Having some spare time on Easter holidays I retook my never ending solo skirmish system (close to be finished I swear!)
I tested the encounter Rescue, in which I have a squad who has to rescue an undetermined number of civilians (1d6+1) from a war zone; I scored 2 so 3 people to rescue. The game starts with the squad already deployed next to their ship, and three hazard markers indicating possible enemy forces. The two buildings with red skulls are future generator of more enemy forces (I didn't put the markers until pic 3!). One will start generating hazard markers on turn five onwards, and the second on turn nine.
All buildings must be checked until civilians are found. On a d6 they can contain: 1 nothing, 2-3 civilians, 4-6 enemies. I met too many enemies for my taste and I changed to 1-2 nothing, 2-3 civilians and 5-6 enemies for the next game.
I scored enough activations to get everybody on the move. Squad leader, a sniper and a grunt upwards on the left, support weapon (heavy laser) and two more grunts on the right. All troops veteran in combat armour.
First contact! A huge brute ala XCom Muton, armed with a heavy laser. I was on overwatch and could shot it down before he could do anything.
Checking first building and two Snakemen put down with a hand grenade. I started with 3 grenades (2d6) and now I had only two, but being just one guy in the building he couldn't risk to kill two enemies with his laser rifle. In the game, downed enemies do not check their status up to the end of his next turn so I do not know if they are out of fight unless I contact them base to base.
My sergeant checked another building and met two Mutons so he had to use another hand grenade. The brute at the bottom recovered from the shots received and stood on their feet but he missed his shots.
Grunt entered building on the right and met another Snakemen. He missed his shots so the sniper followed and could kill it.
My sergeant stepped on a personal mine when he was closing to finish the downed brutes. His accompanying grunt could finish them and then assisted the sergeant, who luckily recovered in the end.
Another building and Aliens again, and with them my last grenade.
Turn 5 and the building on the left started to generate new enemies, three green brutes that caught one of my men in the open and the sniper as well. Sergeant was without ammo and ducking back behind the red vehicle, yelling for backup.
I tried the building on the right with the idea of leaving the mission after that as another batch of enemies will be generated next turn and I already had two men down.
Bingo! The team found two survivors (scored a 4 on d3) and then run frantically towards the chopper. The sniper and the sergeant could recover and also run as fast as they could, followed by Aliens.
Two psykers (XCom Sectoids or just Greys) abducted one civilian who attacked the other one while the soldier leading them was hit and downed by a Muton. Sarge and sniper suppressed enemy advance firing from the ship.
In my next turn (9) the downed soldier could recover and take the civilians to the ship and escape.
I received 4.000 credits for accomplishing the mission in 9 turns (the sooner you finish, the bigger the payment), another 10.000 c. for the rescued civilians but a penalty of minus 3.000 for leaving one survivor behind and minus 2.000 for losing two men, so 9.000 credits in total.