She LIKES the stench of freshly cut grass raxy? jesus H. She must be stark raving mental, that stinks something truly heinous IMO. That stink knocks me sick just thinking about it. If it weren't for the fact I'm fairly numb right now due to my pain meds being in full swing, and antiseizure meds having a calming/sedating effect at the same time, I just KNOW my insides would have twitched and writhed in abject hatred of my brain, thinking about that stink. Its revolting.
As for my something good...well in my current jagged alliance 2 game (plus the expansion pack), a bunch of really big, ugly crustacean/insectoid critters with both the ability to gob out jets of corrosive, acidic fog/slime at long range and an attitude nasty enough to go with the rest of their character, as well as being tough sons of bitches (I.e have had a fair few of them take multiple point-blank blasts of 00 buckshot from a pump-action combat shotgun right in the face from a few steps away, AFTER first being hit with a 40mm teargas grenade, stun grenades, either hand-thrown or from either of the two 40mm grenade launchers my squads are carrying, and even being hit with conventional high-explosive grenades and keep on charging headlong after my squads, found a tactic that works well.
Have the troops hide behind walls really close by, after a spotter locates the target and flushes it out with a CS gas grenade, so that as many men/women as possible are at close to point blank range before surprising it and getting in their first, interrupting their charge, ideally by its being met by a shotgun blast or two, or better yet, a full-auto burst of hollowpoint rounds from a silenced mac-10 machinepistol or silenced MP5 9mm again using hollowpoint rounds, whilst a couple of the best marksmen keep it occupied with armor-piercing fire from a trio of big hefty sniper rifles that pack some pretty impressive stopping power.
Firing mustard gas grenades into groups whilst harassing them with concentrated fire from the sniper rifle teams works well for crowd disposal, but unfortunately, these bastards are coming in not ones and twos (even that needs several turns from a near 20-man mercenary squad, or at least several members of the assault team jumping out from behind corners and each emptying half a full clip of .45 cal hollowpoints from their mac-10s (a boxy little machinepistol, similar to an uzi, but more physically compact. Not accurate for long range fighting, either in game or IRL, but compact, lightweight, fast rate of fire and at close range a full auto burst of HP rounds to the head from 2-3 troops will generally bring one of the creatures down). The swarms where there are 6-7 of them or so are really not pleasant to deal with though. Glad I stocked up on gas grenades (albeit, no more mustard gas available atm, that stuff wreaks absolute havoc on the bastards, especially if they are forced to back into a corner, and somebody tosses in a gas grenade after them and retreats, leaving them to choke to death in pretty quick order)
Something's telling me, that since there are what appear to be male and females both, and have seen at least one young one (little shits have dug a tunnel entrance up under and into a mine my mercenary rebel strike teams liberated from the despotic government in the country the game is set in, and it was my main mine too. Need money badly, to keep the troops. No money? no mercs, bar a few that join out of loyalty to the cause. The majority are crack troops fighting for their paycheck, right now, doing literally just that, the miners won't work down there when the creatures are present, and the mine was bringing in something like 80k a week. One of three I control. Or in this case am fighting to re-take.
But adult male and females, a young larvae....that tends to make me think their is something like a queen creature down there somewhere that keeps breeding the bastards. Taken a near 18-man strike team down there, three full squads packing everything from 9mm pistols and .38 cal revolvers as emergency backup pieces to shotguns, 5.56mm assault rifles of various kinds, a H&K G11 (advanced german assault rifle that was IRL designed to be compact, lightweight, fast firing and unlike most firearms, uses caseless ammunition) Its hard to get hold of in-game, only managed to find one enemy soldier with one after trading a hole in the face in exchange for his rifle, along with chucking some mustard gas grenades down into a courtyard the little sod was hiding out in. Now MY troops are all tooled up, Accurate sniper rifles using heavier bullets than the assault rifles, that pack a lot of stopping power, for support, along with a 60mm mortar, two pump-action grenade launchers loaded with CS gas type grenades, concussion grenades for stunning an enemy or firing into rooms prior to sending in the teams running hell for leather and mowing down enemy soldiers hiding inside, hand grenades of various sizes and 'flavours', fragmentation, micro-size close range grenades, various gas grenades, and white phosphorus rounds for the grenade launcher, and handheld varieties both, all but the rearmost troops (who I haven't enough to equip with yet) wearing chemical/biowarfare gear that allows them to operate right up close even after deploying chemical weaponry (although only the heavy, specially treated body armor provides any protection against the HE grenades etc.)
