January 1998Calendar:
- Jan 1: EXALT Message, immediately followed by HQ Spawn. The prep and execution of the HQ was covered in my last post.
- Jan 2: Strange Life Form. This shouldn't be any trouble, so Almace gets sent out with a couple of rookies. There are many spiders here, including a Stealth Spider, the last one needed for webwear. The singular civilian doesn't live very long, and the rookies do a good job taking out the numerous normal spiders. Eventually I track down the Stealth spider and stun it. Two turns later the last regular spider is dead and the mission is over.
- Jan 3: Another SLF, another outing for Almace. This time it's zombies, and goes like any other zombies mission. Good training mission.
- Jan 5: Metapsychology is in, so we have psi testing numbers for the entire barracks.
Highlights include:
Agent Wilson, 95
Agent Rahimi, 90
Commissar Rodrigues, 89
Agent Kumble, 90
Agent Pavlova, 89
Agent Gabitov, 100
Agent Collins, 97
Agent Malek, 94
Agent Fo-Hai, 100
Lowlights include:
Agent Mun, 13
Captain Goyal, 19
Agent Saraki, 5
Agent Orengo, 20
Agent Azitis, 17
Agent Fitzgerald, 7
Agent Ogechi, 3
Agent Nemsadze, 15
Agent Leone, 13
Agent Agarwal, 15
Captain Tanida, while not a Psychic giant, has an 83, which is respectable. Fo-hsing has a 64, which will do. Captain Goyal is unlikely to be trusted with heavy weapons from here on out, same applies especially to Agents Saraki and Ogechi. Overall a pretty average spread, leaning high. Two max rolls is very nice, though Fo-Hai is still basically a Rookie and Gabitov is probably a B-List soldier on most days. Incidentally, the majority of our high melee units also have psi strengths too low they can't become ninjas. This is mostly a melee training problem, but Saraki, Mun, and Azitis would be good candidates for Ninja school if it weren't for their weak minds.
- Jan 5.a: Founded Sid's Sushi Co. in Northern New Guinea. This gives coverage of Australasia with the exception of New Zealand, as well as good chunks of South Asia including about half of Japan. Started with a corridor and Hanger. This will be the manufacturing base.
- Jan 6: I really should have gotten Veteran Agents earlier, better late than never.
- Jan 6.a: SLF in North America. Almace's 3rd mission this week. Spiders again, but a lot fewer of them. Very quick mission.
- Jan 7: I purchase a few suits of Liquidator armor. It should make night ops a little easier, though armored vests are still the bulk of our equipment.
- Jan 9: The Brainer spills the beans on the Syndicate, saving us some time. It does strike me that I never got EXALT Rationale. I can always get it from a Madman at some point.
- Jan 10: Red Tape event: Hi-Ex. We would have gotten this with Promo III, but I don't mind getting the points early.
- Jan 11: With EXALT down, my Intelligence officer reccomends going after the Hybrids. I'm going to put a pause on that for the moment.
- Jan 11.a: Sid's Sushi Co. finishes its corridor, begins work on Quarters, a Workshop, and a Large Stores. A lot of selling is done to facilitate this, including 3 of the 4 disruptor rifles captured from the Anthropods, and at the end we're left with only $50,000 in the bank. The facility will be active in February.
- Jan 15: Church of Dagon Outpost in Russia. Joyeuse waits for nightfall before deploying. The team is a mix of a few experienced agents and a few rookies.
We start a good distance from the house. The first few enemies are clustered together, so a grenade is tossed in. Dog and Liquidator armor are both making life a lot easier. One of our breaches takes a wound while doing his job, and we move into the building proper to start clearing things out.
Unfortunately, right as we're finishing up, the Chosen opens the door, blasts the dog, and runs away. We knock him out the next turn, but it's too late for Saihu.
We score an extra Priest of Dagon, four briefcases (bringing us out of danger after the Sid's Sushi Co. purchases), and our first "Top Secret Files" Saihu wasn't our best dog by any stretch, being deployed less often than Bonnie, Yeo, or Lord, but he was still a valued member of the crew.
- Jan 15.a: Another pest control event gives us three rat corpses to sell.
- Jan 16: Cult Infiltration. I'm now convinced there's a minimum of two lotus manors active in Asia. It's a quick little mission.
- Jan 17: Sent Caliburn out and found one of those Manors. This is the one I ran into while capturing Lo Wo. I'd ideally like mortars before I take it on, but we'll see.
- Jan 18: It's a new age, and we get a hundred grand for it. This is enough to afford two Auto-snipers, but I save it for the moment.
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- Jan 19: Half of that money is taken away by Hackers, presumably from Osiron. How wonderful.
