Durgama Takeover

The images flashed past in her mind, like a video on repeat. Her husband’s face when he heard he would be deployed to the Paradiso front with out her. Her son and his wife, smiling on their wedding day. Her grandson as he played on the Modulo Satellite. All gone now. The faster the images came, the louder the ringing in her ears grew, until not even the roar of the battle around her could drown them out. The pain was too much to bear, she wished for relief, any relief from this ache in her chest that had been only growing since Modulo.

Volga didn’t even feel the round that took her arm off at the shoulder, or the one that shattered her right leg. As she sunk to the ground, the light fading from her eyes, all she could feel was the overwhelming numbness. There was no fear of death. Everything she had had in this life was lost. This coming oblivion was the only mercy left for her.

As the Kriza Borac fell to the onslaught of the mighty Ariadnian fighting machine, its fist clenched one more time around a small orange medallion, and then Volga was no more.

Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska vs Kosmoflot
300 Points Capture & Protect (this game was also played as a game for our local league, and due to the Kosmoflot player attacking my HQ, I was granted an extra 50 points and a ITS13 turret).

Kosmoflot player won the roll of and elected to go first. I selected the side with the more exposed console thinking that would make it harder for them to grab it.

As a disclaimer, it was the Kosmoflot player that suggested we play this as a campaign game, and they were also the one who selected the territory knowing they were at a disadvantage, so this wasn’t an attempt to skew odds in my favor at the Nomad location.
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At this point, I was convinced that that the Kosmo player was going to deploy Uxia on my deployment zone, and then have Margot & Duroc come crashing in from behind me lines, and I deployed accordingly, with a bunch of rifles in cover facing down his weak flank. So when he places a Tag on that side of the board, I knew I was in trouble. Things started okay for me, he shot Sforza in cover, and Sforza crit his Tag with a glue gun. The Mech froze! Unfortunately, his dozer bot was able to make it over, and after 2 failed fixing attempts, he got it on the final order of his small pool! The Tag then proceeds to blast a biker who had been focusing on watching the back of the board with a HRL. Perseus and the Stempler Zond in the blast area escape, but the biker is toast!

After this, he has some mercenary hackers (that he had access to as part of the local league) shoot pitchers to cover the approach on my left flank, and his core, led by a Volkalok with Missile position to cover a huge lane with a very tough missile launcher. Finally, an Irmandino who rolled an HMG climbed to a roof and shot my turret to death, surviving a puppet shot in return!

Ouch! I was very unprepared for this! I have the perfect answer to the clunking Tag, but only if some dice go my way. I opt to have Raoul walk on behind the Tag. He only dodges on 6’s because I am in his back arc, but he rolls a 1! Now facing a Tag with chest mines, Raoul has a choice, either walk in and dodge, or just take the shock hit, likely die, but try and EM the Tag for Perseus to the finish off. I opt to dodge, promptly fail, and then fail the armor! There goes 33 points and my last option to take out the Tag. Ruh roh! Panicking, I have my Kriza blast the Irmamdinho on the roof, and start to sidle over to the right flank to shoot the Tag. This was a bad play because he was arm 11 in cover, but I was desperate. I get caught up in rolling dice and realize I don’t have enough orders for my Kriza lt. to get back out of Los. Instead I have Perseus smoke, and then have the Kriza enter suppression.

With the rest of my orders, I move 1 of my remaining bikes up to try and threaten an objective grab on my 2nd turn and have the Heckler scoot across and up a building to deploy a fast panda to try and dissuade the Tag from just crashing into my lines. The bike gets spotlit, and that is it for me!

Score 0-0

Things start of poorly and get worse! His first 2 orders in his small pool sees his total reaction rocket bot guided missile my bike to death, nuts. Next his Tag starts shooting my Kriza. He is at -6 and promptly crits with an AP HMG. Nuts, I pass 1 armor save, and think that going prone won’t get me out of LoS so I just stay up. His next round of shooting just beats me fair and square, and the Kriza goes into KO, and which point we realize that the Kriza WOULD have been safe if she had gone down after the first order. Nuts, there goes my Lt.! Next, he has a Rokot hidden on the roofs sidle over and kill my fast panda, but the heartless Russian does at least die to return puppet fire.

Next, his Tag repositions to the middle of the board blasting 2 puppet bots apart as he prepares for a turn 3 objective run. Finally, his Volkalok link jumps down from the building and takes up a more aggressive ARO position, and the Bearpode also advances up to be in a better position for turn 3.