Seems like I'm getting closer and closer to wherever any big, bad ugly mother of all bioengineered arthropod shock-troops might have her/his/their lair. And when THAT happens, its DEFINITELU going to get ugly, fast. The really young larvae don't attack, and can basically, if the adults are extirpated first, be taken apart piece by piece by one soldier with a combat knife and a penchant for doing a lot of stabbing, since they are defenseless. Those, will leave until last. Whilst any king and/or queen is going down first, along with any adults in close proximity enough to target the troops. Given how nasty the adults are, any queen/king/both is going to have to be dealt with quickly, and with everything my troops can manage to bring to the table.
Not sure whats worse than krill, only genetically messed with until they spit acid, pack massive claws that can rip through body armor, and need heavy-duty armor, hardened, along with ceramic plate inserts to stop them, kevlar kecks and advanced head armor to stand a chance of stopping them, along with gas masks to prevent their acidic spit from killing the troops quickly, rather than inflicting minor wounds that can be dealt with quickly using portable first aid kits and chemical-resistant overwear for the front-line shock-troops and anybody else that be outfitted with anything bought, scrounged, or the previous owner shot dead for
But if its worse than that..I'm not so sure I want to meet this thing. And when I do, I'm DEFINITELY going to load one of the 40mm grenade launchers with a full-force TNT-packed HE shell ready to pop the bastard in the eyes (if its got any), the ones found so far are blind but locate prey and targets by scent. Still, accurate enough, at least until the gas weapons start being let off. Even the smoke grenades help, whilst non-lethal choking type riot-agent filled grenades really seem effective. What I'd not give for just 2-3 mustard gas grenades left though ready for any over-spawn critter/s that seem bound to be on the way. At least when facing either normal, human soldiery, or even the genetically enhanced bioweapon-ized big cats, those mustard grenades can spread a cloud of blister agent for meters, and do massive damage that will easily incapacitate an unprotected enemy and prevent them from fleeing the cloud, killing them in moments. (IRL, mustard gases are slower to act than this but obviously one cannot wait hours of realtime in-game for an enemy to be taken out by chemical warfare agents. So some liberties had to be taken obviously in coding the game by its writers) Still, stuff is bloody nasty, deadly effective, can permanently cripple a soldier if they survive, leaving them fit only to be ordered to drop their weapons, take their armour off, drop their supplies, be given a drink from a canteen of water and their contract ended, and life insurance collected on (in this case, when buying insurance (optional) for mercs on the squads, life insurance is paid out on them returning alive, not on death, so best thing to do is strip them of everything they have, and terminate their contract, leave them to walk out on their own and try find the airport my troops and millitia control)
Not very kind, but better fire them when they are seconds from death and keep their kit, claim back as much medical deposit and insurance as possible than have them die officially on contract. Even if it means terminating their employment in the middle of a firefight, after first tossing a grenade or two, loosing off a burst or two of auto-fire from an assault rifle before they are made to drop their stuff and do one. At least I give them a last slug from the water supplies before sending them to hike back to the nearest safe airspace and get evacuated to hospital. Or patch them up so they don't bleed out on the way (its cheaper that way, that way you get a partial refund on the medical deposit, since they need treatment but are, at the point of their contract being revoked, still not in a wooden box, although they get first-aid only, stop any imminently fatal bleeds, gas wounds etc. from offing the poor bugger, given any weapon or scrappy old armor lying around that'd only make a nuisance of itself were it to be carried by the troops, any old pistols etc. or short range, unsilenced small caliber handguns that aren't much use)
Typically the moment one is fired, another one is hired to take their place and have to go to a rendezvous point in my airspace to link up with the team, taken to the cargo-dropping area to be tooled up and armored, loaded up with at least a main battle rifle OR sniper rifle (although some of the strongest and best marksmen are carrying both, a full-auto mid-range .45, silenced, the stealthiest troops wearing the best camo often given things like combat knives, throwing knives, brass knuckles or a machete or crowbar for up-close-and-personal dirty work.) and sidearm for close defence, last resort, whilst each squad gets at least one guy with a pump-action combat shotgun and one trooper carrying a 40mm grenade launcher, plus one or two guys LOADED with various hand-thrown grenades and demolition charges (whilst I try and make sure every trooper is outfitted with at least two each of smoke grenades, tactical choking agent gas grenades and an explosive grenade or two. IF I can get hold of them, then as many mustard gas rounds as possible get brought along by every man who can get hold of any, and the most able troops outfitted with the most of those, since they aren't common, probably because of how damn effective they are at wiping out entire enemy squads within moments of a 3-man team with a sniper, assault rifle gunner, and spotter w/heavy weapons and grenades sneaking up onto a roof and tossing down some blister agent rounds into the midst of the enemy.
Think its time now that I'm about to meet big-and-ugly whatever it is, crawling down there in my silver mines that fill the paychecks of my troops. Time to raise hell.