- Jan 20: Another SLF in the US. Almace swaps in some new rookies and heads out. It's spiders again. I manage to capture two. Another good training mission.
- Jan 23: Alenium Shards found at Kiryu-Kai! This brings our total to 4.
- Jan 23.a: Black Lotus Forward Base found in Southern Japan. Joyeuse is in range and therefore deploys. Found out where the second Manor is.
Going in with 8 doesn't feel great, but I'm confident in the team. Agent Malek takes a magic beam turn one, meaning the Avatar has found us, without us being unable to see her.
With that, and looking at the position of the vehicle in relation to the house, I decide the best course it to abort the mission. Losing 25 points do to poor positioning is vastly preferable to losing a squad and related equipment.
- Jan 24: The second Manor is in Seoul.
The two are labeled Manor-1 and Manor-2 respectively, which to my understanding means they're the first two founded. There may be others, but I haven't seen evidence of Red Dawn or Church of Dagon founding any, and I'm pretty sure I beat EXALT to the punch.
- Jan 26: Monsters in Trinidad!
Joyeuse gets moving. It's muckstars again, which we can definitely deal with. Tanida gets zapped right at the end for roughly half his health, but we get out with only one civilian dead for a massive positive score.
- Jan 29: The council drops an extra 200,000 in our lap. They've been extra generous this month in helping us pay off our base.
- Jan 30: Hot contact over South America, high speed.Presuming it to be alien I make sure Joyeuse is ready to go and watch its progress. It dances around the Atlantic for a while before landing in Eastern Brazil. Joyeuse gets moving immediately, but it takes off before we can get to it.
- Jan 31: Council Report. We got 3k score this month.
Here are the three bases as they currently stand. These screens were taken on the 29th or the 30th. The large facility in Sid's Sushi Co. is a large storage center.
Research this Month:
MannCo Surplus:
Metapsychology (Jan 5) -> EXALT Master's Cane (Jan 7), X-Com Liquidator Armor (Jan 7), Requesting Veteran Agents (Jan 6), Durathread Factory Location (Jan 7) -> Illegal Requisition Files (Jan 7), EXALT Brainer (Jan 9) -> Terminate EXALT! (Jan 11) -> Cover: Surfers (Jan 13), Motion Scanner (Jan 19) -> Stealth Spider (Jan 19) -> Chosen of Dagon (Jan 22), Webwear (Jan 20) -> Top Secret Files (Jan 22), Alien Language (Jan 24) -> Jumpsuit (Jan 23), USAS-12 (Jan 23), UAC Rifle (Jan 24) -> UAC Pistol (Jan 25) -> Priest of Dagon (Jan 26) -> MiB Agent (Jan 31) -> Priest of Dagon (Jan 27) -> Knockout Grenade, Taser Bioelectric Shock Clip
SunChild LLC:
EXALT Liquidator (Jan 4) -> EXALT Liquidator (Jan 5) -> Giant Beetle (Jan 11) -> Black Lotus Warrior (Jan 13) -> Black Lotus Warrior (Jan 14) -> Black Lotus Assassin (Jan 21) -> Red Dawn Ganger (Jan 22) -> Muckstar (Jan 25) -> Red Dawn Ganger (Jan 27) -> Chupacabra (Feb 1) -> Owlman
January was a successful month in my book. I spent a lot of money to get Sid's Sushi Co. (a Civ IV reference) established, but I needed to get it down and waiting any longer than I already had would have been disastrous. Still no luck on secondary goal for Promo III, but a cult is down and that's a huge step by itself. Liquidator Armor is a nice little addition to our arsenal, and has been quite useful I think. I do wish there was a shield variant.
We didn't get many options for Forward bases, and the one we did get was a no-go. For Black Lotus, it may be best to go after their manors in search of an Avatar if I don't get another shrine event first. Both Manors are unfortunately outside of Durandal's range, though they would be accessible with a relocation to Sid's.
I'm a little at a loss for what to prioritize research-wise in February. For now, I'm grabbing equipment that can be manufactured once Sid's is up and running, and working through interrogations and acquisitions in the meantime. Any advice on this front would be welcome. I have a flame glove which I'm planning to research, but no other psi weapons (unless psiclones count I guess). I haven't researched Gun Kata, but could do so to improve the rookies a little bit. Ninja School is locked behind Ninja Scrolls, which I don't have yet.
I suspect I'm waiting on RNG at this point. I really need either Forward Bases that Durandal can handle or some source of Deep One, Martian Alien, or Live Shambler.
On a final note, I likely won't play February until next week, and as such am not setting myself a priority list just yet. I'll be going on an academic retreat until Friday and won't have my laptop with me. I'll either do a short post before I play February, or put my priority list for the month at the beginning of the February post.