I am in loss of lieutenant, but I have 2 command tokens left and 3 regular orders, so I am not entirely sunk. Perseus stands up to see the Volkalok missile and a Rokot. I am in -3 range for my rifle, but he is in his 0 range band fighting mim-6 and cover. After the numbers are crunched, he is hitting on 6’s and I am hitting on 10’s. The Rockot is hitting on 2’s, which is scary as out club motto is “Crits on 2’s”. Luckily for me, after 2 orders the Volkalok is dead and Perseus survives a rifle hit on NWI. After that, I am able to have Perseus kill two more Rokots in the link, the last of which breaks the link. After this Perseus jumps back on the building and enters suppression covering the Beacon

The Interventor spends her own order to crawl up the stairs and project her hacking area beyond the Beacon. After this, the final puppet jumps to the crate to watch the Beacon, but I don’t have an order to give it to put it in suppression. Finally, the Heckler also crawls up the stairs to try and get in jamming range of anything making an objective run.

Score 0-0

I get a very pleasant surprise on my opponent’s turn, and possibly the only thing that can save me this game, Kosmoflot is loss of lieutenant! Turns out that final Rokot I killed was the Lt! I might have a chance!

Kosmoflot still has 4 command tokens and spends them all to make pretty much anything that isn’t the Tag and the Bear regular. The Tag comes in to try and clear Perseus, but it takes 2 orders, and by the end, Perseus goes into NWI and drops prone on the building. At this point, the only thing that stands a chance to get to the beacon with the remaining orders is the bear. It is able to sneak past the Jammer, but eventually a combination of Securitate combi, Puppet rifle, and mine drops the bear right as it hits the console. It was able to take out a Securitate and damage a puppet as it went down though. With not enough orders to get anything else near the console, the Ariadnians put just about everything that can onto suppression, and they await the Nomad reply.

I nominated Perseus as my Lt. (almost had his Tag kill 2 of my Lt’s…) so he takes over. My only chance to pull off a win is to have Perseus clear off the Rokot supressing on the roof top, and then have the damaged puppet sneak around the crate in the middle of the board to complete my classified (in extremis recovery) on the downed Rokot.

It is going to take 3 orders to get close enough, so I have 3 for Perseus to get there. He jumps through the air dodging Tag fire, but after 2 orders, the tenacious Rokot survives! Too many armor saves!

Its down to the puppet. The puppet jumps down, and on the 2nd order, advances and gets into a fire fight wit the roof-Rokot. The dice gods smile on my and I manage 2 crits on 8’s! Down goes the Rokot! After this, I make it into b2b with the Rokot, and a 7 on the D20 sees me complete my classified for an extremely narrow victory despite my advantages.
1-0 for Tunguska, a nail bitingly close game, thanks James!

It is hard to determine exactly when consciousness resumes. The first sensation was dim awareness of a small blue dot in a vast inky black expanse. By the time the oddity of the blue dot began to dawn on the subject, other sensations started to emerge. Lines of being began to extend from the single point, and before the shape that was being formed could be fully grasped, sensation emerged. First came an uncomfortable tingling radiating from the dot down, and then suddenly everywhere felt as though it was plunged into icy water.

The shape contorted and twisted, recoiling against this unwanted feedback. “Where?”, the first semi-conscious thought managed to form among the activating neurons. And then suddenly a bright white light was racing forward, its blinding assault pushing the being over the edge.

Raoul Spector lurched up off the operating retching violently, or at least it would have been retching if the new top-of-the-line L-Host body had any solid food in it. Instead, he would have to content himself with dry heaving and a coughing fit. “Every time” he thought to himself as he finally caught his breath.
“Ah feeling better are we now?” came the playful voice of the pink haired paramedic. “Eat shit and die” Spector muttered as he half-heartedly reached for the glass of water on the stand next to the table.
“Is that any way to talk to the person who had to pry your cube out of that thick and very dead skull?” she teased. “If you hate the resurrection process that much, here is some free advice: maybe don’t try run face first into mechs covered in anti personnel mines.” she said with a snort. “Boss-lady wants you in the briefing room in 10, so get cleaned up and then join us pronto. If you make her wait we will just be doing this whole process again in an hour.”

She exited the room with a grin, and Raoul was left with the residual queasiness and headache that came with getting settled in a new body. “If only it was that easy” he thought to himself.