(Really, Smith? You got promoted to sergeant, I'm not sure that really qualifies you as The War King.)

The automatic captioner often does have an inflated sense of grandeur. For instance, this was about the most mundane mission available, and that was the tagline it chose for the photo. (I added the bit in white. :)

Accompanying Hat Films and Freeman on this mission was Zoey "Violet" Selvig, the first of our "conventional" psikers, who I'm pleased still have a niche despite the shiny newness of the Templar class. Templars are nifty, but they can't do Null Lance, which is still my favorite psi move in this game. It was not, however, that ADVENT patrol's favorite psi move, I suspect.

Later, on a similarly mundane mission, Starscream randomly showed up and demonstrated that, although immune to explosives, he's weak to being repeatedly shot in the face with a rotary plasma beam cannon. If you're keeping score at home, that's twice we've killed him, which on top of the three times so far we've eliminated Blackarachnia, makes for a pretty respectable soccer score.

(I adjusted the staging in this one only to put DJ and Marishka in crouching positions so that the people behind them were visible. That goofy thumbs-up Dr. Doom is giving was all him. Maybe he's trying to lighten up? "I zink ze young people enchoy it vhen I... get down, verbally.")

Also, please note that if you count defeating her in her original appearance as a "kill" (which the game did in the reward notifications, even though all you really do is reduce her to half-health and make her run away until she reappears for the Cutscene Win), Gordon Freeman has now killed two out of two Chosen we've thus far encountered. Which is not bad going for an out-of-his-depth particle physicist.

The real surprise in that photo is that Shinji was able to stand up and pose for it at all, given that (thanks to another one of Starscream's many cheap stunts) he ended the mission unconscious, bleeding out, and with a debilitating fear of clowns the Chosen. Seriously, as soon as he got out of the ICU he had to head straight into therapy, or the next time he sees one he'll apparently just hide.

Finally in this current batch, we have this.

That is psi-op number two, Adéle "Dread" Mercier, who was along with Elena and Mox on a covert op for the work experience when they got rumbled and had to run for it. This was an annoying mission, since it involved crossing what seemed like about 150 miles of Ruined Cityscape, mit vielen Zombie, to reach an extraction point. We were, however, assisted enormously by the fact that ADVENT helpfully sent a Purifier along for Mercier to mind-control. In a zombie-infested urban wasteland, the best pointman is an expendable pointman with a flamethrower. He was still alive when we evac'd, too, as was another one we ran into just before reaching the bugout point, so presumably he had some explaining to do if the two of them managed to defeat the horde of zombies we also left behind and get back to base.

On the plus side, now we know where Blackarachnia lives, so once Marishka finishes resting up from the last mission she went on and Shinji gets out of therapy, we'll be rounding up the A-team and paying her a little visit.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.