Apparently the 27 damage punches were because the "Absolutely Critical" Second Wave option makes the punches always crit. With it turned off, they can never crit, so punch damage is restricted to 18.


-Operation Fading King-
Time Redacted
Egypt
Iceglow, Hingle, Psy, and the Squaddies

An Abductor class ship was found landed in Egypt. Our forces quickly gathered together to go take it down.

Iceglow and Hingle immediately took advantage of their Mimetic Skin to drop into invisibility and approach. Iceglow spotted a trio of Mutons lounging around on the landing deck of the ship. Psy and the Squaddies rolled into positions behind an outcropping, hoping to get the drop on the Mutons.

Unfortunately, the three trundled into view of Psy, and took cover. Our Support and Sniper worked to take down one of them, while our Assault wounded the other. Vivi and Psy both missed their shots, however, and Hingle decided to suppress the Muton, but when that Muton fired wildly, his reaction shot failed to hit it (seriously, guys?!).

Our Support soldier finished off the wounded Muton, but Vivi missed again on the remaining foe. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Psy ran up and blew half the entity away entirely with his Particle Cannon (finally, a veteran hits something!).

Hingle moved up to grab the first Melding canister, and the rest of the squad continued to advance, reloading as they did so. Before they could get anywhere, however, a Cyberdisc and its drone escort appeared swinging around the side of the ship. The Cyberdisc immediately went into Overwatch just out of sight, but the Drones moved up to menace our forces from their greatly uncovered right flank.

Not to be discouraged, as he was always already in cover, Iceglow shot the first Drone out of the sky, setting an example for our younger Sniper, who soon followed suit and downed the second while getting into cover. Knowing that a Cyberdisc was on the way, the rest of our Soldiers scrambled for cover, hoping to evade the cannons, or the more likely Grenade.

Unfortunately, our team repositioning to take cover from the oncoming Cyberdisc left their left flank exposed to the two Seekers who rushed out of a rear compartment of the ship, immediately going into stealth mode. Cursing their lack of luck in this mission, our team hunkered down to weather the storm, all while hearing a strange roar and stomping in the background (crap, I've gotta find the second Meld canister).

The Cyberdisc, however, was not to be stopped by paltry cover. It roared up to the corner (not going far enough to trigger Overwatch shots) and immediately ripped apart our poor Assault. Meanwhile, a Seeker dropped out right over our Support soldier, only to have Psy burn it from the sky. Enraged by the death of his comrade, Iceglow immediately got a headshot against the...giant enemy robot with no head. Huh. Still, he downed the mechanoid disc and avenged our fallen crew member.

Hingle, meanwhile, was making good use of his Mimetic Skin to run across the top of the alien ship, scouting out new locations and trying to find the elusive Meld canister. Spotting the canister on the lower floor, Hingle dropped down, landing in cover (next to an Alien Power Cell), and spotting three grouped Mutons.

Psy, who was on a nearby balcony, was not about to let this opportunity go. Careful not to approach close enough to be seen, he dumped a Grenade right on top of the Mutons, interrupting their precious card game.

Scrambling to come to grips with this unseen assault, two of them ran to cover right below the balcony, while a third rushed up near Hingle's position.

Sensing the need for delicacy among some of the remaining equipment, Psy dropped right on top of our two unlucky Mutons and unleashed his flamethrower, bathing the two in shimmering thermogel and ensuring they would not return to the fight. Hingle, with an unsuspecting Muton mere feet away, decided to forgo grabbing the Meld canister at this time and instead just put the poor beast out of its misery, as it undoubtedly was quaking at the agonizing screams of its crisped friends.

Our forces had, unfortunately, forgotten the second Seeker, and it dropped out of stealth right on top of our oblivious Support soldier, and began choking the life out of her. Hingle reactivated his nifty cloaking skin, and rushed out of the room behind the droid, eliminating it before it could detect him, and saving our poor Support from a most inelegant demise (only 2 damage from choking, really?).

Psy then ran forward into the final room, awakening two Outsiders. He then turned around and immediately ran back out, as Hingle finally collected the Meld canister. With the Outsiders repositioning inside the room, Psy ran back in, and triggered his Electro Pulse (which has a much larger range than I suspected initially). This disintegrated the two crystalline foes, ending the mission.

MVP: Psy. For creative use of his various weapons.

Wounds: Our Support is out for four days from the choking incident.

KIA: Our Assault Soldier, Analucia Chavez.

Promotions: Psy is now a Major.
Our Sniper is now a Sergeant.
We now have four Colonels, so I'm thinking about doing the alien base mission next. But we'll have the base invasion shortly after that. I was hoping to get six, but promotions are coming slow (even though I'm taking all lower-rank guys).

I'll probably do another mission a little later tonight, as I'm waiting up for the Hyrule Warriors Nintendo Direct.