them head on now, or a full retreat that won't bring us closer or further from the LZ but gives us a chance to engage them on our terms. Doesn't help that my Col. Heavy is panicking, but I popped some smoke to help keep him alive. 

After he stopped panicking, I retreated but was pursued by the Berserkers. I managed to kill both of them, but they nearly killed my Maj. Assault unit, and he was then critically wounded by a Heavy Floater. Now that I've beaten back their immediate attack, it's time to use my medikits, reload the weapons, and prepare a counter attack. You see, at this point, just as I was about to make a dash for the Skyranger, I paused and realized I had all but wiped out the crew of the Supply Ship.

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⏰ Last updated: Jan 19, 2014 ⏰

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