This mission came close to becoming the SECOND time I've lost a skyranger and my entire squad. I started with 8 operatives, left with 2. 2 were hosed down at the beginning of the battle by a sectoid facing the gravlift, but when he finally failed his reaction check we returned fire and killed him. I lost another one to reaction fire as we were sweeping the base. We were right along the command post, the back guy who had panicked and dropped his plasma rifle was mind controlled constantly, as we crept towards the door. When we got in, he was shot in the back.
We lined up against the 3 tile-wide inner door of the command post. One guy was lagging behind a bit, so I waited another turn. A sectoid opens the door and BANG! Kills one of the guys at the door, then recieves a faceful of reaction fire. The other guy gets against the door, wait again, barge in. Nobody on the first floor. I stood them under the gravlift and fired up into it to kill several aliens on the second floor, including the bastard commander who kept psi-raping my troops. I knew I was about to get hit by something, because it was over turn 20, so I put my people into defensive positions in the command center.
A couple turns later, filled with a lone soldier all the way across the base reaction-firing against sectoids popping up and doing surprisingly well, a cyberdisc barges into the command center and recieves reaction fire. One soldier fires, hits it a couple times, then receives a fatal wound from return fire. Neither people have medikits. The other guy reaction fires and blows it up. Several turns pass, dead operative. I reunite the 2 loners now and continue sweeping the base, locating the last enemy: a cyberdisc floating around the second story of a garden. We open fire, narrowly get missed by return fire because we ran out of TUs, then blow it up with a second turn of attacking. Mission accomplished, mostly...
